ENGLAND TO NEW ZEALAND THROUGH AMERICA.

Evening Star, Issue 7443, 11 February 1888, Page 2 (Supplement)

ENGLAND TO NEW ZEALAND THROUGH AMERICA.

No. 7, tin; Hudson continued Washington’s HEADQUARTERS THE STORM SHIP—POUffIIKKM’SIE THE CATSKILLS APPROACH TO AI.P.ANY. Tim Hudson is rich in historical and romantic associations. A few miles above West I’oint, on the same side of the river, is the handsome city of Newburgh, which rises from the level of the water in a succession of terraces. As the steamer approaches the landing stage, attention is directed to the old Hasbrouck House, a building of rough stone, one-storey high, with a steep roof—a common place looking house, but consecrated for ever in the eyes of free men as having been the headquarters of Washington in the War of Independence. It was here that the patriot General was invited to assume the position aud powers of Royalty, a proposition which he rejected with scorn. It was here that the rank and file of the army chanted the old song, which showed that they were men of the old Ironside stamp—“No King hut God.” It was here, also, that the army was instigated to revolt, as Congress had not voted supplies, and a meeting was convoked by anonymous notices; hut the trouble was arrested by the touching address and appeal of Washington. His first sentence is well remembered. Commencing to read his manuscript without glasses, he was compelled to pause, and as he adjusted them to his eyes he said : “You sec, gentlemen, that I have not only grown grey, but blind in your service.” The anonymously-called meeting was never held. It was here, also, that the army was disbanded, and the farewell orders of Washington read. The headquarters are about half a mile from the landing, hut much to my regret I had not time to visit them. Maintained as a national memorial, the house is now enclosed in a well-kept pleasure ground of some five acres, which commands a fine view of the Highlands and the course of the Hudson north aud south. A little farther up the river is Locust Grove, the residence of the late Professor Morse, the inventor of the electric telegraph—a man whose name must live in the records of all time. As the steamer cleaves her swift way up stream, Blue Point on the west side comes in sight, and in every direction the scenery expands on the finest views between the sublimity of the Highlands, which we are now leaving, and the tranquil dreary repose of the Tappan Zee. Years ago, when New York was a mere cluster of houses on the point now known as the Battery, the whole town one evening was put into great commotion by the fact that a ship was coming up the bay. .She approached the Battery within hailing distance, and then in the teetli of both wind and tide steered to the left and passed up the Hudson. Week after week and month after month elapsed, but she never returned, and whenever a storm came down on Haversham Bay or Tappan Zee, the legend is that she could be seen pitching and tossing in mid-stream, and in the midst of the turmoil the captain could he heard giving orders in good Low' Dutch ; hut when the weather was pleasant she was to be discerned at anchor among the shadows of the picturesque hills on the eastern hank, a few miles above the Highlands. It was thought by some to he Hendrick Hudson and his crew of the Half Moon, who, it was well known, had run aground somewhere about here, seeking a north-west passage to China ; and people who live in this vicinity still, to the present day,aver that they see the “Storm Ship’’under the calm harvest moon and in the pleasant nights of September, under the bluff of Blue Point, all in deep shadow’, save her loosed topsails gleaming in the moonlight. Poughkeepsie, “Queen city of the Hiidcon,” is about seventy-four ndles from New York. The queer name, which the Post Office record states there are forty different ways of spelling, is derived from an Indian word signifying safe harbor, as no doubt it was in the ancient days of birch canoes. The city has a beautiful location on the east bank of the river, and is not only midway between New York and Albany, hut also between the Highlands and the Catskills—the Gibraltar of Revolutionary fame, and the dreamland of Rip Van Winkle. The population, a fast increasing one, is over 2d,C00, and Poughkeepsie is especially distinguished us the seat of most important and interesting educational institutions. Here is the wellkiiow’ii Vassal - College, with associated schools, and that almost unique establishment the Fasti.Kin Business College, which, in the special w'ork of preparing young men for business, has made Pougkeepsie a household word throughout the States. It was fortunate for the rising city that the energetic founder of this College selected this central point on the Hudson for his enterprise, and equally fortunate for the thousand young men who yearly graduate to he so pleasantly located. Every department of the College, I was informed, is thoroughly organised, and the course of training forms a good supplement to every class of education. The mere literary student is often launched on the sea of life with very little knowledge of the practical. The idea of Eastman College is to teacii the young man what he needs to know. The College, it is stated, was never more successful than to-day, and its reputation roaches from New York to Sail Francisco. In course of construction, when I passed the city, was a literally enormous railway bridge, which is to span the Hudson, here certainly over half a mile in width, at a very considerable height, so as in no way to interfere with the river traffic. The bridge, when completed, will connect the Eastern States with the coalfields of Pcnsylvannia. Statistics are not much in my way, but it may bo intoresting to mention that the New F.ngland States” east of the Hudson, including New York city, contain one-seventh of the whole population of the Republic, and more than one-half of the manufacturing industries. These States are the most active and wealthy, and their business interests aud capital are nearly equal to those of all the rest of the Union. The great crossing places of the Hudson, over which now pass all the mighty streams of trade aud travel between this section of the country and the more rapidly-growing West, are but twoone at Albany and Troy, the other at New York, At Poughkeepsie, by-che-way, is the extensive manufactory of Adriance, Platt, and Co. —a huge congerie of buildings close to tl;e river bank and in full sight from the steamer. Tiffs is where th.e fa pious Buckeye mowers are made, now iu use in every part of the world. The next place of interest on the river is Kingston, on the west hard;, originally settled in 1614, and thrice destroyed by the Indians before the revolution. In 1777 the State Legislature here met and formed a Constitution. There was a good deal of hard fighting here in the War of Xo.dependence. Kingston, picturosquely situated on a hill, is now united with Houndout on the river Into one city, having a population of 20,000. Roundout is the termination of the Delaware and Hudson Canal, whence coal-boats findthcii way from the Pennsylvania mountains to tide-water, and of the Ulster and Delaware railroad, the principal route to the mountains which are now in sight to the northwest.

