The passage of the Canal, under the lofty bluff which springs at this place from the edge of the Mohawk, is one of the most beautiful of the many beautiful features disclosed to the voyager on this great outlet of the West. No traveller sees a greater variety of fine objects within the same distance than the follower of the Canal from Schenectady to Buffalo; and certainly none sees them with more ease and comfort to himself. The packet-boats are long drawing-rooms, where he dines, sleeps, reads, lolls, or looks out of the window; and if in want of exercise, he may at any time get a quick walk on the tow-path, and all this without perceptible motion, jar, or smell of steam. Of all the modes of travelling in America, the least popular and the most delightful, to our thinking, is travelling on the Canal.
One of the descriptions of scenery through which the Canal passes, and one which is, we believe, peculiar to our country, is what are called openings. When one of these plains is seen at a little distance, a traveller emerging from the forest naturally concludes that it is the commencement of a settled country; and as he advances towards it, is instinctively led to cast his eye forward to find the town or village of which it is the outskirt. From this impression he will be unable to free himself; for though given up, the thought will recur again, spite of his conviction, that he is in the heart of a wilderness. At the same time a sense of stillness and solitude, a feeling of absolute retirement from the world, deeper and more affecting than any he has ever felt before, will be forced upon him while roving in these sequestered regions. No passage out of them is presented to his eye. Yet, though the tract around him is seemingly bounded every where, the boundary is every where obscure, being formed of trees, thinly dispersed, and retired beyond each other at such distances, that, while they actually limit the view, they appear rather to border dim, indistinct openings into other tracts of country. Thus he always feels the limit to be uncertain, and until he is actually leaving one of these plains, will continually expect to find a part of the expansion still spreading beyond the reach of his eye. On every side, a multitude of chasms conduct his eye beyond the labyrinth by which he is surrounded, and present an imaginary passage back into the world from which he is withdrawn, bewildering him with expectation continually awakened to be continually disappointed. Thus, in a kind of romantic rapture, he wanders over these plains with emotions similar to those with which, when a child, he roamed through the wildernesses created in Arabian tales.
The origin of the peculiar appearance of these grounds, Dr. Dwight supposes, is probably this. The Indians annually, and sometimes oftener, burned such parts of the North American forests as they found sufficiently dry. In every such case, the fuel consists chiefly of the fallen leaves, which are rarely dry enough for an extensive combustion, except on uplands; and on these only when covered with a dry soil. Of this nature were always the oak and yellow pine grounds, which were therefore usually subjected to an annual conflagration. The beech and maple grounds were commonly too wet to be burned. Hence, on these grounds, the vegetable mould is from six inches to a foot in depth, having been rarely or never consumed by fire; while on the oak and pine grounds, it often does not exceed an inch. That this is the effect of fire only, and not of any diversity in the nature of the trees, is evident from the fact, that, in moist soils, where the fire cannot penetrate, the mould is as deep on the oak as on the maple grounds. This mould is combustible, and by an intense fire is wholly consumed.
The object of these conflagrations was to produce fresh and sweet pasture, for the purpose of alluring the deer to the spots on which they had been kindled. Immediately after the fires, a species of grass springs up, sometimes called fire-grass, because it usually succeeds a conflagration. Either from its nature, or from the efficacy of the fire, it is remarkably sweet, and eagerly sought by the deer. All the underwood is at the same time consumed, so that these animals are easily discovered at considerable distances—a thing impracticable where the forests have not been burned. To supply himself with timber for a wigwam, and with wood for fuel, was the only use which the Indian could make of the forest; and the earth furnished him with nothing but a place for his residence, his garden, and his game. While, therefore, he destroyed both the forest and the soil, he converted them to uses most profitable for himself.
When these grounds had been often burned, the seeds and nuts whence future trees would have germinated, were, of course, destroyed by fire. The small number scattered over these plains, or openings, grew on spots which were less ravaged by fire, because they were moist, or because they were less covered with leaves.
HUDSON HIGHLANDS, FROM BULL HILL.
This view out from the gorge of the highlands presents a foreground of cliff and shadow, with their reflections almost folded across in the bosom of the river, and a middle ground of the village of Newburgh and the gently-undulating country in the rear. The blue and far-off line of the Kaatskills shuts in the horizon.