evil_. All these people are very
fond of it, and most of them extravagantly so, although it is very
dear and has a bad taste. It is impossible to tell how many peach
trees we passed, all laden with fruit to breaking down, and many of
them actually broken down. We came to a place surrounded with such
trees from which so many had fallen off that the ground could not be
discerned, and you could not put your foot down without trampling
them; and, notwithstanding such large quantities had fallen off, the
trees still were as full as they could bear. The hogs and other
animals mostly feed on them. This place belongs to the oldest European
woman in the country. We went immediately into her house, where she
lived with her children. We found her sitting by the fire, smoking
tobacco incessantly, one pipe after another. We enquired after her
age, which the children told us was an hundred years. She was from
Luyck [Liege], and still spoke good Wals.[114] She could reason very
well sometimes, and at other times she could not. She showed us
several large apples, as good fruit of that country, and different
from that of Europe. She had been about fifty years now in the
country, and had above seventy children and grandchildren. She saw the
third generation after her. Her mother had attended women in child-bed
in her one hundred and sixth year, and was one hundred and eleven or
twelve years old when she died. We tasted here, for the first time,
smoked _twaelft_ [twelfth], a fish so called because it is caught in
season next after the _elft_ [eleventh].[115] It was salted a little
and then smoked, and, although it was now a year old, it was still
perfectly good, and in flavor not inferior to smoked salmon. We drank
here, also, the first new cider, which was very fine.

[Footnote 113: The second church building in Brooklyn, erected in
1666, and standing till 1766. It stood in the middle of what is now
Fulton Street, near Lawrence Street. Gowanus was a distinct hamlet to
the southward from Breukelen.]

[Footnote 114: French of the Walloon variety. See p. 70, note 1,
_post_.]

[Footnote 115: Striped bass and shad, respectively. In reality the
word _elft_ has nothing to do with _eleven_, for _elft_ = Fr. _alose_
or Eng. _allice_.]

We proceeded on to Gouanes, a place so called, where we arrived in the
evening at one of the best friends of Gerrit, named Symon.[116] He was
very glad to see us, and so was his wife. He took us into the house