the discovery, and for some years after occupation * by the Dutch, the Maikans or Mabicans, held twenty-five miles on both sides of the river in the vicinity of Fort Orange ; '

that the

Maquas, or Mohawks, resided in the interior ; that Fort Orange was erected on the lands of the Mahicans, whose castle was on the opposite (east) side of the river. De Laet 1625, that the Maquas held the west shore, and Wassenaar concludes with a similar statement ; but if it is

writes in

considered that the history of the latter was written at different periods extending from 1621 to 1632, his account will be found entirely consistent with itself as well as with De fact's.

South of Fort Orange the classifications of these writers is almost wholly by chieftaincies or cantons. Van der Donck, writing twenty years later, does not appear to have obtained

more definite knowledge than his predecessors.

From information subsequently obtained, however, and es pecially that furnished by treaties and other documentary papers, it would appear that at the time of the discovery the Mahicans

held possession, under sub-tribal organizations, of the east bank

of the river from an undefined point north of Albany to the sea, including Long Island ; that their dominion extended e^st to the Connecticut, where they joined kindred tribes ; that on the

west bank of the Hudson they ran down as far as Catskill, and west to Schenectady ; that they were met on the west by the Mohawks^ and on the south by chieftaincies