The journey westward along the Mohawk valley was long and toilsome. They passed the first Mohawk town, Kughuawaga, standing on a hill, encircled by a strong palisade. Here the crowded dwellings of bark were shaped like the arched coverings of huge baggage waggons, and decorated with the tokens or armorial bearings of their owners. Gandagora was situated in a meadow. Tionondogue, the last and strongest of these fortified villages, stood, like the first, on a hill overlooking the river. On through the dense columns of primeval forest they marched, through swamps and brooks and gullies, until they emerged from the shadows of the woods into the broad light of an Indian clearing, where the town of the Oneidas stood. This place contained about one hundred bark dwellings, and numbered twice as many warriors. Still advancing, they came at length to a vast open space where the rugged fields sloped upwards into a broad, low hill crowned with the lodges of Onondaga. In this capital of the Confederacy burned the council fires of five tribes. Here in time of need were gathered their wisest and best to debate questions of war and policy. At a distance of some leagues they had been met by a crowd of the inhabitants, among them a troop of women bringing venison and corn, beaten together in a pulp and boiled, to regale the triumphant warriors. Here they halted and spent the night in songs of victory, mingled with the dismal chants of the prisoners, who were forced to dance for the entertainment of their captors. The next day, as they approached the town, the savage hive sent forth its swarms to meet them, and they were greeted with demonstrations of the wildest joy.