University of Virginia Library

Oonder-Hoofden, or the
Undercliff.

ROMANCE OF TRAVEL.

OONDER-HOOFDEN, OR THE UNDERCLIFF.

A TALE OF THE VOYAGE OF HENDRICK HUDSON.

1. CHAP. I.

“It is but an arm of the sea, as I told thee, skipper,”
said John Fleming, the mate of the “Halve-Mane,”
standing ready to jam down the tiller and
bring-to, if his master should agree with him in opinion.

Hudson stood by his steersman, with folded arms,
now looking at the high-water mark on the rocks,
which betrayed a falling tide, now turning his ear
slightly forward to catch the cry of the man who
stood heaving the lead from the larboard bow. The
wind drew lightly across the starboard quarter, and,
with a counter-tide, the little vessel stole on scarce
perceptibly, though her mainsail was kept full—the

slowly passing forest trees on the shore giving the
lie to the merry and gurgling ripple at the prow.

The noble river, or creek, which they had followed
in admiring astonishment for fifty miles, had hitherto
opened fairly and broadly before them, though,
once or twice, its widening and mountain-girt bosom
had deceived the bold navigator into the belief,
that he was entering upon some inland lake. The
wind still blew kindly and steadily from the south-east,
and the sunset of the second day—a spectacle
of tumultuous and gorgeous glory which Hudson
attributed justly to the more violent atmospheric
laws of an unsettled continent—had found them apparently
closed in by impenetrable mountains, and running
immediately on the head shore of an extended
arm of the sea.

“She'll strike before she can follow her helm,”
cried the young sailor in an impatient tone, yet still
with habitual obedience keeping her duly on her
course.

“Port a little!” answered the skipper, a moment
after, as if he had not heard the querulous comment
of his mate.

Fleming's attention was withdrawn an instant by
a low gutteral sound of satisfaction, which reached
his ear as the head of the vessel went round, and,
casting his eye a-mid-ships, he observed the three
Indians who had come off to the Half-Moon in a

canoe, and had been received on board by the master,
standing together in the chains, and looking forward
to the rocks they were approaching with
countenances of the most eager interest.

“Master Hendrick!” he vociferated in the tone of
a man who can contain his anger no longer, “will
you look at these grinning red-devils, who are rejoicing
to see you run so blindly ashore?”

The adventurous little bark was by this time
within a biscuit toss of a rocky point that jutted
forth into the river with the grace of a lady's foot
dallying with the water in her bath; and, beyond
the sedgy bank disappeared in an apparent inlet,
barely deep enough, it seemed to the irritated steersman,
to shelter a canoe.

As the Half-Moon obeyed her last order, and
headed a point more to the west, Hudson strode
forward to the bow, and sprang upon the windlass,
stretching his gaze eagerly into the bosom of the
devils that were now darkening with the heavy shadows
of twilight, though the sky was still gorgeously
purple overhead.

The crew had by this time gathered with unconscious
apprehension at the halyards, ready to let go
at the slightest gesture of the master, but, in the
slow progress of the little bark, the minute or two
which she took to advance beyond the point on
which his eye was fixed, seemed an age of suspense.

The Half-Moon seemed now almost immoveable,
for the current, which convinced Hudson there was
a passage beyond, set her back from the point with
increasing force, and the wind lulled a little with the
sunset. Inch by inch, however she crept on, till at
last the silent skipper sprang from the windlass upon
the bowsprit, and, running out with the agility of a
boy, gave a single glance ahead, and the next moment
had the tiller in his hand, and cried out with a
voice of thunder, “Stand by the halyards! helm's-a
lee!”

In a moment, as if his words had been lightning,
the blocks rattled, the heavy boom swung round like
a willow spray, and the white canvass, after fluttering
an instant in the wind, filled and drew steadily
on the other tack.

