The Spaniards fought like lions; but they had no time to fix their arquebuses on the crutches; no room, in that narrow path, to use their pikes. The English had the wall of them; and to have the wall there, was to have the foe's life at their mercy. Five desperate minutes, and not a living Spaniard stood upon those steps; and certainly no living one lay in the green abyss below. Two only, who were behind the rest, happening to be in full armor, escaped without mortal wound, and fled down the hill again.

"After them! Michael Evans and Simon Heard; and catch them, if they run a league."

The two long and lean Clovelly men, active as deer from forest training, ran two feet for the Spaniard's one; and in ten minutes returned, having done their work; while Amyas and his men hurried past the Indians, to help Cary and the party forward, where shouts and musket shots announced a sharp affray.

Their arrival settled the matter. All the Spaniards fell but three or four, who scrambled down the crannies of the cliff.

"Let not one of them escape! Slay them as Israel slew Amalek!" cried Yeo, as he bent over; and ere the wretches could reach a place of shelter, an arrow was quivering in each body, as it rolled lifeless down the rocks.

"Now then! Loose the Indians!"

They found armorers' tools on one of the dead bodies, and it was done.

"We are friends," said Amyas. "All we ask is, that you shall help us carry this gold down to the Magdalena, and then you are free."

Some few of the younger groveled at his knees, and kissed his feet, hailing him as the child of the Sun: but the most part kept a stolid indifference, and when freed from their fetters, sat quietly down where they stood, staring into vacancy. The iron had entered too deeply into their soul. They seemed past hope, enjoyment, even understanding.

But the young girl, who was last of all in the line, as soon as she was loosed, sprang to her father's body, speaking no word, lifted it in her thin arms, laid it across her knees, kissed the fallen lips, stroked the furrowed cheeks, murmured inarticulate sounds like the cooing of a woodland dove, of which none knew the meaning but she, and he who heard not, for his soul had long since fled. Suddenly the truth flashed on her; silent as ever, she drew one long heavy breath, and rose erect, the body in her arms.

Another moment, and she had leaped into the abyss. They watched her dark and slender limbs, twined closely round the old man's corpse, turn over, and over, and over, till a crush among the leaves, and a scream among the birds, told that she had reached the trees; and the green roof hid her from their view.

"Brave lass!" shouted a sailor.

"The Lord forgive her!" said Yeo. "But, your worship, we must have these rascals' ordnance."

"And their clothes, too, Yeo, if we wish to get down the Magdalena unchallenged. Now listen, my masters all! We have won, by God's good grace, gold enough to serve us the rest of our lives, and that without losing a single man; and may yet win more, if we be wise, and He thinks good. But oh, my friends, do not make God's gift our ruin, by faithlessness, or greediness, or any mutinous haste."

"You shall find none in us!" cried several men. "We know your worship. We can trust our general."

"Thank God!" said Amyas. "Now then, it will be no shame or sin to make the Indians carry it, saving the women, whom God forbid we should burden. But we must pass through the very heart of the Spanish settlements, and by the town of Saint Martha itself. So the clothes and weapons of these Spaniards we must have, let it cost us what labor it may. How many lie in the road?"

"Thirteen here, and about ten up above," said Cary.[191-9]

"Then there are near twenty missing. Who will volunteer to go down over the cliff, and bring up the spoil of them?"

"I, and I, and I"; and a dozen stepped out, as they did always when Amyas wanted anything done; for the simple reason, that they knew that he meant to help at the doing of it himself.

"Very well, then, follow me. Sir John,[192-10] take the Indian lad for your interpreter, and try and comfort the souls of these poor heathens. Tell them that they shall all be free."

"Why, who is that comes up the road?"

All eyes were turned in the direction of which he spoke. And, wonder of wonders! up came none other than Ayacanora[192-11] herself, blow-gun in hand, bow on back, and bedecked in all her feather garments, which last were rather the worse for a fortnight's woodland travel.

All stood mute with astonishment, as, seeing Amyas, she uttered a cry of joy, quickened her pace into a run, and at last fell panting and exhausted at his feet.

"I have found you!" she said; "you ran away from me, but you could not escape me!" And she fawned round Amyas, like a dog who has found his master, and then sat down on the bank, and burst into wild sobs.

"God help us!" said Amyas, clutching his hair, as he looked down upon the beautiful weeper. "What am I to do with her, over and above all these poor heathens?"

But there was no time to be lost, and over the cliff he scrambled; while the girl, seeing that the main body of the English remained, sat down on a point of rock to watch him.

After half-an-hour's hard work, the weapons, clothes, and armor of the fallen Spaniards were hauled up the cliff, and distributed in bundles among the men; the rest of the corpses were thrown over the precipice, and they started again upon their road toward the Magdalena, while Yeo snorted like a war-horse who smells the battle, at the delight of once more handling powder and ball.

"We can face the world now, sir! Why not go back and try Santa Fe, after all?"

But Amyas thought that enough was as good as a feast, and they held on downwards, while the slaves followed, without a sign of gratitude, but meekly obedient to their new masters, and testifying now and then by a sign or a grunt, their surprise at not being beaten, or made to carry their captors. Some, however, caught sight of the little calabashes of coca which the English carried. That woke them from their torpor, and they began coaxing abjectly (and not in vain), for a taste of that miraculous herb, which would not only make food unnecessary, and enable their panting lungs to endure the keen mountain air, but would rid them, for a while at least, of the fallen Indian's most unpitying foe, the malady of thought.

As the cavalcade turned the corner of the mountain, they paused for one last look at the scene of that fearful triumph. Lines of vultures were already streaming out of infinite space, as if created suddenly for the occasion. A few hours and there would be no trace of that fierce fray, but a few white bones amid untrodden beds of flowers.

And now Amyas had time to ask Ayacanora the meaning of this her strange appearance. He wished her anywhere but where she was: but now that she was here, what heart could be so hard as not to take pity on the poor wild thing? And Amyas as he spoke to her had, perhaps, a tenderness in his tone, from very fear of hurting her, which he had never used before. Passionately she told him how she had followed on their track day and night, and had every evening made sounds, as loud as she dared, in hopes of their hearing her, and either waiting for her, or coming back to see what caused the noise. Amyas now recollected the strange roaring which had followed them.

"Noises? What did you make them with?"

Ayacanora lifted her finger with an air of most self-satisfied mystery; and then drew cautiously from under her feather cloak an object at which Amyas had hard work to keep his countenance.

"Look!" whispered she, as if half afraid that the thing itself should hear her. "I have it—the holy trumpet!"

There it was, a handsome earthen tube some two feet long, neatly glazed, and painted with quaint grecques and figures of animals; a relic evidently of some civilization now extinct.

Brimblecombe rubbed his little fat hands. "Brave maid! you have cheated Satan this time," quoth he; while Yeo advised that the idolatrous relic should be forthwith "hove over cliff."

"Let be," said Amyas. "What is the meaning of this, Ayacanora? And why have you followed us?"

She told a long story, from which Amyas picked up, as far as he could understand her, that that trumpet had been for years the torment of her life; the one thing in the tribe superior to her; the one thing which she was not allowed to see, because, forsooth, she was a woman. So she determined to show them that a woman was as good as a man; and hence her hatred of marriage, and her Amazonian exploits. But still the Piache[195-12] would not show her that trumpet, or tell her where it was: and as for going to seek it, even she feared the superstitious wrath of the tribe at such a profanation. But the day after the English went, the Piache chose to express his joy at their departure; whereon, as was to be expected, a fresh explosion between master and pupil, which ended, she confessed, in her burning the old rogue's hut over his head, from which he escaped with loss of all his conjuring-tackle, and fled raging into the woods, vowing that he would carry off the trumpet to the neighboring tribe. Whereon, by a sudden impulse, the young lady took plenty of coca, her weapons, and her feathers, started on his trail, and ran him to earth just as he was unveiling the precious mystery. At which sight (she confessed), she was horribly afraid, and half inclined to run: but, gathering courage from the thought that the white men used to laugh at the whole matter, she rushed upon the hapless conjurer, and bore off her prize in triumph; and there it was!

"I hope you have not killed him?" said Amyas.

"I did beat him a little; but I thought you would not let me kill him."

Amyas was half amused with her confession of his authority over her: but she went on,

"And then I dare not go back to the Indians; so I was forced to come after you."

"And is that, then, your only reason for coming after us?" asked stupid Amyas.

He had touched some secret chord—though what it was he was too busy to inquire. The girl drew herself up proudly, blushing scarlet, and said—

"You never tell lies. Do you think that I would tell lies?"

On which she fell to the rear, and followed them steadfastly, speaking to no one, but evidently determined to follow them to the world's end.

They soon left the high road; and for several days held on downwards, hewing their path slowly and painfully through the thick underwood. On the evening of the fourth day, they had reached the margin of a river, at a point where it seemed broad and still enough for navigation. For those three days they had not seen a trace of human beings, and the spot seemed lonely enough for them to encamp without fear of discovery, and begin the making of their canoes. They began to spread themselves along the stream, in search of the soft-wooded trees proper for their purpose; but hardly had their search begun, when, in the midst of a dense thicket, they came upon a sight which filled them with astonishment. Beneath a honey-combed cliff, which supported one enormous cotton-tree, was a spot of some thirty yards square sloping down to the stream, planted in rows with magnificent banana-plants, full twelve feet high, and bearing among their huge waxy leaves clusters of ripening fruit; while, under their mellow shade, yams and cassava plants were flourishing luxuriantly, the whole being surrounded by a hedge of orange and scarlet flowers. There it lay, streaked with long shadows from the setting sun, while a cool southern air rustled in the cotton-tree, and flapped to and fro the great banana leaves; a tiny paradise of art and care. But where was its inhabitant?



