“A roving mineralogist tasted the waters of Saratoga, and, like the work of a lath-and-plaster Aladdin, up sprung a thriving village around the fountain’s lip; and hotels, tin-tumblers, and apothecaries, multiplied in the usual proportion to each other, but out of all precedent with every thing else for rapidity. Libraries, newspapers, churches, livery-stables, and lawyers, followed in their train; and it was soon established, from the plains of Abraham to the Savannahs of Alabama, that no person of fashionable taste or broken constitution could exist through the months of July and August without a visit to the chalybeate springs and populous village of Saratoga. It contained seven thousand inhabitants before Herr Barhydt, living in his forest seclusion only four miles off, became aware of its existence. A pair of loons, philandering about the forest on horseback, popped in upon him one June morning, and thenceforth there was no rest for the soul of the Dutchman. Everybody rode down to eat his trout, and make love in the dark shades of his mirrored lagoon; and, at last, in self-defence, he added a room or two to his shanty, enclosed his cabbage-garden, and set a price on his trout dinners. The traveller, now-a-days, who has not dined at Barhydt’s, with his own champagne cold from the tarn, and the white-headed old settler ‘gargling’ Dutch about the house in his maniform vocation of cook, ostler, and waiter, may as well not have seen Niagara.” [Illustration] FAIR MOUNT GARDENS, PHILADELPHIA. * * * * * The walks here, though not extensive, are delightful, from the views they command over the Schuylkill. In the early days of William Penn, this side of the river was covered by a thick wood; and so late as Franklin’s time, (who “frequented it,” says the annalist, “with his companions, Osborne, Watson, and Ralph,”) the banks afforded a secluded and rural retreat, much resorted to by swimmers. The name of Schuylkill, given it by the Dutch, is said to express “Hidden River,” as its mouth is not visible in ascending the Delaware. The Indians called it by a name, meaning “The Mother;” and a small branch of the Schuylkill, higher up, called “Maiden Creek,” was named by them, _Ontelaunee_, meaning “the little daughter of a great mother.”