THE MUSEUM. 



!3i 



At first the white men were received 

 and respected as Superior Beings sent 

 by the Great Spirit, and the red men 

 gave them lands. The settlers soon 

 set them examples of violence by 

 burning their villages and laying waste 

 their slender means of subsistence; 

 yet they wondered that the savages 

 did not show moderation and mag- 

 naminity towards those who had left 

 them nothing but mere existence and 

 wretchedness. 



Sensible of the fact that the white 

 men were fast becoming the usurpers 

 of their ancient domains, and smart- 

 ing with increasing injuries, they be- 

 gan to manifest a hostile spirit. 



Their council fires were lighted, and 

 soon we hear the fearful war whoops 

 echoing through the forest. 



The lonely cabins were watched by 

 prowling bands of savages. Woe to 

 him who was not always on the alert 

 and the rifle near at hand. 



The homes of the settlers blazed at 

 midnight and the tomahawk and scalp- 

 ing knife were red with blood. All 

 the unimaginable horrors of barbaric 

 warfare desolated the defenseless fron- 

 tier, and conflagration, torture, blood 

 and woe held high carnival. 



Many a midnight tragedy was en- 

 acted in the solitude of the forest, as 

 prowling Indians with whoop and yell 

 applied the torch to the settlers' cabins. 

 The shriek of the tortured father, and 

 the dying wail of the mother and 

 maiden faded away in the silence of 

 the wilderness. Age and infancy were 

 alide the victims. 



With fire-brands and scalping-knife 

 they swept with whirlwind ferosity 

 over the land, and made themselves 

 merry with death and woe. 



We see men, women and children 



flee wildly to the forest for safety, hop- 

 ing to reach by long detours the dis- 

 tant and larger settlements of Schen- 

 ectada and Albany. Behind them 

 are the savages; before them a deso- 

 late wilderness, scarcely broken by a 

 single habitation. Few have time to 

 furnish themselves with provisions in 

 their hasty flight. We see them blind- 

 ly plunging through the forest, ford- 

 ing streams, wet, tired, hungrj- and 

 half clad, slowly and painfully making 

 their way along, and at last — more 

 dead than alive — reach the friendly 

 shelter of the block-houses in the set- 

 tlements. 



We also see the captives hurried 

 along on the weary march to the dis- 

 tant Indian villages. Happy indeed 

 are those who met death on the spot, 

 for a fate more terrible than death 

 awaits those whose lives are spared 

 for a time. 



With appetites whetted for blood 

 the savages enter upon the tortures 

 with which they are wont to avenge 

 their slain comrades. 



Some of the captives are compelled 

 to run the gaunlet — slashed and beat- 

 en every step by knives and clubs in 

 the hands of the women, until they are 

 literally hacked to pieces. Others 

 are bound to the stake and roasted 

 before a slow fire; still others suffer 

 sharp thorns thrust into their bodies; 

 eyes gouged out; fingers and toes pulled 

 off; hot coals heaped upon their bare 

 flesh, and many other means of tor- 

 ture which their develish and fertile 

 brains devise. 



As we watch the horrible spectacle 

 we see the gloom of night light up 

 with the glow of the fires by which the 

 captives are slowly consumed, and our 

 nostrils are filled with the stench of 



