[figure description] Page 003.[end figure description]

Much has been sung and written of the charms
of the glorious Hudson—its smiling villages, its noble
cities, its magnificent banks, and its majestic waters.
The inimitable Knickerbocker, the graphic Cooper,
and a thousand less celebrated writers and tourists
have delighted to luxuriate in descriptions of its rich
fields, its flowery meadows, whispering groves, and
cloud-capped mountains, until its name is become
synonymous with all the beautiful and sublime of
nature. Associated as are these beauties with our
earliest recollections, and nearest, dearest friends—
entwined as they inseparably are with memorials
of the past, anticipations of the future, we too would
offer our humble tribute. But the theme has been
exhausted by hands that snatched the pencil from
nature herself, and nothing is left for us but to repress
the feelings of our swelling hearts by silent musings.

Catalina, accompanied by her father, embarked on
board of the good sloop Watervliet, whereof was
commander Captain Baltus Van Slingerland, a most

[figure description] Page 004.[end figure description]

experienced, deliberative, and circumspective skipper.
This vessel was noted for making quick passages,
wherein she excelled the much-vaunted Liverpool
packets; seldom being more than three weeks in going
from Albany to New-York, unless when she chanced
to run on the flats, for which, like her worthy owners,
she seemed to have an instinctive preference. Captain
Baltus was a navigator of great sagacity,
and courage, having been the first man that ever
undertook the dangerous voyage between the two
cities without asking the prayers of the church and
making his will. Moreover, he was so cautious in
all his proceedings that he took nothing for granted,
and would never be convinced that his vessel was
near a shoal or a sandbank until she was high and
dry aground. When properly certified by ocular
demonstration, he became perfectly satisfied, and sat
himself to smoking his pipe till it pleased the waters
to rise and float him off again. His patience under
an accident of this kind was exemplary; his pipe
was his consolation—more effectual than all the precepts
of philosophy.

It was a fine autumnal morning, calm, still, clear,
and beautiful. The forests, as they nodded or slept
quietly on the borders of the pure river, reflected
upon its bosom a varied carpet, adorned with all the
colours of the rainbow. The bright yellow poplar,
the still brighter scarlet maple, the dark-brown oak,
and the yet more sombre evergreen pine and hemlock,
together with a thousand various trees and
shrubs, of a thousand varied tints and shades, all
mingled together in one rich, inexpressibly rich garment,
with which nature seemed desirous of hiding
her faded beauties and approaching decay. The
vessel glided slowly with the current, now and then

[figure description] Page 005.[end figure description]

assisted by a little breeze that for a moment rippled the
surface and filled the sails, and then died away again.
In this manner they approached the Overslaugh,
a place infamous in all past time for its narrow
crooked channel, and the sandbanks with which it is
infested. The vigilant Van Slingerland, to be prepared
for all contingencies, replenished his pipe and
inserted it in the button-holes of his Dutch pea-jacket,
to be ready on an emergency.

“Boss,” said the ebony Palinarus, who presided
over the destinies of the good sloop Watervliet—
“boss, don't you tink I'd better put about; I tink
we're close to the Overslaugh now.”

Captain Baltus very leisurely walked to the bow
of the vessel, and after looking about a little, replied,
“A leetle furder, a leetle furder, Brom; no occasion
to be in such a hurry before you are sure of a ting.”

Brom kept on his course grumbling a little in an
under-tone, until the sloop came to a sudden stop.
The captain then bestirred himself to let go the
anchor.

“No fear, boss, she won't run away.”

“Very well,” quoth Captain Baltus, “I'm satisfied
now, perfectly satisfied. We are certainly on de
Overslaugh.”

“As clear as mud,” answered Brom. The captain
then proceeded to light his pipe, and Brom followed
his example. Every quarter of an hour a
sloop would glide past in perfect safety, warned of
the precise situation of the bar by the position of
the Watervliet, and adding to the vexation of our travellers
at being thus left behind. But Captain Baltus
smoked away, now and then ejaculating, “Ay, ay,
the more hashte de lesch shpeed; we shall see pyand-py.”

[figure description] Page 006.[end figure description]

As the tide ebbed away, the vessel, which had
grounded on the extremity of the sandbank, gradually
heeled on one side, until it was difficult to
keep the deck, and Colonel Vancour suggested the
propriety of going on shore until she righted again.

“Why, where's de use den,” replied Captain
Baltus, “of taking all dis trouble, boss? We shall
be off in two or tree days at most. It will be full-moon,
day after to-morrow.”