A great mountain chain called the Alieghanies, 100 miles wide and I,ITOO miles long, extends from the eastern valley of the St. Lawrence to the north line of the Alahamas. It is composed of a series of lofty land waves, with now and then a billow tossed into mountain peaks. The world-renowned Catskills form one group of this chain, standing hack ten or twelve miles from the Hudson on the western side ; the loftiest points, Round Top and High Peak, with their Swisslike crags, being conspicuous objects for many miles to the north and south in the steamer’s course. For miles up and down the rivercan also be seen the Mountain House, built on a terrace 2,500 ft above the level of the river—for the last half-century a favorite summer resort. It stands on a park of 3,000 acres, having a valley frontage of over three miles, commanding a series of magnificent views, and including within its boundaries North and South Lakes. “ Of all the scenery of the Hudson,” says Washington Irving, “the Catskill Mountains had the most witching effect on my boyish imagination. Never shall I forget the effect upon me of my first view of them, predominating over a wide extent of country—part wild, woody, and rugged, part softened away into all the graces of cultivation. As we slowly floated along 1 lay on the deck and watched tjfen) Through a long summer’s day,

undergoing a thousand mutations under the magical effects of atmosphere; sometimes seeming to approach, at other times to recede; now almost melting into hazy distance, now burnished hy the setting sun, until in the evening tlu-y printed themselves against the glowing sky in the deep purple of an Italian landscape.” Thus wrote Irving of the mountains whose name his genius has made immortal in the exquisitely written legend of Rip Y an Winkle. The steamer called in at Catskill, a township or village with some 4,000 inhabitants, and the terminus of the railroad, which runs right up to the Mountain House, far above the scene of Rip’s adventures and long sleep. I fell into conversation with a very amusing man who knew the locality well, and he kept me laughing for an hour or two withhisqueor stories and quaiutconceits. The first time, he told me, that he went up the mountain the party he was with preferred driving by the old road through the romantic scenery to taking the train and being whisked up in a commonplace way. His narration of an incident of the trip is worth telling in Ids own words, so far as 1 am able to recollect them :—A mile aud a half up the road, he said, we came to a frame building two and a half storeys high. By the side of it was a little hut of a this?” we asked of the driver. “Rip House,” said the driver ; “ place where liip Van Winkle slept for twenty years. \ oil’ll see the rock he slept on just up at the hack of the house ttiar.” The proprietor of the establishment now came to the door, and looked so full of information concerning the affair that I went down the next morning on purpose to ask him about it. He is a dark man, with a deep, convincing voice, and was already engaged in conversation with a sadlooking individual from New Jersey, so I had nothing to do hub sip a fifteeu-cent [lass of lemonade and listen. “ You see,” the proprietor was saying, “ this Van Winkle used to live down here to Catskill. He .was consid’hle on the hunt, end he came up that valley down there one day and met a lot of Dutch fairies with whisky kegs, and offered to help’em—being of a kind disposition to everybody but Ids own folks—an’ they give him a drink, an’ he dim on to that rock and slep’ there twenty year in one nap. ’Fore he turned in, he tied his dorg to that tree tliar, an’ the tree growed and growed, and when he woke up there was nothing left of the dorg but a hunch of hones and a string. Au’ there’s the hones now.” There