Nathaniel Parker Willis

“ The passage through the Highlands at West Point still bears the old name of Wey-gat, or Wind-gate; and one of the prettiest moving dioramas conceivable is the working through the gorge of the myriad sailing-craft of the river. The sloops which ply upon the Hudson, by the way, are remarkable for their picturesque beauty, and for the enormous quantity of sail they carry on in all weathers; and nothing is more beautiful than the little fleets of from six to a dozen, all tacking or scudding together, like so many white sea-birds on the wing. ”

“ In point of scenery Newburg is as felicitously placed, perhaps, as any other spot in the world, having in its immediate neighborhood every element of natural loveliness,—and just below, the sublime and promising Pass of the Highlands. From the summit of the acclivity, the view over Matteawan and Fishkill is full of beauty,—the deep flow of the Hudson lying between, and the pretty villages just named sparkling with their white buildings and cheerful steeples beyond.
Newburg has a considerable trade with the back country, and steamboats are running constantly between its pier and New York. ”

“ Mount to the cloud-kissed summit! Far below
Spreads the vast champaign like a shoreless sea.
Mark yonder narrow streamlet feebly flow,
Like idle brook that creeps ingloriously!
Can that the lovely, lordly Hudson be,
Stealing by town and mountain? Who beholds
At break of day this scene, when silently
Its map of field, wood, hamlet, is unrolled,
While in the east the sun uprears his locks of gold,—
Till earth receive him, never can forget. ”

“ 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 ”

“ A road running between high-water mark and the park gate skirts the river in eccentric windings for five or six miles; the brows of the hills descending to the Hudson in the west and north are nobly wooded and threaded with circuitous paths; and all around lies the most romantic scenery of the most romantic river in the world.
The only fault of the views from West Point is that West Point itself is lost as a feature in the landscape. ”

“ When the tents of the summer camp are shining on the field; the flag, with its blood-bright stripes, waving against the foliage of the hills; the trumpet echoing from bluff to bluff, and the compact battalion cutting its trim line across the green-sward,—there are few more fairy spots in this working-day world.
On the extreme edge of the summit, overlooking the river, stands a marble shaft, pointing like a bright finger to glory,—the tomb of the soldier and patriot Kosciusko. The military colleges and other buildings skirt the parade on the side of the mountain ”

“ Just under Crow Nest, buried in the heavy leaves of a ravine, springs a waterfall like a naiad from the depths of the forest, and plunges down into the river. The rambles in and about its neighborhood are cool and retired; and it is a favorite place for lovers from New York, who run up in the steamer in three hours, and find the honeymoon goes swimmingly off there,—the excellent hotel within half a mile supplying the real, without which the ideal is found to be very trumpery. ”

“ There, like an army’s tents, with snow-white lustre
The gravestones gleam beneath.
But, as we go, no posted guard or picket
Stays our approach across the level grass,
Nor hostile challenge at the simple wicket
Through which our footsteps pass.
Sweet spot, by Nature’s primal consecration
Sacred to peace and thought and calm repose,
Well in thy breast that elder generation
Their place of burial chose.
And well, to-day, whene’er the sad procession
Moves o’er the plain, with slow and measured tread,
Within thy silent and secure possession
The living leave the dead. ”

“ The road, which followed the ridges of the superb hills skirting the river opposite West Point, was in some places scarce fit even for a bridlepath; and at every few paces came a rock, which we believed passable when we had surged over it,—not before. The two ill-matched animals drew to a wonder; and the ladies and the champagne had escaped all damage, till, as the enemy of mankind would have it, our ambitious whip saw stretching out before him a fair quarter of a mile of more even road. A slight touch of the whip sent off the colt in a jump, carrying away the off trace with the first spring ”

“ The stranger came, a timid suppliant, few and feeble, and asked to lie down on the red man’s bear-skin, and warm himself at the red man’s fire, and have a little piece of land to raise corn for his women and children; and now he is become strong and mighty and bold, and spreads out his parchment over the whole, and says, It is mine! Stranger, there is not room for us both. The Great Spirit has not made us to live together. There is poison in the white man’s cup; the white man’s dog barks at the red man’s heels. ”

“ Compare the old Indian canoe in which Hudson went from his vessel to the land, with a steamer carrying on its deck near a thousand souls; compare the untutored population which then swarmed upon the shore, with the cultivated and refined crowds who come and go in thousands on the same spot,—and the contrast is as astonishing as the extinction of the aboriginal race is melancholy. ”

“ I have often thought, in passing, of the contrast between these numerous advents and the landing of Hendrick Hudson on this very spot, in his voyage of discovery up the river. He found here, he says, “a very loving people and a very old man,” by whom he and his crew were very kindly entertained. From the first step of a white man’s foot on the soil to the crowded rush of passengers from a steam-boat; from a savage wilderness to the height of civilization and science,—it is but a little more than two hundred years of rapid history. ”

