y in the neighborhood; and it has
continued to be called Antony's Nose ever since that time.

But hold, whither am I wandering? By the mass, if I attempt to accompany
the good Peter Stuyvesant on this voyage, I shall never make an end; for
never was there a voyage so fraught with marvelous incidents, nor a river
so abounding with transcendent beauties, worthy of being severally
recorded. Even now I have it on the point of my pen to relate how his crew
were most horribly frightened, on going on shore above the Highlands, by a
gang of merry roistering devils, frisking and curveting on a flat rock,
which projected into the river, and which is called the Duyvel's
Dans-Kamer to this very day. But no! Diedrich Knickerbocker, it becomes
thee not to idle thus in thy historic wayfaring.

Recollect, that while dwelling with the fond garrulity of age over these
fairy scenes, endeared to thee by the recollections of thy youth, and the
charms of a thousand legendary tales, which beguiled the simple ear of thy
childhood--recollect that thou art trifling with those fleeting moments
which should be devoted to loftier themes. Is not Time, relentless Time!
shaking, with palsied hand, his almost exhausted hour-glass before
thee?--hasten then to pursue thy weary task, lest the last sands be run
ere thou hast finished thy history of the Manhattoes.

Let us, then, commit the dauntless Peter, his brave galley, and his loyal
crew, to the protection of the blessed St. Nicholas, who, I have no doubt,
will prosper him in his voyage, while we await his return at the great
city of New Amsterdam.

FOOTNOTES:

[49] The learned Hans Megapolonsis, treating of the country about
Albany, in a letter which was written some time after the
settlement thereof, says, "There is in the river great plenty of
sturgeon, which we Christians do not make use of, but the Indians
eat them greedily."

CHAPTER V.

While thus the enterprising Peter was coasting, with flowing sail, up the
shores of the lordly Hudson, and arousing all the phlegmatic little Dutch
settlements upon its borders, a great and puissant concourse of warriors
was assembling at the city of New Amsterdam. And here that invaluable
fragment of antiquity, the Stuyvesant manuscript, is more than commonly
particular; by which means I am enabled to record the illustrious host
that encamped itself in the public square in front of the fort, at present
denomina