The Hudson,
through a great part of its extent, is three or four times as wide
as the Rhine, and its scenery is grander and more inspiring; while,
though it lacks the ruined castles and ancient towns of the German
river, it is by no means devoid of historical associations of a more
recent character. The vine-clad slopes of the Rhine have, too, no
ineffective substitute in the brilliant autumn coloring of the
timbered hillsides of the Hudson."
* * *
A stately stream around which as around
The German Rhine hover mystic shapes
_Richard Burton_
* * *
What must have been the sensation of those early voyagers, coasting a
new continent, as they halted at the noble gateway of the river and
gazed northward along the green fringed Palisades; or of Hendrick
Hudson, who first traversed its waters from Manhattan to the Mohawk,
as he looked up from the chubby bow of his "Half Moon" at the massive
columnar formation of 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.
Pages:
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25