Two Lofty Summits, Black With Precipices Of Rock, Form The Gates
Through Which The River Issues Into The Open Country.
Here it runs noisily
over the shallows, as if boasting aloud of the victory it had achieved in
breaking its way through such mighty barriers; but within the Gap it
sleeps in quiet pools, or flows in deep glassy currents.
By the side of
these you see large rafts composed of enormous trunks of trees that have
floated down with the spring floods from the New York forests, and here
wait for their turn in the saw-mills along the shore. It was a bright
morning, with a keen autumnal air, and we dismounted from our vehicle and
walked through the Gap.
It will give your readers an idea of the Water Gap, to say that it
consists of a succession of lofty peaks, like the Highlands of the Hudson,
with a winding and irregular space between them a few rods wide, to give
passage to the river. They are unlike the Highlands, however, in one
respect, that their sides are covered with large loose blocks detached
from the main precipices. Among these grows the original forest, which
descends to their foot, fringes the river, and embowers the road.
The present autumn is, I must say, in regard to the coloring of the
forests, one of the shabbiest and least brilliant I remember to have seen
in this country, almost as sallow and dingy in its hues as an autumn in
Europe.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 271 of 396
Words from 73289 to 73540
of 107287
