cends from all sorts of structures of many shapes and styles, and generally having flat pitch-and-gravel roofs, making a variegated carpet far below us. From this high perch Coney Island is seen spread out, the long sand-strip upon the edge of the ocean, with the foaming lines of surf slowly and regularly rolling in upon it. Toward the eastward, at Brighton and Manhattan Beaches, it bends backward like a bow, with a semicircle notched into it where the sea has made its inroads beyond the Brighton Hotel. To the westward the curve of the beach is reversed, and the extreme point of the island ends in a knob, having a hook bent around on the northern side. The "Concourse," covered with moving vehicles, curves around parallel to and just inside the surf-line, suddenly ending where the sea has destroyed it, the carriages passing inland to another road. Far away beyond are the big hotels of Manhattan Beach. Behind this long and narrow strip of sand there are patches of grass and much marsh and meadow stretching away to the northward, and through the marsh can be traced the crooked little stream and series of lagoons separating Coney Island from the mainland. Far off over these level meadows runs the broad and tree-bordered "Ocean Parkway" toward Prospect Park and Brooklyn, with the hills of the park and the tombs and foliage of Greenwood Cemetery closing the view at the distant horizon. Other wagon-roads and a half dozen steam-railways stretch in the same direction, some crossing the bogs on extended trestlebridges. There are thousands of people walking about on the streets and open spaces beneath us, while upon the ocean side the piers extend out in front, with their processions of steamboats sailing to or from the Narrows to the northward, around the knob and hook at Norton's Point. To the southward, over the water, are the distant Navesink Highlands behind Sandy Hook, and the adjacent New Jersey coast gradually blending into the Staten Island hills to the westward. Haze covers the open sea, and far

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to the eastward, seen across the deeply-indented Jamaica Bay, are the distant sand-beaches of "Far Rockaway," which has witnessed the most recent colossal failure in financing a mammoth seaside hotel.

The night follows the day, and as a glorious sunset pales the artificial lights come out and sparkle all over the place, gas and electricity aiding innumerable colored lanterns to make an illumination. The universal music renews its strongest if not its sweetest strains, and gorgeous displays of fireworks burst out of the great hotels. The festival proceeds with uninterrupted pleasure and hilarity throughout the evening, until the crowds get an idea that the time has come to start home; and then comes one of the chief Coney Island sights, the stampede to the railways and steamboats. Over land and water the vast human current then sets toward Brooklyn and New York. The crowds that have been so orderly are still well-behaved, for the sea air is a sedative, and they stream through the ticket-gates in an almost resistless tide, the trains and steamers being loaded and despatched as fast as possible. It is when the time arrives for going home, and these swelling torrents of humanity flow out upon station and pier, that the vast magnitude of a Coney-Island summer Sunday crowd can best be measured. It is something almost beyond description.

XII.

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THE finest view in New York is from the tall tower of Mr. Cyrus W. Field's Washington Building, which is one of the sentinels standing at the foot of Broadway. This tower upon the outpost at the lower end of Manhattan

Island rises nearly three hundred feet above the pavement. The wind whistles sharply as we peer out from this great elevation, and beneath us the green grass of the Battery Park spreads out past the low red-roofed buildings of the Castle Garden emigrant dépôt, just in front, until it reaches the water's edge, where the Hudson and East Rivers mingle their currents together to form the harbor. The shining rails of the snake-like elevated railways curve across the park from either side until they come together at the South Ferry. Out in the harbor a little way is Governor's Island, nestling cozily upon the water, with its little Castle William upon its western verge and the flag of the army headquarters waving from its staff. Beyond the island, Red Hook juts out from Brooklyn, with the Buttermilk Channel between. Upon the right hand the goddess holds her torch on high as a guardian to the mariner, and in front, as she looks toward the sea, expands the great harbor, its widely-extended shores rising into the enclosing hills, seen far away over the water, that come almost together at the Narrows, where the sunlight glints on the surface. Such is the enchanting scene as we look southward over the Upper Bay and through the distant narrow opening to the broad expanse of the Lower Bay beyond. Moving or at anchor, everywhere are seen myriads of the vessels that make the commerce of New York. Great steamers, puffing tugs, stately steamboats, ships, barges, schooners, ark-like ferryboats, yachts, skiffs, lighters, and the multiform craft of rivers and sea are everywhere making kaleidoscopic changes of position. All about the borders of the harbor are fringed the busy towns and villages that have gathered for satellites to New York. Here, on the right, are the great railway terminals of Jersey City, and beyond, its shipping-wharves and coal-ports and oil-tanks spread far up the Kill until lost in the distance. Over there, at the left, are the vast storehouses, docks, and piers of Brooklyn, with Gowanus Bay glistening behind the jutting Red Hook Point, and Gowanus

