They lighted fires and had a war-dance. Three
Grand Lake Algonquins, forefathers of Pah-pah-tay, saw the dance
from, hiding. They cached their canoe, one of them took a sharp
flint - "we had no knives or axes then" - swam across to the canoes,
and cut a great hole in the bottom of each.
The three then posted themselves at three different points in the
bushes, and began whooping in as many different ways as possible.
The Iroquois, thinking it a great war-party, rushed to their canoes
and pushed off quickly. When they were in deep water the canoes
sank and, as the warriors swam back ashore, the Algonquins killed
them one by one, saving alive only one, whom they maltreated, and
then let go with a supply of food, as a messenger to his people, and
to carry the warning that this would be the fate of every Iroquois
that entered the Algonquin country.
CHAPTER IX
MOSQUITOES
Reference to my Smith Landing Journal for June 17 shows the following:
"The Spring is now on in full flood, the grass is high, the trees
are fully leaved, flowers are blooming, birds are nesting, and the
mosquitoes are a terror to man and beast."
If I were to repeat all the entries in that last key, it would make
dreary and painful reading; I shall rather say the worst right now,
and henceforth avoid the subject.
Every traveller in the country agrees that the mosquitoes are
a frightful curse. Captain Back, in 1833 (Journal, p. 117), said
that the sand-flies and mosquitoes are the worst of the hardships
to which the northern traveller is exposed.
T. Hutchins, over a hundred years ago, said that no one enters the
Barren Grounds in the summer, because no man can stand the stinging
insects. I had read these various statements, but did not grasp the
idea until I was among them. At Smith Landing, June 7, mosquitoes
began to be troublesome, quite as numerous as in the worst part of
the New Jersey marshes. An estimate of those on the mosquito bar
over my bed, showed 900 to 1,000 trying to get at me; day and night,
without change, the air was ringing with their hum.
This was early in the season. On July 9, on Nyarling River, they
were much worse, and my entry was as follows:
"'On the back of Billy's coat, as he sat paddling before me, I
counted a round 400 mosquitoes boring away; about as many were on
the garments of his head and neck, a much less number on his arms
and legs. The air about was thick with them; at least as many
more, fully 1,000, singing and stinging and filling the air with
a droning hum. The rest of us were equally pestered.
