ff but saw no trace
of them. They noticed at once that the tide was out, and at the base
three or four boatmen were sauntering about as though nothing had
happened (forgetting even, as Bryant did, that a vertical line from
the top of the cliff on account of the crumbling debris of ages makes
it impossible for even the strongest arm to hurl a stone from the
summit to the margin of the river). A diligent search was instituted.
Friends and boatmen joined in the search, but from that day to this
they have never been heard from, no trace of them has been found, and
the mystery of their disappearance is as complete now as it was five
minutes after they vanished--a more tragical termination than the
story of the old pilot on a Lake George steamer, who, surrounded one
morning by a group of tourist-questioners, pointed to Roger Slide
Mountain, and said: "A couple went up there and never came back
again." "What do you suppose, captain," said a fair-haired, anxious
listener, "ever became of them?" "Can't tell," said the captain, "some
folks said they went down on the other side.""

The old Palisade Mountain House, a few miles above Fort Lee, had
a commanding location, but was burned in 1884 and never rebuilt.
Pleasant villas are here and there springing up along this rocky
balcony of the lower Hudson, and probably the entire summit will some
day abound in castles and luxuriant homes. It is in fact within the
limit of possibility that this may in the future present the finest
residential street in the world, with a natural macadamized boulevard
midway between the Hudson and the sky.

* * *

What love yon cliffs and steeps could tell
If vocal made by Fancy's spell!

_Robert C. Sands._

* * *

It grieves one to see the gray rocks torn away for building material,
but, as fast as man destroys, nature kindly heals the wound; or to
keep the Palisade figure more complete, she recaptures the scarred and
broken battlements, unfolding along the steep escarpment her waving
standards of green. It sometimes seems as if one can almost see her
selecting the easiest point of attack, marshalling her forces, running
her parallels with Boadicea-like skill, and carrying her streaming
banners, more real than Macbeth's "Birnam-Wood" to crowning rampart
and lofty parapet.

The New York side from the Battery to Inwood, the northern end of
Manhattan Island, is already "well peopled." Until recently the land
about Fort Washing