View from Fishkill Looking To West-Point (No. 15 of The Hudson River Portfolio)

John Agg's related text tells us that, "this part of the Hudson...a few miles south of Poughkeepsie and north of West-Point...exhibits some of the finest scenery of the Highlands, combining both beauty and sublimity...Such are the scenes of solitary magnificence through which, its broad channel sunk into the hollow of the mountains, and its varied surface covered with a thousand white sails glittering to the sun, this mighty river makes its tributary way to the vast Atlantic....It may excite some surprise, that immediately on the verge of a noble stream, communicating with the most populous and commercial city of the Union, such extensive tracts of land should yet be found, which have never known the touch of the ploughshare, nor yielded any growth but the forest oak and mountain pine."