that at Wimpson, in Hampshire, the ducks on the farm were denuded of their feet by some large eels that were found in a pond which this species of poultry were in the | habit of frequenting. But we find the most remarkable statements about the voracity of the creature in a work called The Wonders of Nature and Art, pub- | lished at Berwick-upon-Tweed in 1780. About the middle of last century, the farmers near Yeovil suffered greatly by losing vast quantities of hay. This could not be accounted for. A reward was offered for the supposed culprits; upon which several soldiers, then quartered at Yeovil, kept watch, and to their great surprise found, in the dead of the night, a monstrous eel making its way out of the river, and setting itself to feed greedily on the hay! It was destroyed, and roasted; | and the fat that came out of its body filled several casks and tubs! This work was designed by the writer as a "useful and valuable production for young people !"

The eel has been a fruitful topic for legendary lore in most European countries. The subject, however, is so voluminous, that we can do little more than merely dip into it. The legend of the "Lambton Eel” is well known, and fully recorded in the various histories of the county of Durham. The substance of the story is as follows: The heir of the Lambtons, in the early part of the middle ages, fell into a profane habit of angling on a Sunday. On one of these hallowed days he caught in the River Wear a small eel, little thicker than a common thread, which he threw into a well. In process of time, this young heir of the Lambton family was called to the wars against the Moslems in the First Crusade, organized by Peter the Hermit, where the ambitious young soldier distinguished himself by many feats of daring and valor. On returning to his own country he learned, with great surprise, that the small eel he had thrown carelessly into the well had grown to a fearful magnitude, and manifested the most cruel and ravenous propensities. He was solicited to rid the vicinity of the monster. It frequently coiled itself nine times round a large tower; daily levied a contribution of nine cows' milk on the inhabitants; and when this was not immediately granted, it devoured both man and beast. Before, however, the valiant knight undertook a per

sonal conflict with this enormous eel, he consulted a noted witch in the neighborhood. She advised him to put on a coatof-mail, furnished on the outside with numerous razor-blades. Thus equipped, he sallied out and encountered the huge fish near a high rock on the banks of the Wear. It immediately coiled itself round him. His coat of razor-blades, however, proved more than a match for the gigantic eel, which was soon cut in pieces by the sheer exercise of its own strength. There is a sequel to the legend: the witch promised the Count of Lambton her aid only upon one condition, that he should slay the first living thing he met after the conquest. To avoid the possibility of human slaughter, he directed his father that as soon as he heard three blasts from his bugle in token of victory, he should release his favorite greyhound, which he would immediately sacrifice. When the bugle was heard, the old father was so overcome with joy that he entirely forgot the injunction his son had put upon him, and ran out himself, and threw himself in the victor's arms. Instead of committing parricide, the heir repaired again to the old sorceress, who evinced considerable wrath at the neglect of her commands. By way of punishment, she foretold that no heir of the Lambton family should die in his bed for seven-some accounts say nine-generations; a prediction which some local historians affirm came literally to pass.

There was a very ancient custom among the clergy of Notre Dame, in Paris, called the Rogations, which consisted of carrying a figure resembling an eel through a certain locality on the River Seine, and throwing fruits and cakes into its mouth. It was made of wicker-work, and was. considered a representative of a great eel which emerged out of this river, and threatened destruction to the entire city. It was vanquished by some valiant sons of the Church. This procession was observed till the year 1730; after which the chief personage in the procession contented himself with merely pronouncing a benediction on the river.

But the superstitions connected with eels, and the mythical and legendary stories in which they figure, are innumerable; and to avoid being carried beyond our limits, we had better let the subject slip through our fingers at once.

SKETCHES OF COLONIAL HISTORY.

CHAMPLAIN'S ATTACKS UPON THE

IROQUOIS INDIANS.

excited much inquiry as to the cause. It was imputed by some to a previously concerted plan by the Onondagas, " to destroy the French, the Hurons, the Algonquins, and their allies." To effect this, it was assumed that they had resorted to the stratagem of getting into their power as many as they could of the French, the missionaries, and their old enemies, the Hurons and Algonquins, by professions of friendship and good-will toward them; and then to commence the work of destruction by cutting them off at a stroke.

Father Ragueneau, either from a sincere belief that the Indians were honest in their professions of friendship, or from a mortified pride at being duped and ensnared by them, was unwilling to admit this solution of the matter. He says in one of his notices of the affair:

They urged, for many years, with incredible persistence, with evidences of special affection, and even with threats of rupture and war, if their friendship were despised and their demand rejected; they insisted, I say, and solicited that a goodly number of French should accompany them into their country; the one to instruct, the others to protect them against their enemies, as a token of peace and alliance with them."

