At the middle of March, 1609, Heudrick, as the Dutch called him, sailed from Amsterdam in a yacht of ninety tons, named the Half -Moon, manned with a choice crew, and turned his prow, once more, toward Nova Zembla. Again ice, and fogs, and fiei'ce tempests, disputed his passage, and he steered westward, passed Cape Farewell, and, on the 2nd of July, made soundings upon the banks of Newfoundland. He sailed along the coast to the fine harbour of Charleston, in South Carolina, in search of a north-west passage " below Yirginia," spoken of by his friend Captain Smith. Disappointed, he turned northward, discovered Delaware Bay, and on the 3rd of September anchored near Sandy Hook. On the 11th he passed through the Narrows into the present bay of New York,- and from his anchorage beheld, with joy, wonder, and hope, the waters of the noble Mahicannituck, or Mohegan Eiver, flowing from the high blue hills on the north. Toward evening the following day he entered the broad stream, and with a full persuasion, on account of tidal currents.

THE HUDSON.

that the river upon which he was borne flowed from ocean to ocean, he rejoiced in the dream of being the leader to the long-sought Cathay. But when the magnitieeut liighlands, fifty miles from tlie sea, were passed, and the stream narrowed and the water freshened, hope failed him. Eut the indescribable beauty of the virgin land through which he was voyaging, filled his heart and mind with exquisite pleasure ; and as deputations of dusky men came from the courts of the forest sachems to visit him, in wonder and awe, he seemed transformed into some majestic and mysterious hero of the old sagas of the Nortli.