(Opposite West Point.)
[Illustration]
THIS is a secluded and delicious bit of Nature, hidden amid rocks and
woods, on the shore of the Hudson, but possessing a refinement and an
elegance in its wildness which would almost give one the idea that it
was an object of beauty in some royal park. One of the most secret
streams that feed this finest of our rivers finds its way down through a
winding and almost trackless channel; and after fretting over rocks, and
loitering in dark and limpid pools for several miles, it suddenly bursts
out over a precipice of fifty feet, and fills with its clear waters the
sheltered basin seen in the drawing. Immense trees overhang it on every
side, and follow the stream still on in its course; and in the depth of
summer the foaming current scarcely catches a ray of the sun from its
source to its outlet. The floor of the basin below the Fall is pebbly,
the water is clear and cool, the spot secluded, and in all respects
Nature has formed it for a bath. A fair and famous lady, residing a
summer or two since at West Point, was its first known Musidora; and the
limpid and bright basin is already called after her name.
A large party visiting at a hospitable house where the artist and his
travelling companion were entertained during the heat of the last
summer, proposed to accompany him on his visit to the Indian Fall.
Excursions on the banks of the Hudson are usually made in boats; but it
was necessary to see some points of view from the hills between, and we
walked out to the stables to see what could be done for vehicles and
cattle. A farm wagon, with its tail up in the air, built after an old
Dutch fashion which still prevails in New York,—a sort of loosely
jointed, long, lumbering vehicle, which was meant to go over any rock
smaller than a beer-barrel without upsetting,—was the only “consarn,”
as the “help” called it, which would hold the party. With straw in the
bottom, and straps put across from peg to peg, it would carry eleven,
and the driver.
Horses were the next consideration; and here we were rather staggered. A
vicious old mare, that kept a wheelwright and a surgeon in constant
employ, and a powerful young colt half broken, were the only steeds in
stable. However either might be made to go alone, they had never been
tried together; and the double-wagon harness was the worse for service.
The “help” suggested very sensibly that the load would be too heavy to
run away with; and that if the mare kicked, or the colt bolted, or in
short if anything happened except backing over a precipice, we had only
to sit still and let them do their “darndest.”
We cobbled the harness in its weak spots, shook down the straw for the
ladies, nailed up the tail-board, which had lost its rods, got the
cattle in, and brought up quietly to the door. The ladies and the
champagne were put in, and the colt was led off by the bit, shaking his
head and catching up his hind leg; while the demure old mare drew off
tamely and steadily, “never wicked,” as the ploughman said, “till you
got her dander up with a tough hill.” The driver had a chain with a list
bottom, and having had some practice in Charing Cross and Fleet Street
fingered his reins and flourished his maple whip through the village,
evidently not thinking himself or his driving _de la petite bière_.
The road, which followed the ridges of the superb hills skirting the
river opposite West Point, was in some places scarce fit even for a
bridlepath; and at every few paces came a rock, which we believed
passable when we had surged over it,—not before. The two ill-matched
animals drew to a wonder; and the ladies and the champagne had escaped
all damage, till, as the enemy of mankind would have it, our ambitious
whip saw stretching out before him a fair quarter of a mile of more even
road. A slight touch of the whip sent off the colt in a jump, carrying
away the off trace with the first spring; the old mare struck into a
gallop, and with the broken trace striking against the colt’s heels, and
the whippletree parallel with the pole, away they went as nearly in a
tandem as the remaining part of the harness would allow. The tail-board
soon flew off, and let out two unsuspecting gentlemen, who had placed
their backs and their reliance upon it; and the screams of the ladies
added what was wanting to raise the “dander” of the old mare to its most
unpleasant climax. The straps gave way, the ladies rolled together in
the straw, the driver tossed about on his list-bottomed chain, the
champagne corks flew,—and presently, as if we were driven by a
battering-ram against a wall, we brought up with a tremendous crash, and
stood still. We had come to a sharp turn in the road; and the horses,
unable to turn, had leaped a low stone wall, and breaking clear of
everything left us on one side, while they thrashed the ripe wheat with
the whippletrees on the other.
The ladies were undamaged, fortunately; and, with one champagne bottle
saved from the wreck, we completed the excursion to the Fall on foot,
and were too happy to return by water.
[Illustration]