No. I.
_Hamlet_. I am very glad to see you. Good even, sir.
But what, in faith, make you from Wirtenburg?
_Horatio_. A truant disposition, good my lord!
_Hamlet_.
Steaming from Washington to Baltimore is an improvement upon that
route at least. “I pity the man who can travel from Dan to Beersheba
and say ‘all is barren;’” was the beneficent _dictum_ of a philosopher
as wise as he was witty,—but he never travelled on the post-road from
the Monumental city to the capital of the western world. If he had, I
fear that precious morceau of pitiful cosmopolitism would have never
fallen from his pen.
The locomotive Andrew Jackson whirled us by a series of fields, of
which one will serve as a sample. It consisted of about three acres,
from the surface of which a few weakly, wilting, pea-green shoots were
starting reluctantly upwards, and which nine negroes were {697} trying
to make a corn-field of, by dint of most desperate hoeing. Patches of
rye and wheat were seen also, at intervals, most forcibly illustrating
the condition of Egyptian fields in the seven years of famine of
Joseph's time. It was plain that this section of the country, (as
Mr. Senator G—— remarked to the representative for the district,) was
fit for nothing else than to make rail roads of.
* * * * *
At the end of “The Thomas Viaduct,” a beautiful piece of mechanism, by
the way, is the “Viaduct Hotel,” _not_ so beautiful. As we passed,
several of the Light Corps of the city [Baltimore] were “standing at
ease” by the door of the hotel. They had gone out thither to spend the
day of our nation's birth, in drinking mint-julaps, and watching the
passing and repassing of the rail road cars. It seemed to be an object
with them to discover, as we flew onward, who, of all the grandees who
had just concluded those labors which had for seven months been making
Washington so famous, were forming a part of our freight. The senator
was for stopping the cars, and giving the representative a chance at
the stump, before so goodly an array of his constituents. But whether
he thought the audience not “fit,” nor “few” enough for such a
display, I could not discover—the Colonel declined the proposal.
* * * * *
Commend me to mine host of the Exchange! Page's is the very home of
good order, good cheer, good company, and all else that is good,—the
very place where one may ask, with a confidence defying negation,
“Shall I not take mine ease in mine inn?” We found our rooms
commodious and airy, and soon saw reason to bless our forethought, in
having pre-engaged our accommodations, while compassionating the
“potent, grave, and reverend seniors” of the land, as they cubiculated
on pallets in the dining-rooms, and were, in some instances, denied
the liberty to hang for the night upon a hat-hook! Always engage rooms
a week before hand, considerate traveller.
* * * * *
Who shall adequately describe what has so often been dwelt upon by
tourists, the distinctive peculiarities of the older cities of the
Union? To attempt it were “damnable iteration.” Suffice it therefore
to say, that Baltimore has beautiful brick edifices, with pure white
marble porches and porticoes—several splendid public buildings, among
which none is more deserving of particular mention, inside and
outside, than the Unitarian Church, (although Baltimoreans generally
“stump” on the Cathedral,) two monuments, one in questionable and the
other in unquestionable taste—and upon the whole, neat, clean,
orderly, and well-kept streets. She has here and there public
fountains, supplied with ever-flowing streams of the purest
water,—baths, places of public amusement, (although theatrical
entertainments are not much in favor there,) shot-towers, hotels,
newspapers, steamboats, rail roads, and pretty women in great
abundance. Few cities possess a more refined or more generally
diffused taste for music, painting, architecture, and the fine arts in
general, than Baltimore. Her present situation, in a commercial and
enterprising point of view, is extremely encouraging; and recent
legislation in regard to internal improvements will doubtless have a
very beneficial effect upon her fortunes.
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. {698} 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.
You look down three thousand feet into a valley, stretching over an
hundred miles in one direction, and more than half that distance in
the other, in the midst of which runs the river Hudson, covered at
this season with craft of various descriptions, which, from that great
elevation, seem mimic boats upon a rivulet. At your feet a rocky
precipice descends perpendicularly, the depth of which it is
impossible to estimate, as it has never been explored, and loses
itself, to the eye of the gazer from the summit, amidst the rude and
tangled masses of primeval forest, stretching downward to the distant
valley, verdantly sloping to the river's banks. This is the scene
presented to the sojourner at the Mountain House, and its many
changes, like those of a panorama, render the prospect intensely
interesting, in every aspect of the weather.
