_château_ with a moat. The air was perfumed with hemp from neighbouring
fields. At the Golden Sheep we found excellent entertainment. German
shells from the siege of La Fère, Nürnberg figures, gold fish in a
bowl, and all manner of knick-knacks embellished the public room.
The landlady was a stout, plain, short-sighted, motherly body, with
something not far short of a genius for cookery.... We made a very
short day of it to La Fère; but the dusk was falling and a small rain
had begun before we stowed the boats....
Below La Fère the river runs through a piece of open pastoral country;
green, opulent, loved by breeders; called the Golden Valley. In wide
sweeps, and with a swift and equable gallop, the ceaseless stream of
water visits and makes green the fields. Kine and horses, and little
humorous donkeys browse together in the meadows, and come down in
troops to the riverside to drink. They make a strange feature in the
landscape; above all when startled, and you can see them galloping to
and fro, with their incongruous forms and faces. It gives a feeling
as of great unfenced pampas and the herds of wandering nations. There
were hills in the distance upon either hand; and on one side the river
sometimes bordered on the wooded spurs of Coucy and St. Gobain....
All the time, the river stole away like a thief in straight places,
or swung round corners with an eddy, the willows nodded and were
undermined all day long; the clay banks tumbled in; the Oise, which had
been so many centuries making the Golden Valley, seemed to have changed
its fancy, and be bent upon undoing its performance. What a number of
things a river does, by simply following Gravity in the innocence of
its heart!
Noyon stands about a mile from the river, in a little plain surrounded
by wooded hills, and entirely covers an eminence with its tile roofs
surmounted by a long, straight-backed cathedral with two stiff towers.
As we got into the town, the tile roofs seemed to tumble up hill one
upon another, in the oddest disorder; but for all their scrambling,
they did not attain above the knees of the cathedral, which stood
upright and solemn, over all. As the streets drew near to this
presiding genius, through the market-place under the Hotel de Ville,
they grew emptier and more composed. Blank walls and shuttered windows
were turned to the great edifice and grass grew on the white causeway.
“Put off thy shoes from off thy feet for the place whereon thou
standest is holy ground.” The Hôtel du Nord, nevertheless, lights its
secular tapers within a stone cast of the church, and we had the superb
east end before our eyes all morning from the window of our bedroom....
The most patient people grow weary at last with being continually
wetted with rain; except of course in the Scotch Highlands, where there
are not enough fine intervals to point the difference. That was like to
be our case the day we left Noyon. I remember nothing of the voyage; it
was nothing but clay banks and willows and rain; incessant, pitiless,
beating rain; until we stopped to lunch at a little inn in Pimprez,
where the canal ran very near the river.... That was our last wetting.
The afternoon faired up: grand clouds still voyaged in the sky, but
now singly and with a depth of blue around their path; and a sunset,
in the daintiest rose and gold, inaugurated a thick night of stars and
a month of unbroken weather. At the same time, the river began to give
us a better outlook into the country. The banks were not so high, the
willows disappeared from along the margin, and pleasant hills stood all
along its course and marked their profile on the sky.
In a little while, the canal, coming to its last lock, began to
discharge its water-houses on the Oise; so that we had no lack of
company to fear. Here were all our old friends; the Deo Gratias of
Condé and the Four Sons of Aymon journeyed cheerily down stream along
with us; we exchanged waterside pleasantries with the steersman perched
among the lumber, or the driver hoarse with bawling to his horses; and
the children came and looked over the side as we paddled by. We had
never known all this while how much we missed them; but it gave us a
fillip to see the smoke from their chimneys.
A little below this junction we made another meeting of yet more
account. For there we were joined by the Aisne, already a far travelled
river and fresh out of Campagne. Here ended the adolescence of the
Oise; this was his marriage day; thenceforward he had a stately,
brimming march, conscious of his own dignity and sundry dams. He became
a tranquil feature in the scene. The trees and towns saw themselves in
him, as in a mirror. He carried the canoes lightly on his broad breast;
there was no need to work hard against an eddy: but idleness became the
order of the day, and mere straightforward dipping of the paddle, now
on this side, now on that, without intelligence or effort. Truly we
were coming into halcyon weather upon all accounts, and were floated
towards the sea like gentlemen.
We made Compiègne as the sun was going down: a fine profile of a town
above the river. Over the bridge, a regiment was parading to the drum.
