came
inside not far from a village called Gravesant,[128] and again home.
We discovered on the road several kinds of grapes still on the vines,
called _speck_ (pork) grapes, which are not always good, and these
were not; although they were sweet in the mouth at first, they made it
disagreeable and stinking. The small blue grapes are better, and their
vines grow in good form. Although they have several times attempted to
plant vineyards, and have not immediately succeeded, they,
nevertheless, have not abandoned the hope of doing so by and by, for
there is always some encouragement, although they have not, as yet,
discovered the cause of the failure.

[Footnote 126: Flatlands, where Elbert Elbertsen Stoothoff,
father-in-law of Jan Theunissen, and a man of prominence, lived.]

[Footnote 127: Niewenhuisen.]

[Footnote 128: Gravesend, still farther down the south shore of Long
Island.]

_2d, Monday._ Having slept the night again at Najack, we four went,
after breakfast, to the bay, where we arrived about ten o'clock. We
did not find Jan Theunissen at home, as he had driven to the city to
bring his goods; but the father and mother bade us welcome, and took
us around into their orchards to look at them. My comrade spoke to him
as opportunity offered of godly things, but he seemed to be a little
disposed to play the part of a religious and wise man, and he defended
himself and the evil as much as he could, going to work somewhat
coldly with us. We took the time, however, to go around and see every
thing thoroughly, and found the land, in general, not so good as that
at Najack. There is towards the sea a large piece of low flat land
which is overflowed at every tide, like the _schorr_ with us, miry and
muddy at the bottom, and which produces a species of hard salt grass
or reed grass. Such a place they call _valey_ and mow it for hay,
which cattle would rather eat than fresh hay or grass. It is so hard
that they cannot mow it with a common scythe, like ours, but must have
the English scythe for the purpose. Their adjoining corn lands are dry
and barren for the most part. Some of them are now entirely covered
with clover in blossom, which diffused a sweet odor in the air for a
great distance, and which we discovered in the atmosphere, before we
saw the fields. Behind the village, inland, are their meadows, but
they also were now arid. All the land from the bay to the Vlacke
Bos[129] is low and level, without the least eleva