"Like A Fair Naiad Of The Wilderness It
Slumbered Between The Guardian Mountains That
Breathe From Crag And Forest The Stern Poetry Of
War.
But all then was solitude; and the clang
of trumpets, the roar of cannon, and the deadly
crack of the rifle had never as yet awakened
their angry echoes.
Again the canoes were
launched and the wild flotilla glided on its way,
now in the shadow of the heights, now on the
broad expanse, now among the devious
channels of the Narrows, beset with woody islets
where the hot air was redolent of the pine, the
spruce, and the cedar, - till they neared that
tragic shore where, in the following century,
New England rustics battled the soldiers of
Dieskau, where Montcalm planted his batteries,
where the red cross waved so long amid the
smoke, and where, at length, the summer night
was hideous with carnage, and an honored name
was stained with a memory of blood. The
Indians landed at or near the future site of Fort
William Henry, left their canoes, and with their
prisoners began their march for the nearest
Mohawk town."
Father Jogues lived among his captors until
the fall of 1643, when he escaped in a vessel
from the Dutch settlement of Rensselaerswyck
(Albany), to which place the Iroquois had gone
to trade with the inhabitants. He arrived at the
Jesuit college of Rennes, France, in a most
destitute condition, on the 5th of January, 1644,
where he was joyfully received and kindly cared
for.
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