THE HUDSON.
I SPENT the remainder of the spring and the first two months of the
summer in New York, but as the extreme “caloric” of the “heated term”
began to make the giant walls and solid streets of the metropolis next
to intolerable, I determined to take a little tour up the Hudson, and
out by the lakes into Ohio: and did.
But my grateful heart will not allow me to pass quietly by New York
again without briefly acknowledging the sincere thanks I owe, for
distinguished favors, to the following excellent gentlemen: Manton
Marble, Editor of the WORLD; Drexel, Winthrop & Co., Bankers, Wall
street; Willy Wallach, Stationer, John street; Paschal S. Hughes.
Merchant, Broadway; Henry S. Camblos, Broker, New street; and E. S.
Jaffray, Merchant, Broadway. I can say no more.
Having made arrangements to correspond with a certain well-known
journal, I started, about the first of August, on my projected tour,
taking passage on the handsome steamer DANIEL DREW for Albany.
They have on the Hudson river some of the finest boats in the
world—low-pressure boats of immense size, that never think of bragging
on speed that falls below twenty miles an hour. Some of them, by
straining a muscle or two, have made twenty-five miles an hour, and felt
none the worse for it next morning.
We started at eight o’clock one August morning; and what a change of
atmosphere we experienced as we left the hot streets of the city far
behind us, and glided up the Hudson—that most picturesque and romantic
of rivers! The sky was bright and clear; and, however hot and close may
have been the narrow and crowded streets of New York, the air with us
was charming.
Most of the passengers sat on the cabin deck, which was protected from
the sun by an awning, that hovered over us like the ghost of some broad
sail that Old Ocean might have swallowed. We had not gone far, when a
band of musicians from the land of Horace, Virgil, Cicero, Titus,
Vespasian and the Cesars, treated us with some melodious strains on the
violin, harp, and some other instruments. Although we would have
regarded them as a nuisance in front of our doors in the city, we now
really appreciated their talent; and when they had played half-an-hour,
and one of them came round with an empty hat in his hand, there were but
few, if any, who did not acknowledge their approbation by contributions
of ten cent notes, or the like.
They had just disappeared, and I was beginning to regard the delightful
scenery that began to unfold itself to us along the shores, when a very
black African made his appearance on deck, and leaning over a kind of
sky-light, called out to some one below in a loud tone:
“Hillo, Bill, down dah!”
“Well, what does you want?” was the response from below. It was evident
that William was also a gentleman from the land where snakes,
crocodiles, and savage beasts grow to their full size.
“Are you gwine up to Albany?” asked the darkey on deck.
“Yes, reckon I’se gwine up dah,” came from below.
“How’d you leabe all de folks?”
“O, well enough—but don’t ask so darned many questions,” said Bill,
testily.
“Gettin’ rudder techy, ain’t you?”
“O, don’t bodder me! I didn’t git no sleep last night—I didn’t.”
By this time the attention of the passengers in the vicinity was
attracted, and all eyes were turned upon the darkey. As for myself, I
felt somewhat annoyed, and wondered why the black cuss didn’t go below
and carry on his animated chat with his friend, instead of standing up
there, yelling down, and disturbing the tranquillity of the passengers.
“Well, why didn’t you sleep? It was your own fault.”
“O, let me ’lone, Sam,” came from below. “I don’t want no foolin’!”
“I won’t let you ’lone. You ain’t gwine to get no sleep dis day, you
isn’t,” said Sam, thrusting a cane he had in his hand down through the
open sky-light.
Some one appeared to seize it from below, and at the same time the voice
of Bill said:
“Now, look yere, I say, I’ll break dis ’ole cane fur you, if you don’t
look out!”
“Yes, you bettah try dat,” said Sam, thrusting the cane down several
times, as though he were stirring a ’possum out of a hollow log.
“Now you be keerful!” vociferated the voice below, angrily; and the
stick was seized again and an effort made to wrench it from Sam’s hand.
“Let go o’ dat now, I say,” said Sam, at the same time freeing it with a
savage jerk.
“Den you let me ’lone,” said Bill, in a kind of compromising tone.
