new and attractive pictures, remarkable for beauty and diversity in outline, colour, and aërial perspective. The solemn Katzbergs, sublime in form, and mysterious in their dim, incomprehensible, and ever-changing aspect, almost always form a prominent feature in the landscape. In the midst of this scenery, Cole, the eminent painter, loved to linger when the shadows of the early morning were projected towards the mountain, then bathed in purple mists; or at evening, when these lofty hills, then dark and awful, cast their deep shadows over more than half the country below, between their bases and the river. Charmed with this region, Cole made it at first a summer retreat, and finally his permanent residence, and there, in a fine old family mansion, delightfully situated to command a full view of the Katzberg range and the intervening country, his spirit passed from earth, while a sacred poem, created by his wealthy imagination and deep religious sentiment, was finding expression upon his easel in a series of fine pictures, like those of "The Course of Empire," and "The Voyage of Life." He entitled the series, "The Cross and the World." Only one of the pictures was finished. One had found form in a "study" only, and two others were partly finished on the large canvas. Another, making the fifth (the number in the series), was about half completed, with some figures sketched in with white chalk. So they remain, just as the master left them, and so remains his studio. It is regarded by his devoted widow as a place too sacred for the common gaze. The stranger never enters it.

The range of the Katzbergs rises abruptly from the plain on their eastern side, where the road that leads to the Mountain House enters them, and follows the margin of a deep, dark glen, through which flows a clear mountain stream seldom seen by the traveller, but heard continually for a mile and a half, as, in swift rapids or in little cascades, it hurries to the plain below. The road is sinuous, and in its ascent along the side of that glen, or more properly magnificent gorge, it is so enclosed by the towering hills on one side and the lofty trees that shoot up on the

* The Indians called this range of hills On-ti-O-ra, signifying, Mountains of the Sky, for in some conditions of the atmosphere they are said to appear like a heavy cumulous cloud above the horizon. The Dutch called them Katzbergs, or Cat Mountains, because of the prevalence of panthers and wild-cats upon them. The word Cats-Kill is partly English and partly Dutch: Katz-Kill, Dutch; Cats-Creek, English.

other, that little can be seen beyond a few rods, except the sky above, or glimpses of some distant summit, until the pleasant nook in the mountain is reached, wherein the Cabin of Rip Van Winkle is nestled. After that the course of the road is more nearly parallel with the river and the

plain, and through frequent vistas glimpses may be caught of the country below, that charm the eye, excite the fancy and the imagination, and make the heart throb quicker and stronger with pleasurable emotions.

Rip's cabin was a decent frame-house, as the Americans call dwellings made of wood, with two rooms, standing by the side of the road half-way

reappear.

from the plain to the Mountain House, at the head of the gorge, along whose margin the traveller has ascended. It was so called because it stood within the "amphitheatre" reputed to be the place where the ghostly nine-pin players of Irving's charming story of Rip Van Winkle held their revel, and where thirsty Rip lay down to his long repose by "that wicked flagon," watched by his faithful dog Wolf, and undisturbed by the tongue of Dame Van Winkle. As one stands upon the rustic bridge, in front of the cabin, and looks down the dark glen, up to the impending cliffs, or around in that rugged amphitheatre, the scene comes up vividly in memory, and the "company of odd-looking personages playing at nine-pins" "Some wore short doublets, others jerkins, with long knives. in their belts, and most of them had enormous breeches, of similar style with that of the guides. Their visages, too, were peculiar: one had a large head, broad face, and small piggish eyes; the face of another seemed to consist entirely of a nose, and was surmounted by a white sugar-loaf hat, set off with a little red cock's tail. They all had beards, of various shapes and colours. There was one who seemed to be the commander. He was a stout old gentleman, with a weather-beaten countenance; he wore a laced doublet, broad belt and hanger, and high-crowned hat and feather, red stockings, and high-heeled shoes with roses in them. What seemed particularly odd to Rip was, that though these folks were evidently amusing themselves, yet they maintained the gravest faces, the most mysterious silence, and were withal the most melancholy party of pleasure he had ever witnessed. Nothing interrupted the stillness of the scene but the noise of the balls, which, whenever they were rolled, echoed along the mountains like rumbling peals of thunder."

