field, and these warriors were renowned for ferocity and
courage. Dwelling so near the English settlements, they could at any
time emerge from their fastnesses, scattering dismay and ruin along
their path.

The Indians enjoyed peculiar advantages for the rude warfare in which
they engaged. They were not only perfectly acquainted with the
wilderness, its morasses, mountains, and impenetrable thickets, but,
from their constant intercourse with the settlements, were as well
acquainted with the dwellings, fields, and roads of the English as
were the colonists themselves. They were very numerous and widely
scattered, and could watch every movement of their foe. Stealthily
approaching through the forest under cover of the night, they could
creep into barns and out-houses, and lie secreted behind fences,
prepared for murder, robbery, and conflagration. Often they concealed
themselves before the very doors of their victims. The first warning
of their presence would be the ring of the musket, as the lonely
settler, opening his door in the morning, dropped down dead upon his
threshold. The house was then fired, the mother and her babes scalped,
and the work of destruction was accomplished. Like packs of wolves
they came howling from the wilderness, and, leaving blood and
smouldering ruins behind them, howling they disappeared. While the
English were hunting for them in one place, they would be burning and
plundering in another. They were capable of almost any amount of
fatigue, and could subsist in vigor where a civilized man would
starve. A few kernels of corn, pounded into meal between two stones,
and mixed with water, in a cup made from rolling up a strip of birch
bark, afforded a good dinner for an Indian. If to this he could add a
few clams, or a bird or a squirrel shot from a neighboring tree, he
regarded his repast as quite sumptuous.

The storms of winter checked, but by no means terminated the
atrocities of the savages. Marauding bands were wandering every where,
and no man dwelt in safety. Many persons were shot, houses and barns
were burned, and not a few men, women, and children were taken captive
and carried into the wilderness, where they miserably perished, often
being subjected to the most excruciating torture. The condition of the
colonies was now melancholy in the extreme. Their losses had been very
great, as one company after another of their soldiers had wasted away.
Industry had been paralyzed, and the har