upporting it; wherefore she
wisely declined the attempt, and settled it firmly on the top of his back
bone, just between the shoulders. His body was oblong, and particularly
capacious at bottom; which was wisely ordered by Providence, seeing that
he was a man of sedentary habits, and very averse to the idle labor of
walking. His legs were very short, but sturdy in proportion to the
weight they had to sustain: so that, when erect, he had not a little the
appearance of a beer barrel on skids. His face, that infallible index of
the mind, presented a vast expanse, unfurrowed by any of those lines and
angles which disfigure the human countenance with what is termed
expression. Two small gray eyes twinkled feebly in the midst, like two
stars of lesser magnitude in a hazy firmament; and his full-fed cheeks,
which seemed to have taken toll of everything that went into his mouth,
were curiously mottled and streaked with dusky red, like a Spitzenberg
apple. His habits were as regular as his person. He daily took his four
stated meals, appropriating exactly an hour to each; he smoked and
doubted eight hours, and he slept the remaining twelve of the
four-and-twenty."

Van Twiller ruled the province seven years, and, in spite of his
stupidity, it prospered. In 1633, Adam Roelantsen, the first
school-master, arrived--for the fruitful Walloons had opened the way by
this time for his labors--and in the same year a wooden church was built
in the present Bridge street, and placed in charge of the famous Dominie
Everardus Bogardus. In 1635, the fort, which marked the site of the
present Bowling Green, and which had been begun in 1614, was finished,
and in the same year the first English settlers at New Amsterdam came
into the town. The English in New England also began to give the Dutch
trouble during this administration, and even sent a ship into "Hudson's
River" to trade with the Indians. Influenced by De Vries, the commander
of the fort, the Governor sent an expedition up the river after the
audacious English vessel, seized her, brought her back to New York, and
sent her to sea with a warning not to repeat her attempt. The disputes
between the English and the Dutch about the Connecticut settlements, also
began to make trouble for New Amsterdam. Van Twiller possessed no
influence in the colony, was laughed at and snubbed on every side, and
was at length recalled by the company in 1638. The only memorial of Van
Twiller left