Chapter XII: Siberia and Kamchatka 275 (5)

“By keeping together in these towns, which are almost fortresses, they have defied the roving Indians, like the Camanches and the Apaches, since Cortes’s day. Indeed, the Spaniards found them an even match.”

Then the children found that Col. Ingham had laid out for them the original records, which are still rare, of the first Spanish explorations. Eager for more gold, the viceroy Mendoça sent, as early as 1540, an expedition to discover this country under Coronado. It was a party of three hundred Spaniards with eight hundred native Mexicans.

They were tempted to it by the lying stories of Father Marco, who is one of the princes of lying.

“Four Spaniards, one of whom was a negro, named Stephen, had crossed the continent from the Gulf of Mexico, after the failure of Narvaez. You will find about them in the first volume of the Popular History there, Bryant’s. Father Marco got hold of the negro, and, under his guidance, went north from the then settled parts of Mexico. When he came home he told a grand rigmarole about these pueblos, which probably looked then very much as they look now.

“Here is a part of his letter in your dear old Hakluyt.”

Blanche read aloud what Uncle Fritz had marked for her.

[Sidenote: 1540.]

Thus I travelled three days’ journey through towns inhabited by
the same people, of whom I was received as I was of those which
I had passed, and came into a town of reasonable bigness, called
Vacupa, where they showed me great courtesies, and gave me great
store of good victuals, because the soil is very fruitful, and may
be watered. This town is forty leagues distant from the sea, and
because I was so far from the sea, it being two days before Passion
Sunday, I determined to stay there until Easter, to inform myself
of the islands, whereof I said before that I had information; and
so I sent certain Indians to the sea by three several ways, whom
I commanded to bring me some Indians of the sea-coast and some of
those islands, that I might receive information of them; and I sent
Stephen Dorantez, the negro, another way, whom I commanded to go
directly northward, fifty or threescore leagues, to see if by that
way he might learn any news of any notable thing which we sought to
discover. And I agreed with him that if he found any knowledge of
any peopled and rich country which were of great importance, that he
should go no farther, but should return in person, or should send
me certain Indians with that token which we were agreed upon, that
if it were but a mean thing he should send me a white cross one
handfull long; and if it were any great matter, one of two handsfull
long; and if it were a country greater and better than Nueva España,
he should send me a great cross. So the said Stephen departed from
me on Passion Sunday after dinner, and within four days after the
messengers of Stephen returned unto me with a great cross as high
as a man, and they brought me word from Stephen that I should
forthwith come away after him, for he had found people which gave
him information of a very mighty Province, and that he had certain
Indians in his company which had been in the said Province, and that
he had sent me one of the said Indians. This Indian told me that it
was thirty days’ journey from the town where Stephen was, into the
first city of the said Province, which is called Cevola. He said also
that there are seven great cities in this Province, all under one
Lord; the houses are made of lime and stone, and are very great; and
the least of them with one loft overhead, and some of them two and
three lofts, and the house of the lord of the Province of four, and
that all of them joined one into the other in good order, and that
in the gates of the principal houses there are many Turkish stones
(Turquoise stones) cunningly wrought, whereof he said they had
there a great many; also that the people of this city are very well
dressed, and that beyond this there are other provinces, all which
are much greater than these seven cities.... I deferred my departure
to follow Stephen Dorantez, because I thought he would stay for me,
and also to attend the return of my messengers whom I had sent to the
sea, and who returned to me Easter Day, bringing with them certain
inhabitants of the sea-coast, and of two of the islands; of whom I
understood that the islands mentioned were scarce of victuals, as I
had learned before, and that they are inhabited by people who wear
shells of pearls upon their foreheads, and they say that they have
great pearls and much gold. They informed me of thirty-four islands,
and that they traffic with one another upon rafts. This coast
stretches northward as is to be seen. These Indians of the coast
brought me certain targets made of cowhides very well dressed, which
were so large that they covered them from head to foot, with a hole
in the top to look out of; they are so strong that a cross-bow (as I
suppose) will not pierce them....

