aracts together forming a sublime and beautiful picture; and in the season of the floods it must possess terror as well as beauty.

From hence we again ascended over the broken ledges of the rocks, the several strata of the limestone shaling off from each other, in thicknesses of from four to eight inches, making a series of natural steps, by each ledge projecting out below and in advance of the one above it; so that, if persons possess confidence, nothing can be safer than the foothold obtained.

Above these high Falls is a house of refreshment, where we were all glad to halt; and though the provender was very limited in variety biscuits, cheese, and sweet cakes being the only food to be obtained-neither bread nor butter being in the catalogue, yet our climbing exercise had given us appetites, for which anything wholesome had a rich zest; and here we halted to repose and recruit. The view from hence is also exquisitely beautiful, and may be gazed upon for hours without tiring. There are three other Falls even above this, called "The Mill Dam," "The Cascades," and "The Upper Falls;" and each has beauties of its own that are quite worth the fatigue of the walk to examine and enjoy, though these cascades are not more than fourteen, eighteen, and twenty feet in perpendicular fall.

The winding path which leads from the last point of inspection back to the hotel is through a dense primeval forest, the shade of which was most grateful during the heat of the day, for our excursion occupied about three hours, from eleven to two. Besides the pleasure it afforded us from its shade, the path brought us every now and then to the immediate brink of the precipice overhanging the deep valley on its western edge, and gave us frequent opportunities of looking down into the magnificent ravine below. The whole difference of elevation between the point where the first rapid commences, just above the Upper Fall, to the place where the last rapid terminates, beyond the lowest, or Conrad's Fall, is 387 feet, in a distance of five miles; but in walking along the edge of the western cliff from the High Falls to Sherman's Fall, and a little below it, the views are indescribably beautiful.

The scene wants the might and majesty of Niagara, with which, indeed, it ought never to be compared, because they are entirely dissimilar; but what it wants in size and grandeur is made up fully in picturesque beauty and in exquisite variety of view, changing at every point, and forcing the most indifferent to express their admiration. Altogether we were delighted with our excursion; and after dining at the hotel at two, we returned home by the same route, enjoyed a lovely sunset view of Utica glittering in the centre of the great plain on which it stands, and reached the city about six o'clock.

On the following morning, September 16, we left Utica by the railroad cars for Schenectady, starting at nine o'clock and arri

ving at one, being thus four hours in performing a distance of eighty-one miles. Our route was through the beautiful valley of the Mohawk, which lost none of its charms on a second inspection, but presented a continued series of lovely landscapes, thicklywooded hills, rich grazing plains, abundant cattle, the constantlyenlarging and ever-winding river, and flourishing villages all along the line. At Schenectady we were joined by a British officer, who had come out by the last London packet from England to New-York, and was on his way to Montreal and Quebec, this being found a nearer route than the passage to Halifax or Canada direct. We took at this place the railroad cars for Saratoga Springs, and reached there about half past five o'clock; we found comfortable quarters at our former abode, the Union Hall Hotel, with very few visiters, and here we remained, therefore, for the night.

On the next morning, as the weather was delicious, we took a walk around the village; but nothing could be more striking than the solitude and silence in which it was now enwrapped, compared with the throng and bustle in which we left it six weeks ago. Then it was estimated that there were more than 3000 visiters from all parts of the Union, and every house, public and private, was full to overflowing. Now there were not more than seventy strangers in the place, all of whom were stopping at Union Hall, as all the other large hotels had been closed during the preceding week. The spacious porticoes and verandas of the Congress Hall and United States Hotel, that a few weeks ago were filled with the choicest specimens of the beauty and fashion of the United States, were now as solitary as the ruins of Babylon or Palmyra ; and as a large number of the shopkeepers, as well as those forming the establishments of the hotels, are temporary residents for the season, these, too, had taken their flight; so that, in a walk of two or three hours through and around the village, we did not see half a dozen individuals.

The few persons remaining at the hotel were real invalids, who came here, bona fide, for their health, some to take the waters, but others for the pure air and undisturbed tranquillity of the spot, and both of these could certainly be enjoyed in the highest degree of perfection at this moment. In the open air the sun still continued to be warm; but, at the same time, there was a freshness in the air which made exercise as delightful as it was healthy. Within doors, however, a fire was agreeable; and the majority of the company seemed to prefer forming a circle round a blazing hearth, on which large logs of wood were continually supplied, to going out; and newspapers, books, and conversation beguiled their time. In directing my inquiries as to our route from hence to Boston, I found that the one which would afford us the best opportunity to see the greatest extent and variety of country in our way, would

be to go from hence to the commencement of Lake George, sail up that beautiful sheet of water to the ruined fort of Ticonderoga, there join the steamboat from Whitehall on the following day, and go up Lake Champlain to Burlington; from thence cross over the hills of Vermont, by Montpelier, to the White Mountains in NewHampshire, and thence across the country to Portland in Maine, from which steamboats go daily to Boston; for this route we accordingly prepared, sending a servant with our heavy baggage round from New-York into Boston by sea.

CHAPTER XXIV.

