point of view, and then
from another,--now would he be paddled by it on the
canal--now would he peep at it through a telescope from the
other side of the Meuse, and now would he take a bird's-eye
glance at it from the top of one of those gigantic windmills
which protect the gates of the city.
"The good folks of the place were on the tip-toe of
expectation and impatience. Notwithstanding all the turmoil
of my great-grandfather, not a symptom of the church was yet
to be seen; they even began to fear it would never be
brought into the world, but that its great projector would
lie down and die in labor of the mighty plan he had
conceived. At length, having occupied twelve good months in
puffing and paddling, and talking and walking,--having
traveled over all Holland, and even taken a peep into France
and Germany,--having smoked five hundred and ninety-nine
pipes and three hundred weight of the best Virginia
tobacco,--my great-grandfather gathered together all that
knowing and industrious class of citizens who prefer
attending to anybody's business sooner than their own, and
having pulled off his coat and five pair of breeches he
advanced sturdily up and laid the corner-stone of the
church, in the presence of the whole multitude,--just at the
commencement of the thirteenth month."
He also alludes to Hudson whom he says was:
"A seafaring man of renown, who had learned to smoke tobacco
under Sir Walter Raleigh, and is said to have been the first
to introduce it into Holland, which gained him much
popularity in that country, and caused him to find great
favor in their High Mightinesses, the lords and states
general, and also of the honorable West India Company. He
was a short, square, brawny old gentleman, with a double
chin, a mastiff mouth, and a broad copper nose, which was
supposed in those days to have acquired its fiery hue from
the constant neighborhood of his tobacco pipe. * * * As
chief mate and favorite companion, the commander chose
Master Robert Juet, of Limehouse, in England. By some his
name has been spelled Chewit, ascribed to the circumstance
of his having been the first man that ever chewed tobacco. *
* * * Under every misfortune he comforted himself with a
quid of tobacco, and the truly philosophical maxim, '
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