was certainly some bones hanging to the branches of a tree some ten or fifteen feet high, where no one could reach them “ But excuse me, sir,” said the sad-looking Jersey man, drawing au operaglass from his pocket, but I am a butcher, sir, and those look very like beef bones to me.” “Maybe you know more about it than the history does,” said the proprietor testily. “ I tells it just as it’s told to me. If you can improve upon it, why go ahead, that’s all.” The sad-looking man improved upon it by buying a cigar, and then said to the mollified Boniface; “ I am a little puzzled over a statement in this new guide hook, which is to the effect that Mr Van Winkle took his sleep in another valley near by here,” and he showed him the paragraph. This seemed to he the first time that the keeper of Rip’s well ventilated bedroom had heard his claims disputed. His eyes flashed, but he controlled himself well, and laughed satirically. He promptly and heroically cut the Gordian knot. “That statement’s a lie on the face of it,” he declared ; “ for when ye come right down to a fine p’iut, he didn’t sleep nowhar. He slep’ here just as much as any place, an’ I wouldn’t wonder if a little more,” The rock which is safe to have formed poor old Rip’s bedstead is a snug little climb from the road. It is about the length of a comfortable conch, anil hundreds of people are said to take a drink here and then lie down and see if it makes them drowsy. One nice old lady discovered a slight impression, and pointed it out as probably made by his head hy lying there so long. A sober-faced, thoughtful-looking citizen did not believe the story at all, “He never could lay there twenty years without no shelter nor nothin’ over him,” .saidtliecitiz.cn. “ ’Taint reason’hle. The snow would smudder him ; the wild eats would nibble Ids oars ; the bears would make a meal out on him. I’ve beern this story fur some time goin’ round, and I’ve concluded that it's jest a yam started by some theatre fellows to make money out of. They’re a-acting ou it out now, down at Catskill, in a theatre there, ft’s nothin’ but a made up yarn,” I told him that I had heard that a man named Irving started the report. “ Wall, I don’t know anybody of that name ronn’ here,” he replied, “ but, whoever ’twas, he might have been in better business ! ” Another illustration of a prophet being without honor in Ids own country.

Almost opposite Catskill is Rodgers Island, where the last battle was fought between the two great Indian tribes, the Mohicans and the Mohawks, which eventuated in the utter defeat of the former. The. chief or king, as lie was called, had forty years previously visited England, where Queen Anne invested him witli regalia ; and these, when dying (he was killed in the fight), lie ordered to lie taken off himself and put upon his son. It was the history of this great tribe which suggested to Fenimcre Cooper bis at one time popular romance ‘ The Last of the Mohicans.’ Who that has ever read the story can forget Leather-stocking and Chinganhgook ? Passing Hudson, fast becoming a big city; the Columbia White Sulphur Springs, with the usual Brobdignagian hotel; Athens, another rising town (the Americans much affect classical names): the capitol at Albury shows in outline against the sky right ahead of the steamer, and we realise that the most pleasant and interesting voyage from New York is approaching the end. A more charming day 7 l have seldom spent, and the kindness and attention received from perfect strangers who were fellow-passengers must ever live in my memory. The little that I have been able to relate is not a tithe of the information relating to the Hudson gladly conveyed to me by those familiar with the river and its history. The most lovely weather and intelligent companions—it was the perfection of voyaging.