Having considered the former report of the Indians and the evil means
which I had to prosecute my voyage as I desired, I thought it not
good to wilfully loose my life as Stephen did, and so I told them
that God would punish those of Cevola, and that the Viceroy, when he
understood what had happened, would send many Christians to chastise
them, but they would not believe me, for they said that no man was
able to withstand the power of Cevola; and herewithal I left them and
went aside two or three stones east, and when I returned I found an
Indian of mine which I had brought from Mexico, called Marcus, who
wept and said to me: “Father, these men have consulted to kill us,
for they say that through your and Stephen’s means their fathers are
slain, and that neither man nor woman of them shall remain unslain.”
Then again I divided among them certain other things which I had to
appease them, whereupon they were somewhat pacified, though they
still showed great grief for the people which were slain. I requested
some of them to go to Cevola to see if any other Indian had escaped,
with intent that they might learn news of Stephen, which I could not
obtain at their hands. When I saw this I said to them that I purposed
to see the city of Cevola, whatever came of it. They said that none
of them would go with me. At the last, when they saw me resolute,
two of the chief of them said they would go with me; with whom and
with my Indians and interpreters I followed my way till I came within
sight of Cevola, which is situated on a plain at the foot of a round
hill, and makes sure to be a fair city, and is better situated than
any that I have seen in those parts. The houses are built in order,
according as the Indians told me, all made of stone with divers
stories and flat roofs, as far as I could discern from a mountain,
whither I ascended to view the city. The people are somewhat white,
they wear apparel, and lie in beds, their weapons are bows, they
have emeralds and other jewels, although they esteem none so much as
turquoises, wherewith they adorn the walls of the porches of their
houses, and their apparel and vessels, and they use them instead of
money through all the country. Their apparel is of cotton and of
ox-hides, and this is their most commendable and honorable apparel.
They use vessels of gold and silver, for they have no other metal;
whereof there is greater use and more abundance than in Peru, and
they buy the same for turquoises in the province of the Pintados,
where there are said to be mines of great abundance. Of other
kingdoms I could not obtain so particular instruction. Divers times
I was tempted to go thither, because I knew I could but hazard my
life, and that I had offered unto God the first day that I began my
journey; in the end I began to be afraid, considering in what danger
I should put myself, and that if I should die the knowledge of this
country should be lost, which in my judgment is the greatest and the
best that hitherto has been discovered; and when I told the chief men
what a goodly city Cevola seemed to me, they answered me that it was
the least of the seven cities, and that Totonteac is the greatest
and best of them all, because it has so many houses and people that
there is no end of them. Having seen the disposition and situation of
the place I thought good to name that country “el nuevo regno de San
Francisco,” in which place I made a great heap of stones by the help
of the Indians, and on the top thereof I set up a small slender cross
because I wanted means to make a greater, and said that I set up that
cross and heap in the name of the most honorable Lord Don Antonio de
Mendoça, Viceroy and Captain-General of Nueva España, for the emperor
our lord, in token of possession, according to my instruction; which
possession I said that I took in that place of all the seven cities,
and of the kingdoms of Totonteac, of Acus, and of Marata. Thus I
returned with much more fear than victuals, and went until I found
the people which I had left behind me with all the speed that I could
make, whom I overtook in two days’ travel, and went in their company
till I had passed the desert, where I was not made so much of as
before; for both men and women made great lamentation for the people
which were slain at Cevola, and with fear I hastened from the people
of this valley and travelled ten leagues the first day, and so I
went daily eight or ten leagues, without staying until I had passed
the second desert, and though I was in fear yet I determined to go
to the great plain, whereof I said before that I had information,
being situated at the foot of the mountains, and in that place I
understood that this plain is inhabited for many days’ journey
toward the east, but I dared not enter into it, considering that if
hereafter we should inhabit this other country of the seven cities,
and the kingdoms before mentioned, that then I might better discover
the same, without putting myself in hazard, and leave it for this
time, that I might give relation of the things which I had seen. At
the entrance of this plain I saw but seven towns only of a reasonable
bigness, which were far off in a low valley, being very green and a
most fruitful soil, out of which ran many rivers. I was informed that
there was much gold in this valley, and that the inhabitants work
it into vessels and thin plates, wherewith they strike and take off
their sweat, and that they were people that will not suffer those
of the other side of the plain to traffic with them, and they could
not tell me the cause of it. Here I set up two crosses and took
possession of the plain and valley in like sort and order as I did
at other places before mentioned; and from thence I returned on my
voyage with as much haste as I could make, until I came to the city
of Saint Michael, in the province of Culiacan, thinking there to
have found Francis Vazquez de Coronado, Governor of Nueva Galicia,
and finding him not there I proceeded on my journey till I came to
the city of Compostella, where I found him. I do not write here many
other particularities, because they are impertinent to this matter; I
only report that which I have seen, and which was told me concerning
the countries through which I travelled, and of those which I had
information of.

When Blanche had read so far, Uncle Fritz bade her give him the book.

“You see,” he said, “all this talk about the seven cities was very exciting to them, because they all had a legend about seven cities which had been founded by seven Portuguese bishops, ages before.

“When the Cabots came back to England from their first voyage, it was reported that they had found ‘the seven cities.’ And when this lying Father Marco reported seven cities, Mendoça thought he had found the seven cities of the seven bishops.

“Oddly enough, it seems to prove that these pueblo Indians had and have a fancy of building their towns in groups of seven. At least, there are two or three such instances.

“On the strength of this report by the Friar, Coronado started with his party. They had a long march northward parallel with the Gulf of California. They came out near the Gila River, where you will find ‘Casa Grande’ on the map. This means ‘Great House.’ It still stands, and they call it Montezuma’s house to this day. Then Coronado persevered across the desert and found the ‘seven cities.’ They were, doubtless, just such pueblos as these you have the pictures of now. He was dreadfully disappointed.”

