first cast the seeds of empire. Hence proceeded the expedition under Qloffe the Dreamer, to found the city of New Amsterdam, vul- garly called New- York, which, inheriting the genius of its founder, has ever been a city of dreams and speculations. Com- munipaw, therefore, may truly be called the parent of New- York, though, on comparing the lowly village with the great flaunting city which it has engendered, one is forcibly reminded 6. Digitized by Microsoft® 66 The Hudson River of a squat little hen that has unwittingly hatched out a long- legged turkey. It is a mirror also of New Amsterdam, as it was before the conquest. Everything bears the stamp of the days of Olofie the Dreamer, Walter the Doubter, and the other worthies of the golden age; the same gable-fronted houses, surmounted with weathercocks, the same knee-buckles and shoe-buckles, and close quilled caps, and linsey-woolsey petticoats, and multi- farious breeches. In a word, Communipaw is a little Dutch Herculaneum, or Pompeii, where the relics of the classic days of the New Netherlands are preserved in their pristine state, with the exception that they have never been buried. "^ BRICK SCHOONER AND SHAD FISHERS, OFF FORT LEE The secret of all this wonderful conservation is simple. At the time that New Amsterdam was subjugated by the Yankees and their British allies, as Spain was, in ancient days, by the Saracens, a great dispersion took place among the inhabitants. One resolute band determined never to bend their necks to the yoke of the invaders, and, led by Garret Van Home, a gigantic Dutchman, the Pelaye of the New Netherlands, crossed the bay, and buried themselves among the marshes of Communipaw, as Digitized by Microsoft® On the Jersey Shore 67 did the Spaniards of yore among the Asturian mountains. Here they cut off all communication with the captured city, forbade the English language to be spoken in their community, kept themselves free from foreign marriage and intermixture, and have thus remained the pure Dutch seed of the Manhattoes, with which the city may be repeopled, whenever it is effectually delivered from the Yankees. The citadel erected by Garret Van Home exists to this day in possession of his descendants, and is known by the lordly ap- pellation of the House of the Four Chimneys, from having a chimney perched like a turret at every corner. Here are to be seen articles of furniture which came over with the first settlers from Holland; ancient chests of drawers, and massive clothes- presses, quaintly carved, and waxed and polished until they shine like mirrors. Here are old black-letter volumes with brass clasps, printed of yore in Ley den, and handed down from genera- tion to generation, but never read. Also old parchment deeds in Dutch and English, bearing the seals of the early governors of the province. In this house the primitive Dutch holydays of Paas and Pinxter are faithfully kept up, and New Year celebrated with cookies and cherry bounce; nor is the festival of the good St. Nicholas forgotten; when all the children are sure to hang up their stockings, and to have them filled according to their deserts ; though it is said the good Saint is occasionally perplexed, in his nocturnal visits, which chimney to descend. A tradition exists concerning this mansion, which, however dubious it may seem, is treasured up with good faith by the inhabitants. It is said that at the founding of it St. Nicholas took it under his protec- tion, and the Dutch Dominie of the place, who was a kind of soothsayer, predicted that as long as these four chimneys stood Communipaw would flourish. Now it came to pass that some years since, during the great mania for land speculation, a Yankee speculator found his way into Communipaw ; bewildered the old burghers with a project to erect their village into a great sea-port; made a lithographic map, in which their oyster beds were transformed into docks and quays, their cabbage-gardens laid out in town lots and squares, and the House of the Four Digitized by Microsoft® 68 The Hudson River Chimneys metamorphosed into a great bank, with granite pil- lars, which was to enrich the whole neighbourhood with paper money. Fortunately at this juncture there rose a high wind, which shook the venerable pile to its foundation, toppled down one of the chimneys, and blew off a weathercock, the Lord knows whither. The community took the alarm, they drove the land speculator from their shores, and since that day not a Yankee has dared to show his face in Communipaw. Among all the gruesome legends of the west shore of the river none is more famous than that of the "Guests from Gibbet Island." Yan Yost Vanderscamp, the scapegrace nephew of the