MAMAKATING
MESSENGER 

West of the Shawangunk mountain, lies a sweet Valley, in the days of our story called, “Mamakating Hollow.” It diverges from the valley of the Hudson River, at AEsopus, and makes its way like the bed of some ancient stream in a southerly direction, until it meets the northern line of New Jersey. It requires but little fancy to conceive that the Hudson river once ploughed its course through this wonderful ravine, and mingled its waters with those of Delaware Bay. Indeed, were the barrier which fills the northern mouth of the Mamakating Hollow, even now removed, it might contend with the Highland channel for the honor of conducting to the ocean the rich billows of our northern Pactolus. And magnificent as is the Highland scenery, the traveler would lose but little in exchanging it for the stern cliffs of the Shawangunk, which, like a sturdy brother, walks beside this beautiful valley, from her northern to her southern limit.

The judicious descendants of Diedrich Knickerbocker were the first to discover and improve this rich alluvial, the natural entrance to which is from AEsopus. Their farms, some twenty years ago, before turnpike roads and a canal intersected those regions, were stretched across the Hollow from the Shawangunk to the corresponding mountain on the west. They were furnished, at either extremity, with woodland and pastures; while the spacious bed between the ridges, varying from two to five miles in width was a carpeted meadow.

The traveler who sets out in the morning from the beautiful village of Bloomlngburgh, to pursue his journey westward, soon finds himself by an easy ascent on the summit of the Shawangunk. Before him will generally be spread an ocean of mist, enveloping and concealing from his view the deep valley and lovely village which lie almost beneath his feet. If he reposes here for a short time, until the vapors are attenuated and broken by the rays of the morning sun he is astonished to see the abyss before him, deepening and opening on his vision. At length, far down in the newly-revealed region, the sharp white spire of a village church is seen, piercing the incumbent cloud: and as the day advances, a village, with its ranges of bright colored houses and animated streets, is revealed to the admiring eye. So strange is the process of its developement; and so much are the houses diminished by the depth of the ravine, that the traveler can scarcely believe he is not beholding the phantoms of fairy land or still ranging in those wonderful regions which are unlocked to the mind’s eye by the wand of the god of dreams.

But as he descends the western declivity of the mountain, the din of real life rises to greet his ear, and he soon penetrates into the midst of the ancient settlements, of which we have before spoken. The Dutch farmers placed their flat houses near the middle of their farms, with little regard to symmetry or taste in their arrangements. Probably at the time many of these houses were erected, no roads piercing farther into the interior had been laid out. At the date of our story, some enterprizing Yankees had cut a straight turnpike road across the valley much to the annoyance of its old fashioned inhabitants; and the wandering tracks by which their farm houses were connected with this profane channel, resembled, in their anguralities and versions, the diagrams of geometry.

Well established in the fattest part of this exuberant valley, lived Hans Swartz, one of the patriarchs of the village. His ancestors had been patriarchs time out of mind, the chimney of his parental mansion contained certain amorphous masses, which tradition designated as the identical bricks brought by his ancestors from Holland. The house of Hans covering an immense area, with its roof descending on each side nearly to the ground, resembling one of those homely implements in New England, yelept a hen-coop; his barracks, made of four perpendicular timbers, surmounted by a square, thatched roof, in which he persisted to store his grain and hay, notwithstanding the modem invention of barns; the diverging corn crib before his door; the pig pens in their neighborhood; the grindstone, aviary and out door oven, scattered around in mockery of symmetry; all bespoke a man of weight and means, according to the estimation of that day.

Hans, however, had become somewhat degenerate. His wife was of mixed blood; and as a punishment for marrying out of caste, she proved to be a terrible thorn in his side. She exercised a pretty decided supremacy in all matters occurring in her personal presence, for Hans was naturally good tempered and yielding, and the habit of obedience had become a second nature.

The most severe test of his docility, was on the occasions of interruptions, from his better part, of certain patriarchal levees, which Hans had, from time immemorial, been accustomed to hold at the door of his mansion. It was his delight, as it had been that of his fathers, to collect around him on a summer’s eve, those, who, like himself, loved the cup and pipe better than hard work. At such times Hans was in his true glory. Seated in a large chair, upon the step of bis door, with the above mentioned instruments of quiet enjoyment in either hand, he discussed at length the hardships of olden times, the decoy of fine horses, the woful laxity of Dutch integrity, and the inroads of the bustling Yankees, to the great edification and enjoyment of his subordinate friends, who, stretched on the seats of turf or slate on either side, quietly enjoyed the patriarch’s discourse and hospitality.

The terrible inroads of Hans’ wife had, however, more than once disturbed this quiet, vegetating circle of worthies ; insomuch that the most urgent entreaties of Hans, backed by the potent arguments of the bowl, could seldom prevail on his faint hearted friends to retain their places after the clock had tolled nine.

