344 



HISTORY OF THE SEA. 



an insurmountable barrier against farther progress. He again set 

 out in 1608, and, keeping more to the eastward, passed to the 

 north of Norway, Sweden, and Russia as far as Nova Zcmbla. 

 The ice again stopped him, and he returned, — persuaded that 

 the northeastern passage did not exist. The next year he was 

 again sent upon the same errand; but, being still unsuccessful, 

 he crossed the Atlantic to America. He coasted along the con- 

 tinent as far as Chesapeake Bay, and then returned to the 

 north, entering Delaware Bay and arriving in sight of the high- 

 lands of Neversink on the 2d of September. This he pronounced 

 a "good land to fall in with, and a pleasant land to see." The 

 next morning he passed Sandy Hook, and came to anchor in 

 what is now the Lower Bay of New York. "What an event," 

 says Everett, "in the history of American population, enter- 

 prise, commerce, intelligence and power, was the dropping of 

 that anchor at Sandy Hook!" 



HUDSON'S VESSEL, THE HALF-MOON, OFF SANDY HOOK. 



"Here he lingered a week," continues the same author, "in 

 friendly intercourse with the natives of New Jersey, while a 

 boat's company explored the waters up to Newark Bay. And 

 now the great question :— Shall he turn back, or ascend the 

 stream ? Hudson was of a race not prone to turn back, by sea 

 or land. On the 11th of September, he raised the anchor of 

 the Half-Moon, and passed through the Narrows, beholding on 

 both sides < as beautiful a land as one could tread on the ship 

 floating cautiously and slowly up the noble stream, — the first that 



