Catherine Dubois had already been placed on a funeral ]^yre of wood, preparator}* to being burned, and had

454 The Hudson River

evidenced her Christian fortitude by singing hvmns that pleased her cai^tors so that they demanded a repetition of them. It was no new thing for them to hear a warrior sing his death- song in the face of his enemies, but for a woman to show such courage may have excited their admiration, and the strange sweetness of the unusual melodies she sang no doubt arrested their attention. It was the knowledge gained upon this expedition, so the story goes, that led the Huguenots to settle upon the banks of the Wallkill, for which they obtained a deed from the Indians in consideration of fortv kettles, the same number of adzes and shirts, seven hundred strings of beads, four quarter-casks of wine, and other goods. This tract, twelve miles in extent, reached from the Hudson River back to the Shawangunk Moim tains. There is an interesting tradition to the effect that the hymn sang by Mrs. Dubois on the occasion just mentioned was the 137th in the Dutch collection, which is translated thus:

By Babel's stream the captives sate And wept for Zion's hapless fate; Useless their harps on willows hung While foes required a sacred song.

The village of New Paltz is a delightful reminiscence, a legacy of old habitations and simple customs, bequeathed by generations of God-fearing folk to our restless time as a salutary reminder of pristine peace