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Strangely enough the altitude of the mountains at the southern portal of the Highlands has been greatly overrated. The formerly accepted height of Anthony's Nose has been reduced by the Geological Survey from 1,228 feet to 900. It has, however, an illustrious christening, and according to various historians several godfathers. One says it was named after St. Anthony the Great, the first institutor of monastic life, born A.D. 251, at Coma, in Heraclea, a town in Upper Egypt. Irving's humorous account is, however, quite as probable that it was derived from the nose of Antony Van Corlear, the illustrious trumpeter of Peter Stuyvesant. "Now thus it happened that bright and early in the morning the good Antony, having washed his burly visage, was leaning over the quarter-railing of the galley, contemplating it in the glassy waves below. Just at this moment the illustrious sun, breaking in all his splendor from behind a high bluff of the Highlands, did dart one of his most potent beams full upon the refulgent nose of the sounder of brass, the reflection of which shot straightway down hissing hot into the water, and killed a mighty sturgeon that was sporting beside the vessel. When this astonishing miracle was made known to the Governor, and he tasted of the unknown fish, he marveled exceedingly; and, as a monument thereof, he gave the name of Anthony's Nose to a stout promontory in the neighborhood, and it has continued to be called Anthony's Nose ever since." It was called by the Indians "Kittatenny," a Delaware term, signifying "endless hills." The stream flowing into the river south of Anthony's Nose is known as the Brocken Kill, broken into beautiful cascades from mountain source to mouth.
The beautiful and in some places highly singular
banks of the Hudson rendered a voyage both amusing
and interesting, while the primitive manners of the inhabitants
diverted the gay and idle and pleased the
thoughtful and speculative.
Mrs. Grant of Laggan.