216 A RIVER VIEW. 



table. Then I suspect the crow is a real hero-wor- 

 shiper. I have seen a dozen or more of them sitting 

 in a circle about an eagle upon the ice, all with their 

 faces turned toward him, and apparently in silent ad- 

 miration of the dusky king. 



The eagle seldom or never turns his back upon a 

 storm. I think he loves to face the wildest elemen- 

 tal commotion. I shall long carry the picture of one 

 I saw floating northward on a large raft of ice one 

 day, in the face of a furious gale of snow. He stood 

 with his talons buried in the ice, his head straight 

 out before him, his closed wings showing their strong 

 elbows a type of stern defiance and power. 



This great metropolitan river, as it were, with its 

 floating palaces, and shores lined with villas, is thus 

 an inlet and a highway of the wild and the savage. 

 The wild ducks and geese still follow it north in 

 spring, and south in the fall. The loon pauses in his 

 migrations and disports himself in its waters. Seals 

 and otters are occasionally seen in it. 



Of the Hudson it may be said that it is a very large 

 river for its size, that is, for the quantity of water 

 it discharges into the sea. Its water-shed is compara- 

 tively small less, I think, than that of the Con- 

 necticut. 



It is a huge trough with a very slight incline, 

 through which the current moves very slowly, and 

 which would fill from the sea were its supplies from 

 the mountains cut off. Its fall from Albany to the 

 bay is only about five feet. Any object upon it, 



