dings and observing
the shores, he was puzzled. The tide rose and fell as if this were an
inlet of the sea, and it was far deeper than an ordinary river. In fact
it was more like a Norwegian fiord.[4] It might possibly lead to a lake,
and this lake might have an outlet to the western ocean. That it was a
strait he did not believe. Even in the English Channel the meeting tides
of the North Sea and the Atlantic made rough water, and the _Half Moon_
was drifting as easily as if she were slipping down stream. In any
event, nothing else had been found, either north or south of this point,
which could possibly be a strait, and Hudson meant to discover exactly
what this was before he set sail for Amsterdam.

They passed an Indian village in the woods to the right, and according
to the Indians who had come on board the place was called
Sapokanican,[5] and was famous for the making of wampum or shell beads.
A brook of clear sweet water flowed close by. Presently Hudson anchored
and sent five men ashore in a boat to explore the right-hand bank of the
channel. Night came on, and it began to rain, but the boat had not
returned. Hudson slept but little. In the morning the missing men
appeared with a tale of disaster. After about two leagues' travel they
had come to a bay full of islands. Here they had been attacked by two
canoes carrying twenty-six Indians, and their arrows had killed John
Colman and wounded two other men. It grew so dark when the rain began
that they dared not seek the ship, and the current was so strong that
their grapnel would not hold, so that they had had to row all night.

Sailing only in the day time and anchoring at night the little Dutch
ship went on to the north, looking between the steep rocky banks like a
boat carved out of a walnut-shell, in the wooden jaws of a nutcracker.
After dark, fires twinkled upon the heights, and the lapping waters
about the quiet keel were all shining with broken stars. The flame
appeared and vanished like a signal, and John Hudson wondered if the
Indians knew John Smith's trick of sending a message as far as a beacon
light could be seen.

One night he climbed up on the poop with the ship's great lantern and
tried the flashing signals he remembered. Before many minutes two of the
wild men had drawn near to watch, and although John could not make out
the meaning of the light that came and went upon the cliffs, it was
quite clear that they could. One of them waved his mantle i