this point was Alipconck (the place
of elms). It has often occurred to the writer that, more than any
other river, the Hudson has a distinct personality, and also that
the four main divisions of human life are particularly marked in the
Adirondacks, the Catskills, the Highlands and Tappan Bay:

The Adirondacks, childhood's glee;
The Catskills, youth with dreams o'ercast;
The Highlands, manhood bold and free;
The Tappan Zee, age come at last.

This was the spot that Irving loved; we linger by his grave at
Sleepy Hollow with devotion; we sit upon his porch at Sunnyside with
reverence:

Thrice blest and happy Tappan Zee,
Whose banks along thy glistening tide
Have legend, truth, and poetry
Sweetly expressed in Sunnyside!

* * *

Whose golden fancy wove a spell
As lasting as the scene is fair
And made the mountain stream and dell
His own dream-life forever share.

_Henry T. Tuckerman._

* * *

=Nyack=, on the west side, 27 miles from New York. The village,
including Upper Nyack, West Nyack and South Nyack, has many fine
suburban homes and lies in a semi-circle of hills which sweep back
from Piermont, meeting the river again at the northern end of Tappan
Zee. Tappan is derived from an Indian tribe of that name, which, being
translated, is said to signify cold water. The bay is ten miles in
length, with an average breadth of about two miles and a half.

Nyack grows steadily in favor as a place for summer residents. The
hotels, boarding-houses and suburban homes would increase the census
as given to nearly ten thousand people. The _West Shore Railroad_ is
two and a half miles from the Hudson, with (a) station at West Nyack. The
_Northern Railroad of New Jersey_, leased by the _New York, Lake Erie
and Western_ (Chambers Street and 23d Street, New York), passes west
of the Bergen Hills and the Palisades. The Ramapo Mountains, north
of Nyack, were formerly known by ancient mariners as the Hook, or
Point-no-Point. They come down to the river in little headlands, the
points of which disappear as the steamer nears them. (The peak to the
south, known as Hook Mountain, is 730 feet high.) Ball Mountain above
this, and nearer the river, 650 feet. They were sometimes called by
Dutch captains Verditege Hook.

* * *

The sails hung idly all night long,
I dreamed a dream of you and me;
'Twas sweeter than the sweetest song,--
The dream I dreamed on