Scattered references to these native paths in historical records afford the names and

INDIAN NOTES

INDIAN PATHS

directions of only a few of the many which must have existed But within the boundaries of the great city of New York some of its thoroughfares are traversed today by millions, who little comprehend that their lines of travel were decided, and their convenience in distance and grade anticipated, by the patient art of the wild men.

Taking advantage of every favorable contour, avoiding every disadvantageous obstacle, the Indian sought his way through the wild woodlands to or from a desired point, and, followed by succeeding generations, his prehistoric trail became a welldefined and "trodden path," by which name the earliest settlers recognized its developed condition.

Such paths were often deeply sunken by long-continued usage. They were narrow, suited to the characteristic native manner of placing one foot in front of the other, as they traveled in single file. They were traced with the unerring instinct of the woodsman to the points they connected, even though the trail wound around hillsides, digressed to avoid bogs, rivers, and

INDIAN NOTES

INTRODUCTION

tidal inlets, bent to meet the natural crossings of streams, turned around rocks and fallen trees, coming always again to the general line of their course, just as the railroad of today is planned on a larger scale, and by the aid of modern invention, survey, and study.

So it becomes an interesting and instructive thought, as we travel along the regraded thoroughfare, or race over its surface in a roaring train of cars, that beneath its hard, asphalted surface, below the remains of its macadamized predecessor, perhaps under the corduroy logs of an earlier cartway, there may yet be traces of the beaten surface of the narrow footway, hardened by the soft footfalls of the moccasined feet of the Mahican during centuries of travel, long before civilization burst its bounds in overcrowded Europe and set forth to seize the home-land of the Indian.