120 DUTCH AND ENGLISH ON THE HUDSON

behavior of their offspring that the inhabitants of
Flatbush inserted these words in the articles of
agreement with the new schoolmaster: "He shall
demean himself patient and friendly towards
the children and be active and attentive to their
improvement/'

However little learning from books entered into
the lives of the young colonists, much that was
stimulating to the imagination came to them by
word of mouth from the wilden, from the negroes,
and from their elders as they sat about the blazing
fire in the twilight, or schemerlicht. Then the tales
were told of phantom ships, of ghosts walking on
the cliffs of the Highlands, and of the unlucky
wight who found his death in the river where he
had sworn to plunge in spite of the Devil, a spot
which still bears the name of Spuyten Duyvil in
memory of the rash boast.

We may find it hard to reconcile the reputation
of the Dutch as a phlegmatic and unimaginative
people with the fact that they and their children
endowed the Hudson with more glamour, more of
the supernatural and of elfin lore than haunts any
other waterway in America. Does the explana-
tion perhaps lie in the fact that the Dutch colonists,
coming from a small country situated on a level