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62  Juvenile Letters.

Fill'd with the praife of Him who gives the light,
And draws the fable curtains of the night.

Let placid flumbers footh each weary mind,
At morn to wake more heavenly, more refin'd;
So fhall the labours of the day begin,
More pure, more guarded from the fnares of fin.
                   
LETTER XXIII.

From Mafter RICHARD RAMBLER to Mafter JOHN JOURNALIST.
Mount Wafhington.

DEAR JACK,

WHERE do you think I am now? Why, not fo far off but I believe I could fee you with a good telescope, though the diftance is feventy miles. I am on the very pinnacle of that high mountain, which fo much excited your admiration, on your journey from New-Haven to Albany. In paffing by it, you would little fufpect, what may be found on its top. In the firft place, here are fifty families, fcattered along through an extent of feven or eight miles or more. Some of thefe mountaineers


Juvenile Letters.  63
          
eers are very poor, fupporting themfelves in a great meafure by gathering hurtle-berries, which grow in abundance on the fummits, and felling them to the inhabitants below. Here, it may properly be faid, are "mountains piled on mountains;" the fummits rifing one above another in a variety of fhapes. Thefe, of courfe, form vallies between; and in thefe vallies the inhabitants live. I cannot defcribe to you the grandeur of this boundlefs profpect. On the weft, the Catfkill mountains rear their majeftic heads. On the north, the mountains of Vermont feem to prop the fkies. The fummit where I now ftand is often enveloped in clouds. If you have read Brydone's defcription of Mount Aetna in Sicily, you may form a better idea of this, than my pen is capable of giving you.

Upon this mountain are alfo four or five ponds; fome of which are more than a mile over, and well fupplied with fifh. Yefterday I caught a trout in one of them which weighed three pounds.

The road up the mountain is very fteep and crooked.

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