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DESCRIPTION OF NEW NETIIERLAND.
Water melons.
Peas.
The oak usually grows sixty to seventy leet high, for the most part free of knots, for which reasonit is well adapted to ship building. The Hickory trees furnish a hot and lasting fire,Trees; what sort. ^ a curioug appearance whenever the bush is cut away either for the purpose of moreopen hunting or for clearing the ground for a bouwery. Some plants sent hither from Holland thrivebetter than even in Holland ; namely, the apple, pear, quince, cherry, plum, currant, apricot, buck-thorn, medlar, peach and onion. Vines grow wild everywhere and bear in abundancevines ' blue and white muscatels and pork grapes (tpek-druiven). Some time since, the wine press
was successfully introduced. The wine was equal to any Rhenish or French Wine. Everyvegetable known to the Dutch is cultivated in the gardens. Water melons as savoryas they are wholesome, are, when ripe, as large as a cabbage. The English extract aliquor from them which would be no wise inferior to Spanish wine did it not turn sour too soon.Gourds when cleaned out serve as water vessels. Tobacco produces leaves five quarters long. Pumpkins grow luxuriant and agreeable. Corn sowed in hills six feet apart, sprouts upCorn ' readily and prosperously if properly weeded. Turkish beans, planted beside the
corn, wind themselves around the stalk. Grey peas prosper here so well that two crops aregathered in the year from one field. Medicinal plants and indigo grow wild inabundance. The barley can be tied above the head. Furthermore, all sorts of flowershave a pleasant odor and appearance. The hills consist of fullers earth, or clay, fit for makingdishes, pots and tobacco pipes. There is, besdes, abundance of rock crystal and Mus-Nature of the hills. CQV y gi ass . Other hills furnish marble, serpentine, blue and hearth stone. Andalthough the Dutch have not taken much trouble to dig for minerals, either on account of notbeing numerous enough, or in order not to make other folks’ mouths water, it is nevertheless incon-trovertible that the subterranean cavities in the hills conceal gold and silver. WhenSs and S ‘ lver Wilhem Kieft, the governor, employed, in the year sixteen hundred and forty five, theKiefi’sexperiment Indian interpreter Agheroense, with a view, through him to terminate the difficulties
about gold.
wliicli had arisen between the West India Company and the cruel tribe, the Makwaes,he observed that the said interpreter streaked his face with a glittering yellow paint. Kieft suspectedsome valuable mineral to be concealed in this operation, proposed to satisfy Agheroense; subjectedit to the crucible ; obtained two pieces of gold worth three guilders. He kept the matter secret;obtained fortunately from the mountain pointed out by Agheroense, a bucket full of the material,for it furnished gold. Kieft now imagined he had made a great discovery & despatched ArendCorsen from New Haven to Holland with the stuff. But as the ship never made itsWhy it faded. appearance—which was also the fate subsequently of the fly boat, the Princess , in
which the governor was a passenger, who had a supply of the abovementioned mineral, all furtherexploration ceased. The natives divided into various tribes mutually agree in respect
Very curious ,
paimings. to painting their bodies, shields, war clubs and the lath work within their huts. Forthis they use colours extracted either from plants or from finely crushed stones. The principalplant is not unlike the Orach or Golden herb, except that the stalk has many shoots and red-brownberries ; the juice of which collected in the inner bark of trees, is laid in the sun to dry, and whendried is preserved in little pouches. The inhabitants temper the paint with water, and then streakthe body ; it produces the most beautiful purple that can any where be found. Their picturesrepresent canoes, trees and animals, but very indifferently executed. Instead of plumes theyTheir ornaments, bedeck themselves with hair tied with small bands. The hair is of a scarlet colourand surprizing brilliancy which is permanent and ineffaceable by rain. Thehorses in New Netherland are brought from England or from the diocese of