he finds a girl who will love him. Perhaps Captain Vanderdecken found
this maiden of his hopes in some Dutch settlement on the Hudson, or
perhaps he expiated his rashness by prayer and penitence; howbeit, he
never came down again, unless he slipped away to sea in snow or fog so
dense that watchers and boatmen saw nothing of his passing. A few old
settlers declared the vessel to be the Half Moon, and there were some who
testified to seeing that identical ship with Hudson and his spectre crew
on board making for the Catskills to hold carouse.

This fleeting vision has been confounded with the storm ship that lurks
about the foot of the Palisades and Point-no-Point, cruising through
Tappan Zee at night when a gale is coming up. The Hudson is four miles
wide at Tappan, and squalls have space enough to gather force; hence,
when old skippers saw the misty form of a ship steal out from the shadows
of the western hills, then fly like a gull from shore to shore, catching
the moonlight on her topsails, but showing no lanterns, they made to
windward and dropped anchor, unless their craft were stanch and their
pilot's brains unvexed with liquor. On summer nights, when falls that
curious silence which is ominous of tempest, the storm ship is not only
seen spinning across the mirror surface of the river, but the voices of
the crew are heard as they chant at the braces and halyards in words
devoid of meaning to the listeners.




WHY SPUYTEN DUYVIL IS SO NAMED

The tide-water creek that forms the upper boundary of Manhattan Island is
known to dwellers in tenements round about as "Spittin' Divvle." The