ards again, but the road ran into
the woods in order to cut off a point of the hills and land. We
pursued this road for some time, but saw no mode of getting out, and
that it led further and further from the creek. We, therefore, left
the road and went across through the bushes, so as to reach the shore
by the nearest route according to our calculation. After continuing
this course about an hour, we saw at a distance a miserably
constructed tabernacle of pieces of wood covered with brush, all open
in front, and where we thought there were Indians; but on coming up to
it we found in it an Englishman sick, and his wife and child lying
upon some bushes by a little fire. We asked him if he were sick. "Do
you ask me whether I am sick? I have been sick here over two months,"
he replied. It made my heart sore indeed, for I had never in all my
life seen such poverty, and that, too, in the middle of a wood and a
wilderness. After we obtained some information as to the way, we went
on, and had not gone far before we came to another house, and thus
from one farm to another, French, Dutch, and a few English, so that we
had not wandered very far out of the way. We inquired at each house
the way to the next one. Shortly before evening we arrived at the
plantation of a Frenchman, whom they called Le Chaudronnier (the
coppersmith), who was formerly a soldier under the Prince of Orange,
and had served in Brazil. He was so delighted, and held on to us so
hard, that we remained and spent the night with him.

[Footnote 152: Menhaden.]

[Footnote 153: Perhaps Christopher Billop of Bentley. The creeks next
spoken of are Richmond Creek and Main Creek, which make well into the
island from its west side.]

_13th, Friday._ We pursued our journey this morning from plantation to
plantation, the same as yesterday, until we came to that of Pierre le
Gardinier, who had been a gardener of the Prince of Orange, and had
known him well.[154] He had a large family of children and
grandchildren. He was about seventy years of age, and was still as
fresh and active as a young person. He was so glad to see strangers
who conversed with him and his in the French language about the good,
that he leaped for joy. After we had breakfasted here they told us
that we had another large creek to pass called the Fresh Kil, and
there we could perhaps be set across the Kil van Kol to the point of
Mill Creek, where we might wait for a boat to convey us to the
Manhatans.