Frostburg mining journal., 1883-09-29
THE
LAST OF THE MOHICANS
j. Feni,n0re Cooper.
CHAPTER |.

CHAPTER |.
Mine ear is open and my heart prepared:
The worst is worldly loss thou canst unfold
Say, is my kingdom lost? Shakespeare.
1t was feature peculiar to the CO.
lonial wars of North America, that
the tolls and dangers of the wilder
ness were to be apparently an imper-
vious boundary of forests severed the
possessions of the hostile provinces of
France and England. The hardy col
onists, and the trained European who
fought at his side, frequently expend-
ed months in struggling against the
rapids of the streams, or in efiecting
the rugged passes of the mountains,
in quest of an opportunity to exhibit
their courage in Il more martial con-
flict. But, emulating the patience
and self-denial Of the practised native
warriors, they learned to overcome
every difficulty; and it would seem
that, in time, there was no recess Of
the woods so dark, nor any secret
place so lovely, that it might claim
exemption from the inroads of those
who had pledged their blood to sati-
ate their vengeance, or to uphold the
cold and selfish policy of the distant
monarchs of Europe.
Perhaps no district throughout the
wide extent of the intermediate 'front.'
iers can furnish livelier picture of
the cruelty and fierceness of the saw
age warfare of those periods than the
country which lies between the head
waters of the Hudson and the adia-
cent lakes.
The facilities which nature had
there offered to the march of the com
batants were tooobyious to be neglect
ted. The heightened sheet of the
Champlain stretched from the front
iers of Canada, deep within the borders
OF the neighboring province Of New
York, forming anatural passage across
half the distance that the Fench were
compelled to master in order to strike
their enemies. Near its southern
termination, it received the contribu-
tions of another lake, whose waters
were so limpid as to have been exclu-
sively selected by the Jesuit mission
aries to perform the typical purifica-
ton Of baptism and to obtain for the
title of lake 'du Saint Sacrament"
The less Jealous English thought
they conferred a sufficient honor on its
unsullied fountains, ,whenthey bestow-
ed the name of their reigning prince,
the second Of the house Of Hanover.
The two united to rob the untutored
possessors Of its wooded scenery of
their native right to perpetuate its
original appellation of "Horican."*
Winding its way among countless
islands, and imbedded in mountains,
the "holy lake" extended u dozen
leagues still further to the South.
With the high plain that there inter-
posed itself to the further passage of
the water, commenced portage Of as
many miles, which conducted the ad-
venturer to tho banks of the Hudson,
at point where, with the usual OBJ
structions Of the rapids or riffs, as
they were then termed in the Ian
guage of the country, the river be-
came navigable to the tide.
While in the pursuit of their dar-
ing plans of annoyance, the restless
enterprise of the Freneh even at
tempted the distant and difficult
gorges of the Alleghanies, it may ca
silly be imagined that their proverbi-
al acuteness would not overlook the
natural advantage Of the district we
have just described. 1t became, en-
phatically, the bloody arena in which
most of the battles for the mastery of
the colonies were contested. Forts
We're erected at the different points
that commanded the facilities Of the
route, and were taken and re-taken,
razed and rebuilt, as victory alighted
on the hostile banners. While the
husbandman shrank back from the
dangerous passes, within the safer
boundaries of the more ancient set
Elements, armies larger than those
that had often disposed of the scep-
MAS each nation of the Indians had either
| its language or its dialect they usually gave
different names to the same places, though
| nearly all of their appelations were descript-
| i've of the object. Thus literal translation of
the name of this beautiful sheet of water,
used by the tribe that dwelt on its banks,
would be-'The Tail of the Lake" Lake
George as it is vulgarly, and now indeed le-