And Uncle Fritz bade Horace Feltham read Coronado’s report.

It remains now to certify your honor of the seven cities, and of the
kingdoms and provinces whereof the provincial father made report to
your lordship; and to be brief, he said the truth in nothing that
he reported, but all was quite contrary, saving only the names of
the cities, and great houses of stone; for although they are not
wrought with turquoises, nor with lime, nor bricks, yet they are
very excellent good houses of four or five lofts high, wherein are
good lodgings and fair chambers with lathers[15] instead of stairs,
and certain cellars under the ground very good and paved, which are
made for winter, they are like stones; and the lathers when they are
high for their houses are in a manner movable and portable, which
are taken away and set down where they please, and they are made of
two pieces of wood with their stepps, as ours are. The seven cities
are seven small towns, all made with these kind of houses that I
speak of, and they stand all within four leagues together, and they
are all called the kingdom of Civola,[16] and every one of them
have their particular name, and none of them is called Civola, but
altogether are called Civola; and this town which I call a city I
have named Granada, as well because it is somewhat like it, and also
in remembrance of your lordship. In this town where I now remain
there may be some two hundred houses, all compassed with walls, and I
think that with the rest of the houses which are not walled, there
may be altogether five hundred. There is another town near this,
which is one of the seven, and is somewhat larger than this, and
another as large, and the other four are somewhat less, and I send
them all painted to your lordship with the voyage; and the parchment
wherein the picture is was found here with other parchments. The
people of this town seem to me of a reasonable stature and witty,
yet they seem not to be such as they ought, of that judgment and wit
to build these houses such as they are. For the most part they are
naked, except their private parts which are covered; and they have
painted mantles like those which I send to your lordship. They have
no cotton wool growing because the country is cold, yet they wear
mantles, as your honor may see by the show thereof, and yet it is
true that there was found in their houses certain yarn made of cotton
wool. They wear their hair on their heads like those of Mexico, and
they are well nurtured and conditioned, and they have a good quantity
of turquoises, which with the rest of the goods which they had,
except their corn, they had conveyed away before I came thither; for
I found no women there, nor no youth under fifteen years old, nor
no old folks above sixty, saving two or three old folks, who stayed
behind to govern all the rest of the youth and men of war. There were
found in a certain paper two points of emeralds and certain small
stones broken which are in color somewhat like very bad granates, and
other stones of crystal, which I gave one of my servants to lay up
to send them to your lordship, and he lost them, as he told me. We
found here guinea cocks, but few. The Indians tell me in all these
seven cities that they do not eat them, but they keep them only for
their feathers. I do not believe them, for they are excellently good,
and larger than those of Mexico. The season of this country and the
temperature of the air is like that of Mexico, for sometimes it is
hot and it rains, but hitherto I never saw it rain, but once there
fell a little shower with wind, as they are wont to fall in Spain.
The snow and cold are wont to be great, as the inhabitants of the
country say, and it is very likely to be so, both in respect to the
manner of the country and by the fashion of their houses, and their
fires and other things which this people have to protect them from
the cold. There is no kind of fruit nor fruit trees. The country
is all plain, and is on no side mountainous, albeit there are some
hills and bad passages. There are small stores of fowl: the cause is
the cold, and because the mountains are not near. There is no great
store of wood, because they have sufficient wood for their fuel four
leagues off in a wood of small cedars. There is most excellent grass
within a quarter of a league, for our horses, as well to feed them
in pasture, as to mow and make hay, whereof we stood in great need,
because our horses came hither so weak and feeble. The victuals which
the people of this country have is maize, whereof they have a great
store, and also small white peas and venison, which by all likelihood
they feed upon (though they say no) for we found many skins of deer,
of hares, and of conies. They eat the best cakes that I ever saw,
and everybody generally eats them. They have the finest order and
way to grind that we ever saw in any place; and one Indian woman of
this country will grind as much as four women of Mexico. They have
most excellent salt in kernel, which they fetch from a certain lake a
day’s journey from here. They have no knowledge of the North Sea,
nor of the Western Sea, neither can I tell to which we be nearest.
But in reason they should seem to be nearest to the Western Sea, and
at the least I think I am an hundred and fifty leagues from thence,
and the Northern Sea should be much farther off. Your lordship may
see how broad the land is here. Here are many sorts of beasts, bears,
tigers, lions, porcupines, and certain sheep as big as an horse, with
very great horns and little tails. I have seen their horns so big
that it is a wonder to see their greatness. Here are also wild goats,
whose beards likewise I have seen, and the paws of bears and the
skins of wild boars. There is game of deer, ounces, and very large
stags, and all men are of opinion that there are some bigger than
that beast which your lordship bestowed upon me, which once belonged
to John Melaz. They travel eight days’ journey into certain plains
lying toward the North Sea. In this country there are certain skins
well dressed, and they dress them and paint them where they kill
their oxen, so they say themselves.

