Thank you for checking out this book by Theophania Publishing. We appreciate your business and look forward to serving you soon. We have thousands of titles available, and we invite you to search for us by name, contact us via our website, or download our most recent catalogues. I commence this chapter in the language of Leather-Stocking: "You know the Catskills, lad, for you must have seen them on your left, as you followed the river up from York, looking as blue as a piece of clear sky, and holding the clouds on their tops, as the smoke curls over the head of an Indian chief at a council-fire." Yes, every body is acquainted with the names of these mountains, but few with their peculiarities of scenery. They aresituated about eight miles from the Hudson, rise to an average elevation of thirty-five hundred feet, and running in a straight line from north to south, cover a space of some twenty-five miles. The fertile valley on the east is as beautiful as heart could desire; it is watered by the Kauterskill, Plauterkill and Esopus Creeks, inhabited by a sturdy Dutch yeomanry, and is the agricultural mother of Catskill, Saugerties and Kingston. The upland on the west, for about forty miles, is rugged, dreary, and thinly settled; but the winding valley of Schoharie beyond, is possessed of many charms peculiarly American. The mountains themselves are covered with dense forests, abounding in cliffs and waterfalls, and for the most part untrodden by the footsteps of men. Looking at them from the Hudson, the eye is attracted by two deep hollows, which are called "Cloves."