aloft, and mark the spot where Kidd (as
usual) was supposed to have buried a portion of that immense sum of
money with which popular belief invests hundreds of localities along the
watercourses of the continent. Now the Narrows above West Point were
entered, and the current against a head-wind made the passage unusually
exciting. The paper canoe danced over the boiling expanse of water, and
neared the west shore about a mile above the United States Military
Academy, when a shell, from a gun on the grounds of that institution,
burst in the water within a few feet of the boat. I now observed a
target set upon a little flat at the foot of a gravelly hill close
to the beach. As a second, and finally a third shell exploded near
me, I rowed into the rough water, much disgusted with cadet-practice
and military etiquette. After dark the canoe was landed on the deck
of a schooner which was discharging slag or cinder at Fort Montgomery
Landing. I scrambled up the hill to the only shelter that could be
found, a small country store owned by a Captain Conk who kept
entertainment for the traveller. Rough fellows and old crones came
in to talk about the spooks that had been seen in the neighboring
hills. It was veritable "Sleepy Hollow" talk. The physician of the
place, they said, had been "skert clean off a bridge the other night."

Embarking the following morning from this weird and hilly country, that
prominent natural feature, Anthony's Nose, which was located on the
opposite shore, strongly appealed to my imagination and somewhat excited
my mirth. One needs a powerful imagination, I thought, to live in these
regions where the native element, the hill-folk, dwell so fondly and
earnestly upon the ghostly and mysterious. Three miles down the river,
Dunderberg, "the thundering mountain," on the west bank, with the town
of Peekskill on the opposite shore, was passed, and I entered Haverstraw
Bay, the widest part of the river. "Here," says the historian, "the
fresh and salt water usually contend, most equally, for the mastery; and
here the porpoise is often seen in large numbers sporting in the summer
sun. Here in the spring vast numbers of shad are caught while on their
way to spawning-beds in fresh-water coves." Haverstraw Bay was crossed,
and Tarrytown passed, when I came to the picturesque little cottage of
a great man now gone from among us. Many pleasant memories of his tales
rose in my mind as I looked upon Sunnyside, the home of