OF THE TOWNS, BUILDINGS AND FORTIFICATIONS OF THE INDIANS.

§ 9. The method of the Indian settlements is altogether by cohabitation, in townships, from fifty to five hundred families in a town, and each of these towns is commonly a kingdom. Sometimes one king has the command of several of these towns, when they happen to be united in his hands by descent or conquest; but in such cases there is always a vicegerent appointed in the dependent town, who is at once governor, judge, chancellor, and has the same power and authority which the king himself has in the town where he resides. This viceroy is obliged to pay his principal some small tribute, as an acknowledgment of his submission, as likewise to follow him to his wars whenever he is required.

§ 10. The manner the Indians have of building their houses is very slight and cheap. When they would erect a wigwam, which is the Indian name for a house, they stick saplings into the ground by one end, and bend the other at the top, fastening them together by strings made of fibrous roots, the rind of trees, or of the green wood of the white oak, which will rive into thongs. The smallest sort of these cabins are conical like a bee-hive; but the larger are built in an oblong form, and both are covered with the bark of trees, which will rive off into great flakes. Their windows are little holes left open for the passage of the light, which in bad weather they stop with shutters of the same bark, opening the leeward windows for air and light. Their chimney, as among the true born Irish, is a little hole on the top of the house, to let out the smoke, having no sort of funnel, or any thing within, to confine the smoke from ranging through the whole roof of the cabin, if the vent will not let it out fast enough. The fire is always made in the middle of the cabin. Their door is a pendent mat, when they are near home; but when they go abroad they barricade it with great logs of wood set against the mat, which are sufficient to keep out wild beasts. There's never more than one room in a house, except in some houses of state, or religion, where the partition is made only by mats and loose poles.

§ 11. Their houses, or cabins, as we call them, are by this ill method of building continually smoky when they have fire in them; but to ease that inconvenience, and to make the smoke less troublesome to their eyes, they generally burn pine or lightwood, (that is, the fat knots of dead pine,) the smoke of which does not offend the eyes, but smuts the skin exceedingly, and is perhaps another occasion of the darkness of their complexion.

§ 12. Their seats, like those in the eastern part of the world, are the ground itself; and as the people of distinction amongst those used carpets, so cleanliness has taught the better sort of these to spread match-coats and mats to sit on.

They take up their lodging in the sides of their cabins upon a couch made of boards, sticks, or reeds, which are raised from the ground upon forks, and covered with mats or skins. Sometimes they lie upon a bear skin, or other thick pelt dressed with the hair on, and laid upon the ground near a fire, covering themselves with their match-coats. In warm weather a single mat is their only bed, and another rolled up their pillow. In their travels, a grass plat under the covert of a shady tree, is all the lodging they require, and is as pleasant and refreshing to them as a down bed and fine Holland sheets are to us.

§ 13. Their fortifications consist only of a palisade, of about ten or twelve feet high; and when they would make themselves very safe, they treble the pale. They often encompass their whole town; but for the most part only their king's houses, and as many others as they judge sufficient to harbor all their people when an enemy comes against them. They never fail to secure within their palisade all their religious relics, and the remains of their princes. Within this inclosure, they likewise take care to have a supply of water, and to make a place for a fire, which they frequently dance round with great solemnity.