Last of the Mohicans A Narrative of 1757 , livre ebook

Pub One Info - Fenimore Cooper James

Découvre YouScribe en t'inscrivant gratuitement

Je m'inscris

Obtenez un accès à la bibliothèque pour le consulter en ligne
En savoir plus

228 pages

English

Vous pourrez modifier la taille du texte de cet ouvrage

Obtenez un accès à la bibliothèque pour le consulter en ligne
En savoir plus

A propos
Informations
Extrait

Description

pubOne.info thank you for your continued support and wish to present you this new edition. Mine ear is open, and my heart prepared: The worst is worldly loss thou canst unfold: Say, is my kingdom lost? SHAKESPEARE.

Informations

Publié par	Pub One Info
Date de parution	23 octobre 2010
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9782819915126
Langue	English

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0100€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

Extrait

CHAPTER I
"Mine ear is open, and my heart prepared: The worstis worldly loss thou canst unfold: Say, is my kingdom lost?"SHAKESPEARE.
It was a feature peculiar to the colonial wars ofNorth America, that the toils and dangers of the wilderness were tobe encountered before the adverse hosts could meet. A wide andapparently an impervious boundary of forests severed thepossessions of the hostile provinces of France and England. Thehardy colonist, and the trained European who fought at his side,frequently expended months in struggling against the rapids of thestreams, or in effecting the rugged passes of the mountains, inquest of an opportunity to exhibit their courage in a more martialconflict. But, emulating the patience and self-denial of thepractised native warriors, they learned to overcome everydifficulty; and it would seem that, in time, there was no recess ofthe woods so dark, nor any secret place so lovely, that it mightclaim exemption from the inroads of those who had pledged theirblood to satiate their vengeance, or to uphold the cold and selfishpolicy of the distant monarchs of Europe.
Perhaps no district throughout the wide extent ofthe intermediate frontiers can furnish a livelier picture of thecruelty and fierceness of the savage warfare of those periods thanthe country which lies between the head waters of the Hudson andthe adjacent lakes.
The facilities which nature had there offered to themarch of the combatants were too obvious to be neglected. Thelengthened sheet of the Champlain stretched from the frontiers ofCanada, deep within the borders of the neighboring province of NewYork, forming a natural passage across half the distance that theFrench were compelled to master in order to strike their enemies.Near its southern termination, it received the contributions ofanother lake, whose waters were so limpid as to have beenexclusively selected by the Jesuit missionaries to perform thetypical purification of baptism, and to obtain for it the title oflake "du Saint Sacrement." The less zealous English thought theyconferred a sufficient honor on its unsullied fountains, when theybestowed the name of their reigning prince, the second of the houseof Hanover. The two united to rob the untutored possessors of itswooded scenery of their native right to perpetuate its originalappellation of "Horican." 1
Winding its way among countless islands, andimbedded in mountains, the "holy lake" extended a dozen leaguesstill farther to the south. With the high plain that thereinterposed itself to the further passage of the water, commenced aportage of as many miles, which conducted the adventurer to thebanks of the Hudson, at a point where, with the usual obstructionsof the rapids, or rifts, as they were then termed in the languageof the country, the river became navigable to the tide.
While, in the pursuit of their daring plans ofannoyance, the restless enterprise of the French even attempted thedistant and difficult gorges of the Alleghany, it may easily beimagined that their proverbial acuteness would not overlook thenatural advantages of the district we have just described. Itbecame, emphatically, the bloody arena, in which most of thebattles for the mastery of the colonies were contested. Forts wereerected at the different points that commanded the facilities ofthe route, and were taken and retaken, razed and rebuilt, asvictory alighted on the hostile banners. While the husbandmanshrank back from the dangerous passes, within the safer boundariesof the more ancient settlements, armies larger than those that hadoften disposed of the sceptres of the mother countries, were seento bury themselves in these forests, whence they rarely returnedbut in skeleton bands, that were haggard with care, or dejected bydefeat. Though the arts of peace were unknown to this fatal region,its forests were alive with men; its shades and glens rang with thesounds of martial music, and the echoes of its mountains threw backthe laugh, or repeated the wanton cry, of many a gallant andreckless youth, as he hurried by them, in the noontide of hisspirits, to slumber in a long night of forgetfulness.
It was in this scene of strife and bloodshed thatthe incidents we shall attempt to relate occurred, during the thirdyear of the war which England and France last waged for thepossession of a country that neither was destined to retain.
