Knickerbocker's History of New York, Complete eBook
Washington Irving
These negroes, in fact, like the monks in the dark
ages, engross all the knowledge of the place, and,
being infinitely more adventurous, and more knowing
than their masters, carry on all the foreign trade,
making frequent voyages to town in canoes loaded with
oysters, buttermilk and cabbages. They are great
astrologers, predicting the different changes of weather
almost as accurately as an almanac; they are, moreover,
exquisite performers on three-stringed fiddles; in
whistling they almost boast the far-famed powers of
Orpheus’ lyre, for not a horse nor an ox in the
place, when at the plough or before the wagon, will
budge a foot until he hears the well known whistle
of his black driver and companion. And from their
amazing skill at casting up accounts upon their fingers
they are regarded with as much veneration as were
the disciples of Pythagoras of yore when initiated
into the sacred quaternary of numbers.
As to the honest burghers of Communipaw, like wise
men and sound philosophers, they never look beyond
their pipes, nor trouble their heads about any affairs
out of their immediate neighborhood; so that they live
in profound and enviable ignorance of all the troubles,
anxieties, and revolutions of this distracted planet.
I am even told that many among them do verily believe
that Holland, of which they have heard so much from
tradition, is situated somewhere on Long Island; that
Spiking-devil and the Narrows are the two ends of
the world; that the country is still under the dominion
of their High Mightinesses, and that the city of New
York still goes by the name of Nieuw Amsterdam.
They meet every Saturday afternoon at the only tavern
in the place, which bears as a sign a square-headed
likeness of the Prince of Orange, where they smoke
a silent pipe by way of promoting social conviviality,
and invariably drink a mug of cider to the success
of Admiral Van Tromp, whom they imagine is still sweeping
the British Channel with a broom at his masthead.
Communipaw, in short, is one of the numerous little
villages in the vicinity of this most beautiful of
cities, which are so many strongholds and fastnesses
whither the primitive manners of our Dutch forefathers
have retreated, and where they are cherished with
devout and scrupulous strictness. The dress of
the original settlers is handed down inviolate from
father to son—the identical broad-brimmed
hat, broad-skirted coat, and broad-bottomed breeches
continue from generation to generation; and several
gigantic knee-buckles of massy silver are still in
wear that made gallant display in the days of the
patriarchs of Communipaw. The language likewise
continues unadulterated by barbarous innovations; and
so critically correct is the village schoolmaster
in his dialect that his reading of a Low Dutch psalm
has much the same effect on the nerves as the filing
of a hand-saw.
FOOTNOTES:
[25] Men by inaction degenerate
into oysters.—Kaimes.