People loitered on the quay, some fishing, some looking idly at the
stream. And as the two boats shot in along the water, we could see them
pointing them out and speaking one to another. We landed at a floating
lavatory, where the washerwomen were still beating the clothes.
We put up at a big, bustling hotel in Compiègne, where nobody observed
our presence.... It is not possible to rise before a village; but
Compiègne was so grown a town that it took its ease in the morning; and
we were up and away while it was still in dressing-gown and slippers.
The streets were left to people washing door-steps; nobody was in full
dress but the cavaliers upon the town-hall; they were all washed with
dew, spruce in their gilding and full of intelligence and a sense of
professional responsibility. Kling, went they on the bells for the
half-past six, as we went by. I took it kind of them to make me this
parting compliment; they never were in better form, not even at noon
upon a Sunday.
There was no one to see us off but the early washerwomen--early and
late--who were already beating the linen in their floating lavatory on
the river. They were very merry and matutinal in their ways; plunged
their arms boldly in and seemed not to feel the shock. It would be
dispiriting to me, this early beginning and first cold dabble, of a
most dispiriting day’s work. But I believe they would have been as
unwilling to change days with us, as we could be to change with them.
They crowded to the door to watch us paddle away into the thin sunny
mists upon the river; and shouted heartily after us till we were
through the bridge.
There is a sense in which those mists never rose from off our journey;
and from that time forth they lie very densely in my note-book. As
long as the Oise was a small rural river, it took us near by people’s
doors and we could hold a conversation with natives in the riparian
fields. But now that it had gone so wide, the life along shore passed
us by at a distance. It was the same difference as between a great
public highway and a country by-path that wanders in and out of
cottage gardens. We now lay in towns, where nobody troubled us with
questions; we had floated into civilized life, where people pass
without salutation. In sparsely inhabited places, we make all we can of
each encounter; but when it comes to a city, we keep to ourselves, and
never speak unless we have trodden on a man’s toes. In these waters,
we were no longer strange birds, and nobody supposed we had travelled
further than from the last town. I remember when we came into L’ Isle
Adam, for instance, how we met dozens of pleasure-boats, outing it for
the afternoon, and there was nothing to distinguish the true voyager
from the amateur, except, perhaps, the filthy condition of my sail.
The company in one boat actually thought they recognized me for a
neighbour. Was there ever anything more wounding! All the romance had
come down to that. Now, on the upper Oise, where nothing sailed as a
general thing but fish, a pair of canoeists could not be thus vulgarly
explained away; we were strange and picturesque intruders; and out of
people’s wonder sprang a sort of light and passing intimacy all along
our route....
In our earlier adventures there was generally something to do, and
that quickened us. Even the showers of rain had a revivifying effect,
and shook up the brain from torpor. But now, when the river no longer
ran in a proper sense, only glided seaward with an even, outright, but
imperceptible speed, and when the sky smiled upon us day after day
without variety, we began to slip into that golden doze of the wind
which follows upon much exercise in the open air. I have stupefied
myself in this way more than once; indeed, I dearly love the feeling;
but I never had it to the same degree as when paddling down the Oise.
It was the apotheosis of stupidity....
We made our first stage below Compiègne to Pont Sainte Maxence. I was
abroad a little after six the next morning. The air was biting and
smelt of frost. In an open place a score of women wrangled together
over the day’s market; and the noise of their negotiation sounded thin
and querulous like that of sparrows on a winter’s morning. The rare
passengers blew into their hands and shuffled in their wooden shoes to
set the blood agog. The streets were full of icy shadow, although the
chimneys were smoking overhead in golden sunshine. If you wake early
enough at this season of the year, you may get up in December to break
your fast in June.
At Creil, where we stopped to lunch, we left the canoes in another
floating lavatory, which, as it was high noon, was packed with
washerwomen, red-handed and loud-voiced; and they and their broad jokes
are about all I remember of the place.... The church at Creil was a
nondescript place in the inside, splashed with gaudy lights from the
windows and picked out with medallions of the Dolorous Way. But there
was one oddity, in the way of an _ex voto_, which pleased me hugely: a
faithful model of a canal boat, swung from the vault, with a written
aspiration that God should conduct the _Saint Nicholas_ of Creil to a
good haven.
We made Précy about sundown. The plain is rich with tufts of poplar.
