ZIGZAG journeys are not to my taste, either as matters of personal experience or as the subject-matter of books; but I have taken several of late, passing in the most abrupt manner from an island in the river to the college book-stack.

Buried inches deep in gradually-accumulated soil rest the ruins of an ancient house: buried fathoms deep in the mouldy pages of forgotten books are the records of stirring times, before Philadelphia was, when there were Dutch on the Delaware.

Where I have been paddling in my canoe for many months there is a large island. I have been paddling around this, not over it. Like all the others in the river, this little body of fast land is fighting against two great odds, and slowly wasting away. An occasional freshet dumps a mass of rubbish now and then, but far oftener carries away a goodly slice of some fair field or woodland strip. Certain it is that the tide covers many an acre now of what, even within historic time, was cultivable ground. Huge trees, that within the century crowned a bold headland, have been undermined and swept seaward by the floods. This steady destruction has not in all cases been an entire sweeping away of the island shore, but often of so much earth only as to leave exposed the long-hidden traces of other days. In brief, the island has for ages been a closed cabinet, and now time has rusted its hinges and the floods carried off the door, leaving to the aimless prowler of to-day to rifle the rotten shelves of such treasure as remains. This is how it came about. During a recent ramble I found a yellow brick upon the sand; and, looking farther, another, and curious old red bricks, and bits of roofing tiles, and pipe-stems; scattered everywhere odds and ends that could only have come from some old house near by. But where? It needed but to ask the question to change from aimless rambler to explorer, and then my troubles began. It was not enough to search for the spot whereon had stood the house, for this was soon found; but who lived here; when did he build; when and why did he leave? A hundred questions plagued me at once, and I took refuge in the book-stack.

As far back as 1668, we learn that Peter Jegou purchased a tract of land including this island, and for his own use built a house, which, by the way, was an inn, and the first house of entertainment, or tavern, built on the Delaware. It stood near the mouth of a large creek, and on what is now the main-land, the Jersey shore; while within sight, on the end of the island, was another house, and one most advantageously situated, for it commanded a perfect outlook down the river, which is here fully a mile wide. We will not speculate as to the guests of Jegou's tavern, nor as to who were his neighbors. The whole matter would probably have been irrecoverably lost to history had Peter not gone to law, and left on record that, of this island and the Jersey shore hard by, he was “in Lawfull possession until ye Jeare 1670; att w ch tyme yo r Pit. was plundered by the Indians & by them utterly ruined as is wel knowne to all ye world." This is pleasant reading. Think of being “utterly ruined" for nine years, and then bobbing up serenely in a lawsuit and winning it! But better news awaited me. About the same time the two men living in the island house were murdered. I was delighted, and hurried back to the island. To think of murder and a state of siege and all the wild tumult of midnight surprises having happened so near home! Heretofore the Delaware Indian, except among the mountains and in far later times, has seemed a commonplace creature, that gave way to Dutch, Swedes, and Englishmen without a murmur. Now I know better, and every arrow-point and stone axe is of added interest.

Having gathered the relics that the floods had scattered, I commenced to dig, and soon brought it all to light. But let me not anticipate. I would that some one had written a learned essay on the art of digging. It is something more than mere shovelling of dirt, pitching aside with a spade sand, gravel, and clay. It may mean important discovery at any moment and the bringing again to light of day of long-buried treasure. This is a powerful incentive to dig. The world has had a host of Captain Kidds, and no one will question our right to search for whatsoever they have hidden. Then, too, let it be whispered, there is a supreme delight in digging out of bounds. Of course an archaeologist, historian, or curiosity crank looks upon himself as not amenable to common law, and in his case trespass is not trespass. I speak from experience, governed in all such cases by a juvenile phrase as faulty in grammar as in morals, but very convenient, — finding is keeping.

I stood now on the bank of the river, looking landward. Stood where sturdy Dutch pioneers had passed and repassed many times, and I almost worked myself to the pitch of seeing the well-worn path leading from the dwelling on the high ground to the little wharf. There is almost nothing left now for the imagination to build upon. Here is the same island, but how changed! The same river, but lacking many a feature of its prehistoric days. Here, happily, all trace of human industry is shut out, and we have to do only with what Nature in her varying moods has fashioned. Tall trees, dense underbrush, and that melancholy array of dead summer fruit, blighted leaves, grass, and seed-pods stranded upon the beach. History has it that the Dutch called more than one lonely reach of river shore Verdietige-hoeck, — Doleful Corner. To-day, at least, this was such a one; veritable waste-land and wasting land, too, for the tide is wearing the whole island slowly but surely away. A word here about waste-land. Such is not necessarily barren tracts, cold, gray sand dunes, or forbidding rocks. Nature is often most active where man finds no foothold. This is the wasteland that I have in mind; land that makes it possible for a man to be a naturalist; land where he who loves Nature loves best to linger.

