h a more becoming stand.

All was tiptoe expectation; but the anticipated sport fell through,
owing to the ill condition of Shark. He was, from some cause or other,
as completely out of order as an animal could well be, and ought
properly to have been drawn. His spirited owner was, however, absent in
Europe, and the friends who acted for him decided that he should do his
best. Two heats, run in very indifferent time, decided the affair; and
the little pet of the Southerners was once more hailed _victrix_.

FOOTNOTE:

[11] Racking is a sort of shuffling gait, easy, I believe, to both horse
and rider, when both are broken to it, and much followed throughout the
West.

THE HUDSON.

With expectations highly raised, and for a long time cultivated and
encouraged by an eager inspection of all the prints I could collect, and
a perusal of glowing descriptions in both prose and poetry, did I at
length wake on the morning which was to introduce me to the beauties of
this vaunted river.

My first act was to rush to my window, and throw open shutter and sash.
It was six o'clock, the sun was up, and the sky cloudless; thanking my
lucky star, which had prevailed to my wish, I hurried through my toilet,
and away to the foot of Courtland-street, from whose wharf the steamboat
Champion was advertised to start at seven A.M. Punctual to the hour, we
slipped our moorings, and in a minute were gallantly heading up the
Hudson, breasting its current at the rate of fifteen miles per hour.

Hoboken and its Elysian fields were passed like lightning. Casting one
backward glance, I perceived Jersey city floating indistinctly in the
golden haze of morning; whilst the yet more distant heights of Long and
Staten Islands, with the dividing Narrows, showed like two dusky clouds
with a pathway of silver drawn between.

I was first struck by a near view of that singular range of cliff, the
Palisadoes, so named from the face of the rock bearing a resemblance to
a gigantic stockade rising from the bank of the river, along whose
southern side it is continued for a considerable distance. Lee's Fort is
pointed out; the Tappan Zee is next entered, upon whose border lies the
scene of poor Andre's capture; and farther on is the point from which
the traitor Arnold made his timely flight.

All these, with other memorable sites, are in turn pointed out, glanced
at, and rapidly left behind. But I am free to confess historical
associations were lost