BOOK IV.

CONTAINING THE CHRONICLES OF THE REIGN OF WILLIAM THE TESTY.

CHAP. I.—Showing the nature of history in general;—containing

furthermore the universal acquirements of William the Testy, and

how a man may learn so much as to render himself good for

nothing 317

CHAP. II.—How William the Testy undertook to conquer by

proclamation—How he was a great man abroad, but a little man in

his own house 326

CHAP. III.—In which are recorded the sage projects of a universal

genius—The art of fighting by proclamation—and how that the

valiant Jacobus Van Curlet came to be foully dishonored at Fort

Goed Hoop 332

CHAP. IV.—Containing the fearful wrath of William the Testy, and

the alarm of New Amsterdam—How the Governor did strongly fortify

the city—Of the Rise of Antony the Trumpeter, and the windy

addition to the armorial bearings of New Amsterdam 341

CHAP. V.—Of the jurisprudence of William the Testy, and his

admirable expedients for the suppression of poverty 349

CHAP. VI.—Projects of William the Testy for increasing the

currency—He is outwitted by the Yankees—The great Oyster War 357

[Illustration]

=Illustrations=

PAGE

WILLIAM THE TESTY _Frontispiece_

SUNNYSIDE 1

THE AUTHOR 9

“AND THAT A GREAT DRAGON OCCASIONALLY SWALLOWS UP THE

MOON” 37

PROFESSOR VON PODDINGCOFT 43

THE GREAT EGG OF NIGHT 51

THE GOOD DAME OF NARBONNE IN FRANCE 53

“MOUNT ASTRIDE OF HIS TAIL, AND AWAY HE GALLOPS IN

TRIUMPH” 57

FOHI THE HISTORIAN 63

HANS DE LAET 67

“SAVAGES TO EXTERMINATE” 70

THE PEOPLE OF NORTH AMERICA ACCORDING TO PETRI 77

“AS WHITE BEARS CRUISE ABOUT THE NORTHERN OCEANS” 81

“IT IS VAIN TO OFFER THEM MONEY; THEY SAY THEY ARE NOT

HUNGRY” 89

“THEY INTRODUCED AMONG THEM RUM, GIN, AND BRANDY” 95

THE SPANISH HAD THE RIGHT BY GUN-POWDER 99

THE HEADLESS MEN OF THE MOON VISIT US 101

“WHO RIDETH ON THE GREAT BEAR AND USETH THE SUN AS A

LOOKING-GLASS” 105

MY GREAT-GRANDFATHER TAKES A BIRD’S-EYE VIEW FROM THE

TOP OF A WIND-MILL 115

HENDRICK HUDSON 119

“EVERY MAN WAS ALLOWED TO SLEEP AT HIS POST UNLESS THE

WIND BLEW” 123

“A RED MAN CROWNED WITH FEATHERS ISSUED FROM ONE OF THE

GLENS” 127

“THEY ONE AND ALL TOOK TO THEIR HEELS, AND SCAMPERED

OVER THE BERGEN HILLS” 135

THE BROAD-MOUTHED LAUGHTER OF THE DUTCH NEGROES 139

“MADE THEM DRUNK WITH TRUE HOLLANDS” 143

THE OFFICIAL WEIGHT 145

OLOFFE VAN KORTLANDT 147

TOUGH BREECHES 153

“THEY BADE FAREWELL TO THE GAZING THRONG UPON THE BEACH” 159

“A SHOAL OF JOLLY PORPOISES CAME ROLLING AND TUMBLING

BY” 161

“AND TURNING AWAY HIS HEAD, FIRED IT MOST INTREPIDLY IN

THE FACE OF THE BLESSED SUN” 163

“ALONG THOSE SHORES” 169

“AND ANON THEY SEEMED SINKING INTO YAWNING GULFS” 171

THE DEVIL SITTING ASTRIDE OF THE HOG’S BACK AND PLAYING

ON A FIDDLE 173

TEN BROECK DRYING HIS BREECHES 179

“IN DIM OBSCURITY HE SAW SHADOWED OUT PALACES AND DOMES

AND LOFTY SPIRES” 181

MASTER JUET 187

MYNHEER TEN BROECK AS A LAND SURVEYOR 191

THE ARGUMENT 199

THE SECRETARY 201

ST. NICHOLAS 207

COOLING THE ARDOR OF THE ENEMY 209

HANS REINER OOTHOUT 213

“SET LIGHT-MINDED HEARERS IN A ROAR” 223

WOUTER VAN TWILLER 225

THE JUDGMENT OF WOUTER VAN TWILLER 229

THE FIVE BURGERMEESTERS 235

WELL-FED AND ROBUSTIOUS BURGHER 237

“HERE WOULD HE SMOKE HIS PIPE OF A SULTRY AFTERNOON” 243

“THE GOOD ST. NICHOLAS” 245

A COUNTRY MANSION 253

“SOME OLD CRONE OF A NEGRO” 255

“TOOK LEAVE OF THEM WITH A HEARTY SMACK AT THE DOOR” 259

“A VOLUMINOUS DAMSEL, ARRAYED IN A DOZEN OF PETTICOATS” 265

THE YOUNG GALLANT 269

KILLIAN VAN RENSELLAER 273

THE BATTERY 279

“SCAMPERING FROM THE STORM” 283

THE YANKEE’S SATURDAY’S DINNER OF DUMB-FISH 289

TARRED AND FEATHERED 293

“THE HORRIBLE MELODIES OF SOME AMATEUR, WHO CHOOSES TO

SERENADE THE MOON” 301

“BRISK, LIKELY, PLEASANT-TONGUED VARLETS” 303

JACOBUS VAN CURLET 307

THE PROTEST OF JACOBUS VAN CURLET 311

“HE PROCEEDED ON A LONG SWING-TROT THROUGH THE MUDDY

LANES” 313

THE POET AND HISTORIAN 319

WILLIAM THE TESTY 323

THE GREAT SEAL OF THE PROVINCE 329

KIDNAPPING HOGS 333

“THE WHOLE GARRISON OF FORT GOED HOOP STRAGGLING INTO

TOWN ALL TATTERED AND WAYWORN” 339

ANTHONY THE TRUMPETER 347

WILLIAM THE TESTY’S CURE FOR VAGRANCY 355

STOFFEL BRINKERHOFF 363

=Notices=

WHICH APPEARED IN THE NEWSPAPERS PREVIOUS TO THE PUBLICATION OF THIS

WORK.

_From the Evening Post of October 26, 1809._

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 in

giving an insertion to the above.

_From the same, November 6, 1809._

_To the Editor of the Evening Post_:

SIR,—Having read in your paper of the 26th October last, a paragraph

respecting an old gentleman by the name of _Knickerbocker_, who was

missing from his lodgings; if it would be any relief to his friends, or

furnish them with any clue to discover where he is, you may inform them

that a person answering the description given, was seen by the

passengers of the Albany stage, early in the morning, about four or five

weeks since, resting himself by the side of the road, a little above

King’s Bridge. He had in his hand a small bundle, tied in a red bandana

handkerchief; he appeared to be travelling northward, and was very much

fatigued and exhausted.

A TRAVELLER.

_From the same, November 16, 1809._

_To the Editor of the Evening Post_:

SIR,—You have been good enough to publish in your paper a paragraph

about Mr. _Diedrich Knickerbocker_, who was missing so strangely 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

boarding and lodging, I shall have to dispose of his book to satisfy me

for the same.

I am, sir, your humble servant,

SETH HANDASIDE,

Landlord of the Independent Columbian Hotel,

Mulberry Street.

_From the same, November 28, 1809._

LITERARY NOTICE.

INSKEEP & BRADFORD have in press, and will shortly publish,

A HISTORY OF NEW YORK,

In two volumes, duodecimo. Price Three Dollars.

Containing an account of its discovery and settlement, with its internal

policies, manners, customs, wars, &c., &c., under the Dutch government,

furnishing many curious and interesting particulars never before

published, and which are gathered from various manuscript and other

authenticated sources, the whole being interspersed with philosophical

speculations and moral precepts.

This work was found in the chamber of Mr. Diedrich Knickerbocker, the

old gentleman whose sudden and mysterious disappearance has been

noticed. It is published in order to discharge certain debts he has left

behind.

_From the American Citizen, December 6, 1809._

Is this day published

By INSKEEP & BRADFORD, No. 128 Broadway,

A HISTORY OF NEW YORK,

&c., &c.

(Containing same as above.)

[Illustration]

[Illustration: SUNNYSIDE.]

A HISTORY OF NEW YORK

=The Author’s Apology=

The following work, in which, at the outset, nothing more was

contemplated than a temporary _jeu d’esprit_, was commenced in company

with my brother, the late Peter Irving, Esq. Our idea was, to parody a

small handbook which had recently appeared, entitled _A Picture of New

York_. Like that, our work was to begin with an historical sketch; to be

followed by notices of the customs, manners, and institutions of the

city; written in a serio-comic vein, and treating local errors, follies,

and abuses with good-humored satire.

To burlesque the pedantic lore displayed in certain American works, our

historical sketch was to commence with the creation of the world; and we

laid all kinds of works under contribution for trite citations,

relevant, or irrelevant, to give it the proper air of learned research.

