IT looks to be a perilous enterprise, to descend the Catskills. You feel, as you commence the 'facilis descensus,' (what an unhackneyed phrase, to be sure!) very much the sort of sensation probably experienced by Parachute Cocking, whose end was so shocking. The wheels of the coach are shod with the preparation of iron slippers, which are essential to a hold-up; and as you bowl and grate along, with wilderness-chasms and a brawling stream mayhap on one hand, and horrid masses of stone seemingly ready to tumble upon you on the other--the far plain stretching like the sea beneath you, in the mists of the morning--your emotions are _fidgetty_. You are not afraid--not you, indeed! Catch you at such folly! No; but you wish most devoutly that you were some nine miles down, notwithstanding--and are looking eagerly for that consummation. * * * * * WE paused just long enough at the base of the mountain, to water the cattle, and hear a bit of choice grammar from the landlord; a burly, big individual, 'careless of the objective case,' and studious of ease, in bags of tow-cloth, (trowsers by courtesy,) and a roundabout of the same material; the knees of the unmentionables apparently greened by kneeling humbly at the lactiferous udder of his only cow, day by day. He addressed 'the gentleman that driv' us down:' 'Well, Josh--I seen them _rackets_!' 'Wa'n't they almighty bright?' was the inquisitive reply. This short colloquy had reference to a train of fire-works which were set off the evening before at the Mountain-House--long snaky trails of light, flashing in their zig-zag course through the darkness. It was beautiful to see those fiëry sentences written fitfully on the sky, fading one by one, like some Hebrew character--some Nebuchadnezzar scroll--in the dark profound, and showing, as the rocket fell and faded, that beneath the lowest deep to which it descended, there was one yet lower still, to which it swept 'plumb-down, a shower of fire.' We presently rolled away, and were soon drawn up in front of the Hudson and the horse-boat, at the landing. The same unfortunate animals were peering forth from that aquatic vehicle; one of them dropping his hairy lip, with a melancholy expression, and the other strenuously endeavoring to remove a wisp of straw which had found a lodgment on his nose. The effort, however, was vain; his physical energies sank under the task; he gave it up, and was soon under way for the opposite shore, with his four-legged fellow traveller, and three bipeds, who were smoking segars. * * * * *