The German Rhine hover mystic shapes

_Richard Burton_

* * *

What must have been the sensation of those early voyagers, coasting a
new continent, as they halted at the noble gateway of the river and
gazed northward along the green fringed Palisades; or of Hendrick
Hudson, who first traversed its waters from Manhattan to the Mohawk,
as he looked up from the chubby bow of his "Half Moon" at the massive
columnar formation of the Palisades or at the great mountains of the
Highlands; what dreams of success, apparently within reach, were his,
when night came down in those deep forest solitudes under the shadowy
base of Old Cro' Nest and Klinkerberg Mountain, where his little craft
seemed a lone cradle of civilization; and then, when at last, with
immediate purpose foiled, he turned his boat southward, having
discovered, but without knowing it, something infinitely more valuable
to future history than his long-sought "Northwestern Passage to
China," how he must have gazed with blended wonder and awe at the
distant Catskills as their sharp lines came out, as we have seen
them many a September morning, bold and clear along the horizon, and
learned in gentle reveries the poetic meaning of the blue _Ontioras_
or "Mountains of the Sky." How fondly he must have gazed on the
picturesque hills above Apokeepsing and listened to the murmuring
music of Winnikee Creek, when the air was clear as crystal and the
banks seemed to be brought nearer, perfectly reflected in the glassy
surface, while here and there his eye wandered over grassy uplands,
and rested on hills of maize in shock, looking for all the world like
mimic encampments of Indian wigwams! Then as October came with tints