not usually either safe or pleasant to cross. On the east bank the poorer dwellings and the coal and lumber yards are near the river, while on the west the grounds of handsome residences slope to the water's edge. One of the results of the difference just noted is that there is quite a fleet of pleasure boats belonging to Nyack and a flourishing boat club there, while Tarrytown must be content to enjoy its river prospect from

Spectres of the Tappan Zee 221

a distance, as most of its well-to-do inhabitants dwell upon the hills. The sweep of the Hudson River from Haverstraw Bay to the Tappan Zee is around the curving base of that deceptive headland known as Point-no-Point, or Rockland Point. As its name implies, it is at best the bluntest of points. It juts into the current, a segment

HIGH TAUR -- I'OINT-NO-1'OINT '".^AND-^ HAVERSTRAW dra'cuing by the author)

(/> above the palisaded front of Hook of a huge circle, just Mountain, and just below the venerable crest of old Taur. Back of No-Point, over the brow of the hills, in a basin to which they are the titanic rim, lies Rockland Lake, and day after day the ice-cars pass and repass the crest on their way between the ice-houses on the lake side and those on the river shore. A headland that used to be eagerly looked for by the passengers

222 The Hudson River

on the river boats, and was pointed out by every riverman, who viewed it with the pride of conscious proprietorship, No-Point satisfied the cultivated sense of the artist and impressed the untutored wayfarer with its perfection. It is safe to say that not even the Hudson River affords a more perfect combination of form and colour in landscape than this used to present.