The harbour is surrounded with small settlements, connected by charmingly-situated villas and country residences. It is toward its northern end that the masts, commencing with a few stragglers, gradually thicken to a forest. In it are three fortified islands. By the strait called the “Narrows,” seven miles from the lower part of the city, and which is, for the space of a mile, about one mile wide, it communicates with the outer harbour, or bay proper, which extends thence to Sandy Hook Light, forty miles from the city, and opens directly into the ocean, forming one of the best roadsteads on the whole Atlantic coasts of America. The approach to the city, as above indicated, is very fine, the shores of the bay being wooded down to the water’s edge, and thickly studded with villages, farms, and country seats. The view of the city itself is not so prepossessing; like all large cities, it is almost impossible to find a point from which to grasp the grandeur in its entirety, and the ground on which it is built is nowhere elevated. Therefore there is very little to strike the eye specially. Many a petty town makes a greater show in this respect. Those ferry-boats! The idea in the minds of most Englishmen is associated with boats that may pass over from one or two to a dozen or so people, possibly a single horse, or a donkey-cart. There you find steamers a couple of hundred or more feet long, with, on either side of the engines, twenty or more feet space. On the true deck there is accommodation for carriages, carts, and horses by the score; above, a spacious saloon for passengers. They have powerful engines, and will easily beat the average steamship. On arrival at the dock, they run into a kind of slip, or basin, with piles around stuck in the soft bottom, which yield should she strike them, and entirely do away with any fear of concussion. “I may here add,” notes an intelligent writer,(114) “that during my whole travels in the States, I found nothing more perfect in construction and arrangement than the ferries and their boats, the charges for which are most moderate, varying according to distances, and ranging from one halfpenny upwards.”