rival Hotels of Saratoga. It is an immense wooden caravanserai, with no
pretensions to architecture beyond what is seen in the drawing, and
built with the sole view of affording the average accommodations of
packed herrings to an indefinite number of persons. The roominess and
liberal proportions of the Colonnade are one of those lies of
architecture common to the hotels of this country. The traveller passes
from the magnificent promise of the outside, to a chamber ten feet by
four, situated in a remote gallery, visited once a day by the “boots”
and chambermaid. His bed, chair, and wash-stand, resemble those articles
as seen in penitentiaries; and if he chance to be ill at night, he might
die like a Pagan, “without bell or candle.” The arrangements of the
house are, of necessity, entirely gregarious. A bell rings at half-past
seven in the morning, at which every body who intends to breakfast,
_must_ get up; another bell at eight, to the call of which, if he
prefers hot omelette to cold, he must be punctual. Dinner and tea exact
the same promptitude; and the latter, which in other countries is a
thing of no circumstance or importance, becomes, where you dine at two,
a meal not willingly missed. “Tea” is at six or half past, and consists
of cold meats, hot rolls, Indian cakes, all other kinds of cakes, all
kinds of berries, pies, sweetmeats, and jellies, coffee and tea. This is
not a matter to be slighted after a fast of four hours; and home hurry
beaux and belles from their abbreviated drives, with a loss of sentiment
and sunset, and with profit to the keepers of stables, who let their
horses “by the afternoon.”
After tea, the gentlemen who dressed for dinner and “undressed” for
their drive, dress once more for the evening, and the spacious Colonnade
is thronged with the five hundred guests of the house, who pace to and
fro for an hour, or, if it is a ball night, till the black band have
made an orchestra of the tables in the dining-room, and struck up “Hail,
Columbia!” A hoop, bound with evergreens, and stuck full of candles,
hangs in the centre of the hall (_ci-devant_ dining-room); an audience
of all the negroes in the establishment sweetens the breath of heaven as
it steals in at the windows; and, as the triumphant music returns a
second time to the refrain, the lady Patroness enters on the arm of the
gentleman who has the most stock in the Bank, followed in couples by all
the gentlemen and ladies who intend to dance or play wall-flower. The
black musicians “vex their instruments,” and keep time with their heads
and heels, as if all their extremities had been hired; the beaux who
were interrupted in their declarations by the last _chassé_, (if they
wish to go on with it,) lead out their partners to take the air and a
cold,—perhaps a heart,—on the Colonnade; and at eleven, champagne goes
round for the ladies, and the gentlemen take “summat to drink” at “the
bar;” after which the candles burn brighter, and every body is much more
agreeable.
Congress Hall is built very near the principal Spring, which lies in the
westerly edge of a swamp. It was first discovered by the tracks of the
deer, who frequented it so much as to wear paths to it from the
surrounding woods. The mineral water is highly medicinal, and is not
unpleasant to the taste. It formerly rose in the bed of a small brook,
but it is now hid under the floor of an open colonnade, and discharges
nearly a gallon a minute. The disengaged gas breaks through in limpid
globules, giving to the surface the appearance of an active simmer.
Here, before breakfast, creep the few who come to Saratoga for health;
and here, before dinner, saunter those who are in need of a walk, or who
wish a tonic for the coming meal. A busy varlet, with a capital of a
hooked stick and two tin tumblers, drives a thriving trade here, fishing
up the sparkling waters at a cent a glass, for all comers. When the
gentleman has swallowed his muriate and four carbonates[1] in proper
quantity, a smooth serpentine walk leads to the summit of a prettily
wooded hill, where he may either grind himself round a circular
rail-road in a self-moving chair, or ramble off to the shade, for a
little meditation.
-----
[1] The analysis of a gallon of Congress water is thus stated:—
Muriate of soda 471.600 grains.
Carbonate of lime 178.474 —
Carbonate of soda 16.500 —
Carbonate of magnesia 3.356 —
Carbonate of iron 6.168 —
————
Total 676.000 —
[Illustration]
ALBANY.
