incredulous summer visitors is great enough to make it necessary to turn on the water, to show that the falls are still active. There is some very pretty scenery in the region of Kaaterskill Clove, notably Hains’ Falls, Fawn-Leap Falls and High Rocks, but a fee is charged at every point of interest, and the visitor is so harrowed by the showmen of nature that he is in no disposition to appreciate the view which he pays to see, and is almost certain to leave the Catskills with a bad impression—even worse than the mountains deserve. It was with such feelings that we set out by rail for Kingston, and there took boat down the Hudson River for New York, but stopped for a while at West Point en route. [Illustration: LOOKING NORTH FROM WEST POINT, NEW YORK.] The scenery about West Point is of almost matchless grandeur, and every consideration is present to confirm the wisdom of the Congress of 1812 in establishing a military training-school at this point. The fort on the river-shore is in a position to command the approaches north and south, while at the foot of the highlands is a level stretch, as though prepared by nature for a Champ des Mars, or parade-ground. The hills rise abruptly from the rear of the training-plaza, and from their summits an inspiring view is to be had. Sweeping the horizon, we clearly discern the Break-Neck, Crow’s Nest, and Storm King Mountains, with blue valleys stretching away between, and the majestic Hudson washing the feet of these and many other noble hills. The academy, besides being scenically and advantageously situated, is in a very realm of romance, around which cluster many memories of the greatest writers of fiction that our country has the honor of claiming. It was the Crow’s Nest that gave the inspiration to Joseph Rodman Drake for his exquisite poem entitled the “Culprit Fay,” so charmingly realistic that the fairies of his verse still exist in fancy, just as the mountain spirits who tricked Rip Van Winkle still haunt the deep forests of the Catskills and play at nine-pins on the peak that overlooks the faded village of Falling Water. Near Cold Spring, which is in this same historic land, was “Undercliff,” the home of George P. Morris, and where he wrote that patriotic and moving tribute to a sheltering tree, the figure of our American Union, “Woodman, Spare that Tree.” So was “Idlewild,” the villa of N. P. Willis, close-by, and hereabout also Washington Irving spent much of his time gathering traditions from descendants of the old Dutch colonists for his imperishable “Sketch Book” tales. But history as indelibly fixes West Point in the minds of Americans as the stories of famous fiction- writers, for the site of the training-school was, in Revolutionary times, occupied by Fort Putnam, erected under the direction of Kosciuszko; and it was at West Point that Benedict Arnold consummated his traitorous deal with Major Andre, to deliver that post into the hands of the British.