Aroused by the noise of their approach, a figure issued from a cave in the rocks, and, after gazing at them for a moment, came down the garden towards them. He was a tall and stately old man, whose snow-white beard and hair covered his chest and shoulders, while his lower limbs were wrapt in Indian-web. Slowly and solemnly he approached, a staff in one hand, a string of beads in the other, the living likeness of some old Hebrew prophet, or anchorite of ancient legend. He bowed courteously to Amyas (who of course returned his salute), and was in act to speak, when his eye fell upon the Indians, who were laying down their burdens in a heap under the trees. His mild countenance assumed instantly an expression of the acutest sorrow and displeasure; and, striking his hands together, he spoke in Spanish—

"Alas! miserable me! Alas! unhappy Senors! Do my old eyes deceive me, and is it one of those evil visions of the past which haunt my dreams by night: or has the accursed thirst for gold, the ruin of my race, penetrated even into this my solitude? Oh, Senors, Senors, know you not that you bear with you your own poison, your own familiar fiend, the root of every evil? And is it not enough for you to load yourselves with the wedge of Achan, and partake his doom, but you must make these hapless heathens the victims of your greed and cruelty, and forestall for them on earth those torments which may await their unbaptized souls hereafter?"

"We have preserved, and not enslaved these Indians, ancient Senor," said Amyas proudly; "and to-morrow will see them as free as the birds over our heads."

"Free? Then you cannot be countrymen of mine! But pardon an old man, my son, if he has spoken too hastily in the bitterness of his own experience. But who and whence are you? And why are you bringing into this lonely wilderness that gold—for I know too well the shape of those accursed packets, which would God that I had never seen!"

"What we are, reverend sir, matters little, as long as we behave to you as the young should to the old. As for our gold, it will be a curse or blessing to us, I conceive, just as we use it well or ill; and so is a man's head, or his hand, or any other thing; but that is no reason for cutting off his limbs for fear of doing harm with them; neither is it for throwing away those packages, which, by your leave, we shall deposit in one of these caves. We must be your neighbors, I fear, for a day or two; but I can promise you that your garden shall be respected, on condition that you do not inform any human soul of our being here."

"God forbid, Senor, that I should try to increase the number of my visitors, much less to bring hither strife and blood, of which I have seen too much already. As you have come in peace, in peace depart. Leave me alone with God and my penitence, and may the Lord have mercy on you!"

And he was about to withdraw, when, recollecting himself, he turned suddenly to Amyas again:

"Pardon me, Senor, if, after forty years of utter solitude, I shrink at first from the conversation of human beings, and forget, in the habitual shyness of a recluse, the duties of a hospitable gentleman of Spain. My garden, and all which it produces, is at your service. Only let me entreat that these poor Indians shall have their share; for heathens though they be, Christ died for them; and I cannot but cherish in my soul some secret hope that He did not die in vain."

"God forbid!" said Brimblecombe. "They are no worse than we, for aught I see, whatsoever their fathers may have been; and they have fared no worse than we since they have been with us, nor will, I promise you."

The good fellow did not tell that he had been starving himself for the last three days to cram the children with his own rations; and that the sailors, and even Amyas, had been going out of their way every five minutes, to get fruit for their new pets.

A camp was soon formed; and that evening the old hermit asked Amyas, Cary, and Brimblecombe to come up into his cavern.

They went; and after the accustomed compliments had passed, sat down on mats upon the ground, while the old man stood, leaning against a slab of stone surmounted by a rude wooden cross, which served him as a place of prayer.

* * * * *

The talk lasted long into the night,[200-13] but Amyas was up long before daybreak, felling the trees; and as he and Cary walked back to breakfast, the first thing which they saw was the old man in his garden with four or five Indian children round him, talking smilingly to them.

"The old man's heart is sound still," said Will. "No man is lost who is still fond of little children."

"Ah, Senors!" said the hermit as they came up, "you see that I have begun already to act upon your advice."

"And you have begun at the right end," quoth Amyas; "if you win the children, you win the mothers."

"And if you win the mothers," quoth Will, "the poor fathers must needs obey their wives, and follow in the wake."

The old man only sighed. "The prattle of these little ones softens my hard heart, Senors, with a new pleasure; but it saddens me, when I recollect that there may be children of mine now in the world—children who have never known a father's love—never known aught but a master's threats—"

"God has taken care of these little ones. Trust that He has taken care of yours."

That day Amyas assembled the Indians, and told them that they must obey the hermit as their king, and settle there as best they could: for if they broke up and wandered away, nothing was left for them but to fall one by one into the hands of the Spaniards. They heard him with their usual melancholy and stupid acquiescence, and went and came as they were bid, like animated machines; but the negroes were of a different temper; and four or five stout fellows gave Amyas to understand that they had been warriors in their own country, and that warriors they would be still; and nothing should keep them from Spaniard-hunting. Amyas saw that the presence of these desperadoes in the new colony would both endanger the authority of the hermit, and bring the Spaniards down upon it in a few weeks; so making a virtue of necessity, he asked them whether they would go Spaniard-hunting with him.

This was just what the bold Coromantees wished for; they grinned and shouted their delight at serving under so great a warrior, and then set to work most gallantly, getting through more in the day than any ten Indians, and indeed than any two Englishmen.

So went on several days, during which the trees were felled, and the process of digging them out began; while Ayacanora, silent and moody, wandered into the woods all day with her blow-gun, and brought home at evening a load of parrots, monkeys, and curassows; two or three old hands were sent out to hunt likewise; so that, what with the game and the fish of the river, which seemed inexhaustible, and the fruit of the neighboring palm-trees, there was no lack of food in the camp. But what to do with Ayacanora weighed heavily on the mind of Amyas. He opened his heart on the matter to the old hermit, and asked him whether he would take charge of her. The latter smiled, and shook his head at the notion. "If your report of her be true, I may as well take in hand to tame a jaguar." However, he promised to try; and one evening, as they were all standing together before the mouth of the cave, Ayacanora came up smiling with the fruit of her day's sport; and Amyas, thinking this a fit opportunity, began a carefully-prepared harangue to her, which he intended to be altogether soothing, and even pathetic,—to the effect that the maiden, having no parents, was to look upon this good old man as her father; that he would instruct her in the white man's religion and teach her how to be happy and good, and so forth; and that, in fine, she was to remain there with the hermit.

She heard him quietly, her great dark eyes opening wider and wider, her bosom swelling, her stature seeming to grow taller every moment, as she clenched her weapons firmly in both her hands. Beautiful as she always was, she had never looked so beautiful before; and as Amyas spoke of parting with her, it was like throwing away a lovely toy; but it must be done, for her sake, for his, perhaps for that of all the crew.

The last words had hardly passed his lips, when, with a shriek of mingled scorn, rage, and fear, she dashed through the astonished group.

"Stop her!" was Amyas' first word; but his next was, "Let her go!" for springing like a deer through the little garden, and over the flower-fence, she turned, menacing with her blow-gun the sailors, who had already started in her pursuit.

"Let her alone, for Heaven's sake!" shouted Amyas, who, he scarce knew why, shrank from the thought of seeing those graceful limbs struggling in the seamen's grasp.

She turned again, and in another minute her gaudy plumes had vanished among the dark forest stems, as swiftly as if she had been a passing bird.

All stood thunderstruck at this unexpected end to the conference.

At last Amyas spoke—

"There's no use in standing here idle, gentlemen. Staring after her won't bring her back. After all, I'm glad she's gone."

But Ayacanora did not return; and ten days more went on in continual toil at the canoes without any news of her from the hunters. Amyas, by the bye, had strictly bidden these last not to follow the girl, not even to speak to her, if they came across her in their wanderings. He was shrewd enough to guess that the only way to cure her sulkiness was to out-sulk her; but there was no sign of her presence in any direction; and the canoes being finished at last, the gold, and such provisions as they could collect, were placed on board, and one evening the party prepared for their fresh voyage.

They determined to travel as much as possible by night, for fear of discovery, especially in the neighborhood of the few Spanish settlements which were then scattered along the banks of the main stream. These, however, the negroes knew, so that there was no fear of coming on them unawares; and as for falling asleep in their night journeys, "Nobody," the negroes said, "ever slept on the Magdalena; the mosquitoes took too good care of that." Which fact Amyas and his crew verified afterwards as thoroughly as wretched men could do.

The sun had sunk; the night had all but fallen; the men were all on board; Amyas in command of one canoe, Cary of the other. The Indians were grouped on the bank, watching the party with their listless stare, and with them the young guide, who preferred remaining among the Indians, and was made supremely happy by the present of a Spanish sword and an English ax; while, in the midst, the old hermit, with tears in his eyes, prayed God's blessing on them.

"I owe to you, noble cavaliers, new peace, new labor, I may say, new life. May God be with you, and teach you to use your gold and your swords better than I used mine."

The adventurers waved their hands to him.

"Give way, men," cried Amyas; and as he spoke the paddles dashed into the water, to a right English hurrah! which sent the birds fluttering from their roosts, and was answered by the yell of a hundred monkeys, and the distant roar of the jaguar.

About twenty yards below, a wooded rock, some ten feet high, hung over the stream. The river was not there more than fifteen yards broad; deep near the rock, shallow on the farther side; and Amyas's canoe led the way, within ten feet of the stone.

As he passed, a dark figure leapt from the bushes on the edge, and plunged heavily into the water close to the boat. All started. A jaguar? No; he would not have missed so short a spring. What then? A human being? A head rose panting to the surface, and with a few strong strokes, the swimmer had clutched the gunwale. It was Ayacanora!

"Go back!" shouted Amyas. "Go back girl!"

She uttered the same wild cry with which she had fled into the forest.

"I will die, then!" and she threw up her arms. Another moment, and she had sunk.

To see her perish before his eyes! who could bear that? Her hands alone were above the surface. Amyas caught convulsively at her in the darkness, and seized her wrist.

A yell rose from the negroes: a roar from the crew as from a cage of lions. There was a rush and a swirl along the surface of the stream; and "Caiman![205-14] caiman!" shouted twenty voices.