Before this crude mass of mock erudition could be digested into form, my

brother departed for Europe, and I was left to prosecute the enterprise

alone.

I now altered the plan of the work. Discarding all idea of a parody on

the _Picture of New York_ I determined that what had been originally

intended as an introductory sketch, should comprise the whole work, and

form a comic history of the city. I accordingly moulded the mass of

citations and disquisitions into introductory chapters, forming the

first book; but it soon became evident to me, that, like Robinson Crusoe

with his boat, I had begun on too large a scale, and that, to launch my

history successfully, I must reduce its proportions. I accordingly

resolved to confine it to the period of the Dutch domination, which, in

its rise, progress, and decline, presented that unity of subject

required by classic rule. It was a period, also, at that time almost a

_terra incognita_ in history. In fact, I was surprised to find how few

of my fellow-citizens were aware that New York had ever been called New

Amsterdam, or had heard of the names of its early Dutch governors, or

cared a straw about their ancient Dutch progenitors.

This, then, broke upon me as the poetic age of our city; poetic from its

very obscurity; and open, like the early and obscure days of ancient

Rome, to all the embellishments of heroic fiction. I hailed my native

city, as fortunate above all other American cities, in having an

antiquity thus extending back into the regions of doubt and fable;

neither did I conceive I was committing any grievous historical sin in

helping out the few facts I could collect in this remote and forgotten

region with figments of my own brain, or in giving characteristic

attributes to the few names connected with it which I might dig up from

oblivion.

In this, doubtless, I reasoned like a young and inexperienced writer,

besotted with his own fancies; and my presumptuous trespasses into this

sacred, though neglected region of history have met with deserved rebuke

from men of soberer minds. It is too late, however, to recall the shaft

thus rashly launched. To any one whose sense of fitness it may wound, I

can only say with Hamlet,—

Let my disclaiming from a purposed evil

Free me so far in your most generous thoughts,

That I have shot my arrow o’er the house,

And hurt my brother.

I will say this in further apology for my work: that, if it has taken an

unwarrantable liberty with our early provincial history, it has at least

turned attention to that history and provoked research. It is only since

this work appeared that the forgotten archives of the province have been

rummaged, and the facts and personages of the olden time rescued from

the dust of oblivion, and elevated into whatever importance they may

virtually possess.

The main object of my work, in fact, had a bearing wide from the sober

aim of history; but one which, I trust, will meet with some indulgence

from poetic minds. It was to embody the traditions of our city in an

amusing form; to illustrate its local humors, customs, and

peculiarities; to clothe home scenes and places and familiar names with

those imaginative and whimsical associations so seldom met with in our

new country, but which live like charms and spells about the cities of

the old world, binding the heart of the native inhabitant to his home.

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 hap-hazard 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 old 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.

W. I.

SUNNYSIDE, 1848.

=Account of the Author=

It was some time, if I recollect right, in the early part of the autumn

of 1808, that a stranger applied for lodgings at the Independent

Columbian Hotel in Mulberry Street, of which I am landlord. He was a

small, brisk-looking old gentleman, dressed in a rusty black coat, a

pair of olive velvet breeches, and a small cocked hat. He had a few gray

hairs plaited and clubbed behind, and his beard seemed to be of some

eight-and-forty hours’ growth. 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. His whole appearance was something out of the common run; and

my wife, who is a very shrewd body, at once set him down for some

eminent country schoolmaster.

As the Independent Columbian Hotel is a very small house, I was a little

puzzled at first where to put him; but my wife, who seemed taken with

his looks, would needs put him in her best chamber, which is genteelly

set off with the profiles of the whole family, done in black, by those

two great painters, Jarvis and Wood; and commands a very pleasant view

of the new grounds on the Collect, together with the rear of the

Poor-House and Bridewell, and a full front of the Hospital; so that it

is the cheerfulest room in the whole house.

[Illustration: THE AUTHOR]

During the whole time that he stayed with us, we found him 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”; which made my wife believe sometimes that he was

not altogether _compos_. Indeed, there was more than one reason to make

her think so, for his room was always covered with scraps of paper and

old mouldy books, lying about at sixes and sevens, which he would never

let anybody touch; for he said he had laid them all away in their proper

places, so that he might know where to find them; though for that

matter, he was half his time worrying about the house in search of some

book or writing which he had carefully put out of the way. I shall never

forget what a pother he once made, because my wife cleaned out his room

when his back was turned, and put everything to rights; for he swore he

would never be able to get his papers in order again in a twelvemonth.

Upon this, my wife ventured to ask him what he did with so many books

and papers; and he told her that he was “seeking for immortality”; which

made her think more than ever that the poor old gentleman’s head was a

little cracked.

He was a very inquisitive body, and when not in his room, was

continually poking about town, hearing all the news, and prying into

everything that was going on: this was particularly the case about

election time, when he did nothing but bustle about from poll to poll,

attending all ward meetings, and committee rooms; though I could never

find that he took part with either side of the question. On the

contrary, he would come home and rail at both parties with great

wrath,—and plainly proved one day, to the satisfaction of my wife and

three old ladies who were drinking tea with her, that the two parties

were like two rogues, each tugging at a skirt of the nation; and that in

the end they would tear the very coat off its back, and expose its

nakedness. Indeed, he was an oracle among the neighbors, who would

collect around him to hear him talk of an afternoon, as he smoked his

pipe on the bench before the door; and I really believe he would have

brought over the whole neighborhood to his own side of the question, if

they could ever have found out what it was.

He was very much given to argue, or, as he called it, _philosophize_,

about the most trifling matter; and to do him justice, I never knew

anybody that was a match for him, except it was a grave-looking old

gentleman who called now and then to see him, and often posed him in an

argument. But this is nothing surprising, as I have since found out this

stranger is the city librarian; who, of course, must be a man of great

learning: and I have my doubts if he had not some hand in the following

history.

As our lodger had been a long time with us, and we had never received

any pay, my wife began to be somewhat uneasy, and curious to find out

who and what he was. She accordingly made bold to put the question to

his friend, the librarian, who replied in his dry way that he was one of

the _literati_, which she supposed to mean some new party in politics. I

scorn to push a lodger for his pay; so I let day after day pass on

without dunning the old gentleman for a farthing: but my wife, who

always takes these matters on herself, and is, as I said, a shrewd kind

of a woman, at last got out of patience, and hinted that she thought it

high time “some people should have a sight of some people’s money.” To

which the old gentleman replied, in a mighty touchy manner, that she

need not make herself uneasy, for that he had a treasure there (pointing

to his saddle-bags) worth her whole house put together. This was the

only answer we could ever get from him; and as my wife, by some of those

odd ways in which women find out everything, learnt that he was of very

great connections, being related to the Knickerbockers of Schaghtikoke,

and cousin-german to the congressman of that name, she did not like to

treat him uncivilly. What is more, she even offered, merely by way of

making things easy, to let him live scot-free, if he would teach the

children their letters; and to try her best and get her neighbors to

send their children also: but the old gentleman took it in such dudgeon,

and seemed so affronted at being taken for a schoolmaster, that she

never dared to speak on the subject again.

About two months ago he went out of a morning, with a bundle in his

hand, and has never been heard of since. All kinds of inquiries were

made after him, but in vain. I wrote to his relations at Schaghtikoke,

but they sent for answer, that he had not been there since the year

before last, when he had a great dispute with the congressman about

politics, and left the place in a huff, and they had neither heard nor

seen anything of him from that time to this. I must own I felt very much

worried about the poor old gentleman, for I thought something bad must

have happened to him, that he should be missing so long, and never

return to pay his bill. I therefore advertised him in the newspapers,

and though my melancholy advertisement was published by several humane

printers, yet I have never been able to learn anything satisfactory

about him.

My wife now said it was high time to take care of ourselves, and see if

he had left anything behind in his room, that would pay us for his board

and lodging. We found nothing, however, but some old books and musty

writings, and his saddle-bags; which, being opened in the presence of

the librarian, contained only a few articles of worn-out clothes, and a

large bundle of blotted paper. On looking over this, the librarian told

us he had no doubt it was the treasure which the old gentleman had

spoken about; as it proved to be a most excellent and faithful HISTORY

OF NEW YORK, which he advised us by all means to publish, assuring us

that it would be so eagerly bought up by a discerning public, that he

had no doubt it would be enough to pay our arrears ten times over. Upon

this we got a very learned schoolmaster, who teaches our children, to

prepare it for the press, which he accordingly has done; and has,

moreover, added to it a number of valuable notes of his own.

This, therefore, is a true statement of my reasons for having this work

printed, without waiting for the consent of the author; and I here

declare, that, if he ever returns (though I much fear some unhappy

accident has befallen him) I stand ready to account with him like a true

and honest man. Which is all at present,

From the public’s humble servant,

SETH HANDASIDE.

Independent Columbian Hotel, New York.

The foregoing account of the author was prefixed to the first edition of

this work. Shortly after its publication, a letter was received from

him, by Mr. Handaside, dated at a small Dutch village on the banks of

the Hudson, whither he had travelled for the purpose of inspecting

certain ancient records. As this was one of those few and happy villages

into which newspapers never find their way, it is not a matter of

surprise that Mr. Knickerbocker should never have seen the numerous

advertisements that were made concerning him, and that he should learn

of the publication of his history by mere accident.

