Description of the Breaking up of the Ice on Hudson’s river.
SOON after this I witnessed, for the last time, the sublime spectacle of
the ice breaking up on the river; an object that fills and elevates the
mind with ideas of power, and grandeur, and, indeed, magnificence;
before which all the triumphs of human art sink into insignificance.
This noble object of animated greatness, for such it seemed, I
witnessed; its approach being announced, like a loud and long peal of
thunder, the whole population of Albany were down at the river side in a
moment; and if it happened, as was often the case, in the morning, there
could not be a more grotesque assemblage. No one who had a night-cap on
waited to put it off; as for waiting for one’s cloak, or gloves, it was
a thing out of the question; you caught the thing next you, that could
wrap round you, and run. In the way you saw every door left open, and
pails, baskets, &c. without number, set down in the street. It was a
perfect saturnalia. People never dreamt of being obeyed by their slaves,
till the ice was past. The houses were left quite empty: the meanest
slave, the youngest child, all were to be found on the shore. Such as
could walk, ran; and they that could not, were carried by those whose
duty would have been to stay and attend them. When arrived at the show
place, unlike the audience collected to witness any spectacle of human
invention, the multitude, with their eyes all bent one way, stood
immoveable, and silent as death, till the tumult ceased, and the mighty
commotion was passed by; then every one tried to give vent to the vast
conceptions with which his mind had been distended. Every child, and
every negro, was sure to say, ‘Is not this like the day of judgment?’
and what they said every one else thought. Now to describe this is
impossible; but I mean to account in some degree for it. The ice, which
had been all winter very thick, instead of diminishing, as might be
expected in spring, still increased, as the sunshine came, and the days
lengthened. Much snow fell in February; which, melted by the heat of the
sun, was stagnant, for a day, on the surface of the ice; and then by the
night frosts, which were still severe, was added, as a new accession to
the thickness of it, above the former surface. This was so often
repeated, that in some years the ice gained two feet in thickness, after
the heat of the sun became such, as one would have expected should have
entirely dissolved it. So conscious were the natives of the safety this
accumulation of ice afforded, that the sledges continued to drive on the
ice, when the trees were budding and every thing looked like spring;
nay, when there was so much melted on the surface that the horses were
knee deep in water, while travelling on it; and portentous cracks, on
every side, announced the approaching rupture. This could scarce have
been produced by the mere influence of the sun, till midsummer. It was
the swelling of the waters under the ice, increased by rivulets,
enlarged by melted snows, that produced this catastrophe; for such the
awful concussion made it appear. The prelude to the general bursting of
this mighty mass was a fracture lengthwise, in the middle of the stream,
produced by the effort of the imprisoned waters, now increased too much
to be contained within their wonted bounds. Conceive a solid mass, from
six to eight feet thick, bursting for many miles in one continued
rupture, produced by a force inconceivably great, and, in a manner,
inexpressibly sudden. Thunder is no adequate image of this awful
explosion, which roused all the sleepers, within reach of the sound, as
completely as the final convulsion of nature, and the solemn peal of the
awakening trumpet might be supposed to do. The stream in summer was
confined by a pebbly strand, overhung with high and steep banks, crowned
with lofty trees, which were considered as a sacred barrier against the
encroachments of this annual visitation. Never dryads dwelt in more
security than those of the vine-clad elms, that extended their ample
branches over this mighty stream. Their tangled nets laid bare by the
impetuous torrents, formed caverns ever fresh and fragrant; where the
most delicate plants flourished, unvisited by scorching suns or nipping
blasts; and nothing could be more singular than the variety of plants
and birds that were sheltered in these intricate and safe recesses. But
when the bursting of the crystal surface set loose the many waters that
had rushed down, swollen with the annual tribute of dissolving snow, the
islands and low lands were all flooded in an instant; and the lofty
banks, from which you were wont to overlook the stream, were now
entirely filled by an impetuous torrent, bearing down, with incredible
and tumultuous rage, immense shoals of ice; which, breaking every
instant by the concussion of others, jammed together in some places, in
others erecting themselves in gigantic heights for an instant in the
air, and seeming to combat with their fellow-giants crowding on in all
directions, and falling together with an inconceivable crash, formed a
terrible moving picture, animated and various beyond conception; for it
was not only the cerulean ice, whose broken edges combatting with the
stream, refracted light into a thousand rainbows, that charmed your
attention; lofty pines, large pieces of the bank torn off by the ice
with all their early green and tender foliage, were driven on like
travelling islands, amid the battle of breakers, for such it seemed. I
am absurdly attempting to paint a scene, under which the powers of
language sink. Suffice it, that this year its solemnity was increased by
an unusual quantity of snow, which the last hard winter had accumulated,
and the dissolution of which now threatened an inundation.
Solemn, indeed, it was to me, as the memento of my approaching journey,
which was to take place whenever the ice broke, which is here a kind of
epoch. The parting with all that I loved at the Flats was such an
affliction, as it is even yet a renewal of sorrows to recollect. I loved
the very barn and the swamp I have described so much that I could not
see them for the last time without a pang. As for the island and the
bank of the river, I know not how I should have parted with them, if I
had thought the parting final. The good kind neighbours, and my faithful
and most affectionate Marian, to whom of all others, this separation was
most wounding, grieved me not a little. I was always sanguine in the
extreme, and would hope against hope; but Marian, who was older, and had
more common sense, knew too well how little likelihood there was of my
ever returning. Often with streaming eyes and bursting sobs, she begged
to know if the soul of a person dying in America could find its way over
the vast ocean to join that of those who rose to the abodes of future
bliss from Europe; her hope of a reunion being now entirely referred to
that in a better world. There was no truth I found it so difficult to
impress upon her mind as the possibility of spirits being
instantaneously transported from one distant place to another; a
doctrine which seemed to her very comfortable. Her agony at the final
parting I do not like to think of. When I used to obtain permission to
pass a little time in town, I was transported with the thoughts of the
enjoyments that awaited me in the society of my patroness, and the young
friends I most loved.
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