Looks of satisfaction were exchanged between
the crew, who expected the next instant an order
to take in the sail and drop anchor—but the master
was at the helm, and to their utter consternation, he
kept her steadily to the wind and drove straight on
—while a gorge, that in the increasing darkness,
seemed the entrance to a cavern, opened its rocky
sides as they advanced.

The apprehensions of the crew were half lost in
their astonishment at the grandeur of the scene.
The cliffs seemed to close up behind them; a mountain,
that reached apparently to the now colourless

clouds, rose up gigantic, in the increasing twilight,
over the prow; on the right, where the water seemed
to bend, a craggy precipice extended its threatening
wall; and in the midst of this round bay, which
seemed to them to be an enclosed lake in the bottom
of an abyss, the wind suddenly took them aback,
the Halve Mane lost her headway, and threatened
to go on the rocks with the current, and audible curses
at his folly reached the ears of the determined
master.

More to divert their attention than with a prognostic
of the direction of the wind, Hudson gave the
order to tack, and, more slowly this time, but still
with sufficient expedition, the movement was executed,
and the flapping sails swung round. The halyards,
were not belayed before the breeze, rushing
down a steep valley on the left, struck full
on the larboard quarter, and, running sharp past
the face of the precipice over the starboard bow,
Hudson pointed out, exultingly, to his astonished
men, the broad waters of the mighty river, extending
far through the gorge beyond—the dim purple
of the lingering day, which had been long lost to the
cavernous and overshadowed pass they had penetrated,
tinting its far bosom like the last faint hue of
the expiring dolphin.

The exulting glow of triumph suffused the face
of the skipper, and relinquishing the tiller once more

to the mortified Fleming, he walked forward to look
out for an anchorage. The Indians, who still stood
in the chains together, and who had continued to
express their satisfaction as the vessel made her way
through the pass, now pointed eagerly to a little
bay on the left, across which a canoe was shooting
like the reflection of a lance in the air, and, the wind
dying momently away, Hudson gave the order to
round to, and dropped his anchor for the night.

In obedience to the politic orders of Hudson the
men were endeavouring, by presents and signs, to
induce the Indians to leave the vessel, and the master
himself stood on the poop with his mate, gazing
back on the wonderful scene they had passed
through.

“This passage,” said Hudson, musingly, “has
been rent open by an earthquake, and the rocks look
still as if they felt the agony of the throe.”

“It is a pity the earthquake did its job so raggedly,
then!” answered his sulky companion, who
had not yet forgiven the mountains for the shame
their zig-zag precipices had put upon his sagacity.

At that instant a sound, like that of a heavy body
sliding into the water, struck the ear of Fleming,
and looking quickly over the stern, he saw one of
the Indians swimming from the vessel with a pillow
in his hand, which he had evidently stolen from the
cabin window. To seize a musket, which lay ready

for attack on the quarter-deck, and fire upon the
poor savage, was the sudden thought and action of a
man on the watch, for a vent to incensed feelings.

The Indian gave a yell which mingled wildly with
the echoes of the report from the reverberating hills,
and springing waist-high out of the water, the gurgling
eddy closed suddenly over his head.

The canoe in which the other savages were
already embarked shot away, like an arrow, to the
shore, and Hudson, grieved and alarmed inexpressibly
at the fool-hardy rashness of his mate, ordered
all hands to arms, and established a double watch
for the night.

Hour after hour, the master and the non-repentant
Fleming paced fore and aft, each in his own
quarter of the vessel, watching the shore and the
dark face of the water with straining eyes: but no
sound came from the low cliff round which the flying
canoe had vanished, and the stars seemed to
wink almost audibly in the dread stillness of nature.
The men alarmed at the evident agitation of Hudson,
who, in these pent-up waters, anticipated a
most effective and speedy revenge from the surrounding
tribes, drowsed not upon their watch, and
the gray light of the morning began to show faintly
over the mountains before the anxious master withdrew
his aching eyes from the still and star
waters.

