churman (1607-1678), a woman of
prodigious learning, held in the highest esteem by literary
contemporaries in Holland as well as other lands. She renounced her
literary associations to affiliate herself with Jean de Labadie and
his followers, shared their fortunes at Amsterdam, Herford, Altona,
and Wieuwerd, where William Penn visited her in 1677; and died among
them at Wieuwerd in 1678.]

_9th, Tuesday._ We started out to go to Cambridge, lying to the
northeast of Boston, in order to see their college and printing
office. We left about six o'clock in the morning, and were set across
the river at Charlestown. We followed a road which we supposed was the
right one, but went full half an hour out of the way, and would have
gone still further, had not a negro who met us, and of whom we
inquired, disabused us of our mistake. We went back to the right road,
which is a very pleasant one. We reached Cambridge about eight
o'clock. It is not a large village, and the houses stand very much
apart. The college building is the most conspicuous among them. We
went to it, expecting to see something unusual, as it is the only
college, or would-be academy of the Protestants in all America, but we
found ourselves mistaken. In approaching the house we neither heard
nor saw anything mentionable; but, going to the other side of the
building, we heard noise enough in an upper room to lead my comrade to
say, "I believe they are engaged in disputation." We entered and went
up stairs, when a person met us, and requested us to walk in, which we
did. We found there eight or ten young fellows, sitting around,
smoking tobacco, with the smoke of which the room was so full, that
you could hardly see; and the whole house smelt so strong of it that
when I was going up stairs I said, "It certainly must be also a
tavern."[425] We excused ourselves, that we could speak English only a
little, but understood Dutch or French well, which they did not.
However, we spoke as well as we could. We inquired how many professors
there were, and they replied not one, that there was not enough money
to support one. We asked how many students there were. They said at
first, thirty, and then came down to twenty; I afterwards understood
there are probably not ten. They knew hardly a word of Latin, not one
of them, so that my comrade could not converse with them. They took us
to the library where there was nothing particular. We looked over it a
little. They presented us