The restricted hunting area and the rather limited cultivable lands in its vicinity would indicate that Werpoes probably comprised fewer lodges than Snakapins, on Clasons point, in which more than sixty pits discovered may be taken to have marked the sites of some forty lodges, housing a population which may be assumed to have been about three hundred. As the needs of a group of even half that number involved considerable cultivation of cereals, we may assume that any suitable ground nearby would

INDIAN NOTES

MANHATTAN

have been cleared and planted. The area of City Hall Park would seem to have been naturally and conveniently suited to such a purpose.

The land north of the vale which was occupied by the lake was even better suited to such a purpose, and the tract extending above Worth street west of the Bowery, which was that described in 1651 as "the land called Werpoes," and was directly opposite the village-site across the pond, may have been the principal planting-ground that supported the village people.

Access to this favored village-site was possible from two directions. It has been noted that the line of lower Broadway, which below Park Row is reasonably assumed to have been the successor of a native path, is directed toward the rear of the village at Duane street. By such a route the inhabitants could have made their way directly to the extreme end of their island home.

A path undoubtedly led, by the easiest grade and as directly as possible, to East