re fragment by repeated
Iroquois attacks, fled first to the islands of St. Joseph and
Michilimackinac in Lake Huron, and in 1856 to the Isle of Orleans in the
St. Lawrence. But even this location under the guns of their French
allies in Quebec failed to protect them, for the St. Lawrence was a
highway for the war fleets of their implacable foe.[718]

[Sidenote: River and lake islands as robber strongholds.]

A river island not only confers the negative benefit of protection, but
affords a coign of vantage for raids on the surrounding country, being
to some extent proof against punitive attacks. It offers special
facilities for depredations on parties crossing the river; here the
divided current, losing something of its force, is less of an obstacle,
and the island serves as a resting place on the passage. Immunity from
punishment breeds lawlessness. The Ba Toka who, fifty years ago,
inhabited the islands in the great southern bend of the Zambesi,
utilized their location to lure wandering tribes on to their islands,
under the pretext of ferrying them across, and then to rob them, till
Sebituane, the great Makololo chief, cleaned out their fastnesses and
opened the river for trade.[719] The islands in the wide stretches of the
Lualaba River in the Babemba country were described to Livingstone as
harboring a population of marauders and robbers, who felt themselves
safe from attack.[720] The same unenviable reputation attaches to the
Budumas of the Lake Chad islands. A weak, timid, displaced people, they
nevertheless lose no chance of raiding the herds of the Sudanese tribes
inhabiting the shores of the Lake, and carrying off the stolen cattle on
their wretched rafts to their island retreats.[721]

[Sidenote: River peninsulas as protected sites.]

The protection of an island location is almost equalled in the
peninsulas formed by the serpentines or meanders of a river. Hence these
are choice sites for fortress or settlement in primitive communities,
where hostilities are always imminent and rivers the sole means of
communication. The defensive works of the mound-builders in great
numbers occupied such river peninsulas. The neck of the loop was
fortified by a single or double line of ditch and earthen wall,
constructed from bank to bank of the encircling stream.[722] This was
exactly the location of Vesontio, now Besancon, once the ancient
stronghold of the Sequani in eastern Gaul. It was situated in a loop of
the Dubis,