William Cullen Bryant.

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  Where the frost trees shoot with leaf and spray
  And frost gems scatter a silver ray.

  William Cullen Bryant.

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  How fair the thronging pictures run,
    What joy the vision fills—­
  The star-glow and the setting sun
    Amid the northern hills.

  Benjamin F. Leggett.

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Passing west of the Hudson Flats we see North Bay, crossed by the New York Central Railroad.  Kinderhook Creek meets the river about three miles north of Hudson, directly above which is Stockport Station for Columbiaville.  Four Mile Light-house is now seen on the opposite bank.  Nutten Hook, or Coxsackie Station, is four miles above Stockport.  Opposite this point, and connected by a ferry, is the village of—­

=Coxsackie= (name derived from Kaak-aki, or place of wild geese, “aki” in Indian signifies place and it is singular to find the Indian word “Kaak” so near to the English “cackle").  Two miles north Stuyvesant Landing is seen on the east bank, the nearest station on the New York Central & Hudson River Railroad, by carriage, to Valatie and Kinderhook.  The name Kinderhook is said to have had its origin from a point on the Hudson prolific in children; as the children were always out of doors to see the passing craft, it was known as Kinderhook, or “children’s point.”  Passing Bronk’s Island, due west of which empties Coxsackie Creek, we see Stuyvesant Light-house on our right, and approach New Baltimore, a pleasant village on the west bank, with sloop and barge industry.  About a mile above the landing is the meeting point of four counties:  Greene and Albany on the west, Columbia and Rensselaer on the east.  Beeren Island, connected with Coeyman’s Landing by small steamer, now a picnic resort, lies near the west bank, where it will be remembered the first white child was born on the Hudson.  Here was the Castle of Rensselaertein, before which Antony Van Corlear read again and again the proclamation of Peter Stuyvesant, and from which he returned with a diplomatic reply, forming one of the most humorous chapters in Irving’s “Knickerbocker.”  Threading our way through low-lying islands and river flats, and “slowing down” occasionally on meeting canal boats or other river craft, we pass Coeyman’s on our left and Lower Schodack Island on our right, due east of which is the station of Schodack Landing.  The writer of this handbook remembers distinctly a winter’s evening walk from Schodack Landing, crossing the frozen Hudson and snow-covered island on an ill-defined trail.  He was on his way to deliver his first lecture, February, 1868, and his subject was “The Legends and Poetry of the Hudson.”  Since that time he has written and re-written many guides to the river, so that the present handbook is not a thing of yesterday.  The next morning, on his return to Schodack, he had for his companion a young man from twenty or thirty miles inland, who had never seen a train of cars except in the distance.  On reaching the railway, one of the New York expresses swept by, and as he caught the motion of the bell cord he turned and said:  “Do they drive it with that little string?” Lower Schodack Island, Mills Plaat (also an island) and Upper Schodack Island reach almost to—­