* * * * *
Albany is the second city in the State of New York, in population,
wealth, and commerce. It stands on the west bank of the Hudson, and
about one hundred and forty-five miles from New York by the river, and
near the head of sloop navigation. It is built just over the pitch of an
extensive plain, lying between the Mohawk and the Hudson, and has very
much the look of a city sliding down hill.
The history of Albany is not very definite, touching its first
settlement. The probability seems, that, in 1614, the Dutch erected a
fort and trading-house on an island just below the city; and also, in
nine years after, a fort, which they called Fort Orange, on the present
site. It would appear to have been canonically christened, and has been
called at different periods Auralia, Beverwyck, and Williamstadt. “All
this time,” says the historian, “it was known also by the name of ‘_The
Fuyck_.’” The Indian appellation in which it rejoiced was
Schaunaugh-ta-da, or _Once the pine plains_.
Albany is the residence of several of the oldest and wealthiest families
in the State; but except this, it is a mere centre of transit—the
channel through which passes the vast tide of commerce and travel to the
north and west. The Erie and Champlain canals here meet the Hudson; and
that which is passed up by this long arm from the sea, is handed over to
the great lakes by the other two,—as if old Enceladus had been turned
into a “worky,” and stood with his long arms between salt water and
fresh.
The association most people have with Albany, is that of having lost a
portmanteau there. The north-river steam-boats land you with from three
to seven hundred passengers upon a narrow pier, in the dusk of the
evening, where you find from three to seven hundred individuals (more or
less), each of whom seems to have no other object in life, than to
persuade you, at that particular instant, to go by a certain conveyance,
or to stop at a certain hotel. Upon setting your foot on shore, you find
yourself among five or six infuriated gentlemen, two or three of whom
walk backward before you, and all talking at the pitch which is
necessary to drown the deepening hiss of the escape-valve and each
other’s voices. If you attempt to reason, you have no sooner satisfied
the aforesaid six, that your route, your baggage, and your choice of an
hotel, are matters in which they cannot be of the slightest assistance
to you, than six more take their places, who must be satisfied as well;
and so on in the same order. If you resolutely shut your lips, silence
is taken for consent; your baggage is seized, and disappears before you
have recovered from your amazement; and your only course is to follow
the most importunate of your remaining five persecutors to an hotel;
advertise in the next morning’s paper for your portmanteau; and wait in
Albany till it returns from Canada or Lake Erie, or till you are
reconciled to its loss.
One of the most amusing scenes in the world, if it were not so
distressing, is to see a large family of rather respectable emigrants
landed by the steamer in Albany. It is their first step inland; and with
all the confidence of those who are accustomed to countries where a
man’s person and property are outwardly respected, they yield their
children and baggage to the persuasive gentlemen who assure them that
all is right; and if a passing wonder crosses the mind of the sufferer,
that his route should be so immediately comprehended by a perfect
stranger, it is chased away the next moment by his surprise at the scene
of bustle and confusion. At the end of five minutes the crowd thins a
little, and he looks about for his family and effects. A stage coach is
dashing off at top-speed in one direction, with his eldest daughter
stretching out of the window, and crying in vain that there is some
mistake; his two youngest are on board a steam-boat just off from the
pier, and bound eight miles further up the river: the respectable part
of his baggage has entirely disappeared; and nothing but his decrepit
grandmother and the paternal bedstead (both indebted for their escape to
being deaf, and not portable,) remain of his family and chattels. For
his comfort, the gentry around inform him that his children may be got
back in a day or two, and he may find his baggage somewhere on his route
to the west—offering, for a consideration not very trifling, to send
off an express for either one or the other.
Albany is the seat of government, and has a State House, of which the
historian of New York remarks: “In the structure of this edifice, the
rules of architecture, whether Egyptian, Hindoo, Chinese, Grecian,
Roman, Saracenic, Gothic, or Composite, have been violated.” Lately,
however, a taste for a better style of architecture seems to prevail;
and in North Pearl-street we lately noticed a façade (we think, of a new
church,) in a very pure and beautiful style. The private houses of
Albany are built, many of them, very expensively; and the city is
remarkable for its hospitality.
[Illustration]
CROW NEST, FROM BULL HILL, WEST POINT.