“The salt,” said Uncle Fritz, “was from the great Salt Lake, or some place near it. As for the cakes, see what Lieut. Bourke writes to me. He is in our army now, and has lived among the Moquis, who, as he thinks, still inhabit the towns which Coronado called ‘Cibola.’”

And Fergus read from Lieut. Bourke’s letter:--

[Sidenote: 1874.]

“The Moquis still make very good cakes and still use the stone
‘metals’ for grinding corn and seeds as their ancestors did in 1541.
Their meal is reddish and purplish in color, and the bread or cake
is baked as a thin sheet, thinner than pie-crust, and afterwards
rolled into the shape of a banana. When I visited them with General
Crook in 1874, they used, besides corn, grass-seeds, acorns, and the
seeds of sunflowers, which they cultivated in large fields.”

VII.

THE JESUIT RELATIONS.

[Sidenote: 1880.]

When the children met Col. Ingham the next week, Fergus said that as they came out he had been telling the others that he had always wished that people would tell more of the beginnings of America. “To tell the truth,” said Fergus, “I had supposed they did not know; but when we made our camp on the Maguadavik River last summer, when I really felt as if we were the first settlers in a wilderness, I wondered very much whether John Smith did just that thing at Jamestown, or whether he began in some other way.”

“We may as well confess,” said Col. Ingham, “that our people here were very reticent; also, they seem to have had very little paper, very few pens, and almost no ink. My mother used to say that they must have taken solemn oaths that they would record nothing interesting; and when you do find a bright bit of early New England narrative, it is because some faithful ‘modern’ has gone over a dozen old stories and picked out one plum here and one there, and put them all into one cake for you.

“But there do exist narratives that go into just the sort of detail you ask for, Fergus. Fortunately for us, the Jesuit fathers, who were the special literary men of their time, were obliged to write letters home from the points where they were at work, and more fortunately the Society of Jesuits found it advisable to print them. Within a few years past these narratives have been translated and printed in this country. You will find them in the best of the large Public Libraries. You will find that some of them come very near your own homes.”

“Does not Mr. Parkman quote them?”

“Yes, and his skilful use of them and other materials like them is what makes his books so fascinating for you boys. Here is a story of a poor fellow who tried the hospitality of the Six Nations,--the French, you know, called them ‘Iroquois.’”

“Why, we rode out to see them from Syracuse, when I made my famous visit to Grace.”

“The same. See how they would have treated you a hundred and fifty years ago had you been a French girl.

“Father Isaac Jogues was born of good family in the city of Orleans, France. He was sent out into New France in the year 1636, and was attached to the Mission among the Hurons, where he stayed for six years. At the end of this time he was sent to Quebec on some of the business connected with the Mission there. The following is his own narrative.”

FATHER JOGUES’S STORY.

[Sidenote: 1636.]

The Superior of the Huron Mission sent for me and proposed to me a
journey to Quebec,--a terrible journey on account of the difficulty
of the travelling there and back, and also because of the ambuscades
of Iroquois, who murder many of the Indians friendly to the French.

This was merely a proposition, not in any way a command, but I
accepted eagerly in spite of all the dangers and hazards. We started
off then and began our journey and our dangerous adventures at the
same time.

The distance was three hundred leagues, and in this distance we had
to make forty carriages of our boats and all our baggage around
rapids and waterfalls. Although the Indians were very expert in this
method of travelling, we experienced several little shipwrecks which
were attended with loss of our baggage and danger to our lives.
But at last, after thirty-five days’ hard travel, we reached Three
Rivers, from which place we descended to Quebec. We finished our
business at Quebec in a fortnight, and on the first day of August,
1642, we started from Three Rivers on our homeward voyage. We had
passed the first day and night and were proceeding quietly on the
second morning when some of the men in the first canoe shouted to
us that they had seen some footprints on shore. We all landed and
examined the tracks they had seen. We could not agree as to what they
were. Some said Iroquois, and others said that they were Algonquins,
friends of ours. But Eustace Ahatsistari said:--

“Algonquins or Iroquois it matters little; there are not more of them
than there are of us, so let us go on without fear.” Eustace was our
captain, and all the rest deferred to him both because of his feats
of arms and for his prudence and goodness.

So we went onward, up the river; but we had scarcely got on half
a league when a volley of arquebuse balls came upon us from an
ambuscade on shore. The Hurons, for the most part, were so frightened
at the noise that they abandoned their canoes and their arms and
fled into the depths of the woods. Otherwise the discharge did us
small harm, for only one Huron was wounded, and he but slightly in
his hand.

There were four of us Frenchmen, one of whom had escaped with the
Hurons, and eight or ten Christian Indians, and together we made
such head against the enemy that, although it was thirty to ten or
a dozen, the issue would have been doubtful had not another band
of forty Iroquois, who were hiding on the other side of the river,
opened fire upon us.

