ship-shape,
and Brister-fashion. - Now all that the Doctor has to do, is to clap a couple of
plugs in the holes, and the lad will float in any gale, that blows in these here
hills.«
    »I thank you, sir, for what you have done,« said the youth, with a little
distance: »But here is a man, who will take me under his care, and spare you
all, gentlemen, any further trouble on my account.«
    The whole group turned their heads, in surprise, and beheld, standing at one
of the distant doors of the hall, the person of Indian John.
 

                                  Chapter VII

 »From Susquehanna's utmost springs,
 Where savage tribes pursue their game,
 His blanket tied with yellow strings,
 The shepherd of the forest came.«
                                         Freneau, »The Indian Student,« ll. 1-4.
 
Before the Europeans, or, to use a more significant term, the Christians,
dispossessed the original owners of the soil, all that section of country, which
contains the New-England States, and those of the Middle which lie east of the
mountains, was occupied by two great nations of Indians, from whom had descended
numberless tribes. But, as the original distinctions between these nations, were
marked by a difference in language, as well as by repeated and bloody wars, they
never were known to amalgamate, until after the power and inroads of the whites
had reduced some of the tribes to a state of dependence, that rendered not only
their political, but, considering the wants and habits of a savage, their animal
existence also, extremely precarious.
    These two great divisions consisted, on the one side, of the Five, or, as
they were afterwards called, the Six Nations, and their allies; and, on the
other, of the Lenni Lenape, or Delawares, with the numerous and powerful tribes,
that owned that nation as their Grandfather. The former were generally called,
by the Anglo-Americans, Iroquois, or the Six Nations, and sometimes Mingoes.
Their appellation, among their rivals, seems generally to have been the Mengwe,
or Maqua. They consisted of the tribes, or, as their allies were fond of
asserting, in order to raise their consequence, of the several nations, of the
Mohawks, the Oneidas, the Onondagas, Cayugas, and Senecas; who ranked, in the
confederation, in the order in which they are named. The Tuscaroras were
admitted to this union, near a century after its formation, and thus