He expressed much concern at its premature appearance, as thereby he was

prevented from making several important corrections and alterations, as

well as from profiting by many curious hints which he had collected

during his travels along the shores of the Tappan Sea, and his sojourn

at Haverstraw and Esopus.

Finding that there was no longer any immediate necessity for his return

to New York, he extended his journey up to the residence of his

relations at Schaghtikoke. On his way thither he stopped for some days

at Albany, for which city he is known to have entertained a great

partiality. He found it, however, considerably altered, and was much

concerned at the inroads and improvements which the Yankees were making,

and the consequent decline of the good old Dutch manners. Indeed, he was

informed that these intruders were making sad innovations in all parts

of the State; where they had given great trouble and vexation to the

regular Dutch settlers by the introduction of turnpike-gates, and

country school-houses. It is said, also, that Mr. Knickerbocker shook

his head sorrowfully at noticing the gradual decay of the great Vander

Heyden palace; but was highly indignant at finding that the ancient

Dutch church, which stood in the middle of the street, had been pulled

down since his last visit.

The fame of Mr. Knickerbocker’s history having reached even to Albany,

he received much flattering attention from its worthy burghers, some of

whom, however, pointed out two or three very great errors he had fallen

into, particularly that of suspending a lump of sugar over the Albany

tea-tables, which, they assured him, had been discontinued for some

years past. Several families, moreover, were somewhat piqued that their

ancestors had not been mentioned in his work, and showed great jealousy

of their neighbors who had thus been distinguished; while the latter, it

must be confessed, plumed themselves vastly thereupon; considering these

recordings in the light of letters-patent of nobility, establishing

their claims to ancestry,—which, in this republican country, is a matter

of no little solicitude and vainglory.

It is also said, that he enjoyed high favor and countenance from the

governor, who once asked him to dinner, and was seen two or three times

to shake hands with him, when they met in the streets; which certainly

was going great lengths, considering that they differed in politics.

Indeed, certain of the governor’s confidential friends, to whom he could

venture to speak his mind freely on such matters, have assured us, that

he privately entertained a considerable good will for our author,—nay,

he even once went so far as to declare, and that openly too, and at his

own table, just after dinner, that “Knickerbocker was a very

well-meaning sort of an old gentleman, and no fool.” From all which many

have been led to suppose that, had our author been of different

politics, and written for the newspapers instead of wasting his talents

on histories, he might have risen to some post of honor and

profit,—peradventure, to be a notary-public, or even a justice in the

ten-pound court.

Beside the honors and civilities already mentioned, he was much caressed

by the _literati_ of Albany; particularly by Mr. John Cook, who

entertained him very hospitably at his circulating library and

reading-room, where they used to drink Spa water, and talk about the

ancients. He found Mr. Cook a man after his own heart,—of great literary

research, and a curious collector of books. At parting, the latter, in

testimony of friendship, made him a present of the two oldest works in

his collection; which were the earliest edition of the Heidelberg

Catechism, and Adrian Vander Donck’s famous account of the New

Netherlands: by the last of which, Mr. Knickerbocker profited greatly in

his second edition.

Having passed some time very agreeably at Albany, our author proceeded

to Schaghtikoke, where, it is but justice to say, he was received with

open arms, and treated with wonderful loving-kindness. He was much

looked up to by the family, being the first historian of the name; and

was considered almost as great a man as his cousin the congressman,—with

whom, by the by, he became perfectly reconciled, and contracted a strong

friendship.

In spite, however, of the kindness of his relations and their great

attention to his comforts, the old gentleman soon became restless and

discontented. His history being published, he had no longer any business

to occupy his thoughts, or any scheme to excite his hopes and

anticipations. This, to a busy mind like his, was a truly deplorable

situation; and, had he not been a man of inflexible morals and regular

habits, there would have been great danger of his taking to politics, or

drinking,—both which pernicious vices we daily see men driven to by mere

spleen and idleness.

It is true, he sometimes employed himself in preparing a second edition

of his history, wherein he endeavored to correct and improve many

passages with which he was dissatisfied, and to rectify some mistakes

that had crept into it; for he was particularly anxious that his work

should be noted for its authenticity; which, indeed, is the very life

and soul of history. But the glow of composition had departed,—he had to

leave many places untouched, which he would fain have altered; and even

where he did make alterations, he seemed always in doubt whether they

were for the better or the worse.

After a residence of some time at Schaghtikoke, he began to feel a

strong desire to return to New York, which he ever regarded with the

warmest affection; not merely because it was his native city, but

because he really considered it the very best city in the whole world.

On his return, he entered into the full enjoyment of the advantages of a

literary reputation. He was continually importuned to write

advertisements, petitions, handbills, and productions of similar import;

and, although he never meddled with the public papers, yet had he the

credit of writing innumerable essays, and smart things, that appeared on

all subjects, and all sides of the question; in all which he was clearly

detected “by his style.”

He contracted, moreover, a considerable debt at the post-office, in

consequence of the numerous letters he received from authors and

printers soliciting his subscription, and he was applied to by every

charitable society for yearly donations, which he gave very cheerfully,

considering these applications as so many compliments. He was once

invited to a great corporation dinner; and was even twice summoned to

attend as a juryman at the court of quarter sessions. Indeed, so

renowned did he become, that he could no longer pry about, as formerly,

in all holes and corners of the city, according to the bent of his

humor, unnoticed and uninterrupted; but several times when he has been

sauntering the streets, on his usual rambles of observation, equipped

with his cane and cocked hat, the little boys at play have been known to

cry, “There goes Diedrich!” at which the old gentleman seemed not a

little pleased, looking upon these salutations in the light of the

praise of posterity.

In a word, if we take into consideration all these various honors and

distinctions, together with an exuberant eulogium passed on him in the

_Port Folio_, (with which, we are told, the old gentleman was so much

overpowered, that he was sick for two or three days) it must be

confessed, that few authors have ever lived to receive such illustrious

rewards, or have so completely enjoyed in advance their own immortality.

After his return from Schaghtikoke, Mr. Knickerbocker took up his

residence at a little rural retreat, which the Stuyvesants had granted

him on the family domain, in gratitude for his honorable mention of

their ancestor. It was pleasantly situated on the borders of one of the

salt marshes beyond Corlear’s Hook; subject, indeed, to be occasionally

overflowed, and much infested, in the summer time, with mosquitoes; but

otherwise very agreeable, producing abundant crops of salt grass and

bulrushes.

Here, we are sorry to say, the good old gentleman fell dangerously ill

of a fever, occasioned by the neighboring marshes. When he found his end

approaching, he disposed of his worldly affairs, leaving the bulk of his

fortune to the New York Historical Society; his Heidelberg Catechism and

Vander Donck’s work to the city library; and his saddle-bags to Mr.

Handaside. He forgave all his enemies,—that is to say, all who bore any

enmity towards him; for as to himself, he declared he died in good will

with all the world. And, after dictating several kind messages to his

relations at Schaghtikoke, as well as to several of our most substantial

Dutch citizens, he expired in the arms of his friend, the librarian.

His remains were interred, according to his own request, in St. Mark’s

churchyard, close by the bones of his favorite hero, Peter Stuyvesant;

and it is rumored that the Historical Society have it in mind to erect a

wooden monument to his memory in the Bowling Green.

[Illustration]

=To the Public=

To rescue from oblivion the memory of former incidents, and to render a

just tribute of renown to the many great and wonderful transactions of

our Dutch progenitors, Diedrich Knickerbocker, native of the city of New

York, produces this historical essay.[1] Like the great Father of

History, whose words I have just quoted, I treat of times long past,

over which the twilight of uncertainty had already thrown its shadows,

and the night of forgetfulness was about to descend forever. With great

solicitude had I long beheld the early history of this venerable and

ancient city gradually slipping from our grasp, trembling on the lips of

narrative old age, and day by day dropping piecemeal into the tomb. But

a little while, thought I, and those reverend Dutch burghers, who serve

as the tottering monuments of good old times, will be gathered to their

fathers; their children, engrossed by the empty pleasures or

insignificant transactions of the present age, will neglect to treasure

up the recollections of the past, and posterity will search in vain for

memorials of the days of the Patriarchs. The origin of our city will be

buried in eternal oblivion, and even the names and achievements of

Wouter Van Twiller, William Kieft, and Peter Stuyvesant, be enveloped in

doubt and fiction, like those of Romulus and Remus, of Charlemagne, King

Arthur, Rinaldo, and Godfrey of Bologne.

Determined, therefore, to avert if possible this threatened misfortune,

I industriously set myself to work, to gather together all the fragments

of our infant history which still existed, and like my reverend

prototype, Herodotus, where no written records could be found, I have

endeavored to continue the chain of history by well-authenticated

traditions.

