The
"twenty years ago" is too keenly visible to the mind's eye in every
line. Of the persons mentioned in its pages, more than one have passed
away from our world forever; and even the natural features of rock,
wood, and river, in other countries so vastly more enduring than their
perishable owners, have been so much altered by the march of
improvement, Heaven save the mark! that the traveler up the Erie
railroad, will certainly not recognize in the description of the vale of
Ramapo, the hill-sides all denuded of their leafy honors, the bright
streams dammed by unsightly mounds and changed into foul stagnant pools,
the snug country tavern deserted for a huge hideous barn-like depot, and
all the lovely sights and sweet harmonies of nature defaced and drowned
by the deformities consequent on a railroad, by the disgusting roar and
screech of the steam-engine. One word to the wise! Let no man be deluded
by the following pages, into the setting forth for Warwick now in search
of sporting. These things are strictly as they were twenty years ago! Mr.
Seward, in his zeal for the improvement of Chatauque and Cattaraugus, has
certainly destroyed the cock-shooting of Orange county.
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