There is something indescribable in the pleasure experienced during the first hour passed upon the piazza of the Mountain House, gazing upon the scene toward the east. That view has been described a thousand times. I shall not attempt it. Much rhetoric, and rhyme, and sentimental platitudes have been employed in the service of description, but none have conveyed to my mind a picture so graphic, truthful, and satisfactory as Natty Bumpo's reply to Edward's question, in one of Cooper's " Leather- Stocking Tales," " What see you when you get there ? "

"^Creation I " said Natty, dropping the end of his rod into the water, and sweeping one hand around him in a circle, "all creation, lad. I was on that hill when Yaughan burnt 'Sopus, in the last war, and I saw the vessels come out of the Highlands as plainly as I can see that lime-scow rowing into the Susquehanna, though one was twenty times further from me than the other.-'' The river was in sight for seventy miles under my feet, looking like a curled shaving, though it was eight long miles to its banks. I saw the hills in the Hampshire Grants, the Highlands of the river, and all that God had done, or man could do, as far as the eye could reach -- you know that the Indians named me for my sight, ladf -- and from the flat on the top of that mountain, I have often found the place where Albany stands; and as for 'Sopus! the day the royal troops burnt the town, the smoke seemed so nigh that I thought I could hear the screeches of the women."