Sitting upon the damp sand, dotted with bits of the old house and pipe-stems, I burrowed into the low bank with a garden-trowel, making little horizontal holes that would have pleased the swallows, saving them half the labor of nest-building. But at last the steel struck a resisting object that was not a stone, but a curious, long, thin brick. This was the outlier of the treasure beyond, and the digging henceforth was a pleasure, notwithstanding the many tree-roots that had enviously wrapped about the one-time belongings of the defunct Dutchman. A part of a wall was finally exposed, and many small, pale-yellow bricks. The larger red ones were generally perfect, but every yellow one was broken. Next came a part of the roof, still intact, three large curved tiles, and beneath them portions of what I took to be a charred beam. Hand-wrought iron spikes were found, all twisted out of shape, the effect of heating when the house was burned. One little fragment of glazed earthenware, being slightly curved, I fancied a bit of a beer-mug; but there was no question about the pipes. Either this old Dutchman was the most inveterate of smokers or he had on hand a stock for trading. Who knows but he had a shop here, just as there was a tavern across the narrow creek, and this pioneer settler bartered not only with the Indians but as well with his fellow-countrymen; for the island was in the then line of travel between the west shore settlements on Delaware Bay and Manhattan Island. There is authority for this, inasmuch as somewhere about 1621 an effort was made by the Dutch “to truck and trade with the natives" living on the shores of the river, and in 1623 an attempt was made to settle on the part of Europeans. This island house is a matter of more than forty years later.

I have said the occupants were murdered. These crimes “were owing to Tashiowycan, who, having a sister dying, expressed great grief for it, and said, ‘The Mannetta hath killed my sister, and I will go kill the Christians ;' and, taking another with him, they together executed the barbarous facts." Then was the island abandoned, and it returned to waste-land. How soon all traces of the ruined house disappeared can scarcely be conjectured, but, doubtless, the Indians took everything of value, and the destruction was complete. But the history of the troublous time was safe. All the world knew about the tragedy, and, without details, George Fox refers to the incident: “On the 10th of 7th month," he wrote, “at night, finding an old house, which the Indians had forced the people to leave, we made a fire and lay there, at the head of Delaware Bay. The next day we swam our horses over a river about a mile wide, at twice, first to an island called Upper Dinidock and then to the main land, having hired Indians to help us over in their canoes." This is a reference to Peter Jegou's tavern which stood within sight of the island house. Perhaps Fox paused to contemplate these ruins. They offered him a text for preaching to the dusky ferry-men that helped him over to the “main" or Pennsylvania shore. It may be the ruins were weed-grown and hidden then; if so, the greater interest to me, for, neglected by Fox, the opportunity comes more than two centuries later to revive the history of a river tragedy.

Whether his countrymen ventured back, or some Indian had the courage to do so, is not on record; but one of the murdered men was buried. His bones — a headless skeleton, indeed — were found near by, so near that he can be said to have been buried in the ruins of his house. Certainly the bones had not been exposed to fire; but where was the head? We know of war-clubs and tomahawks. They are common to all the farm-lands along the Delaware even yet: and was the poor Dutchman's head crushed by the assassin? Gathering up the bones — for what purpose I do not know and whatsoever I could move of bricks and tiles, I sat down, at last, to rest at the foot of an old tree, fancying it, of course, one of the Dutchman's shade-trees, and took in those farewell glances that are ever fullest of meaning. The day was well spent, and that soft south wind, which, according to Roger Williams, was held to be the giver of every good and perfect gift to the Narragansetts, was blessing now the Delaware, as in good old Indian days. A misty veil shut out the busy towns on either shore, but allowed a shadowy view of what yet remains of the ancient forest. No sounds save those of untamed Nature disturbed this remote, forgotten, long-forsaken spot. A fierce hawk screamed, the crow uttered his alarm-cry, and startled fish leaped from the water, scattering a generous gift of gems in the dimmed sunlight. Such sights and sounds the old Dutch settler had often witnessed, and, for the passing moment, I took his place. I had no need to turn and look at the uptorn surface of the river shore, but rebuilt it all on the wide expanse of waters before me. The massive walls of squared oak logs, the huge chimney of red brick without, and lined with smaller yellow ones that made bright the generous fireplace and the great living room. Gleaming through the trees, the bright red tiles of the roof gave to this early home a cheery look, contrasting strongly with the unbroken wilderness that then stretched from the river to the sea.

And, as the sun set, with what a strange cargo did I venture home! A pile of bricks, three precious tiles, a handful of pipe-stems, and, overtopping all, the skull-less skeleton of a murdered man.