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[295] and the stockings they had made use of as tobacco-pouches. The whites now put handles (or helves) in the former, and cut trees down before their eyes, and dug the ground, and showed them the use of their stockings. Here–say they—a general laugh ensued among them [the Indians] that they had remained for so long a time ignorant of the use of so valuable implements; and had borne with the weight of such heavy metal hanging to their necks for such a length of time. They took every white man they saw for a Mannitto, yet inferior and attendant to the supreme Mannitto;to wit, to the one which wore the red and laced clothes. Familiarity daily increasing between them and the whites, the latter now proposed to stay with them, asking them only for so much land as the hide of a bullock would cover (or encompass), which hide was brought forward, and spread on the ground before them. That they readily granted this request; whereupon the whites took a knife, and, beginning at one place on this hide, cut it into a rope not thicker than the finger of a little child, so that, by the time this hide was cut up, there was a great heap. That this rope was drawn out to a great distance, and then brought around again, so that both ends might meet. That they carefully avoided its breaking, and that upon the whole it encompassed a large piece of ground. That they [the Indians] were surprised at the superior wit of the whites, but did not wish to contend with them about a little land, as they had enough. That they and the whites lived for a long time contentedly together, although these asked from time to
Boston, 1877. Lee and Shephard.
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