WINTER SCENE ON THE CATTERSKILLS.

Winter Scene On The Catterskills.

Reproduced from a 7¼"x 4¾' Steel Engraving

from a Drawing by W.H. Bartlett

Winter Scene On The Catterskills is Print # 4 of 53 from

Volume II "AMERICAN SCENERY" or LAND,LAKE, AND RIVER

Published in 1839 by George Virtue, 26 Ivy Lane, London

NOTE: This is a exact copy of the original 1839 text describing the above Print, from "AMERICAN SCENERY" Volume I 

THE great proportion of evergreen trees, shrubs, and creepers, in the American mountains, make the winter scenery less dreary than would be at first imagined; but even the nakedness of the deciduous trees is not long observable. The first snow clothes them in a dress so feathery and graceful, that, like a change in the costume of beauty, it seems lovelier than the one put off; and the constant renewal of its freshness and delicacy goes on with a variety and novelty which is scarce dreamed of by those who see snow only in cities, or in countries where it is rare.

      The roads, in so mountainous a region as the Catterskills, are in winter not only difficult, but dangerous. The following extracts from a sleigh ride in a more level part of the country, will serve to give an idea of it. " As we got farther on, the new snow became deeper. The occasional farm-houses were almost wholly buried, the black chimney alone appearing above the ridgy drifts; while the tops of the doors and windows lay below the level of the trodden road, from which a descend­ing passage was cut to the threshold, like the entrance to a cave in the earth. The fences were quite invisible. The fruit-trees looked diminished to shrubberies of snow-flowers, their trunks buried under the visible surface, and their branches loaded with the still falling flakes, till they bent beneath the burden. Nothing was abroad, for nothing could stir out of the road without danger of being lost*; and we dreaded to meet even a single sleigh, lest, in turning out, the horses should ' slump' beYond their depth in the untrodden drifts. The poor animals began to labour severely, and sank at every step over their knees in the clogging and wool-like substance; and the long and cumbrous sleigh rose and fell in the deep pits like a boat in a heavy sea. It seemed impossible to get on. Twice we brought up with a terrible plunge, and stood suddenly still; for the runners had struck in too deep for the strength of the horses; and with the snow-shovels, which formed a part of the furniture of the vehicle, we dug them from their concrete beds. Our progress at last was reduced to scarce a mile in the hour, and we began to have apprehensions that our team would give out between the post-houses. Fortunately it was still warm, for the numbness of cold would have paralyzed our already flagging exertions.

       "We had reached the summit of a long hill with the greatest difficulty. The poor beasts stood panting and reeking with sweat; the runners of the sleigh were clogged with hard cakes of snow, and the air was close and dispiriting. We came to a stand­still, with the vehicle lying over almost on its side; and I stepped out to speak to the driver and look forward. It was a discouraging prospect; a long deep valley lay before us, closed at the distance of a couple of miles by another steep hill, through a cleft in the top of which lay our way. We could not even distinguish the line of the road between. Our disheartened animals stood at this moment buried to their breasts ; and to get forward, without rearing at every step, seemed impossible. The driver sat on his box, looking uneasily down into the valley. It was one undulating ocean of snow—not a sign of a human habitation to be seen—and even the trees indistinguishable from the general mass by their whitened and overladen branches. The storm had ceased, but the usual sharp cold that succeeds a warm fall of snow had not yet lightened the clamminess of the new-fallen flakes, and they clung around the foot like clay, rendering every step a toil."

       " We heaved out of the pit into which the sleigh had settled, and for the first mile it was down hill, and we got on with comparative ease. The sky was by this time almost bare, a dark slaty mass of clouds alone settling on the horizon in the quarter of the wind; while the sun, as powerless as moonlight, poured with dazzling splendour on the snow; and the gusts came keen and bitter across the sparkling waste, rimming the nostrils as if with bands of steel, and penetrating to the inner­most nerve with their pungent iciness. No protection seemed of any avail. The whole surface of the body ached as if it were laid against a slab of ice. The throat closed instinctively, and contracted its unpleasant respiration. The body and limbs drew irresistibly together, to economize, like a hedge-hog, the exposed surface. The hands and feet felt transmuted to lead; and across the forehead, below the pressure of the cap, there was a binding and oppressive ache, as if a bar of frosty iron had been let into the skull. The mind, meantime, seemed freezing up; unwillingness to stir, and inability to think of any thing but the cold, becoming every instant more decided.

       "From the bend of the valley our difficulties became more serious. The drifts often lay across the road like a wall, some feet above the heads of the horses ; and we had dug through one or two, and had been once upset, and often near it, before we came to the steepest part of the ascent. The horses had by this time begun to feel the excitement of the rum given them by the driver at the last halt, and bounded on through the snow with continuous leaps, jerking the sleigh after them with a violence that threatened momently to break the traces. The steam from tlieir bodies froze instantly, and covered them with a coat like hoar-frost; and spite of their heat, and the unnatural and violent exertions they were making, it was evident, by the pricking of their ears, and the sudden crouch of the body when a stronger blast swept over, that the cold struck through even their hot and intoxicated blood.

       " We toiled up, leap after leap; and it seemed miraculous to me that the now infuriated animals did not burst a blood-vessel, or crack a sinew, with every one of those terrible springs. The sleigh plunged on after them, stopping dead and short at every other moment, and reeling over the heavy drifts like a boat in a surging sea. A finer crystallization had meanwhile taken place upon the surface of the moist snow; and the powdered particles flew almost insensibly on the blasts of wind, filling the eyes and hair, and cutting the skin with a sensation like the touch of needle-points. The driver, and his maddened but almost exhausted team, were blinded by the glittering and whirling eddies; the cold grew intenser every moment, the forward motion gradually less and less; and when, with the very last effort appa­rently, we reached a spot on the summit of the hill, which from its exposed situation had been kept bare by the wind, the patient and persevering whip brought his horses to a stand, and despaired, for the first time, of his prospects of getting on."

       The description, which is too long to extract entire, details still severer diffi­culties ; after which the writer and driver mounted on the leaders, and arrived, nearly dead with cold, at the tavern. Such cold as is described here, however, is what is called " an old-fashioned spell," and occurs now but seldom.