Now, or never, for the strong arm! "To larboard, men, or over we go!" cried Amyas, and with one huge heave, he lifted the slender body upon the gunwhale. Her lower limbs were still in the water, when, within arm's length, rose above the stream a huge muzzle. The lower jaw lay flat, the upper reached as high as Amyas's head. He could see the long fangs gleam white in the moonshine; he could see for one moment, full down the monstrous depths of that great gape, which would have crushed a buffalo. Three inches, and no more, from that soft side, the snout surged up—

There was the gleam of an ax from above, a sharp ringing blow, and the jaws came together with a clash which rang from bank to bank. He had missed her! Swerving beneath the blow, his snout had passed beneath her body, and smashed up against the side of the canoe, as the striker, over-balanced, fell headlong overboard upon the monster's back.

"Who is it?"

"Yeo!" shouted a dozen.

Man and beast went down together, and where they sank, the moonlight shone on a great swirling eddy, while all held their breaths, and Ayacanora cowered down into the bottom of the canoe, her proud spirit utterly broken, for the first time, by the terror of that great need, and by a bitter loss. For in the struggle, the holy trumpet, companion of all her wanderings, had fallen from her bosom; and her fond hope of bringing magic prosperity to her English friends had sunk with it to the bottom of the stream.

None heeded her; not even Amyas, round whose knees she clung, fawning like a spaniel dog: for where was Yeo?

Another swirl; a shout from the canoe abreast of them, and Yeo rose, having dived clean under his own boat, and risen between the two.

"Safe as yet, lads! Heave me a line, or he'll have me after all."

But ere the brute reappeared, the old man was safe on board.

"The Lord has stood by me," panted he, as he shot the water from his ears. "We went down together: I knew the Indian trick, and being upper-most, had my thumbs in his eyes before he could turn: but he carried me down to the very mud. My breath was nigh gone, so I left go, and struck up: but my toes tingled as I rose again, I'll warrant. There the beggar is, looking for me, I declare!"

And true enough, there was the huge brute swimming slowly round and round, in search of his lost victim. It was too dark to put an arrow into his eye; so they paddled on, while Ayacanora crouched silently at Amyas's feet.

"Yeo!" asked he, in a low voice, "what shall we do with her?"

"Why ask me, sir?" said the old man, as he had a very good right to ask.

"Because, when one don't know oneself, one had best inquire of one's elders. Besides, you saved her life at the risk of your own, and have a right to a voice in the matter, if any one has, old friend."

"Then, my dear young captain, if the Lord puts a precious soul under your care, don't you refuse to bear the burden He lays on you."

Amyas was silent awhile; while Ayacanora, who was evidently utterly exhausted by the night's adventure, and probably by long wanderings, watchings, and weepings which had gone before it, sank with her head against his knee, fell fast asleep, and breathed as gently as a child.

At last he rose in the canoe, and called Cary alongside.

"Listen to me, gentlemen, and sailors all. You know that we have a maiden on board here, by no choice of our own. Whether she will be a blessing to us, God alone can tell: but she may turn to the greatest curse which has befallen us ever since we came out over Bar three years ago. Promise me one thing, or I put her ashore the next beach; and that is, that you will treat her as if she were your own sister."

FOOTNOTES:

[180-1] This selection is abridged from the twenty-fifth chapter in Westward Ho! Charles Kingsley's great novel of adventure.

In the story are related the adventures of Amyas Leigh, a large, powerful and exceedingly vigorous man from Devonshire, who follows the life of the sea during the days of Queen Elizabeth. Like many of the men of his age, he becomes absorbed with the notion that in South America is the great city of Manoa, whose wealth in gold and jewels far exceeds that of Mexico and Peru.

After an exciting voyage, enlivened by conflicts with Spanish ships, the survivors land on the coast of South America and proceed inward in search of Manoa. Besides the dangers from Spaniards and natives, they meet with all the perils of the wilderness: disease and death at the hands of the Spaniards, Indians and wild animals thinning their ranks to less than half; yet the spirits of Amyas never falter, and the remnant of his force follow him with a devotion that is wonderful.

[180-2] Charles Kingsley, an English clergyman, was born in 1819 and entered Cambridge University in 1838. Ten years later he published the first of his stories, and in 1855, Westward Ho! Next to this book probably ranks his Hypatia, which he published in 1855, and which tells a thrilling tale of the struggles of Christianity with the Greek faith in the fifth century. He was a successful clergyman and became Canon of Westminster. He visited the United States in 1874, but his health was even then failing, and a year later he died.

[180-3] The party landed on the coast of South America, and in the preceding chapter is told the story of their stay in a hospitable Indian village where they rested and prepared themselves for two weeks of hard travel.

[181-4] This Indian lad was rescued from the Spaniards by Amyas and is devoted to the latter. He acts as interpreter, and his keen sight and familiarity with the southern wilderness make him of great value to the wanderers.

[181-5] Cundinamarca was the central province in what is now the Republic of Colombia. Its streams are tributary to the Orinoco, though it extends westward into the Andes. It derived its name from a native American goddess, and before the Spaniards devastated the region it was one of the chief centers of Indian civilization in South America.

[182-6] Salvation Yeo is a big white-haired man, older than Amyas, who spent his early life in wild adventure with Drake and other sailors in the Southern Seas. After incredible sufferings while in the hands of the Spaniards, Salvation becomes a most ardent and devoted Christian, but with a fierce hatred of the Spaniards and all things Spanish that makes his acts strangely inconsistent.

[182-7] This is Sir Francis Drake, the discoverer of the Pacific Ocean, a leader in many thrilling expeditions and exciting conflicts with the Spaniards.

[186-8] Casus belli means cause of war.

[191-9] Will Cary is the lieutenant and right-hand man of Amyas.

[192-10] Sir John Brimblecombe is the chaplain of the expedition.

[192-11] Ayacanora is a beautiful Indian princess whom the Spaniards met in the Indian village described in the preceding chapter. She seems quite different from others of the tribe, and is thought to be a descendant from one of the light-skinned Peruvian Incas, whom the Spaniards had almost entirely extinguished. Much later in the story she is discovered to be of real white descent, and at the end of the book she becomes the wife of Amyas.

[195-12] The Piache is the chief medicine man of the tribe of Indians among whom Ayacanora was regarded as a powerful princess.

[200-13] The old hermit proves to be one of the survivors of Pizarro's company. He took part in the destruction of native civilization and was guilty of all the cruelties and barbarities that his race practiced. He is living now in the wilderness in an effort to atone for his terrible sins.

[205-14] A caiman, or cayman, is a species of alligator.



A BED OF NETTLES

By GRANT ALLEN

Reaching my hand into the hedgerow to pick a long, lithe, blossoming spray of black byrony—here it is, with its graceful climbing stem, its glossy, heart-shaped leaves and its pretty greenish lily flowers—I have stung myself rather badly against the nettles that grow rank and tall from the rich mud in the ditch below. Nothing soothes a nettle sting like philosophy and dock-leaf; so I shall rub a little of the leaf on my hand and then sit awhile on the Hole Farm gate here to philosophize about nettles and things generally, as is my humble wont. There is a great deal more in nettles, I believe, than most people are apt to imagine; indeed, the nettle-philosophy at present current with the larger part of the world seems to me lamentably one-sided. As a rule, the sting is the only point in the whole organization of the family over which we ever waste a single thought. This is our ordinary human narrowness; in each plant or animal we interest ourselves about that one part alone which has special reference to our own relations with it, for good or for evil. In a strawberry, we think only of the fruit; in a hawthorn, or the flowers; in a deadly nightshade, of the poisonous berry; and in a nettle, of the sting. Now, I frankly admit at the present moment that the nettle sting has an obtrusive and unnecessarily pungent way of forcing itself upon the human attention; but it does not sum up the whole life-history of the plant in its own one peculiarity for all that. The nettle exists for its own sake, we may be sure, and not merely for the sake of occasionally inflicting a passing smart upon the meddlesome human fingers.

However, the sting itself, viewed philosophically, is not without decided interest of its own. It is one, and perhaps the most highly developed, among the devices by which plants guard themselves against the attacks of animals. Weeds and shrubs with juicy, tender leaves are very apt to be eaten down by rabbits, cows, donkeys and other herbivores. But if any individuals among such species happen to show any tendency to the development of any unpleasant habit, which prevents the herbivores from eating them, then those particular individuals will of course be spared when their neighbors are eaten, and will establish a new and specially protected variety in the course of successive generations. It does not matter what the peculiarity may be, provided only it in any way deters animals from eating the plant. In the arum, a violently acrid juice is secreted in the leaves, so as to burn the mouth of the aggressor. In the dandelion and wild lettuces, the juice is merely bitter. In houndstongue and catmint it has a nauseous taste. Then again, in the hawthorn and the blackthorn, some of the shorter branches have developed into stout, sharp spines, which tear the skin of would-be assailants. In the brambles, the hairs on the stem have thickened into pointed prickles, which answer the same purpose as the spines of their neighbors. In the thistles, the gorse and the holly, once more, it is the angles of the leaves themselves, which have grown into needle-like points so as to deter animals from browsing upon them. But the nettle probably carries the same tendency to the furthest possible limit. Not content with mere defense, it is to some extent actively aggressive. The hairs which clothe it have become filled with a poisonous, irritating juice, and when any herbivore thrusts his tender nose into the midst of a clump, the sharp points pierce his naked skin, the liquid gets into his veins in the very neighborhood of the most sensitive nerves, and the poor creature receives at once a lifelong warning against attacking nettles in future.

The way in which so curious a device has grown up is not, it seems to me, very difficult to guess. Many plants are armed with small sharp hairs which act as a protection to them against the incursions of ants and other destructive insects. These hairs are often enough more or less glandular in structure, and therefore liable to contain various waste products of the plant. Suppose one of these waste products in the ancestors of the nettle to be at first slightly pungent, by accident, as it were, then it would exercise a slightly deterrent effect upon nettle-eating animals. The more stinging it grew, the more effectual would the protection be; and as in each generation the least protected plants would get eaten down, while the more protected were spared, the tendency would be for the juice to grow more and more stinging till at last it reached the present high point of development. It is noticeable, too, that in our warrens and wild places, most of the plants are thus more or less protected in one way or another from the attacks of animals. These neglected spots are overgrown with gorse, brambles, nettles, blackthorn, and mullein, as well as with the bitter spurges, and the stringy inedible bracken. So, too, while in our meadows we purposely propagate tender fodder plants, like grasses and clovers, we find on the margins of our pastures and by our roadsides only protected species; such as thistles, houndstongue, cuckoo-pint, charlock, nettles (once more), and thorn bushes. The cattle or the rabbits eat down at once all juicy and succulent plants, leaving only these nauseous or prickly kinds, together with such stringy and innutritious weeds as chervil, plantain, and burdock. Here we see the mechanism of natural selection at work under our very eyes.