Upon this the Hurons lost courage, and those who could fled,
abandoning their comrades to the enemy. One Frenchman, René Goupil,
being left alone, was surrounded and captured, together with some
of the brave Hurons. I also was taken and so was our brave Captain
Eustace. One other Frenchman who had been captured, seeing an
opportunity, escaped, but suddenly the thought coming to him that
he was abandoning his Faith and his comrades, he stopped short and
determined to come back to us. But as he turned he saw five of the
Iroquois rushing up to him. One of them aimed his arquebuse at him
but missed. The Frenchman’s piece did not miss, and the Indian fell
back stone-dead. As soon as he had fired the other four Indians threw
themselves upon him with the madness of lions, or rather of devils.
They beat him with clubs, they bit him with their teeth, they tore
him with their nails and transfixed him with their swords. As I
approached him to give him some comfort they fell upon me also and
used me badly. In fact, so enraged were they against the French that
they cruelly tortured René Goupil and me also, biting our fingers
with their teeth in a terrible manner and beating us with sticks.

Finally they all came together again. Those who had been chasing the
Hurons returned, and they began all together to rejoice over their
prey with loud shouts of joy.

We started, then, to be conducted into a strange country. One old
man refused to embark when the Iroquois took to their boats, and
the Indians murdered him. There were twenty-two of us in all. For
the thirteen days which were taken up in the journey I suffered
almost insupportable bodily tortures and mental distresses beyond
comparison. Hunger, the glowing heat, the threats and hatred of
these leopards, the pain of our wounds,--all these were nothing to
the inward grief that I felt at the thought of our Hurons, all firm
Christians. I had thought that they would have been the support of
this growing Church, and I saw them condemned to death.

A week after we left the banks of the great River St. Lawrence we
fell in with two hundred Iroquois who had just returned from an
excursion against the French and their Indian allies. As soon as
they saw us they thanked the Sun for having put us in their power,
and immediately afterward fired a volley from their arquebuses as
a salute to the victors. They then sought out a level plain upon
the hill and then went to find clubs and thorny sticks. Thus armed
they placed themselves in two rows, one hundred on one side and one
hundred on the other, and having stripped us of our clothing they
forced us to pass through this path of pain and anguish. As we ran by
they delivered lusty blows upon our backs with all their strength.
They made me run last that I might be the more exposed to their rage.
I had hardly run half-way when I fell to the ground from the pain
and from the blows. Seeing this the Indians redoubled their efforts.
I was unable to force myself to rise, partly through my weakness and
partly because I thought I might as well die there. Seeing me fall
they threw themselves upon me, and God alone knows how long they beat
me. But when they saw that I had not fallen by accident and that I
was really too near death to arise, since their anger was not yet
appeased, and also because they wished to carry me alive into their
own country, they picked me up and carried me, all bleeding, out of
the torture, but soon began again to ill-treat me. It would take too
long to tell of the sufferings they inflicted upon me. They broke
one of my fingers, they crushed the others with their teeth, and
also tore my flesh by their nails, with the rage of demons, and when
my strength failed me they applied fire to my arms and legs. They
treated my companions in like manner. Among the Hurons the brave and
valiant christian, Eustace, was treated most cruelly.

These warriors having offered up a sacrifice of our blood pursued
their way, and we went ours. On the tenth day after our departure we
arrived at a place where we quitted our boats to march on land. This
part of the journey was very painful. The Iroquois who had charge of
me, having more baggage than he could carry easily, placed a heavy
load upon my own back, torn and mangled as it was. For three days
we ate nothing but berries which we picked as we went along. The
heat of the day, at the hottest part of the summer, and the pain of
our wounds weakened us so that we had to march behind the rest. One
night when we were a little way from the others I suggested to René
Goupil that he should escape. In fact we might have done it, but for
my part I would rather have suffered all kinds of torment than have
abandoned those whom I might have been able to console. René, seeing
that I wished to follow my little flock, would not quit me. “I will
die with you,” said he, “and I will never abandon you.”

One night we arrived at a little river distant about a quarter of a
league from the first village of the Iroquois. We found on the banks
an assemblage of men and boys armed with sticks with which they beat
us with their usual cruelty. I had on my hands but two finger-nails
left. These they tore off with their teeth, cutting the flesh to the
bone with their own long finger-nails.

After they had satisfied their cruelty they carried us in triumph
into the first village, where all the young people were without the
gates ranged in rows, armed with sticks, some of them with iron tips
which they got from the Dutch. We had to march around among those
young people and receive beatings and torturings like those I have
described to you. When night had come they brought us to the cabins
to be sport for the children. They gave us a little Indian meal
boiled in water. They made us lie down, binding us, hand and foot,
to four posts stuck in the ground, in the form of a Saint Andrew’s
Cross. The children, to teach further cruelty to their parents,
threw live coals and hot ashes upon our stomachs, taking pleasure in
seeing our flesh grill and blacken. O God! what a night! To remain
in a very constrained position without the power of moving, to be
unable to defend ourselves from the attack of the thousands of vermin
which assailed us from every side, to be still suffering from recent
wounds, to have nothing on which to sustain life,--in truth, these
are grave torments, but God is over all. At sunrise they carried us
out again, and for three days and three nights we endured tortures
which I have been trying to describe.