2. CHAP. II.

Like a web woven of gold by the lightning, the
sun's rays ran in swift threads from summit to summit
of the dark green mountains, and the soft mist
that slept on the breast of the river began to lift like
the slumberous lid from the eye of woman, when
her dream is broken at dawn. Not so poetically
were these daily glories regarded, however, by the
morning watch of the Half-Moon, who, between
the desire to drop asleep with their heads on the
capstan, and the necessity of keeping sharper watch
lest the Indians should come off through the rising
mist, bore the double pains of Tantalus and Sysiphus—ungratified
desire at their lips and threatening
ruin over their heads.

After dividing the watch at the break of day,
Hudson, with the relieved part of his crew, had
gone below, and might have been asleep an hour,
when Fleming suddenly entered the cabin and laid
his hand upon his shoulder. The skipper sprang
from his birth with the habitual readiness of a sea-man,
and followed his mate upon deck, where he
found his men standing to their arms, and watching
an object that, to his first glance, seemed like a canoe
sailing down upon them through the air. The rash
homi cide drew close to Hendrick as he regarded it,

and the chatter of his teeth betrayed that during the
long and anxious watches of the night, his conscience
had not justified him for the hasty death he had
awarded to a fellow creature.

“She but looms through the mist!” said the skipper,
after regarding the advancing object for a
moment. “It is a single canoe, and can scarce
harm us. Let her come alongside!”

The natural explanation of the phenomenon at
once satisfied the crew, who had taken their superstitous
fears rather from Fleming's evident alarm
than from their own want of reflection; but the
guilty man himself still gazed on the advancing
phantom, and when a slight stir of the breeze raised
the mist like the corner of a curtain, and dropped
the canoe plain upon the surface of the river, he
turned gloomily on his heel, and muttered in an
undertone to Hudson, “It brings no good, Skipper
Hendrick!”

Meanwhile the canoe advanced slowly. The
single paddle which propelled her paused before
every turn, and as the mist lifted quite up and showed
a long green line of shore between its shadowy
fringe and the water, an Indian, highly painted, and
more ornamented than any they had hitherto seen,
appeared gazing earnestly at the vessel, and evidently
approaching with fear and caution.

The Half-Moon was heading up the river with

the rising tide, and Hudson walked forward to the
bows to look at the savage more closely. By the
eagle and bear, so richly embroidered in the gay-coloured
quills of the porcupine on his belt of wampum,
he presumed him to be a chief; and glancing
his eye into the canoe, he saw the pillow which had
occasioned the death of the plunderer the night
before, and on it lay two ears of corn, and two
broken arrows. Pausing a moment as he drew
near, the Indian pointed to these signs of peace, and
Hudson, in reply, spread out his open hands and
beckoned him to come on board. In an instant the
slight canoe shot under the starboard bow, and with
a noble confidence which the skipper remarked
upon with admiration, the tall savage sprang upon
the deck and laid the hand of the commander to
his breast.

The noon arrived, hot and sultry, and there was
no likelihood of a wind till sunset. The chief had
been feasted on board, and had shown, in his delight,
the most unequivocal evidence of good feeling; and
even Fleming, at last, who had drank more freely than
usual during the morning, abandoned his suspicion,
and joined in amusing the superb savage who was
their guest. In the course of the forenoon, another
canoe came off, paddled by a single young woman,
whom Fleming, recognised as having accompanied

