The Indian women, whom no idea of honor compels to wear an iron mask, were far from emulating the frigid aspect of their lords. All day they ran wailing through the camp; and, when night came, the hills and woods resounded with their dreary lamentations.1

The word prisoner, as applied to captives taken by the Indians, is a misnomer, and conveys a wholly false impression of their situation and treatment. When the vengeance of the conquerors is sated, when they have shot, stabbed, burned, or beaten to death, enough to satisfy the shades of their departed relatives, they usually treat those who survive their wrath with moderation and humanity, often adopting them to supply the place of lost brothers, husbands, or children, whose names are given to the successors thus substituted in their place. By a formal ceremony, the white blood is washed from their veins, and they are regarded thenceforth as members of the tribe, faring equally with the rest in prosperity or adversity, in famine or abundance. When children are adopted in this manner by Indian women, they nurture them with the same tenderness and indulgence which they extend, in a remarkable degree, to their own offspring; and such young women as will

1 The outcries of the squaws, on such occasions, would put to shame an Irish death-howl. The writer was once attached to a large band of Indians, who, being on the march, arrived, a little after nightfall, at a spot where, not long before, a party of their young men had been killed by the enemy. The women instantly raised a most astounding clamor, some two hundred voices joining in a discord as wild and dismal as the shrieking of the damned in Dante's

Inferno; while some of the chief mourners gashed their bodies and limbs with knives, uttering, meanwhile, most piteous lamentations. A few days later, returning to the same encampment after darkness had closed in, a strange and startling effect was produced by the prolonged wailings of several women, who were pacing the neighboring hills, lamenting the death of a child, killed by the bite of a rattlesnake.

not marry an Indian husband are treated with a singular forbearance, in which superstition, natural temperament, and a sense of right and justice may all claim a share. The captive, unless he excites suspicion by his conduct, or exhibits peculiar contumacy, is left with no other restraint than his own free will. The warrior who captured him, or to whom he was assigned in the division of the spoil, sometimes claims, it is true, a certain right of property in him, to the exclusion of others; but this claim is soon forgotten, and seldom exercised to the inconvenience of the captive, who has no other prison than the earth, the air, and the forest.1 Five hundred miles of wilderness, beset with difficulty and danger, are the sole bars to his escape, should he desire to effect it; but, strange as it may appear, this wish is apt to expire in his heart, and he often remains to the end of his life a contented denizen of the woods.

Among the captives brought in for delivery were some bound fast to prevent their escape; and many others, who, amid the general tumult of joy and sorrow, sat sullen and scowling, angry that they were forced to abandon the wild license of the forest for the irksome restraints of society. Thus, to look back with a fond longing to inhospitable deserts, where men, beasts, and Nature herself, seem arrayed in arms, and where ease, security, and all that civilization reckons among the goods of life, are alike cut off, may appear to argue some strange perversity or moral

The captives among the Shawanoes of the Scioto had most of them been recently taken; and only a small part had gone through the ceremony of adoption. Hence it was that the warriors, in their desperation, formed the design of putting them to

death, fearing that, in the attack which they meditated, the captives would naturally take part with their countrymen.

2 Hutchins, Account of Bouquet's Expedition, 29.

malformation. Yet such has been the experience of many a sound and healthful mind. To him who has once tasted the reckless independence, the haughty self-reliance, the sense of irresponsible freedom, which the forest life engenders, civilization thenceforth seems flat and stale. Its pleasures are insipid, its pursuits wearisome, its conventionalities, duties, and mutual dependence alike tedious and disgusting. The entrapped wanderer grows fierce and restless, and pants for breathing-room. His path, it

is true, was choked with difficulties, but his body and soul were hardened to meet them; it was beset with dangers, but these were the very spice of his life, gladdening his heart with exulting self-confidence, and sending the blood through his veins with a livelier current. The wilderness, rough, harsh, and inexorable, has charms more potent in their seductive influence than all the lures of luxury and sloth. And often he on whom it has cast its magic finds no heart to dissolve the spell, and remains a wanderer and an Ishmaelite to the hour of his death.1

