watered by a charming river, and sprinkled with the rustic residences of the Dutch yeomanry. We were at home by sunset, having walked the distance of twenty miles, and captured one hundred and fifty trout, the most of which we distributed among the farm-houses in our way, as we returned. The trout were quite small, varying from three to eight ounces in weight, and of a dark-brown color.

On another occasion, I had taken my sketch-book and some fishing tackle, and gone up a mountain road to the banks of Schoharie Creek, nominally for the purpose of sketching a few trees. In the very first hole of the stream into which I accidentally peered, I discovered a large trout, lying near the bottom, just above a little bed of sand, whence rose the bubbles of a spring. For some thirty minutes I watched the fellow with a “yearning tenderness,” but as he appeared to be so very happy, and I was in a kindred mood, I thought that I would let him live. Presently, however, a beautiful fly lighted on the water, which the greedy hermit swallowed in a minute, and returned to his cool bed, with his conscience, as I fancied, not one whit troubled by what he had done. Involuntarily I began to unwind my line, and having cut a pole, and repeated to myself something about “diamond cut diamond,” I whipped on a red hackle, and passed it over the pool. The rogue of a trout, however, saw me, and scorned for a while to heed my line; but I coaxed and coaxed until, at last, he darted for it, apparently out of mere spite. Something similar to a miniature water-spout immediately arose, and the monarch of the brook was in a fair way of sharing the same fate which had befallen the innocent fly. I learned a salutary lesson from this incident, and as I had yielded to the temptation of the brook, I shouldered my sketch-book with a strap, and descended the stream. At noon, I reached a farm-house, where I craved something to eat. A good dinner was given me, which was seasoned by many questions, and some information concerning trout. That afternoon, in company with a little boy, I visited a neighboring stream, called the Roaring Kill, where I caught one hundred and sixty fish. I then returned to the farm-house, and spent the evening in conversation with my new acquaintances. After breakfast, on the following morning, I set out for home, and reached there about noon, having made only two additions to my sketches. Long shall I remember the evening spent with this family, and their hospitality towards an entire stranger. A pleasant family was that night added to my list of friends.

Another of my trouting pilgrimages was to a famous place called Stony Clove, among the mountains of Shandaken. It is a deep perpendicular cut or gorge between two mountains, two thousand feet in depth, from twenty feet to four hundred in width, and completely lined from base to summit with luxuriant vegetation. It is watered by a narrow but deep brook, which is so full of trout that some seven hundred were captured by myself and two others in a single day. When I tell my readers that this spot is only about one hundred miles from New York, they will be surprised to learn that in its immediate vicinity we saw no less than two bears, one doe with two fawns, and other valuable game. In some parts of this clove the sunshine never enters, and whole tons of the purest ice may be found there throughout the year. It is, indeed, a most lonely and desolate corner of the world, and might be considered a fitting type of the valley of the shadow of death; in single file did we have to pass through that gorge, and in single file do the sons of men pass into the grave. To spend one day there we had to encamp two nights, and how we generally manage that affair I will mention presently.

In returning from Stony Clove, we took a circuitous route, and visited the Mountain House. We approached it by way of the celebrated Catskill Falls, which I will describe in the graphic language of Cooper, as my readers may not remember the passage in his Pioneer. “Why, there’s a fall in the hills, where the water of two little ponds, that lie near each other, breaks out of their bounds, and runs over the rocks into the valley. The stream is, may be, such a one as would turn a mill, if so useless a thing was wanted in the wilderness. But the hand that made that ‘Leap’ never made a mill! Then the water comes croaking and winding among the rocks, first so slow that a trout might swim in it, and then starting and running, like any creature that wanted to make a fair spring, till it gets to where the mountain divides, like the cleft foot of a deer, leaving a deep hollow for the brook to tumble into. The first pitch is nigh two hundred feet, and the water looks like flakes of snow afore it touches the bottom, and then gathers itself together again for a new start, and, may be, flutters over fifty feet of flat rock, before it falls for another hundred feet, when it jumps from shelf to shelf, first running this way and that way, striving to get out of the hollow, till it finally comes to the plain.”

Our party, on this occasion, consisted of three—Peter Hummel, a bark-gatherer and myself. I had chosen these fellows for the expedition, because of their friendship for me and their willingness to go; and I resolved to give them a “treat” at the “Grand Hotel,” which the natives of this region look upon as a kind of paradise. You are aware, I suppose, reader, that the Mountain House is an establishment vying in its style of accommodations with the best of hotels. Between it and the Hudson, there is, during the summer, a semi-daily line of stages, and it is the transient resort of thousands, who visit it for the novelty of its location as well as for the surrounding scenery. The edifice itself stands on a cliff, within a few feet of the edge, and commands a prospect extending from Long Island Sound to the White Mountains. The first time I visited this spot, I spent half the night at my bed-room window, watching the fantastic performances of a thunder-storm far below me, which made the building tremble like a ship upon a reef, while the sky above was cloudless, and studded with stars. Between this spot and South Peak, “there’s the High Peak and the Round Top, which lay back, like a father and mother among their children, seeing they are far above all the other hills.”

But to proceed. Coarsely and comically dressed as we were, we made a very unique appearance as we paraded into the office of the hotel. I met a few acquaintances there to whom I introduced my comrades, and in a short time each one was spinning a mountain legend to a crowd of delighted listeners. In due time I ushered them into the dining-hall, where was enacted a scene which can be better imagined than described; the fellows were completely out of their element, and it was laughable in the extreme, to see them stare and hear them talk, as the servants bountifully helped them to the turtle soup, ice-cream, charlotte russe and other fashionable dainties.

About the middle of the afternoon we commenced descending the beautiful mountain-road leading towards the Hudson. In the morning there had been a heavy shower, and a thousand happy rills attended us with a song. A delightful nook on this road is pointed out as the identical spot where Rip Van Winkle slept away a score of his life. I reached home in time to spend the twilight hour in my own room, musing upon the much-loved mountains. I had but one companion, and that was a whippoorwill, which nightly comes to my window-sill, as if to tell me a tale of its love, or of the woods and solitary wilderness.

But the most unique and interesting of my fishing adventures remains to be described. I had heard a great deal about the good fishing afforded by the lake already mentioned, and I desired to visit it and spend a night upon its shore. Having spoken to my friend Hummel, and invited a neighbor to accompany us, whom the people had named