But the sting certainly does not exhaust the whole philosophy of the nettle. Look, for example, at the stem and leaves. The nettle has found its chance in life, its one fitting vacancy, among the ditches and waste-places by roadsides or near cottages; and it has laid itself out for the circumstances in which it lives. Its near relative, the hop, is a twisting climber; its southern cousins, the fig and the mulberry, are tall and spreading trees. But the nettle has made itself a niche in nature along the bare patches which diversify human cultivation; and it has adapted its stem and leaves to the station in life where it has pleased Providence to place it. Plants like the dock, the burdock, and the rhubarb, which lift their leaves straight above the ground, from large subterranean reservoirs of material, have usually big, broad, undivided leaves, that overshadow all beneath them, and push boldly out on every side to drink in the air and the sunlight. On the other hand, regular hedgerow plants, like cleavers, chervil, herb Robert, milfoil, and most ferns, which grow in the tangled shady undermath of the bank and thickets, have usually slender, bladelike, much-divided leaves, all split up into little long narrow pushing segments, because they cannot get sunlight and air enough to build up a single large respectable rounded leaf.

The nettle is just halfway between these two extremes. It does not grow out broad and solitary like the burdock, nor does it creep under the hedges like the little much-divided wayside weeds; but it springs up erect in tall, thick, luxuriant clumps, growing close together, each stem fringed with a considerable number of moderate-sized, heart-shaped, toothed and pointed leaves. Such leaves have just room enough to expand and to extract from the air all the carbon they need for their growth, without encroaching upon one another's food supply (for it must always be borne in mind that leaves grow out of the air, not, as most people fancy, out of the ground), and so without the consequent necessity for dividing up into little separate narrow segments. Accordingly, this type of leaf is very common among all those plants which spring up beside the hedgerows in the same erect shrubby manner as the nettles.

Then, again, there is the flower of the nettle, which in most plants is so much the most conspicuous part of all. Yet in this particular plant it is so unobtrusive that most people never notice its existence in any way. That is because the nettle is wind-fertilized, and so does not need bright and attractive petals. Here are the flowering branches, a lot of little forked antler-like spikes, sticking out at right angles from the stem, and half concealed by the leaves of the row above them. Like many other wind-fertilized flowers, the stamens and pistils are collected on different plants—a plan which absolutely insures cross-fertilization, without the aid of the insects. I pick one of the stamen-bearing clusters, and can see that it is made up of small separate green blossoms, each with four tiny leaf-like petals, and with four stamens doubled up in the center. I touch the flowers with the tip of my pocket knife, and in a second the four stamens jump out elastically as if alive, and dust the white pollen all over my fingers. Why should they act like this? Such tricks are not uncommon in bee-fertilized flowers, because they insure the pollen being shed only when a bee thrusts his head into the blossom; but what use can this device be to the wind-fertilized nettle? I think the object is somewhat after this fashion. If the pollen were shed during perfectly calm weather, it would simply fall upon the ground, without reaching the pistils of neighboring plants at all. But by having the stamens thus doubled up, with elastic stalks, it happens that even when ripe they do not open and shed the pollen unless upon the occurrence of some slight concussion. This concussion is given when the stems are waved about by the wind; and then the pollen is shaken out under circumstances which give it the best chance of reaching the pistil.

Finally, there is the question of fruit. In the fig and mulberry the fruit is succulent, and depends for its dispersion upon birds and animals. In the nettle it takes the form of a tiny, seed-like, flattened nut. Why is this, again? One might as well ask, why are we not all Lord Chancellors or Presidents of the Royal Academy. Each plant and each animal makes the best of such talents as it has got, and gets on by their aid; but all have not the same talents. One survives by dint of its prickles; another by dint of its attractive flowers; a third by its sweet fruit; a fourth by its hard nut-shell. As regards stings, the nettle is one of the best protected plants; as regards flower and fruit, it is merely one of the ruck. Every plant can only take advantage of any stray chances it happens to possess; and the same advantageous tendencies do not show themselves in all alike. It is said that once a certain American, hearing of the sums which Canova got for his handicraft, took his son to the great man's studio, and inquired how much he would ask to make the boy a sculptor. But there is no evidence to show that that aspiring youth ever produced an Aphrodite or a Discobolus.



WASHINGTON IRVING

During the course of the revolution that changed the British colonies in America into the United States, there was born in the city of New York the first great writer of this new nation, Washington Irving. The parents of Irving had been in America but twenty years, the father being Scotch and the mother English, yet they sympathized so fully with the colonists that they spent much of their time and means in caring for the soldiers held as prisoners by the British.

The mother was unusually warm-hearted and charitable, but the father, though a kind and conscientious man, was very strict, especially in dealing with his children. He seemed to feel that nearly every kind of amusement that young people delighted in was sinful, and he held up before his children such sober ways of living that Washington at least came to think that everything pleasant was wicked. No amount of sternness, however, could keep the five boys of the family and their three sisters wholly out of mischief, nor hinder them from having many a harmless good time.



After spending two years in a primary school, Washington was sent when six years old to a school kept by a soldier who had fought in the Revolution, a man who dealt most harshly with disorderly pupils. Though Washington was always breaking rules, he was so honest in admitting the wrong done that the teacher had a particular liking for him, and would call him by the envied title of "General." To bear this title, as well as the name of the foremost American of that time, and to have received a blessing from the great Washington himself, was honor enough for one boy.

Though it was not till several years later that he first went to the theater, yet when he was about ten he was fond of acting the part of some warrior knight of whom he had read, and would challenge one of his companions to a duel in the yard, where they would fight desperately with wooden swords. About this time, too, he came upon Robinson Crusoe and Sindbad the Sailor, and thus was awakened a great delight in books of travel and adventure. Most pleasing of all was The World Displayed, a series of volumes in which one could read of voyages to the most distant parts of the world. How exciting it was to read these books under cover of his desk at school, or in bed at night by the light of candles smuggled into his room! It is no wonder that he grew to wish with all his heart that he could go to sea, and that he haunted the wharves watching the out-going vessels.

When only fifteen years old, Washington finished his schooling. In later life he was always very sorry that he had not been sent to college at this time. Within a year he began the study of law, but he went at his work in such a half-hearted way that although he passed his examination in 1806, he was really very poorly fitted for his calling.

The last two years of this time had been passed in Europe, where he had been sent to recover his health; and it is safe to say that thoughts of his legal studies troubled young Irving but little during this interesting trip. If as a boy he had been thrilled merely in reading of voyages and travels, what was now his pleasure in journeying through one strange scene after another and meeting with such exciting adventures as that which befell him on the way from Genoa to Sicily, when the vessel on which he was sailing was boarded by pirates. On this occasion, as he could translate the questions of the attacking party and could answer these men in their own tongue, he was forced to go on the pirate ship, among an evil-looking crew, armed with stilettos, cutlasses and pistols, and act as interpreter before the captain. As it turned out that the booty was too small to be worth taking, Irving and his companions escaped without hurt. In the course of his further travels he found especial delight in the works of art at Rome, and in attending the theater and opera in Paris and London.

In January, 1807, several months after his return to America, Irving, with one of his brothers and a friend, began to publish Salmagundi, a magazine containing humorous articles on the social life of New York. This became so popular that twenty numbers were issued. Having found so much of interest in the life of his native city, Irving next wrote a comic History of New York, by Diedrich Knickerbocker, dealing with the early period when the city was ruled by the Dutch. The novel way in which this work was announced would do credit to the most clever advertiser. About six weeks before the book was published, appeared this notice in the Evening Post:

"Distressing.

"Left his lodgings some time since, and has not since been heard of, a small elderly gentleman, dressed in an old black coat and cocked hat, by the name of Knickerbocker. As there are some reasons for believing he is not entirely in his right mind, and as great anxiety is entertained about him, any information concerning him left either at the Columbian Hotel, Mulberry Street, or at the office of this paper, will be thankfully received.

"P. S.—Printers of newspapers would be aiding the cause of humanity by giving an insertion to the above.—Oct. 25."

Almost two weeks later a notice signed A Traveler, told that the old man had been seen resting by the road over which the Albany stage coach passed. Then in ten days followed this amusing letter to the editor of the Post:

"Sir:—You have been good enough to publish in your paper a paragraph about Mr. Diedrich Knickerbocker, who was missing so strangely from his lodgings some time since. Nothing satisfactory has been heard of the old gentleman since; but a very curious kind of a written book has been found in his room in his own handwriting. Now I wish you to notice him, if he is still alive, that if he does not return and pay off his bill for board and lodging, I shall have to dispose of his Book, to satisfy me for the same."

Needless to say, the book was issued in due time, and it was warmly welcomed not only in the United States but in England.

This year of great literary success was also one of the saddest in Irving's life. He had become deeply attached to Matilda Hoffman, daughter of one of the lawyers under whom he had studied, and was looking forward to the time when she should become his wife. The death of the young girl in 1809 caused a grief so deep that Irving almost never spoke of it. He remained true to the memory of this early love throughout his life, and never married.

By this time it had become plain that Irving could write with far more effect than he could ever hope to practice law. Yet the idea of using his pen in order to earn a living, not merely for his own amusement, was so distasteful to him that he put aside the thought of a literary career. Had he not had two kind and indulgent brothers, it might have gone hard with him at this time; but he was given a one-fifth share in their business, and being only a silent partner was allowed to spend his time in whatever ways he pleased.

