Royal Library
of the Hague. It is still there and is designated No. 78 H 32. I has an
outside cover forming a title-page, with ornamental lettering, but it is
not the "book ornamented with water-color drawings" which Kieft is known
to have sent home. A photograph of the first page, which the editor has
procured, does nothing to show the authorship, for it is written in the
hand of a professional scrivener. Mr. Van Laer, archivist of the State
of New York, assures the editor that it is not the hand of Keift or that
of Cornelis van Tienhoven, the provincial secretary.(1) But that it was
either inspired by Kieft, or emanated from one of his supporters,
is plain not only from its general tone but from its citations of
documents. Of the documents to which its marginal notes refer, some
of those that we can still trace are noted in the archives of the
Netherlands as "from a copy-book of Director Kieft's." The rest, or the
original copy-book, may have perished with him.

(1) Mr. J.H. Innes tells me that it resembles that of
Augustin Herrman.

The piece was first printed in 1851, in the _Documentary History of
the State of New York_, IV. 1-17. It was printed for the second time in
1856, in _Documents relating to the Colonial History of New York_, I.
179-188. For the present issue this early and imperfect translation has
been revised with great care by Dr. Johannes de Hullu of the National
Archives of the Netherlands, who has used for this purpose the original
manuscript in the Royal Library.

JOURNAL OF NEW NETHERLAND, 1647

Journal of New Netherland, 1647, described in the Years
1641, 1642, 1643, 1644, 1645 and 1646.

Brief Description of New Netherland.

NEW NETHERLAND (so called because it was first frequented and peopled
by the free Netherlanders) is a province in the most northern part of
America lying between New England (which bounds it on the northeast
side) and Virginia lying to the southwest of it. The ocean washes its
whole length along a clean sandy coast, very similar to that of Flanders
or Holland, having except the rivers few bays or harbors for ships; the
air is very temperate, inclining to dryness, healthy, little subject to
sickness. The four seasons of the year are about as in France, or the
Netherlands. The difference is, the spring is shorter because it begins
later, the summer is warmer because it comes on more suddenly, the
autumn is long and very pleasant, the winte