The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. X (of X) - America - II, Index
General
The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. X (of X) - America - II, Index
Literature -- Collections
He remained two days, half-stifled, in this foul lurking-place,[52]
while the Indians, furious at his escape, ransacked the settlement in
vain to find him. They came off to the vessel, and so terrified the
officers that Jogues was sent on shore at night, and led to the fort.
Here he was hidden in the garret of a house occupied by a miserly old
man, to whose charge he was consigned. Food was sent to him; but, as
his host appropriated the larger part to himself, Jogues was nearly
starved. There was a compartment of his garret, separated from the
rest by a partition of boards. Here the old Dutchman, who, like many
others of the settlers, carried on a trade with the Mohawks, kept a
quantity of goods for that purpose; and hither he often brought his
customers. The boards of the partition had shrunk, leaving wide
crevices; and Jogues could plainly see the Indians, as they passed
between him and the light. They, on their part, might as easily have
seen him, if he had not, when he heard them entering the house, hidden
himself behind some barrels in the corner, where he would sometimes
remain crouched for hours, in a constrained and painful posture,
half-suffocated with heat, and afraid to move a limb. His wounded leg
began to show dangerous symptoms; but he was relieved by the care of a
Dutch, surgeon of the fort. The minister, Megapolensis, also visited
him, and did all in his power for the comfort of his Catholic brother,
with whom he seems to have been well pleased, and whom he calls "a
very learned scholar."
[Footnote 52: Near Albany, or Fort Orange, as it was then called.]
When Jogues had remained for six weeks in this hiding-place, his Dutch
friends succeeded in satisfying his Indian masters by the payment of a
large ransom. A vessel from Manhattan, now New York, soon after brought up
an order from the Director-General, Kieft, that he should be sent to him.
Accordingly, he was placed in a small vessel, which carried him down the
Hudson. The Dutch on board treated him with great kindness; and, to do him
honor, named after him one of the islands in the river. At Manhattan he
found a dilapidated fort, garrisoned by sixty soldiers, and containing a
stone church and the Director-General's house, together with storehouses
and barracks. Near it were ranges of small houses, occupied chiefly by
mechanics and laborers; while the dwellings of the remaining colonists,
numbering in all four or five hundred, were scattered here and there on the
island and the neighboring shores. The settlers were of different sects and
nations, but chiefly Dutch Calvinists. Kieft told his guest that eighteen
different languages were spoken at Manhattan. The colonists were in the
midst of a bloody Indian war, brought on by their own besotted cruelty; and
while Jogues was at the fort, some forty of the Dutchmen were killed on the
neighboring farms, and many barns and houses burned.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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