In 1815, however, it became necessary for him to take his brother Peter's place for a time at the head of that part of the business which was carried on in Liverpool. Though he was a loyal American, he found England so much to his liking that there is no telling how long after his brother's recovery he would have kept on living in his half-idle way in his pleasant surroundings, had not the business in which he was interested failed in 1818. Thus roused to effort, he began publishing in 1819 the highly popular Sketch Book, by Geoffrey Crayon, a series of stories and essays in the first number of which appeared, with others, Rip Van Winkle. The Legend of Sleepy Hollow was contained in a later issue. Bracebridge Hall and Tales of a Traveller, of the same nature as the Sketch Book, followed soon afterward, all three being sent to America and being published also in England.

A new and more serious kind of work opened before Irving in 1826 when he was invited to Madrid by the United States minister, to make a translation of Navarrete's Voyages of Columbus. Instead of translating, however, he wrote a valuable original work entitled the Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus. Thus was awakened his deep interest in the romantic history and legends of Spain. He traveled about the country, staying for several weeks in the celebrated palace of the Alhambra, studied rare old books, and as a result produced several other works upon Spanish subjects. Of these The Conquest of Granada was written before he left Spain and The Alhambra was completed in England after his return in 1829 to fill the office of secretary of legation.

In 1824 Irving had written to a friend in America concerning New York: "There is a charm about that little spot of earth; that beautiful city and its environs, that has a perfect spell over my imagination. The bay, the rivers and their wild and woody shores, the haunts of my boyhood, both on land and water, absolutely have a witchery over my mind. I thank God for my having been born in so beautiful a place among such beautiful scenery; I am convinced I owe a vast deal of what is good and pleasant in my nature to the circumstance." It was not, however, until 1832 that he was able to return to his much-loved birthplace. Then, after seventeen years' absence, during which he had become a very famous writer, he was welcomed with the warmest greetings and the highest honors of his townspeople.

It was not long before he made a tour through the far West,—through the wilds of Missouri and Arkansas. From a point in the latter region he wrote of his party as "depending upon game, such as deer, elk, bear, for food, encamping on the borders of brooks, and sleeping in the open air under trees, with outposts stationed to guard us against any surprise by the Indians." The beautiful scenery and exciting events that marked this trip now part of the volume of Crayon Miscellany.

Having been a wanderer for a good many years, Irving now began to wish for a home. Accordingly he bought a little estate near Tarrytown on the Hudson River, and had the cottage on this land made over into "a little nookery somewhat in the Dutch style, quaint, but unpretending." In the first years spent in this pleasant home he contributed articles to the Knickerbocker Magazine, later collected and published under the title of Wolfert's Roost, and wrote Abbotsford and Newstead Abbey, now part of the volume of Crayon Miscellany.

So smoothly did the home life at Sunnyside flow along that Irving was none too well pleased to separate himself from it in 1842 when appointed minister of the United States to Spain. Nevertheless, he looked upon this event as the "crowning hour" of his life.

During the thirteen years that remained to him after returning to Sunnyside in 1846, he produced the Life of Mahomet and his Successors, a Life of Goldsmith, an author whom he especially admired and appreciated, and a biography of his celebrated namesake, which, though entitled a Life of Washington, is nothing less than a history of the Revolution. In the very year this last great work was completed, Irving died, surrounded by the household to whom he had become so much endeared (November 28, 1859).

In his writings Washington Irving has shown himself so gentle and unpretentious and so large-hearted, that his words concerning Oliver Goldsmith seem to apply with equal fitness to himself: "There are few writers for whom the reader feels such personal kindness." These same qualities were revealed also day by day in the smallest incidents of his life. Perhaps they were never more simply illustrated than on the occasion when he was traveling in a railway car behind a woman with two small children and a baby who was being constantly disturbed by the older children's efforts to climb to a seat by the window. Having taken in the situation, Irving began lifting first one and then the other of the little ones into his lap, allowing each just three minutes at the window, and this he continued until they had had enough, and the grateful mother had enjoyed a needed rest. Apparently he bore ill-will toward no one, and his ever-ready humor helped him to view the lives of others without harshness. Thus it is not only as a great literary artist, but as an American of the most worthy type, that he has won lasting honor.



THE KNICKERBOCKER HISTORY OF NEW YORK

By WASHINGTON IRVING

INTRODUCTORY NOTE

A History of New York by Diedrich Knickerbocker was published in 1809. Nearly forty years later Washington Irving, the real author, says it was his purpose in the history to embody the traditions of New York in an amusing form, to illustrate its local humors, customs and peculiarities in a whimsical narrative, which should help to bind the heart of the native inhabitant to his home. He adds:

"In this I have reason to believe I have in some measure succeeded. Before the appearance of my work the popular traditions of our city were unrecorded; the peculiar and racy customs and usages derived from our Dutch Progenitors were unnoticed, or regarded with indifference, or adverted to with a sneer. Now they form a convivial currency, and are brought forward on all occasions: they link our whole community together in good humor and good fellowship; they are the rallying-points of home feeling, the seasoning of our civic festivities, the staple of local tales and local pleasantries; and are so harped upon by our writers of popular fiction that I find myself almost crowded off the legendary ground which I was the first to explore by the host who have followed in my footsteps.

"I dwell on this head because, at the first appearance of my work, its aim and drift were misapprehended by some of the descendants of the Dutch worthies, and because I understand that now and then one may still be found to regard it with a captious eye. The far greater part, however, I have reason to flatter myself, receive my good-humored picturings in the same temper in which they were executed; and when I find, after a lapse of nearly forty years, this haphazard production of my youth still cherished among them; when I find its very name become a 'household word' and used to give the home stamp to everything recommended for popular acceptation, such as Knickerbocker societies; Knickerbocker insurance companies; Knickerbocker steamboats; Knickerbocker omnibuses; Knickerbocker bread; and Knickerbocker ice; and when I find New Yorkers of Dutch descent priding themselves upon being 'genuine Knickerbockers,' I please myself with the persuasion that I have struck the right chord; that my dealings with the good Dutch times, and the customs and usages derived from them, are in harmony with the feelings and humors of my townsmen; that I have opened a vein of pleasant associations and quaint characteristics peculiar to my native place, and which its inhabitants will not willingly suffer to pass away; and that, though other histories of New York may appear of higher claims to learned acceptation, and may take their dignified and appropriate rank in the family library, Knickerbocker's history will still be received with good-humored indulgence, and be thumbed and chuckled over by the family fireside."

To give color to his fancy, Irving created the fanciful character of Diedrich Knickerbocker, whom he describes as follows:

"He was a small, brisk-looking old gentleman, dressed in a rusty black coat and a pair of olive velvet breeches and a small cocked hat. He had a few gray hairs plaited and clubbed behind. The only piece of finery which he bore about him was a bright pair of square silver shoe buckles, and all his baggage was contained in a pair of saddle bags which he carried under his arm."

He was "a very worthy good sort of an old gentleman, though a little queer in his ways. He would keep in his room for days together, and if any of the children cried or made a noise about his door he would bounce out in a great passion, with his hands full of papers and say something about 'deranging his ideas'."

According to the tale which Irving invented he resided for some time at the Independent Columbian Hotel, and from this place he disappeared, leaving his bills unpaid. However, in the saddle bag which he didn't take from his room the landlord found the manuscript of the History of New York, and published it in order to secure pay for the old gentleman's board.

The book met with marked success, and shortly after its publication a large part of New York was laughing at its humorous details, and Irving's estimate of its popularity as given above was modest indeed.

The history consists of eight books, the first of which, in irony of some histories which had previously been published, gives a description of the world and a history of its creation, and in brief, the story of Noah and the discovery of America, and a dissertation on the origin of the American Indian.

The second book contains an account of Hudson's discovery of the river that bears his name and of the settlement of New Amsterdam.

A book is given to each of the first two Dutch governors, and three books to the rule of Peter Stuyvesant. The history then terminates with the surrender of New Amsterdam to the British.

The selections which appear here have been chosen for their rich humor rather than for their historical value, although, in his quaint way, Irving gives us a picture of the early Dutch settlers that is in many respects remarkably true to life. His exaggerations are usually so noticeable that it is not difficult to separate truth from fiction.

THE FOUNDING OF NEW AMSTERDAM

It was some three or four years after the return of the immortal Hendrick that a crew of honest, Low Dutch colonists set sail from the city of Amsterdam for the shores of America.

The ship in which these illustrious adventurers set sail was called the Goede Vrouw, or Good Woman, in compliment to the wife of the president of the West India Company, who was allowed by everybody (except her husband) to be a sweet-tempered lady. It was in truth a most gallant vessel, of the most approved Dutch construction, and made by the ablest ship carpenters of Amsterdam, who it is well known always model their ships after the fair forms of their countrywomen. Accordingly, it had one hundred feet in the beam, one hundred feet in the keel, and one hundred feet from the bottom of the sternpost to the tafferel.

The architect, who was somewhat of a religious man, far from decorating the ship with pagan idols, such as Jupiter, Neptune, or Hercules (which heathenish abominations I have no doubt occasion the misfortunes and shipwreck of many a noble vessel)—he, I say, on the contrary, did laudably erect for a head a goodly image of Saint Nicholas, equipped with a low, broad-brimmed hat, a huge pair of Flemish trunk hose, and a pipe that reached to the end of the bow-sprit. Thus gallantly furnished, the stanch ship floated sideways, like a majestic goose, out of the harbor of the great city of Amsterdam, and all the bells that were not otherwise engaged rang a triple bobmajor on the joyful occasion.

The voyage was uncommonly prosperous, for, being under the especial care of the ever-revered Saint Nicholas, the Goede Vrouw seemed to be endowed with qualities unknown to common vessels. Thus she made as much leeway as headway, could get along very nearly as fast with the wind ahead as when it was apoop, and was particularly great in a calm; in consequence of which singular advantages she made out to accomplish her voyage in a very few months, and came to anchor at the mouth of the Hudson a little to the east of Gibbet Island.

