The Hudson, from the Wilderness to the Sea

The air was vocal with shouts and laughter; and when the swift ice-boat, with sails set, gay pennon streaming, and freighted with a dozen boys and girls, came sweeping gracefully towards the crowd, -- after making a comet-like orbit of four or five miles to the feet of the Bonder Berg, Bear Mountain, and Anthony's Nose, -- there was a sudden shout, and scattering, and merry laughter, that would have made old Scrooge, even before his conversion, tremulous with delight, and glowing with desires to be a boy again and singing Christmas Carols with a hearty good-will. I played the boy with the rest for awhile, and then, with long strides upon skates, my satchel with portfolio slung over my shoulder, I bore away towards the great limekilns on the shores of Tomkins's Cove, on the western side of the river, four or five miles below.

* The ice-boats are of various fonns of construction. Usually a strong wooden triangular platform is placed upon three sled-runners, having skate-irons on their bottoms. The rear runner is worked on a pivot or hinge, by a tiller attached to a post that passes up through the platform, and thereby the boat is steered. The sails and rigging are similar to the common large sail-boat. The passengers sit iiat upon the platform, and with a good wind are moved rapidly over the ice, oftentimes at the rate of a mile in a minute.

CHAPTEE XV.

JN" my way to Tomkins's Cove I encountered other groups