pported masts and high
narrow-headed sails, are daily seen bending like reeds to the breeze, and
dancing lightly over the billows of the bay. There is a variety of the
class, of a size and pretension altogether superior to that just
mentioned, which deserves a place among the most picturesque and striking
boats that float. He who has had occasion to navigate the southern shore
of the Sound must have often seen the vessel to which we allude. It is
distinguished by its great length, and masts which, naked of cordage, rise
from the hull like two tall and faultless trees. When the eye runs over
the daring height of canvas, the noble confidence of the rig, and sees the
comparatively vast machine handled with ease and grace by the dexterity of
two fearless and expert mariners, it excites some such admiration as that
which springs from the view of a severe temple of antiquity The nakedness
and simplicity of the construction, coupled with the boldness and rapidity
of its movements, impart to the craft an air of grandeur, that its
ordinary uses would not give reason to expect.

Though, in some respects, of singularly aquatic habits, the original
colonists of New-York were far less adventurous, as mariners, than their
present descendants. A passage across the bay did not often occur in the
tranquil lives of the burghers; and it is still within the memory of man,
that a voyage between the two principal towns of the State was an event to
excite the solicitude of friends, and the anxiety of the traveller. The
perils of the Tappaan Zee, as one of the wider reaches of the Hudson is
still termed, was often dealt with by the good wives of the colony, in
their relations of marvels; and she who had oftenest encountered them
unharmed, was deemed a sort of marine amazon.

Chapter III.

"--I have great comfort from this fellow: methinks he hath no drowning
mark upon him; his complexion is perfect gallows."

Tempest.

It has been said that the periagua was in motion, before our two
adventurers succeeded in stepping on board. The arrival of the Patroon of
Kinderhook and of Alderman Van Beverout was expected, and the schipper had
taken his departure at the precise moment of the turn in the current, in
order to show, with a sort of pretending independence which has a peculiar
charm for men in his situation, that 'time and tide wait for no man.'
Still there were limits to his decision; for, while he put the boat in
motio