Alexandria gazette. [volume] (Alexandria, D.C.) 1834-1974, 1834-06-26
THE HUDSON AND THE ONO.
STEAMBOAT NATIVE, Ono RIVER, June, 1884.

oiOWihS Ai TIC ucdL anu DuSLle anu pOHLlCS OF
your Babylonian phalanx, in the name of JUS
tice l entreat you send some Investigator from
the bevy of your uncomfortable iders, and see
with your own eyes, and tell with your own
tongues, and let conviction rest upon it-that
Nature hath exhausted neither wardrobe nor
jewel case in the decking of your thrice immor-
talized North River
am floating on the tranquil Ohio-which is
Just now in one of its happiest moods, neither
hurrytng on with phrenzied haste, and splitting
its.unwelcome riches upon the grain fields, nor
yet low, turbid, and uninteresting, as the best
bred rivers will sometimes find themselves in
the languor and heat of summer. The wheel
of the "Native" has dislocated an arm and
the momentary pause having called me from
my lounge, am overwhelmed with richness
Of scenery that never met my eye before, and
in the fullnes of qualification, do protest (since
that is the fashion) against monopoly of
praise that hath almost swollen your Anthony's
Nose with satisfaction. The beauty of the Hud-
son River scenery consists, if am right in
dark, precipitous and frghtful cliffs, huge pro-
Jecting rocks and battlement-like entertainments,
and that IN the upper country, more particular
larly in mighty barren hills of grotesque f.
CURE. 1t has much Of the stupendous and SUBJ
lime for every eye, and is Of that wild and AL
pine character that ambitious young men, and
amateurs in the Arts, like to be thought to ad-
mire-such as honest lairds and yeomen's sons
break their necks after in Switzerland. Here
then is the difference.
The Ohio, calm, placid, unrufled as Chris
tan, is all smiles and love. On its banks, on
either side, honest labor has earned peaceful
home, and the proprietors Ono swollen cts) have
put up-ln well selected positions, sometimes on
point projecting into the river and sometimes
at the foot Of a gently rising hl--a shelter, af
ter the rude fashion of the country, often add
ing beauty to the aspect that his art never in
tended. Here is field in the dark green man.
tie OF wheaton, the other side, extending far
up the hlll--where the trees have been girded
and left for time to fell, their naked and eafless
branches ontstretched as if in the agony of
protracted iate--iS the dark, rich looking soil
where the Indian corn is struggling into exis
tence. The bosom Of the river is covered with
variety of boats and just before us is one of
that,huge and cumbrous fashion, so long known
on these waters, barely solicited into motion by
the joint efforts of the current and the sweeps
and poles of the boatmen. These last singing
with rather more vehemence than melody
and as the boisterous echo returns from the
shore, it mingles with the happy laugh of some
young adventures, whose ricketry shallop is
dancing about in our wake The immediate
margin on either side, is fringed with hazel and
beach, whose clustering foliage overhang5 the
water, bending with grace-and you may trace
the river vending far away till the hills close
in upon it, and all is lost and indistinct but the
deep blue color, and the undulating outline
against the sky. However, | do not desire 10
make picture, and all mean to say, is. that
no man whose heart beats at beholding the in
dependent and substantial comfort of people.
can view the Ohio scenery without feelinrs of
satisfaction and gratitude that MAY fail 20 t.
aroused by the curious presentations o. the
Hudson.
| might say more but we hove metaphysi-
cal Dutchman on board who is getting entirely
too audible, and so, Adieu, n S. E.
Our readers are indebted to H. S. E. for thu
foregoing animated invitation, and we symps-
thize fully with him in his lively admiration of
the beautiful Ohio. But it was heretical in him
to institute so close a comparison with the Hud-
son. He might as well compare Hebe with Ju
no, or rather the head of Antinous with that of
the Apollo; Lalla Rookie with Childe Harold or
the delicate gazelle Of the Indies with the an
TERED elk of our western pralres.
No one will deny the far flowing river OF the
West, the exclusive title of La Belle by which
1t ever will be distinguished above all rivers
that seek The sea; no one at least that has seen
the place of its birth in Pennsylvania, where
Virginia and New York send two Of their most
beautiful streams to mingle and bear united
tribute to the father Of rivers; or, after hurryine
Tor days on the boiling and turbid current of
his desolae waters, turned aside from their
cherries bosom, TO glide over the transparent
Luz, anu AOilCI Wy luS dICdUidu DdllKS or the
beautiful Ohio. But the Hudson-the lordly
majestic Hudson-mingling so much grandeur
with its beauty, and blending as many various
charms together, as could be concentrated in
its short passage to the sea-there is in our hum
Bile opinion no stream upon the continent that
can in romantic beauty of the highest order
compare with it,
There is part of the Hudson, however, but
little known by its warmest admirers, which, af-
ter repeatedly visiting, we have found more at
tractive than those scenes which have elected
admiration from travellers in all parts of the
world. 1t is the northwest branch of the River
where it ceases to be navigabe, and wandeTs
about through the most broken and picturesque
country in the Union, to hide its head in hun
dred beautiful lakes. He who glides over their
lonely waters-for the banks of many of them
are still solitary those of the widest waters
Of the Far West-he who glides over their trans
parent bosoms or moves along their mountain
shores where in one place frowning cliffs will
darken the silent tide and in another fringe of
silver sand receive its unduations, while, where
the primeval woods slope more gradually to the
shore, the wild deer steps unfrightened from her
10 oil oln tho