The gentle slopes on its western shore are well cultivated and thickly inhabited, the result of sixty years' settlement, but on its eastern shore are precipitous and rugged hills, which extend in wild and picturesque succession to Lake Champlain, fifteen or twenty miles distant. In the bosom of these hills, and several hundred feet above the Scarron, lies Lake Pharaoh, a body of cold water surrounded by dark mountains, and near it is a large cluster of ponds, all of Avhich find a receiving reservoir in Scarron Lake, and make its outlet a large stream.

In the lake directly iu front of Scarron village is an elliptical island,

containing about one hundred acres. It was purchased a few ycar.^ ago by Colonel A. L. Ireland, a wealthy gentleman of IS'ew York, Avho went there in search of health, and who spent large sums of money in subduing the savage features of the island, erecting a pleasant summer mansion upon it, and in changing the rough and forbidding aspect of the whole domain into one of beauty and attractiveness. Taste and labour had wrought wonderful eliangcs there, and its appearance justified the title it bore of Isola Bella -- the Indian Cay-ira-noot. The mansion was cruciform,

THE HUDSON. 53

and delightfully situated. lu front of it -were tastefully ornamented grounds, with vistas through the forest trees, that afforded glimpses of charming lake, landscape, and distant mountain scenery. Within were evidences of elegant refinement -- a valuable library, statuary, bronzes, and some rare paintings. Among other sketches was a picture of Hale Hall, in Lancashire, England -- the ancestral dwelling of Colonel Ireland, who is a lineal descendant of Sir John de Ireland, a Norman baron who accompanied William the Conqueror to England, was at the battle of Hastings, and received from the monarch a large domain, upon Avhich he built a castle.