most advisable to return to the point of departure. I was so fortunate, however, as to prevail with them to embark; and at six o'clock in the evening we again encamped. Very little was spoken of through the evening, the rattlesnake excepted.

Early the next morning we proceeded. We had a serene sky and very little wind, and the Indians therefore determined on steering across the lake to an island which just appeared in the horizon; saving, by this course, a distance of thirty miles, which would be lost in keeping the shore. At nine o'clock, A. M. we had a light breeze astern, to enjoy the benefit of which we hoisted sail. Soon after the wind increased, and the Indians, beginning to be alarmed, frequently called on the rattlesnake to come to their assistance. By degrees the waves grew high; and at eleven o'clock it blew a hurricane, and we expected every moment to be swallowed up. From prayers the Indians now proceeded to sacrifices, both alike offered to the god rattlesnake, or manito kinibic. One of the chiefs took a dog, and after tying its fore legs together threw it overboard, at the same time calling on the snake to preserve us from being drowned, and desiring him to satisfy his hunger with the carcass of the dog. The snake was unpropitious, and the wind increased. Another chief sacrificed another dog, with the addition of some tobacco. In the prayer which accompanied these gifts, he besought the snake, as before, not to avenge upon the Indians the insult which he had received from myself, in the conception of a design to put him to death. He assured the snake that I was absolutely an Englishman, and of kin neither to him nor to them.

At the conclusion of this speech, an Indian who sat near me observed, that if we were drowned it would be for my fault alone, and that I ought myself to be sacrificed, to appease the angry manito; nor was I without apprehensions that in case of extremity this would be my fate; but, happily for me, the storm at length abated, and we reached the island safely.

The next day was calm, and we arrived at the entrance* of the navigation which leads to lake Aux Claies. We presently passed two short carrying-places, at each of which were several lodges of Indians, containing only women and children, the men being gone to the council at Niagara. From this, as from a former instance, my companions derived new courage. *This is the bay of Matchedash, or Matchitashk.

†This lake, which is now called lake Simcoe, lies between lakes Huron and Ontario.

These Indians are Chippeways, of the particular description called Missisakies; and from their residence at Matchedash, or Matchitashk, also called Matchedash or Matchitashk Indians.

On the 18th of June, we crossed lake Aux Claies, which appeared to be upward of twenty miles in length. At its further end we came to the carrying-place of Toranto.* Here the Indians obliged me to carry a burden of more than a hundred pounds weight. The day was very hot, and the woods and marshes abounded with mosquitoes; but the Indians walked at a quick pace, and I could by no means see myself left behind. The whole country was a thick forest, through which our only road was a foot-path, or such as, in America, is exclusively termed an Indian path.

Next morning at ten o'clock we reached the shore of lake Ontario. Here we were employed two days in making canoes out of the bark of the elm tree, in which we were to transport ourselves to Niagara. For this purpose the Indians first cut down a tree; then stripped off the bark in one entire sheet of about eighteen feet in length, the incision being lengthwise. The canoe was now complete as to its top, bottom, and sides. Its ends were next closed by sewing the bark together; and a few ribs and bars being introduced, the architecture was finished. In this manner we made two canoes, of which one carried eight men and the other nine.

On the 21st, we embarked at Toranto, and encamped in the evening four miles short of fort Niagara, which the Indians would not approach till morning.

At dawn, the Indians were awake, and presently assembled in council, still doubtful as to the fate they were to encounter. I assured them of the most friendly welcome; and at length, after painting themselves with the most lively colors, in token of their own peaceable views, and after singing the song which is in use among them on going into danger, they embarked. and made for point Missisaki, which is on the north side of the mouth of the river or strait of Niagara, as the fort is on the south. A few minutes after I crossed over to the fort; and here I was received by Sir William Johnson, in a manner for which I have ever been gratefully attached to his person and memory.

Thus was completed my escape from the sufferings and dangers which the capture of fort Michilimackinac brought upon me; but the property which I had carried into the upper country was left behind. The reader will therefore be far from attributing to me any idle or unaccountable motive, when he finds me returning to the scene of my misfortunes.

*Toranto, or Toronto, is the name of a French trading-house on lake Ontario, built near the site of the present town of York, the capital of the province of Upper Canada. [It is one of the most important places in that province at this time.-Ed]

FREDERICK MANHEIM, an industrious German, with his family, consisting of his wife, a daughter of eighteen years of age, and Maria and Christina, his youngest children, (twins,) about sixteen, resided near the river Mohawk, eight miles west of Johnston. On the 19th of October, 1779, the father being at work at some distance from his habitation, and the mother and eldest daughter on a visit at a neighbor's, two hostile Canasadaga Indians rushed in and captured the twin sisters.

