He wore a scissor-tailed coat, once black but now
having a reddish brown tinge. His vest contained immense black
and white stripes across which a great silver chain dangled. 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.
