to the eastward, until they should find a country that pleased them.  The spies which the Lenape had sent forward for the purpose of reconnoitring, had long before their arrival discovered that the country east of the Mississippi was inhabited by a very powerful nation who had many large towns built on the great rivers flowing through their land.  Those people (as I was told) called themselves Talligew or Tallgewi.  Many wonderful things are told of this famous people.  They are said to have been remarkably tall and stout, and there is a tradition that there were giants among them, people of a much larger size than the tallest of the Lenape.  It is related that they had built to themselves regular fortifications or intrenchments, from whence they would sally out, but were generally repulsed.  I have seen many of the fortifications said to have been built by them, two of which, in particular, were remarkable.  One of them was near the mouth of the river Huron, which empties itself into the Lake St. Clair, on the north side of that lake, at the distance of about 20 miles northeast of Detroit.  This spot of ground was, in the year 1776, owned and occupied by a Mr. Tucker.  The other works, properly intrenchments, being walls or banks of earth regularly thrown up, with a deep ditch on the outside, were on the Huron River, east of the Sandusky, about six or eight miles from Lake Erie.  Outside of the gateway of each of these two intrenchments, which lay within a mile of each other, were a number of large flat mounds in which, the Indian pilot said, were buried hundreds of the slain Talligewi, whom I shall hereafter, with Colonel Gibson, call Alligewi.  Of these intrenchments Mr. Abraham Steiner, who was with me at the time when I saw them, gave a very accurate description, which was published at Philadelphia in 1789 or 1790, in some periodical work the name of which I can not at present remember.

When the Lenape arrived on the banks of the Mississippi they sent a message to the Alligewi to request permission to settle themselves in their neighborhood.  This was refused them, but they obtained leave to pass through the country and seek a settlement farther to the eastward.  They accordingly began to cross the Namaesi-Sipu, when the Alligewi, seeing that their numbers were so very great, and in fact they consisted of many thousands, made a furious attack upon those who had crossed, threatening them all with destruction, if they dared to persist in coming over to their side of the river.  Fired at the treachery of these people, and the great loss of men they had sustained, and besides, not being prepared for a conflict, the Lenapi consulted on what was to be done; whether to retreat in the best manner they could, or to try their strength, and let the enemy see that they were not cowards, but men, and too high-minded to suffer themselves to be driven off before they had made a trial of their strength and were convinced that the enemy was too powerful for them.  The Mengwe, who had hitherto been satisfied with being spectators from a distance, offered to join them, on condition that, after conquering the country, they should be entitled to share it with them; their proposal was accepted, and the resolution was taken by the two nations, to conquer or die.