Page:Historic towns of the middle states (IA historictownsofm02powe).pdf/152

 narrow and the mountains cross, where the fairies dance on old Cro's Nest, and Storm King dons and doffs his weather cap, on into Newburgh Bay where the Beacons guard the Fishkill shores, and the Queen City of the Hudson rises in green terraces on the western bank, the tourist idly wonders if these Palatine pilgrims, worn by the ravages of persecution, had eyes to see the beauty of the land they were about to possess. It is possible, notwithstanding the ice-bound waters and snow-covered country, that their homesick hearts may have been warmed by the sight of a river not unlike their Rhine. As yet no Irving, Paulding, Cooper, Drake or Willis had cast the magic witchery of his tales over these scenes, yet a century before, the Half-Moon had passed this way and perhaps the stories Henry Hudson's crew brought back of red devils dancing in rocky chambers amused the children aboard the sloop of the German Lutheran exiles.

More pertinent in historical research than such imaginings is the contrast between the temper of these voyagers and those others who sailed in the Mayflower, and before landing covenanted with one another "to submit