over
Communipaw of a clear afternoon.

Upon the departure of the enemy our magnanimous ancestors took full six
months to recover their wind, having been exceedingly discomposed by the
consternation and hurry of affairs. They then called a council of safety
to smoke over the state of the provinces. At this council presided one
Oloffe Van Kortlandt, who had originally been one of a set of peripatetic
philosophers who passed much of their time sunning themselves on the side
of the great canal of Amsterdam in Holland; enjoying, like Diogenes, a
free and unencumbered estate in sunshine. His name Kortlandt (Shortland or
Lackland) was supposed, like that of the illustrious Jean Sansterre, to
indicate that he had no land; but he insisted, on the contrary, that he
had great landed estates somewhere in Terra Incognita; and he had come out
to the new world to look after them.

Like all land speculators, he was much given to dreaming. Never did
anything extraordinary happen at Communipaw but he declared that he had
previously dreamt it, being one of those infallible prophets who predict
events after they have come to pass. This supernatural gift was as highly
valued among the burghers of Pavonia as among the enlightened nations of
antiquity. The wise Ulysses was more indebted to his sleeping than his
waking moments for his most subtle achievements, and seldom undertook any
great exploit without first soundly sleeping upon it; and the same may be
said of Oloffe Van Kortlandt, who was thence aptly denominated Oloffe the
Dreamer.

As yet his dreams and speculations had turned to little personal profit;
and he was as much a lackland as ever. Still he carried a high head in the
community: if his sugar-loaf hat was rather the worse for wear, he set it
oft with a taller cock's tail; if his shirt was none of the cleanest, he
puffed it out the more at the bosom; and if the tail of it peeped out of a
hole in his breeches, it at least proved that it really had a tail and was
not a mere ruffle.

The worthy Van Kortlandt, in the council in question, urged the policy of
emerging from the swamps of Communipaw and seeking some more eligible site
for the seat of empire. Such, he said, was the advice of the good St.
Nicholas, who had appeared to him in a dream the night before, and whom he
had known by his broad hat, his long pipe, and the resemblance which he
bore to the figure on the bow of the Goede Vrouw.

Many have thought this dream was a