In a wide, luminous curve, the Oise lay under the hillside. A faint
mist began to rise and confound the different distances together. There
was not a sound audible but that of the sheep-bells in some meadows by
the river and the creaking of a cart down the long road that descends
the hill. The villas in their gardens, the shops along the street, all
seemed to have been deserted the day before; and I felt inclined to
walk discreetly as one feels in a silent forest.
Of the next two days’ sail little remains in my mind, and nothing
whatever in my note-book. The river streamed on steadily through
pleasant riverside landscapes. Washerwomen in blue dresses, fishers in
blue blouses, diversified the green banks; and the relation of the
two colours was like that of the flower and leaf in the forget-me-not.
A symphony in forget-me-not; I think Théophile Gautier might thus
have characterized that two days’ panorama. The sky was blue and
cloudless; and the sliding surface of the river held up, in smooth
places, a mirror to the heaven and the shores. The washerwomen hailed
us laughingly and the noise of trees and water made an accompaniment to
our dozing thoughts, as we fleeted down the stream.
The great volume, the indefatigable purpose of the river held the mind
in chain. It seemed now so sure of its end, so strong and easy in its
gait, like a grown man full of determination. The surf was roaring for
it on the sands of Havre.
THE HUDSON
ESTHER SINGLETON
The Hudson is considered the most beautiful river of the United States.
Its scenery is so enchanting that it has been called the “Rhine of
America.” Its hills and banks are dotted with palatial residences.
To the historian they are eloquent of the brave generals and their
armies who fought for Liberty and they charm the dreamer by the legends
that cluster around them. It is no trouble for him to see the Phantom
Ship scudding across the Tappan Zee, or to people Sleepy Hollow with
vanished forms.
George William Curtis pronounced the Rhine of America even grander than
the Rhine. He says: “The Danube has in part glimpses of such grandeur.
The Elbe has sometimes such delicately pencilled effects. But no
European river is so lordly in its bearing, none flows in such state to
the sea.”
The Hudson’s course of three hundred miles told briefly is as follows:
It rises in the Adirondacks about 4,000 feet above the sea, where
innumerable little streams fed by mountain lakes unite to form the
headwaters of the noble river that begins a tortuous course and
receives the outlet of Schroon Lake and the Sacondaga River. Turning
to the east, it finally reaches Glen’s Falls, where it drops fifty
feet. From thence to Troy, it is much broken by rapids, and it is
not until it reaches Albany, six miles below Troy, that the Hudson
becomes wide and flows through elevated and picturesque banks. Then,
in its journey, it passes by the Catskills, or as the Indians called
them--the Ontioras (Mountains of the Sky) which are but seven miles
from its banks. A short distance below Newburg, sixty-one miles from
New York, it begins its passage through the noble hills called The
Highlands, an area of about sixteen by twenty-five miles. In the midst
of this beautiful scenery on a bold promontory stands the United States
Military Academy at West Point. The river then widens into Haverstraw
Bay, immediately below which is Tappan Zee, extending from Teller’s
Point to Piermont, twelve miles long and from three to four miles wide.
Just below Piermont, a range of trap rock--the Palisades--extends to
Fort Lee, a distance of about fifteen miles. From Fort Lee to its mouth
the Hudson is from one mile to two miles long. The Hudson has been
called Shatemuck, the Mohegan, the Manhattan, the Mauritius (in honour
of Prince Maurice of Nassau) the Noordt Montaigne, the North River
(to distinguish it from the Delaware or South River) the River of the
Mountains, and, finally, the Hudson in honour of its discoverer.
Although Verrazano practically discovered this river in 1524, its first
navigator was Henry Hudson who in the service of the Dutch West India
Company on his voyage in the _Half Moon_ passed through the Narrows in
1609, entered New York Bay and sailed up the Mohegan River as far as
Albany.
[Illustration: COPYRIGHT, 1905, BY DETROIT PUBLISHING COMPANY THE
HUDSON]
The Hudson was divided by the old navigators into fourteen reaches, one
of which, Claverack (Clover Reach), has survived. First came the Great
Chip-Rock Reach (the Palisades); then the Tappan Reach where dwelt the
Manhattans, the Saulrickans and the Tappans; the next reach ended
at Haverstroo; following came Seylmaker’s Reach, Crescent Reach, Hoges
Reach and Vorsen Reach which extended to Klinkersberg (Storm King).
Fisher’s Reach, Claverack, Backerack, Playsier and Vaste Reach as far
as Hinnenhock; then Hunter’s Reach to Kinderhook; and Fisher’s Hook
near Shad Island, where dwelt the Mohegans.