* * * * *
It is true of the Hudson, as of all other rivers, that, to be seen to
advantage, it should form the middle, not the foreground of the picture.
Those who go to Albany by steam have something the same idea of the
scenery of West Point, that an inside passenger may have of the effect
of the Brighton coach at top-speed. It is astonishing how much
foreground goes for in landscape; and there are few passes of scenery
where it is more naturally beautiful than those of the Hudson. In the
accompanying drawing, the picturesque neighbourhood of Undercliff, the
seat of Colonel Morris, lies between the river and the artist, and
directly opposite stands the peak of Crow Nest, mentioned in the
description of West Point.
Crow Nest is one of the most beautiful mountains of America for shape,
verdure, and position; and when the water is unruffled, and the moon
sits on his summit, he looks like a monarch crowned with a single pearl.
This is the scene of the first piece-work of fancy which has come from
the practical brain of America,—the poem of The Culprit Fay. The
opening is so descriptive of the spot, that it is quite in place here;
and to those who have not seen the poem (as most European readers have
not) it will convey an idea of a production which, in my opinion, treads
close on the heels of the Midsummer Night’s Dream:—
“’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 grey form to throw
In a silver cone on the wave below;
His sides are broken by spots of shade,
By the walnut boughs and the cedar made,
And through their clustering branches dark
Glimmers and dies the firefly’s spark,—
Like starry twinkles that momently break
Through the rifts of the gathering tempest rack.
The stars are on the moving stream,
And fling, as its ripples gently flow,
A burnish’d 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-wing’d raty-did;
And the plaints of the mourning whip-poor-will,
Who mourns unseen, and ceaseless sings
Ever a note of wail and wo,
Till morning spreads her rosy wings,
And earth and skies 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 ring the hour of twelve,
And call the fays to their revelry.
* * * * * * * * * *
They come from beds of lichen green,
They creep from the mullen’s velvet screen;
Some on the backs of beetles fly
From the silver tops of moon-touch’d trees,
Where they swing in their cob-web hammocks high,
And rock’d about in the evening breeze;
Some from the hum-bird’s downy nest,
They had driven him out by elfin power,
And pillow’d on plumes of his rainbow breast,
Had slumber’d there till the charmed hour;
Some had lain in a scarp of the rock,
With glittering rising-stars inlaid,
And some had open’d the four-o’clock,
And stolen within its purple shade:
And now they throng the moonlight glade,
Above—below—on every side,
Their little minion forms arrayed
In the tricksy pomp of fairy pride.’
The general assembly of the fairies is at last complete, and they
proceed to the trial of the culprit fay, who has extinguished his elfin
lamp and paralyzed his wings by a love for a mortal maid. He is
condemned to penances, which are most exquisitely described, and
constitute the greater part of the poem; and he finally expiates his
sins, and is forgiven. There is a fineness of description, and a
knowledge of the peculiarities of American nature, in birds, fishes,
flowers, and the phenomena of this particular region, which constitute
this little poem a book of valuable information as well as an exquisite
work of fancy.
Just under Crow Nest, buried in the heavy leaves of a ravine, springs a
waterfall like a Naiad from the depths of the forest, and plunges down
into the river. The rambles in and about its neighbourhood are cool and
retired; and it is a favourite place for lovers from New York, who run
up in the steamer in three hours, and find the honeymoon goes swimmingly
off there,—the excellent hotel within half a mile supplying the _real_,
without which the _ideal_ is found to be very trumpery. The marble tomb
of a cadet, who was killed by the bursting of a gun, forms a picturesque
object, and gives a story to the spot.
[Illustration]
VIEW BELOW TABLE ROCK.
* * * * *
The interest of the view under this impending cliff is somewhat
heightened by the probability that it will fall into the abyss sometime
within the next six months. Since the fall of the most projecting part
of it, two or three winters since, a large and very deep crack has
widened around the remaining area of the platform above, and it is
thought that it will scarce survive the next frost. At present, spite of
the threat, troops of ladies and gentlemen crowd its broad summit at all
hours, walking, drawing, gazing, and philandering, in the fullest
confidence that rocks have bases. And so it will go on, probably, till
the “one (thunder) too many” hammers through its crack of doom.
