THE LAST OF THE MOHICANS
A Narrative of 1757
by James Fenimore Cooper
INTRODUCTION
It is believed that the scene of this tale, and most of the information
necessary to understand its allusions, are rendered sufficiently obvious to the
reader in the text itself, or in the accompanying notes. Still there is so much
obscurity in the Indian traditions, and so much
confusion in the Indian names, as to render some
explanation useful.
Few men exhibit greater diversity, or, if we may so express it, greater antithesis
of character, than the native warrior of North America.
In war, he is daring, boastful, cunning, ruthless, self-denying, and
self-devoted; in peace, just, generous, hospitable, revengeful, superstitious,
modest, and commonly chaste. These are qualities, it is true, which do not
distinguish all alike; but they are so far the predominating traits of these
remarkable people as to be characteristic.
It is generally believed that the Aborigines of the American continent have an
Asiatic origin. There are many physical as well as moral facts which
corroborate this opinion, and some few that would seem to weigh against it.
The color of the Indian, the writer believes, is peculiar to himself, and while
his cheek-bones have a very striking indication of a Tartar origin, his eyes
have not. Climate may have had great influence on the former, but it is
difficult to see how it can have produced the substantial difference which
exists in the latter. The imagery of the Indian, both in his poetry and in his
oratory, is oriental; chastened, and perhaps improved, by the limited range of
his practical knowledge. He draws his metaphors from the clouds, the seasons,
the birds, the beasts, and the vegetable world. In this, perhaps, he does no
more than any other energetic and imaginative race would do, being compelled to
set bounds to fancy by experience; but the North
American Indian clothes his ideas in a dress which is different from
that of the African, and is oriental in itself. His language has the richness
and sententious fullness of the Chinese.
He will express a phrase in a word, and he will qualify the meaning of an
entire sentence by a syllable; he will even convey different significations by
the simplest inflections of the voice.
Philologists have said that there are but two or three languages, properly
speaking, among all the numerous tribes which formerly occupied the country
that now composes the United States. They ascribe the known difficulty one
people have to understand another to corruptions and dialects. The writer
remembers to have been present at an interview between two chiefs of the Great
Prairies west of the Mississippi, and when an interpreter was in attendance who
spoke both their languages. The warriors appeared to be on the most friendly
terms, and seemingly conversed much together; yet, according to the account of
the interpreter, each was absolutely ignorant of what the other said. They were
of hostile tribes, brought together by the influence of the American
government; and it is worthy of remark, that a common policy led them both to
adopt the same subject.
They mutually exhorted each other to be of use in the event of the chances of
war throwing either of the parties into the hands of his enemies. Whatever may
be the truth, as respects the root and the genius of the Indian tongues, it is
quite certain they are now so distinct in their words as to possess most of the
disadvantages of strange languages; hence much of the embarrassment that has
arisen in learning their histories, and most of the uncertainty which exists in
their traditions.
Like nations of higher pretensions, the American Indian
gives a very different account of his own tribe or race from that which is
given by other people. He is much addicted to overestimating his own perfections,
and to undervaluing those of his rival or his enemy; a trait which may possibly
be thought corroborative of the Mosaic account of the creation.
The whites have assisted greatly in rendering the traditions of the Aborigines
more obscure by their own manner of corrupting names. Thus, the term used in
the title of this book has undergone the changes of Mahicanni, Mohicans, and
Mohegans; the latter being the word commonly used by the whites. When it is
remembered that the Dutch (who first settled New York),
the English, and the French, all gave appellations to the tribes that dwelt
within the country which is the scene of this story, and that the Indians not
only gave different names to their enemies, but frequently to themselves, the
cause of the confusion will be understood.
In these pages, Lenni-Lenape, Lenope, Delawares, Wapanachki, and Mohicans, all
mean the same people, or tribes of the same stock. The Mengwe, the Maquas, the
Mingoes, and the Iroquois, though not all strictly the same, are identified frequently
by the speakers, being politically confederated and opposed to those just
named. Mingo was a term of peculiar reproach, as were Mengwe and Maqua in a
less degree.
The Mohicans were the possessors of the country first occupied by the Europeans
in this portion of the continent. They were, consequently, the first
dispossessed; and the seemingly inevitable fate of all these people, who
disappear before the advances, or it might be termed the inroads, of
civilization, as the verdure of their native forests falls before the nipping
frosts, is represented as having already befallen them. There is sufficient
historical truth in the picture to justify the use that has been made of it.
