ry
_valleyen_, but large flats between the hills, on the margin or along
the side of the rivers, brooks or creeks, very flat and level, without
a single tree or bush upon them, of a black sandy soil which is four
and sometimes five or six feet deep, but sometimes less, which can
hardly be exhausted. They cultivate it year after year, without
manure, for many years. It yields large crops of wheat, but not so
good as that raised in the woodland around the city of [New] York and
elsewhere, nor so productively: the latter on the other hand produce a
smaller quantity, but a whiter flour. The wheat which comes from this
place, the Hysopus, and some other places is a little bluer. Much of
the plant called dragon's blood grows about here, and also yearly a
kind of small lemon or citron, of which a single one grows upon a
bush. This bush grows about five feet high, and the fruit cannot be
distinguished from any other citron in form, color, taste or quality.
It grows wild about the city of New York, but not well. I have not
heard of its growing in any other places.

The village proper of Schoon echten [Schenectady], is a square, set
off by palisades. There may be about thirty houses, and it is situated
on the side of the Maquas Kill [Mohawk River], a stream however they
cannot use for carrying goods up or down in yachts or boats.[344]
There are no fish in it except trout, sunfish, and other kinds
peculiar to rivers, because the Cohoes stops the ascent of others,
which is a great inconvenience for the _menage_ and for bringing down
the produce.

[Footnote 344: The form of Schenectady a few years later is shown in
the map in Miller's _New York_ (1695).]

As soon as we arrived in Albany we went to our skipper Meus Hoogboom,
to inquire when he was going to the city. He said to-morrow, but he
said he would come and notify us of the time. We saw it would run on a
much longer time, as it usually does in these parts.

_27th, Saturday._ We went to call upon a certain Madam Rentselaer,
widow of the Heer Rentselaer, son of the Heer Rentselaer of the colony
named the colony of Rentselaerswyck, comprising twelve miles square
from Fort Orange, that is, twenty-four miles square in all. She is
still in possession of the place, and still administers it as
_patroonesse_, until one Richard van Rentselaer, residing at
Amsterdam, shall arrive in the country, whom she expected in the
summer, when he would assume the management of it himself. This