ich clombe the mountain, making the arched woods resound to many a
jovial catch or merry hunting chorus.

Mounted sublime on an arm-chair lashed to the forepart of the pig-box,
sat Timothy in state--his legs well muffled in a noble scarlet-fringed
buffalo skin, and his body encased in his livery top-coat--the setters
and the spaniels crouching most meekly at his feet, and the two noble
bucks--the fellow on whose steaks we had already made an inroad, having
been left as fat Tom's portion--securely corded down upon a pile of
straw, with their sublime and antlered crests drooping all spiritless
and humble over the backboard, toward the frozen soil which crashed and
rattled under the ponderous hoofs of the magnificent roan horse--Tom's
special favorite--which, though full seventeen hands high, and heavy in
proportion; yet showing a good strain of blood, trotted away with his
huge load at full ten miles an hour.

Plunging into the deep recesses of the Greenwoods, hill after hill we
scaled, a toilsome length of stony steep ascents, almost precipitous,
until we reached the back-bone of the mountain ridge--a rugged, bare,
sharp edge of granite rock, without a particle of soil upon it, diving
down at an angle not much less than forty-five degrees into a deep
ravine, through which thundered and roared a flashing torrent. This
fearful descent overpast, and that in perfect safety, we rolled merrily
away down hill, till we reached Colonel Beam's tavern, a neat,
low-browed, Dutch, stone farmhouse, situate in an angle scooped out of a
green hill-side, with half a dozen tall and shadowy elms before it--a
bright crystal stream purling along into the horse-trough through a
miniature aqueduct of hollowed logs, and a clear cold spring in front of
it, with half a score of fat and lazy trout floating in its transparent
waters.

A hearty welcome, and a no less hearty meal having been here encountered
and despatched, we rattled off again, through laden orchards and rich
meadows; passed the confluence of the three bright rivers which issue
from their three mountain gorges, to form, by their junction, the
fairest of New Jersey's rivers, the broad Passaic; reached the small
village noted for rum-drinking and quarter racing--high Pompton--thence
by the Preakness mountain, and Mose Canouze's tavern--whereat, in honor
of Tom's friend, a worthy of the self-same kidney with himself, we
paused awhile--to Paterson, the filthiest town, situate on one o