out on 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 combined into one company they might not have to give so many.  So they did combine, and called themselves the United New Netherland Company.  It was in this way that the name New Netherland first appeared.

When the first ships of the new company reached the island, a house was built for the use of the fur-traders, just south of where the Bowling Green Park is.  This structure was called Fort Manhattan.  It was of wood, and did not take long to build because the traders did not intend to live in it a great while.  They felt quite sure that all the furs would be collected in a few years, and that then the island would be abandoned.  No one thought at that time that the little wooden stockade was the commencement of a great city.