The passengers were looking on in astonishment. It was rather singular
that this black _employé_ of the boat, as he evidently was, was allowed
to come up among the passengers, and go to raising such an altercation
through the sky-light with some one below. One passenger, who had been
reading, seemed very much annoyed, and at last testily said:
“O, let the fellow alone—whoever he is!”
“I’ll let _you_ ’lone if I come up dar!” retorted the voice below,
evidently addressing the irritated passenger.
“Look out, Bill,” exclaimed Sam; “dat’s a white gemman you’s talkin’ to!
d’ye know dat?”
“Don’t car for dat. He’s no wuss dan a black gem man,” retorted Bill.
“De white cuss!”
“Confound him!” exclaimed the angry passenger, rising and going to the
sky-light. “Where is he? I’ll punch his head!”
“Don’t you wish you’d ketch me! Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha!” laughed the
voice, in taunting exultation; and now, to the astonishment of all, it
sounded distinctly as though it were on the awning above our heads.
All looked up as though expecting to see the shadow of some one there,
but only the broad beams of the sun covered the canvas from side to
side.
“Ha, ha, ha! What’s de mattah?” yelled the same voice. “Ha, ha, ha!”
First it appeared on the canvas, then under the deck, next toward the
cabin-door, next toward the bow of the boat, and, after apparently
making a rapid circle around us, finally subsided in our midst—in fact,
in the very mouth of the darkey who stood on deck. He was a
ventriloquist—a skillful one, too—and had been thus beautifully “doing”
us all this time. As for “Bill,” the darkey below, he was of course a
fictitious personage. A loud laugh came from the passengers, as they
realized this, and the irascible man, who had threatened to punch Bill’s
head, returned to his seat, trying to look unconcerned. Sam passed
around his cap for tokens of our appreciation of his powers, and each
one—including the irascible passenger—contributed from five to
twenty-five cents. That was the last “tax” we paid that day.
I might give a long, and even interesting, account of my journey up the
Hudson; but such is not my intention. There are already numerous books
of travel extant, which describe the Hudson as well as it can be
described in words. My object is to amuse; and if I relate all the funny
things that happened to me, I shall succeed. I might describe the view
of the Catskill Mountains, the towns of Hudson, Peekskill, Newburg, West
Point, etc., but will leave that to tourists, as already hinted.
But I must not pass by without mentioning one or two points on the
Hudson. The Catskill Mountains, viewed from the river, present so lovely
a picture that neither pen nor brush can convey any adequate idea of
them. No one should live and die without viewing such scenery as this.
A few miles above West Point, and on the same shore of the river—the
western—rises a mountain peak called the Crow Nest. Joseph Rodman Drake,
an American poet who died in 1820, at the age of twenty-five, thus
exquisitely depicts this delightful region, in his poem entitled, “THE
CULPRIT FAY:”
“’Tis the middle watch of a summer’s night—
The earth is dark, but the heavens are bright;
Nought is seen in the vault on high,
But the moon, and the stars, and the cloudless sky,
And the flood which rolls its milky hue,
A river of light on the welkin blue.
The moon looks down on old Crow Nest,
She mellows the shades on his shaggy breast,
And seems his huge gray form to throw
In a silver cone on the wave below;
His sides are broken by spots of shade,
By the walnut bough and the cedar made,
And through their clustering branches dark,
Glimmers and dies the fire-fly’s spark—
Like starry twinkles that momently break
Through the rifts of the gathering tempest’s rack.
“The stars are on the moving stream,
And fling, as its ripples gently flow,
A burnished length of wavy beam
In an eel-like spiral line below:
The winds are whist, and the owl is still,
The bat in the shelvy rock is hid,
And nought is heard on the lonely hill
But the cricket’s chirp, and the answer shrill
Of the gauze-winged katy-did;
And the plaint of the wailing whip-poor-will,
Who moans unseen and ceaseless sings,
Ever a note of wail and woe,
Till morning spreads her rosy wings,
And earth and sky in her glances glow.
“’Tis the hour of fairy ban and spell;
The wood-tick has kept the minutes well;
He has counted them all with click and stroke
Deep in the heart of the mountain oak,
And he has awakened the sentry elve,
Who sleeps with him in the haunted tree,
To bid him to ring the hour of twelve,
And call the fays to their revelry.”