1690.] THE MAKCH. 211 



Indians listened sullenly ; the decision was post- 

 poned, and the party moved forward again. When 

 after eight days they reached the Hudson, and 

 found the place where two paths diverged, the one 

 for Albany and the other for Schenectady, they all 

 without farther words took the latter. Indeed, to 

 attempt Albany would have been an act of despera- 

 tion. The march was horrible. There was a par- 

 tial thaw, and they waclecl knee-deep through the 

 half melted snow, and the mingled ice, mud, and 

 water of the gloomy swamps. So painful and so 

 slow was their progress, that it was nine days more 

 before they reached a point two leagues from 

 Schenectady. The weather had changed again, 

 and a cold, gusty snow-storm pelted them. It was 

 one of those days when the trees stand white as 

 spectres in the sheltered hollows of the forest, and 

 bare and gray on the wind-swept ridges. The 

 men were half dead with cold, fatigue, and 

 hunger. It was four in the afternoon of the eighth 

 of February. The scouts found an Indian hut, and 

 in it were four Iroquois squaws, whom they cap- 

 tured. There was a. fire in the wigwam ; and the 

 shivering Canadians crowded about it, stamping 

 their chilled feet and warming their benumbed 

 hands over the blaze. The Christian chief of the 

 Saut St. Louis, known as Le Grand Agnie, or the 

 Great Mohawk, by the French, and by the Dutch 

 called Kryn, harangued his followers, and exhorted 

 them to wash out their wrongs in blood. Then 

 they all advanced again, and about dark reached 

 the river Mohawk, a little above the village. A 