In this arduous undertaking, which has been the whole business of a long

and solitary life, it is incredible the number of learned authors I have

consulted; and all but to little purpose. Strange as it may seem, though

such multitudes of excellent works have been written about this country,

there are none extant which give any full and satisfactory account of

the early history of New York, or of its three first Dutch governors. I

have, however, gained much valuable and curious matter, from an

elaborate manuscript written in exceeding pure and classic Low Dutch,

excepting a few errors in orthography, which was found in the archives

of the Stuyvesant family. Many legends, letters, and other documents

have I likewise gleaned, in my researches among the family chests and

lumber-garrets of our respectable Dutch citizens; and I have gathered a

host of well-authenticated traditions from divers excellent old ladies

of my acquaintance, who requested that their names might not be

mentioned. Nor must I neglect to mention how greatly I have been

assisted by that admirable and praiseworthy institution, the New York

Historical Society, to which I here publicly return my sincere

acknowledgments.

In the conduct of this inestimable work I have adopted no individual

model; but, on the contrary, have simply contented myself with combining

and concentrating the excellences of the most approved ancient

historians. Like Xenophon, I have maintained the utmost impartiality,

and the strictest adherence to truth throughout my history. I have

enriched it after the manner of Sallust with various characters of

ancient worthies, drawn at full length, and faithfully colored. I have

seasoned it with profound political speculations like Thucydides,

sweetened it with the graces of sentiment like Tacitus, and infused into

the whole the dignity, the grandeur, and magnificence of Livy.

I am aware that I shall incur the censure of numerous very learned and

judicious critics, for indulging too frequently in the bold excursive

manner of my favorite Herodotus. And to be candid, I have found it

impossible always to resist the allurements of those pleasing episodes

which, like flowery banks and fragrant bowers, beset the dusty road of

the historian, and entice him to turn aside, and refresh himself from

his wayfaring. But I trust it will be found that I have always resumed

my staff, and addressed myself to my weary journey with renovated

spirits, so that both my readers and myself have been benefited by the

relaxation.

Indeed, though it has been my constant wish and uniform endeavor to

rival Polybius himself, in observing the requisite unity of history, yet

the loose and unconnected manner in which many of the facts herein

recorded have come to hand, rendered such an attempt extremely

difficult. This difficulty was likewise increased by one of the grand

objects contemplated in my work, which was to trace the rise of sundry

customs and institutions in this best of cities, and to compare them,

when in the germ of infancy, with what they are in the present old age

of knowledge and improvement.

But the chief merit on which I value myself, and found my hopes for

future regard, is that faithful veracity with which I have compiled this

invaluable little work; carefully winnowing away the chaff of

hypothesis, and discarding the tares of fable, which are too apt to

spring up and choke the seeds of truth and wholesome knowledge. Had I

been anxious to captivate the superficial throng, who skim like swallows

over the surface of literature; or had I been anxious to commend my

writings to the pampered palates of literary epicures, I might have

availed myself of the obscurity that overshadows the infant years of our

city, to introduce a thousand pleasing fictions. But I have scrupulously

discarded many a pithy tale and marvellous adventure, whereby the drowsy

ear of summer indolence might be enthralled; jealously maintaining that

fidelity, gravity, and dignity, which should ever distinguish the

historian. “For a writer of this class,” observes an elegant critic,

“must sustain the character of a wise man, writing for the instruction

of posterity; one who has studied to inform himself well, who has

pondered his subject with care, and addresses himself to our judgment,

rather than to our imagination.”

Thrice happy, therefore, is this our renowned, city in having incidents

worthy of swelling the theme of history; and doubly thrice happy is it

in having such an historian as myself to relate them. For after all,

gentle reader, cities _of themselves_, and, in fact, empires _of

themselves_, are nothing without an historian. It is the patient

narrator who records their prosperity as they rise,—who blazons forth

the splendor of their noontide meridian,—who props their feeble

memorials as they totter to decay,—who gathers together their scattered

fragments as they rot,—and who piously, at length, collects their ashes

into the mausoleum of his work and rears a monument that will transmit

their renown to all succeeding ages.

What has been the fate of many fair cities of antiquity, whose nameless

ruins encumber the plains of Europe and Asia, and awaken the fruitless

inquiry of the traveller? They have sunk into dust and silence,—they

have perished from remembrance for want of an historian! The

philanthropist may weep over their desolation,—the poet may wander among

their mouldering arches and broken columns, and indulge the visionary

nights of his fancy,—but, alas! alas! the modern historian, whose pen,

like my own, is doomed to confine itself to dull matter-of-fact, seeks

in vain among their oblivious remains for some memorial that may tell

the instructive tale of their glory and their ruin.

“Wars, conflagrations, deluges,” says Aristotle, “destroy nations, and

with them all their monuments, their discoveries, and their vanities.

The torch of science has more than once been extinguished and

rekindled;—a few individuals, who have escaped by accident, reunite the

thread of generations.”

The same sad misfortune which has happened to so many ancient cities

will happen again, and from the same sad cause, to nine tenths of those

which now flourish on the face of the globe. With the most of them the

time for recording their early history is gone by; their origin, their

foundation, together with the eventful period of their youth, are

forever buried in the rubbish of years; and the same would have been the

case with this fair portion of the earth, if I had not snatched it from

obscurity in the very nick of time, at the moment that those matters

herein recorded were about entering into the wide-spread, insatiable maw

of oblivion,—if I had not dragged them out, as it were, by the very

locks, just as the monster’s adamantine fangs were closing upon them

forever! And here have I, as before observed, carefully collected,

collated, and arranged them, scrip and scrap, “_punt en punt, gat en

gat_,” and commenced in this little work a history, to serve as a

foundation on which other historians may hereafter raise a noble

superstructure, swelling in process of time, until Knickerbocker’s _New

York_ may be equally voluminous with Gibbon’s _Rome_, or Hume and

Smollett’s _England_!

And now indulge me for a moment, while I lay down my pen, skip to some

little eminence at the distance of two or three hundred years ahead;

and, casting back a bird’s-eye glance over the waste of years that is to

roll between, discover myself—little I—at this moment the progenitor,

prototype, and precursor of them all, posted at the head of this host of

literary worthies, with my book under my arm, and New York on my back,

pressing forward, like a gallant commander, to honor and immortality.

Such are the vainglorious imaginings that will now and then enter into

the brain of the author,—that irradiate, as with celestial light, his

solitary chamber, cheering his weary spirits, and animating him to

persevere in his labors. And I have freely given utterance to these

rhapsodies whenever they have occurred; not, I trust, from an unusual

spirit of egotism, but merely that the reader may for once have an idea

how an author thinks and feels while he is writing,—a kind of knowledge

very rare and curious, and much to be desired.

[Illustration]

[Illustration]

=Book I.=

CONTAINING DIVERS INGENIOUS THEORIES AND PHILOSOPHIC SPECULATIONS

CONCERNING THE CREATION AND POPULATION OF THE WORLD, AS CONNECTED

WITH THE HISTORY OF NEW YORK.

[Illustration]

=Chapter I.=

DESCRIPTION OF THE WORLD.

According to the best authorities, the world in which we dwell is a

huge, opaque, reflecting, inanimate mass, floating in the vast ethereal

ocean of infinite space. It has the form of an orange, being an oblate

spheroid, curiously flattened at opposite parts, for the insertion of

two imaginary poles, which are supposed to penetrate and unite at the

centre, thus forming an axis on which the mighty orange turns with a

regular diurnal revolution.

The transitions of light and darkness, whence proceed the alternations

of day and night, are produced by this diurnal revolution successively

presenting the different parts of the earth to the rays of the sun. The

latter is, according to the best, that is to say, the latest accounts, a

luminous or fiery body, of a prodigious magnitude, from which this world

is driven by a centrifugal or repelling power, and to which it is drawn

by a centripetal or attractive force; otherwise called the attraction of

gravitation; the combination, or rather the counteraction of these two

opposing impulses producing a circular and annual revolution. Hence

result the different seasons of the year, viz.: spring, summer, autumn,

and winter.

This I believe to be the most approved modern theory on the

subject,—though there may be many philosophers who have entertained very

different opinions; some, too, of them entitled to much deference from

their great antiquity and illustrious character. Thus it was advanced by

some of the ancient sages, that the earth was an extended plane,

supported by vast pillars; and by others, that it rested on the head of

a snake, or the back of a huge tortoise;—but as they did not provide a

resting-place for either the pillars or the tortoise, the whole theory

fell to the ground, for want of proper foundation.

[Illustration: “AND THAT A GREAT DRAGON OCCASIONALLY SWALLOWS UP THE

MOON.”]

The Brahmins assert that the heavens rest upon the earth, and the sun

and moon swim therein like fishes in the water, moving from east to west

by day, and gliding along the edge of the horizon to their original

stations during the night;[2] while, according to the Pauranicas of

India, it is a vast plain, encircled by seven oceans of milk, nectar,

and other delicious liquids; that it is studded with seven mountains,

and ornamented in the centre by a mountainous rock of burnished gold;

and that a great dragon occasionally swallows up the moon, which

accounts for the phenomena of lunar eclipses.[3]

Beside these, and many other equally sage opinions, we have the profound

conjectures of ABOUL-HASSAN-ALY, son of Al Khan, son of Aly, son of

Abderrahman, son of Abdallah, son of Masoud-el-Hadheli who is commonly

called MASOUDI, and surnamed Cothbiddin, but who takes the humble title

of Laheb-ar-rasoul, which means the companion of the ambassador of God.

