When Hendrik Hudson broke the quiet waters of the Tappan Zee for the first time, in September, 1609, with the keel of the _Half-Moon_, he saw along the eastern shore of the noble river which was to bear his name an unbroken forest. The region was singularly beautiful, with a stillness which it has not wholly lost; for rivers carrying deep currents always convey an impression of stillness. Mr. Curtis has spoken of the lyrical beauty of the Rhine and the epical beauty of the Hudson; the first passing, with rapid movement, through a long series of striking and romantic localities, the second flowing sedately through a landscape of larger compass, of more massive composition, of a beauty sustained through a hundred and fifty miles of noble scenery. It is, of course, a matter of pure fancy; but there seems to have been some kinship between the men who settled the continent and the localities they chose for their homes. The hardy French adventurers were peculiarly at home along the St. Lawrence and the trails from the Great Lakes to the Mississippi; the stern soil of New England would not have given its rare smile to men of a temper less strenuous than that of the Puritan and Pilgrim; the waterways of the James, the Potomac, and the Chesapeake lent themselves readily to the habits and occupations of English gentlemen in the new world; Florida and Louisiana seemed to find their elect explorers and settlers in the Spanish adventurers and gold-seekers; while the quiet of the Hudson was hardly broken when the Dutch settlers began to till the land north of Manhattan Island and to build their substantial homes. They could be voluble and noisy when occasion required, but they were of a phlegmatic temper and leisurely by habit.