d, and all retired,
to rise with the dawn."

In the summer of 1679, but five years after the final accession of New
Netherland by the English, two gentlemen from Holland, as the
committee of a religious sect, visited the Hudson river, to report
respecting the condition of the country, and to select a suitable
place for the establishment of a colony. They kept a minute journal of
their daily adventures. From their narrative one can obtain a very
vivid picture of New York life two hundred years ago.

On Saturday, the 23d day of September, they landed at New York, and
found it a very strange place. A fellow passenger, whose name was
Gerritt, and who was on his return from Europe, resided in New York.
He took the travellers to the house of one of his friends, where they
were regaled with very luscious peaches, and apples far better than
any they had seen in Holland. They took a walk out into the fields and
were surprised to see how profusely the orchards wore laden with
fruit. They took up lodgings with the father-in-law of their
fellow-traveller, and in the evening were regaled with rich milk. The
next day was Sunday.

"We walked awhile," they write,

"in the pure mountain air, along the margin of the clear
running water of the sea, which is driven up this river at
every tide. We went to church and found truly there a wild
worldly people. I say wild, not only because the people are
wild, as they call it in Europe, but because most all the
people who go there, partake somewhat of the nature of the
country; that is peculiar to the land where they live."

The preacher did not please them. "He used such strange gestures and
language," writes one of them, "that I think I never in my life heard
anything more miserable. As it is not strange in these countries, to
have men as ministers, who drink, we could imagine nothing else than
that he had been drinking a little this morning. His text was _Come
unto me all ye, etc._; but he was so rough that the roughest and most
godless of our sailors were astonished.

"The church being in the fort, we had an opportunity to look
through the latter, as we had come too early for preaching.
The fort is built upon the point formed by the two rivers,
namely the East river, which is the water running between
the Manhattans and Long Island, and the North river, which
runs straight up to fort Orange. In front of the fort th