with earthen bowls and copper ornaments round their necks. Their boats were made each of a single hollowed tree. Their weapons were bows and arrows, pointed with sharp stones. They slept abroad on mats of bulrushes or on the leaves of trees. They were friendly, but thievish, and crafty in carrying away what they fancied. The woods, it was specially noticed, abounded in "goodly oakes," and from that day the new comers never ceased to admire the great size of the trees.

1609.

Sept.

On the sixth, John Colman and four others, in a boat, sounded the Narrows, and passed through Kill van Kull to Newark Bay. The air was very sweet, and the land as pleasant with grass and flowers and trees as they had ever seen; but, on the return, the boat was attacked by two canoes, and Colman killed by an arrow.

On Wednesday the ninth, Hudson moved cautiously from the lower bay into the Narrows; and on the eleventh, by aid of a very light wind, he went into the great river of the north, and rode all night in a harbor, which was safe against every wind.

On the morning of the twelfth, the natives, in eight-and twenty canoes, crowded about him, bringing beans and very good oysters. The day was fair and warm, though the light wind was from the north; and as Hudson, under the brightest autumnal sun, gazed around, having behind him the Narrows opening to the ocean, before him the noble stream flowing from above Weehawken with a broad, deep channel between forest-crowned palisades and the gently swelling banks of Manhattan, he made a record that "it was as fair a land as can be trodden by the foot of man." That night he anchored just above Manhattanville. The flood-tide of the next morning and of evening brought him near Yonkers. On the fourteenth, a strong south-east wind wafted him rapidly into the Highlands.

At daybreak, on the fifteenth, mists hung over the landscape; but, as they rose, the sun revealed the neighborhood of West Point. With a south wind the "Half Moon" soon emerged from the mountains that rise near the water's edge; sweeping upwards, it passed the elbow at Hyde

Park, and at night anchored a little below Red Hook, within the shadow of the majestic Catskill range, which it was noticed stands at a distance from the river.

1609. Sept.

Trafficking with the natives, who were "very loving," taking in fresh water, grounding at low tide on a shoal, the Netherlanders, on the evening of the seventeenth, reached no higher than the latitude of about forty-two degrees eighteen minutes, just above the present city of Hudson. The next day Hudson went on shore in one of the boats of the natives with an aged chief of a small tribe of the River Indians. He was taken to a house well constructed of oak bark, circular in shape, and arched in the roof, the granary of the beans and maize of the last year's harvest; while outside enough of them lay drying to load three ships. Two mats were spread out as seats for the strangers; food was immediately served in neat red wooden bowls; men, who were sent at once with bows and arrows for game, soon returned with pigeons; a fat dog, too, was killed; and haste made to prepare a feast. When Hudson refused to wait, they supposed him to be afraid of their weapons; and, taking their arrows, they broke them in pieces and threw them into the fire. The country was pleasant and fruitful, bearing wild grapes. "Of all lands on which I ever set my foot," says Hudson, "this is the best for tillage." The River Indians, for more than a century, preserved the memory of his visit.

The "Half Moon," on the nineteenth, drew near the landing of Kinderhook, where the Indians brought on board skins of beaver and otter. Hudson ventured no higher with the yacht; an exploring boat ascended a little above Albany to where the river was but seven feet deep, and the soundings grew uncertain.

So, on the twenty-third, Hudson turned his prow towards Holland, leaving the friendly tribes persuaded that the Dutch would revisit them the next year. As he went down the river, imagination peopled the region with towns. A party which, somewhere in Ulster county, went to walk on the west bank, found an excellent soil, with large trees of oak and walnut and chestnut. The land near Newburg

1609.

Oct.

seemed a very pleasant site for a city. On the first of October Hudson passed below the mountains. On the fourth, not without more than one conflict with the savages, he sailed out of "the great mouth of THE GREAT RIVER which bears his name; and, about the season of the return of John Smith from Virginia to England, he steered for Europe, leaving to its solitude the beautiful land which he admired beyond any country in the world.

