land journey from there to Johnstown, New York, to visit two married
sisters. In the early days this was on the border of civilization,
where the white traders went to buy furs from the Indians. Steamboats
and railroads had not been invented, and a journey that can now be
made in a few hours, then required several days. Years afterward,
Irving described his first voyage up the Hudson.

"My first voyage up the Hudson," said he, "was made in early boyhood,
in the good old times before steamboats and railroads had annihilated
time and space, and driven all poetry and romance out of travel.... We
enjoyed the beauties of the river in those days.[+]

[Footnote +: Irving was the first to describe the wonderful beauties
of the Hudson river.]

"I was to make the voyage under the protection of a relative of mature
age--one experienced in the river. His first care was to look out for
a favorite sloop and captain, in which there was great choice....

"A sloop was at length chosen; but she had yet to complete her freight
and secure a sufficient number of passengers. Days were consumed in
drumming up a cargo. This was a tormenting delay to me, who was about
to make my first voyage, and who, boy-like, had packed my trunk on the
first mention of the expedition. How often that trunk had to be
unpacked and repacked before we sailed!

"At length the sloop actually got under way. As she worked slowly out
of the dock into the stream, there was a great exchange of last words
between friends on board and friends on shore, and much waving of
handkerchiefs when the sloop was out of hearing.