He has written a universal history, entitled _Mouroudge-ed-dharab, or

the Golden Meadows, and the Mines of Precious Stones_.[4] In this

valuable work he has related the history of the world from the creation

down to the moment of writing; which was under the Khaliphat of Mothi

Billah, in the month Dgioumadi-el-aoual of the 336th year of the Hegira

or flight of the Prophet. He informs us that the earth is a huge bird,

Mecca and Medina constituting the head, Persia and India the right wing,

the land of Gog the left wing, and Africa the tail. He informs us,

moreover, that an earth has existed before the present (which he

considers as a mere chicken of 7,000 years), that it has undergone

divers deluges, and that, according to the opinion of some well-informed

Brahmins of his acquaintance, it will be renovated every

seventy-thousandth hazarouam; each hazarouam consisting of 12,000 years.

These are a few of the many contradictory opinions of philosophers

concerning the earth, and we find that the learned have had equal

perplexity as to the nature of the sun. Some of the ancient philosophers

have affirmed that it is a vast wheel of brilliant fire;[5] others, that

it is merely a mirror or sphere of transparent crystal;[6] and a third

class, at the head of whom stands Anaxagoras, maintained that it was

nothing but a huge ignited mass of iron or stone,—indeed, he declared

the heavens to be merely a vault of stone,—and that the stars were

stones whirled upward from the earth, and set on fire by the velocity of

its revolutions.[7] But I give little attention to the doctrines of this

philosopher, the people of Athens having fully refuted them, by

banishing him from their city: a concise mode of answering unwelcome

doctrines, much resorted to in former days. Another sect of philosophers

do declare, that certain fiery particles exhale constantly from the

earth, which, concentrating in a single point of the firmament by day,

constitute the sun, but being scattered and rambling about in the dark

at night, collect in various points, and form stars. These are regularly

burnt out and extinguished, not unlike to the lamps in our streets, and

require a fresh supply of exhalations for the next occasion.[8]

It is even recorded, that at certain remote and obscure periods, in

consequence of a great scarcity of fuel, the sun has been completely

burnt out, and sometimes not rekindled for a month at a time. A most

melancholy circumstance, the very idea of which gave vast concern to

Heraclitus, that worthy weeping philosopher of antiquity. In addition to

these various speculations, it was the opinion of Herschel, that the sun

is a magnificent, habitable abode; the light it furnishes arising from

certain empyreal, luminous or phosphoric clouds, swimming in its

transparent atmosphere.[9]

But we will not enter further at present into the nature of the sun,

that being an inquiry not immediately necessary to the development of

this history; neither will we embroil ourselves in any more of the

endless disputes of philosophers touching the form of this globe, but

content ourselves with the theory advanced in the beginning of this

chapter, and will proceed to illustrate, by experiment, the complexity

of motion therein ascribed to this our rotatory planet.

Professor Von Poddingcoft (or Puddinghead, as the name may be rendered

into English) was long celebrated in the university of Leyden, for

profound gravity of deportment, and a talent at going to sleep in the

midst of examinations, to the infinite relief of his hopeful students,

who thereby worked their way through college with great ease and little

study. In the course of one of his lectures, the learned professor,

seizing a bucket of water, swung it around his head at arm’s length. The

impulse with which he threw the vessel from him, being a centrifugal

force, the retention of his arm operating as a centripetal power, and

the bucket, which was a substitute for the earth, describing a circular

orbit round about the globular head and ruby visage of Professor Von

Poddingcoft, which formed no bad representation of the sun. All of these

particulars were duly explained to the class of gaping students around

him. He apprised them, moreover, that the same principle of gravitation,

which retained the water in the bucket, restrains the ocean from flying

from the earth in its rapid revolutions; and he further informed them

that should the motion of the earth be suddenly checked, it would

incontinently fall into the sun, through the centripetal force of

gravitation,—a most ruinous event to this planet, and one which would

also obscure, though it most probably would not extinguish, the solar

luminary. An unlucky stripling, one of those vagrant geniuses, who seem

sent into the world merely to annoy worthy men of the puddinghead order,

desirous of ascertaining the correctness of the experiment, suddenly

arrested the arm of the professor, just at the moment that the bucket

was in its zenith, which immediately descended with astonishing

precision upon the philosophic head of the instructor of youth. A hollow

sound, and a red-hot hiss, attended the contact; but the theory was in

the amplest manner illustrated, for the unfortunate bucket perished in

the conflict; but the blazing countenance of Professor Von Poddingcoft

emerged from amidst the waters, glowing fiercer than ever with

unutterable indignation, whereby the students were marvellously edified,

and departed considerably wiser than before.

[Illustration: PROFESSOR VON PODDINGCOFT.]

It is a mortifying circumstance, which greatly perplexes many a

painstaking philosopher, that nature often refuses to second his most

profound and elaborate efforts; so that after having invented one of the

most ingenious and natural theories imaginable, she will have the

perverseness to act directly in the teeth of his system, and flatly

contradict his most favorite positions. This is a manifest and unmerited

grievance, since it throws the censure of the vulgar and unlearned

entirely upon the philosopher; whereas the fault is not to be ascribed

to his theory, which is unquestionably correct, but the waywardness of

Dame Nature, who, with the proverbial fickleness of her sex, is

continually indulging in coquetries and caprices, and seems really to

take pleasure in violating all philosophic rules, and jilting the most

learned and indefatigable of her adorers. Thus it happened with respect

to the foregoing satisfactory explanation of the motion of our planet;

it appears that the centrifugal force has long since ceased to operate,

while its antagonist remains in undiminished potency; the world,

therefore, according to the theory as it originally stood, ought in

strict propriety to tumble into the sun; philosophers were convinced

that it would do so, and awaited in anxious impatience the fulfilment of

their prognostics. But the untoward planet pertinaciously continued her

course, notwithstanding that she had reason, philosophy, and a whole

university of learned professors opposed to her conduct. The

philosophers took this in very ill part, and it is thought they would

never have pardoned the slight and affront which they conceived put upon

them by the world, had not a good-natured professor kindly officiated as

a mediator between the parties, and effected a reconciliation.

Finding the world would not accommodate itself to the theory, he wisely

determined to accommodate the theory to the world; he therefore informed

his brother philosophers, that the circular motion of the earth round

the sun was no sooner engendered by the conflicting impulses, above

described, than it became a regular revolution, independent of the

causes which gave it origin. His learned brethren readily joined in the

opinion, being heartily glad of any explanation that would decently

extricate them from their embarrassment; and ever since that memorable

era the world has been left to take her own course, and to revolve

around the sun in such orbit as she thinks proper.

=Chapter II.=

COSMOGONY, OR CREATION OF THE WORLD; WITH A MULTITUDE OF EXCELLENT

THEORIES, BY WHICH THE CREATION OF A WORLD IS SHOWN TO BE NO SUCH

DIFFICULT MATTER AS COMMON FOLK WOULD IMAGINE.

Having thus briefly introduced my reader to the world, and given him

some idea of its form and situation, he will naturally be curious to

know from whence it came, and how it was created. And, indeed, the

clearing up of these points is absolutely essential to my history,

inasmuch as if this world had not been formed, it is more than probable

that this renowned island, on which is situated the city of New York,

would never have had an existence. The regular course of my history,

therefore, requires that I should proceed to notice the cosmogony or

formation of this our globe.

And now I give my readers fair warning that I am about to plunge, for a

chapter or two, into as complete a labyrinth as ever historian was

perplexed withal; therefore, I advise them to take fast hold of my

skirts, and keep close at my heels, venturing neither to the right hand

nor to the left, lest they get bemired in a slough of unintelligible

learning, or have their brains knocked out by some of those hard Greek

names which will be flying about in all directions. But should any of

them be too indolent or chicken-hearted to accompany me in this perilous

undertaking, they had better take a short cut round, and wait for me at

the beginning of some smoother chapter.

Of the creation of the world, we have a thousand contradictory accounts;

and though a very satisfactory one is furnished us by divine revelation,

yet every philosopher feels himself in honor bound to furnish us with a

better. As an impartial historian I consider it my duty to notice their

several theories, by which mankind have been so exceedingly edified and

instructed.

Thus it was the opinion of certain ancient sages, that the earth and the

whole system of the universe was the Deity himself;[10] a doctrine most

strenuously maintained by Zenophanes and the whole tribe of Eleatics, as

also by Strabo and the sect of peripatetic philosophers. Pythagoras

likewise inculcated the famous numerical system of the monad, dyad, and

triad, and by means of his sacred quaternary elucidated the formation of

the world, the arcana of nature, and the principles both of music and

morals.[11] Other sages adhered to the mathematical system of squares

and triangles; the cube, the pyramid, and the sphere; the tetrahedron,

the octahedron, the icosahedron, and the dodecahedron.[12] While others

advocated the great elementary theory which refers the construction of

our globe and all that it contains to the combinations of four material

elements: air, earth, fire, and water, with the assistance of a fifth,

an immaterial and vivifying principle.

