Cold and colder it becomes as we creep on, and slower creaks the train with its motley freight. The men round the stoves “fire up” till the iron glows and gives out the heated air to those who can stand it, and an unsavoury odour, as of baked second-hand clothing, and a hissing noise to those beyond the torrid circle. The slamming of the door never ceases. Sometimes it is a conductor, sometimes it is not. But no matter who makes the disturbance, he has a right to do so. No one can sleep on account of that abominable noise, even if he could court slumber in a seat which is provided with a rim to hurt his back if he reclines, and a ridge to smite his face if he leans forward. Apples and water and somebody’s lemon-drops are in demand; and vendors of vegetable ivory furtively deposit specimens of ingenious manufacture but inscrutable purpose in the lap of the unoffending stranger, who in his sleepy state often falls a victim to these artifices, and finds himself called on to pay several dollars for quaint products of the carver, which he has unduly detained in his unconsciousness. The train arrives at Poughkeepsie, seventy-five miles from New York, an hour and a half late. We hear that, instead of reaching Albany at 10.30 or 11 P.M., we shall not be in till 1 or 1.30 A.M., and will “lose communications;” therefore we eat in desperation at refreshment-rooms large oysters boiled in milk out of small basins. In the night once more. We have passed West Point long since, and an enthusiastic child of nature, who has been pointing out to me the “beauties of the Hudson,” which is flowing down under its mail of ice close to our left, has gone to sleep among the fire-worshippers at the stove. Now, the fact is, that scenery under snow is, I may safely affirm, very like beauty under a mask, or a fine figure in a waterproof blanket. The hills were mere snow-mounds, and the lines of all objects were fluffy and indistinct; and I was glad my eulogistic friend slept at last. West Point I longed to see; for though its success in turning out great generals has as yet not been very remarkable, I had met too many excellent specimens of its handiwork in making good officers and pleasant gentlemen not to feel a desire to have purview of the institution. Had I not heard a live general sing “Benny Haven, ho!”--had I not seen Mordecai sitting at the gate of Pelissier in vain, and McClellan and Delafield engaged in a geological inquiry on the remains of the siege of Sebastopol? Above all, does not West Point promise to become something like a military academy, in a country such as America is likely to be after the war?