The language of this light-hearted and noisy race was Dutch, already
corrupted by English idioms, and occasionally by English words;--a system
of change that has probably given rise to an opinion, among some of the
descendants of the earlier colonists, that the latter tongue is merely a
patois of the former. This opinion, which so much resembles that certain
well-read English scholars entertain of the plagiarisms of the continental
writers, when they first begin to dip into their works, is not strictly
true; since the language of England has probably bestowed as much on the
dialect of which we speak, as it has ever received from the purer sources
of the school of Holland. Here and there, a grave burgher, still in his
night-cap, might be seen with a head thrust out of an upper window,
listening to these barbarisms of speech, and taking note of all the merry
jibes, that flew from mouth to mouth with an indomitable gravity, that no
levity of those beneath could undermine.
As the movement of the ferry-boat was necessarily slow, the Alderman and
his companion were enabled to step into it, before the fasts were thrown
aboard. The periagua, as the craft was called, partook of a European and
an American character. It possessed the length, narrowness, and clean bow,
of the canoe, from which its name was derived, with the flat bottom and
lee-boards of a boat constructed for the shallow waters of the Low
Countries.
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