We stumbled to the deck, only to be chilled and dampened by a shroud of mist, which had shut down upon our steel-clad home like a giant pall. It curled, rolled and settled upon us as if it were a blanket saturated with dank sea-water; it cut off the view, so that one peered at the swishing ocean in vain; and it benumbed one, so that one’s voice was stifled and choked, as if a huge overpowering hand were grasping at one’s throat. And even from above came that soul-deadening roar of the steam siren: “O-o-o-o-o-m! O-o-o-o-o-m!” In the blinding mist I bumped into a sailor. “Avast there, my lad,” said he. “Can’t you get your sea legs?” “No,” I replied. “Where are we?” “Off the banks.” “And the fog?” “Usual thing. She’ll burn off in a couple of hours. We have to go easy because of the Gloucester fishing fleet. Hear them!” Indistinctly, in the murky pall, I seemed to hear the thin whining of numberless, tin fish-horns. “Pretty weak fog-whistles, aren’t they?” I laughed. But just then something happened. The mist seemed to part as if rent by a strong and virile hand. We could see the great, combing, green billows go careening and bobbing by, as the cloud-bank shifted like a veil, and there, tossing restlessly on the waves, was a long, brown boat! A number of men were in her, all huddled together in a heap. They were dressed in old-fashioned garments and their faces were drawn, haggard, pinched. In the stern sat a bearded man holding fast to the tiller, at his feet lay a slender youth. The vista lasted but for a moment or two and then the fog-bank rolled in again, hiding the picture from our startled, yet eager visions. “Who are they?” asked I, breathlessly, as the sailor lurched against my side. “Henry Hudson and his crew,” he answered, with a hoarse chuckle. And as I stumbled below, I thought that perhaps the weather-beaten sea-dog might be correct. * * * * * If you had happened to be sitting upon the beach of Manhattan Island, near the spot where is now the Battery, upon the eleventh day of September, 1609, you would have seen a curiously shaped vessel floating, lazing, along near the shore, and you would have also seen a number of weather-scarred navigators who were anxiously peering at the beach. The name of this boat, with a high poop and a curving prow, was the _Half Moon_, and her captain was Henry Hudson, or Hendrick Hudson, as he is sometimes called. He was not only pleased, but also interested to see a land where was a goodly lot of timber, lovely islands and broad harbors, pearly beaches and dusky-bodied inhabitants, who seemed to be peacefully inclined. And who was this fellow Henry, who had dared to come to explore that island of Manhattan, where the mighty Woolworth Building was to rise up in all its splendor, as if to laugh at the former simplicity and quiet of the brush-covered strip of sandy soil?