He would not admit that the savages possessed so much intelligence and tact as to practice such hypocrisy, and successfully decoy the more enlightened Europeans into the snare they had laid for them. It is quite evident that the zealous Jesuit did not accurately appreciate the intelligence and sagacity of these sons of the forest, nor take into the account their probable estimate of the conduct and motives of the French and the missionaries, who manifested so much zeal to secure their submission to the government of the French and the control of the Jesuits. The truth seems to be, that the Onondagas were vacillating, sometimes inclined to favor the French and close with their proffers of friendly alliance, and at others, jealous and reserved in their intercourse and negotiations with them. The Mohawks, Senecas, and Cayugas, with whom they were confederated, were more uniformly firm in opposing all overtures of

or granting them any privileges that might be employed to their disadvantage. It was this influence, no doubt, on the part of the Mohawks, which determined the policy of the Iroquois Indians toward the French; a policy which was prominent in all the wars and conflicts between them and the French, as long as the latter continued in possession of Canada.

This policy of the Iroquois Indians toward the French grew out of the policy of the latter, early adopted and steadily pursued toward these powerful and muchdreaded neighbors. It was inaugurated by Champlain, the founder of Quebec, under the auspices of the French government and the proprietors and patrons of the colonial settlements; and it so clearly discovered the intention and motives of the colonists, that the savages could not fail to understand it in its bearings upon them and their cherished interests. The practical tendency of this policy had fallen first and most heavily upon the Mohawks, and afterward upon the Senecas and Cayugas. In the course adopted by the adventurous Champlain and his French associates toward the Indians, both in the 'colony of New France and that of New York, there was enough to admonish the sagacious Iroquois to receive with suspicion and distrust any proposals for peace and amity, in whatever way they might come, from the agents and emissaries of the French at Quebec. Though it takes us back of the sketches heretofore published, that portion of colonial history which embraces the adventures and government of Samuel de Champlain in New France is so much in point, as setting forth the policy which ever after controlled the conduct of these neighboring powers with respect to each other, and accounts for the expulsion of the French and missionaries from Onondaga, that I propose in this paper to give it in detail.

It must be premised, that anterior to the year 1600, though the country had been discovered by Cabot more than a century before, no expedition had effected a permanent settlement in it. Cartier, in 1534, under a commission from the French king,

"landed at several places on the coast of the Gulf of St. Lawrence, and took possession of the country in the name of his sovereign." The following year he ascended the St. Lawrence up to the island where Montreal now stands. In 1603, Champlain, in the employ of a company of merchants, who were chartered under a commission from the king "for prosecuting discoveries and establishing settlements on the river of Canada," made a voyage, in company with M. Pontgrave, to the colony; and he ascended up the St. Lawrence as far as the Rapids of Lachine. He explored much of the country on the banks of the river, and made many inquiries of the natives respecting it. The principal Indian nations inhabiting the territory at that time were the Algonquins and Hurons, the inveterate enemies of the Iroquois, from whom they had suffered everything but utter extinction by the harassing wars in which they were almost perpetually engaged with them. These weak and exposed people would naturally accept, on any terms, a proposition from so powerful an ally, to aid them in subduing their formidable enemies. Accordingly, when he returned to that section in 1608, and laid the foundation of Quebec as the principal trading post of the company, in less than a year afterward we find him, with some of his men, engaged in an expedition with the Huron and Alongquin Indians against the Iroquois, in the neighboring colony of New York. His own account of this expedition sufficiently shows the motives and spirit by which he was actuated, and the little reason the savages against whom it was directed had to repose confidence in any professions of friendship and good-will which he, or others in sympathy with the government of which he was the ostensible representative, might ever make to them.

Led by the Indians, he proceeded to make an attack on the Mohawks. On the 2d of July, 1609, they passed the Chambly rapids. After passing the rapids, all the Indians who had gone by land re-embarked in their canoes. They reviewed all their force, and found twenty-four canoes with sixty men. The next day they came to the lake, which Champlain having thus discovered, was ever after called by his name. Continuing their route along the west bank of the lake, he saw in the distance the mountain ranges in Vermont

and New Hampshire, made many inquiries of the Indians respecting the tribes that inhabited those regions, and obtained much valuable information of the country and its inhabitants. On approaching the enemy's country they traveled only by night and rested during the day. As they advanced, softly and noiselessly, they encountered a war party of Iroquois about ten o'clock at night. This was twenty-seven days after their leaving Chambly. Both parties raised a shout, and seized their arms to prepare for battle. Little did the Iroquois know, who had been accustomed to encounter only the arrow and the tomahawk, with what weapons they were to be assailed; while their enemies, who had so often been vanquished by them, felt an unwonted confidence that they should now be able to chastise them for their former assaults and annoyances, by the arms of their new and valorous ally. The remainder of the account we give in the language of Champlain himself. He says:

"When they were armed and in order, they sent two canoes from the fleet to know if their

enemies wished to fight; who answered they desired nothing else, but that just then there was not much light, and that we must wait for day to distinguish each other, and that they would give us battle at sunrise. This was agreed to by our party. Meanwhile the whole night was spent in dancing and singing, as well on one side as on the other, mingled with an infinitude of insults and other taunts; such as the little courage they had, how powerless their resistance against their arms, and that

when the day would break they would experience this to their ruin. Ours likewise did not fail in repartee; telling them they should witness the effect of arms they had never seen before; and a multitude of other speeches, as After the one is usual at the siege of a town. and the other had sung, danced, and parliamented enough, day broke. My companions and I were always concealed, for fear the enemy should see us, preparing our arms the best we

could.

