Our party, on this occasion, consisted of three, Peter Hummel, a bark-gatherer, and myself. I had chosen these fellows for the expedition, because of their friendship for me and their willingness to go, and I resolved to give them a “treat” at the “Grand Hotel,” which the natives of this region look upon as a kind of paradise. The reader is no doubt aware, that the Mountain House is an establishment vieing in its style of accommodation with the best of hotels.
Between it and the Hudson there is, during the summer, a semi-daily line of stages; and it is the transient resort of thousands, who visit it for the novelty of its situation, as well as for the surrounding scenery. The edifice itself stands on a cliff, within a few feet of the edge, and commands a prospect extending from Long Island Sound to the White Mountains. The first time I visited the spot, I spent half the night at my bed-room window, watching the fantastic performances of a thunder-storm far below me, which made the building tremble like a ship upon a reef, while the sky above was cloudless, and studded with stars. Between this spot and South Peak, “there’s the High Peak and the Round Top which lay back, like a father and mother among their children, seeing they are far above all the other hills.”
But to proceed. Coarsely and comically dressed as we were, we made a very unique appearance as we paraded into the office of the hotel. I met a few acquaintances there, to whom I introduced my comrades; and in a short time each one was spinning a mountain legend to a crowd of delighted listeners. In due time, I ushered them into the dining-hall, where a scene was enacted which can be better imagined than described; the fellows were completely out of their element, and it was laughable in the extreme to see them stare, and hear them talk, as the servants bountifully helped them to the turtle-soup, ice-cream, charlotte-russe, and other fashionable dainties.
About the middle of the afternoon we commenced descending the beautiful mountain road leading towards the Hudson. In the morning there had been a heavy shower, and a thousand happy rills attended us with a song. A delightful nook on this road is pointed out as the identical spot where Rip Van Winkle slept away a score of his life. I reached home in time to spend the twilight hour in my own room, musing upon the much-loved mountains. I had but one companion, and that was a whip-poor-will, which nightly comes to my window-sill, as if to tell me a tale of its love, or of the woods and solitary wilderness.