It was Troup who took him for his first sail up the Hudson, and except
for the men who managed the boat, they went alone. Troup was a good
listener, and for a time Hamilton chattered gaily as the boat sped up
the river, jingling rhymes on the great palisades, which looked like the
walls of some Brobdingnagian fortress, and upon the gorgeous masses of
October colouring swarming over the perpendicular heights of Jersey and
the slopes and bluffs of New York. It was a morning, and a piece of
nature, to make the quicksilver in Hamilton race. The arch was blue, the
tide was bluer, the smell of salt was in the keen and frosty air. Two
boats with full white sails flew up the river. On either bank the
primeval forest had burst in a night into scarlet and gold, pale yellow
and crimson, bronze, pink, the flaming hues of the Tropics, and the
delicate tints of hot-house roses. Hamilton had never seen such a riot
of colour in the West Indies. They passed impenetrable thickets close to
the water's edge, ravines, cliffs, irregular terraces on the hillside,
gorges, solitary heights, all flaunting their charms like a vast booth
which has but a day in which to sell its wares.
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