TRADERS AND SETTLERS 29

which plied between New Amsterdam and Fort
Orange, loaded with supplies and household goods.
Tying the prow of his boat to a tree at the water's
edge, the enterprising skipper turned pedler and
opened his packs of beguiling wares for the house-
wife at the farm beside the river. Together with
the goods in his pack, he doubtless also opened his
budget of news from the other settlements and
told the farmer's wife how the houses about the
fort at Manhattan had increased to thirty, how
the new Director was strengthening the fort,
and how all promised well for the future of New
Netherland.

For the understanding of these folk, who, with
their descendants, have left an indelible impression
on New York as we know it today, we must leave
the thread of narrative in America, abandon the
sequence of dates, and turn back to the Holland
of some years earlier. Remembering that those
who cross the sea change tlieir skies but not their
hearts, we may be sure that the same qualities
which marked the inhabitants of the Netherlands
showed themselves in the emigrants to the colony
on the banks of the Mauritius.

When the truce with Spain was announced, a
few months before Hudson set sail for America,