A copy of this agreement with the Indians still exists, and the antiquarian may find it among the State records at Albany.  It is a curious document, with the signatures of both parties, the patentees’ written in the antique French character, with the hieroglyphic marks of the Indians.  A few Indian goods—­kettles, axes, beads, bars of lead, powder, casks of wine, blankets, needles, awls, and a ’clean pipe’—­were the insignificant articles given, about two centuries ago, for these lands, now proverbially rich, and worth millions of dollars.  The treaty was mutually executed, according to the records from which we quote, on the 20th of May, 1677.

The patentees immediately took possession of their newly-acquired property, their first conveyances being three wagons, which would be rare curiosities in our day.  The wheels were very low, shaped like old-fashioned spinning-wheels, with short spokes, wide rim, and without any iron.  The settlers were three days on their way from Kingston to New Paltz, a distance of only sixteen miles.  The place of their first encampment is still known by the name of ‘Tri Cor,’ or three cars, in honor of these earliest conveyances.  Soon, however, they selected a more elevated site, on the banks of the beautiful Walkill, where the village now stands.  Log houses were erected not far apart, for mutual defence, and afterwards stone edifices, with port-holes, some of which still remain.

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MACCARONI AND CANVAS.

INTRODUCTION.

Rome is the cradle of art,—­which accounts for its sleeping there.

Nature, however, is nowhere more wide awake than it is in and around this city:  therefore, Mr. James Caper, animal painter, determined to repose there for several months.

The following sketches correctly describe his Roman life.

ARRIVAL IN ROME.

It was on an Autumn night that the traveling carriage in which sat James Caper arrived in Rome; and as he drove through that fine street, the Corso, he saw coming towards him a two-horse open carriage, filled with Roman girls of the working class (minenti).  Dressed in their picturesque costumes, bonnetless, their black hair tressed with flowers, they stood up, waving torches, and singing in full voice one of those songs in which you can go but few feet, metrically speaking, without meeting amore.  And then another and another carriage, with flashing torches and sparkling-eyed girls.  It was one of the turnouts of the minenti; they had been to Monte Testaccio, had drank all the wine they could pay for; and, with a prudence our friend Caper could not sufficiently admire, he noticed that the women were in separate carriages from the men.  It was the Feast Day of Saint Crispin, and all the cobblers, or artists in leather, as they call themselves, were keeping it up bravely.

‘Eight days to make a pair of shoes?’ he once asked a shoemaker.  ’Si, Signore, there are three holidays in that time.’  Argument unanswerable.