Taghkanick range, with the hills of western Massachusetts and Connecticut. Almost at our feet lay Cornwall, and a little beyond were New Windsor and Canterbury, and the whole country back of Newburgh, made memorable by events of the war for independence. Before us lay the old camp-grounds of the Continental Army, the spot where the patriotism of the officers was tried to the utmost in the spring of 1783, as already explained ; the quarters occupied by Washington at New "Windsor

THE HUDSON. 215

and Newburgh ; of Lafayette, at the Square ; of Greene and Knox, at Morton's; and of Steuben, at Verplanck's. There "was Plum Point and Pollopell's Island, between which a sort of chevaux-de-frise "was constructed in 1776. Pollopell's Island lay beneath us. The solitary house of a fisherman upon it appeared like a "wren's cage in size, and the kingdom of his insane "wife, -who imagines herself to be the Queen of England, and her husband the Prince Consort, seemed not much larger than one of her spouse's drag-nets. If he is not a Prince Consort, he is the sole ruler of the little domain "which he inliabits, and he may say, as did Selkirk --

" I am monarch of all I suivej-,

My right there is none to dispute, From the centre all round to the sea, I am lord of the fowl and the brute."

The passing trains upon the Hudson lliver Railway, and large steamers, and more than forty sail of vessels of all sizes, seen upon the river at the same time, appeared almost like toys for children. Yet small as they seemed, and diminutive as "we must have appeared from below, signals with white handkerchiefs, given by some of our party, brought responses in kind from the windows of the railway cars.