“Two or three days!” exclaimed the colonel.
“If I thought so, I would go home and wait for you.”

“Why, where's de use den of taking so much
trouble, colonel? You'd only have to come pack
again.”

“But why don't you lighten your vessel, or carry
out an anchor? She seems just on the edge of
the bank, almost ready to slide into the deep
water.”

“Why, where's de use of taking so much
trouble den? She'll get off herself one of dese
days, colonel. You are well off here; notting to
do, and de young woman dere can knit you a pair
of stockings to pass de time.”

“But she can't knit stockings,” said the colonel,
smiling.

“Not knit stockings! By main soul den what is
she good for? Den she must smoke a pipe; dat is
the next best way of passing de time.”

“But she don't smoke either, captain.”

“Not smoke, nor knit stockings! Christus,
where was she brought up den? I wouldn't have
her for my wife if she had a whole sloop for her
fortune. I don't know what she can do to pass de
time till next full-moon, but go to sleep; dat is de
next best ting to knitting and smoking.”

[figure description] Page 007.[end figure description]

Catalina was highly amused at Captain Baltus's
enumeration of the sum-total of her resources for
passing the time. Fortunately, however, the next
rising of the tide floated them off, and the vessel
proceeded gallantly on her way, with a fine northwest
breeze, which carried her on almost with the
speed of a steamboat. In the course of a few
miles they overtook and passed several sloops, that
had left the Watervliet aground on the Overslaugh.
“You see, colonel,” said Captain Baltus, complacently,—
“you see—where's de use of being in a
hurry den? Dey have been at anchor, and we have
been on a sandbank. What's de difference den,
colonel?”

“But it is easier to get up an anchor, captain,
than to get off a sandbank.”

“Well, suppose it is; if a man is not in a hurry,
what den?” replied honest Captain Baltus.

At the period of which we are writing, a large
portion of the banks of the river, now gemmed with
white villages and delightful retreats, was still in a
state of nature. The little settlements were “few
and far between,” and some scattered Indians yet
lingered in those abodes which were soon to pass
away from them and their posterity for ever. The
river alone was in the entire occupation of the white
man; the shores were still, in many places, inhabited
by little remnants of the Indian tribes. But they
were not the savages of the free wild woods; they
had in some degree lost their habits of war and
hunting, and seldom committed hostilities upon the
whites, from an instinctive perception that they were
now at their mercy.

Still, though the banks of the river were for the
most part wild, they were not the less grand an
beautiful; and Catalina, as she sat on the deck in

[figure description] Page 008.[end figure description]

the evening, when the landscape, tinselled with twilight,
presented one long perspective of lonely grandeur
and majestic repose, could not resist its holy
influence. On the evening of the sixth day the
vessel was becalmed in the centre of the Highlands,
just opposite where West Point now rears its gray
stone seminaries, consecrated to science, to patriotism,
and glory. It was then a solitary rock, where
the eagle made his abode, and from which a lonely
Indian sometimes looked down on the vessels gliding
past far below, and cursed them as the usurpers of
his ancient domain.

The tide ran neither up nor down the river, and
there was not a breath of air stirring. The dusky
pilot proposed to Captain Baltus to let go the anchor,
but the captain saw “no use in being in such
a hurry.” So the vessel lay still, as a sleeping
haleyon upon the unmoving mirror of the waters.
Baltus drew forth his trusty pipe, and the negro
pilot selected a soft plank on the forecastle, on
which he, in a few minutes, found that blessed repose
which is the golden prize of labour, and a
thousand times outweighs the suicide luxuries of
the lazy, sleepless glutton, whose repose is the
struggle, not the relaxation of nature; the conflict
of life and death. If he sleeps, it is in a chaos of
half-real, half-imaginary horrors, from whence he
awakes to a miserable languor, only to be relieved
for a little while by stuffing and stimulating the manbeast,
and preparing him for another nightly struggle
with his dinner and his bottle.