In point of fact, the country which is the scene of the following tale has
undergone as little change, since the historical events alluded to had place,
as almost any other district of equal extent within the whole limits of the
United States. There are fashionable and well-attended watering-places at and
near the spring where Hawkeye halted to drink, and roads traverse the forests
where he and his friends were compelled to journey without even a path. Glen's
has a large village; and while William Henry, and even a fortress of later
date, are only to be traced as ruins, there is another village on the shores of
the Horican. But, beyond this, the enterprise and energy of a people who have
done so much in other places have done little here. The whole of that
wilderness, in which the latter incidents of the legend occurred, is nearly a
wilderness still, though the red man has entirely deserted this part of the
state.
Of all the tribes named in these pages, there exist only a few half-civilized
beings of the Oneidas, on the reservations of their people in New York. The
rest have disappeared, either from the regions in which their fathers dwelt, or
altogether from the earth.
There is one point on which we would wish to say a word before closing this
preface. Hawkeye calls the Lac du Saint Sacrement, the "Horican." As
we believe this to be an appropriation of the name that has its origin with
ourselves, the time has arrived, perhaps, when the fact should be frankly
admitted. While writing this book, fully a quarter of a century since, it
occurred to us that the French name of this lake
was too complicated, the American too commonplace, and the Indian too
unpronounceable, for either to be used familiarly in a work of fiction. Looking
over an ancient map, it was ascertained that a tribe of Indians, called
"Les Horicans" by the French, existed in the neighborhood of this
beautiful sheet of water. As every word uttered by Natty
Bumppo was not to be received as rigid truth, we took the liberty of
putting the "Horican" into his mouth, as the substitute for
"Lake George.
" The name has appeared to find favor, and all things considered, it may
possibly be quite as well to let it stand, instead of going back to the House of Hanover for the appellation of our finest
sheet of water. We relieve our conscience by the confession, at all events
leaving it to exercise its authority as it may see fit.
CHAPTER 1
"Mine ear is open, and my heart prepared:
The worst is wordly loss thou canst unfold:--
Say, is my kingdom lost?"--Shakespeare
It was a feature peculiar to the colonial wars of North
America, that the toils and dangers of the wilderness were to be
encountered before the adverse hosts could meet. A wide and apparently an
impervious boundary of forests severed the possessions of the hostile provinces
of France and England. The hardy colonist, and the
trained European who fought at his side, frequently expended months in
struggling against the rapids of the streams, or in effecting the rugged passes
of the mountains, in quest of an opportunity to exhibit their courage in a more
martial conflict. But, emulating the patience and self-denial of the practiced
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 satiate 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 frontiers
can furnish a livelier picture of the cruelty and fierceness of the savage
warfare of those periods than the country which lies between the head waters of
the Hudson and the adjacent lakes.
The facilities which nature had there offered to the march of the combatants
were too obvious to be neglected. The lengthened sheet of the Champlain
stretched from the frontiers of Canada, deep
within the borders of the neighboring province of New
York, forming a natural passage across half the distance that the French
were compelled to master in order to strike their enemies. Near its southern
termination, it received the contributions of another lake, whose waters were
so limpid as to have been exclusively selected by the Jesuit missionaries to
perform the typical purification of baptism, and to obtain for it the title of
lake "du Saint Sacrement." The less zealous English thought they
conferred a sufficient honor on its unsullied fountains, when they bestowed 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."*
* As each nation of the Indians had its language or its
dialect, they usually gave different names to the same
places, though nearly all of their appellations were
descriptive of the object. Thus a 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,
legally,
called, forms a sort of tail to Lake Champlain, when viewed
on the map. Hence, the name.
Winding its way among countless islands, and imbedded in mountains, the
"holy lake" extended a dozen leagues still further to the south. With
the high plain that there interposed itself to the further passage of the
water, commenced a portage of as many miles,
which conducted the adventurer to the banks of the Hudson, at a point where,
with the usual obstructions of the rapids, or rifts, as they were then termed
in the language of the country, the river became navigable to the tide.
While, in the pursuit of their daring plans of annoyance, the restless
enterprise of the French even attempted the distant and difficult gorges of the
Alleghany, it may easily be imagined that their proverbial acuteness would not
overlook the natural advantages of the district we have just described. It
became, emphatically, the bloody arena, in which most of the battles for the
mastery of the colonies were contested. Forts were erected at the different
points that commanded the facilities of the route, and were taken and retaken,
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 settlements, armies larger than those that had often
disposed of the scepters of the mother countries, were seen to bury themselves
in these forests, whence they rarely returned but in skeleton bands, that were
haggard with care or dejected by defeat.
