The mere physical sufferings of Philip, meanwhile, are almost incredible. It is by his hair-breadth escapes, indeed, that he is chiefly visible during the war. Occasionally, the English come close upon him; he starts up, like the roused lion, plunges into the river or leaps the precipice; and nothing more is seen of him for months. Only a few weeks after the war commenced, he was surrounded in the great Pocasset swamp, and obliged to escape from his vigilant enemies by rafting himself, with his best men, over the great Taunton river, while their women and children were left to be captured. On his return to the same neighborhood, the next season, a captive guided the English to his encampment. Philip fled in such haste as to leave his kettle upon the fire; twenty of his comrades were overtaken and killed; and he himself escaped to the swamp, precisely as he had formerly escaped from it. Here his uncle was shot soon afterwards at his side. Upon the next day, Church, discovering an Indian seated on a fallen tree, made to answer the purpose of a bridge over the river, raised his musket and deliberately aimed at him. "It is one of our own party," whispered a savage, who crept behind him. Church lowered his gun, and the stranger turned his head. It was Philip himself, musing, perhaps, upon the fate which awaited him. Church fired, but his royal enemy had already fled down the bank. He escaped from a close and bloody skirmish a few hours afterwards. He was now a desolate and desperate man, the last prince of an ancient race, without subjects, without territory, accused by his allies, betrayed by his comrades, hunted like a spent deer by blood-hounds, in daily hazard of famishing, and with no shelter day or night for his head. All his chief counsellors and best friends had been killed. His brother was slain in the Pocasset swamp; his uncle was shot down at his own side; and his wife and only son were captured when he himself so narrowly escaped from the fire of Church. And could he have fled for the last time from the soil of his own country, he would still have found no rest or refuge. He had betaken himself once to a place between York and Albany; but even here, as Church says, the _Moohags_ made a descent upon him and killed many of his men. His next kennelling-place [FN] was at the fall of Connecticut river, above Deerfield, where, some time after, "Captain Turner found him, came upon him by night, killed a great many men, and frightened many more into the river, that were hunted down the falls and drowned." He lost three hundred men at this time. They were in their encampments, asleep and unguarded. The English rushed upon them, and they fled in every direction, half-awakened, and crying out, "Mohawks! Mohawks!" * * * * *