later, availing themselves of one of the last falls of snow of
the season, captain Willoughby and his wife left Albany for the Knoll.
The leave-taking was tender, and to the parents bitter; though after
all, it was known that little more than a hundred miles would separate
them from their beloved daughters. Fifty of these miles, however, were
absolutely wilderness; and to achieve them, quite a hundred of tangled
forest, or of difficult navigation, were to be passed. The
communications would be at considerable intervals, and difficult. Still
they might be held, and the anxious mother left many injunctions with
Mrs. Waring, the head of the school, in relation to the health of her
daughters, and the manner in which she was to be sent for, in the event
of any serious illness.

Mrs. Willoughby had often overcome, as she fancied, the difficulties of
a wilderness, in the company of her husband. It is the fashion highly
to extol Napoleon's passage of the Alps, simply in reference to its
physical obstacles. There never was a brigade moved twenty-four hours
into the American wilds, that had not greater embarrassments of this
nature to overcome, unless in those cases in which favourable river
navigation has offered its facilities. Still, time and necessity had
made a sort of military ways to all the more important frontier points
occupied by the British garrisons, and the experience of Mrs.
Willoughby had not hitherto been of the severe character of that she
was now compelled to undergo.

The first fifty miles were passed over in a sleigh, in a few hours, and
with little or no personal fatigue. This brought the travellers to a
Dutch inn on the Mohawk, where the captain had often made his halts,
and whither he had from time to time, sent his advanced parties in the
course of the winter and spring. Here a jumper was found prepared to
receive Mrs. Willoughby; and the horse being led by the captain
himself, a passage through the forest was effected as far as the head
of the Otsego. The distance being about twelve miles, it required two
days for its performance. As the settlements extended south from the
Mohawk a few miles, the first night was passed in a log cabin, on the
extreme verge of civilization, if civilization it could be called, and
the remaining eight miles were got over in the course of the succeeding
day. This was more than would probably have been achieved in the virgin
forest, and under the circumstances, had not so ma