from the hillside in Staten Island down upon New York harbor is very lovely.  It is the only really good view of that magnificent harbor which I have been able to find.  As for appreciating such beauty when one is entering a port from sea or leaving it for sea, I do not believe in any such power.  The ship creeps up or creeps out while the mind is engaged on other matters.  The passenger is uneasy either with hopes or fears, and then the grease of the engines offends one’s nostrils.  But it is worth the tourist’s while to look down upon New York harbor from the hillside in Staten Island.  When I was there Fort Lafayette looked black in the center of the channel, and we knew that it was crowded with the victims of secession.  Fort Tompkins was being built to guard the pass—­worthy of a name of richer sound; and Fort something else was bristling with new cannon.  Fort Hamilton, on Long Island, opposite, was frowning at us; and immediately around us a regiment of volunteers was receiving regimental stocks and boots from the hands of its officers.  Everything was bristling with war; and one could not but think that not in this way had New York raised herself so quickly to her present greatness.

But the glory of New York is the Central Park—­its glory in the minds of all new Yorkers of the present day.  The first question asked of you is whether you have seen the Central Park, and the second is as to what you think of it.  It does not do to say simply that it is fine, grand, beautiful, and miraculous.  You must swear by cock and pie that it is more fine, more grand, more beautiful, more miraculous than anything else of the kind anywhere.  Here you encounter in its most annoying form that necessity for eulogium which presses you everywhere.  For in truth, taken as it is at present, the Central Park is not fine, nor grand, nor beautiful.  As to the miracle, let that pass.  It is perhaps as miraculous as some other great latter-day miracles.

But the Central Park is a very great fact, and affords a strong additional proof of the sense and energy of the people.  It is very large, being over three miles long and about three-quarters of a mile in breadth.  When it was found that New York was extending itself, and becoming one of the largest cities of the world, a space was selected between Fifth and Seventh Avenues, immediately outside the limits of the city as then built, but nearly in the center of the city as it is intended to be built.  The ground around it became at once of great value; and I do not doubt that the present fashion of Fifth Avenue about Twentieth Street will in course of time move itself up to Fifth Avenue as it looks, or will look, over the Park at Seventieth, Eightieth, and Ninetieth Streets.  The great water-works of the city bring the Croton River, whence New York is supplied, by an aqueduct over the Harlem River into an enormous reservoir just above the Park; and hence it has come to pass that there will be water not only for sanitary