uence of the hearty dinner they had eaten and would have been put
to utter rout, but for the arrival of a gallant corps of voltigeurs,
composed of the Hoppers, who advanced nimbly to their assistance on one
foot. Nor must I omit to mention the valiant achievements of Antony Van
Corlear, who for a good quarter of an hour waged stubborn fight with a
little pursy Swedish drummer, whose hide he drummed most magnificently,
and whom he would infallibly have annihilated on the spot but that he
had come into the battle with no other weapon but his trumpet.

But now the combat thickened. On came the mighty Jacobus Varra Vanger
and the fighting men of the Wallabout; after them thundered the Van
Pelts of Esopus, together with the Van Rippers and the Van Brunts,
bearing down all before them; then the Suy Dams and the Van Dams,
pressing forward with many a blustering oath at the head of the warriors
of Hell-Gate, clad in their thunder-and-lightning gaberdines; and lastly
the standard-bearers and body-guards of Peter Stuyvesant, bearing the
great beaver of the Manhattoes.

And now commenced the horrid din, the desperate struggle, the maddening
ferocity, the frantic desperation, the confusion and self-abandonment of
war. Dutchman and Swede, commingled, tugged, panted, and blowed. The
heavens were darkened with a tempest of missiles. Bang! went the
guns--whack! went the broadswords--thump! went the cudgels--crash! went
the musket-stocks--blows, kicks, cuffs, scratches, black eyes, and
bloody noses swelling the horrors of the scene! Thick thwack, cut and
hack, helter-skelter, higgledy-piggledy, hurly-burly, head over heels,
rough and tumble! Dunder and blixum! swore the Dutchmen; splitter and
splutter! cried the Swedes; storm the works! shouted Hardkoppig Pieter;
fire the mine! roared stout Risingh; tanta-ra-ra-ra! twanged the trumpet
of Antony Van Corlear--until all voice and sound became unintelligible,
grunts of pain, yells of fury, and shouts of triumph mingling in one
hideous clamor. The earth shook as if struck with a paralytic
stroke--trees shrunk aghast and withered at the sight--rocks burrowed in
the ground like rabbits--and even Christina Creek turned from its course
and ran up a hill in breathless terror!

Long hung the contest doubtful, for though a heavy shower of rain, sent
by the "cloud-compelling Jove," in some measure cooled their ardor, as
doth a bucket of water thrown on a group of fighting mastiffs, yet did
they bu