A DUTCH DREAM. 195 



accessible, he deliberately established himself 

 on the morass at Batavia, so that he could dig 

 a canal, and then die of the yellow fever con- 

 tentedly. 



Why, indeed, did he not settle on the Hack- 

 ensack meadows? Why do not his country- 

 men come there now ? The descendants of 

 men who redeemed Holland from the sea 

 could surely rescue these meadows from the 

 encroachment of the Hackensack and Passaic 

 Rivers. There is room enough there for a 

 thousand farmers of holdings such as they 

 cultivate with so much success at home. The 

 land is as good and the climate as equable ; 

 but it is a. waste, a great area of bog; We 

 may imagine it the property of a thousand 

 sturdy Dutch farmers who have not yet been 

 corrupted with our air of liberty and broken 

 out with the eruptions of extravagance and 

 discontent. We see in our fancy the dykes 

 thrown up and the intersecting canals on 

 which the noiseless trekschuit glides along, 

 the scattered houses and bar^s, the church 

 spires and windmills, the long avenues of 

 trees, the. orchards, gardens, and fields, all pos- 

 sessed by a contented people. They could 

 not live so cheaply here as in Holland ? Per- 