Though the arts of peace were unknown to this fatal region, its forests were
alive with men; its shades and glens rang with the sounds of martial music, and
the echoes of its mountains threw back the laugh, or repeated the wanton cry,
of many a gallant and reckless youth, as he hurried by them, in the noontide of
his spirits, to slumber in a long night of forgetfulness.
It was in this scene of strife and bloodshed that the incidents we shall
attempt to relate occurred, during the third year of the war which England and France last waged for the possession of a country that
neither was destined to retain.
The imbecility of her military leaders abroad, and the fatal want of energy in
her councils at home, had lowered the character of Great
Britain from the proud elevation on which it had been placed by the
talents and enterprise of her former warriors and statesmen. No longer dreaded
by her enemies, her servants were fast losing the confidence of self-respect.
In this mortifying abasement, the colonists, though innocent of her imbecility,
and too humble to be the agents of her blunders, were but the natural
participators.
They had recently seen a chosen army from that country, which, reverencing as a
mother, they had blindly believed invincible--an army led by a chief who had
been selected from a crowd of trained warriors, for his rare military
endowments, disgracefully routed by a handful of French and Indians, and only
saved from annihilation by the coolness and spirit of a Virginian boy, whose
riper fame has since diffused itself, with the steady influence of moral truth,
to the uttermost confines of Christendom.* A wide frontier had been laid naked
by this unexpected disaster, and more substantial evils were preceded by a
thousand fanciful and imaginary dangers. The alarmed colonists believed that
the yells of the savages mingled with every fitful gust of wind that issued
from the interminable forests of the west. The terrific character of their
merciless enemies increased immeasurably the natural horrors of warfare.
Numberless recent massacres were still vivid in their recollections; nor was
there any ear in the provinces so deaf as not to have drunk in with avidity the
narrative of some fearful tale of midnight murder, in which the natives of the
forests were the principal and barbarous actors. As the credulous and excited
traveler related the hazardous chances of the wilderness, the blood of the
timid curdled with terror, and mothers cast anxious glances even at those
children which slumbered within the security of the largest towns. In short,
the magnifying influence of fear began to set at naught the calculations of
reason, and to render those who should have remembered their manhood, the
slaves of the basest passions.
Even the most confident and the stoutest hearts began to think the issue of the
contest was becoming doubtful; and that abject class was hourly increasing in
numbers, who thought they foresaw all the possessions of the English crown in
America subdued by their Christian foes, or laid waste by the inroads of their
relentless allies.
* Washington, who, after uselessly admonishing the European
general of the danger into which he was heedlessly running,
saved the remnants of the British army, on this
occasion, by
his decision and courage. The reputation earned by
Washington in this battle was the principal cause
of his
being selected to command the American armies at a later
day. It is a circumstance worthy of observation, that while
all America rang with his well-merited reputation, his name
does not occur in any European account of the battle; at
least the author has searched for it without success. In
this manner does the mother country absorb even
the fame,
under that system of rule.
When, therefore, intelligence was received at the fort which covered the
southern termination of the portage between the Hudson and the lakes, that
Montcalm had been seen moving up the Champlain, with an army "numerous as
the leaves on the trees," its truth was admitted with more of the craven
reluctance of fear than with the stern joy that a warrior should feel, in
finding an enemy within reach of his blow. The news had been brought, toward
the decline of a day in midsummer, by an Indian runner, who also bore an urgent
request from Munro, the commander of a work on the shore of the "holy
lake," for a speedy and powerful reinforcement. It has already been
mentioned that the distance between these two posts was less than five leagues.
The rude path, which originally formed their line of communication, had been
widened for the passage of wagons; so that the distance which had been traveled
by the son of the forest in two hours, might easily be effected by a detachment
of troops, with their necessary baggage, between the rising and setting of a summer
sun. The loyal servants of the British crown had given to one of these
forest-fastnesses the name of William Henry, and to the other that of Fort
Edward, calling each after a favorite prince of the reigning family. The
veteran Scotchman just named held the first, with a regiment of regulars and a
few provincials; a force really by far too small to make head against the
formidable power that Montcalm was leading to the foot of his earthen mounds.
At the latter, however, lay General Webb, who commanded the armies of the king
in the northern provinces, with a body of more than five thousand men.
By uniting the several detachments of his command, this officer might have
arrayed nearly double that number of combatants against the enterprising
Frenchman, who had ventured so far from his reinforcements, with an army but
little superior in numbers.
But under the influence of their degraded fortunes, both officers and men
appeared better disposed to await the approach of their formidable antagonists,
within their works, than to resist the progress of their march, by emulating
the successful example of the French at Fort du Quesne, and striking a blow on
their advance.
