n the "war-path". They loved to hunt and
fish, as well as to fight, and they fought and murdered as cruelly and
with as little thought as they hunted the wild animals or hooked the
fish. They held talks which were called "councils," and one Indian would
speak for hours, while the others listened in silence. And when they
determined upon any action, they carried it out, without a thought of
how many people were to be killed, or whether they were to be killed
themselves.

[Illustration: Earliest Picture of Manhattan.]

CHAPTER II

THE FIRST TRADERS on the ISLAND

For several years after the return of Hudson, Dutch merchants sent their
ships to the Island of Manhattan, and each ship returned to Holland
laden with costly furs which the Indians had traded for glass beads and
strips of gay cloth. The Indians cared a great deal more for glittering
glass and highly colored rags than they did for furs.

One trader above all others whose name should be remembered, was Adrian
Block. He came in a ship called the Tiger. This ship was anchored in the
bay close by what is now called the Battery, and directly in the course
that the ferry-boats take when they go to Staten Island.

[Illustration: Indians Trading for Furs.]

On a cold night in November it took fire and was burned to the water's
edge. Block and those who were with him would all have been burned to
death had they not been strong and hardy men who were able to swim
ashore in the ice-cold water. Even when they reached the shore they were
not safe, for there were no houses or places of shelter; the winter was
coming on, and the woods were filled with wild beasts. But Block and his
men very soon built houses for themselves; rude and clumsy buildings to
look at, but warm and comfortable within. They were the first houses of
white men on the Island of Manhattan. If you wish to see where they
stood, take a walk down Broadway, and just before you reach the Bowling
Green, on a house which is numbered 41, you will find a tablet of brass
which tells that Block's houses stood on that self-same spot.

As soon as the hard winter was over, Block and his men began to build a
new ship, and before another winter had come they had one larger than
the Tiger. It was the first vessel to be built in the new world, and was
called the Restless.

That same year the Dutch merchants decided that they were giving too
many glass beads for the furs, and that if all the merchants combine