The Continental Monthly, Vol 6, No 5, November 1864

Fear had oozed out of my fingers' ends, in lifting the latch, just as valor did from those of Bob Acres, and Jenkins was himself again. We jobbed our bayonets under the lager-beer counter, to provide for the case of any lurking foe in that quarter. Just here the road forked. Sending two of us to the right, the rest kept on the Alexandria. 'Look there,' chatters Todd second between his teeth, wafting in my face a mingled odor of fear and gin cocktails. 'Where?' 'Why there! on top of the hill—a horse.' 'Is that a horse?' 'Yes.' 'A man on him, too!' 'Two of 'em!' Click, click, click, from our locks. We creep on and up stealthily. We are scarcely thirty yards distant from the two horsemen, when a man darts out from the left-hand side of the road behind us—two men—three! We are surrounded. Todd second would have fired, but I held him back. 'Who's that?' I whispered; 'speak quick, or I fire!' 'Can't you see, you d—d fool,' barks out our surly adjutant, who, unknown to us, had been leading a similar scout on the opposite side of the road. Click, click, from up the hill. The enemy are going to shoot. An awful moment. We steady our rifles and our nerves; all trace of fear is gone; nothing remains but eagerness for the conflict that seems so near, and with a bound, without waiting for orders, we move quickly up the hill. Lieutenant Harch moves his men out into the road, where the bright moonlight betrays, perhaps multiplies, their number; the horsemen spring to their saddles, and are off at a clattering gallop, to alarm Alexandria. 'Don't shoot!' shrieks the adjutant; our rifles waver; the hill hides the flying picket; the chance is lost; presently all Alexandria will be awake, and a beautiful surprise frustrated. As we peer into the moonlit distance from the top of the hill now almost spaded away and trimmed up into Fort Runyon, feeling the solemnity of the occasion impressed upon us with dramatic force by all the surroundings—by our loneliness, by our character as the harbingers of the advance of the armies of American freedom and American nationality, and by the recent flight of the first squad of the enemy whom we had met with hostile purpose: as we dreamily drink in all these and many other vague ideas, up comes our battalion, and occupies the hill, the major sending off a company to hold the bridge where the road crosses the canal and forks to Arlington and Fairfax Court House. Presently there pass by us regiments from Michigan, New York, New Jersey, and it may be from other States which I forget. Some turn off to the right, to settle on the hill which is now scooped into Fort Albany; others press forward to Alexandria, the bells of which town very soon begin to ring a frightened peal of alarm and confusion. We move out a half mile farther and halt, our night's work being over, and other things in store; the moonlight wanes, and grows insensibly into a chilly daylight, presently reddened by the sun of to-morrow. All this seems to us to have occupied scarcely half an hour, but it is broad day again for certain, and surely we are a mortally tired and aching battalion as we march back listless, hot, sleepy, and gastric, over the Long Bridge, to our armory, there to fall asleep over breakfast in sheer exhaustion, and to spend the remainder of the day in a dry, hard series of naps, not the least refreshing—such as leave you the impression of having slept in hot sand. As we—the quartermaster-sergeant and I—stroll down the avenue that afternoon according to our wont, we hear the news of Ellsworth's death, of the occupation of Alexandria by our forces, and of the flight of the enemy's handful of silly, braggadocio Virginia militia, hastily collected to brag and drink the town safe from the pollution of the vile Yankee's invading foot. Ah! V'ginia; as thou art easily pleased to sing of thy sister-in-law, Ma'yland,

'The taäirahnt's foot is awn thaï sho','

and will be likely to remain thar a right tollable peert length of time, I expect.

