At seven we started for
New York on board a great North River steamboat, which was so
crowded with passengers that the upper deck was like the box lobby
of a theatre between the pieces, and the lower one like Tottenham
Court Road on a Saturday night. But we slept soundly,
notwithstanding, and soon after five o'clock next morning reached
New York.
Tarrying here, only that day and night, to recruit after our late
fatigues, we started off once more upon our last journey in
America. We had yet five days to spare before embarking for
England, and I had a great desire to see 'the Shaker Village,'
which is peopled by a religious sect from whom it takes its name.
To this end, we went up the North River again, as far as the town
of Hudson, and there hired an extra to carry us to Lebanon, thirty
miles distant: and of course another and a different Lebanon from
that village where I slept on the night of the Prairie trip.
The country through which the road meandered, was rich and
beautiful; the weather very fine; and for many miles the Kaatskill
mountains, where Rip Van Winkle and the ghostly Dutchmen played at
ninepins one memorable gusty afternoon, towered in the blue
distance, like stately clouds.
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