s can come up to it.

There are two things in this settlement (which is called Renselaerswick,
as if to say, settlement of Renselaers, who is a rich Amsterdam
merchant)--first, a miserable little fort called Fort Orenge, built
of logs, with four or five pieces of Breteuil cannon, and as many
pedereros. This has been reserved and is maintained by the West India
Company. This fort was formerly on an island in the river; it is now on
the mainland, towards the Hiroquois, a little above the said island.

Secondly, a colony sent here by this Renselaers, who is the patron.
This colony is composed of about a hundred persons, who reside in some
twenty-five or thirty houses built along the river, as each found most
convenient. In the principal house resides the patron's agent; the
minister has his apart, in which service is performed. There is also a
kind of bailiff here, whom they call the seneschal,(1) who administers
justice. All their houses are merely of boards and thatched, with no
mason work except the chimneys. The forest furnishing many large pines,
they make boards by means of their mills, which they have here for the
purpose.

(1) The schout.

They found some pieces of ground all ready, which the savages had
formerly cleared, and in which they sow wheat and oats for beer, and for
their horses, of which they have great numbers. There is little land fit
for tillage, being hemmed in by hills, which are poor soil. This obliges
them to separate, and they already occupy two or three leagues of
country.

Trade is free to all; this gives the Indians all things cheap, each of
the Hollanders outbidding his neighbor, and being satisfied provided he
can gain some little profit.

This settlement is not more than twenty leagues from the
Agniehronons,(1) who can be reached by land or water, as the river on
which the Iroquois lie,(2) falls into that which passes by the Dutch;
but there are many low rapids, and a fall of a short half league, where
the canoe must be carried.

(1) The Mohawks.

(2) Mohawk River.

There are many nations between the two Dutch settlements, which are
about thirty German leagues apart, that is, about fifty or sixty French
leagues.(1) The Wolves, whom the Iroquois call Agotsaganens,(2) are
the nearest to the settlement of Renselaerswick and to Fort Orange. War
breaking out some years ago between the Iroquois and the Wolves, the
Dutch joined the latter against the former; but four men