Mahicans following on, landed upon the Island in the depth of night, and were completely taken in by the deception. Supposing that the Mohawks were sleeping soundly beneath their blankets, after their fatigue, the Mahicans crept up with the greatest silence, and pouring a heavy fire upon the blankets, rushed upon them with knives and tomahawks in hand, making the air to ring with their yells as they fell to cutting and slashing the blankets and bushes instead of Indians beneath them. Just at the moment of their greatest confusion and exultation, the Mohawks, who had been lying in ambush flat upon the ground at a little distance, poured a murderous fire upon their foes, whose figures were rendered distinctly visible by the light of their fires, and rushing impetuously upon them, killed the greater part and made prisoners of the residue. A treaty was then concluded, by which the Mohawks, were to have the king and the Mahicans were to hold them in reverence, and call them Uncle. Hendrik was the king first named such by the Mohawks, after this decisive victory, "who lived to a great age," says Brown," and was killed at the battle of Lake George under Sir William Johnson."

The boundary line of the Coeymans tract began at a point on the west shore of the Hudson called Sieskasin, described as "opposite the middle of the island called by the Indians Sapanakock." Caniskeck is also the name for a tract in the town of Coeymans about ten miles south of Albany. Coxackie or Kuxakee has had several interpretations. Schoolcraft defines it as "the place of the cut banks," where the current deflected against the western shore had gradually worn away the land. O'Callaghan says that the word is a corruption of the Algonquin Kaaks-aki, from Kaak, a goose, and aki, locality, "the country of the wild goose.' Another interpretation is Cooksockuy, signifying owl-hoot. The most satisfactory explanation will be found perhaps in co, object, and aki, land, the reference being to the clay banks which rise there to the height of 100 feet, and form a conspicuous object in the river scenery. Neweskeke or Naveskeek, about ten miles south of Albany, is described as being a corner or neck of land having a fresh water river running to the east of it.

Coeyman's Hollow was called Achquetuck, and the creek, Oniskethau. Another creek is still known by the Indian name, Habnakrois.

island to Smack's island.

The boundaries extended two days' journey into the interior. Tawalsontha was the Mahican name of the creek now called Norman's kil, in the town of Bethlehem, and Tawassgunshee that of the mound on which Fort Orange was erected. Schoolcraft gives Tawasentha as the orthography of the former term and regards it as signifying "the place of the many dead," adding that the Mohawks once had a village there, and that in excavating the road to Bethlehem an Indian burial ground was opened. But the Mohawks never had a village there, and the interpretation is in apparent violalation of the custom of the Indians in bestowing names. We have yet to find the name of an Indian burial ground, and especially a stream of water and a burial ground bearing the same name.

The name appears on both sides of the river, ante, p. 374.

Schenectady1 is said to signify "beyond the plains." Schoolcraft gives Con-no-harrie-go-harrie as the original name of the site of that city, and says "the name is in allusion to the flood wood on the flats." Another authority gives Oron-nygh-wurriegughre as the name of the region immediately around the city, but it has been very wisely dropped notwithstanding its signification, maize lands. Canastagione, a tract in Albany county, is said to mean the great maize land, from onuste (Mohawk) maize, and couane, great. It is added that Niskayunah, the present name of this tract, is only a variation of Canastagione, and is derived from onatschia another Iroquois word for maize, theo and being dropped. (O'C.)

Saratoga is said to be derived from soragh, salt, and oga, a place, the place of the salt springs. Schoolcraft says the word is from assarat, sparkling waters, and oga, a place, but evidently bases his interpretation on the hypothesis that Saratoga springs are referred to. The name was first applied, however, to the site of the present village of Schuylerville on the Hudson, and in that connection is said to signify swift water. On Sauthier's map the name is given to a lake west of Schuylerville. Gov. Dongan endeavored to reclaim the Mohawk converts from Canada and settle them here in 1687. He writes: "I have done my endeavors and have gone so far in it that I have prevailed with the Indians to consent to come back from Canada on condition that I procure for them a piece of land called Serachtague lying upon Hudson's river about forty miles above Albany, and there furnish them with priests." A fort was subsequently erected there and a settlement formed. In the war of 1745, the fort was destroyed by the French, together

'The Iroquois name for the spot where Albany now stands was Skenectadea. In regard to this and other Iroquois geographical names in that vicinity, Dr. Mitchill, in answer to an inquiry from the Rev. Dr. Miller, in 1810, on information from John Bleecker, for many years an interpreter of the Iroquois, as well as from the Oneida chief, Louis, and other Indians, writes that Canneoganakalonitàde was their name for the Mohawk river; Skenectadèa, the city of Al

bany; Ohnowalagantle, the town of Schenectady; Càhohàtatèa, the north or Hudson river; Tioghsáhronde, the place or places where streams empty themselves. "What their etymologies are," he adds, "I have not been able to ascertain, except as to Skenectadèa, Albany, which signifies the place the natives of the Iroquois arrived at by travelling through the pine trees."—Collections of the New York Historical Society, 1, 43.

with about twenty houses; thirty persons were killed and scalped, and about sixty taken prisoners. The Indians were not occupants of the place at the time of this occurrence. Waterford, Saratoga county, was called Nachtenack, and the island, known as Long Island, near Waterford, Quahemiscos. There is apparently a mixture of the Mabican and Mohawk dialects in some of the names in this section of the state.

Cohoes, a term still preserved in the falls of the Mohawk, was not the name of the falls but of the island below them, and, from its diminutive termal oes, is presumed to mean simply a small island. Regarding co as expressing object, the first syllable may have reference to the falls, in which case the rendering would be, the island at the falls; or applied to the falls, would class them as small compared with Niagara. The term is Mabican, and is applied in another form to a district in New Hampshire, the Coos country. Van der Donck says of the falls, as they appeared in 1656: "The water glides over the falls as smooth as if it ran over an even wall and fell over

the same. The precipice is formed of firm blue rock; near by and below the falls there stand several rocks, which appear splendid in the water rising above it like high turf-heaps, apparently from eight, sixteen, to thirty feet high; very delightful to the eye. The place is well calculated to exalt the fancy of the poets. The ancient fabulous writers would, if they had been here, have exalted those works of nature, by the force of imagination, into the most artful and elegant descriptive illusions. The waters descend rapidly downwards from the falls, over a stony bottom, skipping, foaming and whirling boisterously about the distance of a gun-shot or more."