196 INDIAN PREPARATION. [1763. 



prevented, or, at all events, rendered less general 

 and violent, for the treaty would have made it 

 apparent that the French could never repossess 

 themselves of Canada, and would have proved the 

 futility of every hope which the Indians entertained 

 of assistance from that quarter, while, at the same 

 time, the royal proclamation w^ould have tended to 

 tranquillize their minds, by removing the chief 

 cause of irritation. But the remedy came too late, 

 and served only to inflame the evil. While the 

 sovereigns of France, England, and Spain, were 

 signing the treaty at Paris, countless Indian war- 

 riors in the American forests were singing the 

 war-song, and whetting their scalping-knives. 



Throughout the western wilderness, in a hundred 

 camps and villages, were celebrated the savage rites 

 of war. Warriors, women, and children were alike 

 eager and excited ; magicians consulted their ora- 

 cles, and prepared charms to insure success ; while 

 the war-chief, his body painted black from head to 

 foot, concealed himself in the solitude of rocks and 

 caverns, or the dark recesses of the forest. Here, 

 fasting and praying, he calls day and night upon 

 the Great Spirit, consulting his dreams, to draw 

 from them auguries of good or evil ; and if, per- 

 chance, a vision of the great war-eagle seems to 

 hover over him with expanded wings, he exults in 

 the full conviction of triumph. When a few days 

 have elapsed, he emerges from his retreat, and the 

 people discover him descending from the woods, 

 and approaching their camp, black as a demon of 

 war, and shrunken with fasting and vigil. They 