Here, lifting up their eyes, they beheld, on what is at present called the Jersey shore, a small Indian village, pleasantly embowered in a grove of spreading elms, and the natives all collected on the beach gazing in stupid admiration at the Goede Vrouw. A boat was immediately dispatched to enter into a treaty with them, and, approaching the shore, hailed them through a trumpet in the most friendly terms; but so horribly confounded were these poor savages at the tremendous and uncouth sound of the Low Dutch language that they one and all took to their heels, and scampered over the Bergen hills; nor did they stop until they had buried themselves, head and ears, in the marshes on the other side, where they all miserably perished to a man, and their bones, being collected and decently covered by the Tammany Society of that day, formed that singular mound called Rattlesnake Hill which rises out of the center of the salt marshes a little to the east of the Newark causeway.

Animated by this unlooked-for victory, our valiant heroes sprang ashore in triumph, took possession of the soil as conquerors in the name of their High Mightinesses the Lords States General, and, marching fearlessly forward, carried the village of Communipaw by storm, notwithstanding that it was vigorously defended by some half a score of old squaws and pappooses. On looking about them they were so transported with the excellencies of the place that they had very little doubt the blessed Saint Nicholas had guided them thither as the very spot whereon to settle their colony. The softness of the soil was wonderfully adapted to the driving of piles; the swamps and marshes around them afforded ample opportunities for the constructing of dykes and dams; the shallowness of the shore was peculiarly favorable to the building of docks—in a word this spot abounded with all the requisites for the foundation of a great Dutch city. On making a faithful report, therefore, to the crew of the Goede Vrouw, they one and all determined that this was the destined end of their voyage. Accordingly they descended from the Goede Vrouw, men, women, and children, in goodly groups, as did the animals of yore from the ark, and formed themselves into a thriving settlement, which they called by the Indian name Communipaw.

The crew of the Goede Vrouw being soon reinforced by fresh importations from Holland, the settlement went jollily on, increasing in magnitude and prosperity. The neighboring Indians in a short time became accustomed to the uncouth sound of the Dutch language, and an intercourse gradually took place between them and the newcomers.

A brisk trade for furs was soon opened: the Dutch traders were scrupulously honest in their dealings, and purchased by weight, establishing it as an invariable table of avoirdupois that the hand of a Dutchman weighed one pound and his foot two pounds.

It is true the simple Indians were often puzzled by the great disproportion between bulk and weight, for let them place a bundle of furs, never so large, in one scale, and a Dutchman put his hand or foot in the other, the bundle was sure to kick the beam—never was a package of furs known to weigh more than two pounds in the market of Communipaw!

The Dutch possessions in this part of the globe began now to assume a very thriving appearance, and were comprehended under the general title of Nieuw Nederlandts, on account, as the sage Vander Douck observes, of their great resemblance to the Dutch Netherlands; which indeed was truly remarkable, excepting that the former were rugged and mountainous, and the latter level and marshy. About this time the tranquility of the Dutch colonists was doomed to suffer a temporary interruption. In 1614, Captain Sir Samuel Argal, sailing under a commission from Dale, governor of Virginia, visited the Dutch settlements on Hudson River and demanded their submission to the English crown and Virginian dominion. To this arrogant demand, as they were in no condition to resist it, they submitted for the time, like discreet and reasonable men.

Oloffe Van Kortlandt, a personage who was held in great reverence among the sages of Communipaw for the variety and darkness of his knowledge, had originally been one of a set of peripatetic philosophers who had passed much of their time sunning themselves on the side of the great canal of Amsterdam in Holland, enjoying, like Diogenes, a free and unencumbered estate in sunshine. His name Kortlandt (Shortland or Lackland) was supposed, like that of the illustrious Jean Sansterre, to indicate that he had no land; but he insisted, on the contrary, that he had great landed estates somewhere in Terra Incognita, and he had come out to the New World to look after them. He was the first great land speculator that we read of in these parts.

Like all land speculators, he was much given to dreaming. Never did anything extraordinary happen to Communipaw but he declared that he had previously dreamt it, being one of those infallible prophets who predict events after they have come to pass.

As yet his dreams and speculations had turned to little personal profit, and he was as much a lackland as ever. Still, he carried a high head in the community; if his sugar-loaf hat was rather the worse for wear, he set it off with a taller cock's tail; if his shirt was none of the cleanest, he pulled it out the more at the bosom; and if the tail of it peeped out of a hole in his breeches, it at least proved that it really had a tail and was not mere ruffle.

The worthy Van Kortlandt urged the policy of emerging from the swamps of Communipaw and seeking some more eligible site for the seat of empire. Such, he said, was the advice of the good Saint Nicholas, who had appeared to him in a dream the night before, and whom he had known by his broad hat, his long pipe, and the resemblance which he bore to the figure on the bow of the Goede Vrouw.

This perilous enterprise was to be conducted by Oloffe himself, who chose as lieutenants or coadjutors Mynheers Jacobus Van Zandt, Abraham Hardenbroeck, and Winant Ten Broeck—three indubitably great men, but of whose history, although I have made diligent inquiry, I can learn but little previous to their leaving Holland.

Had I the benefit of mythology and classic fable, I should have furnished the first of the trio with a pedigree equal to that of the proudest hero of antiquity. His name, Van Zandt—that is to say, from the sand, or, in common parlance, from the dirt—gave reason to suppose that, like Triptolemus, the Cyclops, and the Titans, he had sprung from Dame Terra, or the earth! This supposition is strongly corroborated by his size, for it is well known that all the progeny of mother earth were of a gigantic stature; and Van Zandt, we are told, was a tall, raw-boned man, above six feet high, with an astonishingly hard head.

Of the second of the trio but faint accounts have reached to this time, which mention that he was a sturdy, obstinate, worrying, bustling little man, and, from being usually equipped in an old pair of buckskins, was familiarly dubbed Hardenbroeck; that is to say, Tough Breeches.

Ten Broeck completed this junto of adventurers. It is a singular but ludicrous fact—which, were I not scrupulous in recording the whole truth, I should almost be tempted to pass over in silence as incompatible with the gravity and dignity of history—that this worthy gentleman should likewise have been nicknamed from what in modern times is considered the most ignoble part of the dress; but in truth the small-clothes seem to have been a very dignified garment in the eyes of our venerated ancestors.

The name of Ten Broeck, or, as it was sometimes spelled, Tin Broeck, has been indifferently translated into Ten Breeches and Tin Breeches. Certain elegant and ingenious writers on the subject declare in favor of Tin, or rather Thin, Breeches; whence they infer that the original bearer of it was a poor but merry rogue, whose galligaskins were none of the soundest, and who, peradventure, may have been the author of that truly philosophical stanza:

"Then why should we quarrel for riches, Or any such glittering toys? A light heart and thin pair of breeches Will go through the world, my brave boys!"

The more accurate commentators, however, declare in favor of the other reading, and affirm that the worthy in question was a burly, bulbous man, who, in sheer ostentation of his venerable progenitors, was the first to introduce into the settlement the ancient Dutch fashion of ten pair of breeches.

Such was the trio of coadjutors chosen by Oloffe the Dreamer, to accompany him in this voyage into unknown realms; as to the names of his crews, they have not been handed down by history.

And now the rosy blush of morn began to mantle in the east, and soon the rising sun, emerging from amid golden and purple clouds, shed his blithesome rays on the tin weathercocks of Communipaw. It was that delicious season of the year when Nature, breaking from the chilling thralldom of old winter, like a blooming damsel from the tyranny of a sordid old father, threw herself, blushing with ten thousand charms, into the arms of youthful spring. Every tufted copse and blooming grove resounded with the notes of hymeneal love. The very insects, as they sipped the dew that gemmed the tender grass of meadows, joined in the joyous epithalamium, the virgin bud timidly put forth its blushes, "the voice of the turtle was heard in the land," and the heart of man dissolved away in tenderness.

No sooner did the first rays of cheerful Phoebus dart into the windows of Communipaw than the little settlement was all in motion. Forth issued from his castle the sage Van Kortlandt, and, seizing a conch-shell, blew a far-resounding blast, that soon summoned all his lusty followers. Then did they trudge resolutely down to the waterside, escorted by a multitude of relatives and friends, who all went down, as the common phrase expresses it, "to see them off."

The good Oloffe bestowed his forces in a squadron of three canoes, and hoisted his flag on board a little round Dutch boat, shaped not unlike a tub, which had formerly been the jolly-boat of the Goede Vrouw. And now, all being embarked, they bade farewell to the gazing throng upon the beach, who continued shouting after them even when out of hearing, wishing them a happy voyage, advising them to take good care of themselves, not to get drowned, with an abundance other of those sage and invaluable cautions generally given by landsmen to such as go down to the sea in ships and adventure upon the deep waters. In the meanwhile, the voyagers cheerily urged their course across the crystal bosom of the bay and soon left behind them the green shores of ancient Pavonia.

They coasted by Governor's Island, since terrible from its frowning fortress and grinning batteries. They would by no means, however, land upon this island, since they doubted much it might be the abode of demons and spirits, which in those days did greatly abound throughout this savage and pagan country.

Just at this time a shoal of jolly porpoises came rolling and tumbling by, turning up their sleek sides to the sun and spouting up the briny element in sparkling showers. No sooner did the sage Oloffe mark this than he was greatly rejoiced. "This," exclaimed he, "if I mistake not, augurs well; the porpoise is a fat, well-conditioned fish, a burgomaster among fishes; his looks betoken ease, plenty, and prosperity; I greatly admire this round fat fish, and doubt not but this is a happy omen of the success of our undertaking." So saying, he directed his squadron to steer in the track of these alderman fishes.

Turning, therefore, directly to the left, they swept up the strait vulgarly called the East River. And here the rapid tide which courses through this strait, seizing on the gallant tub in which Commodore Van Kortlandt had embarked, hurried it forward with a velocity unparalleled in a Dutch boat navigated by Dutchmen; insomuch that the good Commodore, who had all his life long been accustomed only to the drowsy navigation of canals, was more than ever convinced that they were in the hands of some supernatural power, and that the jolly porpoises were towing them to some fair haven that was to fulfill all their wishes and expectations.