Having enjoyed this first gush of picturesque beauty, you are
reminded, by the daily arrival of the proper vehicles at the door, of
a scene of yet more mingled romance,—the cascades of _Canterskill_.
These lie at the termination of a delightful woodland path, along the
side of which flows a smooth and quiet stream, taking its rise in a
lake upon which you bestow, as you pass, a gratified glance. Following
this rivulet you come suddenly to the brink of a tremendous precipice,
shelving down between woody mountains, with rough rocky ravines,
seemingly unattainable by human feet. But your guide holds a clue,
following which you soon attain a level formed of sandstone and
gray-wacke, and await the fall of the water from the edge of the
precipice, one hundred and seventy-five feet above. As the water at
this season runs low, the proprietor has taken the precaution to dam
it up above the precipice, and so lets it fall when a company of
visiters demand it. This fall is very beautiful. No obstacle
intervenes to break the silvery sheet as it descends, and, as it comes
over the rough edges of the rock at top, it assumes a form as of
feathery spray, which is sometimes so thin and vapory, as to float
away without reaching the level at all. Descending eighty feet
farther, you see the second fall, the termination of which is even
more grand and savage than the upper level. Here you may see both
falls at the same instant, and from a situation which challenges
another attribute of grandeur and sublimity to enhance the perfect
enchantment of the scene.
* * * * *
We lingered at Catskill several days in a sort of dreamy state of
quiet enjoyment,—now fishing, now roving among the woods, now
stretched on the brink of the Pine Orchard looking listlessly down
upon the impenetrable forests, the smiling, sunny valleys, or the
silver thread of water, on which seemed {699}
“———the tall anchoring bark
Diminished to her cock,—her cock a bouy
Almost too small for sight”
and where the many steamers that smoke their daily course along the
Hudson, seemed like some tiny utensil discharging its culinary office.
There would we gaze upon the lifting fog-banks at morning, watching
the sunbeams as they gradually struggled forth to irradiate, first the
distant valley, and so diffusing thin yellow glory upward and upward,
until, at length, we stood in the midst of their effulgence, and saw
their vapory veil floating away over our heads, like gossamer web of
the dew spider.
Nor were our household attractions few or powerless. Many visiters
were at the Orchard, but there was a coterie of young ladies with
their brothers and husbands from the neighboring village of the
Catskill, from whose good offices and gentle hospitality we derived a
great deal of additional enjoyment. Music, books, and conversation
drove away ennui during those hours, when the inclemency of the
weather or fatigue compelled us to suspend our out-of-door amusements,
and we were thus enabled to enjoy the everlasting scenery of the
Catskill, under auspices the most favorable.
* * * * *
New Lebanon Springs next attracted us. They lie about twenty-seven
miles from Hudson, which is ten miles up the river on the opposite
side, whither we went by the same steamer that had landed us at
Catskill, and thence by stages to New Lebanon.
New Lebanon is a pleasant village, near the eastern line of the state
of New York, lying in a most fertile and valuable tract of country,
with alternations of gently sloping hills and smiling valleys, all of
which seem arable and productive. The most popular public house is
that to which the Spring that gives a name to the place, belongs. It
is very well kept, but was far too crowded for comfort,—the day of our
arrival being Saturday, and great numbers having come from Albany,
Troy, Saratoga, Ballston Spa, &c. to witness the worship (?) of the
Shakers on the Sabbath.
* * * * *
The waters of these Springs have no very decided mineral or medicinal
qualities,—but as they are very profuse in their flow, and as their
temperature is always rising of seventy degrees, Fahrenheit, they are
delightful for bathing in the summer season. The proprietors have,
accordingly, fitted up commodious bathing houses, which are very well
attended, and afford, by no means, the weakest attraction to be found
at New Lebanon. But even in this respect they cannot be compared with
the Warm and Hot Springs of Bath county in Virginia.
The truth is, New Lebanon invites the visiter more by the salubrity of
its climate, the rural beauty of its scenery, the quiet seclusion
which it offers to the town-weary traveller, and more than all, by its
accessibility from so many populous parts of the country, than by any
magic virtues possessed or imparted by its “springs,” and all these
inducements combine to keep the pretty little village full to
overflowing from spring to autumn. I saw many visiters from the
southern states there among the rest, and was gratified to learn that
there is an annual increase of business at “Columbian Hall.” In my
next I shall describe a scene at the Shaker's Church.