“ No place is so agreeable as Catskill after one has been parboiled in the city. New York is at the other end of that long thread of a river, running away south from the base of the mountain; and you may change your climate in so brief a transit, that the most enslaved broker in Wall Street may have half his home on Catskill. The cool woods, the small silver lakes, the falls, the mountain-tops, are all delicious haunts for the idler-away of the hot months ”

“ Although the sunny prospects from the villa—of the giant mountains in their eternal verdure, the noble stream when frequent gusts ruffle its surface into a thousand waves, the cluster of white cottages collected into the distant village—are glorious, it is only by the lovely light of the moon, when Nature is in repose, that their magic influence is fully felt. ”

“ The moon had risen from a mass of clouds which formed a line across the sky so level that fancy saw her ascending from the dark sea, and her silvery light lay softened on the landscape; silence was over all, save where the dipping of a distant oar was echoed from the deep shadows of the rocks. Sometimes the white sail of a sloop would steal into sight from the deep gloom, like some shrouded spirit gliding from the confines of a giant’s cavern, recalling the expressive lines by Moore ”

“ OF the river scenery of America, the Hudson at West Point is doubtless the boldest and most beautiful. This powerful river writhes through the Highlands in abrupt curves, reminding one, when the tide runs strongly down, of Laocoön in the enlacing folds of the serpent. The different spurs of mountain ranges which meet here, abut upon the river in bold precipices from five to fifteen hundred feet from the water’s edge; the foliage hangs to them, from base to summit, with the tenacity and bright verdure of moss ”

“ 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. ”

“ TOWN OF CATSKILL, HUDSON RIVER.
CATSKILL is more known as the landing-place for travellers bound to the mountains above, than for any remarkable events in its own history, or any singular beauties in itself. It is a thrifty town, in which the most prosperous vocations are those of inn-keeper and stage-proprietor; and during the summer months these two crafts at Catskill entertain and transport to the hotel on the mountain half the population of the United States,—more or less. The crowded steamers stop at the landing on their way up and down ”

“ Can we not fancy the feelings with which some strong-minded savage, who should have ascended the summit of the mountain in company with a friendly settler, contemplating the progress already made by the white man, and marking the gigantic strides with which he was advancing into the wilderness, should fold his arms and say: ‘White man, there is eternal war between me and thee! ”

“ The stream, at a vast height above him, is seen leaping from ledge to ledge,—sometimes lost, sometimes sparkling in sunshine, till it courses impetuously beneath the rock on which he is seated, and is lost in the deep unbroken obscurity of the forest. ”

“ And now take heed to thy steps; the red man is thy foe. When thou goest forth by day, my bullet shall whistle by thee; when thou liest down at night, my knife is at thy throat. The noonday sun shall not discover thy enemy, and the darkness of midnight shall not protect thy rest. Thou shalt plant in terror, and I will reap in blood; thou shalt sow the earth with corn, and I will strew it with ashes ”

“ Half way between the mountain and Our Lady’s shrine stands, on a superb natural platform, the romantic estate of Undercliff. Just above it rises the abrupt and heavily-wooded mountain, from which it derives its name; a thick grove hides it from the village at its foot, and from the portico of the mansion extend views in three directions unparalleled for varied and surprising beauty. ”

“ Where the steamers come to shore,—twenty a day, with each from one to seven hundred passengers,—it is certainly far from secluded enough; yet away from the landing-places servants find your house too lonely, and your table, without unreasonable expense and trouble, is precarious and poor. These mean and menus plaisirs reach, after all, the very citadel of philosophy. Who can live without a cook or a chamber-maid, and dine seven days in the week on veal, consoling himself with the beauties of a river-side? ”

“ After passing some days at headquarters, this young nobleman thus admirably sums up his observations on Washington:—
“The strongest characteristic of this great man is the perfect union which reigns between his physical and moral qualities. Brave without temerity, laborious without ambition, generous without prodigality, noble without pride, virtuous without severity,—he seems always to have confined himself within those limits beyond which the virtues, by clothing themselves in more lively but more changeable colors, may be mistaken for faults. ”

“ Up they come, with a dashing breeze, under Anthony’s Nose and the Sugar-Loaf, and giving the rocky toe of West Point a wide berth, all down helm, and round into the bay; when—just as the peak of Crow Nest slides its shadow over the main-sail—slap comes the wind aback, and the whole fleet is in a flutter. The channel is narrow and serpentine, the wind baffling, and small room to beat; but the little craft are worked merrily and well ”