These were apparently to shelter a sort of forum, and likewise to supplement the school-chapel in warm weather.

A few English-built houses were raised; but the Indians found them expensive and troublesome, and preferred the bark wigwams on improved principles.
The spot was secured to the Indians by the Council of Government, acting under the Commonwealth at home; but the right of local self-government was vested in each township; and Eliot, as the guide of his new settlers, could lead them to what he believed to be a truly scriptural code, such as he longed to see prevail in his native land.

"Oh!" he exclaimed, "the blessed day in England, when the Word of God shall be their Magna Carta and chief law book, and all lawyers must be divines to study the Scripture." His commencement in carrying out this system was to preach Jethro's advice to Moses, and thence deduce that the Indians should divide themselves into hundreds and into tens, and elect rulers for each division, each tithing man being responsible for the ten under him, each chief of a hundred for the ten tithings.

This was done on the 6th of August, 1651; and Eliot declared that it seemed to him as if he beheld the scattered bones he had spoken of in his first sermon to the Indians, come bone to bone, and a civil political life begin.

His hundreds and tithings were as much suggested by the traditional arrangements of King Alfred as by those of Moses in the wilderness; and his next step was, in like manner, partly founded on Scripture, partly on English history,--namely, the binding his Indians by a solemn covenant to serve the Lord, and ratifying it on a fast-day.