tuous pair of brimstone-colored
trunk-breeches, a graceful style still prevalent among the warriors of our
day, and which is in conformity to the custom of ancient heroes, who
scorned to defend themselves in rear. His face, rendered exceeding
terrible and warlike by a pair of black mustachios; his hair strutting out
on each side in stiffly pomatumed ear-locks, and descending in a rat-tail
queue below his waist; a shining stock of black leather supporting his
chin, and a little but fierce cocked hat, stuck with a gallant and fiery
air over his left eye. Such was the chivalric port of Peter the
Headstrong; and when he made a sudden halt, planted himself firmly on his
solid supporter, with his wooden leg inlaid with silver a little in
advance, in order to strengthen his position, his right hand grasping a
gold-headed cane, his left resting upon the pummel of his sword, his head
dressing spiritedly to the right, with a most appalling and hard-favored
frown upon his brow, he presented altogether one of the most commanding,
bitter-looking, and soldier-like figures that ever strutted upon canvas.
Proceed we now to inquire the cause of this warlike preparation.

In the preceding chapter we have spoken of the founding of Fort Casimir,
and of the merciless warfare waged by its commander upon cabbages,
sunflowers, and pumpkins, for want of better occasion to flesh his sword.
Now it came to pass that higher up the Delaware, at his stronghold of
Tinnekonk, resided one Jan Printz, who styled himself Governor of New
Sweden. If history belie not this redoubtable Swede, he was a rival worthy
of the windy and inflated commander of Fort Casimir; for Master David
Pieterzen de Vrie, in his excellent book of voyages, describes him as
"weighing upwards of four hundred pounds," a huge feeder, and bouser in
proportion, taking three potations, pottle-deep, at every meal. He had a
garrison after his own heart at Tinnekonk, guzzling, deep-drinking
swashbucklers, who made the wild woods ring with their carousals.

No sooner did this robustious commander hear of the erection of Fort
Casimir, than he sent a message to Van Poffenburgh, warning him off the
land, as being within the bounds of his jurisdiction.

To this General Van Poffenburgh replied that the land belonged to their
High Mightinesses, having been regularly purchased of the natives as
discoverers from the Manhattoes, as witness the breeches of their land
measurer, Ten Broeck.

To this