BUFFALO TO NEW YORK.
We had now before us only two points of interest before we should reach New York--the Falls of Trenton, and West Point on the Hudson River. We were too late in the year to get up to Lake George, which lies in the State of New York north of Albany, and is, in fact, the southern continuation of Lake Champlain. Lake George, Iknow, is very lovely, and I would fain have seen it; but visitors to it must have some hotel accommodation, and the hotel was closed when we were near enough to visit it. I was in its close neighborhood three years since, in June; but then the hotel was not yet opened. A visitor to Lake George must be very exact in his time. July and August are the months--with, perhaps, the grace of a week in September.
The hotel at Trenton was also closed, as I was told. But even if there were no hotel at Trenton, it can be visited without difficulty. It is within a carriage drive of Utica, and there is, moreover, a direct railway from Utica, with a station at the Trenton Falls. Utica is a town on the line of railway from Buffalo to New York via Albany, and is like all the other towns we had visited. There are broad streets, and avenues of trees, and large shops, and excellent houses. A general air of fat prosperity pervades them all, and is strong at Utica as elsewhere.
I remember to have been told, thirty years ago, that a traveler might go far and wide in search of the picturesque without finding a spot more romantic in its loveliness than Trenton Falls. The name of the river is Canada Creek West; but as that is hardly euphonious, the course of the water which forms the falls has been called after the town or parish. This course is nearly two miles in length; and along the space of this two miles it is impossible to say where the greatest beauty exists. To see Trenton aright, one must be careful not to have too much water. A sufficiency is no doubt desirable; and it may be that at the close of summer, before any of the autumnal rains have fallen, there may occasionally be an insufficiency. But if there be too much, the passage up the rocks along the river is impossible. The way on which the tourist should walk becomes the bed of the stream, and the great charm of the place cannot be enjoyed. That charm consists in descending into the ravine of the river, down amid the rocks through which it has cut its channel, and in walking up the bed against the stream, in climbing the sides of the various falls, and sticking close to the river till an envious block is reached which comes sheer down into the water and prevents farther progress. This is nearly two miles above the steps by which the descent is made; and not a foot of this distance but is wildly beautiful. When the river is very low there is a pathway even beyond that block; but when this is the case there can hardly be enough of water to make the fall satisfactory.
There is no one special cataract at Trenton which is in itself either wonderful or pre-eminently beautiful. It is the position, form, color, and rapidity of the river which gives the charm. It runs through a deep ravine, at the bottom of which the water has cut for itself a channel through the rocks, the sides of which rise sometimes with the sharpness of the walls of a stone sarcophagus.
They are rounded, too, toward the bed as I have seen the bottom of a sarcophagus. Along the side of the right bank of the river there is a passage which, when the freshets come, is altogether covered.
This passage is sometimes very narrow; but in the narrowest parts an iron chain is affixed into the rock. It is slippery and wet;and it is well for ladies, when visiting the place, to be provided with outside India-rubber shoes, which keep a hold upon the stone.
If I remember rightly, there are two actual cataracts--one not far above the steps by which the descent is made into the channel, and the other close under a summer-house, near to which the visitors reascend into the wood. But these cataracts, though by no means despicable as cataracts, leave comparatively a slight impression.
They tumble down with sufficient violence and the usual fantastic disposition of their forces; but simply as cataracts within a day's journey of Niagara, they would be nothing. Up beyond the summer-house the passage along the river can be continued for another mile; but it is rough, and the climbing in some places rather difficult for ladies. Every man, however, who has the use of his legs should do it; for the succession of rapids, and the twistings of the channels, and the forms of the rocks are as wild and beautiful as the imagination can desire. The banks of the river are closely wooded on each side; and though this circumstance does not at first seem to add much to the beauty, seeing that the ravine is so deep that the absence of wood above would hardly be noticed, still there are broken clefts ever and anon through which the colors of the foliage show themselves, and straggling boughs and rough roots break through the rocks here and there, and add to the wildness and charm of the whole.
The walk back from the summer-house through the wood is very lovely; but it would be a disappointing walk to visitors who had been prevented by a flood in the river from coming up the channel, for it indicates plainly how requisite it is that the river should be seen from below and not from above. The best view of the larger fall itself is that seen from the wood. And here again I would point out that any male visitor should walk the channel of the river up and down. The descent is too slippery and difficult for bipeds laden with petticoats. We found a small hotel open at Trenton, at which we got a comfortable dinner, and then in the evening were driven back to Utica.