Nothing but bridge guarding in the festering swamp on the Virginia side of the Potomac, varied by multiplying details for extra duty as clerks in all imaginable offices, falls to our lot until the 10th of June, when, after a number of rumors, and many dark forebodings as to what the District men would do, we are finally ordered into the field as a part of the Chickfield expedition, originally designed for the capture of Dregsville, I believe; an object which may have been slightly interfered with by its detailed announcement about a week beforehand in one of the Philadelphia papers. The expedition consisted of the First, Third, Fifth, and Ninth Battalions of District of Columbia Volunteers, the First New Hampshire, the Ninth New York, and the Seventeenth Pennsylvania, which would call itself the First. I think four other regiments from the same State did the same thing, it being a cardinal principle with them, perhaps, that each regiment was to claim two different names and three different numbers, and that at least four other regiments were fiercely to dispute with it each name and each number: for example, there was the

And for another example there was a regiment which called itself the 'Swishtail Carbines,' after a beastly ornament in the hats of its men; the 'Shine Musketoons,' after their lieutenant-colonel; the '289th Pennsylvania Volunteers,' after the State series of numbers, which began with 280 or thereabout; and the 'First Regiment of the Pennsylvania Volunteer Reserve Corps, Breech-Loading Carbineers,' and doubtless by other names, though I don't remember them.

Besides this tremendous host—we had never seen so large a force together, and thought it the most invincible of armadas—we had a battery of artillery, composed of three or four different kinds of guns, as the fashion was in the good old days of our company posts, wherefrom we were just emerging in a chrysalis state, and also two companies of cavalry; one a real live company of regulars, commanded by Captain Cautle, of the Third Dragoons, the other led by Captain (he called himself major, and his company a battalion) Cutts, formerly and since an enterprising member of the firm of Cutts & Dunn, who made my uniform, and who will make your clothes, if you wish, my dear reader, and charge you rather less than three times their value, after the manner of Washington tailors; which charge will appear especially moderate when you remember that the clothes will almost fit, and won't wear out so very soon after all, as is the way with Washington clothes. Indeed, as the tactics say, 'this remark is general for all the deployments;' and the same may as well be said of all bills and things made in the great city of sheds, contractors, politicians, dust, and unfinished buildings. But is this a description of Washington? We are at Chickfield, where the loyal Maryland farmers come to us to protect their loyalty, to charge a dollar a panel for old worm fences thrown down by 'the boys,' to sell forage at double prices, to reclaim runaway negroes, and to assure us of the impossibility of subjugating the South. And here, in the peaceful village of Chickfield, the object of our expedition having been happily frustrated by the newspapers, we enjoy our ease for a week or ten days, and our first camp experiences. Oh! that first experience of unboxing tents smelling loudly as of candle grease, of finding the right poles, of vainly endeavoring to pitch them straight, of hot and excited officers rushing hither and thither in a flurry, trying to instruct the different squads in their work, and straightway frustrated by the thick heads, or worse, by the inevitable suggestions of those remarkably intelligent corporals, who seem to consider themselves as having a special mission direct from heaven to know everything except how to do what they are bid. And oh! the first camp cookery, when everything is overdone except what is underdone; when the soup is water, and the coffee grounds, and the tea (we had tea in the three-months!) senna! And after a day of worry, hurry, confusion, and awful cooking, the first rough sleep, with a root running across your ribs, and a sizable gravel indenting the small of your back! How the teamsters talk all night, and the sentinels call wildly, incessantly, for the corporal of the guard! How you dream of being hung on a wire, as if to dry, with your head on a jagged rock; of an army of sentinels pacing your breast, ceaselessly engaged in coming to an 'order arms;' of millions of ants crawling over and through you; of having your legs suddenly thrust into an icehouse, and a brush fire built under your head; of black darkness, in which you fall down, down, down, down—faster, faster, faster!—till crash! you bump against something, and split wide open with a thundering roar, which gradually expands into the sound of a bugle as you awake to renewed misery, and are, as Mr. Sawin says, 'once more routed out of bed by that derned reveille.'