After the first surprise of the intelligence had a little abated, a rumor was
spread through the entrenched camp, which stretched along the margin of the
Hudson, forming a chain of outworks to the body of the fort itself, that a
chosen detachment of fifteen hundred men was to depart, with the dawn, for
William Henry, the post at the northern extremity of the portage. That which at
first was only rumor, soon became certainty, as orders passed from the quarters
of the commander-in-chief to the several corps he had selected for this
service, to prepare for their speedy departure. All doubts as to the intention
of Webb now vanished, and an hour or two of hurried footsteps and anxious faces
succeeded.
The novice in the military art flew from point to point, retarding his own
preparations by the excess of his violent and somewhat distempered zeal; while
the more practiced veteran made his arrangements with a deliberation that
scorned every appearance of haste; though his sober lineaments and anxious eye
sufficiently betrayed that he had no very strong professional relish for the,
as yet, untried and dreaded warfare of the wilderness. At length the sun set in
a flood of glory, behind the distant western hills,
and as darkness drew its veil around the secluded spot the sounds of
preparation diminished; the last light finally disappeared from the log cabin
of some officer; the trees cast their deeper shadows over the mounds and the
rippling stream, and a silence soon pervaded the camp, as deep as that which
reigned in the vast forest by which it was environed.
According to the orders of the preceding night, the heavy sleep of the army was
broken by the rolling of the warning drums, whose rattling echoes were heard
issuing, on the damp morning air, out of every vista of the woods, just as day
began to draw the shaggy outlines of some tall pines of the vicinity, on the
opening brightness of a soft and cloudless eastern sky. In an instant the whole
camp was in motion; the meanest soldier arousing from his lair to witness the
departure of his comrades, and to share in the excitement and incidents of the
hour. The simple array of the chosen band was soon completed. While the regular
and trained hirelings of the king marched with haughtiness to the right of the
line, the less pretending colonists took their humbler position on its left,
with a docility that long practice had rendered easy.
The scouts departed; strong guards preceded and followed the lumbering vehicles
that bore the baggage; and before the gray light of the morning was mellowed by
the rays of the sun, the main body of the combatants wheeled into column, and
left the encampment with a show of high military bearing, that served to drown
the slumbering apprehensions of many a novice, who was now about to make his
first essay in arms. While in view of their admiring comrades, the same proud
front and ordered array was observed, until the notes of their fifes growing
fainter in distance, the forest at length appeared to swallow up the living
mass which had slowly entered its bosom.
The deepest sounds of the retiring and invisible column had ceased to be borne
on the breeze to the listeners, and the latest straggler had already
disappeared in pursuit; but there still remained the signs of another
departure, before a log cabin of unusual size and accommodations, in front of
which those sentinels paced their rounds, who were known to guard the person of
the English general. At this spot were gathered some half dozen horses,
caparisoned in a manner which showed that two, at least, were destined to bear
the persons of females, of a rank that it was not usual to meet so far in the
wilds of the country. A third wore trappings and arms of an officer of the
staff; while the rest, from the plainness of the housings, and the traveling
mails with which they were encumbered, were evidently fitted for the reception
of as many menials, who were, seemingly, already waiting the pleasure of those
they served.
At a respectful distance from this unusual show, were gathered divers groups of
curious idlers; some admiring the blood and bone of the high-mettled military
charger, and others gazing at the preparations, with the dull wonder of vulgar
curiosity. There was one man, however, who, by his countenance and actions,
formed a marked exception to those who composed the latter class of spectators,
being neither idle, nor seemingly very ignorant.
The person of this individual was to the last degree ungainly, without being in
any particular manner deformed. He had all the bones and joints of other men,
without any of their proportions. Erect, his stature surpassed that of his
fellows; though seated, he appeared reduced within the ordinary limits of the
race. The same contrariety in his members seemed to exist throughout the whole
man. His head was large; his shoulders narrow; his arms long and dangling;
while his hands were small, if not delicate. His legs and thighs were thin,
nearly to emaciation, but of extraordinary length; and his knees would have
been considered tremendous, had they not been outdone by the broader
foundations on which this false superstructure of blended human orders was so
profanely reared. The ill-assorted and injudicious attire of the individual
only served to render his awkwardness more conspicuous.
A sky-blue coat, with short and broad skirts and low cape, exposed a long, thin
neck, and longer and thinner legs, to the worst animadversions of the
evil-disposed. His nether garment was a yellow nankeen, closely fitted to the
shape, and tied at his bunches of knees by large knots of white ribbon, a good
deal sullied by use. Clouded cotton stockings, and shoes, on one of the latter
of which was a plated spur, completed the costume of the lower extremity of
this figure, no curve or angle of which was concealed, but, on the other hand,
studiously exhibited, through the vanity or simplicity of its owner.