No river in America presents so animated a scene as the Hudson from the
Battery to the beginning of the Palisades. Ocean steamers, ferry-boats,
excursion boats, private yachts, and craft of all sizes and kinds
sail or steam down the narrow channel or cross between the shores of
Manhattan and New Jersey. The river is always gay and beautiful in
sunshine and fog, winter and summer.
On ascending the river, the first point of interest is Weehawken, on
the west, where, on a narrow ledge of rock, Aaron Burr killed Alexander
Hamilton in a duel, July 11, 1804. Next, and on the eastern shore,
is Spuyten Duyvel Creek, associated with the earliest history of the
river. This is a narrow stream formed by the in-flowing tide-water of
the Hudson and joining at Kingsbridge with the so-called Harlem River,
which is a similar in-flowing of the tide-water of Long Island Sound.
Here a bridge was built in 1693; and here, on the 2d of October, Henry
Hudson had a severe fight with the Indians who attacked the _Half
Moon_. The origin of the name is unknown; but Irving’s legend clings to
the spot as a limpet to a rock. He tells the story that the trumpeter,
Antony van Corlear, was dispatched one evening on a message up the
Hudson. When he arrived at this creek, the wind was high, the elements
were in an uproar, and no boatman was at hand. He declared he would
swim across _en spijt en Duyvel_ (in spite of the Devil), but was
drowned on the way.
Yonkers is the next point of interest on this side of the river,
supposed to have derived its name from _yonk-herr_, the young heir.
After passing Hastings and Dobbs Ferry (named after an old ferryman),
the river widens into a beautiful bay. Across the river, opposite
Spuyten Duyvel, is Fort Lee, from which Washington watched the battle
that resulted in the loss of Fort Washington. From this point the
Palisades begin. This range of rocks is from two hundred and fifty to
six hundred feet high and extends about fifteen miles from Fort Lee to
the hills of Rockland County.
Opposite Dobbs Ferry, the northern boundary line of New Jersey strikes
the Hudson; and from this point north the river runs solely through
the state of New York. At this point is Piermont; and near it Tappan,
where André was hanged. Directly opposite Piermont is Irvington,
twenty-four miles from New York, where close to the water’s edge
stands _Sunnyside_, the charming home of Washington Irving, “made up
of gable-ends and full of angles and corners as an old cocked hat,” to
quote the description of the author, who bought and beautified an old
Dutch dwelling called _Wolfert’s Roost_.
Three miles north is Tarrytown, a name derived from the Dutch
Tarwen-Dorp, or wheat town, and not, as Diedrich Knickerbocker said,
because husbands would tarry at the village tavern. A mile north of
Tarrytown is the romantic Sleepy Hollow, where still stands the old
Dutch Church. Six miles above Tarrytown and Sing Sing, now called by
its original name, _Ossin_ (a stone) and _ing_ (a place) is reached.
The name is derived from the rocky and stony character of the bank.
Here the State Prison is situated.
Rockland and the old “tedious spot”--Verdietege Hook--of the old Dutch
sailors are opposite, and a little above the latter, Diedrich Hook, or
Point No Point. Croton River meets the Hudson about a mile above Sing
Sing and forms Croton Bay. Croton Point, on which the Van Cortlandt
Manor House stands, juts out here and separates Tappan Zee from
Haverstraw Bay, and at the end of which, once called Teller’s Point, a
great Indian battle is said to have taken place. The spot is haunted
by the ghosts of warriors and sachems. Three miles more, and we reach
Stony Point on the west; and, passing Verplanck’s Point on the east,
come to Peekskill, where Nathan Palmer, the spy, was hanged. This was
also the headquarters of General Israel Putnam.
Turning Kidd’s Point, or Caldwell’s landing, with Peekskill opposite,
we pass through the “Southern Gate of the Highlands.” It is at this
spot that Captain Kidd’s ship is supposed to have been scuttled. Here
the Dunderberg, or Thunder Mountain rises abruptly from the river; and,
as the latter turns to the west (now called for a brief time The Horse
Race), another bold mass of rock, Anthony’s Nose (1,228 feet), looms
into view.
On the other side of the river is Fort Montgomery Creek, once called
Poplopen’s Kill, and here stood Fort Montgomery and Fort Clinton on
either side of the mouth. From Fort Montgomery to Anthony’s Nose a
chain of iron and wood was stretched across the river during the
Revolutionary War to prevent the passage of British boats.