1 Colden, after describing the Indian wars of 1699, 1700, concludes in the following words:

"I shall finish this Part by observing that notwithstanding the French Commissioners took all the Pains possible to carry Home the French that were Prisoners with the Five Nations, and they had full Liberty from the Indians, few of them could be persuaded to return. It may be thought that this was occasioned from the Hardships they had endured in their own Country, under a tyrannical Government and a barren Soil. But this certainly was not the Reason, for the English had as much Difficulty to persuade the People that

had been taken Prisoners by the French Indians to leave the Indian Manner of living, though no People enjoy more Liberty, and live in greater Plenty than the common Inhabitants of New York do. No Arguments, no Intreaties, nor Tears of their Friends and Relations, could persuade many of them to leave their new Indian Friends and Acquaintance. Several of them that were by the Caressings of their Relations persuaded to come Home, in a little Time grew tired of our Manner of living, and ran away to the Indians, and ended their Days with them. On the other Hand, Indian Children have been carefully educated among QQ*

There is a chord, in the breasts of most men, prompt to answer loudly or faintly, as the case may be, to such rude appeals. But there is influence of another sort, strongest with minds of the finest texture, yet sometimes holding a controlling power over those who neither acknowledge nor suspect its workings. There are few so imbruted by vice, so perverted by art and luxury, as to dwell in the closest presence of Nature, deaf to her voice of melody and power, untouched by the ennobling influences which mould and penetrate the heart that has not hardened itself against them. Into the spirit of such an one the mountain wind breathes its own freshness, and the midsummer tempest, as it rends the forest, pours its own fierce energy. His thoughts flow with the placid stream of the broad, deep river, or dance in light with the sparkling current of the mountain brook. No passing mood or fancy of his mind but has its image and its echo in the wild world around him. There is softness in the mellow air, the warm sunshine, and the budding leaves of spring; and in the forest flower, which, more delicate than the pampered offspring of gardens, lifts its tender head through the refuse and decay of the wilderness. But it is the grand and heroic in the hearts of men which finds its worthiest symbol and noblest inspiration amid these desert realms, in the mountain, rearing its savage head through clouds and sleet, or

the English, clothed and taught; yet, I think, there is not one Instance that any of these, after they had Liberty to go among their own People, and were come to Age, would remain with the English, but returned to their own Nations, and became as fond of the Indian Manner of Life as

those that knew nothing of a civilized Manner of living. What I now tell of Christian Prisoners among Indians relates not only to what happened at the Conclusion of this War, but has been found true on many other Occasions.” — Colden, 203.

basking its majestic strength in the radiance of the sinking sun; in the interminable forest, the thunder booming over its lonely waste, the whirlwind tearing through its inmost depths, or the sun at length setting in gorgeous majesty beyond its waves of verdure. To the sick, the wearied, or the sated spirit, nature opens a theatre of boundless life, and holds forth a cup brimming with redundant pleasure. In the other joys of existence, fear is balanced against hope, and satiety against delight; but here one may fearlessly drink, gaining, with every draught, new vigor and a heightened zest, and finding no dregs of bitterness at the bottom.

Having accomplished its work, the army left the Muskingum, and, retracing its former course, arrived at Fort Pitt on the twenty-eighth of November. The recovered captives were sent to their respective homes in Pennsylvania or Virginia; and the provincial troops disbanded, not without warm praises for the hardihood and steadiness with which they had met the difficulties of the campaign. The happy issue of the expedition spread joy throughout the country. At the next session of the Pennsylvania Assembly, one of its first acts was to pass a vote of thanks to Colonel Bouquet, expressing in the most earnest terms their sense of his services and personal merits, and conveying their acknowledgments for the regard which he had constantly shown to the civil rights of the inhabitants.' The Assembly of Virginia passed a similar vote; and both houses concurred in recommending Bouquet to the king for promotion. Such recommendation proved superfluous,

1 See Appendix, F