The Rocky
Promontory At The Foot Of Which The Town Is
Built Is Covered With The Finest Arbor Vitae Forest
Probably In Existence.
Six miles below, on
west bank, is the important city of Newburg,
one of the termini of the New York and Erie
Railroad.
Four miles below, the river narrows
and presents a grand view of the north entrance
of the Highlands, with the Storm King Mountain
rising fully one thousand five hundred feet above
the tide. The early Dutch navigators gave to
this peak the name of Boter-burg (Butter-Hill),
but it was rechristened Storm King by the
author N. P. Willis, whose late residence, Idlewild,
commands a fine view of Newburg Bay.
When past the Storm King, the Crow-Nest and
the almost perpendicular front of Kidd's Plug
Cliff tower aloft, and mark the spot where Kidd
(as usual) was supposed to have buried a
portion of that immense sum of money with which
popular belief invests hundreds of localities
along the watercourses of the continent. Now
the Narrows above West Point were entered
and the current against a head-wind made the
passage unusually exciting. The paper canoe
danced over the boiling expanse of water, and
neared the west shore about a mile above the
United States Military Academy, when a shell,
from a gun on the grounds of that institution
burst in the water within a few feet of the boat.
I now observed a target set upon a little flat at
the foot of a gravelly hill close to the beach.
As a second, and finally a third shell exploded
near me, I rowed into the rough water, much
disgusted with cadet-practice and military etiquette.
After dark the canoe was landed on the deck of
a schooner which was discharging slag or cinder
at Fort Montgomery Landing.
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