28 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [BULL, 69 
said they, ‘sleep our fathers, and they can not rest well if they hear 
the plough of the white man above them.’ The stipulations made 
by the purchasers have been religiously observed... In form the 
work was nearly rectangular, having small bastions at the north- 
western and southeastern angles. At a and 6 are small heaps of 
stone, bearing traces of exposure to fire, which are probably the 
remains of forges or fireplaces. The holes formed by the decay of 
the pickets are now about a foot deep... A few paces to the 
northward of the old fort is a low mound with a broad base, and 
undoubtedly of artificial origin. It is now about six feet high, and 
is covered with depressions marking the graves of the dead... 
it is certain that it was extensively used by the Senecas for purposes 
of burial.” 
Probably similar traces of the Mahican villages could be discovered 
if their exact positions were known, although if the sites have been 
cultivated little would remain to indicate the locations of the ancient 
settlements. The habitations of the Seneca and other tribes of the 
Five Nations are of the greatest interest and will be mentioned later. 
Long Island was occupied by several tribes, all rather small. 
The eastern end of the island has been mentioned in connection 
with the expedition of Verrazzano in 1524. An equally valuable 
and interesting description of the habitations on the extreme western 
end of the island a century and a half later is preserved in the journal 
of two Hollanders who visited-the country during the years 1679 
and 1680. (Dankers and Sluyter, (1), pp. 124-125.) While going 
through the woods they met a woman engaged in pounding corn. 
She belonged to the near-by village of Najack, on the site of the 
present Fort Hamilton, at the Narrows, to which place they accom- 
panied her. Leaving the place where she was beating the corn, 
“We went... to her habitation, where we found the whole 
troop together, consisting of seven or eight families, and twenty or 
twenty-two persons, I should think. Their house was low and 
long, about sixty feet long and fourteen or fifteen feet wide. The 
bottom was earth, the sides and roof were made of reed and the bark 
of chestnut trees; the posts, or columns, were limbs of trees stuck in 
the ground, and all fastened together. The top, or ridge of the roof 
was open about half a foot wide, from one end to the other, in order 
to let the smoke escape, in place of a chimney. On the sides, or 
walls, of the house, the roof was so low that you could hardly stand 
under it. The entrance, or doors, which were at both*‘ends, were so 
small and low that they had to stoop and squeeze themselves to 
get through them. The doors were made of reed or flat bark... 
They build their fires in the middle of the floor, according to the 
number of families which live in it.” 
