Only the baby of Satigerties or Kingston or Allxmy would have ruminated over the broader vowels of Slaap, kindje, slaap, Daar buiten loopt een schaap; Een schaap met vier witte voetjes.

To this day the English-speaking mother talks to her little one about his "footies." Is it possibly an echo of " voetjes"? But listen to the stamp and swagger and hustle that is compressed into four lines here : Daar komt liij ! lien snoeshaan geweldig gestampen ! Een beest hij gebruUen! Een mansheeld gezwollen; Een openlijk bloodard! Het maakt neen vershil; Het ware Jan van Spanje zonder zijn bril.

To the industry of Mr. Benjamin Myer Brink, the historian of Saugerties, is due the collection of about thirty of the ballads and folk-songs of the Dutch forefathers of Hudson River folks from which wc ha\'e borrowed the above verses and w^ould gladly appropriate more if we had si)ace. There are songs for nearly all the simple occasions of life, -- some for the cradle, some for the churn-dasher, others for the social gathering. Catches, riddles, and homilies follow in all their quaint orthography. They should have a separate volume, with music and illuminations. Old Albany was the fountain-head of the Knickerbocker race, though they who spell it in this corru])t way do but deny the original, which was Knickkerbakker ; that is to sa}^ a baker of knickers, or marbles. Some have claimed that knicknacks, such as oily-koeks,

536 The Hudson River

dood-kocks, and niciiivjaarskocks, rather than the trifling knickcr, stood sponsor to that Dutchest of titles, and that the first Knickerbocker of eminence was Volckert Jan Pietersen Van Amsterdam, whose name was too long for even the patience of his neighbours, who shortened it to Baas -- that is to say. Boss. If this etymology be correct, Boss Knickkerbakker Volckert Jan Pietersen Van Amsterdam seems to be entitled to a monument or other memorial, broad enough to bear the full inscri|_)tion of his name.