The anchor was no sooner aweigh, than the deck became a scene of activity.  The breeze was stiff, and it enabled me to show the Wallingford off to advantage among the dull, flat-bottomed craft of that day.  There were reaches in which the wind favoured us, too; and, by the time the ladies reappeared, we were up among the islands, worming our way through the narrow channels with rapidity and skill.  To me, and to Marble also, the scene was entirely novel; and between the activity that our evolutions required, and the constant change of scene, we had little leisure to attend to those in the cabin.  Just as breakfast was announced, indeed, the vessel was approaching the more difficult part of the river; and all we got of that meal, we took on deck, at snatches, between the many tacks we made.  As good-luck would have it, however, the wind backed more to the westward about eight o’clock; and we were enabled to stem the ebb that began to make at the same time.  This gave us the hope of reaching the end of our passage without again anchoring.

At length we reached the Overslaugh, which, as was apt to be the case, was well sprinkled with vessels aground.  The pilot carried us through them all, however; if not literally with flying colours, which would have been regarded as an insult by the less fortunate, at least with complete success.  Then Albany came into view, leaning against its sharp acclivity, and spreading over its extensive bottom-land.  It was not the town it is to-day, by quite three-fourths less in dwellings and people; but it was then, as now, one of the most picturesque-looking places in America.  There is no better proof, in its way, how much more influence the talking and writing part of mankind have than the mere actors, than is to be found in the relative consideration of Albany, on the scale of appearance and position, as compared with those enjoyed by a hundred other towns, more especially in the Eastern States.  Almost without a competitor, as to beauty of situation, or at least on a level with Richmond and Burlington, among the inland towns, it was usually esteemed a Dutch place that every pretender was at liberty to deride, in my younger days.  We are a people by no means addicted to placing our candle under the bushel and yet I cannot recall a single civil expression in any native writer touching the beauties of Albany.  It may have been owing to the circumstance that so much of the town was under the hill at the beginning of the century, and that strangers had few opportunities of seeing it to advantage; but I rather think its want of the Anglo-Saxon origin was the principal reason it was so little in favour.

Glad enough was I to reach the wharves, with their line of storehouses, that then literally spouted wheat into the sloops that crowded the quays, on its way to feed the contending armies of Europe.  Late as it was in the season, wheat was still pouring outward through all the channels of the country, enriching the farmers with prices that frequently rose as high as two dollars and a half the bushel, and sometimes as high as three.  Yet no one was so poor in America as to want bread!  The dearer the grain, the higher the wages of the labourer, and the better he lived.