at land
near the rivers is covered with strawberries, which grow here so
plentifully in the fields, that one can lie down and eat them.
Grapevines also grow here naturally in great abundance along the roads,
paths, and creeks, and wherever you may turn you find them. I have seen
whole pieces of land where vine stood by vine and grew very
luxuriantly, climbing to the top of the largest and loftiest trees, and
although they are not cultivated, some of the grapes are found to be as
good and sweet as in Holland. Here is also a sort of grapes which grow
very large, each grape as big as the end of one's finger, or an
ordinary plum, and because they are somewhat fleshy and have a thick
skin we call them Speck Druyven. If people would cultivate the vines
they might have as good wine here as they have in Germany or France. I
had myself last harvest a boat-load of grapes and pressed them. As
long as the wine was new it tasted better than any French or Rhenish
Must, and the color of the grape juice here is so high and red that
with one wine-glass full you can color a whole pot of white wine. In
the forests is great plenty of deer, which in autumn and early winter
are as fat as any Holland cow can be. I have had them with fat more
than two fingers thick on the ribs, so that they were nothing else than
almost clear fat, and could hardly be eaten. There are also many
turkies, as large as in Holland, but in some years less than in others.
The year before I came here, there were so many turkies and deer that
they came to feed by the houses and hog pens, and were taken by the
Indians in such numbers that a deer was sold to the Dutch for a loaf of
bread, or a knife, or even for a tobacco pipe; but now one commonly has
to give for a good deer six or seven guilders. In the forests here
there are also many partridges, heath-hens and pigeons that fly
together in thousands, and sometimes ten, twenty, thirty and even forty
and fifty are killed at one shot. We have here, too, a great number of
all kinds of fowl, swans, geese, ducks, widgeons, teal, brant, which
sport upon the river in thousands in the spring of the year, and again
in the autumn fly away in flocks, so that in the morning and evening
any one may stand ready with his gun before his house and shoot them as
they fly past. I have also eaten here several times of elks, which
were very fat and tasted much like venison; and besides these
profitable beasts we have also in this co