Presently there comes an order for us to march to Billsburg, and there join the army of the Musconetcong, commanded by that dauntless hero, Major-General Robert Balkinsop. Of course we march in a hurry, as much as possible by night, 'without baggage,' as the orders say—meaning with only two wagons to a company. The other battalions of D.C. Vols. stay behind and loaf back to Washington, there to be mislaid by Major-General Blankhed, who is so preoccupied with issuing and affixing his sign manual to passes for milk, eggs, and secessionists, to cross and recross Long Bridge, that the war must wait for him or go ahead without him. We go on to glory, as we suppose (deluded three-months!), and march excitedly, with all our legs, fearing we shall be too late. As we near Billsburg, we can hear the since familiar tick—tack, pip—pop—pop of a rattling skirmish, and the vroom—vroom of volley firing. Anxiously, eagerly—no need for the colonel to cry 'Step out lively!'—we press forward, with all the ardor of recruits. Recruits! Hadn't we been a month in service, and been through one great invasion already? There they are! See the smoke? Where? On top of that hill! Halt! Our battalion deploys as skirmishers with a useless cheer. We close up. We load with ball cartridge, and most of us, on our individual responsibility, fix bayonets; it looks so determined—nothing like the cold steel, we think. Slowly, resolutely, we advance. An aid comes galloping back. We crowd round him. The colonel looks disgustedly handsome. What does he say? Pshaw! It's only the 284th Pennsylvania, part of General Balkinsop's body guard, discharging muskets after rain. Only three soldiers, a negro, a couple of mules, and an old woman, have been hurt so far, and 'the boys' will be through in an hour or so more!

Well, as we were sent for in a hurry, of course we waited a week. How General Balkinsop manœuvred the great army of the Musconetcong; what fatherly, nay, grandmotherly care he took to keep us out of danger; how cautiously he spread, his nets for the enemy, and how rapidly he left them miles behind; how we killed nothing but chickens, wounded nothing but our own silly pride, and captured nothing but green apples and roasting ears; all this, and more, let history tell. The poor old general kept us safe, at all events; and if the enemy, with half our numbers, was left unharmed, and allowed quietly and leisurely to move off and swell his force elsewhere, and so whip us in detail, what of it? Didn't we save our wagon train? And isn't that, as everyone knows, the highest result of strategy?

And then came the battle (the battle!) of Bull Run, with its first glowing, crowing accounts of victory, and its later story of humiliation and shame! Ah! let me shut up the page! My heart grows sick over this mangy, scrofulous period of our national disease; give me air!

Luckily for me, I had a raging fever just after that awful 21st of July, 1861. When I awoke from my delirium, and had got as far as tea, toast, and the door of the hospital, they told me of the great uprising of the people, of General McClellan's appointment to command the Army of the Potomac, of how 'our boys' had reënlisted for the war, and of how I, no longer Sergeant-Major William Jenkins, was to be adjutant of the regiment, and might now take off my chevrons, and put on my SHOULDER STRAPS.

She sent them to me in a letter. Wait a month, and I'll tell you.

THE FIRST FANATIC

 
When Noah hewed the timber
Wherewith to build the ark,
Outside the woods one shouted—
'That wild fanatic!—hark!'
 
 
And when he drew the beams
And laid them on the plain,
One said,'He has no balance,
He surely is insane.'
 
 
And when he raised the frame,
One clear, sunshiny day,
'Poor fool of one idea,'
A smiling man did say.
 
 
When he foretold the flood,
And stood repentance teaching,
They sneered, 'You radical,
We'll hear no ultra preaching!'
 
 
And when he drove the beasts and birds
Into the ark one morn,
They shouted, 'Odd enthusiast!'
And laughed with ringing scorn.
 
 
When he and all his house went in,
They gazed, and said, 'Erratic!'
'A pleasant voyage to you, Noah!
You canting, queer fanatic!'
 

