Direct progress toward the west from the stations on the bank of Hudson river along Bergen neck was barred to native travel by the extensive swamp-land that extended around the head of Newark bay for about sixteen miles inland to Hackensack.

It was, perhaps, a common custom to transport goods and travelers by canoe across the Hackensack, which could have been best accomplished at Kearney, but in the absence of the means of water ferriage the traveler was compelled to journey to some point farther inland, where a crossing by wading could be effected. The Hackensack was approachable at Little Ferry, where dry ground extends on both sides to the margin of the river, but as Over peck creek there unites with it, the waters are broad, and only at low water could a crossing have been practicable.

The probability is that the line of travel took a longer route around high and dry ground near Englewood, crossing the nar-

INDIAN NOTES

NEW JERSEY

rowed stream at New Bridge, thence advancing westward toward the great bend of Passaic river which, emerging from the mountain at Great Falls, loops around the city of Paterson and thence descends in a southerly course parallel with Hackensack river.

At modern Passaic the river takes a horseshoe turn around the site of the native station of Acquacanonck (70), the headquarters of the chieftaincy of that name. A short distance north of its junction with Saddle river there is a shallow place used as a ford in Colonial times, which was probably a crossing used by the Indians on their way to the homes of the Acquac anonck along the Passaic valley, and thence through the Short hills to the west.