A deep narrow creek penetrated the island, at this point, for the distance
of a quarter of a mile. Each of its banks had a row of buildings, as the
houses line a canal in the cities of Holland. As the natural course of the
inlet was necessarily respected, the street had taken a curvature not
unlike that of a new moon. The houses were ultra-Dutch, being low,
angular, fastidiously neat, and all erected with their gables to the
street. Each had its ugly and inconvenient entrance, termed a stoop, its
vane or weathercock, its dormer-windows, and its graduated
battlement-walls. Near the apex of one of the latter, a little iron crane
projected into the street. A small boat, of the same metal, swung from its
end,--a sign that the building to which it was appended was the
ferry-house.
An inherent love of artificial and confined navigation had probably
induced the burghers to select this spot, as the place whence so many
craft departed from the town: since, it is certain, that the two rivers
could have furnished divers points more favorable for such an object,
inasmuch as they possess the advantage of wide and unobstructed channels.
Fifty blacks were already in the street, dipping their brooms into the
creek, and flourishing water over the side-walks, and on the fronts of the
low edifices. This light but daily duty was relieved by clamorous
collisions of wit, and by shouts of merriment, in which the whole street
would join, as with one joyous and reckless movement of the spirit.
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