As he stood upon the crest of the upland southwest of the present city, where the sandy plain abruptly ends and gives place to the rich bottom-lands a hundred and fifty feet below, he looked northwesterly upon a wide expanse of meadow, through which the Mohawk River, gleaming in the sunlight, slowly wended. His eye rested upon the outline of that break in the mountains where the Mohawk has gorged its bed, through which in our day the New York Central Railroad passes from the seaboard to the Mississippi without climbing a foot-hill. It is the only level pass through the great Appalachian chain between the St. Lawrence Valley and the Gulf of Mexico. Not a tree and scarcely a bush grew upon this plain, but here and there were scattered patches of beans, corn and pumpkins, the fruit of the industry of the Mohawk women; and upon the higher ground where Schenectady now stands, the second great castle of the Mohawks, the Capitol of the Five Nations, stood, surrounded by many wigwams of the tribe. The nearer hills and the more distant mountains were clothed with forests. This cleared and fertile intervale, set in its forest frame, was due to the volume of water which in the spring freshets pours down the river. Three miles east of the city its channel is crossed by great ledges of shale rock, through which the river has cut its way, which still remains too narrow for the immediate passage of its waters when greatly swollen. These, overflowing and enriching the bottom-lands above, also denude them of their forest growth. The Indian name of the place was Schonowe, the first syllable pronounced much like the Dutch “schoon,”—beautiful. Some of the Dutch, sharing Van Curler’s idea of the beauty of the place, wished to call it _Schoon_, beautiful, _achten_, esteemed, _del_, valley,—_Schoonachtendel_. The Indian name and the Dutch substitute were combined and confounded in a various and perplexing orthography which remains to us in the deeds, wills and other papers of that time, from which the name Schenectady was finally evolved. Although Van Curler was attracted thus early by this beautiful land, it was long before he could realize his purposes. He married the Widow Bronck and continued the care of his uncle’s interest in the manor of Rensselaerswyck. But despite the success of his management the longer he stayed the more he saw and deplored the evils inherent in the feudal system. To his enlarged and benevolent mind the system itself was essentially one of serfdom.