Sombre forests shed a melancholy grandeur over the useless magnificence of nature, and hid in their deep shades the rich soil which no sun had ever warmed. No axe had levelled the giant progeny of the crowded groves, in which the fantastic forms of limbs, withered or riven by lightning, contrasted strangely with the verdure of a younger growth of branches. The wanton grape-vine, fastening its leafy coils to the top of the tallest forest tree, swung with every breeze, like the loosened shrouds of a ship. Trees might everywhere be seen breaking from their root in the marshy soil, and threatening to fall with the first rude gust; while the ground was strown with the ruins of former woods, over which a profusion of wild flowers wasted their freshness in mockery of the gloom. Reptiles sported in the stagnant pools, or crawled unharmed over piles of mouldering logs. The spotted deer couched among the thickets; and there were none but wild animals to crop the uncut herbage of the prairies. Silence reigned, broken, it may have been, by the flight of land-birds or the flapping of water-fowl, and rendered more dismal by the howl of beasts of prey. The streams, not yet limited to a channel, spread over sand-bars, tufted with copses of willow, or waded through wastes of reeds; or slowly but surely undermined the groups of sycamores that grew by their side. The smaller brooks spread out into sedgy swamps, that were overhung by clouds of mosquitoes; masses of decaying vegetation fed the exhalations with the seeds of pestilence, and made the balmy air of the summer's evening as deadly as it seemed grateful. Life and death were hideously mingled. The horrors of corruption frowned on the fruitless fertility of uncultivated

nature.

And man, the occupant of the soil, was untamed as the savage scene, in harmony with the rude nature by which he was surrounded; a vagrant over the continent, in constant warfare with his fellow-man; the bark of the birch his canoe; strings of shells his ornaments, his record, and his coin; the roots of uncultivated plants among his resources for food; his knowledge in architecture surpassed both in strength and durability by the skill of the beaver; bended saplings the beams of his house; the branches and rind of trees its roof; drifts of leaves his couch; mats of bulrushes his protection against the winter's cold; his religion the adoration of nature; his morals the promptings of undisciplined instinct; disputing with the wolves and bears the lordship of the soil, and dividing with the squirrel the wild fruits with which the universal woodlands abounded.

1609.

The history of a country is modified by its climate, and, in many of its features, determined by its geographical situation. The region which Hudson had discovered possessed near the sea an unrivalled harbor; a river that admits the tide far into the interior on the north, the chain of great lakes, which have their springs in the heart of the continent; within its own limits the sources of rivers that flow to the Gulfs of Mexico and St. Lawrence, and to the Bays of Chesapeake and Delaware; of which, long before Europeans anchored off Sandy Hook, the warriors of the Five Nations availed themselves in their excursions to Quebec, to the Ohio, or the Susquehannah. With just sufficient difficulties to irritate, and not enough to dishearten, New York united richest lands with the highest adaptation to foreign and domestic commerce.

How changed is the scene from the wild country on which Hudson gazed! The earth glows with the colors of civilization; the meadows are enamelled with choicest grasses; woodlands and cultivated fields are harmoniously blended; the birds of spring find their delight in orchards and trim gardens, variegated with selected plants from every temperate zone; while the brilliant flowers of the tropics bloom from the windows of the greenhouse or mock

at winter in the saloon. The yeoman, living like a good neighbor near the fields he cultivates, glories in the fruitfulness of the valleys, and counts with honest exultation the flocks and herds that browse in safety on the hills. The thorn has given way to the rosebush; the cultivated vine clambers over rocks where the brood of serpents used to nestle; while industry smiles at the changes she has wrought, and inhales the bland air which now has health on its wings.

And man is still in harmony with nature, which he has subdued, developed, and adorned. For him the rivers that flow to remotest climes mingle their waters; for him the lakes gain new outlets to the ocean; for him the arch spans the flood, and science spreads iron pathways to the recent wilderness; for him the hills yield up the shining marble and the enduring granite; for him immense rafts bring down the forests of the interior; for him the marts of the city gather the produce of all climes, and libraries collect the works of every language and age. The passions of society are chastened into purity; manners are made benevolent by refinement; and the virtue of the country is the guardian of its peace. Science investigates the powers of every plant and mineral, to find medicines for disease; schools of surgery rival the establishments of the Old World; the genius of letters begins to unfold his powers in the warm sunshine of public favor. An active daily press, vigilant from party interests, free even to dissoluteness, watches the progress of society, and communicates every fact that can interest humanity; and commerce pushes its wharfs into the sea, blocks up the wide rivers with its fleets, and sends its ships, the pride of naval architecture, to every zone.

1609.

A happy return voyage brought the "Half Moon" into Dartmouth on the seventh of November. There the vessel was arbitrarily delayed, and the services of its commander and English seamen were claimed by their liege. Hudson could only forward to his employers an account of his discoveries; he never again saw Holland or the land which he eulogized.