Adventures of an Angler in Canada, Nova Scotia and the United States

The Project Gutenberg eBook, Adventures of an Angler in Canada, Nova Scotia and the United States, by Charles Lanman
CHARLES LANMAN. AUTHOR OF ADVENTURES OF AN ANGLER IN AMERICA
BY CHARLES LANMAN.
LONDON: RICHARD BENTLEY, NEW BURLINGTON STREET. Publisher in Ordinary to Her Majesty. 1848.
LONDON: Printed by Schulze & Co., 13, Poland Street.
My dear Sir,
To you, in testimony of my friendship, I inscribe this little Volume.
On a pleasant morning in May last, I awoke from a piscatorial dream, haunted by the idea, that I must spend a portion of the approaching summer in the indulgence of my passion for angling. Relinquishing my editorial labours for a time, I performed a pilgrimage, which has resulted in the production of this Volume. I hope it may entertain those of my friends and the public, who have heretofore received my literary efforts with favour. The work will be found to contain a record of Adventures in the Valleys of the Hudson, St. Lawrence and St. John, and along some of the rivers of New England. Truly your friend, Charles Lanman.
NEW-YORK, 1847.
The Catskill Mountains—South Peak Mountain—A thunder storm—Midnight on the Mountains—Sunrise—Plauterkill Clove—Peter Hummel—Trout fishing—Stony Clove—The Kauterskill Fall—The Mountain House—The Mountain Lake.
Plauterkill Clove. May.
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, every body 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 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 men. Looking at them from the Hudson, the eye is attracted by two deep hollows, which are called “Cloves.”