shifted their positions, even changing from one group to another. The
Lower towns, inhabited by the Erati, lay in the flat lands of upper
Georgia and South Carolina, and were the least important. The third
group, larger than either of the others and lying among the hills and
mountains between them, consisted of the Middle towns. Its borders were
ill-marked and were ever shifting.

Thus the towns of the Cherokees stretched from the high upland region,
where rise the loftiest mountains of eastern America, to the warm,
level, low country, the land of the cypress and the long-leaved pine.
Each village stood by itself, in some fertile river-bottom, with
around it apple orchards and fields of maize. Like the other southern
Indians, the Cherokees were more industrious than their northern
neighbors, lived by tillage and agriculture as much as by hunting, and
kept horses, hogs, and poultry. The oblong, story-high houses were
made of peeled logs, morticed into each other and plastered with clay;
while the roof was of chestnut bark or of big shingles. Near to each
stood a small cabin, partly dug out of the ground, and in consequence
very warm; to this the inmates retired in winter, for they were
sensitive to cold. In the centre of each village stood the great
council-house or rotunda, capable of containing the whole population;
it was often thirty feet high, and sometimes stood on a raised mound
of earth.[10]

The Cherokees were a bright, intelligent race, better fitted to "follow
the white man's road" than any other Indians. Like their neighbors, they
were exceedingly fond of games of chance and skill, as well as of
athletic sports. One of the most striking of their national amusements
was the kind of ball-play from which we derive the game of lacrosse. The
implements consisted of ball sticks or rackets, two feet long, strung