We passed in this way through these villages, and in each village we
were beaten and tortured terribly. Finally they allowed us to settle
down and try to cure our wounds.

* * * * *

When these poor captives had got back a little of their strength, the
chiefs of the country began to talk of sending them back to Three
Rivers to return them to the French. The business went so far that
they considered that it was all arranged; but finally the chiefs
found that they could not agree as to the terms, and so the Father
and his companions were left as before, in the fear each moment that
they would be put to death.

These barbarians have the custom of giving the prisoners, whom they
do not wish to put to death, to those families who have lost some of
their number in war. These persons take the place of the dead and
become members of the family, which alone holds the power of life and
death over them. In such cases no one else dares to do anything to
them; but when they keep some one as public prisoner, without giving
him to any one in particular, the poor man is at all times in danger
of instant death. If some wretch kills him, no one cares. He is only
enabled to drag on his miserable life through the charity of those
who take pity on him. In such a condition was our good Father, and so
also was one of his companions. The other Frenchmen had been given to
a family in place of an Iroquois warrior who had fallen in battle....

The Father’s narrative goes on:--

I left the village in which I was held captive, on Saint Ignatius’
day, to go with some Iroquois on an excursion for trading and
fishing. After we had finished our business with the Dutch we set
to fishing at a place on the river seven or eight leagues below the
Dutch village. While we were cleaning the fish we had caught, there
came a report that a band of Iroquois had returned from an expedition
against the Hurons, of whom they had killed five or six and captured
four. Of these four prisoners they had burned two in my village with
great cruelties. At this my heart was weighed down with a bitter
regret that I had neither been able to see these poor victims nor to
console and baptize them. I feared too that something of the sort
might happen again, and I therefore went to an old woman who had been
very kind to me and said to her:--

“My aunt, I wish to return to our village. I cannot stay here. It
is not that I expect to be treated more kindly at the village,
where indeed I am daily exposed to every species of torture and
am compelled to be witness of most horrible cruelties, but my
heart tells me that I should allow no man to suffer death without
endeavoring to offer him baptism.”

She approved of my words and gave me something to eat on the road.
I embarked in the first canoe that was going up the river to our
village, accompanied and conducted by five or six Iroquois. When we
had reached the Dutch on the river, I learned that our village was
much incensed against all the French, and that they only awaited my
return in order to burn me alive.

The cause of this was as follows. Some time ago, among all the bands
of Iroquois who were continually going upon the war-path against
the Algonquins, the Hurons, and the French, there was one band which
took the idea of going to spy out the French and their savage allies.
Among this band was a Huron who had been captured by the Iroquois
and had been adopted into the tribe. This man came to me to ask if I
had any letters to send to the French, hoping no doubt to get some
information in this way. But as I did not doubt that the French would
be upon their guard against him, and moreover as I thought it very
necessary that the French should know something of the plans and
designs of their enemies, I found means of procuring a bit of paper
upon which to write a message. I knew very well the danger to which
I exposed myself, and I knew too that if anything should happen to
these warriors the blame would fall upon me; that they would hold
me responsible and would accuse my letters. I foresaw that I should
be put to death, but death seemed to me easy and agreeable when I
reflected that it would be used for the well-being and consolation
of the French, and the poor Indians who learn from them the word of
the Lord. I gave, then, my letter to the young warrior, who never
returned. The story that his comrades brought back was that he had
carried the letter to the fort of Richelieu, and that as soon as
the French had caught sight of them they had fired a cannon at them
so that they had fled, scattering in all directions, leaving one of
their canoes, together with their guns and powder and ball and some
other baggage.

When these news were brought to the village they cried out that my
letters were the cause of this treatment. The report went around and
at last came to my ears; they reproached me with their bad luck and
spoke of nothing but burning me, and if I had been at the village at
the return of the warriors, fire, rage, and cruelty would have cost
me my life. Unhappily another band returning from Montreal, where
they had been beaten by the French, told of one of their men who had
been killed and two who were wounded. Everybody considered me the
cause of this ill-luck and was awaiting my return with impatience.

To resume my story. The Captain of the post of Dutch, where we were
at this time, knowing pretty well the state of the Indians’ mind
toward me, and knowing too that the Chevalier de Montmagny had
forbidden the Indians of New France to make any attacks upon the
Dutch, showed me the means of saving myself. “Here,” said he to me,
“here is a ship at anchor which is to sail in a few days. Get into
it quietly. It is going first to Virginia and then to Bordeaux or La
Rochelle.”

