=_178._= FROM “TITLE AND TABLE OF CONTENTS.”

A history of New York, from the beginning of the world to the end of the Dutch dynasty,... being the only authentic history of the times that ever hath been or ever will be published, by Diedrick Knickerbocker....  Book I., chap. i.  Description of the World....  Book II., chap. i....  Also of Master Hendrick Hudson, his discovery of a strange country....  Chap. vii.  How the people of Pavonia migrated from Communipaw to the Island of Manhattan....  Chap. ix.  How the city of New Amsterdam waxed great under the protection of St. Nicholas, and the absence of laws and statutes.  Book III., chap. iii.  How the town of New Amsterdam arose out of mud, and came to be marvellously polished and polite, together with a picture of the manners of our great-great-grandfathers....  Book IV., chap. vi.  Projects of William the Testy for increasing the currency; he is outwitted by the Yankees.  The great Oyster War....  Book V., chap. viii.  How the Yankee crusade against the New Netherlands was baffled by the sudden outbreak of witchcraft among the people of the East ...  Book VII., chap. ii.  How Peter Stuyvesant labored to civilize the community.  How he was a great promoter of holydays.  How he instituted kissing on New Year’s Day....  Chap. iii.  How troubles thicken on the province.  How it is threatened by the Helderbergers,—­the Merrylanders, and the Giants of the Susquehanna.

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=_179._= THE ARMY AT NEW AMSTERDAM.

First of all came the Van Bummels, who inhabit the pleasant borders of the Bronx.  These were short, fat men, wearing exceeding large trunk-breeches, and are renowned for feats of the trencher; they were the first inventors of suppawn, or mush and milk....  Lastly came the Knickerbockers, of the great town of Schahticoke, where the folks lay stones upon the houses in windy weather, lest they should be blown away.  These derive their name, as some say, from Knicker, to shake, and Beker, a goblet, indicating thereby that they were sturdy tosspots of yore; but in truth, it was derived from Knicker, to nod, and Bocken, books, plainly meaning that they were great nodders or dozers over books; from them did descend the writer of this History.

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From the “Tales of a Traveller.”

=_180._= A MOTHER’S MEMORY.

A part of the church-yard is shaded by large trees.  Under one of them my mother lay buried.  You have no doubt thought me a light, heartless being.  I thought myself so; but there are moments of adversity which let us into some feelings of our nature to which we might otherwise remain perpetual strangers.

I sought my mother’s grave:  the weeds were already matted over it, and the tombstone was half hid among nettles.  I cleared them away, and they stung my hands; but I was heedless of the pain, for my heart ached too severely.  I sat down on the grave, and read, over and over again, the epitaph on the stone.