The trains that creep about the base of the Dunderberg are pigmy affairs ; the swift current that flows through the Horse Race and into Seylmaker's Reach catches broken reflections of the towering masses above them, and all the contrivances of man -- his wharves, his boats, and his villages -- cannot impair the invincible majesty of nature. Some years ago there was a coffer-dam and pumping station at the foot of the Dunderberg, and the story that is connected with them is one of several of a similar character that the river can boast. Some one of the skippers of the numerous river craft came to an anchor near the foot of the mountain, but found, when

he wished to resume his course, that his anchor's flukes were caught in something heavy that could not be detached from the bottom without great effort. However, yielding to the persuasion of the windlass, the obstacle, whatever it was, after a while began to come slowly to the surface, with many an tmeasy tug. The skipper's curiosity was great, and richly w^as it

At the Gate of the Highlands 321

rewarded, for, with one supreme effort, the crew raised to the surface and into the vessel -- a small cannon ! It might have been taken as a natural inference that the rusty weapon belonged to some British vessel of war, or was a trophy of American valour; but not so did the wiseacres decide. It was gravely j^ronounced to be a relic of Captain Kidd! Then a speculator worked up the idea and interested a number of people of the class that the j)roverb mentions as being soon parted from their money, and a company was formed with $22,000 capital to explore for the wealth that everybody at once knew must be lying there.