As the golden sun sunk behind the high mountains
of the west, that other lesser glory of the heavens
rose in full, round, silver radiance from out the
fleecy foliage of the forest which crowned them on

[figure description] Page 009.[end figure description]

the east bank of the river. The vessel seemed
embosomed in a little world of its own, with nothing
visible but the sparkling basin of water, the waving
mountains, one side all gloom, the other shining
bright, and the blue heavens sparkling with ten
thousand ever-during glories over head. Catalina
wrapped herself in her cloak, and sat on the quarter-deck
alone and abstracted, conscious of the scene
and its enchantments only as they awakened those
mysterious associations of thought and of feeling
that establish the indissoluble union between
the Creator and his works, the soul of man and the
universal soul, which is nothing else but Omnipotence
itself. Imagination, and memory, and hope
mingled in her bosom, alternately the sphere of
heavenly aspirations and gentle worldly wishes,
such as pure virgins who have given away their
hearts may entertain without soiling the white
ermine of their innocent affections. Gradually her
thoughts concentrated themselves upon Sybrandt
Westbrook; she recalled to mind those past incidents
of her life which seemed intended by heaven
to entwine their hearts in one indissoluble being,
and gradually worked herself up to the conviction,
that they neither would nor could be separated. A
flood of tenderness, hallowed by this infusion of a
holy and mysterious sanction, rushed into her soul;
she wished he were present at this apotheosis of
all that was beautiful in nature, all that was tender
in a woman's heart, that she might recline in his
circling arms, lay her head on his bosom, pour out
her overflowing floods of tenderness in his ear, and
exchange her love for his, in one long kiss of melting
rapture.

At this moment a wild shrill shriek or howl broke

[figure description] Page 010.[end figure description]

from the shore, echoed among the silent recesses of
the mountains, and roused Catalina from her delicious
revery. In about a minute it was repeated—
and a third time, after a similar interval.

“Dat is de old woman,” said Captain Baltus, who
was sitting on the hatchway, smoking his pipe, something
between sleeping and waking.

“What old woman?” asked Catalina.

“Why, de old Indian woman, what keeps about
de rock just ashore—dere—don't you see it close
under dat pine-tree dere?”

“What Indian woman? and what does she do
there shrieking?” said the young lady.

“What! did you never hear dat story? and
don't you know it's no old woman after all—but a
ghost?”

“A ghost!”

“Ay—yes—a spook. I saw it one night when
I got ashore on de flats just above de rock; and
you may depend I was in a great hurry den for once
in my life, I can tell you. It looked like de very
old Duyvel, standing on de rock, and whetting a great
jack-knife, as dey say.”

“Who say?” asked Catalina.

“Why, my fader and grandfader—who are both
dead, for dat matter; but dey told me de story before
dey died. We shall have sixteen rainy Sundays,
one after de oder, and den it will clear up wid
a great snowstorm.”

“Yes?”

“Yes; as sure as you sit dere. It always happens
after dat old woman shows herself, and screams
so, like de very Duyvel.”

“Do you know the story?” asked Colonel Vancour,
whose attention had been arrested by the conversation.

[figure description] Page 011.[end figure description]

“Know it! why, to be sure I do, colonel. I have
heard it a hundred times from my fader and grandfader.
He was de first man dat sailed in a sloop all
de way from Albany to New-York.”

“We can't have higher authority. Come, captain—
I see your pipe is just filled—tell us the story,
and then I will go to sleep.”

The worthy skipper said he was no great hand
at telling a story; but he would try, if they would
promise not to hurry him; and accordingly began:

“Once dere was an old woman—duyvel! dere
she is again!” exclaimed Baltus, as a long quaver
echoed from the shore.

“Well—well—never mind her; go on.”

“Once dere was an old woman—” Here another
quaver, apparently from the mast-head, stopped
Baltus again, and made Catalina start.

“Duyvel!” cried Baltus; “but if I don't pelieve
she is coming apoard of us!”

“Well—never mind,” said the colonel again; “she
wants to hear whether you do her full justice, I suppose.
Go on, captain.”

“Once dere was an old woman,” he began, almost
in a whisper; when he was again interrupted by the
black pilot, who came aft with a light, and asked
Baltus whether it would not be better to haul down
the sails, as he saw some appearance of wind towards
the north-east, where the clouds had now obscured
the moon entirely. “Don't be in such a hurry,
Brom,” quoth the skipper; “time enough when de
wind comes.”

“Once dere was an old woman—” At that moment
Brom's light was suddenly extinguished, and
Baltus received a blow in the face that laid him
sprawling on the quarter-deck, at the same instant

[figure description] Page 012.[end figure description]

that a tremendous scream broke forth from some
invisible being that seemed close at their ears. Baltus
roared manfully, and Catalina was not a little
frightened at these incomprehensible manœuvres of
the old woman. The colonel, however, insisted
he should go on—bidding him get up and tell his
story.

