HENRY HUDSON AND THE KNICKERBOCKERS.

Henry Hudson was the first white man who ever sailed up the Hudson River. He was an English sailor in the service of the Dutch, who sent him on a voyage to North America. While sailing along the Atlantic coast he entered the bay of New York, and passing inland discovered the beautiful river that bears his name. He was charmed with its clear waters and banks which were covered with grass and flowers and trees, and said that the country through which it flowed was "as beautiful as one could tread upon."

The vessel was called the Half Moon, and had a crew of English and Dutch—Hudson's own son being of the number. As they sailed up the river the Indians put out from the shore in their canoes and paddled up to the Half Moon. Hudson would not let them come on board at first, as one of his sailors had been killed by an Indian; but as they seemed very friendly, the sailors at last grew less timid, and traded with them, giving them beads, knives, hatchets, etc., for the grapes, pumpkins, and furs which they brought, and after a time Hudson and his men went on shore and visited the country around.

Hudson sailed up the river as far as he could with the Half Moon, and then sent a small boat as far up as Albany. He was hoping to find a strait through which he could sail to India; but of course he did not find that, so he turned back and sailed down the river again, and out into the ocean and back to Holland.

Some time after he came back to America, and, sailing to the north, discovered Hudson's Bay; while here his men became angry because they did not wish to go any farther in such a region, and taking Hudson and his son and a few others, they bound them and put them in an open boat and set them adrift in the sea. No one ever heard of them again. It is supposed that the boat was dashed to pieces by the floating ice, and that the bold sailor and his companions perished; but in the old stories of the Hudson the legend runs that he and his companions did not die, but found their way down to the Catskills and Highlands; and when it thunders they say it is Henry Hudson and his crew rolling their ninepins among the hills.

How that is we do not know. If the brave sailor and his friends really are living there yet, why, we must admit they could not have chosen a lovelier place, for nowhere in the world is a fairer spot than where the Hudson goes down to the sea, passing on its way the misty blue Catskills, rich with stories of fairies and legends of the old Dutch sailors, and the beautiful Highlands, which stand strong and firm, as if protecting the bright river that sweeps around their base.

This happened over two hundred and seventy years ago, in the year 1609, two years after the settlement of Jamestown by the English.

About five years after a company of Dutch came to trade with the Indians, and just as their ship was ready to sail home again it caught fire and burned up; so they had to stay all winter with the Indians. They had landed on Manhattan Island, on which the City of New York now stands, and from this time the Dutch began coming there to trade with the Indians, and after a few years they bought the island, paying about one hundred and twenty-five dollars for it.

The little Dutch children used to do very much as the little New York children do now. They had their lessons and their games; and although they learned in a different way and about different things, still they played a good deal and worked a very little, as is the way of children all the world over.

Perhaps, though, you would like to imagine yourself a little Dutch child living in New York (or New Amsterdam, as it was then called, after the city of Amsterdam in Holland) over two hundred years ago.

Well, in the first place, you would not be living in a tall, narrow house of brown stone or red brick, standing in a row with thirty other houses just like it. You would be living in a wooden house with a gable roof like a country church, and the ends of the house would be made of black and yellow bricks. Over the door would be some iron letters telling when the house was built, and on the roof a gay weather-cock would be standing. When you came in from the street on a winter day and wanted to warm yourself, you would go up to a great open fireplace and sit up in the corner of it, close to where the great logs of wood were burning.

The fireplaces were all tiled as many of those in new houses are now, only the tiles then were all arranged so as to tell some story, usually from the Bible, and around one fireplace you would read the story of Noah and the Ark; around another, the story of the children of Israel crossing the Red Sea, and so on.

The floors were not covered with carpet, but every day they were sprinkled with fresh white sand, and the little Dutch girls were taught how to draw pretty figures on the sand with their birch brooms; and at night, when they gathered around to listen to the stories of the Catskill fairies, the room would not be lighted with gas or lamps, but with great pine knots or tallow candles, which with the flames from the wood fire made the room full of queer shadows; and I do not doubt that oftentimes the little girls and boys were just a little bit afraid to go to bed after listening to some of these tales of Hendrick Hudson and Rip Van Winkle, and their queer adventures among the mountains up the river.

But the best time in all the year was at Christmas, when the Dutch kept the feast of Santa Claus, or St. Nicholas. What a gathering then of all the little folks! what games were played over the nicely sanded floors! and what a treat to sit around the great fire and eat the sweet cakes and crullers, which no one but Dutch mothers knew how to make so well! And you must remember, when at Christmas you have your Christmas tree and invite your little friends to come and spend the evening with you, that you are doing the very thing that the little Dutch boys and girls did in New Amsterdam over two hundred years ago; and when your mamma stands in the parlor on New-year's-day ready to receive callers, she is doing just what the Dutch mammas did so long ago; and at Easter when you have presents of colored eggs and ask your playmates to hunt for the nests which you have hidden away, remember that this, also, was a Dutch custom, for the Dutch were great people for holidays, and to this day many of the Dutch manners and customs are to be found among the New Yorkers who are proud to claim descent from the honest and hospitable Knickerbockers, who looked on life as a thing to be enjoyed, and who have left such pleasant customs to us, as the keeping of Christmas, New Year, Easter, and other holidays.

One morning, about fifty years after the Dutch first settled on Manhattan Island, a fleet of English vessels was seen in New York Bay, and by and by a letter was brought from the English commander to Peter Stuyvesant, the governor of New Amsterdam, asking him to give the town up to the English. The English king, Charles II., thought that as the Cabots had first discovered this part of America, the English had more right to it than the Dutch, and he sent a fleet across the sea and demanded the Dutch to give up the town.

Governor Stuyvesant got into a dreadful rage at this, and stumped wrathfully around on his wooden leg, and threatened dreadful things if the English did not hoist sail and go away again; but it all did no good; the Dutch people themselves thought that they would be better governed, and also better protected from the Indians, if they were ruled by the English; so they made Governor Stuyvesant give their city up to the English, who changed its name to New York, in honor of the king's brother, the Duke of York, to whom the king had given all the Dutch possessions in America. But for years and years the Dutch language and customs held their own in the city, and there are many things about it still which show that it was originally a Dutch settlement.