Leading, as they did, to the most desirable residential sites, to the best fishing-places, and the finest huntinggrounds, the trodden paths directed the invaders to the choicest parts of the land which their cupidity sought to acquire, and doubtless facilitated to a marked extent, and also advanced by a considerable period of time, the overrunning of the interior from the seaboard.

Even political and racial events were affected by the Indian paths, since it was by their means that the several European nationalities spread their ownership, and

INDIAN NOTES

INTRODUCTION

were enabled to exercise their influence on the natives, and it was along the Soundshore trails and by the Westchester path that the refugees from religious persecution in New England found their way to New Netherland and obtained a lodgment therein.

In a region possessing such an extent of waterfront as Long Island sound and East river, the bay and its tributary inlets, with such excellent water-highways as the Hudson, the Raritan, and the Passaic, it might seem that the easiest and most popular method of travel would have been by canoe. But while the dugout was doubtless a favored means of transit, it had its limitations, by ice and storm, and by exposure to hostile attack. Thus the waterways are found to have been paralleled by paths of great length and common usage; such as the Shore path extending along the north shore of the Sound, and the northern trail along the east side of the Hudson, and in great part the same trend can be observed in the Minisink trail, which extended from