href="@public@vhost@g@gutenberg@html@files@24713@[email protected]#SEA_FIGHTS_WITH_A_NOBLER_FOE" class="pginternal" tag="{http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml}a">Sea Fights with a Nobler Foe. The War of 1812

The Story of the Telegraph and the Steamboat. (Period, 1787-1838.)

New Jersey and the Land of Gold. The Conquest of California. (Period, 1816-66.)

THE STORY OF THE DISCOVERY OF SCHEYICHBI.

The North American Indians, the earliest inhabitants of this country of whom we know anything definite, were great story-tellers; and their histories consist entirely of stories handed down from parents to children, or, more likely, from grandparents to grandchildren, for grandfathers and grandmothers are generally more willing to tell stories than fathers or mothers. And so these traditions, probably a good deal brightened by being passed along century after century, came down to the Indians who were first met by white people, and thus we have heard many of them.

The stories told by the Indians inhabiting the country which is now the Middle States, all agree that their remote forefathers came from some region beyond the Mississippi River. Like the traditions of most nations, these go so very far back that they are vague and misty; but, as this gave the Indians a great opportunity for their imaginations, it is not wonderful that they improved it. These Indians believed that in the very earliest stages of their existence they were all animals, and lived in caves under the earth. They were hunters; but their game consisted of mice, and creatures of that sort. One of them accidentally discovered a hole by which he got out on the surface of the ground; and, finding it so exceedingly pleasant, it was not long before the whole of his tribe came out, and began life in the light of day.

It may be supposed that these animals gradually changed to human beings, and built villages, and planted corn; but in one respect they did not change, nor have they changed at this present day. Many of them still call themselves after the names of animals; and now the greater part of the noted Indians of our country have such names as "Sitting Bull," "Black Bear," and "Red Horse." But the stories say that all of the animals did not come out of their underground homes. Among these were the hedgehog and the rabbit; and so some of the tribes will not eat these animals, because in so doing they may be eating their family connections.

Gradually the ancestors of the Indians who told their stories to the first settlers, and who afterwards called themselves the Lenni-Lenape, moved eastward, and after many years they reached the Mississippi River. By this time they had become a powerful body. But in the course of their journeys they discovered that they were not the earliest emigrants in this direction, for they met with a great tribe called the Mengwe, later known as the Iroquois, who had come from a country west of the Mississippi, but farther north than that of our Indians.

We do not hear that these two great tribes of early Indians interfered with each other; but when the Lenni-Lenape investigated the other side of the Mississippi, they found there still another nation, powerful, numerous, and warlike. These were called the Alligewi, from which we have derived the name Allegheny. At first the latter tribe was inclined to allow the Lenape to pass the river; but after a time, finding that the newcomers were so numerous, they fell upon them and drove them back.

But the Indians at that remote period must have been as doggedly determined to move eastward as are our pioneers to move westward; and they were not to be stopped by rivers, mountains, or savage enemies. The Lenape were not strong enough to fight the Alligewi by themselves, and so they formed an alliance with the Mengwe; and these two nations together made war upon the Alligewi, and in the course of time overcame them, and drove them entirely from their country.

After years, or perhaps centuries (for there are no definite statements of time in these Indian traditions), the Mengwe and the Lenape, who had been living together in the country of the Alligewi, separated; and the Mengwe emigrated to the lands near the Great Lakes, while the Lenape slowly continued their progress eastward.

They crossed the Alleghanies, and discovered a great river, which they called Susquehanna, and then they moved on until they came to the Delaware. This grand stream pleased them so much, that they gave it a name of honor, and called it the Lenapewihittuck, or "The River of the Lenape." Then they crossed the river and discovered New Jersey.

Here they found a pleasant climate, plenty of game, and no human inhabitants whatever. They therefore appropriated it as their own, and gave it the name of Scheyichbi; and any one who endeavors to pronounce this name will be likely to feel glad that it was afterwards changed by the white settlers.

Before this first discovery of New Jersey, the Lenni-Lenape had settled themselves in the beautiful and fertile country about the Susquehanna and the west shore of the Delaware, and here established their right to their name, which signifies "original people;" and if their stories are correct, they certainly are the original inhabitants of this region, and they discovered New Jersey from the west, and took rightful possession of it.

It is a law of nations, founded then upon the same principles of justice as it stands upon now, that discovery by a nation, or the agent of a nation, of unknown lands entirely uninhabited, gives the discoverers the right to those lands; and, in accordance with that law, the Lenape became the discoverers and original owners of New Jersey.

We will not now allude to the rights they then acquired to the country which is now Pennsylvania and other States, because we are confining ourselves to what relates to the country of Scheyichbi, the land where their eastward migrations ceased. Now, they could go no farther towards the rising sun, and they were satisfied