What a time of intense delight was that first sail through the Highlands. I sat on the deck as we slowly tided along at the foot of those stern mountains, and gazed with wonder and admiration at cliffs impending far above me, crowned with forests, with eagles saiHng and screaming around them; or listened to the unseen stream dashing down precipices; or beheld rock, and, tree, and cloud, and sky reflected in the glassy stream of the river. And then how solemn and thrilling the scene as we anchored at night at the foot of these mountains, clothed with overhanging forests; and everything grew dark and mysterious; and I heard the plaintive note of the whip-poor-will from the mountain-side, or was startled now and then by the sudden leap and heavy splash of the sturgeon.

In 1840 N. P. Willis wrote:

The passage through the Highlands at West Point still bears the old name of Wey Gat or Wind-gate ; and one of the prettiest moving dioramas conceivable, is the working through the gorge of the myriad sailing craft of the river. The sloops which ply the Hudson, by the way, are remarkable for their picturesque beauty, and for the enormous quantity of sail they carry on in all weathers, and nothing is more beautiful than the little fleets of from six to a dozen,] all scudding or tacking together, like so many white sea birds on the wing. Up they come, with a dashing breeze, under Anthony's Nose, and the sugar loaf, and giving the rocky toe of West Point a wide berth, all down helm and round into the bay: when -- just as the peak of Crow Nest slides