built frame cabins and defended their homes with much skill. Their dress
was chiefly made out of deer and elk hide, and relics still in existence
show that they had good ideas of agriculture, tanning, pottery, and even
carving. They were about 12,000 strong, and they appear to have been the
most powerful Indian combination prior to the arrival of the white man.

They were powerful in war as well as comparatively sensible in peace.
Their religion was, at least, consistent, and included a firm belief in
immortality. They maintained what may be termed civilized family
relations, and treated their women with proper respect. Their conduct
towards the white men was much more friendly than might have been
expected, and almost from the first they displayed a conciliatory
attitude, and entered into alliances with the newcomers. They fought
side by side with the New Englanders against the French, and the hostile
Indians who allied with them, and in the year 1710, five of their
sachems or legislators crossed the Atlantic, and were received with
honors by the Queen of England. In diplomacy they did not prove
themselves in the long run as skillful as the newcomers, who by degrees
secured from them the land over which they had previously exercised
sovereign rights.

The survivors of these Indians have not sunk to as low a level as many
other tribes have done. It is not generally known in the West that there
are on the New York reservations, at the present time, more than 5,000
Indians, including about 2,700 survivors of the once great Seneca tribe.

The State of New York is about the same size as the Kingdom of England.
It is the nineteenth State in the Union in point of size, possessing
area of more than 49,000 square miles, of which 1,500 square miles is
covered by water, forming portions of the lakes. Its lake coast line