Canada -- Description and travel; Canada -- History -- To 1763 (New France); Indians of North America -- Canada
[Footnote 142: "Several soldiers of this and other regiments fell into
an ambush, and were captured by the Indians. Allan Macpherson, seeing
his comrades horribly tortured to death, and knowing that the same fate
awaited him, told the savages, through an interpreter, that he knew a
wonderful secret of a certain medicine, which, if applied to the skin,
would render it proof against any weapon. His tale was believed by the
superstitious Indians, and, anxious to see the proof, they allowed him
to gather herbs, and, having mixed and boiled them, to apply the
concoction to his neck; he then laid his head upon a block, and
challenged the strongest man to strike. A warrior came forward, and, to
prove the virtue of the medicine, struck a blow with his tomahawk at
full strength; the head flew off several yards. The Indians stood at
first amazed at their own credulity, but were afterward so pleased at
the Highlander's ingenuity in escaping the torture, that they refrained
from inflicting further cruelties on their surviving victims."--Stewart's
_Sketches of the Highlanders_, vol. ii., p. 61.
Some of the Highland regiments sent to America were newly raised, and
still, in a great degree, retained the wildness of their Celtic
countrymen, as the following anecdote illustrates: "A soldier of another
regiment, who was a sentinel detached from an advanced guard, seeing a
man coming out of the wood with his hair hanging loose, and wrapped up
in a dark-colored plaid, he challenged him repeatedly, and, receiving no
answer (the weather being hazy), fired at him and killed him. The guard
being alarmed, the sergeant ran out to know the cause, and the unhappy
sentinel, strongly prepossessed that it was an Indian, with a blanket
about him, who came skulking to take a prisoner, or a scalp, cried out,
'I have killed an Indian! I have killed an Indian!' but upon being
undeceived by the sergeant, who went to take a view of the dead man, and
being told that he was one of our own men and a Highlander, he was so
oppressed with grief and fright that he fell ill, and was despaired of
for some days. In consequence of this accident, most of these young
soldiers being raw and inexperienced, and very few of them conversant in
or able to talk English (which was particularly his case who was
killed), these regiments were ordered to do no more duty for some
time."--Knox's _Historical Campaign_, vol. i., p. 48.]
[Footnote 143: Raystown is near Bedford.]
[Footnote 144: Loyal Hanning, when fortified by General Forbes, on his
return to Philadelphia, was called Fort Ligonier.]
[Footnote 145: "With the unanimous concurrence of his officers, he
altered the name of Fort du Quesne to Pittsburg, a well-earned
compliment to the minister who had planned its conquest."--Lord Mahon's
_History of England_, vol. iv., p. 203.]
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