strong and healthy people who clothed themselves in the furs of animals
and made their houses of the trees and vines.

In this year of 1609, these people gathered on the shore of their island
and looked with wonder at the boat, so different from any they had ever
seen, as it was swept before the wind up the river.

The ship was called the Half Moon, and it had come all the way from
Amsterdam, in the Dutch Netherlands. The Netherlands was quite a small
country in the northern part of Europe, not nearly as large as the State
of New York, and was usually called Holland, as Holland was the most
important of its several states. But the Dutch owned other lands than
these. They had islands in the Indian Ocean that were rich in spices of
every sort, and the other European countries needed these spices. These
islands, being quite close to India, were called the East Indies, and
the company of Dutch merchants who did most of the business with them
was called the East India Company. They had many ships, and the Half
Moon was one of them.

It was a long way to the East India Islands from Holland, for in these
days there was no Suez Canal to separate Asia and Africa, and the ships
had to go around Africa by way of the Cape of Good Hope. Besides being a
long distance, it was a dangerous passage; for although from its name
one might take the Cape of Good Hope to be a very pleasant place, the
winds blew there with great force, and the waves rolled so high that
they often dashed the fragile ships to pieces.

So the merchants of Holland, and of other countries for that matter,
were always thinking of a shorter course to the East Indies. They knew
very little of North or South America, and believed that these countries