THE FISHING-EAGLE. 35 



nahs. When I awoke, we were at Albany, and it was 

 five in the morning. The river-fogs were still con- 

 tending for mastery with the rays of the rising sun, 

 and half-awakened Nature spread before me a scene 

 which must ever be new in spite of every attempt to 

 render it familiar by description. We found the 

 town fast asleep, but in the environs a few country- 

 houses began to be stirring, and at the window ap- 

 peared rosy faces yet slightly veiled by the traces of 

 slumber. 



At West Troy, I crossed the Hudson by the ferry- 

 boat — an embarkation which moved quite indepen- 

 dently of steam. Two horses, shut up in a drum- 

 shaped box upon the deck, supplied the motive 

 power to this primitive construction. These unhappy 

 quadrupeds, condemned to perpetual motion without 

 progress, move beneath their feet a moveable plat- 

 form, the bottom of which turns round in the water. 

 It is the screw reduced to its simplest form. During 

 our short passage we had leisure to examine the two 

 halves of Troy situate on either bank of the river; 

 the vessels moored to the quays, the roofs of the 

 houses grouped together in masses, and the factory 

 chimneys which soar up from the midst, all denoting 

 a very populous, active, and industrious town. 



When the boat touched the opposite bank^ the 

 railroad awaited us — that tyrant, which grants the 

 travellers such short respites, and which barely even 

 allows you the time needful to swallow the semblance 



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