Thus borne away by the resistless current, they doubled that boisterous point of land since called Corlear's Hook, and leaving to the right the rich winding cove of the Wallabout, they drifted into a magnificent expanse of water, surrounded by pleasant shores whose verdure was exceedingly refreshing to the eye. While the voyagers were looking around them on what they conceived to be a serene and sunny lake, they beheld at a distance a crew of painted savages busily employed in fishing, who seemed more like the genii of this romantic region, their slender canoe lightly balanced like a feather on the undulating surface of the bay.

At sight of these the hearts of the heroes of Communipaw were not a little troubled. But, as good fortune would have it, at the bow of the commodore's boat was stationed a very valiant man, named Hendrick Kip (which, being interpreted, means chicken, a name given him in token of his courage). No sooner did he behold these varlet heathens than he trembled with excessive valor, and although a good half mile distant he seized a musketoon that lay at hand, and, turning away his head, fired it most intrepidly in the face of the blessed sun. The blundering weapon recoiled and gave the valiant Kip an ignominious kick, which laid him prostrate with uplifted heels in the bottom of the boat. But such was the effect of this tremendous fire that the wild men of the woods, struck with consternation, seized hastily upon their paddles and shot away into one of the deep inlets of the Long Island shore.

This signal victory gave new spirits to the voyagers, and in honor of the achievement they gave the name of the valiant Kip to the surrounding bay, and it has continued to be called Kip's Bay from that time to the present. The heart of the good Van Kortlandt—who, having no land of his own, was a great admirer of other people's—expanded to the full size of a peppercorn at the sumptuous prospect of rich, unsettled country around him, and falling into a delicious reverie he straightway began to riot in the possession of vast meadows of salt marsh and interminable patches of cabbages. From this delectable vision he was all at once awakened by the sudden turning of the tide, which would soon have hurried him from this land of promise, had not the discreet navigator given the signal to steer for shore, where they accordingly landed hard by the rocky heights of Bellevue—that happy retreat where our jolly aldermen eat for the good of the city and fatten the turtle that are sacrificed on civic solemnities.



Here, seated on the green sward, by the side of a small stream that ran sparkling among the grass, they refreshed themselves after the toils of the seas by feasting lustily on the ample stores which they had provided for this perilous voyage.

By this time the jolly Phoebus, like some wanton urchin sporting on the side of a green hill, began to roll down the declivity of the heavens; and now, the tide having once more turned in their favor, the Pavonians again committed themselves to its discretion, and, coasting along the western shores, were borne toward the straits of Blackwell's Island.

And here the capricious wanderings of the current occasioned not a little marvel and perplexity to these illustrious mariners. Now would they be caught by the wanton eddies, and, sweeping around a jutting point, would wind deep into some romantic little cave, that indented the fair island of Manna-hata; now were they hurried narrowly by the very basis of impending rocks, mantled with the flaunting grape-vine and crowned with groves which threw a broad shade on the waves beneath; and anon they were borne away into the mid-channel and wafted along with a rapidity that very much discomposed the sage Van Kortlandt, who as he saw the land swiftly receding on either side, began exceedingly to doubt that terra firma was giving them the slip.

Wherever the voyagers turned their eyes a new creation seemed to bloom around. No signs of human thrift appeared to check the delicious wildness of Nature, who here reveled in all her luxuriant variety. Those hills, now bristled, like the fretful porcupine, with rows of poplars (vain upstart plants! minions of wealth and fashion!), were then adorned with the vigorous natives of the soil—the hardy oak, the generous chestnut, the graceful elm—while here and there the tulip tree reared its majestic head, the giant of the forest. Where now are seen the gay retreats of luxury—villas half buried in twilight bowers, whence the amorous flute oft breathes the sighings of some city swain—there the fish-hawk built his solitary nest on some dry tree that overlooked his watery domain. The timid deer fed undisturbed along those shores now hallowed by the lover's moonlight walk and printed by the slender foot of beauty; and a savage solitude extended over those happy regions where now are reared the stately towers of the Joneses, the Schermerhornes, and the Rhinelanders.

Ah! witching scenes of foul delusion! Ah! hapless voyagers, gazing with simple wonder on these Circean shores! Such, alas! are they, poor easy souls who listen to the seductions of a wicked world—treacherous are its smiles, fatal its caresses. He who yields to its enticements launches upon a whelming tide, and trusts his feeble bark among the dimpling eddies of a whirlpool! And thus it fared with the worthies of Pavonia, who, little mistrusting the guileful scene before them, drifted quietly on until they were aroused by an uncommon tossing and agitation of their vessels. For now the late dimpling current began to brawl around them and the waves to boil and foam with horrific fury. Awakened as if from a dream, the astonished Oloffe bawled aloud to put about, but his words were lost amid the roaring of the waters. And now ensued a scene of direful consternation. At one time they were borne with dreadful velocity among tumultuous breakers; at another hurried down boisterous rapids. Now they were nearly dashed upon the Hen and Chickens (infamous rocks!—more voracious than Scylla and her whelps), and anon they seemed sinking into yawning gulfs that threatened to entomb them beneath the waves. All the elements combined to produce a hideous confusion. The waters raged, the winds howled, and as they were hurried along several of the astonished mariners beheld the rocks and trees of the neighboring shores driving through the air!

At length the mighty tub of Commodore Van Kortlandt was drawn into the vortex of that tremendous whirlpool called the Pot, where it was whirled about in giddy mazes until the senses of the good commander and his crew were overpowered by the horror of the scene and the strangeness of the revolution. How the gallant squadron of Pavonia was snatched from the jaws of this modern Charybdis has never been truly made known, for so many survived to tell the tale, and, what is still more wonderful, told it in so many different ways, that there has ever prevailed a great variety of opinions on the subject.

As to the commodore and his crew, when they came to their senses they found themselves stranded on the Long Island shore. The worthy commodore, indeed, used to relate many and wonderful stories of his adventures in this time of peril—how that he saw specters flying in the air and heard the yelling of hobgoblins, and put his hand into the pot when they were whirled round, and found the water scalding hot, and beheld several uncouth-looking beings seated on rocks and skimming it with huge ladles; but particularly he declared, with great exultation, that he saw the losel porpoises, which had betrayed them into this peril, some broiling on the Gridiron and others hissing on the Frying-pan!

These, however, were considered by many as mere fantasies of the commodore while he lay in a trance, especially as he was known to be given to dreaming, and the truth of them has never been clearly ascertained. It is certain, however, that to the accounts of Oloffe and his followers may be traced the various traditions handed down of this marvelous strait—as how the devil has been seen there sitting astride of the Hog's Back and playing on the fiddle, how he broils fish there before a storm, and many other stories in which we must be cautious of putting too much faith. In consequence of all these terrific circumstances the Pavonian commander gave this pass the name of Hellegat, or, as it has been interpreted, Hell-Gate,[242-1] which it continues to bear at the present day.

The darkness of the night had closed upon this disastrous day, and a doleful night was it to the shipwrecked Pavonians, whose ears were incessantly assailed with the raging of the elements and the howling of the hobgoblins that infested this perilous strait. But when the morning dawned the horrors of the preceding evening had passed away—rapids, breakers, whirlpools had disappeared, the stream again ran smooth and dimpling, and, having changed its tide, rolled gently back toward the quarter where lay their much-regretted home.

The woe-begone heroes of Communipaw eyed each other with rueful countenances; their squadron had been totally dispersed by the late disaster.

I forbear to treat of the long consultation of Oloffe with his remaining followers, in which they determined that it would never do to found a city in so diabolical a neighborhood. Suffice it in simple brevity to say that they once more committed themselves, with fear and trembling, to the briny element, and steered their course back again through the scenes of their yesterday's voyage, determined no longer to roam in search of distant sites, but to settle themselves down in the marshy regions of Pavonia.

Scarce, however, had they gained a distant view of Communipaw when they were encountered by an obstinate eddy which opposed their homeward voyage. Weary and dispirited as they were, they yet tugged a feeble oar against the stream, until, as if to settle the strife, half a score of potent billows rolled the tub of Commodore Van Kortlandt high and dry on the long point of an island which divided the bosom of the bay.

Oloffe Van Kortlandt was a devout trencherman. Every repast was a kind of religious rite with him, and his first thought on finding himself once more on dry ground was how he should contrive to celebrate his wonderful escape from Hell-Gate and all its horrors by a solemn banquet. The stores which had been provided for the voyage by the good housewives of Communipaw were nearly exhausted, but in casting his eyes about the commodore beheld that the shore abounded with oysters. A great store of these was instantly collected; a fire was made at the foot of a tree; all hands fell to roasting and broiling and stewing and frying, and a sumptuous repast was soon set forth.

On the present occasion the worthy Van Kortlandt was observed to be particularly zealous in his devotions to the trencher; for, having the cares of the expedition especially committed to his care, he deemed it incumbent on him to eat profoundly for the public good. In proportion as he filled himself to the very brim with the dainty viands before him, did the heart of this excellent burgher rise up toward his throat, until he seemed crammed and almost choked with good eating and good nature. And at such times it is, when a man's heart is in his throat, that he may more truly be said to speak from it and his speeches abound with kindness and good fellowship. Thus, having swallowed the last possible morsel and washed it down with a fervent potation, Oloffe felt his heart yearning and his whole frame in a manner dilating with unbounded benevolence. Everything around him seemed excellent and delightful, and, laying his hands on each side of his capacious periphery, and rolling his half closed eyes around on the beautiful diversity of land and water before him, he exclaimed, in a fat, half-smothered voice, "What a charming prospect!" The words died away in his throat, he seemed to ponder on the fair scene for a moment, his eyelids heavily closed over their orbits, his head drooped upon his bosom, he slowly sank upon the green turf, and a deep sleep stole gradually over him.

