White
anemones nod on their slender stems and blood root still sheds
its white petals upon the mounds as if to hallow the sacred
spot.
>From New Hamburg you see a curious projection on the west shore
of the river known as the Duyvil's Dans Kamer (Devil's Dance
Chamber). On this projecting rock, containing about one-half
acre, the Indians used to hold their powwows. Here by the glow
of their fires, that brought out weird, spectral shadows they
assembled.
If you could behold this place as it appeared in their day, when
owls sent their mysterious greetings and the melancholy plaint
of the whippoorwill, like voices from wandering spirits, mingled
with the wail of night winds, you would not wonder why the red
man chose this spot to practice his strange rites with wild,
savage ceremonies to invoke the Evil Spirit. "Here the Medicine
Men worked themselves into a frenzy by their violent and strange
dances." Here, while the strange cries of night birds and frogs
rose like weird incantations it is easy to see how the
imaginative mind of the Indian could believe in this place as
the abode of evil spirits.
"The Military Academy at West Point was an idea of the fertile
mind of Washington. The plan was his but it was not built until
1802. The training of the officers who took part in the Mexican
War was received here. What a test their training received
beneath the fervid heat in an unhealthy land 'where they
conquered the enemy without the loss of a single battle.
"The chapel at West Point is decorated with flags, cannon, and
war trophies. Tablets honoring the memory of Washington's
generals are placed upon the walls, one alone being remarkable
from the fact that the name is erased leaving only the date of
his birth and death. That place could have been filled by the
name of Benedict Arnold."
How beautiful and far-reaching the scenery here at West Point.
One finds it almost as difficult to get past these highlands as
in the days when we found British men of war on the Hudson, for
the ringing notes of the red coated cardinal again come like a
renewed challenge from his fortress of grapevines to every lover
of Nature to linger here, and the note of the thrush with his
bell-like notes takes captive many a traveler.
POUGHKEEPSIE
Imagine, if you can, a wide vista opening before you, in the far
distance faint blue peaks that seem to blend with the horizon
scarcely discernible; within the nearer circle of your vision
smoothly flowing hills, rising in soft and graceful curves, and
from their summits to near their bases, thick with dark pine,
hemlock and balsam fir, interspersed with birch, mountain maple
and oak resembling a vast sea of emerald; within the rising
hills a large space with velvety meadows, rich with the color of
the Oxeye daisy and first golden rods; and brooding over it all,
that indescribable misty veil of purplish blue, and you still
have only a faint idea of the grandeur and majesty of these
hills along the Hudson.