The imbecility of her military leaders abroad, andthe fatal want of energy in her councils at home, had lowered thecharacter of Great Britain from the proud elevation on which it hadbeen placed, by the talents and enterprise of her former warriorsand statesmen. No longer dreaded by her enemies, her servants werefast losing the confidence of self-respect. In this mortifyingabasement, the colonists, though innocent of her imbecility, andtoo humble to be the agents of her blunders, were but the naturalparticipators.
They had recently seen a chosen army from thatcountry, which, reverencing as a mother, they had blindly believedinvincible – an army led by a chief who had been selected from acrowd of trained warriors, for his rare military endowments,disgracefully routed by a handful of French and Indians, and onlysaved from annihilation by the coolness and spirit of a Virginianboy, whose riper fame has since diffused itself, with the steadyinfluence of moral truth, to the uttermost confines ofChristendom. 2 A wide frontier had been laid naked by this unexpected disaster,and more substantial evils were preceded by a thousand fanciful andimaginary dangers. The alarmed colonists believed that the yells ofthe savages mingled with every fitful gust of wind that issued fromthe interminable forests of the west. The terrific character oftheir merciless enemies increased immeasurably the natural horrorsof warfare. Numberless recent massacres were still vivid in theirrecollections; nor was there any ear in the provinces so deaf asnot to have drunk in with avidity the narrative of some fearfultale of midnight murder, in which the natives of the forests werethe principal and barbarous actors. As the credulous and excitedtraveller related the hazardous chances of the wilderness, theblood of the timid curdled with terror, and mothers cast anxiousglances even at those children which slumbered within the securityof the largest towns. In short, the magnifying influence of fearbegan to set at naught the calculations of reason, and to renderthose who should have remembered their manhood, the slaves of thebasest of passions. Even the most confident and the stoutest heartsbegan to think the issue of the contest was becoming doubtful; andthat abject class was hourly increasing in numbers, who thoughtthey foresaw all the possessions of the English crown in Americasubdued by their Christian foes, or laid waste by the inroads oftheir relentless allies.
When, therefore, intelligence was received at thefort, which covered the southern termination of the portage betweenthe Hudson and the lakes, that Montcalm had been seen moving up theChamplain, with an army "numerous as the leaves on the trees," itstruth was admitted with more of the craven reluctance of fear thanwith the stern joy that a warrior should feel, in finding an enemywithin reach of his blow. The news had been brought, towards thedecline of a day in midsummer, by an Indian runner, who also borean urgent request from Munro, the commander of a work on the shoreof the "holy lake," for a speedy and powerful reinforcement. It hasalready been mentioned that the distance between these two postswas less than five leagues. The rude path, which originally formedtheir line of communication, had been widened for the passage ofwagons; so that the distance which had been travelled by the son ofthe forest in two hours, might easily be effected by a detachmentof troops, with their necessary baggage, between the rising andsetting of a summer sun. The loyal servants of the British crownhad given to one of these forest fastnesses the name of WilliamHenry, and to the other that of Fort Edward; calling each after afavorite prince of the reigning family. The veteran Scotchman justnamed held the first, with a regiment of regulars and a fewprovincials; a force really by far too small to make head againstthe formidable power that Montcalm was leading to the foot of hisearthen mounds. At the latter, however, lay General Webb, whocommanded the armies of the king in the northern provinces, with abody of more than five thousand men. By uniting the severaldetachments of his command, this officer might have arrayed nearlydouble that number of combatants against the enterprisingFrenchman, who had ventured so far from his reinforcements, with anarmy but little superior in numbers.
But under the influence of their degraded fortunes,both officers and men appeared better disposed to await theapproach of their formidable antagonists, within their works, thanto resist the progress of their march, by emulating the successfulexample of the French at Fort du Quesne, and striking a blow ontheir advance.
After the first surprise of the intelligence had alittle abated, a rumor was spread through the entrenched camp,which stretched along the margin of the Hudson, forming a chain ofoutworks to the body of the fort itself, that a chosen detachmentof fifteen hundred men was to depart, with the dawn, for WilliamHenry, the post at the northern extremity of the portage. Thatwhich at first was only rumor, soon became certainty, as orderspassed from the quarters of the commander-in-chief to the severalcorps he had selected for this service, to prepare for their speedydeparture. All doubt as to the intention of Webb now vanished, andan hour or two of hurried footsteps and anxious faces succeeded.The novice in the military art flew from point to point, retardinghis own preparations by the excess of his violent and somewhatdistempered zeal; while the more practised veteran made hisarrangements with a deliberation that