CHAMPLAIN AT TICONDEROGA JOHN FISKE John Fiske was born at Hartford, Conn., in 1842. He graduated from Harvard, and was a professor of history there and at Washington Uni AS CHAMPLAIN versity. He lectured extensively in the United States and in Great Britain. He is one of the clearest and most accurate of all the writers of American history. Every one who wishes to have a clear knowledge of the history of our country should read his historical works. He has written "The Discovery of America," "The Beginnings of New England," "Old Virginia and Her Neighbors," "The Dutch and Quaker Colonies in America," "The American Revolution," "The Mississippi Valley in the Civil War," and "The Critical Period of American History." The latter is especially valuable for older readers. S the war party came nearer and nearer to the enemy's country they took more pains in scouting, and at last they advanced only by night. As the sky reddened in the morning they would all go ashore, draw up their canoes under the bushes, and slumber on the carpet of moss and pine needles until sunset, then they would stealthily embark and briskly ply the paddles till dawn. It was on the 29th of July, a full month after leaving Quebec, that they were approaching the promontory since famous under its resounding Iroquois name of Ticonderoga, or "meeting of the waters," since there Lake George is divided only by a thin strip of land from Lake Champlain; as they were approaching this promontory late in the evening they descried a dark multitude of heavy elm-bark canoes which were at once recognized as Iroquois. Naval battles are not to the red man's taste. The Iroquois landed at once and began building a barricade, while the invaders danced a scornful jig in their canoes, and the very air was torn asunder with yells. All night the missiles in vogue were taunts and jeers, with every opprobrious and indecent epithet that the red man's gross fancy could devise. Early in the morning the invaders landed, all except the Frenchmen, who lay at full length, covered with skins. There was no thought of tactics. The landing was unopposed, though the enemy were at least three to one. There were as many as 200 of them, all Mohawks, tall, lithe, and many of them handsome, the best fighters in the barbaric world. In the ordinary course of things the invaders would have paid dearly for their rashness. As it was, their hearts began to quake, and they called aloud for Champlain. Then he arose and coolly stepped ashore before the astonished Mohawks, while his two comrades, moving to a flank position, stationed themselves among the trees. Half palsied with terror at this supernatural visitation, the Mohawks behaved like stanch men, and raised their bows to shoot, when a volley from Champlain's arquebus,1 into which he had stuffed four balls, instantly slew two of their chiefs and wounded another. A second fatal shot from one of the other Frenchmen settled the day. The Mohawks turned and fled in a panic, leaving many prisoners in Algonquin hands. Most of these poor wretches were carried off to the Huron and Ottawa countries, to be slowly 1 Arquebus: A firearm something like a musket, but heavy and clumsy. burned to death for the amusement of the squaws and children. There was an intention of indulging to some extent in this pastime on the night following the victory, but Champlain put a stop to it. The infliction of torture was a sight to which he was not accustomed; at the hissing of the live flesh under the firebrand he could not contain himself, but demanded the privilege of shooting the prisoner, and his anger was so genuine and imperative that the barbarians felt obliged to yield. After this summer day's work there was a general movement homewards. It was a fair average specimen, doubtless, of warfare in the Stone Age; a long, desultory march, a random fight, a few deaths on the field and a few more at the stake, nothing definitely accomplished. This last remark, however, will not apply to Champlain's first forest fight. A specimen of the Stone Age in all other particulars, it was in one particular — the presence of three Frenchmen - entirely remote from the Stone Age. In that one particular it not only accomplished something definite, but it marked an epoch. Of the many interesting military events associated with Ticonderoga, it seems the most important. There was another July day 149 years later when a battle was fought at Ticonderoga in which 20,000 men were engaged, and more than 2000 were killed and wounded. That battle, in which the Americans and British were woefully defeated by the Marquis de Montcalm, was a marvelous piece of fighting, but it is now memorable only for its prodigies of valor which failed to redeem the dullness of the English general. It decided nothing, and so far as any appreciable effect upon the future was concerned, it might as well not have been fought. But the little fight of 1609, in which a dozen or more Indians were killed, marks with strong emphasis the beginning of the deadly hostility between the French in Canada and the strongest Indian power on the continent of North America. In all human probability the breach between the Frenchmen and the Iroquois would in any case have come very soon; it is difficult to see what could have prevented it. But in point of fact it actually did begin with Champlain's fight with the Mohawks. On the July day when the Frenchman's thunder and lightning so frightened those dusky warriors, a little Dutch vessel named the Half-Moon, with an English captain, was at anchor in Penobscot Bay, while the ship's carpenter was cutting and fitting a new foremast. A few weeks later the Half-Moon dropped anchor above the site of Troy and within the very precincts over which the warriors of the Long House kept watch. How little did Henry Hudson imagine what a drama had already been inaugurated in those leafy solitudes ! A few shots of an arquebus on that July morning had secured for the Frenchmen the most dangerous enemy and for the Dutchmen and Englishmen the most helpful friend that the mysterious American wilderness could afford. THE THREE FISHERS CHARLES KINGSLEY Charles Kingsley, a popular English writer, was born at Devonshire in 1819, and died in 1875. His works for young people are "Water Babies," a fairy tale, "Glaucus, or the Wonders of the Shore," and “Greek Fairy Tales." You would enjoy " Westward Ho" now, and will do well to read it. His best novel is probably "Hypatia." He was greatly interested in the trials and hardships of working classes in large towns, and showed this feeling in "Alton Locke" and "Yeast." THREE fishers went sailing out into the west — Out into the west as the sun went down; Each thought of the woman who loved him the best, Three wives sat up in the lighthouse tower, And trimmed the lamps as the sun went down; They looked at the squall, and they looked at the shower, Three corpses lay out on the shining sands In the morning gleam as the tide went down, For men must work, and women must weep; |