tion. There is also
a tract which is somewhat large, of a kind of heath, on which sheep
could graze, though we saw none upon it. This marsh, like all the
others, is well provided with good creeks which are navigable and very
serviceable for fisheries. There is here a grist-mill driven by the
water which they dam up in the creek; and it is hereabouts they go
mostly to shoot snipe and wild geese. In the middle of this meadow
there is a grove into which we went, and within which there was a good
vale cleared off and planted. On our return from this ramble we found
Jan Theunissen had come back with his company. He welcomed us, but
somewhat coldly, and so demeaned himself all the time we were there,
as to astonish my comrade at the change, but not me entirely, for I
had observed this falling off while we were yet at sea and were
approaching the land and even before that, and had remarked it to my
colleague, but he had more confidence in him. The day having been thus
passed, we remained here for the night to sleep. In the evening we
made the acquaintance of one Jan Poppe, formerly a skipper in the West
Indies, whom I had known when I lived there.[130] He did not know me
by name or by vocation, but only that I lived there, and had conversed
with him there, but not much. He was tired of the sea, and not having
accumulated much, he had come to settle down here, making his living
out of the business of a turner, by which he could live bountifully.

[Footnote 129: Flatbush.]

[Footnote 130: This may mean Surinam (Dutch Guiana). Later, in 1683, a
Labadist colony went out to Surinam, but failed; Danckaerts went out
to join them, but returned.]

_3d, Tuesday._ This whole day it did nothing except rain, with an E.
and E.N.E. wind, so that we were compelled to sit in their house, as
in a prison all the time; and it was so much the worse because the
house was constantly filled with a multitude of godless people; for
this father or father-in-law of Jan Theunissen,[131] being the
principal person in the place, was their captain, and having many
children of his own besides, there was a continual concourse at his
house. We had to remain, although it grieved us a great deal. But as
we had heard that there was an Englishman residing at Gravesend, named
Bouman, who went every year about this time with horses and sheep to
the South River, and would probably go there again in about three
weeks time, we resolved, when the rain was partly over,