YOUNG PEOPLE AT CHAUTAUQUA.
A BOY'S LETTER.
Dear Tom,—I last saw you waving your cap as our train rolled out of the station. That night I slept on a shelf in the sleeping-car, and the next morning we got breakfast at Hornellsville; and it was a good one, I tell you. About noon we got off the cars at Jamestown, and after dinner rode over the hill in a stage, and came to what looked like a narrow river winding among the trees.
This they said was the outlet of Chautauqua Lake. You would suppose that the water runs into Lake Erie, which is only seven miles away from Lake Chautauqua. But instead it goes into the Ohio River, and then down the Mississippi into the Gulf of Mexico.
We went on board a steamboat three stories high, with a big paddle-box fastened on the stern, and steamed up the outlet for about three miles through the wildest swamp I ever saw, until all at once the lake opened before us. I thought that we would be at Chautauqua in a few minutes, but the old stern-wheel kept pushing us on for a couple of hours. At last I began to catch glimpses of cottages among the trees. Then we drew up to a little wharf, and almost everybody went ashore. We followed the crowd through the gate, and so we found ourselves at Chautauqua.
The first thing that I saw was a park, with flowers and fountains and statues under the great trees. Then I came upon the model of a city, with all its houses and churches. This was Jerusalem. A man was explaining it to a crowd of people, and pointing out the places with a long pole. There is an Oriental house, and a park laid out to look like Palestine, with the top of Mount Hermon white-washed, and the Jordan with real water. A frog winked his eye at me, and then jumped into the Dead Sea. (That makes poetry, don't it?)