with its curling column of smoke mounting in the transparent atmosphere, but so loftily situated that the whoopings of the savage children, gamboling on the margin of the dizzy heights, fell almost as faintly on the ear as do the notes of the lark when lost in the azure vault of heaven.  Now and then, from the beetling brow of some precipice, the wild deer would look timidly down upon the splendid pageant as it passed below, and then, tossing his antlers in the air, would bound away into the thickets of the forest.

Through such scenes did the stately vessel of Peter Stuyvesant pass.  Now did they skirt the bases of the rocky heights of Jersey, which sprang up like everlasting walls, reaching from the waves unto the heavens, and were fashioned, if tradition may be believed, in times long past, by the mighty spirit of Manetho, to protect his favorite abodes from the unhallowed eyes of mortals.  Now did they career it gayly across the vast expanse of Tappan Bay, whose wide extended shores present a variety of delectable scenery; here the bold promontory, crowned with embowering trees, advancing into the bay; there the long woodland slope, sweeping up from the shore in rich luxuriance, and terminating in the upland precipice, while at a distance, a long waving line of rocky heights threw their gigantic shades across the water.  Now would they pass where some modest little interval, opening among these stupendous scenes, yet retreating as it were for protection into the embraces of the neighboring mountains, displayed a rural paradise, fraught with sweet and pastoral beauties; the velvet-tufted lawn, the bushy copse, the tinkling rivulet, stealing through the fresh and vivid verdure, on whose banks was situated some little Indian village, or, peradventure, the rude cabin of some solitary hunter.

The different periods of the revolving day seemed each, with cunning magic, to diffuse a different charm over the scene.  Now would the jovial sun break gloriously from the east, blazing from the summits of the hills, and sparkling the landscape with a thousand dewy gems; while along the borders of the river were seen heavy masses of mist, which, like midnight caitiffs, disturbed at his reproach, made a sluggish retreat, rolling in sullen reluctance upon the mountains.  As such times all was brightness, and life, and gayety; the atmosphere was of an indescribable pureness and transparency; the birds broke forth in wanton madrigals, and the freshening breezes wafted the vessel merrily on her course.  But when the sun sunk amid a flood of glory in the west, mantling the heavens and the earth with a thousand gorgeous dyes, then all was calm, and silent, and magnificent.  The late swelling sail hung lifelessly against the mast; the seamen, with folded arms, leaned against the shrouds, lost in that involuntary musing which the sober grandeur of nature commands in the rudest of her children.  The vast bosom of the Hudson was like an unruffled mirror, reflecting the golden splendor of the heavens; excepting that now and then a bark canoe would steal across its surface, filled with painted savages, whose gay feathers glared brightly, as perchance a lingering ray of the setting sun gleamed upon them from the western mountains.