And the old wilderness is changed
To cultured vale and hill;
And the circuit of its mountains
An empire’s numbers fill!
Ephraim Peabody.
THE TWO LAKES ON THE CATSKILLS.
AT this elevation you may wear woollen, and sleep under blankets in midsummer; and that is a pleasant temperature where much hard work is to be done in the way of pleasure-hunting. No place is so agreeable as Catskill after one has been parboiled in the city. New York is at the other end of that long thread of a river, running away south from the base of the mountain; and you may change your climate in so brief a transit, that the most enslaved broker in Wall Street may have half his home on Catskill. The cool woods, the small silver lakes, the falls, the mountain-tops, are all delicious haunts for the idler-away of the hot months; and to the credit of our taste, it may be said they are fully improved. Catskill is a “resort.”