United States or Kazakhstan ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
They had come from far up the Ramapo river; beyond Suffern. And the long downstream jaunt had made them hungry. Wherefore, as they reached mid-lakes they began to inspect the wooded shores for an attractive luncheon-site. And they found what they sought. A half-mile to southward, a gently rolling point of land pushed out into the lake. It was smooth-shaven and emerald-bright.
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.
New York City, for instance, goes forty miles up into the hills to the great Croton reservoir for its water supply; and as this is proving insufficient, is preparing to go ninety-five miles up into the Ramapo Hills to secure control of a whole country-side for a permanent source of supply.
No, nothing except birds and trees, water-lilies and such like happenings, ever happens along the old canal; and our nearest to a human event was our meeting with a lonely, melancholy man, sitting near a moss-grown water-wheel, smoking a corn-cob pipe, and gazing wistfully across at the Ramapo Hills, over which great sunlit clouds were billowing and casting slow-moving shadows.
Hunted they from Tenavlieon to where the Hudson presses To the base of traprocks high; through Moonachie's damp recesses; Down as far as Bergen Hill; by the Ramapo and Drochy, Overproek and Pellum Kill meadows flat and hilltops rocky Till at last the brothers stood where the road from New Barbadoes, At the English Neighborhood, slants toward the Palisadoes; Still to find the prey they sought left no sign for hunter eager: Followed steady, not yet caught, was the skulking, fox-like leaguer Jack, the Regular.
"They are doubling on their tracks, now, and making for the Ramapo River in the hope of throwing the dogs off the scent. That's the game. It's an old trick." We came, sure enough, in a few minutes to the river. That had indeed been their objective point. Cherry was baffled. We stuck close to Dillon, after our previous experience, as we stopped to talk over hastily what to do.
Although I felt discouraged on our return to the city, the morning following our exciting adventure at the mysterious house in the Ramapo valley, Garrick, who never let anything ruffle him long, seemed quite cheerful. "Cheer up, Tom," he encouraged. "We are on the home stretch now." "Perhaps if they don't beat us to the tape," I answered disconsolately. "What are you going to do next?"
For a half mile or so of Link's homeward pilgrimage before he turned off into the grass-grown, rutted hill trail which led to his farm his way led along a spur of the state road which linked New York City with the Ramapo hill country.
The actual drowning of New York could not happen until the Hudson and the East River should become so swollen that the water would stand above the level of the highest buildings, and turn the whole region round about, as far as the Orange hills, the Ramapo Mountains, the Highlands, and the Housatonic hills, into an inland sea.
The Marquis de Chastellux, who visited his camp on the Ramapo River, has left a delightful description of this visit in which he spoke of the fine appearance of the troops as their young commander had drawn them up on a height near his own station. Here, said Chastellux, Lafayette received his guest with more pride than if he had been entertaining at his estates in Auvergne.