1687.] CONDITION OF THE TROOPS. 155 



all that it contained. Ten days were passed in 

 the work of havoc. Three neighboring villages 

 were levelled, and all their fields laid waste. The 

 amount of corn destroyed was prodigious. De- 

 nonville reckons it at the absurdly exaggerated 

 amount of twelve hundred thousand bushels. 



The Senecas, laden with such of their possessions 

 as they could carry off, had fled to their confeder- 

 ates in the east ; and Denonville did not venture 

 to pursue them. His men, feasting without stint 

 on green corn and fresh pork, were sickening rap- 

 idly, and his Indian allies were deserting him. 

 " It is a miserable business," he wrote, " to com- 

 mand savages, who, as soon as they have knocked 

 an enemy in the head, ask for nothing but to go 

 home and carry with them the scalp, which they 

 take on like a skull-cap. You cannot believe what 

 trouble I had to keep them till the corn was cut." 



On the twenty-fourth, he withdrew, with all his 

 army, to the fortified post at Irondequoit Bay, 

 whence he proceeded to Niagara, in order to ac- 

 complish his favorite purpose of building a fort 

 there. The troops were set at work, and a stock- 

 ade was planted on the point of land at the eastern 

 angle between the River Niagara and Lake Ontario, 

 the site of the ruined fort built by La Salle nine 

 years before. 1 Here he left a hundred men, under 

 the Chevalier cle Troyes, and, embarking with the 

 rest of the army, descended to Montreal. 



The campaign was but half a success. Joined 



1 Proces-verbal de la Prise de Possession de Niagara, 31 Juillet, 1687. 

 There are curious errors of date in this document regarding the proceed- 

 ings of La Salle. 



