To Subscribers in Arrears.

SUBSCRIBERS who are in arrears will please take notice that the recent change in the proprietorship of this Magazine renders it of the utmost importance that all the outstanding claims should be liquidated as early as possible. The business of dunning is equally unpleasant to all parties, and we trust this notice will make all further and more direct application for the small amounts due from each, wholly unnecessary. Please remit by mail to

S. HUESTON,

139 Nassau-st.

Entered, according to the act of Congress, in the year 1849,

BY SAMUEL HUESTON,

In the Clerk's office of the District Court of the Southern District of New-York.

'INDEED, I have heard many stranger stories than this of RIP VAN WINKLE in the villages along the Hudson, all of which were too well authenticated to admit of a doubt.'

PART FIRST.

DIEDRICH KNICKERBOCKER.

Ir may seem to you, much esteemed reader! to evince great temerity on my part so far to disregard the fashion of the times as to relate in good faith a story such as that which I am now about to tell; but truth is always venerable, and the memories of early days are the relics that amuse the evening of life, as high expectations and schemes of ambition awaken the joys of its morning. I therefore crave your patient attention while I shall rehearse these veritable details.

On the eastern side of the Hudson river, immediately below the Highlands, lies a small sequestered bay, locked in the embraces of surrounding hills and hidden from the view of the thousands who travel upon that noble thoroughfare. The history of that inland water is unwritten, nor is the place laid down upon the maps, nor named in the guide-books; and of course it is little known beyond its own neighborhood. But though unknown to fame, it is not destitute of deeply interesting local traditions. It is said to have been discovered by the famous Hendrick Hudson, who when first ascending the river, in search of the north west passage, entered this bay, mistaking its mouth for the main channel; and afterward it became the winter quarters of another aquatic adventurer, who coming hither rather late in the season was blockaded by ice; for which cause the principal stream that here discharges its waters, as well as a neigh. boring village, has since been named Peek's Kill.

I would fain describe this quiet retreat from the splash of paddle

wheels and the din of commerce in the words of the great Roman poets, but I cannot; for its entrance is not guarded by 'two craggy rocks,' but by two headlands, one of sand and the other of mingled earth and lumps of granite. Nor are there within 'seats of living stones,' though there are sometimes living things sitting upon stones; and if it is not 'the abode of the nymphs,' it has been their occasional resort, as I can myself testify. If the reader would have a correct notion of the topographical configuration of the place, let him imagine himself passing up the narrow entrance to the bay, and I will tell him what he would be able to see. Before him would lie a fine sheet of water, stretching out to the north and east, nearly a mile in extent, widening as it recedes, and indented at the extremity by a gently sloping woodland; all of which give to the bay a triangular, or rather deltoid figure. On both sides of the projecting woodland, considerable streams from the mountains are emptied. On all sides the land rises from the water's edge, sometimes by a gentler slope, and sometimes more precipitately, and the surrounding hills, being still clothed in their primeval forests, give to the whole scene an air of wildness not often equalled in an old settled region of country.

I have never heard that this place was ever visited by a poet. I presume it never has been, else its beauties would have been celebrated in immortal song, and would not now need the poor tribute of my pen to make them known, and the reader's imagination should then have glowed with the image that I vainly endeavor to exhibit to his understanding. A poet, I fully believe, would pronounce the place romantic. However that might be, I can only state plain matters of fact, and then each one can form his own conclusions. I have here seen old trees standing upon the verge of beetling cliffs, stretching their naked arms over the depths beneath them, like giants, 'to sentinel enchanted land.' When autumn's drenching rains have fallen, I have seen their weather-beaten trunks lighted up by phos phorescence, gleaming like spectral beacons upon the darkness of midnight. I have heard the hoarse cawing of crows, the cry of the fish-hawk, and the fierce scream of the eagle along these hill-sides, and I have seen the graceful skiff and the lazy canoe floating upon the placid waters, which seemed all unaware of the bustle of the busy world.

But whether the place is romantic or tame is nothing to my purpose, which is simply to relate the traditions of this quiet valley; and I give the pledge of an unimpeached chronicler to tell nothing as truth that I have not received from the most authentic sources. It will be readily believed that the simple aborigines regarded this place with a deep religious awe, and always muttered prayers to their Manitous as they passed by this way, although we have no direct evidence that such was the fact. But when the red men gave place to foreign adventurers, under the patroon Van Kortlandt, the passersby became accustomed to hasten their gait mechanically, and unwittingly to gaze about them, as if apprehensive of some unseen danger. Presently all who considered unbelief in apparitions only a disguised form of Atheism, chose to pass that way by day-light, and

with company, rather than alone after nightfall. Why it was so, I do not pretend to determine; but at length the opinion became established among the people that the place was frequented by unearthly visitants.

