We Tooke Some Of It Into Our
Boats & Went On Our Journey Together.
We came thence to a place like a
bazon, made out of an Isle like a halfe moone.
Here we caught eeles five
fadoms or more deepe in the waiter, seeing cleerly the bottome in abundance
of fishes. We finde there 9 low country Iroquoits in their cabbans that
came back from the warre that was against the nation of the Catts. They had
with them 2 women with a young man of 25 years & a girle of 6 years, all
prisoners. They had a head with short haire of one of that nation, that
uses to have their hair turned up like the prickles of an headg hogge. We
cottaged ourselves by them. Some of them knewed me & made much of mee. They
gave me a guirland of porcelaine & a girdle of goat's haire. They asked
when should I visit my ffriends. I promissed to come there as soone as I
could arrive att the upper village. I gave them my hattchett to give to my
ffather, and 2 dozen of brass rings & 2 shooting-knives for my sisters,
promissing to bring a cover for my mother. They inquired what was it that
made me goe away, and how. I tould them through woods & arrived att the 3
rivers in 12 dayes, and that I souffred much hunger by the way. I would not
tell them that I escaped by reason of the Duch. They called me often Devill
to have undertaken such a task. I resolved to goe along with them. Heere I
found certainty, and not till then, of the 6 ffrenchmen, whom they have
seene seaven dayes before att the coming in of the great Lake D'ontario;
and that undoubtedly the markes we have seene on the trees weare done by
seaven other boats of their owne nation that came backe from the warres in
the north, that mett 2 hurron boats of 8 men, who fought & killed 3
Iroquoits and wounded others. Of the hurrons 6 weare slained, one taken
alive, and the other escaped. Those 2 boats weare going to the ffrench to
live there. That news satisfied much my wild men, and much more I rejoiced
at this. We stayed with them the next day, feasting one another. They cutt
and burned the fingers of those miserable wretches, making them sing while
they plucked out some of their nailes, which done, wee parted well
satisfied for our meeting. From that place we came to lye att the mouth of
a lake in an island where we have had some tokens of our frenchmen by the
impression of their shooes on the sand that was in the island. In that
island our wild men hid 10 caskes of Indian Corne, which did us a
kindnesse, ffor there was no more veneson pye to be gotten.
The next day we make up our bundles in readinesse to wander uppon that
sweet sea, as is the saying of the Iroquoits, who rekens by their daye's
journey.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 69 of 223
Words from 35317 to 35829
of 117345
