All Day Afloat. 131 



being burnt hollow as far as they found it sufficient, 

 . . they took . . . stone hatchets or sharp flints 

 and quartzes, or sharp shells, and scraped off the 

 burnt part of the wood and smoothened the boats 

 within. By this means they likewise gave it what 

 shape they pleased. ... A canoe was commonly 

 between thirty and forty feet long." 



There are doubtless many of these deeply 

 buried in the river mud, but how small the chance 

 of their discovery ! I have no such excellent for- 

 tune to report, but something scarcely less sug- 

 gestive: above the sand projected a ship-timber; 

 possibly a bit of some old Dutchman's boat, such 

 as passed up and down this stream almost three 

 centuries ago. It looked old, and why not think 

 it? It is on record that about 1624-25 the Dutch 

 West India Company established a trading-house 

 on a small island near the western shore of the 

 Delaware, just below Trenton Falls, a mere rocky 

 ripple, and placed thereon four families. The 

 Dutch carried on a profitable trade with the In- 

 dians as early as 1621. There is evidence of this 

 in the objects gathered from one-time village sites, 

 and many valuable relics were unearthed well-nigh 



