As I Pulled Easily Along The Banks Of The River,
My Eyes Feasted Upon The Gorgeous Coloring Of
The Autumnal Foliage, Which Formed A Scene Of
Beauty Never To Be Forgotten.
The rapid
absorption of oxygen by the leaves in the fall months
produces, in northern America, these vivid tints
Which give to the country the appearance of a
land covered with a varied and brilliant garment,
"a coat of many colors." A soft hazy light
pervaded the atmosphere, while at the same time
the October air was gently exhilarating to the
nervous system. At six o'clock P. M. the canoe
arrived at Hudson City, which is on the east
bank of the river, and I completed a row of
thirty-eight statute miles, according to local
authority; but in reality forty-nine miles by the
correct charts of the United States Coast Survey.
After storing the Maria Theresa in a shed, I
repaired to a dismal hotel for the night.
At seven o'clock the next morning the river
was mantled in a dense fog, but I pushed off and
guided myself by the sounds of the running
trains on the Hudson River Railroad. This
corporation does such an immense amount of
freighting that, if their freight trains were
connected, a continuous line of eighty miles would
be constructed, of which sixteen miles are
always in transit day and night. Steamboats
and tugs with canal-boats in tow were groping
about the river in the misty darkness, blowing
whistles every few minutes to let people know
that the pilot was not sleeping at the wheel.
There was a grand clearing up at noon; and as
the sun broke through the mist, the beautiful
shores came into view like a vivid flame of
scarlet, yellow, brown, and green. It was the
death-song of summer, and her dying notes the
tinted leaves, each one giving to the wind a sad
strain as it softly dropped to the earth, or was
quickly hurled into space.
A few miles south of Hudson City, on the
west bank, the Catskill stream enters the river.
From this point the traveller may penetrate the
picturesque country of the Appalachian range,
where its wild elevations were called Onti Ora,
or "mountains of the sky," by the aborigines.
Roundout, on the right bank of the Hudson,
is the terminus of the Delaware and Hudson
Canal, which connects it with Port Jervis on the
Delaware, a distance of fifty-four miles. This
town, the outlet of the coal regions, I passed
after meridian. As I left Hudson on the first of
the flood-tide, I had to combat it for several
hours; but I easily reached Hyde Park Landing
(which is on the left bank of the stream and, by
local authority, thirty-five miles from Hudson
City) at five o'clock P. M. The wharf-house
sheltered the canoe, and a hotel in the village,
half a mile distant on the high plains, its owner.
I was upon the river by seven o'clock the next
morning. The day was varied by strong gusts
of wind succeeded by calms. Six miles south
of Hyde Park is the beautiful city of
Poughkeepsie with its eighteen thousand inhabitants,
and the celebrated Vassar Female College. Eight
miles down the river, and on the same side, is a
small village called New Hamburg. The rocky
promontory at the foot of which the town is
built is covered with the finest arbor vitae forest
probably in existence. Six miles below, on
west bank, is the important city of Newburg,
one of the termini of the New York and Erie
Railroad. Four miles below, the river narrows
and presents a grand view of the north entrance
of the Highlands, with the Storm King Mountain
rising fully one thousand five hundred feet above
the tide. The early Dutch navigators gave to
this peak the name of Boter-burg (Butter-Hill),
but it was rechristened Storm King by the
author N. P. Willis, whose late residence, Idlewild,
commands a fine view of Newburg Bay.
When past the Storm King, the Crow-Nest and
the almost perpendicular front of Kidd's Plug
Cliff tower aloft, and mark the spot where Kidd
(as usual) was supposed to have buried a
portion of that immense sum of money with which
popular belief invests hundreds of localities
along the watercourses of the continent. Now
the Narrows above West Point were entered
and the current against a head-wind made the
passage unusually exciting. The paper canoe
danced over the boiling expanse of water, and
neared the west shore about a mile above the
United States Military Academy, when a shell,
from a gun on the grounds of that institution
burst in the water within a few feet of the boat.
I now observed a target set upon a little flat at
the foot of a gravelly hill close to the beach.
As a second, and finally a third shell exploded
near me, I rowed into the rough water, much
disgusted with cadet-practice and military etiquette.
After dark the canoe was landed on the deck of
a schooner which was discharging slag or cinder
at Fort Montgomery Landing. I scrambled up
the hill to the only shelter that could be found, a
small country store owned by a Captain Conk
who kept entertainment for the traveller. Rough
fellows and old crones came in to talk about the
spooks that had been seen in the neighboring
hills. It was veritable "Sleepy Hollow" talk.
The physician of the place, they said, had been
"skert clean off a bridge the other night."
Embarking the following morning from this
weird and hilly country, that prominent natural
feature, Anthony's Nose, which was located on
the opposite shore, strongly appealed to my
imagination and somewhat excited my mirth. One
needs a powerful imagination, I thought, to live
in these regions where the native element, the
hill-folk, dwell so fondly and earnestly upon the
ghostly and mysterious. Three miles down the
river, Dunderberg, "the thundering mountain,"
on the west bank, with the town of Peekskill on
the opposite shore, was passed, and I entered
Haverstraw Bay, the widest part of the river.
"Here," says the historian, "the fresh and salt
water usually contend, most equally, for the
mastery; and here the porpoise is often seen in
large numbers sporting in the summer sun.
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