About
six miles from the point where we had entered them we scaled the highest
ridge of the hills, by three almost precipitous zigzags, the topmost
ledge paved by a stratum of broken shaley limestone; and, passing at
once from the forest into well cultivated fields, came on a new and
lovelier prospect--a narrow deep vale scarce a mile in breadth--scooped,
as it were, out of the mighty mountains which embosomed it on every
side--in the highest state of culture, with rich orchards, and deep
meadows, and brown stubbles, whereon the shocks of maize stood fair and
frequent; and westward of the road, which, diving down obliquely to the
bottom, loses itself in the woods of the opposite hill-side, and only
becomes visible again when it emerges to cross over the next summit--the
loveliest sheet of water my eyes has ever seen, varying from half a mile
to a mile in breadth, and about five miles long, with shores indented
deeply with the capes and promontories of the wood-clothed hills, which
sink abruptly to its very margin.
"That is the Greenwood Lake, Frank, called by the monsters here Long
Pond!--'the fiends receive their souls therefor,' as Walter Scott says--
in my mind prettier than Lake George by far, though known to few except
chance sportsmen like myself! Full of fish, perch of a pound in weight,
and yellow bass in the deep waters, and a good sprinkling of trout,
towards this end! Ellis Ketchum killed a five-pounder there this spring!
and heaps of summer-duck, the loveliest in plumage of the genus, and the
best too, me judice, excepting only the inimitable canvass-back.
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