Such was the company to whom hen-pecked Rip Van Winkle, wandering upon the mountains on a squirrel hunt, was introduced by a mysterious stranger carrying a keg of liquor, at autumnal twilight. And there it was that thirsty Rip drank copiously, went to sleep, and only awoke when twenty years had rolled away. His dog was gone, and his rusty gunbarrel, bereft of its stock, lay by his side. He doubted his identity. He sought the village tavern and its old frequenters; his own house, and his faithful Wolf. Alas! everything was changed, except the river and the mountains. Only one thing gave him real joy-Dame Van Winkle's

terrible tongue had been silenced for ever by death! to all, and more a mystery to himself than to others.

He was a mystery

Whom had he met

in the mountains? those queer fellows that reminded him of "the figures in an old Flemish painting, in the parlour of Dominic Van Schaick, the village parson. Sage Peter Vonderdonck was called to explain the mystery; and Peter successfully responded. He asserted that it was a fact, handed down from his ancestor, the historian, that the Kaats-Kill Mountains had always been haunted by strange beings. That it was affirmed that the great Hendrick Hudson, the first discoverer of the river and country, kept a kind of vigil there every twenty years, with his crew of the Half-Moon, being permitted in this way to revisit the scenes of his enterprise, and kept a guardian eye upon the river and the great city called by his name. That his father had once seen them, in their old Dutch dresses, playing at nine-pins in a hollow of the mountain; and that himself had heard, one summer afternoon, the sound of their balls, like distant peals of thunder." Rip's veracity was vindicated; his daughter gave him a comfortable home; and the grave historian of the event assures us that the Dutch inhabitants, "even to this day, never hear a thunder-storm of a summer afternoon about the Kaats-Kill, but they say, Hendrick Hudson and his crew are at their game of nine-pins."

The Van Winkle of our day, who lived in the cottage by the mountain road-side as long as a guest lingered at the great mansion above him, was no kin to old Rip, and we strongly suspect that his name was borrowed; but he kept refreshments that strengthened many a weary toiler up the mountain-liquors equal, no doubt, to those in the "wicked flagons" that the ancient one served to the ghostly company-and from a rude spout poured cooling draughts into his cabin from a mountain spring, more delicious than ever came from the juice of the grape.

There are many delightful resting-places upon the road, soon after leaving Rip's cabin, as we toil wearily up the mountain, where the eye takes in a magnificent panorama of hill and valley, forest and river, hamlet and village, and thousands of broad acres where herds graze and the farmer gathers his crops,—much of it dimly refined because of distance -a beautifully coloured map rather than a picture. These delight the eye and quicken the pulse, as has been remarked; but there is one place

upon that road where the ascending weary ones enjoy more exquisite pleasure for a moment than at any other point in all that mountain region. It is at a turn in the road where the Mountain House stands suddenly before and above the traveller, revealed in perfect distinctness-column, capital, window, rock, people-all apparently only a few rods distant. There, too, the road is level, and the traveller rejoices in the assurance that the toilsome journey is at an end; when, suddenly, he finds himself, like the young pilgrim in Cole's "Voyage of Life," disappointed in his

course.

The road that seemed to be leading directly to that beautiful mansion, upon the crag just above him, turns away, like the stream that appeared to be taking the ambitious young voyager directly to the shadowy temple of Fame in the clouds; and many a weary step must be taken, over a crooked, hilly road, before the traveller can reach the object of his journey.

The grand rock-platform, upon which the Mountain House stands, is reached at last; and then comes the full recompense for all weariBathed--immersed-in pure mountain air, almost three thousand

ness.