e of their habits. Besides, it
was an established rule among our ancestors always to fight upon a full
stomach, and to this may be doubtless attributed the circumstance that
they came to be so renowned in arms.

And now are the hearty men of the Manhattoes, and their no less hearty
comrades, all lustily engaged under the trees, buffeting stoutly with the
contents of their wallets, and taking such affectionate embraces of their
canteens and pottles as though they verily believed they were to be the
last. And as I foresee we shall have hot work in a page or two, I advise
my readers to do the same, for which purpose I will bring this chapter to
a close; giving them my word of honor that no advantage shall be taken of
this armistice to surprise, or in anywise molest the honest Nederlanders
while at their vigorous repast.

FOOTNOTES:

[55] At present a flourishing town, called Christiana, or
Christeen, about thirty-seven miles from Philadelphia, on the
post road to Baltimore.

CHAPTER VIII.

"Now had the Dutchmen snatched a huge repast," and finding themselves
wonderfully encouraged and animated thereby, prepared to take the field.
Expectation, says the writer of the Stuyvesant manuscript, expectation now
stood on stilts. The world forgot to turn round, or rather stood still,
that it might witness the affray, like a round-bellied alderman watching
the combat of two chivalrous flies upon his jerkin. The eyes of all
mankind, as usual in such cases, were turned upon Fort Cristina. The sun,
like a little man in a crowd at a puppet-show, scampered about the
heavens, popping his head here and there, and endeavoring to get a peep
between the unmannerly clouds that obtruded themselves in his way. The
historians filled their inkhorns; the poets went without their dinners,
either that they might buy paper and goose-quills, or because they could
not get anything to eat. Antiquity scowled sulkily out of its grave to see
itself outdone; while even Posterity stood mute, gazing in gaping ecstasy
of retrospection on the eventful field.

The immortal deities, who whilom had seen service at the "affair" of Troy,
now mounted their feather-bed clouds, and sailed over the plain, or
mingled among the combatants in different disguises, all itching to have a
finger in the pie. Jupiter sent off his thunderbolt to a noted coppersmith
to have it furbished up for the direful occasion. Venus vowed by her
chastity to pat