According to the Picture of New York, "immense masses of perpendicular rocks rise to the height of 100 feet from the level of the water in the basin below, their tops fringed with evergreen. Some violent convulsion of nature appears to have rent these rocks to their bases, as numerous cracks and deep fissures appear in all directions. Nothing can be imagined more truly wild and picturesque than the scenery hereabouts." It is 66 a nest of rocks and mountains," Of the cascade itself, we have no further description; but the adjacent village of Patterson, with its numerous cottonmanufactories, is destined, we are told, with a singular misapplication of the expression, to become the "Birmingham of America!"*

But we must now, with Captain Basil Hall, "disentangle ourselves from the fascinations of this great city," and prepare to ascend the majestic river to which the graphic description and legendary stories of Geoffrey Crayon have imparted a sort of classic interest.

FROM NEW YORK TO LAKE CHAMPLAIN.

“Formerly,” says this Traveller, “the passage from New York to Albany, was considered as an affair of a week or ten days. Three days was called good, and forty-eight hours excellent; though a fortnight was not very uncommon. Now, however, the same voyage is currently made in thirteen hours; sometimes in

* Picture of New York, pp. 352-4. In 1825, there were at Patterson, twelve cotton-mills, moving 22,000 spindles, three woollen factories, two duck-factories, &c. Passaic river rises in the northern part of the State, and flowing south, falls into Newark bay. At the great falls, nearly up to which it is navigable by small vessels, ten miles from its mouth, the river descends perpendicularly 70 feet in an entire sheet, "presenting a scene of singular beauty and grandeur."-Carey and Lea's Atlas.

twelve; and it has been done in little more than eleven, which, considering that the distance is 145 miles, is great going. What would good old Hendrick Hudson, the original founder of the colony, have said, had he looked out of his grave, and seen our gallant steamer, the Constellation, come flying past him like a comet, at the rate of twelve knots an hour? He would be apt enough to declare, that it was the veritable Flying Dutchman of which so much has been told; and his first emotions might probably be those of envy at the glorious pipe his spectre countryman ** was smoking. But if anybody were to attempt to convince him that the apparition he saw dashing by at the peep of day, was a ship without sails or oars, which had left Manhattan Island, or New York, at sunset the evening before, the worthy old gentleman could scarcely be blamed for declaring the whole story, with all its circumstances, a parcel of monstrous lies. It is not Albany alone, however, that is benefited by these numerous and swift-moving vessels. The country both above and below, and on both banks of the river, derives from them nearly equal advantages. Stony Point, West Point, and fifty other points and towns, and burghs,-Sparta, Poughkeepsie, Fishkill, Newburgh, Troy, Glasgow, Gibbonsville, and so on, line the sides of this immense artery, through which are poured the resources of the interior, and by which also the productions of every corner of the globe are sent back to the heart of the country."+

"For the first fifty miles from its mouth, the Hud son is never much less than a mile in width; and in two instances, it expands into small lakes of twice that

This is a mistake; Hudson was an Englishman.

† Basil Hall, vol. i. p. 102.

breadth; running always in a direction a little W."of N. The eye at first looks along an endless vista, that narrows by distance. The western shore is a perpendi cular rock, weather-worn and venerable, bearing a little the appearance of artificial parapets, from which word it takes its name. This rock has a very equal altitude

of about 500 feet. At the foot of this wall of stone, there is occasionally room for the hut of some labourer in the quarries which are wrought in its side; and now and then, a house is seen seated on a narrow bottom that may furnish subsistence for a few cattle, or, perhaps, a garden for the occupant. The opposite bank is cultivated to the water, though it is also high, unequal, and broken. A few villages are seen, white, neat, and thriving, and of a youthful vigorous air, as is generally the case with an American village; while there is scarcely an eligible site for a dwelling, that is not occupied by a villa or one of the convenient and respectable-looking farm-houses of the country. Orchards, cattle, fields of grain, and all the other signs of a high domestic condition, serve to heighten the contrast of the opposing banks." * Such is the general

