The Last of the Mohicans | Page 6

to strike their enemies. Near its southern termination, it
received the contributions of another lake, whose waters were so limpid
as to have been exclusively selected by the Jesuit missionaries to
perform the typical purification of baptism, and to obtain for it the title
of lake "du Saint Sacrement." The less zealous English thought they
conferred a sufficient honor on its unsullied fountains, when they
bestowed the name of their reigning prince, the second of the house of
Hanover. The two united to rob the untutored possessors of its wooded
scenery of their native right to perpetuate its original appellation of
"Horican."*
* As each nation of the Indians had its language or its dialect, they

usually gave different names to the same places, though nearly all of
their appellations were descriptive of the object. Thus a literal
translation of the name of this beautiful sheet of water, used by the tribe
that dwelt on its banks, would be "The Tail of the Lake." Lake George,
as it is vulgarly, and now, indeed, legally, called, forms a sort of tail to
Lake Champlain, when viewed on the map. Hence, the name.
Winding its way among countless islands, and imbedded in mountains,
the "holy lake" extended a dozen leagues still further to the south. With
the high plain that there interposed itself to the further passage of the
water, commenced a portage of as many miles, which conducted the
adventurer to the banks of the Hudson, at a point where, with the usual
obstructions of the rapids, or rifts, as they were then termed in the
language of the country, the river became navigable to the tide.
While, in the pursuit of their daring plans of annoyance, the restless
enterprise of the French even attempted the distant and difficult gorges
of the Alleghany, it may easily be imagined that their proverbial
acuteness would not overlook the natural advantages of the district we
have just described. It became, emphatically, the bloody arena, in
which most of the battles for the mastery of the colonies were contested.
Forts were erected at the different points that commanded the facilities
of the route, and were taken and retaken, razed and rebuilt, as victory
alighted on the hostile banners. While the husbandman shrank back
from the dangerous passes, within the safer boundaries of the more
ancient settlements, armies larger than those that had often disposed of
the scepters of the mother countries, were seen to bury themselves in
these forests, whence they rarely returned but in skeleton bands, that
were haggard with care or dejected by defeat. Though the arts of peace
were unknown to this fatal region, its forests were alive with men; its
shades and glens rang with the sounds of martial music, and the echoes
of its mountains threw back the laugh, or repeated the wanton cry, of
many a gallant and reckless youth, as he hurried by them, in the
noontide of his spirits, to slumber in a long night of forgetfulness.
It was in this scene of strife and bloodshed that the incidents we shall
attempt to relate occurred, during the third year of the war which

England and France last waged for the possession of a country that
neither was destined to retain.
The imbecility of her military leaders abroad, and the fatal want of
energy in her councils at home, had lowered the character of Great
Britain from the proud elevation on which it had been placed by the
talents and enterprise of her former warriors and statesmen. No longer
dreaded by her enemies, her servants were fast losing the confidence of
self-respect. In this mortifying abasement, the colonists, though
innocent of her imbecility, and too humble to be the agents of her
blunders, were but the natural participators. They had recently seen a
chosen army from that country, which, reverencing as a mother, they
had blindly believed invincible--an army led by a chief who had been
selected from a crowd of trained warriors, for his rare military
endowments, disgracefully routed by a handful of French and Indians,
and only saved from annihilation by the coolness and spirit of a
Virginian boy, whose riper fame has since diffused itself, with the
steady influence of moral truth, to the uttermost confines of
Christendom.* A wide frontier had been laid naked by this unexpected
disaster, and more substantial evils were preceded by a thousand
fanciful and imaginary dangers. The alarmed colonists believed that the
yells of the savages mingled with every fitful gust of wind that issued
from the interminable forests of the west. The terrific character of their
merciless enemies increased immeasurably the natural horrors of
warfare. Numberless recent massacres were still vivid in their
recollections; nor was there any ear in the provinces so deaf as not to
have drunk in