"Knickerbocker's History of New York" was undertaken by Irving and his brother Peter as a parody on a book that had lately appeared, entitled "A Picture of New York." The two young men, one of whom had already proved himself something of an author, were so full of humor and the spirit of mischief that they must amuse themselves and their friends, and they thought this a good way of doing it. There was to be an introduction giving the history of New York from the foundation of the world, and the main body of the book was to consist of "notices of the customs, manners, and institutions of the city; written in a serio-comic vein, and treating local errors, follies, and abuses with good-humored satire." The introduction was not more than fairly begun when Peter Irving started for Europe, leaving the completion of the work to the younger brother. Washington decided to change the plan, and merely give a humorous history of the Dutch settlement of New York. Let us take a peep into this amusing history. First, here is the portrait of "that worthy and irrecoverable discoverer (as he has justly been called), Master Henry Hudson," who "set sail from Holland in a stout vessel called the Half-Moon, being employed by the Dutch East India Company to seek a northwest passage to China." "Henry (or as the Dutch historians call him, Hendrick) Hudson was a seafaring man of renown, who had learned to smoke tobacco under Sir Walter Raleigh, and is said to have been the first to introduce it into Holland, which gained him much popularity in that country, and caused him to find great favor in the eyes of their High Mightinesses, the Lords States General, and also of the honorable East India Company. He was a short, square, brawny old gentleman, with a double chin, a mastiff mouth, and a broad copper nose, which was supposed in those days to have acquired its fiery hue from the constant neighborhood of his tobacco pipe. "He wore a commodore's cocked hat on one side of his head. He was remarkable for always jerking up his breeches when he gave out his orders, and his voice sounded not unlike the brattling of a tin trumpet--owing to the number of hard northwesters which he had swallowed in the course of his seafaring. "Such was Hendrick Hudson, of whom we have heard so much and know so little." You must read in the history itself the amusing account of Ten Breeches and Tough Breeches. One of the Dutch colonists bought of the Indians for sixty guelders as much land as could be covered by a man's breeches. When the time for measuring came Mr. Ten Breeches was produced, and peeling off one pair of breeches after another, soon produced enough material to surround the entire island of Manhattan, which was thus bought for sixty guelders, or Dutch dollars. In due time came the first Dutch governor, Wouter Van Twiller.