At the foot of Bcmis's Heights, where the old tavern of Bemis -- famous for good wines and long pipes, a spacious ball-room and a rich larder -- once stood, a pleasant hamlet has grown up. It is one of the numerous offsprings of the canal. Two miles below it, at the head of long rapids, is Stillwater, the most pleasing in situation and appearance of all the villages in the valley of the Upper Hudson. It is otherwise remarkable only for a long, gloomy, and unsightly covered toll-bridge, which, resting upon several huge piers, spans the Hudson ; and also as

EELICS TEOM THE BATTLE-FIELD.

the head-quarters of the republican army, for a short time, in the summer of 1777, after they had retreated down the valley before victorious Burgoyne. The house of Derrick Swart, where General Schuyler had his quarters at that time, was yet standing in the upper part of the village, and awakened in the mind of the historical student recollections of a scene that occurred there at a most gloomy period of the campaign. The army, wretchedly furnished and daily diminishing, had retreated before an exultant foe; food, clothing, and artillery were all wanting. The pecuniary resources and public credit of the continental congress were failing, and all the future seemed dark. At that moment intelligence came that Colonel St. Lcger, who had been sent up the St. Lawrence by Burgoyne, with instructions to cross Lake Ontario to Oswego, penetrate

THE HUDSON.

tlie Mohawk valley from that point, form an alliance with the Tories antl Indians, and press forward to Albany with destructive energy, had actually appeared before Port Schuyler, where the village of Eome now stands. The people of the Mohawk valley were wild with consternation, and sent swift messengers to General Schuyler, imploring immediate assistance.