The Hudson, from the Wilderness to the Sea

The tourist, if he fails to traverse the rugged gorge, should not omit a ride from the Mountain House, down through the "Clove" to Palensvillc

THE HUDSON.

and tlie plain, a distance of about eight miles. Unpleasant as was the day ■when we last visited the mountains, we returned to Katz-Kill by that circuitous route. After leaving the falls, we rode about three miles before reachin"- the " Clove." Huge masses of vapour came rolling up from its lower depths, sometimes obscuring everything around us, and then,

THE I'AW^'S LEA]'.

drifting away, laving the lofty summits of the mountains that stretch far southward, gleaming in the fitful sunlight, and presenting unsurpassed exhibitions of aerial perspective. Down, down, sometimes with only a narrow space between the base of a high mountain on one side, and steep

THE HUDSON.

precipices upon the other, whose feet are washed by the rushing Katers- Kill, our crooked road pursued its way, now passing a log-house, now a pleasant cottage, and at length the ruins of a leather manufacturing village, deserted because the bark upon the hills around, used for tanning, is exhausted. Kear this picturesque scene, the Katers-Kill leaps into a

SCENE OX THE KATERS-KILL, NEAR PALEXSVILLE.

seething gulf between cleft rocks, and flows gently on to make still greater plunges into darker depths a short distance below. This cleft in the rocks is called the Fawn's Leap, a young deer having there escaped a hunter and his dog, that pursued to the verge of the chasm. The fawn leaped it,