amed "Cranberry
Summit," was sublime.
"Willis was particularly struck," said the landlord of the Glades
Hotel, "with a quality of whisky we had hereabouts at the time of his
visit. In those days, before the 'revenue,' an article of rich corn
whisky was made in small quantities by these Maryland farmers. Mr.
Willis found it agree with him particularly well, for it's as pure as
water, and slips through your teeth like flaxseed tea. I explained to
him how it gained in quality by being kept a few years, becoming
like noble old brandy. Mr. Willis was fired with the idea, and took a
barrel along home with him, in the ambitious intention of ripening it.
In less than six months," pursued the Boniface with a humorous twinkle
in his eyes, "he sent for another barrel."
The region where we now find ourselves among these mountain-tops is
known as the Glades--a range of elevated plateaux marked with all the
signs of a high latitude, but flat enough to be spread with occasional
patches of discouraged farms. The streams make their way into the
Youghiogheny, and so into the Ohio and Gulf of Mexico, for we have
mounted the great watershed, and have long ago crossed both branches
of the sun-seeking Potomac! We are in a region that particularly
justifies the claim of the locomotive to be the great discoverer of
hidden retreats, for never will you come upon a place more obviously
disconcerted at being found out. The screams of the whistle day by day
have inserted no modern ideas into this mountain-cranium, which, like
Lord John Russell's, must be trepanned before it can be enlightened.
The Glades are sacred to deer, bears, trout. But the fatal rails guide
to them an unceasing procession of staring citizens, and they are
filled in the fine season with visitors from Cincinnati and Baltimore.
For the comfort of these we find established in the Glades two
dissimilar hotels.
The first hostelry is the Deer Park Hotel, just finished, and
really admirable in accommodations. It is a large and very tasteful
structure, with the general air of a watering-place sojourn of the
highest type--a civilized-looking fountain playing, and the familiar
thunder of the bowling-alley forming bass to the click of the
billiard-room. Here, as in Cumberland, we find an artificial
forwardness of the dinner-table in the midst of the most unpromising
circumstances. The daintiest meats and cates are served by the deftest
waiters. The fact is, the hotel is owned by t
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