Wherever the voyagers turned their eyes, a new creation seemed to bloom around. No signs of human thrift appeared to check the delicious wildness of nature, who here revelled in all her luxuriant variety. Those hills, now bristled, like the fretful porcupine, with rows of poplars, (vain upstart plants! minions of wealth and fashion!) were then adorned with the vigorous natives of the soil: the lordly oak, the generous chestnut, the graceful elm,—while here and there the tulip-tree reared its majestic head, the giant of the forest. Where now are seen the gay retreats of luxury,—villas half buried in twilight bowers, whence the amorous flute oft breathes the sighings of some city swain,—there the fish-hawk built his solitary nest on some dry tree that overlooked his watery domain. The timid deer fed undisturbed along those shores now hallowed by the lovers’ moonlight walk, and printed by the slender foot of beauty; and a savage solitude extended over those happy regions, where now are reared the stately towers of the Joneses, the Schermerhornes, and the Rhinelanders. Thus gliding in silent wonder through these new and unknown scenes, the gallant squadron of Pavonia swept by the foot of a promontory, which strutted forth boldly into the waves, and seemed to frown upon them as they brawled against its base. This is the bluff well known to modern mariners by the name of Gracie’s Point, from the fair castle which, like an elephant, it carries upon its back. And here broke upon their view a wild and varied prospect, where land and water were beauteously intermingled, as though they had combined to heighten and set off each other’s charms. To the right lay the sedgy point of Blackwell’s Island, dressed in the fresh garniture of living green,—beyond it stretched the pleasant coast of Sundswick, and the small harbor well known by the name of Hallet’s Cove,—a place infamous in latter days, by reason of its being the haunt of pirates who infest these seas, robbing orchards and watermelon patches, and insulting gentlemen navigators, when voyaging in their pleasure-boats. To the left a deep bay, or rather creek, gracefully receded between shores fringed with forests, and forming a kind of vista, through which were beheld the sylvan regions of Haerlem, Morrisania, and East Chester. Here the eye reposed with delight on a richly wooded country, diversified by tufted knolls, shadowy intervals, and waving lines of upland, swelling above each other, while over the whole the purple mists of spring diffused a hue of soft voluptuousness. [Illustration: “ALONG THOSE SHORES.”]