The Hudson | Page 4

the Palisades or at the great mountains
of the Highlands; what dreams of success, apparently within reach,
were his, when night came down in those deep forest solitudes under
the shadowy base of Old Cro' Nest and Klinkerberg Mountain, where
his little craft seemed a lone cradle of civilization; and then, when at
last, with immediate purpose foiled, he turned his boat southward,
having discovered, but without knowing it, something infinitely more
valuable to future history than his long-sought "Northwestern Passage
to China," how he must have gazed with blended wonder and awe at
the distant Catskills as their sharp lines came out, as we have seen them
many a September morning, bold and clear along the horizon, and
learned in gentle reveries the poetic meaning of the blue Ontioras or
"Mountains of the Sky." How fondly he must have gazed on the
picturesque hills above Apokeepsing and listened to the murmuring
music of Winnikee Creek, when the air was clear as crystal and the
banks seemed to be brought nearer, perfectly reflected in the glassy
surface, while here and there his eye wandered over grassy uplands,

and rested on hills of maize in shock, looking for all the world like
mimic encampments of Indian wigwams! Then as October came with
tints which no European eye had ever seen, and sprinkled the hill-tops
with gold and russet, he must indeed have felt that he was living an
enchanted life, or journeying in a fairy land!
How graphically the poet Willis has put the picture in musical prose:
"Fancy the bold Englishman, as the Dutch called Hendrick Hudson,
steering his little yacht the 'Haalve Maan,' for the first time through the
Highlands. Imagine his anxiety for the channel forgotten, as he gazed
up at the towering rocks, and round the green shores, and onward past
point and opening bend, miles away into the heart of the country; yet
with no lessening of the glorious stream before him and no decrease of
promise in the bold and luxuriant shores. Picture him lying at anchor
below Newburgh with the dark pass of the Wey-Gat frowning behind
him, the lofty and blue Catskills beyond, and the hillsides around
covered with lords of the soil exhibiting only less wonder than
friendliness."
If Willis forgot the season of the year and left out the landscape glow
which the voyager saw, Talmage completed the picture in a rainbow
paragraph of color: "Along our river and up and down the sides of the
great hills there was an indescribable mingling of gold, and orange and
crimson and saffron, now sobering into drab and maroon, now flaring
up into solferino and scarlet. Here and there the trees looked as if their
tips had blossomed into fire. In the morning light the forests seemed as
if they had been transfigured and in the evening hours they looked as if
the sunset had burst and dropped upon the leaves. It seemed as if the
sea of divine glory had dashed its surf to the top of the crags and it had
come dripping down to the lowest leaf and deepest cavern."
* * *
So fair yon haven clasped its isles, in such a sunset gleam, When
Hendrick and his sea-worn tars first sounded up the stream.
Robert C. Sands.

* * *
On such a day in 1883 it was the privilege of the writer to stand before
150,000 people at Newburgh on the occasion of the Centennial
Celebration of the Disbanding of the Army under Washington, and, in
his poem entitled "The Long Drama," to portray the great mountain
background bounding the southern horizon with autumnal splendor:
October lifts with colors bright Her mountain canvas to the sky, The
crimson trees aglow with light Unto our banners wave reply.
Like Horeb's bush the leaves repeat From lips of flame with glory
crowned:-- "Put off thy shoes from off thy feet, The place they trod is
holy ground."
Such was the vision Hendrick Hudson must have had in those far-off
September and October days, and such the picture which visitors still
compass long distances to behold.
"It is a far cry to Loch Awe" says an old Scottish proverb, and it is a
long step from the sleepy rail of the "Half Moon" to the roomy-decked
floating palaces--the "Hendrick Hudson," the "New York" and the
"Albany." Before beginning our journey let us, therefore, bridge the
distance with a few intermediate facts, from 1609, relating to the
discovery of the river, its early settlement, its old reaches and other
points essential to the fullest enjoyment of our trip, which in
sailor-parlance might be styled "a gang-plank of history," reaching as it
does from the old-time yacht to the modern steamer, and spanning three
hundred years.
* * *
The prow of the "Half-Moon"