At the next resting place, which is the town of Hope, the notice of the stranger is attracted by the peculiar construction of the inn, an ancient stone edifice, unusually large for such a purpose, and having a wide hall across either end, with a flight of steps ascending to the second story in each. It was once a Moravian Church the United Brethren having originally planted that town, as a missionary post-and hence its name. The feet of Zeisberger, and Zinzendorf, of Buettner, and Rauch, have trodden that soil, and perhaps this band of self-denying apostles themselves have partaken of the sacramental cup within the very walls now affording shelter and refreshment to any that may choose to call. This, too, was within the missionary region traversed by holy Brainerd, whose principal station, while engaged as a missionary among the Indians, was at the "Forks of the Delaware," as the junction of the Delaware and Lehigh was called. And where, now, are the dusky congregations of the Aborigines to whom they preached the everlasting Gospel? Echo answers "Where?" The most war-like and noble of the New-Jersey Indians, some of whom were of the Five Nations, were planted in this section of New-Jersey when the white men came. Nor was the most sagacious among them without gloomy forebodings of what was to be their fate, after the pale faces should obtain a permanent foothold. A sachem of one of these Jersey clans, being observed to look with

solemn attention upon the great comet which appeared in October, 1680, was asked what he thought was the meaning of that prodigious and wonderful object. He answered gravely — " It signifies that we Indians shall melt away, like the snow in spring, and this country be inhabited by another people." The forest king was a prophet as well as hunter.

Five miles from Hope is Autun's ferry, over which travellers are conveyed by a flat boat; and from hence it is yet seven miles to the WaterGap, over a rugged road, but through scenery most beautifully wild and romantic. The course of the road is for the most part upon the elevated margin of the river, bright glimpses of which often appear through the trees, like tiny lakes of liquid silver, below. At length the traveller enters the gorge of the mountains-the road winding along their base, beneath their frowning peaks narrow, and often upon the very verge of a gulf, rendered more appalling by the dimness of the light, and his ignorance of its depth.

Geologists suppose the deep, winding chasm through this stupendous range of mountains to have been wrought by some mighty convulsion of nature, by which the rocks were cloven, and a passage formed for the river, the waters of which must have previously flowed through some other channel. The distance from the southern entrance of the pass to the hotel, which stands upon a subdued jutting promontory, toward its northern

termination, is only two miles, but at least an hour is generally employed in overcoming it, and at night the time seems two. The tourist, however, cannot enjoy to the full the grandeur of the scene, and the feelings of elevated though chastened delight incident to its contemplation, without studying it by night, as well as by day. Sensations of solemn grandeur are awakened by threading a chasm profound and solitary like this, in the gloom of night, studying the sharp outlines of the mountains against the sky, and occasionally catching a glimpse of a precipice beetling over the gulf, by the aid of a casual mass of light thrown against it by the fitful moon, and rendering the shadows below denser and more palpable.

Less thrilling, though not less sublime, and more beautiful, is the view of this wild Alpine landscape in the early morning of a bright day. The masses of naked rocks, on the eastern side of the river toward the southern gorge, rising to an elevation of eight hundred or a thousand feet, in some places as upright and smooth as though a creation of art, and at others spiked, ragged and frowning, are comparatively undistinguishable while obscured by the raven wing of night. But their dusky sublimity is greatly enhanced when revealed to the eye in their unclouded majesty and grandeur by the light of day. In the gray of the morning, before yet the sun has gilded their tops, standing upon the jutting point already mentioned as the site of the hotel, almost the entire

section comprising this remarkable passage is distinctly in view,-gloomy from the yet unretreating shade, and disclosing the abrupt sinuosities of the river, together with all the irregularities of rock and mountain incident to such a formation; -the mountains, for the most part, clothed with wood to their summits, and the whole scene as wild and fresh as though just from the hand of nature. Low in the gulf, at the base of the mountains, a cloud of milk-white vapor sleeps upon the bosom of the river. In the course of half an hour, with a change of temperature in the superincumbent atmosphere, the vapor begins to ascend, and a gentle current of air wafts it, as by the sweet soft breathing of morn herself, without breaking the cloud, to the western side of the river. There, for a while, it hangs in angel whiteness, like a zone of silver belting the mountain. Below, along the whole course of the gulf, the sides of the mountains are yet clad in solemn and shadowy drapery, while in bright and glorious contrast the sun having at length begun climbing the sky in good earnest, their proud crests are now glittering with golden radiance.

By climbing a mountain behind the hotel to the northwest, and looking into the chasm toward the south, a fine view of the zig-zag course of the river is afforded, down to the second turn, where its deep narrow volume is apparently brought to an end by the intervention of the buttress of rock

on the Jersey shore, already adverted to. But the best position for surveying the whole pass, and enjoying its sublimity to entire satisfaction, is from a small boat paddled along leisurely upon the river through the gulf. The maps furnish no just idea of the channel of the river through the gap the actual course resembling the sharp curvatures of an angry serpent before he is coiled, or rather, perhaps, this section of the river would be best delineated by a line like a letter. The general height of the mountain barriers is about sixteen hundred feet. They are all very precipitous; and while sailing along their bases in a skiff, their dreadful summits, some of them, seem actually to hang beetling over the head. This is especially the case with the Jersey mountains the surfaces of which, next the river, as already stated, are of bare rock, lying in regular blocks, in long ranges, as even as though hewn, and laid in stratifications, like stupendous masonry-"the masonry of God !"

Not far from the hotel, among the mountains above, is a small lake, which has been dammed at the foot, and converted into a trout-pond. By opening a sluice-gate, an artificial cataract can at any time be formed by the waters of the lake, which come rushing down a precipitous rock two or three hundred feet into the embrace of the river, as though leaping for joy at their liberation. The scene of the Water-Gap, as a whole, and as