It was not long before this valley which leads to the west was found, and by a real Dutchman. Only five years after Hudson’s voyage Dutch traders built a fort near the spot where Albany now stands. Shortly afterwards, in 1624, the first settlers came and founded Fort Orange, which is now Albany. Arent Van Curler came over from Holland in 1630 and made his home near Fort Orange. He was an able man and became friendly with the Indians. They called him “Brother Corlear” and spoke of him as their “good friend.” A few years ago a diary kept by Van Curler was found in an old Dutch garret, where it had lain for two hundred and sixty years. It told the story of a journey that he made in 1634, only four years after he came to America. Setting out on December 11, he traveled up the valley of the Mohawk until he reached the home of the Oneida Indians in central New York. He stayed with them nearly two weeks, and then returned to Fort Orange, where he arrived on January 19. This is the earliest record of a white man’s journey through a region which now contains large towns and is traversed by many railway trains every day in the year. No one knows how long there had been Indians and Indian trails in the Mohawk valley. These trails Van Curler followed, often coming upon some of the red men themselves, and visiting them in a friendly way. They, as well as the white settlers who followed them, chose the flat, rich lands along the river, for here it was easy to beat a path, and with their bark canoes they could travel and fish. The Indians entertained Van Curler with baked pumpkins, turkey, bear meat, and venison. As the turkey is an American bird, we may be sure that it was new to the Dutch explorer. These Indians, with whom Van Curler and all the New York colonists had much to do, were of several tribes,--the Mohawks, Oneidas, Onondagas, Cayugas, and Senecas. All together they were known as the Iroquois (ĭr-ṓ-kwoi´), or Iroquois Nation, a kind of confederation which met in council and went forth together to war. They called their five-fold league The Long House, from the style of dwelling which was common among them,--a long house in which as many as twenty families sometimes lived. The Iroquois built villages, cultivated plots of land, and sometimes planted apple orchards. They were often eloquent orators and always fierce fighters. Among the surrounding tribes they were greatly feared. They sailed on lake Ontario and lake Erie in their birch-bark canoes, and they followed the trails far eastward down the Mohawk valley. Before the white men came these fierce warriors occasionally invaded New England, to the terror of the weaker tribes. Sometimes they followed up their conquests by exacting a tribute of wampum. After Fort Orange was founded they went there with their packs of beaver skins and other furs to trade for clothes and trinkets.