A steamboat burned to the water's edge last night, at one of the wharves, and a boy was consumed as he was sleeping in the cabin! It was a pleasure boat, and had been running to different points in the neighborhood of the city all the day previous. The unfortunate boy who lost his life was a wanderer from New York, and had been permitted by the captain to sleep and board in the cabin, until a vessel in which he was about to go to sea, was ready to sail. He had retired to rest, after a day of toil to him, though of pleasure to those upon whom he had been waiting, as one of the hands on board the boat; and met his horrible fate while sleeping in innocent unconsciousness of danger. The neglect of the watchman who had been entrusted with the care of the boat, was the cause of the fire, that unfaithful officer having left his charge to join in a carousal in the town. How fearful a thought, that all our enjoyments are obtained by others' pains! The smiles that deck the faces of the few are watered in their growth by the tears of the many.
How neglectful of the minutiæ of comfort and convenience are most of those who cater for the traveller's enjoyment in his journeyings along these great thoroughfares of our country! Here are we, arrived in the city of brotherly love, upon one of the very hottest days in the year, and upon asking for rooms at a new and much vaunted hotel, are ushered into a suite of three flights of stairs, and glowing, almost hissing, with the concentrated rays of the meridian sun, shining through crimson curtains—“Think of that, Master Brook,”—crimson curtains, in weather to set the very mercury in the thermometer a bubbling! As honest Jack said upon a not dissimilar occasion, “it was a miracle to 'scape suffocation!” What salamanders must be the people of the M—— house! We could not stand it, and so, after one night's parboiling, we turned our backs upon the rectangular city, resolved never to “tarry” there, in summer time again, until she had her Tremont, her Page's, or her Astor's to receive and accommodate us.
Arrived at New York, I was told that half the town were “out of town”—a comfortable assurance, methought, for we can have our choice of quarters. Yet were we three hours in finding a place whereon to lay our heads! I soon learned that by “the town” was meant that wandering, gossipping, gadding, sight-seeking, lionizing, country-visiting portion of this great Babel, who make it a point to spend all “the months that have no R,” at the crowded watering places of their own and the neighboring states. But they have left the streets as noisy, as crowded, and as business-like as ever, and a stranger feels quizzed when told that they are empty.
The sail up the Hudson is full of interest, and thousands are now daily enjoying the many attractions it presents to the traveller. As the city at this season is any thing but delightful, I got on board the good steamer Erie, (to which commend me ever,) and bade adieu to hot streets, and the crowded thorough-fares for a season. On my return I may find it worthy of a sketch or two.
The Hudson is very broad near its mouth, or junction with the East River, at the harbor of New York. Hoboken, New Brighton, Jersey City, and Staten Island, besides Brooklyn on the East, lie invitingly contiguous, and are attained by steamboats constantly running thither at every hour in the day. As they are all plentifully provided with green lawns, and cool shades, to say nothing of numerous houses of refreshment, you may be assured, that in the hot season, they are by no means vacant. As you go up the river, and leave the island on which the great city is laid out, on your right, the first prominent object that strikes your eye is Fort Lee on the left, which the map tells us is ten miles from New York. This was an important post in the revolutionary contest, and is now in ruins. Its position is admirable, standing on the bluff which commences the celebrated Palisadoes. These extend twenty miles up the river, and are curious ridges of rocks, from two to six hundred feet high, very much resembling that species of defence, whence they derive their name. Passing along, the traveller is prompted by the guide books to look at Tappan Bay, where the celebrated Andre attempted to take an advantage of the treason of the despicable Arnold, which would have been fatal to the cause of liberty, but for the fidelity of some of the American scouts. The spy was executed very near this place. The next place of interest is Sing-Sing, where is one of the New York State Prisons. As we intended to visit the more interesting one at Auburn, we did not stop here, but casting a glance at the Sleepy Hollow of Irving's Rip Van Winkle, we glided on, and soon entered The Highlands.
I had never imagined that any thing half so grand and so picturesque awaited us on our up-river jaunt. The half had not been told. Besides the splendor of the scenery,—the tremendous hills and ravines on one side, and the gently levelling upland and lowland fields and meadows, full of fertility and the promise of rich harvests, on the other,—there were a thousand associations with the early history of our Republic, especially with that interesting period, when “men's souls were tried,” which rendered it a continuous and uninterrupted scene of thrilling and exciting interest. Stony Point and old Wayne, Forts Montgomery and Clinton with Gates, Sir Henry Clinton, and “Old Put,” Independence, Bloody Pond, General Vaughan, James Clinton, and a thousand other places and names throng upon the memory, and tell the tale over again of a most interesting part of that glorious struggle for freedom by our brave fathers.
On one of the boldest and most commanding of those highland eminences, the traveller soon perceives the moss-grown battlements of Fort Putnam, over-hanging the barracks of the Military Academy at West Point. As the steamboat passes this headland, Kosciusko's monument, erected by order of government, is discerned, and then the hotel comes in sight. Intending to stop at mine host Cozzens' on our way down the river, we did not land, but went on to Catskill landing, where we debarked, and took stage for the celebrated Mountain House, at Pine Orchard. This is a grove situated on the table land near the summit of one of the most lofty of the Catskills, and is more than two thousand feet above the level of the Hudson. We found there a most commodious hotel, the view from the front piazza of which is exceedingly picturesque. We experienced a great change in the weather upon reaching the Mountain House, having left an almost torrid climate at the foot of the hill, and finding it cold enough at the top for a fire. We therefore retired to rest, after this, our first day's journey, with great expectation for the morn.
Salvator Rosa alone could do justice to the scenery around Pine Orchard. The pencil of modern artists may find much here to furnish a fitting subject for their attempts, and they may succeed in giving pleasing sketches from its inexhaustible sources of picturesque and romantic illustration. But it requires the hand of that great painter of the grand, the sublime, the stupendous, fitly to illustrate that scenery.