Among the traditions that enjoy prescriptive credit among the people of this vicinity is the following:

While the province of New-York was in a state of anarchy, and a faction in the southern portion was waging war with the loyal and quiet people of Albany, the city of New-York became the rendezvous of numerous piratical_adventurers, who infested all parts of the maritime world. At length, to suppress these bucaniers, a wellmanned war-vessel was sent out under the command of the famous Captain Kidd, who himself became a chief among pirates. A pirate's difficulties are not terminated when he gains the shore with his ill-gotten treasures, and this was proved by those of that period. To find a safe deposite for their wealth was often no easy task; and this secluded spot is said to have been chosen for that purpose, and some contend that it was the favorite place de cacher of Kidd himself; a claim as well authenticated as those in favor of Coney Island, Montauk Point, Nantucket, and a dozen other places. The precise place of deposite was not certainly known, but the most general opinion fixed it somewhere on the tongue of land between the two creeks at the head of the bay, at low-water mark; but some said it was taken back to a considerable distance from the shore and there buried, and others that it was sunken in deep water, at several yards' distance from shore. But all agree in acknowledging that the treasure was committed to the custody of the Prince of Darkness, to be delivered up only when redeemed by an offering of the same kind with that by which it was committed to him. What that offering was we shall presently have occasion to notice.

It would be a tedious and thankless task to relate one-half of the many tales of strange doings by strange agents in this wonderful valley. There were torches borne by unseen hands along the surface of the water; voices were heard among inaccessible cliffs of the mountain, and groans would sometimes issue from the earth, when heavy footsteps fell upon it. These things occurred frequently, and attracted but little notice. True, even then, some were found to talk of will-with-a-wisp, of mountain echoes, and of sounds returned by subterranean caverns along projecting rocks. But it is useless to waste arguments upon determined skeptics. A still more fearful apparition was occasionally seen. At the approach of evening, when Anthony's Nose cast its lengthened shadow across the valley, and early darkness gathered upon the waters, a human figure, erect and stately, but without a head, would issue from the foot of the mountain, and walking upon the waters, advance with steady steps toward the upper part of the bay. This sight was seen by so many different individuals, and on so many occasions, that skepticism itself would have been shamed into silence, had not some one contrived to make it appear that a person walking upon the headland at the lower end of the bay, at that hour, would cast a shadow upon the water, which

the combined agencies of darkness and fear might very readily transform into a headless spectre. Thus the skeptics found new cause to doubt, as doubt they always will; but most people chose to believe the evidences of their own senses and the scarcely less indubitable evidence of unimpeachable testimony.

In process of time the dark forests that had covered the region round about yielded to the axe of the woodman. The Mohegans that had hunted among these hills and fished in these waters were replaced by sturdy burghers from the father land. At length the patroon, crowned with civic honors, came to dwell among his tenantry, and enjoy the otium cum dignitate of a green old age; and fixing his mansion not far from the place I have been describing, which he presumed would be his last earthly resting place, with classical propriety he called the place And-per-se. The presence of such neighbors might have been expected to route the elfin band that had haunted this dell, as they are known to have a special dislike to extreme civilization. But in this case their local attachments were too strong to permit them to be readily moved: they still went abroad and were often seen. Nothing is more reasonable than that those who believed these things should, with that genuine philosophy that commonly accompanies rational credence, inquire among themselves what they should signify; and finally it was agreed by a kind of tacit consent that the headless apparition was the ghost of the victim slain by the pirates, and buried, after an infernal consecration, with the money. His appearance without a head was thought to indicate the manner of his death; that he had been decapitated and then buried with the unholy treasure, that both should remain there together till redeemed by another offering of the same kind. The point toward which he directed his steps seemed to indicate the place where the treasure lay, whither the pensive ghost was then repairing to hold his nightly vigils! about the unhonored remains of his earthly habitation. But who could have thought himself richer had he in this way discovered the precise locality of the hidden gold, since it could be obtained only at such a price? No one, thought the good people of And-per-se, and they acted agreeably to their sentiments. Few hesitated to believe that great treasures were there concealed, but no one ventured upon the fearful task of getting them. In this condition matters rested during many succeeding years.

In a land where change and improvement are convertible terms, nothing can be accounted to be finally settled. So the time at length came when this sequestered glen, which seemed designed by nature to be a retreat for the inmates of the forest, flood and marsh, was to be laid open to the idle gaze and careless tread of the traveller. The marshes that bordered the estuaries of the mountain's streams had from time immemorable borne their annual growth of cat-tails and bulrushes; had been the summer roosts of myriads of black-birds at night, and the orchestra of thousands of frogs by day. Often when straying that way at the approach of evening have I seen swarms of chirping birds settling among the reeds, while here and there, mounted upon whatever rose above the water's edge and presented an eli