The history of New York begins in 1524, when Giovanni Verrazano, an
Italian navigator, entered the beautiful bay of New York, with his
vessel, the _Dauphine_. Gomez is said to have sailed along the coast as
far as New York the following year.

Fifty years later, Hendrik Hudson sailed up New York Bay, and discovered
the beautiful river which flows by the city, the river which still bears
his name.

This is the same Hudson who searched for the Northwest Passage--the
passage which was to make a short cut from the Atlantic Ocean to the
Pacific, along the north shore of America, and afford a highway between
Europe and Asia, saving the long trip around the Cape of Good Hope,
which had just been discovered by the Portuguese. South America and Cape
Horn were as yet undiscovered.

On this search for the Northwest Passage, Hudson's sailors mutinied, and
put their great commander and eight companions ashore in an open boat in
the bleak, ice-bound Hudson Bay.

For this cruel deed the spirits of the crew of Hudson's vessel were
supposed to wander up and down the shores of the Hudson River, unable to
find rest even in death.

In Washington Irving's fanciful tale of "Rip Van Winkle," Rip encounters
a strange, ghostly company of seafaring men, and it is often supposed
that Hudson's crew was intended by the author.

When Hudson went back to Holland after his voyage up the Hudson River,
he told such wonderful tales of the friendliness of the Indians, the