by a
quiet sarcasm, the full-length nose below was probably suggested.

The mountain opposite Cro' Nest is "Bull Hill," or more classically,
"Mt. Taurus." It is said that there was formerly a wild bull in these
mountains, which had failed to win the respect and confidence of the
inhabitants, so the mountaineers organized a hunt and drove him over
the hill, whose name stands a monument to his exit. The point at the
foot of "Mount Taurus" is known as "Little Stony Point."

The Highlands now trend off to the northeast, and we see North Beacon,
or Grand Sachem Mountain, and Old Beacon about half a mile to the
north. The mountains were relit with beacon-fires in 1883, in honor of
the centennials of Fishkill and Newburgh, and were plainly seen sixty
miles distant.

This section was known by the Indians as "Wequehache," or, "the Hill
Country," and the entire range was called by the Indians "the endless
hills," a name not inappropriate to this mountain bulwark reaching
from New England to the Carolinas. As pictured in our "Long Drama,"
given at the Newburgh centennial of the disbanding of the American
Army,

That ridge along our eastern coast,
From Carolina to the Sound,
Opposed its front to Britain's host,
And heroes at each pass were found:

A vast primeval palisade,
With bastions bold and wooded crest,
A bulwark strong by nature made
To guard the valley of the west.

Along its heights the beacons gleamed,
It formed the nation's battle-line,
Firm as the rocks and cliffs where dreamed
The soldier-seers of Palestine.

It was also believed by the Indians that, in ancient days, "before the
Hudson poured its waters from the lakes, the Highlands formed one vast
prison, within whose rocky bosom the omnipotent Manitou confined
the rebellious spirits who repined at his control. Here, bound in
adamantine chains, or jammed in rifted pines, or crushed by ponderous
rocks, they groaned for many an age. At length the conquering Hudson,
in its career toward the ocean, burst open their prison-house, rolling
its tide triumphantly through the stupendous ruins."

* * *

The Highlands are here moulded in all manner of heights and
hollows; sometimes reaching up abruptly to twelve or fifteen
hundred feet, and again stretching away in long gorges and gentle
declivities.

_Susan Warner._

* * *

=Pollopel's Island=, east of the steamer's route, was once regard