CHAPTER THIRTEENTH 



A DAT y S DIGGING 



A S long ago as November, 1679, two 

 Dutchmen, Jasper Bankers and Peter 

 Sluyter, worked their way laboriously across 

 New Jersey from Manhattan Island, and 

 reached South River, as the Delaware was 

 then called, at least by the Hollanders. They 

 were all agog to see the falls at the head of 

 tide-water, and spent a miserable night in a 

 rickety shanty, which was cold as Greenland, 

 except in the fireplace, and there they roasted. 

 All this was not calculated to put them in ex- 

 cellent humor, and so the next day, when they 

 stood on the river-bank and saw only a trivial 

 rapid where they had expe&ed a second Ni- 

 agara, their disgust knew no bounds. These 

 travel-tired Dutchmen quickly departed, row- 

 ing a small boat down-stream, and growling 

 whenever the tide turned and they had to row 

 against it. 



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