LITMIR.BIZ

      Some historians say that this especial delegation was swept away afterward by a pestilence, whilst others commenting on the incident maintain that Hudson lied.

      It is the only historical question regarding America not fully settled by this book.

      Nothing more was heard of him till he turned up in a thinking part in "Rip Van Winkle."

      Many claims regarding the discovery of various parts of the United States had been previously made. The Cabots had discovered Labrador, the Spaniards the southern part of the United States; the Norsemen had discovered Minneapolis, and Columbus had discovered San Salvador and gone home to meet a ninety-day note due in Palos for the use of the Pinta, which he had hired by the hour.

      But we are speaking of the discovery of New York.

      About this time a solitary horseman might have been seen at West 209th Street, clothed in a little brief authority, and looking out to the west as he petulantly spoke in the Tammany dialect, then in the language of the blank-verse Indian. He began, "Another day of anxiety has passed, and yet we have not been discovered! The Great Spirit tells me in the thunder of the surf and the roaring cataract of the Harlem that within a week we will be discovered for the first time."

      As he stands there aboard of his horse, one sees that he is a chief in every respect and in life's great drama would naturally occupy the middle of the stage. It was at this moment that Hudson slipped down the river from Albany past Fort Lee, and, dropping a nickel in the slot at 125th Street, weighed his anchor at that place. As soon as he had landed and discovered the city, he was approached by the chief, who said, "We gates. I am one of the committee to show you our little town. I suppose you have a power of attorney, of course, for discovering us?"

      "Yes," said Hudson. "As Columbus used to say when he discovered San Salvador, 'I do it by the right vested in me by my sovereigns.' 'That oversizes my pile by a sovereign and a half,' says one of the natives; and so, if you have not heard it, there is a good thing for one of your dinner-speeches here."

      "Very good," said the chief, as they jogged down-town on a swift Sixth Avenue elevated train towards the wigwams on 14th Street, and going at the rate of four miles an hour. "We do not care especially who discovers us, so long as we hold control of the city organization. How about that, Hank?"

      "That will be satisfactory," said Mr. Hudson, taking a package of imported cheese and eating it, so that they could have the car to themselves.

      "We will take the departments, such as Police, Street-Cleaning, etc., etc., etc., while you and Columbus get your pictures on the currency and have your graves mussed up on anniversaries. We get the two-moment horses and the country châteaux on the Bronx. Sabe?"

      "That is, you do not care whose portrait is on the currency," said Hudson, "so you get the currency."

      Said the man, "That is the sense of the meeting."

      Thus was New York discovered via Albany and Fort Lee, and five minutes after the two touched glasses, the brim of the schoppin and the Manhattan cocktail tinkled together, and New York was inaugurated.

      Obtaining a gentle and philanthropical gentleman who knew too well the city by gas-light, they saw the town so thoroughly that nearly every building in the morning wore a bright red sign which read—

      Regarding the question as to who has the right to claim the priority of discovery of New York, I unite with one of the ablest historians now living in stating that I do not know.

      Here and there throughout the work of all great historians who are frank and honest, chapter after chapter of information like this will burst forth upon the eye of the surprised and delighted reader.

      CLUB LIFE IN EARLY NEW YORK.

      Society at the time of the discovery of the blank-verse Indian of America was crude. Hudson's arrival, of course, among older citizens soon called out those who desired his acquaintance, but he noticed that club life was not what it has since become, especially Indian club life.

      He found a nation whose regular job was war and whose religion was the ever-present prayer that they might eat the heart of their enemy plain.

      The Indian High School and Young Ladies' Seminary captured by Columbus, as shown in the pictures of his arrival at home and his presentation to the royal pair one hundred and seventeen years before this, it is said, brought a royal flush to the face of King Ferdie, who had been well brought up.

      This can be readily understood when we remember that the Indian wore at court a court plaster, a parlor-lamp-shade in stormy weather, made of lawn grass, or a surcingle of front teeth.

      They were shown also in all these paintings as graceful and beautiful in figure; but in those days when the Pocahontas girls went barefooted till the age of eighty-nine years, chewed tobacco, kept Lent all winter and then ate a brace of middle-aged men for Easter, the figure must have been affected by this irregularity of meals.

      THE INDIAN GIRL OF STORY.—THE INDIAN GIRL OF FACT.

      Unless the Pocahontas of the present day has fallen off sadly in her carriage and beauty, to be saved from death by her, as Smith was, and feel that she therefore had a claim on him, must have given one nervous prostration, paresis, and insomnia.

      The Indian and the white race never really united or amalgamated outside of Canada. The Indian has always held aloof from us, and even as late as Sitting Bull's time that noted cavalry officer said to the author that the white people who simply came over in the Mayflower could not marry into his family on that ground. He wanted to know why they had to come over in the Mayflower.

      BILL NYE CONVERSING WITH SITTING BULL.

      "We were here," said the aged warrior, as he stole a bacon-rind which I used for lubricating my saw, and ate it thoughtfully, "we were here and helped Adam 'round up' and brand his animals. We are an old family, and never did manual labor. We are just as poor and proud and indolent as those who are of noble blood. We know we are of noble blood because we have to take sarsaparilla all the time. We claim to come by direct descent from Job, of whom the inspired writer says,—

      "Old Job he was a fine young lad,

      Sing Glory hallelujah.

      His heart was good, but his blood was bad,

      Sing Glory hallelujah."3

      CHAPTER VIII.

      THE DUTCH AT NEW AMSTERDAM

      Soon after the discovery of the Hudson,

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