Numerous Europeans had visited this great river before him. The Norsemen under the leadership of Thorfinn Karselfni in 1011 may have been the first. Certainly in 1524 the Frenchman, Verrazano, and his amorous crew stopped off there to mingle with the friendly natives. Not many months afterward a Portuguese captain, Estevan Gomez, sailing for Spain, probably put into the river’s mouth. In fact, Spanish archives are said to indicate that during the sixteenth century many Spanish ships used the harbor for watering and refitting on their fishing and fur trading trips between Newfoundland and New Spain. But Henry Hudson ascended the river as far as it was navigable and recorded what he observed and what he did. He it was who took back to Europe the first news of the vast store of fur skins to be had there. And that is what opened the valley of the Hudson to trade and settlement. His memorable exploration of the river got off however to an inauspicious start in the Lower Bay. Here, it was recorded, “the people of the Countrey came aboord of us, seeming very glad of our comming, and brought greene Tobacco, and gave us of it for Knives and Beeds. They goe in Deere skins loose, well dressed. They have yellow copper. They desire Cloathes, and are very civill.” Yet, Hudson did not trust them, and mutual suspicion quickly clouded the atmosphere. There was fighting and a sailor was killed. Later, some Indians who came aboard were kidnapped. They were plied with liquor and dressed in red coats while the sailors made crude sport of them. Two were kept prisoners. But then, after passing the Narrows and entering the river, the _Half Moon_ stopped off at Manhattan to find the natives there most hospitable in spite of any news they may have had about the fights in the Lower Bay. With their women and children they swarmed about the little Dutch yacht in a bid for friendship and trade. Captain Hudson, however, now believing that he had at long last entered on the strait that led to “Zipangu where the palace roof was covered with gold,” did not tarry long to barter for pelts. Certainly, he didn’t let the escape of the two captive Indians delay the passage of the _Half Moon_ upstream, even though these savages swimming ashore made provocative signs of derision and scorn toward the white men. It wasn’t until it became disappointingly obvious that he had reached the head of ship navigation that Hudson took time for barter. This was in the vicinity of present-day Albany. Here he again found the natives both hospitable and anxious to trade. In one instance, when he went ashore to eat fat dog meat with a chief of the country, the Indians broke their arrows and cast them into the fire to prove their friendship. Later they came flocking aboard, bringing beaver and otter skins which they exchanged for glass beads, knives and hatchets.