1696-1700.] EXPEDITION OE ERONTENAC. 69 



At intervals, the afflicted colony found respite 

 from its sufferings ; and, through the efforts of the 

 Jesuits, fair hopes began to rise of propitiating 

 the terrible foe. At one time, the influence of the 

 priests availed so far, that under their auspices a 

 French colony was formed in the very heart of the 

 Iroquois country ; but the settlers were soon forced 

 to a precipitate flight, and the war broke out 

 afresh.^ The French, on their part, were not idle ; 

 they faced their assailants with characteristic gal- 

 lantry. Courcelles, Tracy, De la Barre, and De 

 Nonville invaded by turns, with various success, 

 the forest haunts of the confederates ; and at 

 length, in the year 1696, the veteran Count Fron- 

 tenac marched upon their cantons with all the 

 force of Canada. Stemming the surges of La Chine, 

 gliding through the romantic channels of the 

 Thousand Islands, and over the glimmering surface 

 of Lake Ontario, and trailing in long array up the 

 current of the Oswego, they disembarked on the 

 margin of the Lake of Onondaga ; and, startling 

 the woodland echoes with the clangor of their 

 trumpets, urged their march through the mazes of 

 the forest. Never had those solitudes beheld so 

 strange a pageantry. The Indian allies, naked to 

 the waist and horribly painted, adorned with 

 streaming scalp-locks and fluttering plumes, stole 

 crouching among the thickets, or peered with 

 lynx-eyed vision through the labyrinths of foliage. 

 Scouts and forest-rangers scoured the woods in 

 front and flank of the marching columns — men 



i A. D. 1654-1658. — Doc. Hist. N. Y. I. 47. 