. Cooper's Notions, vol. i. p. 272. The lands on the left bank of the Hudson, for a considerable distance above New York, were formerly, Captain Basil Hall was told, held by great proprietors, chiefly by the Livingstone family; "but the abolition of entails, and the repeal of the law of primogeniture, have already broken it down into small portions. The manor of Livingstone, an extensive and fertile district, formerly owned by one person, is now divided into forty or fifty parcels, belonging to as many different proprietors. And as these new possessors clear away and cultivate the soil at a great rate, the population goes on swelling rapidly.... Every thing," he adds, "that we saw in those districts not actually under the plough, wore an air of premature and hopeless decay. The ancient manor-houses were allowed to fall to pieces; the trees of the parks and pleasure-grounds were all untended; and the rank grass was thickly matted along with weeds over the walks."-Basil Hall, vol. i. p. 49. It must have been one of these boweries"

character of what is termed the first division of the river, before entering the Highlands. The more distinct description furnished by Mr. Duncan, will probably not be unacceptable to the reader.

"About a mile above New York, and nearly op. posite to Hoboken, is the village of Greenwich, (erected in former times as a retreat from the yellow fever,) now almost an integral part of the city. Above Greenwich, the banks on the right" (the left bank of the river) "slope with a gentle declivity to the water, and are in general thickly wooded: on the left, they are frequently broken and precipitous. About fifteen miles up the river, Kingsbridge heights appear on the right; and below them, Haarlem creek, as it is called, which stretches with an irregular curve from the Hudson into Long Island Sound, giving to the Manhattan territory its insular character, and limiting the jurisdiction of the City corporation of New York. The New Jersey shore now becomes bold and precipitous; and for several miles, an abrupt wall of granite raises its bare forehead on the left to a height of nearly 200 feet. The Palisades, as this range has been most ap-. propriately denominated, form a striking feature in the landscape; they are in general from 200 to 300 feet from the water's edge. In some places, the front has been broken, and irregular masses of rock have tumbled downwards to the water; but, for the most part, it is smooth and perpendicular, like the wall of an ancient fortress, while, here and there, a solitary

or country seats, which Dr. Karl Knipperhausen purchased, and where Dolph Heyliger found his treasure. But Captain Basil Hall is hardly fair in ascribing the decay of these old Dutch manorhouses and their "pictures," and the disappearance of the ancient aristocracy of the New Netherlands, over which he mourns, simply to the "bligthing tempest of democracy." It is singular how differently the same scene may strike different travellers.

pine, 'moor'd on the rifted rock,' seems, like the banner of a citadel, to wave a proud defiance from the edge of the cliff.*

"With the Palisades, terminates the State of New Jersey; and we approach a wider part of the stream, which the early Dutch settlers dignified with the appellation of the Tappaan Sea, but which was, in after times, modified into that of Tappaan Bay. This lake, as we may call it, is about ten miles long, and the banks are from four to seven miles apart, presenting a very considerable variety of landscape ;-' here, the bold promontory, crowned with embowering trees, advancing into the bay,-there, the long woodland slope sweeping up from the shore in rich luxuriance ;— while at a distance, a long waving line of rocky heights throw their gigantic shades across the water.'† In many places, the ground has been cleared of wood, and country seats and snug farm-houses, flanked by capacious barns, give variety to the scene; in other situations, however, the forests are yet untamed, and afford the traveller a glimpse of what America formerly was, when none but the Indian traversed its shores, and only the bark canoe glided over its waters. On the traveller's left is Rockland county, a favourite resort of the early Dutch settlers. The race is, hitherto, so unmixed, that very little English is spoken

* Lieutenant F. Hall says, that the whole of this ridge closely resembles Under Cliff in the Isle of Wight.

+ Knickerbocker, vol. ii. ch. 2. The "Sleepy Hollow," we are told, was not far from the rural port of Greensburgh, which was situated in the bosom of one of those spacious coves that indent the eastern shore of the Hudson, at that broad expansion of the river denominated by the ancient Dutch navigators, the Tappaan Zee, and where they always prudently shortened sail, and implored the protection of St. Nicholas when they crossed.”—Sketch Book, vol. ii. p. 281.