SKETCHES OF AMERICAN LIFE AND SCENERY

V.—THE ADIRONDACS

This interesting mountain region embraces the triangular plateau lying between Lake Champlain and the St. Lawrence, Lake Ontario and the Mohawk. The name was formerly restricted to the central group containing the highest peaks, but is now applied to the various ranges traversing the northeastern counties of the State of New York. The loftiest points are found in the County of Essex and the neighboring corners of Franklin; but the surfaces of Clinton, St. Lawrence, Herkimer, Hamilton, Warren, and Washington are all diversified by the various branches of the same mountain system. The principal ranges have a general northeasterly and southwesterly direction, and are about six in number. They run nearly parallel with one another, and with the watercourses flowing into Lake Champlain, namely, Lake George and Putnam's Creek, the Boquet, Au Sable, and Saranac Rivers. Recent surveys made by, or under the direction of, Professor A. Guyot, will doubtless furnish us with more accurate information regarding ranges and measurements of heights than any we can now refer to. So far as we have been able to learn from the best authorities within our reach,² the situation and names of the most prominent ranges are as follows: The most southerly is that known as the Palmertown or Luzerne Mountains, and embraces the highlands of Lake George, terminating at Mount Defiance, on Lake Champlain. This range has also been called Black Mountain range and Tongue Mountains. The second range, the Kayaderosseras, ends in the high cliff overlooking Bulwagga Bay. The third, or Schroon range, terminates on Lake Champlain in the high promontory of Split Rock. It borders Schroon Lake, and its highest peak is Mount Pharaoh, nearly 4,000 feet above tidewater. The fourth, or Boquet range, finds its terminus at Perou Bay, and contains Dix Peak (5,200 feet), Nipple Top (4,900 feet), Raven Hill, and Mount Discovery. The fifth or Adirondac range (known also as Clinton or Au Sable) meets Lake Champlain in the rocks of Trembleau Point, and embraces the highest peaks of the system, namely, Mount Tahawus (Marcy), 5,379 feet, and Mounts Mc-Intire, McMartin, and San-da-no-na, all above 5,000 feet in elevation. The series nest succeeding on the northwest, does not consist of a single distinguishable range, but of a continuation of groups which may be considered as a sixth range, under the name of Chateaugay or Au Sable. Its highest points are Mount Seward (5,100 feet), and Whiteface, nearly 5,000 feet in height. We have also seen noticed as distinguishable a ridge still exterior to the last mentioned, as Chateaugay, i.e., the range of the St. Lawrence.

The above-named ranges are not always clearly defined, as cross spurs or single mountains sometimes occupy the entire space between two ridges, reducing the customary valley to a mere ravine. The usual uncertainty and redundancy of nomenclature common to mountain regions, adds to the difficulty of obtaining or conveying clear ideas of the local distribution of elevation and depression. On the northern slope, the three rivers, Boquet, Au Sable (with two branches, East and West), and Saranac, furnish to the traveller excellent guides for the arrangement of his conceptions, regarding the general face of the country. To the south, the same office is performed by the various branching headwaters of the Hudson.

These mountains are granitic, and the river bottoms have a light, sandy soil. The Au Sable well deserves its name, not only from the bar at its mouth, but also from the sand fields through which it chiefly flows. Steep, bare peaks, wild ravines, and stupendous precipices characterize the loftier ranges. The waterfalls are numerous and beautiful, and the lakes lovely beyond description. More than one hundred in number, they cluster round the higher groups of peaks, strings of glittering gems about the stately forms of these proud, dark-browed, Indian beauties—mirrors wherein they may gaze upon the softened outlines of their haughty heads, their wind-tossed raiment of spruce fir, pines, and birch.

