1645-48.1 IROQUOIS AND HURON. 337 



quin allies, — if the understanding between the Hu- 

 rons and these incoherent hordes can be called an 

 alliance. United, they far outnumbered the Iro- 

 quois. Indeed, the Hurons alone were not much 

 inferior in force ; for, by the largest estimates, the 

 strength of the five Iroquois nations must now 

 have been considerably less than three thousand 

 warriors. Their true superiority was a moral one. 

 They were in one of those transports of pride, 

 self-confidence, and rage for ascendency, which, 

 in a savage people, marks an era of conquest. 

 With all the defects of their organization, it was 

 far better than that of their neighbors. There 

 were bickerings, jealousies, plottings and counter- 

 plottings, separate wars and separate treaties, among 

 the fiYe members of the league ; yet nothing could 

 sunder them. The bonds that united them were 

 like cords of India-rubber : they would stretch, and 

 the parts would be seemingly disjoined, only to 

 return to their old union with the recoil. Such 

 was the elastic strength of those relations of clan- 

 ship which were the life of the league.^ 



The first meeting of white men with the Hurons 

 found them at blows with the Iroquois ; and from 

 that time forward, the war raged with increasing 

 fury. Small scalping-parties infested the Huron 

 forests, killmg squaws in the cornfields, or entering 

 villages at midnight to tomahawk their sleeping in- 

 habitants. Often, too, invasions were made in force. 

 Sometimes towns were set upon and burned, and 

 sometimes there were deadly conflicts in the depths 



1 See ante, Introduction. 

 29 



