earing and past many a
farmhouse. At one of these we met a man hiving swarms of bees. He lived
below, and told us we were eight miles from Cairo, a town near the
eastern foot of the Catskills. The friendly mistress of the cottage
informed us that the pass at the summit was only three miles distant,
and we hence concluded to return home by descending the eastern slope of
the mountains, crossing the lower portion of the intervening spur, and
reascending by the Mountain House road. Mountain miles are proverbial
for their length, and so we found them, as we wandered on until
civilization and the last good piece of road was left behind at a large
steam sawmill. Our way now skirted the near hills, and passed through an
upland bog of apparently interminable width. Fortunately, the last few
weeks had been comparatively dry, and hence it was possible to make
one's way by springing from clump to clump of rank grass, or more
frequently from hurdle to hurdle, as long stretches of half-decayed
branches covered the partially hidden quagmire. The air had become
close, the sun hot; a dense, low growth of wood shut in the devious way;
desolation and neglect marked the environs, and we were by no means
sure we were on the right road. Even Lucy began to doubt the prudence
and final success of the expedition. A very suspicious circumstance was
the fact that this road, by which we expected to cross the mountain top,
had lately made very little of an ascent.

'At length a fresh, cool breeze began to fan our cheeks, such a breeze
as is never felt except upon mountain heights, and steep piles of rock
rose upon our left. The road had shortly before become hard and dry,
and, as it now commenced to descend, we could not doubt the summit of
the pass was reached. Fine trees, however, so closely hemmed us in that
we could see nothing beyond, and not until we were some distance down,
did we come to an opening whence the lower country was visible, with the
Berkshire hills, the river, the city of Hudson directly opposite, and
Kiskatom Round Top lying to our right. We exchanged glances, for we knew
something of the distance signified by this situation of landmarks.
However, there was nothing to be done except to press on, which we did,
down a road at first enchanting, but finally detestable, where it had
been neglected, and had become the rocky bed of a stream then dry. We
could fancy it in the spring, at the melting of the snows, with the wild
water da