'The winding road crossed and re-crossed the stream. It was bordered by lofty summits, and led through many a clearing and past many a farmhouse. At one of these we met a man hiving swarms of bees. He lived below, and told us we were eight miles from Cairo, a town near the eastern foot of the Catskills. The friendly mistress of the cottage informed us that the pass at the summit was only three miles distant, and we hence concluded to return home by descending the eastern slope of the mountains, crossing the lower portion of the intervening spur, and reascending by the Mountain House road. Mountain miles are proverbial for their length, and so we found them, as we wandered on until civilization and the last good piece of road was left behind at a large steam sawmill. Our way now skirted the near hills, and passed through an upland bog of apparently interminable width. Fortunately, the last few weeks had been comparatively dry, and hence it was possible to make one's way by springing from clump to clump of rank grass, or more frequently from hurdle to hurdle, as long stretches of half-decayed branches covered the partially hidden quagmire. The air had become close, the sun hot; a dense, low growth of wood shut in the devious way; desolation and neglect marked the environs, and we were by no means sure we were on the right road. Even Lucy began to doubt the prudence and final success of the expedition. A very suspicious circumstance was the fact that this road, by which we expected to cross the mountain top, had lately made very little of an ascent.
'At length a fresh, cool breeze began to fan our cheeks, such a breeze as is never felt except upon mountain heights, and steep piles of rock rose upon our left. The road had shortly before become hard and dry, and, as it now commenced to descend, we could not doubt the summit of the pass was reached. Fine trees, however, so closely hemmed us in that we could see nothing beyond, and not until we were some distance down, did we come to an opening whence the lower country was visible, with the Berkshire hills, the river, the city of Hudson directly opposite, and Kiskatom Round Top lying to our right. We exchanged glances, for we knew something of the distance signified by this situation of landmarks. However, there was nothing to be done except to press on, which we did, down a road at first enchanting, but finally detestable, where it had been neglected, and had become the rocky bed of a stream then dry. We could fancy it in the spring, at the melting of the snows, with the wild water dashing down the steep pathway, and the white foam gleaming and glittering, as a newly risen Undine, in the sight of the astonished, far-off beholders.