I thanked him much for the offer, but told him the Indians would
surely find out that he had assisted me to escape and might cause his
people some trouble.

“No, no,” said he, “fear nothing, get on board. The chance is good,
you will never find a better one.”

I was perplexed at his words, doubting whether it would not redound
more to the glory of God if I should expose myself to the danger of
fire and to the fury of the Iroquois, with the hope of saving some
poor soul. I said then to him that I held the occasion to be of such
importance that I could not immediately come to a decision, and I
begged of him to give me the night to think it over. He was much
astonished, but granted my request, and I promised to tell him on the
next morning what resolve I had come to.

I spent the night in meditation and prayer, and came at last to the
conclusion that it would be more agreeable to God if I should take
this chance which was offered me to escape.

When day was come, therefore, I paid my respects to the Dutch
Governor and told him my thoughts and the resolution to which I had
come. He called the owners of the vessel and told them his plan,
begging them to receive and hide me, and, in a word, to carry me back
to Europe. They replied that if I could once set foot on the deck of
the vessel I might be sure that I should not leave it until I landed
at the wharf at Bordeaux or La Rochelle.

“Very well, then,” said the Governor to me, “return with your
Indians, and towards evening or at night come quietly to the river.
You will find a little boat which I shall have placed there that you
may go secretly to the ship.”

After giving my humble thanks to these gentlemen I went away from
the Hollanders that I might the better conceal my plan. At night I
retired with ten or a dozen Iroquois into a barn where we were to
pass the night. Before lying down I went out of the place to see how
I might most easily escape. The dogs of the Hollanders, who were
roaming about, seeing me come out, fell upon me. One of them bit a
large piece out of my leg, which gave me such pain that I returned
as soon as possible into the barn. The Iroquois immediately shut the
door tightly and lay down round about me. There was one of them whose
duty it was to take especial care in guarding me, and he lay down in
front of the door of the barn.

Seeing myself shut up in this way I feared that I might never be
able to escape. I passed all this night without sleep, and in the
morning I heard the crowing of the cocks. Soon after, the servant of
a Dutch workman, who had given us shelter in his barn, entered by
some door, I know not what. I made him a sign softly, since I did not
understand Flemish, to drive away the dogs. He went out and I after
him, taking all my baggage, namely, a breviary and a crucifix. As
soon as I got out of the barn, without making any noise or awakening
my guards, I passed through the gate in the fence surrounding the
farm and ran straight to the river in which the ship was at anchor.
In doing this I had great difficulty, on account of my wounded leg,
but finally accomplished the distance, and found the boat, as the
captain had told me. But unfortunately the tide had gone down, and
the boat was high and dry on land. I could not push it into the water
on account of its weight, and so I shouted out to the ship. I do not
know whether they heard me or not; at any rate, nobody appeared.

The sun was by this time rising and would soon apprise the Iroquois
of the theft of myself which I had made. Fearing that they would find
me engaged in my innocent amusement I left off shouting, and, praying
God to increase my strength, I applied myself once more to the boat.
I did so well that I soon got the stern in the water and after that
the rest of it. Having got it afloat, I jumped into it, and rowed
quickly to the ship without being perceived by any of the Iroquois.

The sailors put me down in the hold to hide me, and I passed two days
in the ship in such an uncomfortable manner that I feared each minute
that I should die of suffocation. I remembered in this plight the
story of Jonas in the belly of the whale.

On the second night of my captivity the Dutch minister visited me to
tell me that the Iroquois were making a great disturbance about my
disappearance, and that the Hollanders living around were afraid that
they would burn down their houses and kill their beasts. They had
good ground for this fear, for the Indians were provided with good
arquebuses. I besought him to give me up to them if on account of me
all this tumult was arising, and told him that I never had wished to
save myself at the risk of others’ lives and goods.

Finally I came up from my hiding-place, and though the sailors were
much ashamed, saying that they had given their word that I should be
saved and that they must hold to it at all costs, I went on shore
to the Governor’s house, where they concealed me. These goings and
comings were achieved in the night so that I was not discovered. The
Dutch Captain told me that it was necessary to yield to the storm and
wait until the spirits of the Indians were a little calmed. So I am
now a voluntary prisoner in the house of the Governor. The ship in
which I was to sail has gone without me.

In another letter:--

Finally I am delivered. The Lord has sent one of his angels to take
me out of captivity. The Iroquois have finally become pacified by the
Dutch Governor, who gave them presents as a ransom to the amount, I
believe, of three hundred livres, which I must return to him. When
everything was straightened out I was sent to Manhattan, where the
Governor of the whole country resides. He received me kindly, gave me
a suit of clothes, and sent me across the ocean in a bark. We landed
in Falmouth in England, and from thence I crossed over to France.

“Poor man!” said Laura, when the reading was done. “I do not wonder the frontier’s people came to hate the Indians.”