Nor must I omit to mention the great atomic system taught by old

Moschus, before the siege of Troy; revived by Democritus of laughing

memory; improved by Epicurus, that king of good fellows, and modernized

by the fanciful Descartes. But I decline inquiring whether the atoms, of

which the earth is said to be composed, are eternal or recent; whether

they are animate or inanimate; whether, agreeably to the opinion of the

atheists, they were fortuitously aggregated, or, as the theists

maintain, were arranged by a supreme intelligence.[13] Whether, in fact,

the earth be an insensate clod, or whether it be animated by a soul;[14]

which opinion was strenuously maintained by a host of philosophers, at

the head of whom stands the great Plato, that temperate sage, who threw

the cold water of philosophy on the form of sexual intercourse, and

inculcated the doctrine of Platonic love,—an exquisitely refined

intercourse, but much better adapted to the ideal inhabitants of his

imaginary island of Atlantis than to the sturdy race, composed of

rebellious flesh and blood, which populates the little matter-of-fact

island we inhabit.

Beside these systems, we have, moreover, the poetical theogony of old

Hesiod, who generated the whole universe in the regular mode of

procreation, and the plausible opinion of others, that the earth was

hatched from the great egg of night, which floated in chaos, and was

cracked by the horns of the celestial bull. To illustrate this last

doctrine, Burnet, in his theory of the earth,[15] has favored us with an

accurate drawing and description, both of the form and texture of this

mundane egg; which is found to bear a marvellous resemblance to that of

a goose. Such of my readers as take a proper interest in the origin of

this our planet, will be pleased to learn that the most profound sages

of antiquity among the Egyptians, Chaldeans, Persians, Greeks, and

Latins, have alternately assisted at the hatching of this strange bird,

and that their cacklings have been caught, and continued in different

tones and inflections, from philosopher to philosopher, unto the present

day.

But while briefly noticing long celebrated systems of ancient sages, let

me not pass over with neglect those of other philosophers; which, though

less universal and renowned, have equal claims to attention, and equal

chance for correctness. Thus, it is recorded by the Brahmins, in the

pages of their inspired Shastah, that the angel Bistnoo, transforming

himself into a great boar, plunged into the watery abyss, and brought up

the earth on his tusks. Then issued from him a mighty tortoise, and a

mighty snake; and Bistnoo placed the snake erect upon the back of the

tortoise, and he placed the earth upon the head of the snake.[16]

The negro philosophers of Congo affirm that the world was made by the

hands of angels, excepting their own country, which the Supreme Being

constructed himself, that it might be supremely excellent. And he took

great pains with the inhabitants, and made them very black and

beautiful; and when he had finished the first man, he was well pleased

with him, and smoothed him over the face, and hence his nose, and the

nose of all his descendants, became flat.

[Illustration: THE GREAT EGG OF NIGHT.]

The Mohawk philosophers tell us that a pregnant woman fell down from

heaven, and that a tortoise took her upon its back, because every place

was covered with water; and that the woman, sitting upon the tortoise,

paddled with her hands in the water, and raked up the earth, whence it

finally happened that the earth became higher than the water.[17]

But I forbear to quote a number more of these ancient and outlandish

philosophers, whose deplorable ignorance, in despite of all their

erudition, compelled them to write in languages which but few of my

readers can understand; and I shall proceed briefly to notice a few more

intelligible and fashionable theories of their modern successors.

And first I shall mention the great Buffon, who conjectures that this

globe was originally a globe of liquid fire, scintillated from the body

of the sun, by the percussion of a comet, as a spark is generated by the

collision of flint and steel. That at first it was surrounded by gross

vapors, which, cooling and condensing in process of time, constituted,

according to their densities, earth, water, and air; which gradually

arranged themselves, according to their respective gravities, round the

burning or vitrified mass that formed their centre.

[Illustration: THE GOOD DAME OF NARBONNE IN FRANCE.]

Hutton, on the contrary, supposes that the waters at first were

universally paramount; and he terrifies himself with the idea that the

earth must be eventually washed away by the force of rain, rivers, and

mountain torrents, until it is confounded with the ocean, or, in other

words, absolutely dissolves into itself. Sublime idea! far surpassing

that of the tender-hearted damsel of antiquity, who wept herself into a

fountain; or the good dame of Narbonne in France, who, for a volubility

of tongue unusual in her sex, was doomed to peel five hundred thousand

and thirty-nine ropes of onions, and actually run out at her eyes before

half the hideous task was accomplished.

Whiston, the same ingenious philosopher who rivalled Ditton in his

researches after the longitude (for which the mischief-loving Swift

discharged on their heads a most savory stanza) has distinguished

himself by a very admirable theory respecting the earth. He conjectures

that it was originally a _chaotic comet_, which being selected for the

abode of man, was removed from its eccentric orbit, and whirled round

the sun in its present regular motion; by which change of direction,

order succeeded to confusion in the arrangement of its component parts.

The philosopher adds, that the deluge was produced by an uncourteous

salute from the watery tail of another comet; doubtless through sheer

envy of its improved condition; thus furnishing a melancholy proof that

jealousy may prevail, even among the heavenly bodies, and discord

interrupt that celestial harmony of the spheres, so melodiously sung by

the poets.

But I pass over a variety of excellent theories, among which are those

of Burnet, and Woodward, and Whitehurst; regretting extremely that my

time will not suffer me to give them the notice they deserve,—and shall

conclude with that of the renowned Dr. Darwin. This learned Theban, who

is as much distinguished for rhyme as reason, and for good-natured

credulity as serious research, and who has recommended himself

wonderfully to the good graces of the ladies, by letting them into all

the gallantries, amours, debaucheries, and other topics of scandal of

the court of Flora, has fallen upon a theory worthy of his combustible

imagination. According to his opinion, the huge mass of chaos took a

sudden occasion to explode, like a barrel of gun-powder, and in that act

exploded the sun,—which in its flight, by a similar convulsion, exploded

the earth, which in like guise exploded the moon,—and thus by a

concatenation of explosions, the whole solar system was produced, and

set most systematically in motion![18]

By the great variety of theories here alluded to, every one of which, if

thoroughly examined, will be found surprisingly consistent in all its

parts, my unlearned readers will perhaps be led to conclude, that the

creation of a world is not so difficult a task as they at first

imagined. I have shown at least a score of ingenious methods in which a

world could be constructed; and I have no doubt, that, had any of the

philosophers above quoted the use of a good manageable comet, and the

philosophical warehouse _chaos_ at his command, he would engage to

manufacture a planet as good, or, if you would take his word for it,

better than this we inhabit.

And here I cannot help noticing the kindness of Providence, in creating

comets for the great relief of bewildered philosophers. By their

assistance more sudden evolutions and transitions are effected in the

system of nature than are wrought in a pantomimic exhibition by the

wonder-working sword of Harlequin. Should one of our modern sages, in

his theoretical flights among the stars, ever find himself lost in the

clouds, and in danger of tumbling into the abyss of nonsense and

absurdity, he has but to seize a comet by the beard, mount astride of

his tail, and away he gallops in triumph, like an enchanter on his

hyppogriff, or a Connecticut witch on her broomstick, “to sweep the

cobwebs out of the sky.”

[Illustration: “MOUNT ASTRIDE OF HIS TAIL, AND AWAY HE GALLOPS IN

TRIUMPH.”]

It is an old and vulgar saying about a “beggar on horseback,” which I

would not for the world have applied to these reverend philosophers; but

I must confess that some of them, when they are mounted on one of those

fiery steeds, are as wild in their curvetings as was Phaeton of yore,

when he aspired to manage the chariot of Phœbus. One drives his comet at

full speed against the sun, and knocks the world out of him with the

mighty concussion; another, more moderate, makes his comet a kind of

beast of burden, carrying the sun a regular supply of food and fagots; a

third, of more combustible disposition, threatens to throw his comet,

like a bomb-shell, into the world, and blow it up like a

powder-magazine; while a fourth, with no great delicacy to this planet

and its inhabitants, insinuates that some day or other his comet—my

modest pen blushes while I write it—shall absolutely turn tail upon our

world, and deluge it with water! Surely, as I have already observed,

comets were bountifully provided by Providence for the benefit of

philosophers, to assist them in manufacturing theories.

And now, having adduced several of the most prominent theories that

occur to my recollection, I leave my judicious readers at full liberty

to choose among them. They are all serious speculations of learned

men,—all differ essentially from each other,—and all have the same title

to belief. It has ever been the task of one race of philosophers to

demolish the works of their predecessors, and elevate more splendid

fantasies in their stead, which in their turn are demolished and

replaced by the air-castles of a succeeding generation. Thus it would

seem that knowledge and genius, of which we make such great parade,

consist but in detecting the errors and absurdities of those who have

gone before, and devising new errors and absurdities, to be detected by

those who are to come after us. Theories are the mighty soap-bubbles

with which the grownup children of science amuse themselves,—while the

honest vulgar stand gazing in stupid admiration, and dignify these

learned vagaries with the name of wisdom! Surely, Socrates was right in

his opinion, that philosophers are but a soberer sort of madman, busying

themselves in things totally incomprehensible, or which, if they could

be comprehended, would be found not worthy the trouble of discovery.

