Publisher's Synopsis
I commence this chapter in the language of Leather Stocking: -"You know the Catskills, lad, for you must have seen them on your left, as you followed the river up from York, looking as blue as a piece of clear sky, and holding the clouds on their tops, as the smoke curls over the head of an Indian chief at a council-fire." Yes, everybody is acquainted with the names of these mountains, but few with their peculiarities of scenery. They are situated about eight miles from the Hudson, rise to an average elevation of about thirty-five hundred feet, and running in a straight line from north to south, cover a space of some twenty-five miles. The fertile valley on the east is as beautiful as heart could desire; it is watered by the Kauterskill, Plauterkill and Esopus creeks, inhabited by a sturdy Dutch yeomanry, and is the agricultural mother of Catskill, Saugerties and Kingston. The upland on the west for about forty miles is rugged, dreary and thinly settled, but the winding valley of Schoharie beyond is possessed of many charms peculiarly American. The mountains themselves are covered with dense forests abounding in cliffs and waterfalls, and for the most part untrodden by the footsteps of man. Looking at them from the Hudson, the eye is attracted by two deep hollows, which are called "Cloves."
