A GLANCE AT THE WATERING PLACES.
THE YOUNG MARRIED GENTLEMAN WHO "COULD NOT POSSIBLY GO TO THE SPRINGS."
All the gay world of the cities, and even of the villages and country homes, who can do so, by the first of August are "going," or "gone," as Mr. John Keese says of a last invoice, to the watering places, and other summer resorts, which serve as fairs for the disposal of valueless time and "remainders" of marriageable daughters. With the crowds intent on speculation are a few invalids, a few students of human nature, and the common proportion of mere lookers-on, who have no purpose but to be amused. Times have changed, manners have changed, since Paulding gave us his Mirror for Travellers, though Saratoga still maintains the ascendency she was then acquiring, and for certain inalienable natural advantages is likely to do so for a part at least of every season.
New-York is the grand rendezvous: once settled in our hotels, the splendid Astor, the comfortable American, the busy Irving, the gay New-York, or the quiet Union Place or Clarendon, the stranger has little desire to go further, until the last and imperative demands of Fashion compel him to abandon the study of those noble institutions we described in the last International, and to forego the observation of those great public works in which the energy of our rich men has flowered, or those appointments of Providence which render New-York a rival of Dublin, Naples, or Constantinople, in scenic magnificence.
Many indeed who come from distant parts of the country, linger all summer in the vicinity of the city, in the hottest days quitting Broadway for a sail or drive, to the Bath House, Rockaway, Coney Island, New Brighton, Long Branch, or Fort Hamilton, where they dine, or perhaps stay over night. At Fort Hamilton, indeed, Mr. Clapp is apt to keep those who venture into his hotel, with its luxurious tables, pleasant rooms, cool breezes from the ocean, and fair sights in all directions, for a much longer time; and every one of these places, in the hot months, has attractions that would make a visitor at the Spas of France, Germany, or Italy, could he wake in them, think he had eluded the watchful guard St. Peter keeps at the gateway of another retirement, to the which, it may be feared, the gay world has far less anxiety to go.
FORT HAMILTON HOUSE, LONG ISLAND.
PROPOSED SUMMER HOTEL AT THE HIGHLANDS OF NEVERSINK.
Ascending the Hudson, from the social metropolis of this continent, to which all "capitals" of states or nations, from Patagonia to Greenland, are in some way subject and tributary, the traveller finds the palace in which he rides, continually near embowered pavilions for the public, and clusters of private residences, which but add to their enjoyableness. Cozzens's Hotel at West Point, is perhaps as well known as any house of the same class in the world, and its picturesque situation, as well as the admirable manner in which it is kept, will preserve for it a place in the list of favorite resorts. The Catskill Mountain House, in the midst of grand and peculiar scenery, on the verge of a rock two thousand and five hundred feet above the Hudson—seen with its various fleets at a distance from the long colonnade—is thronged even more than West Point. There are other pleasant houses on the river, and many turn from its various points to visit newer or less crowded places than Saratoga along the lines of the western railroads, as Trenton Falls, Sharon Springs, or Avon, or further still, the towns by the borders of the great lakes.
CATSKILL MOUNTAIN HOUSE.
HOTEL AT TRENTON FALLS.
Saratoga is now for several weeks the gayest scene of all. At the United States Hotel, with its fine grounds, are the leaders of fashion; at Congress Hall, with its clean and quiet rooms and unsurpassed cuisine, are representatives of the substantial families that have had grandfathers, and in the dozen or twenty smaller houses about the village are "all sorts and conditions of men," and eke of women. With drives, dinners, flirtations, drinking of drinks, and, once in a long while, imbibitions of a little congress water, all goes merry as a marriage bell—except with ladies of uncertain ages who are disappointed of that blessed music—until the Grand Ball gives signal for departure to other places.
SARATOGA SPRINGS.
THE NOTCH HOUSE, WHITE MOUNTAINS.
From Saratoga parties go northward to Lake George, (for which region, of the most romantic beauty, they should be prepared by a perusal of Dudley Bean's admirable sketch of its revolutionary history;) and down the Champlain toward Montreal, whence they return by way of the Ontario and Niagara Falls (where our engraver Orr's Pictorial Guide Book is indispensable to the best enjoyment), or go through the glorious hills of northern Vermont and New Hampshire to the White Mountains. All the last grand region has been most truthfully and effectively represented in a small folio volume of drawings from nature, by Isaac Sprague, described by William Oakes, and published in Boston by Crosby & Nichols. We commend the book to summer tourists.
NIAGARA FALLS.
OCEAN HOUSE, NEWPORT.
A considerable proportion of the guests who are at Saratoga in the earlier part of the season, proceed to Newport in time for the Fancy Ball which every year closes the campaign there. Newport increases in attractions. Its historical associations, fine atmosphere, beautiful position, and facilities for sea-bathing, fishing, sailing, riding, and other amusements, are continually drawing to its neighborhood new families, whose cottages add much to the beauty of the town, as they themselves to the pleasantness of its society; and for transient visitors no place in the world has better hotels or boarding-houses.
WHITE SULPHUR SPRINGS, VIRGINIA.
After the season closes at Newport, and from her Ocean House the last unwilling traveller has taken his way, strewn with regrets, many linger at the more quiet summer haunts scattered through New-England and New-York, particularly at the rural and luxurious hotel of Lebanon—a country palace which a king might covet—filled always with good society; or go southward to the Virginia Springs, which have many attractions peculiar to themselves, and with their unique pastimes, their tournaments, field sports, &c., happily vary a summer's life commenced at the more northern watering places.
COLUMBIA HALL, LEBANON SPRINGS.
MOULTRIE HOUSE, SULLIVAN'S ISLAND, NEAR CHARLESTON.
The South Carolinians have this year seceded from the northern resorts, and those who do not go from Charleston to the up-country or to Georgia, may well be content with Captain Payne's spacious and splendid hotel on Sullivan's Island—the coolest and most agreeable place by the seaside we have visited, north or south, for years. From the south, and indeed from all parts of the country, parties go more and more every year to the Mammoth Cave, (of which we have in store a particular and profusely illustrated account), and up the great rivers and lakes of the west, all along which, first-class hotels, steamboats, &c., render travel as easy and delightful as on the old summer routes in the middle and eastern states.
—Thus we have taken our readers—some of whom haply cannot this season go by other ways—the circuit of the principal scenes of enjoyment to which the denizens of the hot cities are intent to escape through July, August, and September. If any have till this time hesitated where to go, possibly we have aided them to an election: certainly, we have led them cheaply along the fashionable tour.
MAMMOTH CAVE HOTEL.
