OLD-TIME  PLEASURE-GARDENS

EVEN in the serene period of the Dutch domi¬
nation of this island, its inhabitants were
wont to betake themselves—in a gentle and semi-
somnolent fashion — to rural joys. At the very
first, while savages still roved the region north of
where Trinity now stands, and were liable to take
scalps, if occasion offered, in the wild woodland
where now is the City Hall Park, the Dutchmen
of Manhattoes discreetly smoked their pipes and
drank their schnapps close under the shelter of
the guns of the Fort: that brave structure which
defied mankind in general, and never was carried
by assault save by escalading squadrons of pigs
and cows in quest of grass. And 'twas a lesson
in peaceful happiness to behold the founders of
this city sitting with a broad firmness—as became
their great natures and the nether configuration
of their substantial bodies—on the benches in the
garden behind Martin Krieger's tavern on the
Bowling Green, or in front of Aunt Metje Wessel's
tavern on the Perel Straat, calmly enjoying the
beauties of nature in the early evening freshness
of those summer days whereon the sun went
down slowly, as though loath to lose sight of
them, more than two centuries and a half ago.
A little later, when Dutch valor had thrust the