of the Levant the degree of the conqueror's victory over his adversary was measured by the number of sheep and camels he purloined as trophy of war, so among the American Indians the victory of a nation was not infrequently measured by the extent of new hunting-grounds in which it might thereafter roam without challenge. These areas were a nation's pride and came first in the catalogue of its riches and power—and, thus, the Happy Hunting-Ground, of wide extent, rich in game, which no ruthless conqueror could wrest away, was the Indian's conception of a blessed life hereafter.
To these hunting-grounds "well-beaten hunting-paths"[1] were made. Frequently, when the hunting-grounds were at a distance from the home-land, the hunters went to them, if possible, on water-ways, as in the case of the Iroquois who held, for a period, the territory between the Blue Ridge and Great Lakes as their hunting-ground to which they came in great fleets upon the "Oyo" and its northern tributa-
- ↑ Jesuit Relations and Allied Documents, vol. lxiii., p. 169.
