His
hat had been struck so often that it resembled a battered sauce
pan. He seized a branch and beat the air wildly about him but
still the blood coursed in tine rivulets down his face and
hands. His little dog that had a bell attached to its collar
made numerous stops while he rang a suggestive peal as he
scratched his ear with his hind foot. Leaving them to their
tragic pantomimes and protracted agony a swift run for the
highlands was made and at last there was safety from the
plotting of such a fearsome foe as the "Jersey skeeter."
CHAPTER VII
GLIMPSES ALONG THE HUDSON
NEW YORK CITY
You might as well leave France without seeing Paris as to travel
through the East and not make a visit to New York. But there is
so much to see in this great city that if you have not decided
before coming what you wish to see you will miss many places of
interest.
The Metropolitan Museum of Art should be visited, for it
contains the greatest art collection in America. It is located
within the borders of Central Park, its principal entrance being
on Fifth Avenue, between Eighty-second and Eighty-third streets.
A trip to Bronx park, where the beautiful botanical and
zoological gardens are located, should not be missed. It is
watered throughout its length by the Bronx river and is one of
the most beautiful parks in existence.
As we crossed the ferry over to this wonderful city we thought
how scarcely more than three centuries ago, when Paris and
London had been great for a thousand years, New York City with
its wonderful buildings rising before us was only a little
wooded island with here and there scattered tepees, and in place
of magnificent avenues and boulevards were found morasses
crossed by streams and presided over by wild beasts.
Civilization was old in Europe before Henry Hudson appeared on
this beautiful river.
Some one has described New York as a chaotic city, where huge
masses of masonry and iron rise mountain high with no
relationship existing between any of the structures. One views
their stupendous forms as he does the mountains along the
Hudson. "They are serrated, presenting ragged, irregular
outlines, which are lost in the accidental sky-line, giving one
at once the impression of power, wealth, and aggressiveness."
The vast, impenetrable wall of solid masonry along the river is
almost as wonderful as the Palisades.
The magnetic attraction of such an enormous amount of steel
concentrated in so small a space is said to be so great that it
frequently varies the points of the compass on boats in the
harbor as much as seven degrees. Here rises the Woolworth
building, towering seven hundred fifty feet above the level of
the street. It is the highest inhabited structure ever built by
man.
How the ceaseless activity and seemingly untiring energy of this
great city thrills you! Here the sound of traffic rises
continually, not unlike the booming breakers of the ocean. Here
ebb and flow those vast throngs of humanity, drawn irresistibly
by some compelling force like the tides of the ocean. Think of
the lonely hearts among such a throng of people. Think, too, how
many hunger while the wharves may be choked with food. "What
lives and fates are foreshadowed here." What great souls have
toiled and striven and perhaps died unknown to the world.
Then, too, what associations gather here! What sacrifice, what
triumphs of the early settlers, and alas, what disasters! "Thick
clustered as are its walls and chimneys, are its grand
achievements, pageants, frivolities;" all interspersed with toil
and care.
The scene beheld by Hudson as he came up the river must have
been at once grand and of unrivaled wildness. When he made that
first memorable voyage up the river, no wonder he thought that
here at last was a grand passage leading to remote regions not
yet visited by man. Start by boat from New York for Albany today
and you, too, will feel as though you were bound for some
enchanted land.
"A man by the name of Anthony VanCorlaer was dispatched on a war-
like mission to the patroon van Rennselaer. When he came to the
stream that forms the upper boundary of Manhattan Island, warned
not to cross, he still persisted in advancing, intending to gain
the other shore by swimming. "Spuyt den Duyvil," he shouted, "I
will reach Shoras kappock." But his challenge to the Duyvil was
his last, as at that moment his Satanic Majesty, in the form of
an enormous moss bunker, took him at his word. This phrase is
repeated a thousand times a day by men on the railroad with no
idea of invoking the evil spirit. Here it was that the Indians
came out to attack the men on the Half-Moon with bows and
arrows. Here, too, was the rendezvous of the Indians who menaced
Manhattan in early Colonial days. Nearly a thousand braves,
hideous in war-paint and feathers, came together and threatened
New York. Governor Stuyvesant was absent in the South. The
frightened burghers of the little city took to their forts like
deer. Fortunate indeed is the person who is privileged a trip
along the River Drive on a clear sunny day."
You will probably retain longest in memory those great imposing
masterpieces of nature, the Palisades, as seen from the Jersey
store. You are fascinated by the wonderful detail and color
effects in this picturesque mass of rocks quite as much as when
viewing Niagara. What a perpetual feast of beauty and grandeur
the dwellers along this river have before them. These rocks rise
like airy battlements from the river, their base laved by the
majestic stream, while cloud wreaths float round their emerald
crowns.
