Monday, September 24, 1843.—­We proceeded on board the Empire, Capt.  S.K.  Roe, bound to Troy and Albany.  Her length is 330 feet, one-sixteenth of a mile; breadth of beam, 30 feet; extreme width, 62 feet; burden, 1040 tons; and 600-horse power:  only draws 4 ft. 10 in. water.  She is past all description.  The Hudson River, the sources of which are in 44 deg.  N. lat., was discovered by Henry Hudson in 1609.  We passed Jersey City and Stevens’s Seat, celebrated for American steam-boats.  The mantle of Fulton may be said to have fallen upon him.  We then passed West Hoboken and the Beacon Race-course.  Seventeen miles down we passed Philipsburgh, an old Dutch settlement.  At the Tappan Sea the river is three miles broad.  The Sing-Sing state-prison is in view at Nyack; and the Croton River comes in about two miles from here.  Thence Vrededicker Hook, on the top of which there is a clear crystal lake of three or four miles circumference.  Thence we pass Stony Point.  It really is past description, and would occupy a book to do justice to the magnificent scenery.  Passed Anthony’s Nose, Buttermilk Falls, Sugar Loaf, West Point scenery, and the Capitol Hotel.  There is a public edifice for 250 cadets.  The academy was built in 1802.  We then pass West Point Foundry.  The highland scenery is sublime.  We then pass Newburgh, and come in sight of the Catskill mountains, the highest (say 3000 feet) in the States:  we did not ascend them, although report says we should have been repaid.  We arrived at Albany at six o’clock.  Population of Albany, 25,000; the capital of New York State.

Tuesday morning.—­Looked through the State House—­a fine building.  The Congress Hotel we found comfortable.  Nothing worth noticing in the town.  We took stage and passed Rensselaer’s Estate all the way to Troy.  The cause of dispute is the doubt the farmers have that one of the Dutch kings did not give and covenant the seestates, which the Van Rensselaer can prove by parchment:  thus the tarring and feathering is done.  Troy population is 40,000:  a nice town, with a splendid arsenal, 156 miles from New York.  The Hudson is navigable no farther.  We took a chaise to the Shaker Village of Watervleit, where we found a Shaker settlement of about 120 people:  there are three more in the neighbourhood; in all about 400.  At this place they have 2000 acres of good land, their own:  they grow everything they eat, and are all teetotallers.  We entered the house where the Shaker manufactures are sold.  We purchased a few dollars’ worth, and they politely presented my friend and I with a book each.  The old gentleman and lady were very civil, and showed us over the gardens, where they grow seed for sale, which is sold by Wilcox, London.  They are famed for it all over the world.  Pine-apples are growing in abundance; also water-melons, tomatoes, &c.  The place was in beautiful order, and they appeared happy.  They declined to show us the chapel, or