At last we got to the end of our very unpleasant journey, and approached the York and Albany Terminus, over an alpine concrete of snow-heaps, snow-holes, and street-rails. At the station my coach-driver affectionately seized my hand, and bade me good-bye with a cordiality which might have arisen from the sensitiveness of touch in his palm as much as from personal affection. The terminus was crowded with citizens (eating apples, lemon-drops, and gingerbread-nuts, and reading newspapers) and a few men in soldier’s uniform, going north--only one or two of what one calls in Europe gentlemen or ladies, but all well-dressed and well-behaved, if they would only spare the hissing stoves and the feelings of prejudiced foreigners. The train, with more punctuality than we usually observe in such matters, started to the minute, but only went ten yards or so, and then halted for nearly half an hour--no one knew why, and no one seemed to care, except a gentleman who was going, he said, to get his friend, “the Honourable Something Raymond, to do something for him at Albany,” and was rather in a hurry. When the engine renewed the active exercise of its powers, the pace was slow and the motion was jerking and uneven, owing to snow on the rails, and the obstacles increased as the train left the shelter of the low long-stretching suburb which clings to it, and is dragged, as it were, out of the city with it along the bank of the Hudson. But even 181st and 182nd streets abandoned their attempts to keep up with the rail; and all that could be seen of civilisation were sundry chimneys and walls and uncouth dark masses of wood or brick rising above the snow. The lights in the wooden stations shone out frostily through the dimmed windows as we struggled on. We were passing through at night what is to Americans classic ground, in spite of odd names: for here is “Manhattan” (associated in my mind for ever with a man who, unfortunately for himself and me, had a wooden leg, as he planted the iron ferule of that insensible member on the only weak point of my weaker foot)--and next is “Yonkers,” where a lady once lived with whom Washington was once in love, and several “fights” took place all around, in which the Americans were more often beaten than victorious;--“Dobb’s Ferry” “Tarrytown” (poor André! let those who wish to know all that can be known of the “spy” read Mr. Sargent’s life of him, published in Philadelphia), which is “nigh on to Sleepy Hollow,” where Mr. Diedrich Knickerbocker had such a remarkable interview with the ancient Hollander;--“Sing Sing,” where many gentlemen, not so well known to fame, have interviews of a less agreeable character with modern American authorities. We are passing, too, by Sunnyside, where Washington Irving lived. I would rather have seen him than all the remarkable politicians in the States--old Faneuil, or Bunker’s Hill, or all the wonders of the great nation; though I am told he was unbearably prosy and sleepy of late days.