indulging a little sentiment over the old legend,
but the boy, who concealed his ignorance of the Irving romance until his
cousins had prattled the outlines of it, was not to be taken in by any
such chaff, and though he was a little staggered by Rip's own cottage,
and by the sight of the cave above it which is labeled as the very spot
where the vagabond took his long nap, he attempted to bully the attendant
and drink-mixer in the hut, and openly flaunted his incredulity until the
bar-tender showed him a long bunch of Rip's hair, which hung like a scalp
on a nail, and the rusty barrel and stock of the musket. The cabin is,
indeed, full of old guns, pistols, locks of hair, buttons,
cartridge-boxes, bullets, knives, and other undoubted relics of Rip and
the Revolution. This cabin, with its facilities for slaking thirst on a
hot day, which Rip would have appreciated, over a hundred years old
according to information to be obtained on the spot, is really of unknown
antiquity, the old boards and timber of which it is constructed having
been brought down from the Mountain House some forty years ago.

The old Mountain House, standing upon its ledge of rock, from which one
looks down upon a map of a considerable portion of New York and New
England, with the lake in the rear, and heights on each side that offer
charming walks to those who have in contemplation views of nature or of
matrimony, has somewhat lost its importance since the vast Catskill
region has come to the knowledge of the world. A generation ago it was
the centre of attraction, and it was understood that going to the
Catskills was going there. Generations of searchers after immortality
have chiseled their names in the rock platform, and one who sits there
now falls to musing on the vanity of human nature and the transitoriness
of fashion. Now New York has found that it has very convenient to it a
great mountain pleasure-ground; railways and excellent roads have pierced
it, the varied beauties of rocks, ravines, and charming retreats are
revealed, excellent hotels capable of entertaining a thousand guests are
planted on heights and slopes commanding mountain as well as lowland
prospects, great and small boarding-houses cluster in the high valleys
and on the hillsides, and cottages more thickly every year dot the wild
region. Year by year these accommodations will increase, new roads
around the gorges will open more enchanting views, and it is not
improbable that th