Visit to Glen's Falls.-Caldwell.-Voyage up Lake George.-Romantic Scenery.Beautiful Islands.-Ruins of Fort Ticonderoga.-Passage across Lake Champlain.Shoreham.-Burlington Steamer.-Beautiful Model and high Order of this Vessel.-Scenery of Lake Champlain.-Solar Eclipse.-Arrival at Burlington, Description of the Town.-Journey to Montpelier.-Romantic Scenery of the Green Mountains.Exquisite Beauty of the autumnal Tints.-Montpelier, the Capital of Vermont.— Statehouse.-History and Description of Vermont.-Resources and Productions.Manufactures and Commerce of the State.-Increase of the Population.-Religious Institutions. Journey from Montpelier to Danville.-Extensive View.-Elevation of the Mountains.-Thick Forest.-Gorgeousness of the Trees.-Danville.-Village Gossips.-Inquisitiveness of the New-England Character.-First Bed with Curtains slept in since leaving England.

ON Monday, the 17th of September, we left Saratoga Springs for Lake George in the regular stage-coach that runs between these places. The distance was only twenty-seven miles; but, though we left at one o'clock, we did not reach the end of our journey till nine, having been eight hours on the road, and with four horses, twice changed on the way, accomplishing only about three miles and a half in the hour. The road, it must be admitted, was both hilly and sandy; but it was altogether the slowest rate of travelling we had yet experienced in the country. The only place of interest that we passed in the route was the spot where we crossed the Hudson at Glen's Falls. After Niagara and the Trenton Falls, the cataract here would be regarded as insignificant, though it is not without its share of interest. The actual perpendicular fall is sixty-three feet, though there is a steep angular descent of 500 feet at least; but at this season of the year the waters were low, and, consequently, the full effect of the cataract could not be seen. bed of the river exhibits precisely the same appearances as those already described at Trenton Falls, where successive layers of limestone rock, formed by successive deposites and subsequent pressure, make up an immense bed of strata; and these are in many places so worn by the action of the water, and broken off sharply by other causes, as to present regular series of steps.

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There are two great cavernous avenues under one of these beds of rock, through which persons can easily pass, and on the walls of which are the names and initials of many former visiters; a custom far more extensively prevalent among the Americans than even among the English, who surpass all the nations of Europe in the indulgence of this propensity. I scarcely remember visiting any place at all remarkable in this country, without finding every accessible space of wall or surface covered with names, initials, and dates of visiters, and this extends even to the walls and windows of hotels and inns on the road, as if the parties thought it a wonderful achievement to have journeyed so far from home!

We found at Caldwell, the pretty village on the banks of Lake George, an extensive and commodious hotel; and there being but few visiters at this late period of the summer, we had our choice of apartments.

On the following morning we had to breakfast at six, and embark in the steamboat immediately after for our voyage up Lake George. The morning was beautiful; and the dense white masses of cloud that hung upon the sides of the hills, and in some places were spread out upon the surface of the lake itself, contrasted strikingly and pleasantly with the green-topped hills, clothed with verdure to their very summits, which rose on every side above them. We proceeded up the lake, with few passengers besides ourselves, at a rate of about seven or eight miles an hour, and were delighted with every part of our way.

The lake is thirty-six miles in length from north to south, but is generally very narrow, varying from one to four miles only in breadth. Its three principal features of beauty are the lofty and wooded hills which enclose it on both sides, varying from 500 to 1500 feet in elevation; its numerous islands, said to exceed 300, of every variety of size, and full of the picturesque in form and feature; and the remarkable transparency of its waters, which admits a distinct view of the sandy and gravelly bottom at a depth of five or six fathoms, and exhibits the movements of the fish with which these waters abound. The cause of this clearness of the water is no doubt the absence of any rivers or streams running into the lake; for these, by the soil they carry down in their course, always render the waters of lakes and seas more or less turbid; and to supply the annual waste by solar evaporation, there are many springs at the bottom, whose bubbling effervescence can be sometimes distinctly seen.

The wooded hills near the southern extremity of the lake are mostly untenanted; but, as you advance higher up towards the north, some of the lands near the borders of the water appear to be cleared, and farmhouses and cattle indicate the presence of agricultural settlements. On several of the islands also are dwellings and farms, though by far the greatest number are uninhabited,

and are as romantically wild and beautiful as the most ardent lover of the picturesque could desire.

About midway in our passage up the lake we passed through a strait called the Narrows, which is little more than half a mile

across in some parts, and varies from this to a mile for a distance of a couple of leagues. The water is said to be so deep here that no bottom has been found with a line of five hundred feet in length. From hence, too, the mountains become loftier, and one eminence, called the Black Mountain, rises to an elevation of 2200 feet, while many others approach it nearly in altitude, and by their undulating forms, and fine intervening valleys and ravines, add greatly to the richness of the scenery.

From the point of departure at Caldwell, near which are Sandy Hill, Bloody Pond, Fort George, and Fort William Henry, all the way up to the point of landing at Ticonderoga, there is a continued succession of military relics, in ruined forts and well-known battle-grounds, which deeply interest the American traveller, because they tell of the triumphs of his fathers over their enemies, and proclaim the victories of his immediate ancestors. But they cannot and do not so deeply interest the English traveller, though some of them force themselves on his attention. One of these is a place called Sabbath Day Point, where, on a projection of land on the western shore jutting out into the lake, a body of English troops landed on a Sunday during the French war, and where, in a sanguinary battle fought between them and the Indians, the English were all killed, no way of retreat being left open for them, and no quarter shown. Another spot, a few miles beyond this, is called Lord Howe's Point, it being the place where Lord Howe landed just previous to the battle of Ticonderoga, in which he received his death-wound.