The Tomahawk., 1917-10-04


the Hudson, you are en-
barking on no commonplace thing at
NIL. For rest assured of this: You are
about to travel the most beautiful wa
terway in all the civilized world, Zoe
Beckley writes in the New York Mail.
There are mighty rivers in Africa,
they say, that take the breath away
for sheer solitary grandeur. And the
Amazon, with vast and sinister forests.
And Florida streams, mystic and
weird. Virginians point with pride to
the broad Potomac with it's fine es-
tates and quiet reaches.
People in the Northwest challenge
the world with their Columbia-mighty
river of commerce and industry-wind-
ing almost endlessly back from the
Puget sound through ranch lands and
lumber lands and towering, glOW'ering
snOuntains.
Then, of course, the Rhine, glorified
with myth and legend, sung and
painted and made a pilgrimage spot by
centuries of travellers, but presenting
In fact nothing save it's moldering
castles that permit it to compare seem
ically with the river that flows at our
door.
A Beauty All Its Own.
For the beauty Of river is like the
beauty of a woman; it doesn't depend
upon a single feature. There has got
to be q certain aliveness to river that
corresponds to intelligence in face.
Your mighty African river of the
solitudes hasn't that. Nor has your
giant stream Of the West the charm
thrown round the Hudson by centuries
of human ccntact-adventure strug-
gle, change, adversely, prosperity,
peace.
Come with me, will you, for little
voyage from Desbrosses street to AL
bany? And from the economical want
age point Of a 81, nine-h0ur trip, let us
see some of the things that make this
Empire" river SO lordly-and so hui
man.
At the left hand, as we start north,
are the H0boken docks, not pretty per-
haps, but touched with interest be-
cause of the huge informed German
ships that had almost taken root at
their piers.
The sweet green promontory of
Stevens Point, where the institute is,
sticks out defantly from between ter
minals and warehouses that try to
choke it. Yet the castlelike home
stead of the Stevens family manages
to keep it's look Of aristrocratic sereni-
ty, despite the crowdings of CONNER
cialism.
At Weehawken, where trolley cars
now zigzag so nimbly up the heights.
is the spOt-then q picturesque and
grassy ledge; now merely "opposite
West Forty-second street"-where
Hamilton and Burr met on the field
Of honor" in 1904.
The boat goes so fast that in a
minute it seems we are passing River
side drive, which some day will be
conceded the loveliest street in the
world.
Now we pass the district Of cliff
Observation-Disclosures of tall houses ris-
ing out Of the trees, as it seems, from
the river. To me these apartment
houses, each one homing more fami-
lies than some small villages, are q
feature Of thrills and beauty.
Cliffs Little Changed
The real, unspoiled loneliness Of the
river begins here, where the still rural
looking Fort Washington point reaches
out toward the magnificent rise Of the
Palisades at Fort Lee.
Barring the few homes that now
peep out through the trees at the top
If these 5OO.foot cliffs, there is not
such a precious. lot of difference be-
tween how they look today and how
they looked when George Washington
md his staff watched from them the
destruction of Fort Washington on the
eastern heights nearly century and
/ half ago and lined out a retreat
through the heart Of jersey.
These two forts were supposed to
ruard q barrier of sulI,en ships and
logs planted in the river at this point
to Keep the British back.
The appeal Of the Palisades is
eresher each tine you sail past them.
- the steamer spurrs along, you need
only narrow your eyes little to shut
III: things close at hand, and pretend