I went to bed that night, as I have already stated, and rose early the next morning to set out on foot. The distance to Breuckelen was about ten miles across the end of the island. The day was bright and cheery, and the road passed through a rich country of farms. This region supplied most of the food for the city and was carefully tilled by the various tenants of the island. On nearing the Sound the road, which was a poor, rutty track at the best, dipped steeply from a crest and in a hundred yards I was at the water’s edge. A small wooden platform floated on the surface and near, tethered to a tree by a thong of buckskin, hung the sea shell. I put it to my lips and, thanks to my practice of the night before, I was able, after one or two unavailing attempts, to send forth a dull wail that echoed over the water and back again half a dozen times. While I was waiting for the ferryman to come from the Yorke side of the river, my eyes scanned the town impatiently. The city lay huddled on the side of a hill covered with verdure. The tiers of flaming red-tiled roofs extended nearly to the water’s edge where the white walls of the lower houses made visible the cluster of masts swaying in the harbor. Two structures stood out in conspicuous prominence before the rest of the town. High on the right loomed the Stadt Huys, topped by a pointed belfry. To the left on a bold hump of rock squatted the low fort. There the eye lingered with most interest. The slender staff floated the flag of England. In one corner the double gable of the fort chapel peeped above the top of the bastions. What must have been the portholes were mere black blotches upon the gray face of the wall; and below, at the foot of a steep cliff, the climbing surf fretted the rocks with foam. My eyes were not drawn from the pleasing scene for fully half an hour. By that time the boatman had crossed the river. On the way back both wind and tide were against us and the crossing took much longer. We passed beyond the greater part of the town, having it upon our left, and landed at a little half-moon battery which projected into the East River near what was called the Water Gate. This gate was the eastern entrance to the city through the Wall, a line of palisades backed by a ditch that extended quite across the city from the East River to the Hudson. It formed the northern boundary of New York, and thus it happened that I entered the city from the rear or landward side. “There is the way to Van Volkenberg manor,” said the ferryman, advancing one arm like a guidepost and pointing along a road that vanished northward among the wooded hills. “But you’ll do no good to follow it now. The patroon will be in the city to-day. It is all furred up with excitement at the meeting of the new assembly. What are you, white or blue?”