One summer’s eve, surrounded by his obsequious neighbors, Hans had descanted with uncommon felicity of utterance on the woful conflicts of their ancestors with the inconveniences of a new settlement, and his enthusiasm, assisted by an extra bowl, had so engrossed all attention that the usual hour of departure had passed unnoticed. The startling eyes and slobbering mouth of all around him, attested the unusual interest aroused by his narration. Mistress Sally Swartz, or “Aunt Sorchie,” as the neighbors familiarly called her, had long since put the last child to bed, mended the last stocking, and covered the few dying coals of a summer fire, and was yawning impatiently in a window seat, for the session of social friends at her door to break up, and restore her good man to his quiet bed. But she waited in vain. To such a pitch were the feelings of all excited by the marvelous re- hersals of Hans, that, heedless of the hour, and of the thickening indignation of ” Aunt Sorchie,” they drew nearer to the speaker, as if chained by fascination. Hans had even risen from his leather bottomed chair, having deposited his pipe on the ground in the fervor of his discourse, and was in the midst of a thrilling narrative of Indians and evil spirits, when Aunt Sorchie, tortured beyond endurance by this unseasonable delay, with angry visage, made her appearance on the threshhold directly behind the elevated form of the speaker. At this alarming apparition, every Dutchman started from his seat, as if the ghost of old Wilhelmus Testy himself had grinned in their faces. Ere Hans had time to shut his capacious mouth, much less to turn a look behind him, the strong hands of Sorchie were closely placed on either side of his head, somewhat more closely than was exactly comfortable for his ears, which organs, notwithstanding their duress, were made to bear the grating sound : ” Hans ! will you never stop short your drunken speeches, and come to bed?” The sapient audience waitc3notforany farther salutation. Each mynheer was under way, as soon as the ponderous nature of his movcables permitted, and ere Hans was fairly veered around, and marched over the threshold, not a mortal was left who had not put at least a fence, a barrack, or corn crib, between himself and the fearful apparition.

The shock was quite too much for the obtuse capacity of Hans ; and whether the grog which had given him such an honied utterance, had also, Samson-like, shaken the pillars of his understanding, or whether the sudden compression of Sorchie’s hands produced a paralysis of his senses, certain it is, that he knew little of what was passing, until he had been safely lodged in bed, and had snored for come two or three hours, like the boiler of a steam boat.

It was near the dead hour of midnight, when horror steals over the firmest breast, that Hans seemed to be disturbed from his broken slumbers by the slight rattling at the door of his apartment. The door slowly opened, and by the dim, flittering light of the embers on the hearth, he seemed clearly to distinguish the outline of a human being on the threshold. It entered and was followed by another and another, each more horrid than his fellow. It was in vain that Hans attempted to scream, or to spring from his recumbent posture. Terror, like a nightmare, bound him down with its indescribable yet agonizing helplessness. The ruffins cautiously approached the bed side. A dagger gleamed in the right hand of the foremost, and the dark outline of a pistol was seen in his left hand. In this moment of dreadful suspense, what would Hans have given to hear even the grating voice of Sorchie! But she was slumbering with hearty breathings by his side nconscious of the approaching danger. AEtna’s self was a light burden on Enceladus, compared with the weight at that moment on the breast of Hans. At length the haggard assassin, motioning to his fellows to halt, approached the bedside, bent slowly over the trembling victim of his wrath, and in a low distinct one, said: “Wretch, I come for thee! Rise, and follow me? As if warned by the last trump, Hans sprang, stark naked upon the floor. The figure pointed to his under garments, and these were as soon in their proper places. There were no suspenders in those days, and the dimensions of this article at that period made ts ready adjustment much less diffiult than the lacing and buttoning, and strapping of degenerate modern pantaloons. The figure then led the way to the door. Jans followed like an automaton, and the two attendant brought up the rear. The night was one of those in which the spirits of a darker world appear to be reveling in the upper regions; burying the moon’s face at intervals in dark clouds and forcing the fleet winds in cross current through the mountains and valleys.

It were tedious to describe the dark ravines and pathless summits traversed in the remainder of the night, by that triad and their obsequious prisoner. Not a word escaped them, as they proceeded on their solemn and silent march. Rivers were crossed on decayed trunks of trees, precipices were passed, and chasms leaped, of such desperate width as to astonish Hans at the sudden agility of his cumbrous limbs. All the horrors of darkness enveloped the forest. Beasts of prey started from their lairs by this unearthly procession, howled along its flanks in fearful anger. A cold clammy sweat ran down the weary limbs of the wretched Dutchman. He toiled and puffed, and struggled, to keep up the rapid gait, and each effort of his exhausted frame seemed to be the last which it was possible to make.

At length streaks of light shot up in the eastern sky, and a ray of hope penetrated the breast of poor Hans, that he might once more see the blessed sun with living eyes. But this hope endured but for a moment. Turning suddenly from their course, the black mouth of an infernal cavern yawned fearfully upon them; a sulphorous blast issued from its jaws; and, immensely far within, flickering flames made visible hideous recesses and hanging precipices! Hans shrunk back in terror. “Enter!” said his guide in a voice of thunder. It was done, and the falling crash of a large rock, balanced above, shut out the miserable mortal from the light and the world forever. Fatigue and terror had done their worst; exhausted nature could no longer endure. Hans sunk upon the ground near the entrance, helpless and immovable. Still his eyes were open, and the dark glimmerings of the vaulted caverns around him added a tenfold horror to his situation. The deamons of the place seemed peeping out upon him from their dark recesses; they began to approach on every side: he saw their glaring eyes, he heard their flapping wings, he felt their hot breath upon his cheek, and their talons in his living flesh! He uttered a piercing shriek. It awakened — not the awful echoes of the cave but the shrill voice of “Aunt Sorchie!” The fiery eyes were here; the talons were her lank fingers in his hair.

“Wake up from your drunken nightmare ? You’ve frighted all the dogs by your screaming!” Hans found himself in bed.

Like Bunyan’s pilgrim, “he awoke and behold it was a dream!”