FOUR DAYS AT ALBANY, 123 



Paul seemed disinclined to stay on board, so the bars 

 liad to be put up and every precaution taken. It may 

 have been that the sliades of the ferrymen who had 

 run the little tiraft for the last two hundred years came 

 back to vex us. Perhaps the particular ghost of Hen- 

 drick Albertsen, who, two hundred and eight years 

 ago bargained with Killian Van Rensselaer for the 

 privilege of running his boat; but whatever the cause 

 of the disturbance we reached terra firma without acci- 

 dent, and were soon in the familiar streets of the old 

 Dutch town ; the day's journey agreeably ended with 

 our trip across the Hudson by the oldest ferry in the 

 United States. 



From the river the view of Albany is picturesque 

 in the extreme, where the eye catches the first glimpse 

 of the city, rising from the water's edge, and surmounted 

 then by its brown-domed C^pitoL It was a sight that 

 had always had a singular charm for me, for many of 

 i\iM pleasantest hours of my early life were spent here, 

 where my sisters and I were educated. Here I left 

 school to enlist at the opening of the Civil War, and 

 here I published my first book, " Capture, Prison-Pen 

 and Escape.'' But even if the city had no claim other 

 than its own peculiar attractiveness it would hold an 

 enviable place among its sister cities. The irregularity 

 of its older streets, the tone of its architecture, the lack 

 of the usual push and bustle of an American town, 

 give it an old-world air that makes it interesting. 

 There is a Common in the centre of the city, shaded 

 by old elms, and around this stand the public buildings 

 — the State Hall for state offices and tlie City Hall for 

 city offices — both of marble and fronting on the 

 Common. The Albany Academy, where Joseph 