Opposite Anthony’s Nose is the Island of Iona; and now we see the Sugar
Loaf, not one hill, as first appears, but a series of hills. At the
foot of Sugar Loaf stood Beverly House, where Arnold lived at the time
of his treason.
Half a mile below West Point, on the west side of the river, a small
stream, rushing down the rocky precipice, forms a snowy cascade, known
as Buttermilk Falls.
West Point, with its academy buildings and parade ground on a plateau
two hundred feet above the river--the “Gibraltar of the Hudson”--near
which may be seen the ruins of old Fort Putnam on Mount Independence,
five hundred feet above the river, takes us into historic ground and
beautiful scenery. We pass a succession of lofty hills on the same side
of the river, the chief of which is Old Cro’ Nest (1,418 feet). Its
name was given to it from a circular lake on the summit suggesting a
nest in the mountains; and it is thus described by Rodman Drake, in the
_Culprit Fay_:
“’Tis the middle watch of a summer night.
The earth is dark, but the heavens are bright,
The moon looks down on Old Cro’ Nest--
She mellows the shade on his shaggy breast,
And seems his huge grey form to throw
In a silver cone on the wave below.”
To the north of Cro’ Nest comes Storm King, the highest peak of the
Highlands (1,800 feet). First it was called Klinkersberg and then
Boterberg (Butter Hill) and renamed Storm King by N. P. Willis. Storm
King with Breakneck (1,187 feet), on the opposite side form the
“Northern Gate of the Highlands.” The river here is deep and narrow as
it cuts its way through what is practically a gorge in the Alleghany
Mountains.
The Highlands now trend off to the north-east and the New Beacon or
Grand Sachem Mountain (1,685 feet) and the Old Beacon (1,471 feet).
The names are explained by the fact that signal fires were kindled on
their summits during the Revolution. The Indians called them Matteawan
and sometimes referred to the whole range of Highlands as Wequehachke
(Hill Country). They also believed that the great Manito confined here
rebellious spirits whose groans could often be heard.
On the west shore are situated the towns of Cornwall and Newburg, where
Washington had his headquarters in the old Hasbrouck House.
Opposite Newburg is Fishkill Landing and above Newburg on the west
side is the Devil’s Danskammer, or Devil’s Dancing Chamber, where the
Indians celebrated their religious rites. Several villages and towns
are passed on both sides of the river.
One spot of romantic interest on the west shore is Blue Point, where
on moonlight nights a phantom ship is often seen at anchor beneath
the bluff. It is supposed to be the _Half Moon_, which one day passed
the Battery and sailed up the river without paying the slightest heed
to signals. The “Storm Ship,” as she is called, is often seen in bad
weather in the Tappan Zee and in Haverstraw Bay; but more frequently
she appears at rest beneath the shadow of Blue Point.
Across the river is Poughkeepsie, so called from the Indian word
Apokeepsing, meaning safe harbour. At this point is the only bridge
that crosses the river between New York and Albany.
Six miles above Poughkeepsie, the river makes a sudden turn. The Dutch
called this point Krom Elleboge (Crooked Elbow), now Crum Elbow. Ten
miles further is Rhinebeck Landing, the approach to the old Dutch
village of Rhinebeck, founded by William Beckman in 1647. On the
opposite side of the river are Rondout and Kingston on Esopus Creek,
which flows north and joins the Hudson at Saugerties.
North of Rhinebeck comes Lower Red Hook Landing or Barrytown, North Bay
where the _Clermont_ was built by Robert Fulton, and then Tivoli.
The next point of interest on the west side is Catskill Landing, just
above the mouth of the Kaaterskill Creek. On the east bank is the city
of Hudson; on the west bank Athens. Nearly opposite Four Mile Point
Lighthouse is Kinderhook River or Creek on whose banks Martin Van Buren
lived. Opposite Kinderhook is Coxsackie and above this New Baltimore
and Coeymans. On the eastern bank are Schodack Landing, Castleton and
Greenbush or East Albany. A bridge leads across to Albany on the west
bank of the river. Six miles above Albany is the city of Troy, on
the east bank. Above Cohoes on the west bank the Hudson receives the
Mohawk, its largest tributary (150 miles long). Above Troy navigation
is interrupted by many rapids and falls.
During the winter the river constantly freezes and it is not uncommon
in the upper reaches to see skaters and sleighs crossing the ice. The
breaking up of the ice is a marvellous spectacle.