ract of country
extending from about Hoboken to Amboy]--and commands a grand
prospect of the superb bay of New York. It is within but half an
hour's sail of the latter place, provided you have a fair wind, and
may be distinctly seen from the city. Nay, it is a well known fact,
which I can testify from my own experience, that on a clear still
summer evening, you may hear, from the Battery of New York, the
obstreperous peals of broad-mouthed laughter of the Dutch negroes at
Communipaw, who, like most other negroes, are famous for their
risible powers. This is peculiarly the case on Sunday evenings,
when, it is remarked by an ingenious and observant philosopher, who
has made great discoveries in the neighborhood of this city, that
they always laugh loudest, which he attributes to the circumstance
of their having their holiday clothes on.

"These negroes, in fact, like the monks of the dark ages, engross
all the knowledge of the place, and being infinitely more
adventurous and more knowing than their masters, carry on all the
foreign trade; making frequent voyages to town in canoes loaded with
oysters, buttermilk, and cabbages. They are great astrologers,
predicting the different changes of weather almost as accurately as
an almanac; they are moreover exquisite performers on three-stringed
fiddles; in whistling they almost boast the far-famed powers of
Orpheus's lyre, for not a horse or an ox in the place, when at the
plough or before the wagon, will budge a foot until he hears the
well-known whistle of his black driver and companion. And from
their amazing skill at casting up accounts upon their fingers, they
are regarded with as much veneration as were the disciples of
Pythagoras of yore, when initiated into the sacred quaternary of
numbers.

"As to the honest burghers of Communipaw, like wise men and sound
philosophers, they never look beyond their pipes, nor trouble their
heads about any affairs out of their immediate neighborhood; so that
they live in profound and enviable ignorance of all the troubles,
anxieties, and revolutions of this distracted planet. I am even
told that many among them do verily believe that Holland, of which
they have heard so much from tradition, is situated somewhere on
Long Island,--that Spiking-devil and the Narro