turesque bird, very frequent in this country), the ospray, the heron, and the curlew, used to stand in great numbers in a long row, like a military arrangement, for a whole summer day, fishing for perch and a kind of fresh-water herring which abounded there. At the same season a variety of wild ducks, who bred on the shores of the island (among which was a small white diver of an elegant form), led forth their young to try their first excursion. What a scene have I beheld on a calm summer evening! There indeed were "fringed banks" richly fringed, and wonderfully variegated; where every imaginable shade of color mingled, and where life teemed prolific on every side. The river, a perfect mirror, reflecting the pine-covered hills opposite; and the pliant shades that bend without a wind, round this enchanting island, while hundreds of the white divers, sawbill ducks with scarlet heads, teal, and other aquatic birds, sported at once on the calm waters. At the discharge of a gun from the shore, these feathered beauties all disappeared at once, as if by magic, and in an instant rose to view in different places.

How much they seemed to enjoy that life which was so new to them; for they were the young broods first led forth to sport upon the waters. While the fixed attitude and lofty port of the large birds of prey, who were ranged upon the sandy shelf, formed an inverted picture in the same clear

mirror, and were a pleasing contrast to the playful multitude around. These they never attempted to disturb, well aware of the facility of escape which their old retreats afforded them. Such of my readers as have had patience to follow me to this favorite isle, will be, ere now, as much bewildered as I have often been myself on its luxuriant shores. To return to the southward, on the confines of what might then be called an interminable wild, rose two gently sloping eminences, about half a mile from the shore. From each of these a large brook descended, bending through the plain, and having their course marked by the shades of primeval trees and shrubs left there to shelter the cattle when the

ground was cleared. On these eminences, in the near neighborhood and full view of the mansion at the Flats, were two large and well built dwellings, inhabited by Colonel Schuyler's two younger sons, Peter and Jeremiah. To the eldest was allotted the place inhabited by his father, which, from its lower situation and level surface, was called the Flats. There was a custom prevalent among the new settlers something like that of gavelkind; they made a pretty equal division of lands among their younger sons. The eldest, by preeminence of birth, had a larger share, and generally succeeded to the domain inhabited by his father, with the slaves, cattle, and effects upon it.

This, in the present instance, was the lot of the eldest son of that family whose possessions I have

been describing. His portion of land on the shore of the river was scarcely equal in value to those of his brother, to whose possessions the brooks I have mentioned formed a natural boundary, dividing them from each other, and from his. To him was allotted the costly furniture of the family, of which paintings, plate, and china constituted the valuable part; everything else being merely plain and useful. They had also, a large house in Albany, which they occupied occasionally.

I have neglected to describe in its right place the termination or back ground of the landscape I have such delight in recollecting. There the solemn and interminable forest was varied here and there by rising grounds, near streams where birch and hickory, maple and poplar, cheered the eye with a lighter green, through the prevailing shade of dusky pines. On the border of the wood, where the trees had been thinned for firing, was a broad shrubbery all along, which marked the edges of the wood above the possessions of the brothers as far as it extended.

This was formed of sumac, a shrub with leaves continually changing color through all the varieties from blending green and yellow to orange tawney, and adorned with large lilac-shaped clusters of bright scarlet grains, covered with pungent dust of a sharp flavor, at once saline and acid. This the Indians used as salt to their food, and for the dyeing of different colors. The red glow, which was the

general result of this natural border, had a fine effect, thrown out from the dusky shades which towered behind.

To the northward, a sandy tract, covered with low pines, formed a boundary betwixt the Flats and Stonehook, which lay further up the river.

1 Steenhoek was in front of the plat now occupied by the Arsenal, and the Steenhoek kill is still seen issuing from the government grounds, draining the swamp in the rear.

PH

HILIP SCHUYLER, who on the death of his father, succeeded to the inheritance I have been describing, was a person of a mild, benevolent character, and an excellent understanding, which had received more culture than was usual in that country. But whether he had returned to Europe, for the purpose of acquiring knowledge in the public seminaries there, or had been instructed by any of the French protestants, who were sometimes retained in the principal families for such purposes, I do not exactly know; but am led rather to suppose the latter, from the connection which always subsisted between that class of people and the Schuyler family.

When the intimacy between this gentleman and the subject of these memoirs took place she was a mere child; for the colonel, as he was soon after called, was ten years older than she. This was singular there, where most men married under twenty. But his early years were occupied by momentous concerns; for, by this time, the public safety began to be endangered by the insidious wiles