That they readily granted this request; whereupon the whites took a knife and beginning at one place on this hide cut it up into a rope not thicker than the finger of a little child, so that by the time the hide1 was cut up there was a great heap; that this rope was drawn out to a great distance ami then brought round again, so that the ends might meet; that they carefully avoided its breaking, and that upon the whole it encompassed a large piece of land; that they 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 the whites asked from time to time more land of them, and proceeding higher up the Mohicanituk they believed they would soon want the whole country." The first purchase of Indian lands in what is now New York State was that of Manhattan Island, which was announced in a letter dated November 5, 1626, from P. Schaghen, the member of the States-General of Holland attending the k' Assembly of the XIX." of the West India Company, to his colleagues in The Hague. This letter conveyed the information that a ship had arrived the day before bringing news from the new settlement, and that "They have bought the island Manhattes from the wild men for the value of sixty guilders " $24 of our money. The acquisition of title to the site of what has become the second commercial entrepot of the world for so ridiculous a sum -- which, moreover, was paid not in money but iu goods -- is a familiar theme for moralizing and didactic writers. Yet there can be no question that the value given the savages reasonably corresponded to honorable standards of equivalent recompense.