They do not deserve the appellation of savages any more than kindred terms might be applied to their white successors. " Bury me with my fathers " was the last plea of the red man. Not until they had listened to the teaching of the whites did they view death with terror, or life as anything but a blessing. In ancient times they had a beautiful custom of freeing a captured bird over the grave on the evening of burial, to bear away the spirit to the happy home beyond the setting sun. The following motto shows that hospitality was the prevailing characteristic : " If a stranger wanders about your abode, welcome him to your home, be hospitable toward him, speak to him with kind words, and forget not to always mention the Great Spirit." From a speculative point of view the institutions of the Iroquois assume an interesting aspect. Would they naturally have emancipated the people from their strange infatuation for a hunter life? It can not be denied that there are some grounds for beHef that their institutions would have eventually improved into an advanced form of civilization. The Iroquois manifested sufficient intelligence to promise a high degree of improvement had it been directed into right pursuits, although centuries of time might have been required to effect the change. But these institutions have a present value irrespective of what they might have become. Let us render ^ardy justice by preserving, as far as possible, their names, deeds and customs, and their institutions. We should not tread ignorantly upon those extinguished council fires, whose light in the days of original occupation was visible