Those who have traveled over Europe will certainly appreciate the
quiet luxury of an American steamer; and this first introduction to
American scenery will always charm the tourist from other lands. No
single day's journey in any land or on any stream can present such
variety, interest, and beauty, as the trip of one hundred and
forty-four miles from New York to Albany. The Hudson is indeed a
goodly volume, with its broad covers of green _lying open_ on either
side; and it might in truth be called a _condensed_ history, for there
is no other place in our country where poetry and romance are so
strangely blended with the heroic and the historic,--no river where
the waves of different civilizations have left so many waifs upon the
banks. It is classic ground, from the "wilderness to the sea," and
will always be the poets' corner of our country: the home of Irving,
Willis, and Morris,--of Fulton, Morse, and Field,--of Cole, Audubon,
and Church,--and of scores besides, whose names are household words.
* * *
The Hudson's cable-tow of yore
Bound gallant sire and sturdy son
With hearty grasp from shore to shore
For Robert Burns and Washington.
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