From merry mock-bird's song, or hum of men;
While hearkening, fearing naught their revelry,
The wild deer arched his neck from glades, and then,
Unhunted, sought his woods and wilderness again." *
Wyoming, in the Delaware language, signifies "large plains." By what particular Indian nation or tribe it was first settled is not certainly known, but it is probable that the Delawares held dominion there long before the powerful confederacy of the Five Nations, by whom they were subjugated, was formed. The tribes known as the Wyoming Indians, unto whom Zinzendorf and his Moravian brethren preached the Gospel, and who occupied the plains when the white settlers from Connecticut first went there, were of the Seneca and
* Miner's History of Wyoming, preliminary chapter, p. xiv.
** Gertrude of Wyoming. This beautiful poem is full of errors of every kind. The "lakes," the "lia mingo," and the "mock bird" are all strangers to Wyoming; and the historical allusions in the poem are quite as much strangers to truth. But it is a charming poem, and hypercriticism may conscientiously pass by and leave its beauties untouched.
Count Zinzendorf.—His Visit to Wyoming.—Jealousy of the Indians.—Attempt to murder him.—Providential Circumstance
Oneida nations, connected "by intermarriage with the Mingoes, and the subjugated Leni-Lenapes, or Delawares. As it is not my province to unravel Indian history, we will pass to a brief consideration of the white settlements there.