In the lowest valleys the oak and chestnut are abundant, but as we leave the shores of Lake Champlain and ascend toward the west, the beech and basswood, butternut, elm, ash, and maple, hemlock and arbor vitæ, tamarack, white, black, and yellow pines, white and black birch, gradually disappear, until finally the forest growth of the higher portions of the loftier summits is composed almost exclusively of the various species of spruce or fir. The tamarack sometimes covers vast plains, and, with the long moss waving from its sombre branches, looks melancholy enough to be fancied a mourner over the ring of the axe felling noble pines, the crack of the rifle threatening extermination to the deer once so numerous, or the cautious tread of the fisherman under whose wasteful rapacity the trout are gradually disappearing. We have reason to be thankful that all are not yet gone—that some splendid specimens are left to tell the glorious tale of the primeval forest, that on the more secluded lake shores an occasional deer may yet be seen coming down to drink, and that in the shadier pools the wary and sagacious prince of fishes still disports himself and cleaves the crystal water with his jewelled wedge.

Berries of all sorts spring up on the cleared spots; the wide-spreading juniper, with its great prickly disks, covers the barer slopes; the willow herb, wild rose, clematis, violet, golden rod, aster, immortelle, arbutus, harebell, orchis, linnæa borealis, mitchella, dalibarda, wintergreen, ferns innumerable, and four species of running pine, all in due season, deck the waysides and forest depths.

The climate is intensely cold in winter, and in the summer cool upon the heights, but in the narrow sandy valleys the long days of June, July, and August are sometimes uncomfortably hot. The nights, however, are ordinarily cool. Going west through the middle of the region, from Westport to Saranac, a difference of several weeks in the progress of vegetation is perceptible. Long after the linnæa had ceased to bloom at Elizabethtown, we found its tender, fragrant, pink bells flushing a wooded bank near Lake Placid. Good grass grows upon the hillsides, and in the valleys are found excellent potatoes, oats, peas, beans, and buckwheat. The corn is small, but seems prolific, and occasional fields of flax, rye, barley, and even wheat, present a flourishing appearance. Lumber, charcoal, and iron ore of an excellent quality are, however, the present staples of this mountain region. Bears and panthers are found in some secluded localities, and the farmer still dreads the latter for his sheep. The wolves are said to kill more deer than the hunters. The otter and beaver are found among the watercourses, and the mink or sable is still the prey of the trapper. The horses are ordinarily of a small breed, but very strong and enduring.

The men are chiefly of the Vermont type, most of the original settlers having come from the neighboring State. The school house, court house, church, and town hall are hence regarded as among the necessary elements of life to the well-ordered citizen. Honest dealing, thrift, and cleanliness are the rule, and the farm houses are comfortable and well cared for. The men look intelligent, and the women are handsome, although, indeed, too many pale or sallow complexions give evidence of sedentary habits, and of the almost universal use of saleratus and hot bread [??]. The families of many farmers far in among the mountains rarely taste fresh meat, but subsist chiefly upon salt pork, fish, fresh or salted, as the season will permit, potatoes, wheat, rye, and Indian meal, with berries, dried apples, perhaps a few garden vegetables, plenty of good milk, and excellent butter. Eggs, chickens, and veal are luxuries occasionally to be enjoyed, and, should one of the family be a good shot, venison and partridge may appear upon the bill of fare. Bright flowers ornament the gardens, and gay creepers embower doors and windows. Along the more secluded roads are the log cabins of the charcoal burners, said cabins containing, if apparently nothing else, two or three healthy, chubby, pretty children, and a substantial cooking stove, of elaborate pattern, recently patented by some enterprising compatriot.

