32 EMIGRATION, OR 



of rye whisky (2c?. only), a little of which, I find, with 

 water, agrees with me better this hct weather than water 

 alone, or even beer. 



June 19, Sunday. Warm last night and pleasant to-day. 

 The Hudson river, up which we are travelling, is a noble 

 stream running between high romantic hills and mountains 

 on each hand. The Kaatskill mountains are the most con 

 spicuous, making a grand appearance with the clouds flying 

 far below their tops along their sides. The Chancellor Li 

 vingstone, and another noble steam-boat, two-deckers, past 

 us down ; they are really floating-palaces. The steam 

 boats are larger, and more elegantly fitted up, than any 

 I Jiave seen in the Thames ; indeed they are carried to ex 

 cess, more fitted for voluptuaries than for cool calculating 

 Republicans. Arrive in Albany, and stop at a tavern kept 

 by an Hibernian, for the night. 



June 20. Finding I am not likely to procure any situa 

 tion hereabouts, I have determined to continue westward by 

 the canal (here pronounced canol), in company with an itine 

 rant bookselling merchant, who is going to Canada. He 

 put his books, and I my trunks, on board a trading boat, 

 and walked on a nearer way, to see the country and save ex 

 pense, till the boat should overtake us. Fare something 

 less than \d. a mile for myself and one trunk, and 3s. 4\d. 

 for the other, 751b., to Lockport, near 300 miles. The 

 boats have relays of horses, and go night and day. Albany 

 is an old, large, and improving place, with but indifferent 

 land about it, yet the trade by the Erie and east canals en 

 sures great prosperity in trade. Travelled twenty-five miles 

 to-day, and stopped for the night at a plain Dutch farmer s 

 tavern, seven miles above Schenectada, on the flats of the 

 Mohawk river, on which, to nearly the whole extent, the 

 Dutch are settled. Flats are what would be termed meadows 

 in England; but there is this difference, in England the 

 meadows in general are subject to floods, but here in Ame 

 rica there are but few rivers that overflow their banks, their 

 banks being mostly high, and till the land is generally 

 cleared, the woods and swamps preserve the heavy rains 

 from running off in torrents. The flats of the Mohawk 

 river in many places are bounded on each side by high 

 barren hills and mountains, covered with scrub timber, and 

 brush-wood. The Mohawk flats are considered some of the 

 very richest land in the Union j they are settled nearly, if 