“It is worth while,” said Uncle Fritz, “when you hear people talk of Arcadian homes and the simplicity of nature to know what those words mean.”

The Pictorial History is generally lying on the table, or brought out before these American readings are finished; and Tom had the third volume open at the picture of the massacre at Schenectady, where two snow sentinels stood at the gateway of the palisades, and made no opposition to the French and Indians when they rushed in.

“This was long after Father Jogues, I suppose,” he said.

[Sidenote: 1689-90.]

“Oh, yes. The massacre did not happen until Leisler’s time, in the winter of 1689-90; and, by the way, one of the most vivid of the genuine American ballads was printed in Albany then and there about that massacre.”

“Where do you find about it, Uncle Fritz?”

[Sidenote: 1614-1775.]

“Oh, there is no local history better provided for than that of New York. Look there, on the lower shelf; there are twelve volumes of their documents which you owe to Mr. Bogart’s kindness.”

The children had learned by this time not to dread a book because it was big and had a dull name, and the various tables soon had different groups dipping through the big volumes. Letters of priests; letters of Indians, with their marks in place of signatures; quarrels of governors with their people; the awful tragedy when Leisler was executed; Captain Kidd and all his history,--unfolded themselves in the manner in which they were written down at the time; buried for a hundred years and more in archive-rooms, and then brought to light again. The children read a scrap here and a scrap there with fearful violation of chronology, but gaining just the “color” for the history which letters written at the time give, and which nothing else gives. Nothing is more surprising to young readers than to see how very small were the beginnings of an American State. Through the period of the century between Father Jogues and 1736 the whole population of the State of New York was a mere handful, Schenectady a frontier town, and Albany an insignificant fort.

The young people were surprised when the bell rang for tea. Hester confessed, as she walked out with Uncle Fritz, that there had been times when she should not have thought that she could have found half an hour’s amusement in reading old documents. “I owe that to you, Uncle Fritz,” she said prettily.

“Perhaps I have taught you how to skip,” he said. “That is one of the greatest of accomplishments.”

* * * * *

Here are two verses of the old ballad:--

“From forth the woods of Canada
The Frenchmen tooke their Way
The People of Schenectady
To captivate and slay.

“They march’d for two & twenty Dais
All through the deepest Snow;
And on a dismal Winter Night
They strucke the Cruel Blow.”

VIII.

NORTHERN DISCOVERIES.

[Sidenote: 1881.]

On New Year’s Day, after the children had given their pretty presents to Uncle Fritz, and after he had shown them his New Year’s cards and other greetings, he asked if they had brought anything to read.

“We are all alive about the Indians,” said Laura. “We have seen Miss La Flesche, who is lovely, and we have heard her talk Indian. She never would have roasted Father Jogues by a slow fire. Is she the same sort as the Iroquois?”

Uncle Fritz sent for the second volume of the Archæologia Americana, and showed them Mr. Gallatin’s map of the United States, and the division of it into nine great Indian families. Fergus said the map was copied in a volume of Bancroft’s History. The children saw that the Massachusetts Indians are Algonkins, or, as Mr. Gallatin says, Algonkin-Lenape. The Iroquois, who were so cruel to the poor Jesuit Father, are of another race.

“I am glad,” said Blanche, “that it was no cousin of my nice Waban who did such awful things.”

Blanche lives on Waban Street, though the sign-painters spell it Wabon.

Uncle Fritz said grimly that he was glad Blanche knew he was “nice.” The children saw that the Algonkin family covered most of the United States north of the Gulf States and east of the Mississippi, excepting New York and most of Pennsylvania, where were Iroquois tribes; and that there were Iroquois tribes west of the Niagara in the peninsula of Canada. They saw that the Algonkins extended far north, half up the side of Hudson’s Bay.

“But, you know,” said Uncle Fritz, “that they are all great wanderers. You may catch a bit of dialect thousands of miles off from the tribe where you first found it. When Mr. Bartlett was on the frontier of Mexico, he happened to notice a sort of ‘click,’ like the Zulu ‘click,’ in the language of the Apaches, the roving horsemen of those regions. Mr. Bartlett is a very accurate linguist, and he remembered that Dr. Richardson said of the Athapescans on the Arctic Ocean that they had such a ‘click.’ He looked in their vocabularies, and he found they used some of the same words the Apaches did. These Apaches had strayed away from them, nobody knows when.”

“Apache sounds like Athapescan,” said Fergus; and Uncle Fritz nodded approval of the bold etymology.

“Well, then,” said Tom Rising, “I suppose any of these people painted yellow on the map, these Chippeways and the rest, can read your Eliot’s Bible, Uncle Fritz.”

“No, my boy, that is asking too much. For the Massachusetts dialect and Eliot’s spelling of it are now two hundred years old, and probably always our Indians differed from the Hudson’s Bay Indians, for instance, as much as Italians from Frenchmen. Still Eliot’s grammar and dictionary are useful now to the missionaries among any Algonkin tribes.”