Among the most remarkable features of these mountains are the 'Passes,' answering to Gaps, Notches, and Cloves in other parts of the Union. They afford means for excellent roads from end to end of the mountain region, and are, in addition, eminently picturesque. The two most noteworthy are the Indian and Wilmington Passes; the first too rugged for the present to admit of a road; and the latter containing the beautiful Wilmington Fall. Many of the mountains have been burned over, and the bare, gaunt-limbed timber, and contorted folds of gray, glittering rock, afford a spectral contrast to the gentler contours of hills still clad in their natural verdure, bright or dark as deciduous or evergreen trees preponderate. The variety of form is endless; long ridges, high peaks, sharp or blunt, sudden clefts, great bare slides, flowing curves, convex or concave, serrated slopes crowned with dark spruce or jagged as the naked vertebræ of some enormous antediluvian monster, stimulate the curiosity and excite the imagination of the beholder. There is an essential difference in the character of the views obtained, whether looking from the south, or the east. In the former case, the eye, following the axes of the ranges, sees the mountains as a cross ridge of elevated peaks; and in the latter, where the sight strikes the ranges perpendicularly to their axes, one, or, at most, two ridges are all that can be seen from any single point.

This region may be approached from Lake Champlain by way of Ticonderoga, Crown Point, Port Henry, Westport, and Port Kent, the two latter places being the nearer to the higher peaks; or from the lake country in Hamilton County, by way of Racket and Long Lakes.

The night boat for Albany, June 27th, 1864, was crowded with passengers fleeing from pavements, summer heats, and stifling city air, to green fields, cool shadows of wooded glens, or life-giving breezes from mountain heights. True, there were some who, like Aunt Sarah Grundy, bitterly lamented the ample rooms and choice fare of their own establishments, and whose idea of a 'summer in the country' was limited to a couple of months at Saratoga or Newport, with a fresh toilette for each succeeding day; but even these knew that there were at both places green trees, limpid waters, whether of lake or ocean, and a wide horizon wherein to see sunsets, moonrises, and starlight. Aunt Sarah went to Newport; she found there fewer of such persons as she was pleased to designate as 'rabble,' and the soft, warm fogs were exactly the summer atmosphere for a complexion too delicate to be exposed to the fervent blaze of a July sun.

But the majority were not of Aunt Sarah's stamp. They were men, wearied with nine months' steady work, eager for country sports, for the freedom of God's own workhouse, where labor and bad air and cramped positions need not be synonymous; or women, glad to escape the routine of housekeeping, the daily contest with Bridget or Katrine, with Jean, Williams, or Priscilla. There were young girls, with round hats and thick boots, anxious to substitute grassy lanes or rocky hillsides for the flagstones of avenues; lads, to whom climbing of fruit trees and rowing boats were pleasant reminiscences of some foregone year; and finally, children, who longed for change, and whose little frames needed all the oxygen and exercise their anxious parents could procure for them.

Such, doubtless, was a large portion of the precious freight of our 'floating palace,' whose magnificence proved to us rather of the Dead-Sea-apple sort, as we had arrived upon the scene of action too late to procure comfortable quarters for the night, and, in addition, soon after daybreak found ourselves aground within sight of Albany, and with no prospect of release until after the departure of the train for Whitehall. At a few moments past seven, we heard the final whistle, and knew that our journey's end was now postponed some four and twenty hours. We afterward learned that by taking the boat to Troy we would have run less risk of delay, as the Whitehall and Rutland train usually awaits the arrival of said boat. At nine o'clock we reached Albany, and one of our number spent a dreary day, battling with headache and the ennui of a little four year old, who could extract no amusement from the unsuggestive walls of a hotel parlor. About five in the afternoon we left for Whitehall, where we purposed passing the night. This movement did not one whit expedite the completion of our journey, but offered a change of place, and an additional hour of rest in the morning, as the lake-boat train from Whitehall was the same that left Albany shortly after seven.

We found Whitehall a homely little town, in a picturesque situation, on the side of a steep hill, past which winds the canal, and under which thundered the train that on the following morning bore us to the lake, where the pleasant steamboat 'United States' awaited her daily cargo. The upper portion of Lake Champlain is very narrow, and the channel devious; the shores are sometimes marshy, sometimes rocky, and the bordering hills have softly swelling outlines. Our day was hazy, and the Green Mountains of Vermont seemed floating in some species of celestial atmosphere suddenly descended upon that fair State. We passed the Narrows (a singular, rocky cleft, through which flows the lake), and soon after came to Ticonderoga, with its ruined fort and environing hills.