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Heights rising beyond, while far away over these can be traced the spider-like threads that are interwoven to make the distant elevator standing out against the horizon at Coney Island. Such is the outlook given from our high perch on the southern point of New York over a harbor and commerce that are excelled nowhere in the world.

Then, turning about to get the northward view back over the great city, on either hand the two rivers can be traced, one wide, the other narrow, as they go away, one north, the other north-east. Within their watery embrace is the broadening surface of the town, while its populous suburbs stretch far back from the opposite shores. Thousands of buildings of all conceivable kinds are crowded together, a mass of curious roofs, through the centre of which is cut down the deep, straight fissure of Broadway. Far below, between its bordering rows of tall buildings, the street-cars and wagons and many busy people crowd along, and above rise the huge houses and spires, making the line of the famous street, some of them yet unfinished and having nimble workmen perilously climbing about them to push their structure still farther skyward. Off over the East River the graceful curving cables of the Brooklyn bridge are thrown across, high above all the surroundings, with the solid towers rising above and the vessels moving on the water in full view far below. Steeples, domes, chimneys, turrets, roofs, and steamjets are seen everywhere; and thus stretches northward the vast city until lost in the haze of the horizon, bordered away up the western bank of the Hudson by the distant wall of the Palisades. The elevated trains rattle upon their long lines of rails that can be traced for miles among the mazy labyrinths of houses. The deeply-cut and crooked, narrow streets curve off from our feet through the masses of buildings like trenches, down in the bottom of which the ant-like inhabitants are creeping. Thus, standing upon the highest elevation in lower New York, and with the whistling wind creaking and rattling the strong iron stays of the

tall little tower, yet having its foundations firmly built into the solid rock beneath the level of the river-bed, the varying noises of the traffic and the countless whistles of the river-craft come up to us from all sides to tell of the restless, tireless energy seething below. It is a superb outlook, never to be forgotten, over the greatest city and harbor of the New World.

SAILING DOWN THE BAY.

Let us descend and take a closer view of the harbor that has been thus grandly scanned. On one of the many steamers a brief and pleasant journey can be made down through the Narrows toward Sandy Hook. With a fresh wind blowing in our faces we head for that little opening between the hills making the harbor entrance, and apparently leading only to vacancy. The wake of the vessel is a line of bubbling foam among the watercraft as we pass away from the Battery and behind the lovely foliage of its park see Broadway stretching back through New York. Ahead of us the Narrows seem apparently filled by the yachts that spread their white wings across the distant expanse of the Lower Bay. Gaining speed, we pass upon the one hand the old castle and forts of Governor's Island, and upon the other grandly rises the colossal Statue of Liberty, gaining in grandeur upon the nearer view. Soon we cross below the entrance to East River, spanned above by the great bridge, and then skirt the lines of stores and shipping in front of Brooklyn, which stretches off into Gowanus Bay with its beautiful background of Greenwood Cemetery. We are gliding smoothly over the inner harbor, an irregular, oval-shaped body of water about five miles broad and eight miles long, and ahead of us the pretty hills of Staten Island gradually approach those of Long Island to make the Narrows, each bold shore being covered with villas. We pass the Quarantine Station at Clifton, where the yellow flag warns incoming vessels to