The path leading behind the sheet of Horse Shoe Fall, runs close under
the cliff of Table Rock; and between the spray and the small rivulets
that trickle over the sharp edge, or find their way out of the numerous
crevices on the face of the precipice, it is as wet as the lawn blessed
with “perpetual rain” by the Witch of Atlas. We were of a considerable
party that visited this Naiad’s palace in the close of the last summer.
A small shanty stands at the head of the staircase, kept by a very civil
Englishman, who, with the assistance of his daughter and two sons, keeps
a reading-room and registry, vends curious walking-sticks cut at
Niagara, minerals, spars, and stuffed scorpions, besides officiating as
guide under the Falls, and selling brandy and water to those who survive
the expedition.
The ladies of the party were taken into a small apartment to change
their dresses preparatory to their descent; and the two smart lads of
our conductor soon metamorphosed their cavaliers into as brigand-looking
a set of tatterdemallions as could be found in the Abruzzi. Rough duck
trowsers, long jackets of green painted cloth, oil-skin hats, and
flannel shirts,—the whole turn-out very much like the clothes of the
drowned exhibited for recognition at the Moague in Paris,—constituted
our habiliments. The difference of the female costume consisted in the
substitution of a coarse petticoat for the trowsers, and a string tied
over the broad-brimmed hat;—and, flattery aside, our friends would have
looked at home in Billingsgate. Quite the most formidable part of the
expedition, to them, was passing in review before some twenty curious
persons collected on the way.
The guide went before, and we followed close under the cliff. A cold
clammy wind blew strong in our faces from the moment we left the shelter
of the staircase; and a few steps brought us into a pelting, fine rain,
that penetrated every opening of our dresses, and made our foothold very
slippery and difficult. We were not yet near the sheet of water we were
to walk through; but one or two of the party gave out and returned,
declaring it was impossible to breathe; and the rest, imitating the
guide, bent nearly double to keep the beating spray from their nostrils,
and pushed on, with enough to do to keep sight of his heels. We arrived
near the difficult point of our progress; and in the midst of a
confusion of blinding gusts, half deafened, and more than half drowned,
the guide stopped to give us a hold of his skirts and a little counsel.
All that could be heard amid the thunder of the cataract beside us was
an injunction to push on when it got to the worst, as it was shorter to
get beyond the sheet than to go back; and with this pleasant statement
of our dilemma, we faced about with the longest breath we could draw,
and encountered the enemy. It may be supposed that every person who has
been draped through the column of water which obstructs the entrance to
the cavern behind this cataract, has a very tolerable idea of the pains
of drowning. What is wanting in the density of the element is more than
made up by the force of the contending winds, which rush into the mouth,
eyes, and nostrils, as if flying from a water-fiend. The “courage of
worse behind” alone persuades the gasping sufferer to take one desperate
step more.
It is difficult enough to breathe within; but with a little self-control
and management, the nostrils may be guarded from the watery particles in
the atmosphere, and then an impression is made upon the mind by the
extraordinary pavilion above and around, which never loses its
vividness. The natural bend of the falling cataract, and the backward
shelve of the precipice, form an immense area like the interior of a
tent, but so pervaded by discharges of mist and spray, that it is
impossible to see far inward. Outward the light struggles brokenly
through the crystal wall of the cataract; and when the sun shines
directly on its face, it is a scene of unimaginable glory. The footing
is rather unsteadfast, a small shelf composed of loose and slippery
stones; and the abyss below boils like—it is difficult to find a
comparison. On the whole, this undertaking is rather pleasanter to
remember than to achieve.
[Illustration]
LAKE WINIPISEOGEE,
(THE BEAUTIFUL LAKE OF THE INDIANS,)
NEW HAMPSHIRE.
* * * * *
The Indian fights of the celebrated Captain Lovewell, which took place
near the borders of this lake, were not the only feats of courage the
early inhabitants of this part of the country were called upon to
display. Bears, wolves, and catamounts, were enemies as constantly found
in their path as the unfriendly Indian, and were almost as dangerous.