The party to which these savages belonged consisted of fifty warriors, who, after securing twenty-three of the inhabitants of that neighborhood, (among whom was the unfortunate Frederick Manheim,) and firing their houses, retired for four days. with the utmost precipitancy, till they were quite safe from pursuit. The place where they halted on the evening of the day of rest was a thick pine swamp, which rendered the darkness of an uncommonly gloomy night still more dreadful. The Indians kindled a fire, which they had not done before, and ordered their prisoners, whom they kept together, to refresh themselves with such provisions as they had. The Indians eat by themselves. After supper the appalled captives observed their enemies, instead of retiring to rest, busied in. operations which boded nothing good. Two saplings were pruned clear of branches up to the very top, and all the brusk cleared away for several rods around them. While this was

doing, others were splitting pitch-pine billets into small splinters about five inches in length, and as small as one's little finger, sharpening one end, and dipping the other in melted turpentine.

At length, with countenances distorted by infernal fury, and hideous yells, the two savages who had captured the hapless Maria and Christina leaped into the midst of the circle of prisoners, and dragged those ill-fated maidens, shrieking, from the embraces of their companions. These warriors had disagreed about whose property the girls should be, as they had jointly seized them; and, to terminate the dispute agreeably to the abominable custom of the savages, it was determined by the chiefs of the party that the prisoners who had given rise to the contention should be destroyed, and that their captors should be the principal agents in the execrable business. These furies, assisted by their comrades, stripped the forlorn girls, convulsed with apprehensions, and tied each to a sapling, with their hands as high extended above their heads as possible; and then pitched them from their knees to their shoulders, with upwards of six hundred of the sharpened splinters above described, which, at every puncture, were attended with screams of distress, that echoed through the wilderness. And then, to complete the infernal tragedy, the splinters, all standing erect on the bleeding victims, were set on fire, and exhibited a scene of extreme misery, beyond the power of speech to describe, or even the imagination to conceive. It was not until near three hours had elapsed from the commencement of their torments, and that they had lost almost every resemblance of the human form, that these helpless virgins sunk down in the arms of their deliverer, death.

SIGNAL PROWESS OF A WOMAN, IN A COMBAT WITH SOME INDIANS. IN A LETTER TO A LADY OF PHILADELPHIA.

Westmoreland, April 26, 1779.

MADAM, I have written an account of a very particular affair between a white man and two Indians.* I am now tο give you a relation in which you will see how a person of your sex acquitted herself in defence of her own life, and that of her husband and children.

*Reference is probably made to the desperate encounter of one Morgan and two Indians.-Ed.

The lady who is the burthen of this story is named Experience Bozarth. She lives on a creek called Dunkard creek, in the south-west corner of this county. About the middle of March last, two or three families, who were afraid to stay at home, gathered to her house and there stayed; looking on themselves to be safer than when all scattered about at their own houses.

On a certain day some of the children thus collected came running in from play in great haste, saying there were ugly red men. One of the men in the house stepped to the door, where he received a ball in the side of his breast, which caused him to fall back into the house. The Indian was immediately in over him, and engaged with another man who was in the house. The man tossed the Indian on a bed, and called for a knife to kill him. (Observe these were all the men that were in the house.) Now Mrs. Bozarth appears the only defence, who, not finding a knife at hand, took up an axe that lay by, and with one blow cut out the brains of the Indian. At that instant, (for all was instantaneous,) a second Indian entered the door, and shot the man dead who was engaged with the Indian on the bed. Mrs. Bozarth turned to this second Indian, and with her axe gave him several large cuts, some of which let his entrails appear. He bawled out, murder, murder. On this

sundry other Indians (who had hitherto been fully employed, killing some children out of doors) came rushing to his relief; one of whose heads Mrs. Bozarth clove in two with her axe, as he stuck it in at the door, which laid him flat upon the soil. Another snatched hold of the wounded bellowing fellow, and pulled him out of doors, and Mrs. Bozarth, with the assistance of the man who was first shot in the door, and by this time a little recovered, shut the door after them, and made it fast, where they kept garrison for several days, the dead white man and dead Indian both in the house with them, and the Indians about the house besieging them. At length they were relieved by a party sent for that purpose.

This whole affair, to shutting the door, was not perhaps more than three minutes in acting.

REV. JOHN CORBLY'S NARRATIVE.

If, after perusing the annexed melancholy narrative, you deem it worthy a place in your publication, it is at your service. Such communications, founded on fact, have a tendency on one hand to make us feel for the persons afflicted, and on the other