88 WINTER SKETCHES. 



American tourist would hail with rapture if he 

 should get a glimpse of them from a steamboat 

 on the Rhine. 



Time will perhaps bring us our share of 

 ruins, and then the Hudson will meet the 

 approbation of the antiquary and the tourist ; 

 but the lover of nature cannot reverse the 

 engine of progress and turn the wheels of the 

 ages back to the past. He can never see the 

 Hudson again as he may see the Columbia 

 now, rolling down through its forests, its 

 silence broken only by the thunder, the storm, 

 and the screams of wild fowl and beasts. 



Nor is it certain that the future has anything 

 in store to replace this charming picture of the 

 past. There are not likely to be any enduring 

 ruins. Every stone of a dismantled building 

 will be utilized by our practical descendants for 

 a new house, for a railroad, or a garden wall, 

 and the Hudson will never be more beautiful 

 and attractive than it is to-day. 



These river towns are all much alike, sloping 

 down from the Broadv/ay road to the water- 

 side with the same gradations, country-seats 

 of the rich from the city, comfortable homes 

 of the " well-to-do " residents, stores and 

 shops, rookeries, saloons, and coal-yards, which 