After leaving Crown Point, the lake becomes much wider, and at Port Henry spreads out into a noble expanse of water. Behind Port Henry, the Adirondac peaks already begin to form a towering background. Westport, however, has a still more beautiful situation. The lake there is very broad, the sloping shores are wooded, the highest peaks of the Green Mountains are visible to the east and northeast, and the Adirondacs rise, tier after tier, toward the west.

On the boat were wounded soldiers going to their homes. Poor fellows! They had left their ploughs and their native hills, to find wounds and fevers in Virginia. When one looked upon the tranquil lake and halo-crowned mountains, it seemed almost impossible that the passions of evil men should have power to draw even that placid region into the vortex, and hurl back its denizens scarred and scathed, to suffer amid its beauty. And yet were these men the very marrow and kernel of the landscape, the defenders of the soil, the patriots who were willing to give themselves that their country might remain one and undivided, that the 'home of the brave' might indeed be the 'land of the free.'

At Westport we left the boat, and found the stage to Elizabethtown, a buckboard, already crowded with passengers. An inn close at hand furnished us the only covered wagon we chanced to see during our ten weeks' sojourn among the Adirondacs. The drive to Elizabethtown (eight miles) was hot and dusty, for we faced the western sun, and the long summer drought was just then commencing to make itself felt. Nevertheless, there was beauty enough by the wayside to make one forget such minor physical annoyances. As the road rose over the first hills, the views back, over the lake and toward those hazy, dreamy-looking Vermont mountains, seemed a leaf from some ancient romance, wherein faultless knights errant sought peerless lady loves with golden locks flowing to their tiny feet, and the dragons were all on the outside, dwellers in dark caverns and noisome dens. In our day, I fear, we have not improved the matter, for the dark caverns seem to have passed within, and the dragons have been adopted as familiars.

By and by, on some arid spots, appeared the low, spreading juniper, which we had previously known only as the garden pet of an enthusiastic tree fancier. And thus, perhaps, the virtues which here we cultivate by unceasing care and watchfulness, will, when we are translated to some wider sphere, nearer to the Creator of all, burst upon us as simple, natural gifts to the higher and freer intelligences native to that sphere.

Raven Hill is the highest point between Westport and Elizabethtown. It is a beautifully formed conical hill, rising some twenty-one hundred feet above the sea level, and contributing the cliffs on the northern side of the 'Pass,' through which leads the road into the valley of the Boquet, that vale known formerly as the 'The Pleasant Valley,' in which was Betseytown, now dignified into Elizabethtown. Does an increase in civilization and refinement indeed destroy familiarity, render us more strange one to another, even, through much complexity, to our own selves? The southern side of the Pass is formed by the slope of the 'Green Mountain,' once so called from its beautiful verdure, now, alas! burnt over, bristling with dead trees and bare rocks, and green only by reason of weeds, brambles, and a bushy growth of saplings. The view, descending from the summit of the Pass into the Pleasant Valley, is charming. The Boquet runs through green meadows and cultivated fields, while round it rise lofty mountains—the 'Giant of the Valley' (alias 'Great Dome' or 'Bald Peak'), being especially remarkable, with its summits, green or bare, round or peaked, glittering with white scars of ancient slides. To the west lies the Keene Pass, a steep, rocky gateway to the Au Sable River and the wonders beyond. This view of the descent into the Pleasant Valley is even more striking from a road passing over the hills some five miles south of Elizabethtown. The vale is narrower, the point of view higher, and the opposite mountains nearer and more lofty. The Giant of the Valley rises directly in the west, and Dix's Peak closes the vista to the south. On a semi-hazy afternoon, with the sunlight streaming through in broad pathways of quivering glory, it would be difficult to imagine a more enchanting scene.