The descriptions contained in the grave historical records of the State,
of encounters, with bears more particularly, are sometimes sufficiently
amusing; and, indeed, whatever the peril to the man, there is a
conventional drollery about the bear which throws a spice of fun into
all his contests with mankind. This animal, in the early days of New
Hampshire, often destroyed the husbandman’s hopes by his depredations on
the green maize, of the milky ear of which he is especially fond. Sweet
fruits, honey, and other simple but “_toothsome_” productions of the
orchard and farm, suited bruin equally well, and he had never recourse
to animal food while these were to be procured. The kind of bear most
mischievous in this way was the small American bear, with a long and
pointed nose, remarkable for his alertness in ascending and descending
trees. They were often found in hollow trunks, and in clefts of rocks,
and were considered delicious meat by the hunters. Among the adventures
with this class of their enemies recorded of the first settlers of the
State, is an encounter of a Mr. Annis with a bear.
“One day, late in March,” says the narrator, “the snow being deep, he
mounted his snow-shoes, and in company with Abner Watkins and their
dogs, set off towards the Mink Hills for a hunt, armed with an axe and
gun. In the neighbourhood of the hills, the dogs were perceived to be
very much excited with something in a ledge of rocks. Annis left his
companion, Watkins, and ascended a crag twenty or thirty feet to where
the dogs were, having no other weapon with him but his staff, which was
pointed with iron. After exploring a little, he concluded there was no
game there of more consequence than a hedge-hog or some other small
animal, and being fatigued laid down in the snow on his back to rest,
reclining his head upon the place he had been examining; he had but just
laid down when he heard a snuffling under his ear; he started up, and
turning round, found an old bear pressing her head up through the old
leaves and snow which filled the mouth of her den; he thrust his
spear-pointed staff at the bear’s briskets, and thus held the bear which
was pressing towards him at his staff’s length distance, and called to
his companion Watkins to come up with the axe and kill the bear, which,
after some little time, was effected. After the action was over, Annis
complained of Watkins’ dilatoriness, but Watkins excused himself by
saying he could not get his gun off, that he had snapt, snapt, snapt
several times. Where did you take sight? said Annis, knowing that he was
directly between him and the bear; _I took sight between your legs_,
said Watkins.”
Many years ago a cub bear was caught by a stout lad near the borders of
Lake Winipiseogee, carried into town, and after proper drilling, became
the playfellow of the boys of the village, and often accompanied them to
the school-house. After passing a few months in civilized society, he
made his escape to the woods, and after a few years was almost
forgotten. The school-house meantime had fallen from the schoolmaster’s
to the schoolmistress’s hands, and in the room of large boys and girls
learning to write and cipher, small boys and girls were taught in the
same place knitting and spelling. One winter’s day, after a mild fall of
snow, the door had been left ajar by some urchin going out, when to the
unutterable horror of the spectacled dame and her fourscore hopeful
abecedarians, an enormous bear walked in, in the most familiar manner in
the world, and took a seat by the fire. Huddling over the benches with
what expedition they might, the children crowded about their
schoolmistress, who had fled to the farthest corner of the room, and
stood crying and pushing to escape the horror of being eaten first. The
bear sat snuffing and warming himself by the fire, however, exhibiting
great signs of satisfaction, but deferring his meal till he had warmed
himself thoroughly. The screams of the children continued, but the
school-house was far from any other habitation, and the bear did not
seem at all embarrassed by the outcry. After sitting and turning himself
about for some time, Bruin got up on his hind legs, and shoving to the
door, began to take down, one by one, the hats, bonnets, and satchels,
that hung on several rows of pegs behind it. His memory had not deceived
him, for they contained, as of old, the children’s dinners, and he had
arrived before the recess. Having satisfied himself with their cheese,
bread, pies, dough-nuts, and apples, Bruin smelt a little at the
mistress’s desk, but finding it locked, gave himself a shake of
resignation, opened the door and disappeared. The alarm was given, and
the amiable creature was pursued and killed,—very much to the regret of
the townspeople, when it was discovered by some marks on his body that
it was their old friend and playfellow.
[Illustration]
KOSCIUSKO’S MONUMENT.
* * * * *