in that year, 1610, they sent a ship thither and obtained afterwards, from the High and I\hghty Lords States-General, a grant to resort and trade exclusively in these parts, to which end they likewise, in the year 161 5, l)uilt on the North River, about the Island Manhattans, a redoubt or little fort, wherein was left a small garrison, some people usually remaining there to carry on trade with the natives or Indians. This was continued and

6 The Hudson River

maintained until their High Mightinesses did, in the year 1622, include this country of New Netherland in the charter of the West India Company.

It was much easier for Henry Hudson to sail past the lower end of Manhattan Island in 1609 than it is now for the historian to follow his example. The associations of ten generations, the hardships and the triumphs of early settlers, the pageants, the frivolities, the disasters, and the achievement of an almost unparalleled history, cluster here. Yet to write of these things fully would be to compile an encyclopedic history of New York City, which is b\' no means our present purpose, and if the reader questions the omission of this or that detail from the succeeding pages of this narrative, we can only plead the limitations of time and space. The river at the time of Hudson's voyage must have presented a scene of strange and solemn beauty. The sweeping verdure of a nearly unbroken forest on the one bank, and precipitous, wild, pine-clad rocks on the other, bordered a land of mysterious possibilities and unguessed extent. Early writers have noticed particularly the prevalent abundance of the wild grapes that in their season filled the air with spicv perfume. Yet the forests were not uninhabited, for from every covert, every little cove or bay along the shores, the canoes of the Indians put out to intercept or at least to approach the "yacht" of the voyager.