he insisted, on the contrary, that
he had great landed estates somewhere in Terra Incognita, and he had
come out to the New World to look after them. He was the first great
land speculator that we read of in these parts.

Like all land speculators, he was much given to dreaming. Never did
anything extraordinary happen to Communipaw but he declared that he had
previously dreamt it, being one of those infallible prophets who predict
events after they have come to pass.

As yet his dreams and speculations had turned to little personal profit,
and he was as much a lackland as ever. Still, he carried a high head in
the community; if his sugar-loaf hat was rather the worse for wear, he
set it off with a taller cock's tail; if his shirt was none of the
cleanest, he pulled it out the more at the bosom; and if the tail of it
peeped out of a hole in his breeches, it at least proved that it really
had a tail and was not mere ruffle.

The worthy Van Kortlandt urged the policy of emerging from the swamps of
Communipaw and seeking some more eligible site for the seat of empire.
Such, he said, was the advice of the good Saint Nicholas, who had
appeared to him in a dream the night before, and whom he had known by
his broad hat, his long pipe, and the resemblance which he bore to the
figure on the bow of the Goede Vrouw.

This perilous enterprise was to be conducted by Oloffe himself, who
chose as lieutenants or coadjutors Mynheers Jacobus Van Zandt, Abraham
Hardenbroeck, and Winant Ten Broeck--three indubitably great men, but of
whose history, although I have made diligent inquiry, I can learn but
little previous to their leaving Holland.

Had I the benefit of mythology and classic fable, I should have
furnished the first of the trio with a pedigree equal to that of the
proudest hero of antiquity. His name, Van Zandt--that is to say, _from
the sand_, or, in common parlance, from the dirt--gave reason to suppose
that, like Triptolemus, the Cyclops, and the Titans, he had sprung from
Dame Terra, or the earth! This supposition is strongly corroborated by
his size, for it is well known that all the progeny of mother earth were
of a gigantic stature; and Van Zandt, we are told, was a tall, raw-boned
man, above six feet high, with an astonishingly hard head.

Of the second of the trio but faint accounts have reached to this time,
which mention that he was a sturdy, obstinate, worrying, bustling little
man, and, from being usually equi