The one fixed, unchanging and unchangeable factor in his existence, upon which he could imjilicitly rely, was the land ; and now this was snatched from him by devices of which he was totally ignorant. The term "title" conveyed no meaning to his understanding. Acting under the laws of his fathers, and doing only what he had always been taught was right, he found himself accused of gross wrongs under another set of laws of which he had never heard, and whose claim to equity he could not understand. Under the pretense of right, he found himself most grievously wronged, and we cannot wonder that, between such opposite rules of action, the collision of princijjles quickly resulted in collisions of arms. The contest was inevitable, and, whether it was carried on under the name of war or in the more quiet forms of peace, it was a contest of races, a contest of civilization against barbarism, and the result was inevitable, -- the Indian disappeared from the land.

When the " Half-Moon " lay at anchor off the village of Nappeckamak, the Indians soon overcame the terror that naturally accompanied so strange aii apparition, and, putting off in their canoes, went on board in large numbers. Their curiosity knew no bounds, and was only restrained by their dread of the supernatural powers the strangers might possess. By Hudson's own statement, he himself first violated faith with them. He detained two of their number (*n the vessel, and, although they soon jumped overboard and swam to the shore, his act was nevertheless an outrage upon the universal rules of hospitality. He recorded that, when they reached the shore, they called to him "in scorn." Hudson ascended the river to Albany, holding communication with the Indians along the way ; and so kind was their disposition toward him, that he wrote of them as " the loving people." On his return he came through the Highlands on the 1st of October, and anchored below the village of Sackhoes, on whose site Peekskill has been built.