at all hours, morning, noon, and night. By each fire are the cooking utensils, consisting of a pot, a bowl or calabash, and a spoon also made of a calabash. These are all that relate to cooking. They lie upon mats, with their feet towards the fire on each side of it. They do not sit much upon anything raised up, but, for the most part, sit upon the ground, or squat on their ankles. Their other household articles consist of a calabash of water, out of which they drink, a small basket in which to carry their maize and beans, and a knife. The implements are, for tillage, merely a small sharp stone; for hunting, a gun and pouch for powder and lead; for fishing, a canoe without mast or sail, and not a nail in any part of though it is sometimes full forty feet in length, fish-hooks and lines,

and scoop to paddle with in place of oars.

"All who live in one house are generally of one stock, as father and mother, with their offspring. Their bread is maize pounded in a block by a stone, but not fine; this is mixed with water and made into a cake, which they bake under the hot ashes. They gave us a small piece when we entered, and although the grains were not ripe, and it was half-baked and coarse grains, we nevertheless had to eat it, or at least not throw it away before them, which they would have regarded as a great sin, or a great affront. We chewed a little of it and managed to hide it. We had also to drink out of their calabashes the water, which was very good.

"Here we saw the Indians who had come on board the ship when we arrived. They were all

VOL. II.

joyful at the visit of our Gerrit, who had long dwelt thereabouts and was an old acquaintance of theirs. We gave them two jews-harps, whereat they were much pleased and at once began to play them, and fairly well. Some of their chiefs who are their priests and medicine-men and could speak good Dutch were busy making shoes of deer-leather, which they make soft by long working it between the hands. They had dogs, besides fowls and hogs, which they are gradually learning from Europeans how to manage. Toward the last we asked them for some peaches, and their reply was 'Go and pick some,' which shows their politeness! However, not wishing to offend them, we went out and pulled some. Although they are such a poor miserable people, they are licentious and proud, and much given to knavery and scoffing. As we noticed an extremely old woman (not less than a hundred, one would think), some saucy young fellows jeeringly answered, 'Twenty years.' We observed the manner in which they travel with their children, a woman having one which she carried on her back. The little thing clung tight around her neck like a cat, and was held secure by a piece of duffels, their usual garment.'

A most admirable and lifelike description of an aboriginal dwelling! Our Labadist friends were keen observers, and deft with pen as well as pencil. We cannot recount all their experiences, but may follow them on their trip to the extreme north of Manhattan. After leaving the Bowery Tavern they proceeded “through the woods to New Harlem, a rather large village

A night at
Harlem.

directly opposite the place where the northeast creek [Harlem River] and the East River come together, situated about three hours' journey from New Amsterdam, like as the old Harlem in Europe is situated about three hours' distance from the old Amsterdam. As our guide, Gerrit, had some business here, and found many acquaintances, we remained over night at the house of a man named Geresolveert,1 the schout of the village, who had formerly lived in Brazil, and whose heart was still full of it. His house was all the time filled with people, mostly drinking that execrable rum. He had also the best cider we have tasted. Among the crowd we found a person of quality, an Englishman, namely, Captain Carteret,2 whose

James

father is in great favour with the king, Carteret. and he himself had assisted in sundry exploits in the king's service. He commanded the English forces which went in 1660 to retake St. Kitts. . . . The king has given to his father, Sir George Carteret, the entire government of the lands west of the North River, in New Netherland, with power to appoint as governor whom he pleases; and at this present time there is a governor over it by his appointment, another Carteret, his nephew, I believe,3 who resides at Elizabethtown, in New

1 O delicious! a Dutch translation of Resolved, a Puritan forename by no means uncommon in those days. The person meant was Resolved Waldron, constable of Harlem.

2 See above, p. 16. James Carteret was a legitimate younger son of Sir George, not an illegitimate son, as has sometimes been said. See Burke's Dormant and Extinct Peerages, p. 108.

3 W. L. Stone (Hist. New York City, p. 63) makes him a brother of Sir George; Brodhead (Hist. New York, ii. 84) makes

Jersey. . . . This son is a very profligate person. He married a merchant's daughter here, and has so treated his wife that her father has been compelled to take her home again. He runs about among the farmers, and stays where he can find most to drink, and sleeps in barns on the straw. If he would conduct himself properly he might hold the highest positions, for he has studied the moralities, and seems to have been of a good understanding; but that is all now drowned. His father, who will no longer acknowledge him as his son,1 allows him yearly as much only as is necessary to live."

Spyten

The morning after this hilarious night at the schout's, our friends set out from Harlem village to go up to the end of the island, and perhaps it may have been the thirst which sometimes ensues upon such nights that made them exclaim over the deliciousness of the juicy morning peaches. "When we were not far from the point of Spyten Duyvil we could see on our left hand the rocky cliffs of the mainland on the other side Duyvil. of the North River, these cliffs standing straight up and down, with the grain, just as if they were antimony. We crossed over the Spyten Duyvil in a canoe, and paid nine stivers fare [or about eighteen cents] for us three, which was very dear. We followed the opposite side of the land, till we came to the house of one Valentyn, him a cousin; and Burke does not elucidate the matter. The names Philip and George had for at least four centuries been so thickly iterated among the Carterets that their use as distinctive appellations was lost.

1 Hence probably the rumour of illegitimacy.

a great acquaintance of our Gerrit's. He had gone to the city, but his wife, though she did not know Gerrit or us, was so much rejoiced to see Hollanders that she hardly knew what to do for us. She set before us what she had. We left after breakfasting. Her son showed us the way, and we came to a road entirely covered with peaches. We asked the boy why they left them to lie there, and why the hogs did not eat them. He answered, we do not know what to do with them, there are so many; the hogs are satiated with them and will not eat any more. .. We pursued our way now a small distance through the woods and over the hills, then back again along the shore to a point where lived an Englishman named Webblingh, who was standing ready to He carried us over with him, and refused to take any pay for our passage, offering us at the same time some of his rum, a liquor which is everywhere.

cross over.

"We were now again at New Harlem, and dined with Geresolveert, at whose house we had slept the night before, and who made us welcome. It was now two o'clock; and leaving there we crossed the island, which takes about three quarters of an hour to do, and came to the North River, which we followed a little within the woods, as far as Sappokanican, where beer of Gerrit had a sister and some friends. There we rested ourselves and drank some good beer, which was very refreshing. We then kept on our way along the shore to the city, where we arrived in the evening very tired, having walked

The good

Greenwich.