eeway
as headway, could get along very nearly as fast with the wind ahead as
when it was apoop, and was particularly great in a calm; in consequence
of which singular advantages she made out to accomplish her voyage in a
very few months, and came to anchor at the mouth of the Hudson a little
to the east of Gibbet Island.

Here, lifting up their eyes, they beheld, on what is at present called
the Jersey shore, a small Indian village, pleasantly embowered in a
grove of spreading elms, and the natives all collected on the beach
gazing in stupid admiration at the Goede Vrouw. A boat was immediately
dispatched to enter into a treaty with them, and, approaching the shore,
hailed them through a trumpet in the most friendly terms; but so
horribly confounded were these poor savages at the tremendous and
uncouth sound of the Low Dutch language that they one and all took to
their heels, and scampered over the Bergen hills; nor did they stop
until they had buried themselves, head and ears, in the marshes on the
other side, where they all miserably perished to a man, and their bones,
being collected and decently covered by the Tammany Society of that day,
formed that singular mound called Rattlesnake Hill which rises out of
the center of the salt marshes a little to the east of the Newark
causeway.

Animated by this unlooked-for victory, our valiant heroes sprang ashore
in triumph, took possession of the soil as conquerors in the name of
their High Mightinesses the Lords States General, and, marching
fearlessly forward, carried the village of Communipaw by storm,
notwithstanding that it was vigorously defended by some half a score of
old squaws and pappooses. On looking about them they were so transported
with the excellencies of the place that they had very little doubt the
blessed Saint Nicholas had guided them thither as the very spot whereon
to settle their colony. The softness of the soil was wonderfully adapted
to the driving of piles; the swamps and marshes around them afforded
ample opportunities for the constructing of dykes and dams; the
shallowness of the shore was peculiarly favorable to the building of
docks--in a word this spot abounded with all the requisites for the
foundation of a great Dutch city. On making a faithful report,
therefore, to the crew of the Goede Vrouw, they one and all determined
that this was the destined end of their voyage. Accordingly they
descended from the Goede Vrouw, men, women, and childr