illumined pages with the broad river lying as a crystal book-mark
between her open leaves! And how real this idea becomes to the Day
Line tourist, with the record of Washington and Hamilton for its
opening sentence, as he leaves the Up-Town landing, and catches
messages from Fort Washington and Fort Lee. What Indian legends
cluster about the brow of Indian Head blending with the love story of
Mary Phillipse at the Manor House of Yonkers. How Irving's vision of
Katrina and Sleepy Hollow become woven with the courage of Paulding
and the capture of Andre at Tarrytown. How the Southern Portal of the
Highlands stands sentineled by Stony Point, a humble crag converted by
the courage of Anthony Wayne into a mountain peak of Liberty.

How North and South Beacon again summon the Hudson yeomen from harvest
fields to the defense of country, while Fort Putnam, still eloquent in
her ruins, looks down upon the best drilled boys in the world at West
Point. Further on Newburgh, Poughkeepsie and Kingston shake fraternal
hands in the abiding trinity of Washington, Hamilton and Clinton,
while northward rise the Ontioras where Rip Van Winkle slept, and woke
to wonder at the happenings of twenty years.

What stories of silent valleys told by murmuring streams from the
Berkshire Hills and far away fields where Stark and Ethan Allen
triumphed. What tales of Cooper, where the Mohawk entwines her fingers
with those of the Susquehanna, and poems of Longfellow, Bryant and
Holmes, of Dwight, of Halleck and of Drake; ay, and of Yankee
Doodle too, written at the Old Van Rensselaer House almost within a
pebble-throw of the steamer as it approaches Albany. What a wonderful
book of history and beauty, all to be read in one day's journey!

* * *

Roll on! Roll on!
Thou river of the North! Tell thou to all
The isles, tell thou to all the Continents
The grandeur of my land.

_William Wallace._

* * *

The Hudson has often been styled "The Rhine of America." There is,
however, little of similarity and much of contrast. The Rhine from
Dusseldorf to Manheim is only twelve hundred to fifteen hundred feet
in breadth. The Hudson from New York to Albany averages more than five
thousand feet from bank to bank. At Tappan Zee the Hudson is ten times
as wide as the Rhine at any point above Cologne. At Bonn the Rhine is
barely one-third of a mile, whereas the Hudson at Haverstraw Bay is
over four miles in width. The average breadt