A NOVEMBER WALK. 
373 
" Captain Kidd ! In these forests, hundreds of miles from the 
coast !" 
Incredible as the folly may seem, such, it appears, was the 
notion of these men. According to the computation of the 
money- diggers, Captain Kidd mus-t have been the most successful 
pirate that ever turned thief on the high seas, and have buried 
as many treasures as Croesus displayed. It has been quite com- 
mon for people to dig for the pirate's treasure along the shores of 
Long Island, and upon the coast to the northward and southward ; 
but one would never have expected the trees of these inland 
woods to be uprooted for the same purpose. But men will seek 
for gold everywhere, and in any way. 
This is the third instance of the kind accidentally come to our 
knowledge. The scene of one was in the heart of the city of 
New York, and the attraction a singular tree, growing in the 
yard of a house in Broadway, whose occupant Avas repeatedly 
disturbed by applications to dig at its roots. The other two 
cases occurred among these hills ; and on one of these occasions 
the search was declared to be commenced at the instigation of a 
professed witch, living in a neighboring village, and regularly 
armed with a twig of wych-hazel ! 
But there is more superstition left among us than is com- 
monly supposed. There are still signs and sayings current among 
the farmers, about the weather and the crops, which they by no 
means entirely discredit ; and there are omens still repeated by 
nurses and gossips, and young girls, about death-beds, and cra- 
dles, and dreams, and wedding-days, which are not yet so 
powerless but that they make some timid heart beat with hope or 
