To guard the valley of the west.
Along its heights the beacons gleamed,
It formed the nation's battle-line,
Firm as the rocks and cliffs where dreamed
The soldier-seers of Palestine.
It was also believed by the Indians that, in ancient days, "before the Hudson poured its waters from the lakes, the Highlands formed one vast prison, within whose rocky bosom the omnipotent Manitou confined the rebellious spirits who repined at his control. Here, bound in adamantine chains, or jammed in rifted pines, or crushed by ponderous rocks, they groaned for many an age. At length the conquering Hudson, in its career toward the ocean, burst open their prison-house, rolling its tide triumphantly through the stupendous ruins."
The Highlands are here moulded in all manner of
heights and hollows; sometimes reaching up abruptly to
twelve or fifteen hundred feet, and again stretching