For my own part, until the learned have come to an agreement among

themselves, I shall content myself with the account handed down to us by

Moses; in which I do but follow the example of our ingenious neighbors

of Connecticut; who at their first settlement proclaimed, that the

colony should be governed by the laws of God—until they had time to make

better.

One thing, however, appears certain,—from the unanimous authority of the

before-quoted philosophers, supported by the evidence of our own senses

(which, though very apt to deceive us, may be cautiously admitted as

additional testimony)—it appears, I say, and I make the assertion

deliberately, without fear of contradiction, that this globe really _was

created_, and that it is composed of _land and water_. It further

appears that it is curiously divided and parcelled out into continents

and islands, among which I boldly declare the renowned ISLAND OF NEW

YORK will be found by any one who seeks for it in its proper place.

[Illustration]

=Chapter III.=

HOW THAT FAMOUS NAVIGATOR, NOAH, WAS SHAMEFULLY NICKNAMED, AND HOW HE

COMMITTED AN UNPARDONABLE OVERSIGHT IN NOT HAVING FOUR SONS; WITH

THE GREAT TROUBLE OF PHILOSOPHERS CAUSED THEREBY, AND THE DISCOVERY

OF AMERICA.

Noah, who is the first seafaring man we read of, begat three sons: Shem,

Ham, and Japhet. Authors, it is true, are not wanting, who affirm that

the patriarch had a number of other children. Thus, Berosus makes him

father of the gigantic Titans; Methodius gives him a son called

Jonithus, or Jonicus; and others have mentioned a son, named Thuiscon,

from whom descended the Teutons or Teutonic, or in other words, the

Dutch nation.

I regret exceedingly that the nature of my plan will not permit me to

gratify the laudable curiosity of my readers, by investigating minutely

the history of the great Noah. Indeed, such an undertaking would be

attended with more trouble than many people would imagine, for the good

old patriarch seems to have been a great traveller in his day, and to

have passed under a different name in every country that he visited. The

Chaldeans, for instance, give us his story, merely altering his name

into Xisuthrus,—a trivial alteration, which, to an historian skilled in

etymologies, will appear wholly unimportant. It appears, likewise, that

he had exchanged his tarpaulin and quadrant among the Chaldeans for the

gorgeous insignia of royalty, and appears as a monarch in their annals.

The Egyptians celebrate him under the name of Osiris; the Indians as

Menu; the Greek and Roman writers confound him with Ogyges, and the

Theban with Deucalion and Saturn. But the Chinese, who deservedly rank

among the most extensive and authentic historians, inasmuch as they have

known the world much longer than any one else, declare that Noah was no

other than Fohi; and what gives this assertion some air of credibility

is, that it is a fact, admitted by the most enlightened _literati_, that

Noah travelled into China, at the time of the building of the tower of

Babel (probably to improve himself in the study of languages), and the

learned Dr. Shackford gives us the additional information, that the ark

rested on a mountain on the frontiers of China.

[Illustration: FOHI THE HISTORIAN.]

From this mass of rational conjectures and sage hypotheses, many

satisfactory deductions might be drawn; but I shall content myself with

the simple fact stated in the Bible, viz.: that Noah begat three sons,

Shem, Ham, and Japhet. It is astonishing on what remote and obscure

contingencies the great affairs of this world depend, and how events the

most distant, and to the common observer unconnected, are inevitably

consequent the one to the other. It remains to the philosopher to

discover these mysterious affinities, and it is the proudest triumph of

his skill, to detect and drag forth some latent chain of causation which

at first sight appears a paradox to the inexperienced observer. Thus

many of my readers will doubtless wonder what connection the family of

Noah can possibly have with this history,—and many will stare when

informed that the whole history of this quarter of the world has taken

its character and course from the simple circumstance of the patriarch’s

having but three sons. But to explain:

Noah, we are told by sundry very credible historians, becoming sole

surviving heir and proprietor of the earth, in fee-simple, after the

deluge, like a good father, portioned out his estate among his children.

To Shem he gave Asia; to Ham, Africa; and to Japhet, Europe. Now it is a

thousand times to be lamented that he had but three sons, for had there

been a fourth, he would doubtless have inherited America; which, of

course, would have been dragged forth from its obscurity on the

occasion; and thus many a hard-working historian and philosopher would

have been spared a prodigious mass of weary conjecture respecting the

first discovery and population of this country. Noah, however, having

provided for his three sons, looked in all probability upon our country

as a mere wild unsettled land, and said nothing about it; and to this

unpardonable taciturnity of the patriarch may we ascribe the misfortune

that America did not come into the world as early as the other quarters

of the globe.

It is true, some writers have vindicated him from this misconduct

towards posterity, and asserted that he really did discover America.

Thus it was the opinion of Mark Lescarbot, a French writer, possessed of

that ponderosity of thought and profoundness of reflection so peculiar

to his nation, that the immediate descendants of Noah peopled this

quarter of the globe, and that the old patriarch himself, who still

retained a passion for the seafaring life, superintended the

transmigration. The pious and enlightened father Charlevoix, a French

Jesuit, remarkable for his aversion to the marvellous, common to all

great travellers, is conclusively of the same opinion; nay, he goes

still farther, and decides upon the manner in which the discovery was

effected, which was by sea, and under the immediate direction of the

great Noah. “I have already observed,” exclaims the good father, in a

tone of becoming indignation, “that it is an arbitrary supposition that

the grandchildren of Noah were not able to penetrate into the new world,

or that they never thought of it. In effect, I can see no reason that

can justify such a notion. Who can seriously believe that Noah and his

immediate descendants knew less than we do, and that the builder and

pilot of the greatest ship that ever was,—a ship which was formed to

traverse an unbounded ocean, and had so many shoals and quicksands to

guard against,—should be ignorant of, or should not have communicated to

his descendants the art of sailing on the ocean?” Therefore, they did

sail on the ocean; therefore, they sailed to America; therefore,

America, was discovered by Noah!

[Illustration: HANS DE LAET.]

Now all this exquisite chain of reasoning, which is so strikingly

characteristic of the good father, being addressed to the faith, rather

than the understanding, is flatly opposed by Hans de Laet, who declares

it a real and most ridiculous paradox to suppose that Noah ever

entertained the thought of discovering America; and as Hans is a Dutch

writer, I am inclined to believe he must have been much better

acquainted with the worthy crew of the ark than his competitors, and of

course possessed of more accurate sources of information. It is

astonishing how intimate historians do daily become with the patriarchs

and other great men of antiquity. As intimacy improves with time, and as

the learned are particularly inquisitive and familiar in their

acquaintance with the ancients, I should not be surprised if some future

writers should gravely give us a picture of men and manners as they

existed before the flood, far more copious and accurate than the Bible;

and that in the course of another century the log-book of the good Noah

should be as current among historians as the voyages of Captain Cook, or

the renowned history of Robinson Crusoe.

I shall not occupy my time by discussing the huge mass of additional

suppositions, conjectures, and probabilities respecting the first

discovery of this country, with which unhappy historians overload

themselves, in their endeavors to satisfy the doubts of an incredulous

world. It is painful to see these laborious wights panting, and toiling,

and sweating, under an enormous burden, at the very outset of their

works, which, on being opened, turns out to be nothing but a mighty

bundle of straw. As, however, by unwearied assiduity, they seem to have

established the fact, to the satisfaction of all the world, that this

country _has been discovered_, I shall avail myself of their useful

labors to be extremely brief upon this point.

I shall not, therefore, stop to inquire whether America was first

discovered by a wandering vessel of that celebrated Phœnician fleet,

which, according to Herodotus, circumnavigated Africa; or by that

Carthaginian expedition, which Pliny the naturalist informs us

discovered the Canary Islands; or whether it was settled by a temporary

colony from Tyre, as hinted by Aristotle and Seneca. I shall neither

inquire whether it was first discovered by the Chinese, as Vossius with

great shrewdness advances; nor by the Norwegians in 1002, under Biorn;

nor by Behem, the German navigator, as Mr. Otto has endeavored to prove

to the _savans_ of the learned city of Philadelphia.

Nor shall I investigate the more modern claims of the Welsh, founded on

the voyage of Prince Madoc in the eleventh century, who having never

returned, it has since been wisely concluded that he must have gone to

America, and that for a plain reason,—if he did not go there, where else

could he have gone?—a question which most socratically shuts out all

further dispute.

Laying aside, therefore, all the conjectures above mentioned, with a

multitude of others, equally satisfactory, I shall take for granted the

vulgar opinion, that America was discovered on the 12th of October,

1492, by Christoval Colon, a Genoese, who has been clumsily nicknamed

Columbus, but for what reason I cannot discern. Of the voyages and

adventures of this Colon, I shall say nothing, seeing that they are

already sufficiently known. Nor shall I undertake to prove that this

country should have been called Colonia, after his name, that being

notoriously self-evident.

[Illustration: “SAVAGES TO EXTERMINATE.”]