the plunderers the night before, but in his half-intoxicated
state, it seemed to recall none of his previous
bodings, and to his own surprise, and that of the
crew, she evidently regarded him with particular
favour, and by pertinacious and ingenious signs,
endeavoured to induce him to go ashore with her
in the canoe. The particular character of her face
and form would have given the mate a clue to her
probable motives, had he been less reckless from his
excitement. She was taller than is common for
females of the savage tribes, and her polished limbs,
as gracefully moulded in their dark hues as those of
the mercury of the fountain, combined, with their
slightness, a nerve and steadiness of action which
betrayed strength and resolution of heart and frame.
Her face was highly beautiful, but the voluptuous
fulness of the lips was contradicted by a fierce fire
in her night-dark eyes, and a quickness of the brow
to descend, which told of angry passions habitually
on the alert. It was remarked by Hans Christaern,
one of the crew, that when Fleming left her
for an instant, she abstracted herself from the other
joyous groups, and, with folded arms and looks of
brooding thoughtfulness, stood looking over the stern;
but immediately on his re-appearance, her snowy
teeth became visible between her relaxing lips, and
she resumed her patient gaze upon his countenance,
and her occasional efforts to draw him into the canoe.

Quite regardless of the presence of the woman,
the chief sat apart with Hudson, communicating his
ideas by intelligent signs, and after a while, the skipper
called his mate, and informed him that, as far as
he could understand, the chief wished to give them
a feast on shore. “Arm yourselves well,” said
he, “though I look for no treachery from this noble
pagan; and if chance should put us in danger, we
shall be more than a match for the whole tribe.
Come with me, Fleming,” he continued, after a
pause, “you are too rash with your fire-arms to be
left in command. Man the watch, four of you,
and the rest get into the long-boat. We'll while
away these sluggish hours, though danger is in it.”

The men sprang gaily below for their arms, and
were soon equipped and ready, and the chief, with
an expression of delight, put off in his canoe, followed
more slowly by the heavy long-boat, into which
Hudson, having given particular orders to the watch
to let no savages on board during his absence, was
the last to embark. The woman, whom the chief had
called to him before his departure by the name of
Kihyalee, sped off before in her swift canoe to another
point of the shore, and when Fleming cried out
from the bow of the boat, impatiently motioning her
to follow, she smiled in a manner that sent a momentary
shudder through the veins of the skipper who
chanced to observe the action, and by a circular

movement of her arm conveyed to him that she
should meet him from the other side of the hill. As
they followed the chief, they discoverd the wigwams
of an Indian village behind the rocky point
for which she was making, and understood that the
chief had sent her thither on some errand connected
with his proposed hospitality.

A large square rock, which had the look of having
been hurled with some avalanche from the
mountain, lay in the curve of a small beach of sand,
surrounded by the shallow water, and, on the left of
this, the chief pointed out to the skipper a deeper
channel, hollowed by the entrance of a mountain-torrent
into the river, through which he might bring
his boat to land. At the edge of this torrent's bed,
the scene of the first act of hospitality to our race
upon the Hudson, stands at this day the gate to the
most hospitable mansion on the river, as if the spirit
of the spot had consecrated it to its first association
with the white man.

The chief led the way when the crew had disembarked,
by a path skirting the deep-worn bed of the
torrent, and after an ascent of a few minutes, through
a grove of tall firs, a short turn to the left brought
them upon an open table of land, a hundred and fifty
feet above the river, shut in by a circle of forest-trees,
and frowned over on the east by a tall and bald cliff,
which shot up in a perpendicular line to the height

of three hundred feet. From a cleft in the face of
this precipice a natural spring oozed forth, drawing
a darker line down the sun-parched rock, and feeding
a small stream that found its way to the river on the
northern side of the platform just mentioned, creating
between itself and the deeper torrent to the south,
a sort of highland peninsula, now constituting the
estate of the hospitable gentleman above alluded to.

Hudson looked around him with delight and surprise
when he stood on the highest part of the broad
natural table selected by the chief for his entertainment.
The view north showed a cleft through the
hills, with the river coiled like a lake in its widening
bed, while a blue and wavy line of mountains formed
the far horizon at its back; south, the bold eminences,
between which he had found his adventurous
way, closed in like the hollowed sides of a bright-green
vase, with glimpses of the river lying in its
bottom like crystal; below him descended a sharp
and wooded bank, with the river at its foot, and
directly opposite rose a hill in a magnificent cone
to the very sky, sending its shadow down through
the mirrored water, as if it entered to some inner
world. The excessive lavishness of the foliage
clothed these bold natural features with a grace and
richness altogether captivating to the senses, and
Hudson long stood, gazing around him, believing
that the tales of brighter and happier lands were

truer than he had deemed, and that it was his lucky
destiny to have been the discoverer of a future
Utopia.

