3. An excellent account of these works, which is at the end of the sixth
volume of the American Encyclopaedia.

Appendix D

See in Charlevoix, vol. i. p. 235, the history of the first war which
the French inhabitants of Canada carried on, in 1610, against the
Iroquois. The latter, armed with bows and arrows, offered a desperate
resistance to the French and their allies. Charlevoix is not a great
painter, yet he exhibits clearly enough, in this narrative, the contrast
between the European manners and those of savages, as well as the
different way in which the two races of men understood the sense of
honor. When the French, says he, seized upon the beaver-skins which
covered the Indians who had fallen, the Hurons, their allies, were
greatly offended at this proceeding; but without hesitation they set
to work in their usual manner, inflicting horrid cruelties upon the
prisoners, and devouring one of those who had been killed, which
made the Frenchmen shudder. The barbarians prided themselves upon a
scrupulousness which they were surprised at not finding in our nation,
and could not understand that there was less to reprehend in the
stripping of dead bodies than in the devouring of their flesh like wild
beasts. Charlevoix, in another place (vol. i. p. 230), thus describes
the first torture of which Champlain was an eyewitness, and the return
of the Hurons into their own village. Having proceeded about eight
leagues, says he, our allies halted; and having singled out one of
their captives, they reproached him with all the cruelties which he
had practised upon the warriors of their nation who had fallen into his
hands, and told him that he might expect to be treated in like manner;
adding, that if he had any spirit he would prove it by singing. He
immediately chanted forth his death-song, and then his war-song, and all
the songs he knew, "but in a very mournful strain," says Champlain, who
was not then aware that all savage music has a melancholy character. The
tortures which succeeded, accompanied by all the horrors which we shall
mention hereafter, terrified the French, who made every effort to put a
stop to them, but in vain. The following night, one of the Hurons having
dreamt that they were pursued, the retreat was changed to a real flight,
and the savages never stopped until they were out of the reach of
danger. The moment they perceived the cabins of their own village, they
cut themselves long sticks, to whi