SALMON LAKE. 179 



Hobokeii stands in relief against the New Jersey 

 Hills; behindhand in the half-distance are the Battery, 

 Long Island, the Narrows, and a vast plain of water, 

 covered with sails just bellying to the breeze, and all 

 this, when bathed in the calm blue atmosphere of 

 morning, makes up a scene of incomparable beauty. 

 The right bank of the river soon comes forward, and 

 we enter the course of the Hudson, properly so 

 called. On one side is the wall of perpendicular 

 rocks known as the Palisades, and on the other the 

 imperial city of former days, succeeded by a con- 

 tinuous line of cottages and country-houses. Never 

 was contrast more complete ; on the one side 

 Nature in her wild simplicity, and on the other the 

 small and compai'atively contemptible creations of 

 our civilisation. The steamer, however, carries you 

 at the rate of twenty miles an hour, and you arrive 

 at the extremity of the Palisades. The river 

 widens, and cultivated agricultural land takes the 

 place of the gardens. Villages are grouped upon 

 the banks, and take the place of the country-houses. 

 A few more revolutions of the paddle, and the first 

 undulations which announce the Highlands are visible 

 on the horizon. 



From that moment, and for about fifty miles 

 farther on, there is a panorama upon -which nature 

 seems to have lavished all that she has in the way of 

 magnificence and variety. The river passes through 

 a chain of mountains whose tops vary in height 



K 2 



