IN ascending the Hudson River, its eastern hill-border for many miles was the blue and distant Taghkanic range, which encloses the attractive region of Berkshire. When the Indians from the Hudson Valley climbed over those hills they found to the eastward a beautiful stream, which they called the Housatonic, the "River beyond the Mountains." This picturesque river rises in the Berkshire hills, and flowing for one hundred and fifty miles southward by a winding course through Massachusetts and Connecticut, finally empties into Long Island Sound. Berkshire is the western county of Massachusetts, a region of exquisite loveliness that has no peer in New England, covering a surface about fifty miles long, extending entirely across the State, and about twenty miles wide. Two mountain ranges bound the intermediate valley, and these, with their outcroppings, make the noted Berkshire hills that have drawn the warmest praises from the greatest American poets and authors. Longfellow, Whittier, Bryant, Hawthorne, Beecher and many others have written their song and story, which are interwoven with our best literature. It is a region of mountain peaks and lakes, of lovely vales and delicious views, and the exhilarating air and pure waters, combined with the exquisite scenery, have made it constantly attractive. Beecher early wrote that it "is yet to be as celebrated as the Lake District of England, or the hill-country of Palestine." One writer tells of the "holiday-hills lifting their wreathed and crowned heads in the resplendent days of autumn;" another describes it as "a region of hill and valley, mountain and lake, beautiful rivers and laughing brooks." Miss Sedgwick, who journeyed thither on the railroad up the Westfield Valley from the Connecticut River, wrote, "We have entered Berkshire by a road far superior to the Appian Way. On every side are rich valleys and smiling hillsides, and, deep-set in their hollows, lovely lakes sparkle like gems." Fanny Kemble long lived at Lenox, in one of the most beautiful parts of the district, and she wished to be buried in its churchyard on the hill, saying, "I will not rise to trouble anyone if they will let me sleep here. I will only ask to be permitted once in a while to raise my head and look out upon the glorious scene."