It was two o’clock before the advanced guard of Washington Grays galloped up in front of the City Hall. It was half past four when the last man had passed in review, and Samuel Stevens, Esq., president of the Board of Water Commissioners, began his address. He cried: “The works of Rome were built by soldiers and by slaves. Ours was voted for by freemen, was constructed by freemen—and we make the aspiration that in all ages to come it may bless freemen, and freemen only!” The president of the Croton Aqueduct Board followed, saying: “The obstacles have disappeared! The hill has been leveled or pierced, the stream and the valley have been overleaped, the rock has been smitten! Nature, yielding to human industry, perseverance, and skill, no longer withholds the boon she had before denied us. A river, whose pure waters are gathered from the lakes of the mountain-range, arrested and diverted in its course, after pouring its tribute through a permanent and spacious archway for more than forty miles, at length reaches our magnificent reservoirs, from whence it is conducted by subterranean conduits, extending one hundred and thirty additional miles, throughout the greatest portion of our city.” When he had finished, the ladies and gentlemen of the Sacred Music Society sang the ode which General George P. Morris had written at the request of the Corporation of the City of New York: “Gushing from this living fountain, Music pours a falling strain, As the Goddess of the Mountain Comes with all her sparkling train.... “Gently o’er the rippling water, In her coral-shallop bright, Glides the rock-king’s dove-eyed daughter, Deck’d in robes of virgin white.... “Water leaps as if delighted While the conquered foes retire! Pale Contagion flies affrighted With the baffled demon, Fire!... “Round the Aqueducts of story, As the mists of Lethe throng, Croton’s waves in all their glory Troop in melody along.” From his post on the sidewalk RoBards could hear snatches of the speeches, bursts of song. He joined in the “nine hearty cheers for the City of New York and perpetuity to the Croton Water” when the Grand Marshal called for them. Then the ceremonies were over and a cold collation was served in the City Hall, with Croton water and lemonade, but no wine or spirituous liquors. Patty sent the children home with her parents and joined her husband at the feast. Mayor Morris offered a toast to the Governor and he responded, remarking that New York “but yesterday a dusty trading mart,” had now “the pure mountain stream gushing through its streets and sparkling in its squares. To the noble rivers with which it was encircled by Nature, is now added the limpid stream brought hither by Art, until in the words of the Roman poet, alike descriptive and prophetic, her citizens exult, “_inter flumina nota Et fontes sacros._”