“Once dere was an old woman—” But the
legend of honest Baltus, like Corporal Trim's story
of “a certain king of Bohemia,” seemed destined
never to get beyond the first sentence. He was
again interrupted by a strange mysterious scratching
and fluttering, accompanied by a mighty cackling
and confusion, in the chicken-coop, which the provident
captain had stored with poultry for the benefit
of the colonel and his daughter.

“Duyvel! what's dat?” cried Captain Baltus, in
great consternation.

“O, it's only the old woman robbing your henroost,”
replied the colonel.

“Den I must look to it,” said Baltus, and mustering
the courage of desperation, went to see what
was the matter. In a few moments he returned,
bringing with him a large owl, which had, from some
freak or other, or perhaps attracted by the charms
of Baltus's poultry, first lighted on the mast, and then,
either seduced or confused by Brom's light, darted
from thence into the capacious platter-face of the
worthy skipper, as before stated.

“Here is de duyvel!” exclaimed Baltus.

“And the old woman,” said the colonel, laughing,
“But come, captain, the more I see the more anxious
I am to hear the rest of the story.”

“Once dere was an old woman—” a hollow murmur
among the mountains again suddenly interrupted

[figure description] Page 013.[end figure description]

him. “There is the old woman again,” said the
colonel. “'Tis de old duyvel!” said Baltus, starting
up and calling all hands to let go the halyards. But
before this could be accomplished, one of those sudden
squalls, so common in the highlands in autumn,
struck the vessel and threw her almost on her beam
ends. The violence of the motion carried Colonel
Vancour and Catalina with it, and had they not
been arrested by the railings of the quarter-deck,
they must inevitably have gone overboard. The
Watervliet was, however, an honest Dutch vessel,
of a most convenient breadth of beam, and it was
no easy matter to capsize her entirely. For a minute
or two she lay quivering and struggling with the
violence of the squall that roared among the mountains
and whistled through the shrouds, until, acquiring
a little headway, she slowly luffed up in the
wind, righted, and flapped her sails in defiance. The
next minute all was calm again. The cloud passed
over, the moon shone bright, and the waters slept as
if they had never been disturbed. Whereupon Captain
Baltus, like a prudent skipper as he was, ordered
all sail to be lowered, and the anchor to be let
go, sagely observing, “it was high time to look out
for squalls.”

“Such an accident at sea would have been rather
serious,” observed the colonel.

“I don't know what you tink, colonel,” said Baltus,
“but, in my opinion, it don't make much odds
wedder a man is drowned in de sea or in a river.”
The colonel could not well gainsay this, and soon
after retired with his daughter to the cabin.

Bright and early the next morning, Captain Baltus,
having looked round in every direction, east,
west, north, and south, to see if there were any

[figure description] Page 014.[end figure description]

squalls brewing, and perceiving not a cloud in the
sky, cautiously ordered half the jib and mainsail
to be hoisted, to catch the little land-breeze that
just rippled the surface of the river. In a few hours
they emerged from the pass at the foot of the great
Dunderbarrack, and slowly opened upon that beautiful
amphitheatre into which nature has thrown all
her treasures and all her beauties. Nothing material
occurred worthy the dignity of our story to record
during the rest of the passage. True it is that
Skipper Baltus ran the good sloop Watervliet two or
three times upon the oyster-banks of the since renowned
Tappan Bay; but this was so common a
circumstance that it scarcely deserved commemoration,
nor would I have recorded it here but for the
apprehension that its omission might at some future
period, peradventure, seduce some industrious scribe
to write an entire new history of these adventures,
solely to rescue such an important matter from oblivion.
Suffice it to say, that at the expiration of ten
days from leaving Albany, the good sloop Watervliet
arrived safe at Coenties-slip, where all the Albany
sloops congregated at that time. This extraordinary
passage was much talked of in both cities, and finally
found its way into the weekly News-Letter, then the
only paper published in the whole new world, as may
be seen by a copy now, or late, in the possession
of the worthy Mr. Dustan, of the Narrows. It is
further recorded, that some of the vessels which
passed the Watervliet as she lay aground on the
Overslaugh, did not arrive in nearly a fortnight after
her; owing, as Captain Baltus observed, “to der
being in such a hurry.” After this famous exploit
the Watervliet had always a full freight, and as many
passengers as she could accommodate; so that, in

[figure description] Page 015.[end figure description]

good time, this adventurous navigator retired from
following the water, and built himself a fine brick
house, with the gable end to the street, and the
edges of the roof projecting like the teeth of a saw,
where he sat on his stoop and smoked his pipe time
out of mind.

Next section