his companion were enabled to step into it, before the fasts were thrown
aboard. The periagua, as the craft was called, partook of a European and
an American character. It possessed the length, narrowness, and clean bow,
of the canoe, from which its name was derived, with the flat bottom and
lee-boards of a boat constructed for the shallow waters of the Low
Countries. Twenty years ago, vessels of this description abounded in our
rivers, and even now, their two long and unsupported masts and high
narrow-headed sails, are daily seen bending like reeds to the breeze, and
dancing lightly over the billows of the bay. There is a variety of the
class, of a size and pretension altogether superior to that just
mentioned, which deserves a place among the most picturesque and striking
boats that float. He who has had occasion to navigate the southern shore
of the Sound must have often seen the vessel to which we allude. It is
distinguished by its great length, and masts which, naked of cordage, rise
from the hull like two tall and faultless trees. When the eye runs over
the daring height of canvas, the noble confidence of the rig, and sees the
comparatively vast machine handled with ease and grace by the dexterity of
two fearless and expert mariners, it excites some such admiration as that
which springs from the view of a severe temple of antiquity The nakedness
and simplicity of the construction, coupled with the boldness and rapidity
of its movements, impart to the craft an air of grandeur, that its
ordinary uses would not give reason to expect.

Though, in some respects, of singularly aquatic habits, the original
colonists of New-York were far less adventurous, as mariners, than their
present descendants. A passage across the bay did not often occur in the
tranquil lives of the burghers; and it is still within the memory of man,
that a voyage between the two principal towns of the State was an event to
excite the solicitude of friends, and the anxiety of the traveller. The
perils of the Tappaan Zee, as one of the wider reaches of the Hudson is