o picturesque effect to atone for the painful images it
suggests; the "Sleepy Hollow" of Washington Irving, just above
it, restores the imagination to a better tone.

West Point, the military academy of the United States, is fifty
miles from New York. The scenery around it is magnificent, and
though the buildings of the establishment are constructed with
the handsome and unpicturesque regularity which marks the work of
governments, they are so nobly placed, and so embosomed in woods,
that they look beautiful. The lengthened notes of a French horn,
which I presume was attending some of their military manoeuvres,
sounded with deep and solemn sweetness as we passed.

About thirty miles further is Hyde Park, the magnificent seat of
Dr. Hosack; here the misty summit of the distant Kaatskill begins
to form the outline of the landscape; it is hardly possible to
imagine anything more beautiful than this place. We passed a day
there with great enjoyment; and the following morning set forward
again in one of those grand floating hotels called steamboats.
Either on this day, or the one before, we had two hundred cabin
passengers on board, and they all sat down together to a table
spread abundantly, and with considerable elegance. A continual
succession of gentlemen's seats, many of them extremely handsome,
borders the river to Albany. We arrived there late in the
evening, but had no difficulty in finding excellent
accommodation.

Albany is the state capital of New York, and has some very
handsome public buildings; there are also some curious relics of
the old Dutch inhabitants.

The first sixteen miles from Albany we travelled in a stage, to
avoid a multitude of locks at the entrance of the Erie canal; but
at Scenectedy we got on board one of the canal packet-boats for
Utica.

With a very delightful party, of one's own choosing, fine
temperate weather, and a strong breeze to chase the mosquitos,
this mode of travelling might be very agreeable, but I can hardly
imagine any motive of convenience powerful enough to induce me
again to imprison myself in a canal boat under ordinary
circumstances. The accommodations being greatly restricted,
every body, from the moment of entering the boat, acts upon a
system of unshrinking egotism. The library of a dozen books, the
backgammon board, the tiny berths, the shady side of the cabin,
are all jostled for in a manner to make one greatly envy the
power of the snail; at the momen