these walls is not more surprising than the
size of some of the blocks comprising them. The very Titans seemed to
have been at work. That so small an army as the first settlers must
needs have been, should have taken such wonderful pains to enclose so
ungrateful a soil; that they should have accomplished such herculean
undertakings with so slight prospect of reward; this is a consideration
which gives us a significant hint of the temper of the men of the
Revolutionary era.

Nor could a fitter country be found for the birthplace of the devoted
patriot, Israel Potter.

To this day the best stone-wall builders, as the best wood-choppers,
come from those solitary mountain towns; a tall, athletic, and hardy
race, unerring with the axe as the Indian with the tomahawk; at
stone-rolling, patient as Sisyphus, powerful as Samson.

In fine clear June days, the bloom of these mountains is beyond
expression delightful. Last visiting these heights ere she vanishes,
Spring, like the sunset, flings her sweetest charms upon them. Each tuft
of upland grass is musked like a bouquet with perfume. The balmy breeze
swings to and fro like a censer. On one side the eye follows for the
space of an eagle's flight, the serpentine mountain chains, southwards
from the great purple dome of Taconic--the St. Peter's of these
hills--northwards to the twin summits of Saddleback, which is the
two-steepled natural cathedral of Berkshire; while low down to the west
the Housatonie winds on in her watery labyrinth, through charming
meadows basking in the reflected rays from the hill-sides. At this
season the beauty of every thing around you populates the loneliness of
your way. You would not have the country more settled if you could.
Content to drink in such loveliness at all your senses, the heart
desires no company but Nature.

With what rapture you behold, hovering over some vast hollow of the
hills, or slowly drifting at an immense height over the far sunken
Housatonie valley, some lordly eagle, who in unshared exaltation looks
down equally upon plain and mountain. Or you behold a hawk sallying from
some crag, like a Rhenish baron of old from his pinnacled castle, and
darting down towards the river for his prey. Or perhaps, lazily gliding
about in the zenith, this ruffian fowl is suddenly beset by a crow, who
with stubborn audacity pecks at him, and, spite of all his bravery,
finally persecutes him back to his stronghold. The otherwise dauntless
ba