A little later, several groups of Indians were seen
advancing from the village, bearing the materials
for a feast, which they deposited under a large tree,
indicated by the chief. It was soon arranged, and
Hudson with his men surrounded the dishes of shell
and wood, one of which, placed in the centre, contained
a roasted dog, half buried in Indian-corn.
While the chief and several of his warriors sat down
in company with the whites, the young men danced
the calumet-dance to the sound of a rude drum,
formed by drawing a skin tightly over a wooden
bowl, and near them, in groups, stood the women
and children of the village, glancing with looks of
curiosity from the feats of the young men to the
unaccustomed faces of the strangers.

Among the women stood Kihyalee, who kept her
large bright eyes fixed almost fiercely upon Fleming
yet when he looked towards her, she smiled and
turned as if she would beckon him away—a bidding
which he tried in vain to obey, under the vigilant
watch of his master.

The feast went on, and the Indians having produced
gourds, filled with a slight intoxicating liquor
made from the corn, Hudson offered to the chief,
some spirits from a bottle which he had entrusted,

to one of the men to wash down the expected roughness
of the savage viands. The bottle passed in
turn to the mate, who was observed to drink freely,
and, a few minutes after, Hudson rising to see more
nearly a trial of skill with the bow and arrow, Fleming
found the desired opportunity, and followed the
tempting Kihyalee into the forest.

The sun began to throw the shadows of the tall
pines in gigantic pinnacles along the ground and the
youths of the friendly tribe, who had entertained the
great navigator, ceased from their dances and feats
of skill, and clustered around the feast-tree. Intending
to get under weigh with the evening breeze and
proceed still farther up the river, Hudson rose to collect
his men, and bid the chief farewell. Taking the
hand of the majestic savage and putting it to his
breast, to express in his own manner the kind feelings
he entertained for him, he turned toward the
path by which he came, and was glancing round at
his men, when Hans Christaern enquired if he had
sent the mate back to the vessel.

“Der teufel, no!” answered the skipper, missing
him for the first time; “has he been long gone?”

“A full hour!” said one of the men.

Hudson put his hand to his head, and remembered
the deep wroug Fleming had done to the tribe.
Retribution, he feared, had over-taken him—but

how was it done so silently? How had the guilty
man been induced to leave his comrades, and accelerate
his doom by his own voluntary act?

The next instant resolved the question. A distant
and prolonged scream, as of a man in mortal agony,
drew all eyes to the summit of the beetling cliff,
which overhung them. On its extremest verge, outlined
distinctly against the sky, stood the tall figure of
Kihyalee, holding from her, yet poised over the precipice,
the writhing form of her victim, while in the
other hand, flashing in the rays of the sun, glittered
the bright hatchet she had plucked from his girdle.
Infuriated at the sight, and suspecting collision on
the part of the chief, Hudson drew his cutlass and
gave the order to stand to arms, but as he turned,
the gigantic savage had drawn an arrow to its head
with incredible force, and though it fell far short of
its mark, there was that in the action and in his look
which, in the passing of a thought, changed the mind
of the skipper. In another instant, the hesitating
arm of the widowed Kihyalee descended, and looseening
her hold upon the relaxed body of her victim.
the doomed mate fell heavily down the face of the
precipice.

The chief turned to Hudson, who stood trembling
and aghast at the awful scene, and plucking the remaining
arrows from his quiver, he broke them and
threw himself on the ground. The tribe gathered

around their chief, Hudson moved his hand to them
in token of forgiveness, and in a melancholy silence
the crew took their way after him to the shore.