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a jester, and a long story-teller;—a man whom it would be awful to meet when you were too late for dinner, still more awful on your progress to a rendezvous;—a man to whom a listener is a Godsend, and a button an anchor of discoursing for half a day. He made me laugh once or twice heartily. As we passed the various points of the river, to which any interest, legendary or historical, attached, each of my three companions drew my attention to it; and I had, pretty generally, three variations of the same anecdote at each point of observation. On we boiled past Spitendevil creek,[57] where the waters of the broad Hudson join those of the East River, and circle with their silver arms the island of Manhattan. Past the last stupendous reach of the Palisadoes, which, stretching out into an endless promontory, seems to grow with the mariner's onward progress, and bears witness to the justice with which Hudson, on his exploring voyage up the river, christened it, the "weary point." Past the thick masses of wood that mark the shadowy site of Sleepy Hollow.[58] Past the marble prison of Sing Sing; and Tarrytown, where poor André was taken; and on the opposite shore, saw the glimmering white buildings, among which his tomb reposes.—By the by, for a bit of the marvellous, which I dearly love. I am credibly informed that on the day the traitor Arnold died, in England, a thunderbolt struck the tree that grew above André's tomb here, on the shores of the Hudson—nice, that! Crossed the broad, glorious, Tappan Sea, where the shores, receding, form a huge basin, where the brimming waters roll in an expanse of lake-like width, yet hold their rapid current to the ocean, themselves a running sea. The giant shadows of the mountains on the left, falling on the deep basin at their feet, the triumphant sunlight that made the restless mirror that reflected it too bright for the eye to rest upon, the sunny shores to the right, rising and falling in every exquisite form that hill and dale can wear, the jutting masses of granite, glittering like the diamond rocks of fairy-land in the sun, the golden waves flinging themselves up every tiny crevice, the glowing crimson foliage of the distant woods, the fresh vivid green of the cedars, that rifted their strong roots in every stony cleft, and threw a semblance of summer over these November days—all, all was beautiful, and full of brightness. We passed the lighthouse of Stony Point, now the peaceful occupant of the territory where the blood in English veins was poured out by English hands, during the struggle between old-established tyranny and the infant liberties of this giant world. Over all and each, the blessed sky bent its blue arch, resplendently clear and bright, while far away the distant summits of the Highlands rose one above another, shutting in the world, and almost appearing as though each bend of the river must find us locked in their shadowy circle, without means of onward progress.
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At every moment, the scene varied; at every moment, new beauty and grandeur was revealed to us; at every moment, the delicious lights and shadows fell with richer depth and brightness upon higher openings into the mountains, and fairer bends of the glorious river. At about a quarter to eleven, the buildings of West Point were seen, perched upon the rock side, overhanging the water; above, the woody rise, upon whose summit stands the large hotel, the favourite resort of visiters during the summer season; rising again above this, the ruins of Fort Putnam, poor André's prison-house, overlooking the Hudson and its shores; and, towering high beyond them all, the giant hills, upon whose brown shoulders the trees looked like bristles standing up against the sky. We left the boat, or rather she left us, and presently we saw her holding her course far up the bright water, and between the hills; where framed by the dark mountains, with the sapphire stream below and the sapphire sky above, lay the bright little town of Newburgh, with its white buildings glittering in the sunshine.
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