* * *

There is something humorous in the idea of these old mariners
attempting to sail through a continent 3,000 miles wide, seamed with
mountain chains from 2,000 to 15,000 feet in height. Hudson's return
voyage began September 23d. He anchored again in Newburgh Bay the
25th, arrived at Stony Point October 1st, reached Sandy Hook the 4th,
and returned to Europe.

=First Description of the Hudson.=--The official record of the voyage
was kept by Robert Juet, mate of the "Half Moon," and his journal
abounds with graphic and pleasing incidents as to the people and their
customs. At the Narrows the Indians visited the vessel, "clothed in
mantles of feathers and robes of fur, the women clothed in hemp; red
copper tobacco pipes, and other things of copper, they did wear about
their necks." At Yonkers they came on board in great numbers. Two were
detained and dressed in red coats, but they sprang overboard and swam
away. At Catskill they found "a very loving people, and very old men.
They brought to the ship Indian corn, pumpkins and tobaccos." Near
Schodack the "Master's mate went on land with an old savage, governor
of the country, who carried him to his house and made him good
cheere." "I sailed to the shore," he writes, "in one of their canoes,
with an old man, who was chief of a tribe, consisting of forty men and
seventeen women. These I saw there in a house well constructed of oak
bark, and circular in shape, so that it has the appearance of being
built with an arched roof. It contained a large quantity of corn and
beans of last year's growth, and there lay near the house, for the
purpose of drying, enough to load three ships, besides what was
growing in the fields. On our coming to the house two mats were spread
out to sit upon, and some food was immediately served in well-made