June 13th, 1872. Fine; slightly cooler than yesterday.

At ten o'clock in the morning we bade Colonel Ruger farewell and crossed the Hudson by ferry from the West Point Academy pier. Looking back, we could see the rocky palisades towering above the river and a ribbon of road winding along the side of the mountains. The tiers of hills were deep and wooded, looking like a green folding screen, and the river scenery was extremely lush and beautiful. At this point the Hudson is quite shallow, and we could see weeds swaying beneath the surface. On the opposite shore we disembarked at Garrison Station, where we waited thirty minutes for our train.

At eleven o'clock the ‘Columbia’, a train especially provided for the Embassy by the New York Central Railroad Company, pulled in. The interior of the car was decorated with the crossed flags of the United States and Japan, eleven pairs of them, and the conductors and dining-car attendants all wore small Japanese flags in their lapels. A meal had been prepared for us in the dining-car.

We headed north, travelling beside the Hudson River. After following the river for 120 miles, we reached the city of Albany. Upon crossing a long bridge, we lost sight of the river among the buildings and beheld instead a vista of chimneys, some tall, others short. Here we stopped a while.