will prove. There are also various
waterfalls and rapid streams, fit to erect mills of all kinds upon for
the use of man, and innumerable small rivulets over the whole country,
like veins in the body; but they are all fresh water, except some on the
sea shore, (which are salt and fresh or brackish), very good both for
wild and domestic animals to drink. The surplus waters are lost in the
rivers or in the sea. Besides all these there are fountains without
number, and springs all through the country, even at places where water
would not be expected; as on cliffs and rocks whence they issue like
spring veins. Some of them are worthy of being well guarded, not only
Because they are all (except in the thickets) very clear and pure, but
because many have these properties, that in the winter they smoke from
heat, and in summer are so cool that the hands can hardly be endured
in them on account of the cold, not even in the hottest of the summer;
which circumstance makes them pleasant for the use of man and beast,
who can partake of them without danger; for if any one drink thereof,
it does him no harm although it be very warm weather. Thus much of the
proprietorship, location, goodness and fruitfulness of these provinces,
in which particulars, as far as our little experience extends, it need
yield to no province in Europe. As to what concerns trade, in which
Europe and especially Netherland is pre-eminent, it not only lies very
convenient and proper for it, but if there were inhabitants, it would
be found to have more commodities of and in itself to export to
other countries than it would have to import from them. These things
considered, it will be little labor for intelligent men to estimate and
compute exactly of what importance this naturally noble province is to
the Netherland nation, what service it could render it in future, and
what a retreat it would be for all the needy in the Netherlands, as well
of high and middle, as of low degree; for it is much easier for all men
of enterprise to obtain a livelihood here than in the Netherlands.

We cannot sufficiently thank the Fountain of all Goodness for His having
led us into such a fruitful and healthful land, which we, with our
numerous sins, still heaped up here daily, beyond measure, have not
deserved. We are also in the highest degree beholden to the Indians, who
not only have given up to us this good and fruitful country, and for a
trifle yielded us the ownership, but a