Hemlock-fir, the pine, the rosebay-laurel, and the
mountain-laurel, which here grow in the same thicket, while the ground
below was carpeted with humbler evergreens, the aromatic wintergreen, and
the trailing arbutus. The Water Gap is about a mile in length, and near
its northern entrance an excellent hotel, the resort of summer visitors,
stands on a cliff which rises more than a hundred feet almost
perpendicularly from the river. From this place the eye follows the Water
Gap to where mountains shut in one behind another, like the teeth of a
saw, and between them the Delaware twines out of sight.
Before the hotel a fine little boy of about two years of age was at play.
The landlord showed us on the calf of the child's leg two small lurid
spots, about a quarter of an inch apart. "That," said he, "is the bite of
a copper-head snake."
We asked when this happened.
"It was last summer," answered he; "the child was playing on the side of
the road, when he was heard to cry, and seen to make for the house. As
soon as he came, my wife called my attention to what she called a scratch
on his leg. I examined it, the spot was already purple and hard, and the
child was crying violently.