Having thus happily got my readers on this side of the Atlantic, I

picture them to myself all impatience to enter upon the enjoyment of the

land of promise, and in full expectation that I will immediately deliver

it into their possession. But if I do may I ever forfeit the reputation

of a regular-bred historian! No—no,—most curious and thrice learned

readers (for thrice learned ye are if ye have read all that has gone

before, and nine times learned shall ye be if ye read that which comes

after), we have yet a world of work before us. Think you the first

discoverers of this fair quarter of the globe had nothing to do but go

on shore and find a country ready laid out and cultivated like a garden,

wherein they might revel at their ease? No such thing: they had forests

to cut down, underwood to grub up, marshes to drain, and savages to

exterminate.

In like manner, I have sundry doubts to clear away, questions to

resolve, and paradoxes to explain, before I permit you to range at

random; but these difficulties once overcome, we shall be enabled to jog

on right merrily through the rest of our history. Thus my work shall, in

a manner, echo the nature of the subject, in the same manner as the

sound of poetry has been found by certain shrewd critics to echo the

sense,—this being an improvement in history which I claim the merit of

having invented.

=Chapter IV.=

SHOWING THE GREAT DIFFICULTY PHILOSOPHERS HAVE HAD IN PEOPLING

AMERICA; AND HOW THE ABORIGINES CAME TO BE BEGOTTEN BY ACCIDENT—TO

THE GREAT RELIEF AND SATISFACTION OF THE AUTHOR.

The next inquiry at which we arrive in the regular course of our history

is to ascertain, if possible, how this country was originally peopled,—a

point fruitful of incredible embarrassments; for unless we prove that

the Aborigines did absolutely come from somewhere, it will be

immediately asserted, in this age of skepticism, that they did not come

at all; and if they did not come at all, then was this country never

populated,—a conclusion perfectly agreeable to the rules of logic, but

wholly irreconcilable to every feeling of humanity, inasmuch as it must

syllogistically prove fatal to the innumerable Aborigines of this

populous region.

To avert so dire a sophism, and to rescue from logical annihilation so

many millions of fellow-creatures, how many wings of geese have been

plundered! what oceans of ink have been benevolently drained! and how

many capacious heads of learned historians have been addled, and forever

confounded! I pause with reverential awe, when I contemplate the

ponderous tomes, in different languages, with which they have endeavored

to solve this question, so important to the happiness of society, but so

involved in clouds of impenetrable obscurity.

Historian after historian has engaged in the endless circle of

hypothetical argument, and after leading us a weary chase through

octavos, quartos, and folios, has let us out at the end of his work just

as wise as we were at the beginning. It was doubtless some philosophical

wild-goose chase of the kind that made the old poet Macrobius rail in

such a passion at curiosity, which he anathematizes most heartily as “an

irksome agonizing care, a superstitious industry about unprofitable

things, an itching humor to see what is not to be seen, and to be doing

what signifies nothing when it is done.” But to proceed.

Of the claims of the children of Noah to the original population of this

country I shall say nothing, as they have already been touched upon in

my last chapter. The claimants next in celebrity are the descendants of

Abraham. Thus, Christoval Colon (vulgarly called Columbus) when he first

discovered the gold mines of Hispaniola, immediately concluded, with a

shrewdness that would have done honor to a philosopher, that he had

found the ancient Ophir, from whence Solomon procured the gold for

embellishing the temple at Jerusalem; nay, Colon even imagined that he

saw the remains of furnaces of veritable Hebraic construction, employed

in refining the precious ore.

So golden a conjecture, tinctured with such fascinating extravagance,

was too tempting not to be immediately snapped at by the gudgeons of

learning; and, accordingly, there were divers profound writers ready to

swear to its correctness, and to bring in their usual load of

authorities, and wise surmises, wherewithal to prop it up. Vetablus and

Robertus Stephens declared nothing could be more clear; Arius Montanus,

without the least hesitation, asserts that Mexico was the true Ophir,

and the Jews the early settlers of the country; while Possevin, Becan,

and several other sagacious writers, lug in a _supposed_ prophecy of the

fourth book of Esdras, which being inserted in the mighty hypothesis,

like the key-stone of an arch, gives it, in their opinion, perpetual

durability.

Scarce, however, have they completed their goodly superstructure, than

in trudges a phalanx of opposite authors, with Hans de Laet, the great

Dutchman, at their head, and at one blow tumbles the whole fabric about

their ears. Hans, in fact, contradicts outright all the Israelitish

claims to the first settlement of this country, attributing all those

equivocal symptoms, and traces of Christianity and Judaism, which have

been said to be found in divers provinces of the new world, to the

_Devil_, who has always affected to counterfeit the worship of the true

Deity. “A remark,” says the knowing old Padre d’Acosta, “made by all

good authors who have spoken of the religion of nations newly

discovered, and founded besides on the authority of the _fathers of the

church_.” Some writers, again, among whom it is with much regret I am

compelled to mention Lopez de Gomara, and Juan de Leri, insinuate that

the Canaanites, being driven from the land of promise by the Jews, were

seized with such a panic that they fled without looking behind them,

until, stopping to take breath, they found themselves safe in America.

As they brought neither their national language, manners, nor features

with them, it is supposed they left them behind in the hurry of their

flight;—I cannot give my faith to this opinion.

I pass over the supposition of the learned Grotius,—who being both an

ambassador and a Dutchman to boot, is entitled to great respect,—that

North America was peopled by a strolling company of Norwegians, and that

Peru was founded by a colony from China,—Manco, or Mango Capac, the

first Incas, being himself a Chinese. Nor shall I more than barely

mention, that father Kircher ascribes the settlement of America to the

Egyptians, Rudbeck to the Scandinavians, Charron to the Gauls, Juffredus

Petri to a skating party from Friesland, Milius to the Celtæ, Marinocus

the Sicilian to the Romans, Le Compte to the Phœnicians, Postel to the

Moors, Martyn d’Angleria to the Abyssinians, together with the sage

surmise of De Laet, that England, Ireland, and the Orcades may contend

for that honor.

[Illustration: THE PEOPLE OF NORTH AMERICA ACCORDING TO PETRI.]

Nor will I bestow any more attention or credit to the idea that America

is the fairy region of Zipangri, described by that dreaming traveller,

Marco Polo, the Venetian; or that it comprises the visionary island of

Atlantis, described by Plato. Neither will I stop to investigate the

heathenish assertion of Paracelsus, that each hemisphere of the globe

was originally furnished with an Adam and Eve; or the more flattering

opinion of Dr. Romayne, supported by many nameless authorities, that

Adam was of the Indian race; or the startling conjecture of Buffon,

Helvetius, and Darwin, so highly honorable to mankind, that the whole

human species is accidentally descended from a remarkable family of

monkeys!

This last conjecture, I must own, came upon me very suddenly and very

ungraciously. I have often beheld the clown in a pantomime, while gazing

in stupid wonder at the extravagant gambols of a harlequin, all at once

electrified by a sudden stroke of the wooden sword across his shoulders.

Little did I think, at such times, that it would ever fall to my lot to

be treated with equal discourtesy, and that, while I was quietly

beholding these grave philosophers, emulating the eccentric

transformations of the hero of pantomime, they would on a sudden turn

upon me and my readers, and with one hypothetical flourish metamorphose

us into beasts! I determined from that moment not to burn my fingers

with any more of their theories, but content myself with detailing the

different methods by which they transported the descendants of these

ancient and respectable monkeys to this great field of theoretical

warfare.

This was done either by migrations by land or transmigrations by water.

Thus Padre Joseph d’Acosta enumerates three passages by land; first, by

the north of Europe; secondly, by the north of Asia; and thirdly, by the

regions southward of the Straits of Magellan. The learned Grotius

marches his Norwegians by a pleasant route across frozen rivers and arms

of the sea, through Iceland, Greenland, Estotiland, and Naremberga; and

various writers, among whom are Angleria, De Hornn, and Buffon, anxious

for the accommodation of these travellers, have fastened the two

continents together by a strong chain of deductions,—by which means they

could pass over dry-shod. But should even this fail, Pinkerton, that

industrious old gentleman, who compiles books, and manufactures

Geographies, has constructed a natural bridge of ice, from continent, to

continent, at the distance of four or five miles from Behring’s

Straits,—for which he is entitled to the grateful thanks of all the

wandering Aborigines who ever did or ever will pass over it.

It is an evil much to be lamented, that none of the worthy writers above

quoted could ever commence his work without immediately declaring

hostilities against every writer who had treated of the same subject. In

this particular, authors may be compared to a certain sagacious bird,

which in building its nest is sure to pull to pieces the nests of all

the birds in its neighborhood. This unhappy propensity tends grievously

to impede the progress of sound knowledge. Theories are at best but

brittle productions, and when once committed to the stream, they should

take care that, like the notable pots which were fellow-voyagers, they

do not crack each other.

My chief surprise is, that among the many writers I have noticed, no one

has attempted to prove that this country was peopled from the moon,—or

that the first inhabitants floated hither on islands of ice, as white

bears cruise about the northern oceans,—or that they were conveyed

hither by balloons, as modern aëronauts pass from Dover to Calais,—or by

witchcraft, as Simon Magus posted among the stars,—or after the manner

of the renowned Scythian Abaris, who, like the New England witches on

full-blooded broomsticks, made most unheard of journeys on the back of a

golden arrow, given him by the Hyperborean Apollo.

[Illustration: “AS WHITE BEARS CRUISE ABOUT THE NORTHERN OCEANS.”]