the Hudson's banks. Besides authors and actors, such as Forrest, the great tragedian—science, in the person of Professor Morse, of telegraph fame, and the great merchant princes, such as Stewart, Astor, and Jay Gould, have made their homes here. Miss Warner, authoress of the "Wide, wide World," has a cottage near Teller's Point.
At Tappan Zee the river opens out into a lake ten miles broad. The gloomy fortress of Sing Sing, the State prison, lies on an island near the shore. Croton Lake is close by, and supplies New York with from 40,000,000 to 60,000,000 gallons daily, through an aqueduct thirty-three miles long. The wooden sheds found at intervals along the banks are the great storehouses where in winter the ice is cut and kept, ready to supply the vast consumption of New York.
The beautiful bay of Haverstraw leads to the narrow defile and the northern gate of the Highlands. In rugged and varied beauty the mountains close us in on every side, overshadowing us with their wooded heights; maple and sycamore mingling with darker belts of pine, or a thick undergrowth of stunted oaks. They are so like the Highlands that you look—but in vain—for the bracken and the furze.
"The glory of the Hudson is at West Point," says a well-known author, and I suppose there could not be a more beautiful situation for the Military College of the United States, the Sandhurst of America, than at West Point. It stands on a commanding bluff, the river winding round three sides of the promontory in an almost impregnable position.
From the southern gate of the Highlands, green marshy fields, with weeping-willows trailing along the banks, form the chief feature of the landscape, and we pass several thriving towns like Peekskill and Poughkeepsie. In the afternoon, blue and purple in the far distance, we saw the glorious range of the mighty Catskill Mountains, forming one unbroken series of snow-capped domes, hiding in their deep recesses many of Nature's grandest secrets. The evening was closing in as the steamer passed under the swinging arch of the bridge at Albany, the chief town of New York State.
Albany is chiefly remarkable for its very fine Capitol, which has been in process of building since 1871, and is still far from finished, though it has already cost an enormous sum. At the present time every one is talking about Albany, owing to the fact that Grover Cleveland, the newly-selected Democratic candidate for the Presidency, is the Governor.
Delaware House gave us shelter for the night; and at 8 a.m. the next morning we were in the "cars" on our way to Niagara.
This was our first experience of American railways. There is no distinction of classes in the railway company's fares, but greater luxury is obtained by travelling in the drawing-room or sleeping car. The former belong to the Wagner, the latter to the Pullman Company, who make a separate charge, which is levied by the special conductor. This is his only duty, except to make himself a nuisance, and generally objectionable. The beds are made up by an obliging coloured porter. The cars are very long, and run on sixteen wheels. There is communication through the train, but it is only used by the condescendingly grand officials and the numerous news and fruit vendors who torment you with repeated exhibitions of their varied wares. The windows are so large, that if opened dust and grit from the slack coal burnt by the engines smother everything, so that with the car full (and they hold from twenty to thirty) the atmosphere becomes terribly oppressive. In winter, and when the stoves are lighted it is even worse. The Americans are very proud of their railway system, but after travelling over most of their lines, it is impossible to see that we have much to learn from them. The traffic is conducted in a very happy-go-lucky style. There is an absence of civility, with a superabundance of officials, and a porter is not to be met with. The traveller must carry his hand-luggage himself. The system of checking the baggage is, however, admirable. A brass check attached to the trunk ensures its going safely to any destination, however distant, and only being given up on presentation of the duplicate, which is in possession of the passenger.
Our journey lay through the smiling valley of the Mohawk River. The operation of hay-making was going on in many of the fields we passed. The hay was cut, raked, turned over, unloaded, and stacked by machinery—the most convincing proof of the absence of hand-labour. Throughout the vast continent of America, from the farms of the east to the cattle ranches of the west, there is the same cry for labour. Still greater is the demand for domestic servants. American girls think nothing of serving in a "store" or at a railway buffet, or even in an hotel. They have their freedom at certain hours, and when their work is done they are their own mistresses; but domestic service they look upon as degrading. It is almost wholly confined to Irish immigrants. A gentleman told us of a large mountain hotel where the waiting during the summer months of the season was done by an entire school of young ladies, who at the end of the time returned with their "salaries" (the term of "wages" is never used) to pay for their winter's schooling.
At Syracuse we experienced for the first time the strange custom of running the train through a street in the heart of the city. Many lives are annually lost, and terrible accidents occur frequently at the level crossings. "Look out for the locomotive" is on a large sign-board, but the public depend more upon the shrill whistle or the ringing of the engine bell. The effect of these engine bells is very melodious when, deep-toned and loud-voiced, coming and going in a station they chime to each other.
Friday, July 18th, Clifton House, Niagara Falls.—"What a moment in a lifetime is that in which we first behold Niagara!" And it is difficult with a very feeble pen to say anything superior to such a commonplace platitude, even when in the presence of one of Nature's most glorious works.
Notwithstanding all written and said, imagined or described, Niagara cannot be put into words; cannot be conveyed to the imagination through the usual medium of pen and paper; can only be seen to be—even then but partially—understood.
There is a blue river, two miles wide, without ripple or ruffle on the surface, coming down from a great lake, pursuing its even course. There are breakers ahead—little clouds, then white foam sprayed into mid-air. The contagion spreads, until on the whole surface of the river are troubled waves, noisily hurrying down, down, with ever-increasing velocity, to the great Canadian fall. The mockery of those few yards of clear, still water! In a suction green as an uncut emerald, a volume of water, twenty fathoms deep, is hurled over a precipice 160 feet high. One hundred million tons of water pass over every hour, with a roar that can be heard ten miles away, and a reverberation that shakes the very earth itself, into the seething cauldron below, shrouded in an eternal mist:—"There is neither speech nor language, but their voices are heard."
In a minor key the American waters repeat the mighty cannonade, and blending their voices, mirror the sea-green colour of the wooded precipices as they flow on their onward course. Long serpent trails of foam alone bear witness to the late convulsion.
The gorge is narrowing; the waters are compressed into a smaller space; they are angry, and jostle each other. They hiss, they swirl; they separate to rush together in shooting shower of spray, and so struggle through the Rapids.
A gloomy pool, with darkling precipices of purple rocks, forms a basin. The waters are rushing too surely into that iron-bound pool. The current is checked and turned back on itself, to meet the oncoming stream. A mighty Whirlpool forms. The waters divide under the current, and one volume returns to eddy and swirl helplessly against the great barrier, whilst the other volume, more happy, finds a cleft, broadened now into a wide gateway, and gurgling and laughing to itself, glides away on a smooth course, to lose its volume in Lake Ontario. What a world-renown that stream will always have—a short course full of awful incident.
On the 25th of July, 1883, Captain Webb was drowned while attempting to swim the rapids. Diving from a small boat about 300 yards above the new cantilever bridge, he plunged into the stream. The force of the current turned him over several times; then he threw up his arms and sank, crushed to death, it is supposed, by the pressure of the water. The enterprising owners of the restaurant at the rapids, have arranged with his widow to come over during the season to sell photographs opposite the spot where her husband perished.
Goat Island forms the division between the American and Canadian Falls. The waters are rapidly eating away the banks, and the rocky promontory, which forms such a principal feature, may some day disappear. What a glorious junction it would be! Four years ago a large piece of rock in the centre of the horse-shoe