Van Kortlandt awoke from his sleep greatly instructed, and he aroused his companions and told them that it was the will of Saint Nicholas that they should settle down and build the city here. With one voice all assented to this.

The great object of their perilous expedition, therefore, being thus happily accomplished, the voyagers returned merrily to Communipaw, where they were received with great rejoicings.

It having been solemnly resolved that the seat of empire should be removed from the green shores of Pavonia to the pleasant island of Manna-hata, everybody was anxious to embark under the standard of Oloffe the Dreamer, and to be among the first sharers of the promised land. A day was appointed for the grand migration, and on that day little Communipaw was in a buzz and bustle like a hive in swarming-time. Houses were turned inside out and stripped of the venerable furniture which had come from Holland; all the community, great and small, black and white, man, woman and child, was in commotion, forming lines from the houses to the water-side, like lines of ants from an ant-hill; everybody laden with some article of household furniture, while busy housewives plied backward and forward along the lines, helping everything forward by the nimbleness of their tongues.

By degrees a fleet of boats and canoes were piled up with all kinds of household articles—ponderous tables; chests of drawers resplendent with brass ornaments; quaint corner cupboards; beds and bedsteads; with any quantity of pots, kettles, frying-pans and Dutch ovens. In each boat embarked a whole family, from the robustious burgher down to the cats and dogs and little negroes. In this way they set off across the mouth of the Hudson, under the guidance of Oloffe the Dreamer, who hoisted his standard on the leading boat.

As the little squadron from Communipaw drew near to the shores of Manna-hata, a sachem at the head of a band of warriors appeared to oppose their landing. Some of the most zealous of the pilgrims were for chastising this insolence with powder and ball, according to the approved mode of discoverers; but the sage Oloffe gave them the significant sign of Saint Nicholas, laying his finger beside his nose and winking hard with one eye, whereupon his followers perceived that there was something sagacious in the wink. He now addressed the Indians in the blandest terms, and made such tempting display of beads, hawks'-bells, and red blankets that he was soon permitted to land, and a great land speculation ensued. And here let me give the true story of the original purchase of the site of this renowned city about which so much has been said and written. Some affirm that the first cost was but sixty guilders. The learned Dominie Heckwelder records a tradition that the Dutch discoverers bargained for only so much land as the hide of a bullock would cover; but that they cut the hide in strips no thicker than a child's finger, so as to take in a large portion of land and to take in the Indians into the bargain. This, however, is an old fable which the worthy Dominie may have borrowed from antiquity. The true version is, that Oloffe Van Kortlandt bargained for just so much land as a man could cover with his nether garments. The terms being concluded, he produced his friend Mynheer Ten Broeck as the man whose breeches were to be used in measurement. The simple savages, whose ideas of a man's nether garments had never expanded beyond the dimensions of a breech-clout, stared with astonishment and dismay as they beheld this burgher peeled like an onion, and breeches after breeches spread forth over the land until they covered the actual site of this venerable city.

This is the true history of the adroit bargain by which the island of Manhattan was bought for sixty guilders; and in corroboration of it I will add that Mynheer Ten Breeches, for his services on this memorable occasion, was elevated to the office of land measurer, which he ever afterward exercised in the colony.

The land being thus fairly purchased of the Indians, a circumstance very unusual in the history of colonization, and strongly illustrative of the honesty of our Dutch progenitors, a stockade fort and a trading-house were forthwith erected on an eminence, the identical place at present known as the Bowling Green.

Around this fort a progeny of little Dutch-built houses, with tiled roofs and weathercocks, soon sprang up, nestling themselves under its walls for protection, as a brood of half-fledged chickens nestles under the wings of the mother hen. The whole was surrounded by an inclosure of strong palisadoes to guard against any sudden irruption of the savages. Outside of these extended the cornfields and cabbage-gardens of the community, with here and there an attempt at a tobacco-plantation; all covering those tracts of country at present called Broadway, Wall street, William street and Pearl street.

I must not omit to mention that in portioning out the land a goodly "bowerie" or farm was allotted to the sage Oloffe in consideration of the service he had rendered to the public by his talent at dreaming; and the site of his "bowerie" is known by the name of Kortlandt (or Courtlandt) street to the present day.

And now, the infant settlement having advanced in age and stature, it was thought high time it should receive an honest Christian name. Hitherto it had gone by the original Indian name Manna-hata, or, as some will have it, "The Manhattoes"; but this was now decried as savage and heathenish, and as tending to keep up the memory of the pagan brood that originally possessed it. Many were the consultations held upon the subject without coming to a conclusion, for, though everybody condemned the old name, nobody could invent a new one. At length, when the council was almost in despair, a burgher, remarkable for the size and squareness of his head, proposed that they should call it New Amsterdam. The proposition took everybody by surprise; it was so striking, so apposite, so ingenious. The name was adopted by acclamation, and New Amsterdam the metropolis was thenceforth called. Still, however, the early authors of the province continued to call it by the general appellation of "The Manhattoes," and the poets fondly clung to the euphonious name of Manna-hata; but those are a kind of folk whose tastes and notions should go for nothing in matters of this kind.

Having thus provided the embryo city with a name, the next was to give it an armorial bearing or device. As some cities have a rampant lion, others a soaring eagle, emblematical, no doubt, of the valiant and high-flying qualities of the inhabitants, so after mature deliberation a sleek beaver was emblazoned on the city standard as indicative of the amphibious origin and patient and persevering habits of the New Amsterdammers.

WALTER THE DOUBTER

It was in the year of our Lord 1629 that Mynheer Wouter Van Twiller was appointed governor of the province of Nieuw Nederlandts, under the commission and control of their High Mightinesses the Lords States General of the United Netherlands and the privileged West India Company.

The renowned Wouter (or Walter) Van Twiller was descended from a long line of Dutch burgomasters, who had successively dozed away their lives and grown fat upon the bench of magistracy in Rotterdam, and who had comported themselves with such singular wisdom and propriety that they were never either heard or talked of; which, next to being universally applauded, should be the object of ambition of all magistrates and rulers. There are two opposite ways by which some men make a figure in the world—one by talking faster than they think, and the other by holding their tongues and not thinking at all. By the first many a smatterer acquires the reputation of a man of quick parts; by the other many a dunderpate, like the owl, the stupidest of birds, comes to be considered the very type of wisdom. This, by the way, is a casual remark, which I would not for the universe have it thought I apply to Governor Van Twiller. It is true he was a man shut up within himself, like an oyster, and rarely spoke except in monosyllables; but then it was allowed he seldom said a foolish thing. So invincible was his gravity that he was never known to laugh or even to smile through the whole course of a long and prosperous life. Nay, if a joke were uttered in his presence that set light-minded hearers in a roar, it was observed to throw him into a state of perplexity. Sometimes he would deign to inquire into the matter, and when, after much explanation, the joke was made as plain as a pike-staff, he would continue to smoke his pipe in silence, and at length, knocking out the ashes, would exclaim, "Well! I see nothing in all that to laugh about."

The person of this illustrious old gentleman was formed and proportioned, as though it had been molded by the hands of some cunning Dutch statuary, as a model of majesty and lordly grandeur. He was exactly five feet, six inches in height and six feet, five inches in circumference. His head was a perfect sphere, and of such stupendous dimensions that Dame Nature with all her sex's ingenuity would have been puzzled to construct a neck capable of supporting it; wherefore she wisely declined the attempt, and settled it firmly on the top of his backbone just between the shoulders. His body was oblong and particularly capacious at bottom; which was wisely ordered by Providence, seeing that he was a man of sedentary habits and very averse to the idle labor of walking. His legs were short, but sturdy in proportion to the weight they had to sustain, so that when erect he had not a little the appearance of a beer-barrel on skids. His face, that infallible index of the mind, presented a vast expanse, unfurrowed by any of those lines and angles which disfigure the human countenance with what is termed expression. Two small gray eyes twinkled feebly in the midst, like two stars of lesser magnitude in a hazy firmament, and his full-fed cheeks, which seemed to have taken toll of everything that went into his mouth, were curiously mottled and streaked with dusky red, like a spitzenberg apple.

In his council he presided with great state and solemnity. He sat in a huge chair of solid oak, hewn in the celebrated forest of The Hague, fabricated by an experienced timmerman of Amsterdam, and curiously carved about the arms and feet into exact imitations of gigantic eagle's claws. Instead of a scepter he swayed a long Turkish pipe, wrought with jasmine and amber, which had been presented to a stadtholder of Holland at the conclusion of a treaty with one of the petty Barbary powers. In this stately chair would he sit and this magnificent pipe would he smoke, shaking his right knee with a constant motion, and fixing his eye for hours upon a little print of Amsterdam which hung in a black frame against the opposite wall of the council-chamber. Nay, it has even been said that when any deliberation of extraordinary length and intricacy was on the carpet the renowned Wouter would shut his eyes for full two hours at a time, that he might not be disturbed by external objects; and at such times the internal commotion of his mind was evinced by certain regular guttural sounds, which his admirers declared were merely the noise of conflict made by his contending doubts and opinions.



The very outset of the career of this excellent magistrate was distinguished by an example of legal acumen that gave flattering presage of a wise and equitable administration. The morning after he had been installed in office, and at the moment that he was making his breakfast from a prodigious earthen dish filled with milk and Indian pudding, he was interrupted by the appearance of Wandle Schoonhoven, a very important old burgher of New Amsterdam, who complained bitterly of one Barent Bleecker, inasmuch as he refused to come to a settlement of accounts, seeing that there was a heavy balance in favor of the said Wandle. Governor Van Twiller, as I have already observed, was a man of few words; he was likewise a mortal enemy to multiplying writings or being disturbed at his breakfast. Having listened attentively to the statement of Wandle Schoonhoven, giving an occasional grunt as he shoveled a spoonful of Indian pudding into his mouth, either as a sign that he relished the dish or comprehended the story, he called unto him his constable, and, pulling out of his breeches pocket a huge jack-knife, dispatched it after the defendant, as a summons, accompanied by his tobacco-box as a warrant.