PEEFACE. 



HAD some sturdy Dutch navigator wandered so far 

 inland from the capes of the Delaware as to see the 

 bold east shore of the river and mouth of Crosswicks 

 Creek, he would doubtless have been charmed with so 

 sweet a spot, and left a marvellous record of his jour- 

 ney. Alas ! none came. 



Had the plucky Swedish engineer, who, in 1654, 

 mapped the river from the capes to the falls, lost the 

 main stream in some fog, and turned into Crosswicks 

 Creek, what a wonderful account he would have given 

 us of what he took to be the upper regions of the riv- 

 er valley. But there was no fog, and Lindstrom kept 

 straight on until he reached the falls ; and it has been 

 recorded by a fellow-countryman of his, that " about the 

 falls of Assinpink) and farther up the river, the land is 

 rich, and there are a great many plantations on it. It 

 does not produce much Indian-corn, but a great quantity 

 of grape-vines, white, red, brown, and blue ; the inhabit- 

 ants want only to know how to press the grape in order 

 to have a rich wine country. As to the interior, noth- 

 ing is known about it, except that it is believed to be 

 a continent : the Swedes have no intercourse with any 

 of the savages but the black and white Mengwes Iro- 

 quois and these know nothing except that as far as 

 they have gone into the interior the country is inhab- 

 ited by other wild nations of various races." This non- 



