The climate of the country was a diversified one. While in the mountain regions the winters were severe, the eastern slopes toward the Atlantic Ocean, as well as those in the northwest toward the Ohio River and Lake Erie, enjoyed a temperate climate with often great heat in the summer. In these regions the soil was rich and fruitful, promising bountiful returns to the settler after he had once succeeded in clearing the land and making room for the plough. The forests, almost impenetrable in places with masses of sumach bushes and climbing vines, furnished almost every kind of wood already known to the English colonists: cedar, cypress, pine, and sycamore, as well as the full-blooming tulip tree, which flourished in sheltered spots. Game of all sorts abounded and the streams were full of fish. The most delicious grapes and peaches, chestnuts and mulberries grew wild in protected places, and flowers of tropical gorgeousness greeted the eyes of astonished settlers. The gold and silver of which King Charles had been so careful to reserve a share were not found in the province, but there was plenty of iron and an inexhaustible supply of the finest coal. Also there were valuable salt springs, as well as those useful materials, lime, slate, and building stone. In short, it was a country well fitted to supply every need of the settler and offering magnificent prospects for the future. To be sure, it was inhabited by several tribes of Indians, chief of which were the Lenni Lennapes in the southern part and the Iroquois in the northern, but if they were disposed at first to regard with suspicion this invasion of their domains, they soon found the newcomers fair and honest in their dealings with them and willing to pay for the right to settle there, like the New Jersey colonists. Indeed these semi-savage natives seemed to place little value on the permanent possession of the land over which they claimed sovereignty. They had no fixed abiding place, but roamed about at will, settling down for a time where the hunting was especially good or the streams promised to fill their nets with fish. So long as they were free to hunt and fish as they chose and their women had a small piece of open ground in which to prepare the maize cakes that served them for bread, no hostile attacks were to be feared from them.