"After being equipped with light armor, we took each an arquebus and went ashore. I saw the enemy leave their barricade; they were about two hundred men, of strong and robust appearance, who were coming slowly toward us, with a gravity and assurance which greatly pleased me, led by three chiefs. Ours were marching in similar order, and told me that those who bore three lofty plumes were the chiefs, and that there were but those three, and they were to be recognized by those plumes, which were considerably larger than those of their companions, and that I must do all I could to kill them.

that I was very sorry they could not understand me, so as to give them the order and plan of attacking their enemies, as we should

"I promised them to do what I could, and

ron, Champlain made his appearance on the 7th day of August, 1615, where he was received, as he says, "with great joy and gratitude by all the Indians of the country." Here he tarried a short time to wait for the warriors to come in from the adjacent villages. His own account of the matter shows that he had identified himself with these Indians in their hostility and warfare against the Iroquois. They had intelligence, he says, that a distant nation of their allies, with whom the Iroquois were at war, "wished to assist in this expedition with five hundred good men, and enter into amity and alliance with us, [the French,] having a great desire to see us, and that we should wage war all together." During the interval of their remaining, "it was a continued series," he adds, in his report," of feasting and dancing, through joy for seeing us so determined to assist them in their war, and as a guarantee already of victory."

On the 1st day of September, they assembled the major part of their forces, and set out from the village. They received new recruits of followers as they proceeded in their march toward the enemy's country. And after having dispatched a number of their bravest men to inform the five hundred men who wished to join them, of their departure, and to make arrangements to have them meet their forces before the enemy's fort, they advanced, by land and water, to Lake Ontario, and thence across the lake into the enemy's territory, where they hid their canoes on the shore in the vicinity of Sodus Bay. On the 9th of October, eleven Iroquois Indians were discovered by a scouting party, and taken prisoners. This was probably the first intimation these poor savages had that the enemy was in their midst. And even then they did not know that they had to encounter the white man's terrible arquebus, before which the chiefs of their Mohawk brethren had fallen, and their war-braves were scattered and slain.

The day following the enemy's fort was reached, imbosomed in the forest near to where the beautiful and wealthy village of Canandaigua now stands. Champlain did not design to discover himself and his associates until the next day, when he might surprise and terrify the enemy by bringing his fire-arms into requisition at an opportune moment, and finishing the

contest at a blow. But the impetuosity of his savages would not brook this. Some of them entered into skirmishes with the enemy at once, and got into difficulty. Others were impatient to see the effect the arquebus of their invincible ally and leader would have upon their enemies, and also to relieve their friends whose rashness had gotten them into difficulty; and Champlain was induced to show himself at once. I advanced," he says, "and presented myself, but with the few men I had; nevertheless, I showed them what they had never seen nor heard before. For as soon as they saw us, and heard the reports of the arquebus, and the balls whistling about their ears, they retired promptly within their fort, carrying off their wounded and dead; and we retreated in like manner to our main body, with five or six of our wounded, one of whom died."

Finding the fortification of their enemies much stronger and more difficult to subdue than they had supposed, Champlain directed the construction of a movable tower, from which, by the use of their firearms, they could harass and discomfit their enemies within it. With this novel provision for an assault, an attack was made. They were valiantly repulsed; though "the multitude of arquebus shots" drove the enemy from their position, to shelter themselves in less exposed portions of the fort. The savages, who had so fiercely rushed to the contest at the commencement of the action, now broke loose from all restraint, and, with an Indian yell, which drowned the voice of their commander, commenced shooting arrows within the fort, which did very little execution. In the midst of their confusion and disorder, one undertook to set fire to the fort, which, being on the wrong side, was soon extinguished by those within it. Champlain found it impossible to restore order; and after three hours' hard fighting, during which two chiefs and fifteen other individuals were wounded, and he himself partially disabled by the arrows of the enemy, he was forced to yield, and retire from the contest. With this result he was greatly dissatisfied; and he urged the Indians to renew the attack, and to set fire to the enemy's fort when the wind was fair to cause its destruction; but it was to no purpose. They were intent upon a retreat; and, providing to carry their wounded, departed for their own