16 INDIxVN TRIBES. [Chap. I. 



With all this mental superiority, the arts of life 

 among them had not emerged from their primitive 

 rudeness ; and their coarse pottery, their spear and 

 arrow heads of stone, were in no way superior to 

 those of many other tribes. Their agriculture de- 

 serves a higher praise. In 1696, the invading 

 army of Count Frontenac found the maize fields 

 extending a league and a half or two leagues from 

 their villages ; and, in 1779, the troops of General 

 Sullivan were filled with amazement at their abun- 

 dant stores of corn, beans, and squashes, and at 

 the old apple orchards which grew around their 

 settlements. 



Their dwellings and works of defence were far 

 from contemptible, either in their dimensions or in 

 their structure ; and though by the several attacks 

 of the French, and especially by the invasion of 

 De Nonville, in 1687, and of Frontenac, nine years 

 later, their fortified towns were levelled to the earth, 

 never again to reappear ; yet, in the works of C iam- 

 plain and other early writers we find abundant evi- 

 dence of theii' pristine condition. Along the banks 

 of the Mohawk, among the hills and hollows of 

 Onondaga, in the forests of Oneida and Ca uga, 

 on the romantic shores of Seneca Lake and the 

 rich borders of the Genessee, surrounded by waving 

 maize fields, and encircled from afar by the green 

 margin of the forest, stood the ancient strongholds 

 of the confederacy. The clustering dwellings were 



at the Tuscarora village, near Lewiston, in 1828, is illustrated bj several 

 rude engravings representing the Stone Giants, the Flying Heads, and 

 other traditional monsters. 