From beneath the flap of an enormous pocket of a soiled vest of embossed silk,
heavily ornamented with tarnished silver lace, projected an instrument, which,
from being seen in such martial company, might have been easily mistaken for
some mischievous and unknown implement of war. Small as it was, this uncommon
engine had excited the curiosity of most of the Europeans in the camp, though
several of the provincials were seen to handle it, not only without fear, but
with the utmost familiarity. A large, civil cocked hat, like those worn by
clergymen within the last thirty years,
surmounted the whole, furnishing dignity to a good-natured and somewhat vacant
countenance, that apparently needed such artificial aid, to support the gravity
of some high and extraordinary trust.
While the common herd stood aloof, in deference to the quarters of Webb, the
figure we have described stalked into the center of the domestics, freely
expressing his censures or commendations on the merits of the horses, as by
chance they displeased or satisfied his judgment.
"This beast, I rather conclude, friend, is not of home raising, but is
from foreign lands, or perhaps from the little island itself over the blue
water?" he said, in a voice as remarkable for the softness and sweetness
of its tones, as was his person for its rare proportions; "I may speak of
these things, and be no braggart; for I have been down at both havens; that
which is situate at the mouth of Thames, and is named after the capital of Old
England, and that which is called 'Haven', with the addition of the word 'New';
and have seen the scows and brigantines collecting their droves, like the
gathering to the ark, being outward bound to the Island of Jamaica, for the
purpose of barter and traffic in four-footed animals; but never before have I
beheld a beast which verified the true scripture war-horse like this: 'He
paweth in the valley, and rejoiceth in his strength; he goeth on to meet the
armed men.
He saith among the trumpets, Ha, ha; and he smelleth the battle afar off, the
thunder of the captains, and the shouting' It would seem that the stock of the
horse of Israel had descended to our own time;
would it not, friend?"
Receiving no reply to this extraordinary appeal, which in truth, as it was
delivered with the vigor of full and sonorous tones, merited some sort of
notice, he who had thus sung forth the language of the holy book turned to the
silent figure to whom he had unwittingly addressed himself, and found a new and
more powerful subject of admiration in the object that encountered his gaze.
His eyes fell on the still, upright, and rigid form of the "Indian
runner," who had borne to the camp the unwelcome tidings of the preceding
evening. Although in a state of perfect repose, and apparently disregarding,
with characteristic stoicism, the excitement and bustle around him, there was a
sullen fierceness mingled with the quiet of the savage, that was likely to
arrest the attention of much more experienced eyes than those which now scanned
him, in unconcealed amazement. The native bore both the tomahawk and knife of
his tribe; and yet his appearance was not altogether that of a warrior.
On the contrary, there was an air of neglect about his person, like that which
might have proceeded from great and recent exertion, which he had not yet found
leisure to repair. The colors of the war-paint had blended in dark confusion
about his fierce countenance, and rendered his swarthy lineaments still more
savage and repulsive than if art had attempted an effect which had been thus
produced by chance. His eye, alone, which glistened like a fiery star amid
lowering clouds, was to be seen in its state of native wildness. For a single
instant his searching and yet wary glance met the wondering look of the other,
and then changing its direction, partly in cunning, and partly in disdain, it
remained fixed, as if penetrating the distant air.
It is impossible to say what unlooked-for remark this short and silent
communication, between two such singular men, might have elicited from the
white man, had not his active curiosity been again drawn to other objects. A
general movement among the domestics, and a low sound of gentle voices,
announced the approach of those whose presence alone was wanted to enable the
cavalcade to move. The simple admirer of the war-horse instantly fell back to a
low, gaunt, switch-tailed mare, that was unconsciously gleaning the faded
herbage of the camp nigh by; where, leaning with one elbow on the blanket that
concealed an apology for a saddle, he became a spectator of the departure, while
a foal was quietly making its morning repast, on the opposite side of the same
animal.
A young man, in the dress of an officer, conducted to their steeds two females,
who, as it was apparent by their dresses, were prepared to encounter the
fatigues of a journey in the woods. One, and she was the more juvenile in her
appearance, though both were young, permitted glimpses of her dazzling
complexion, fair golden hair, and bright blue eyes, to be caught, as she
artlessly suffered the morning air to blow aside the green veil which descended
low from her beaver.
The flush which still lingered above the pines in the western sky was not more
bright nor delicate than the bloom on her cheek; nor was the opening day more
cheering than the animated smile which she bestowed on the youth, as he
assisted her into the saddle. The other, who appeared to share equally in the
attention of the young officer, concealed her charms from the gaze of the
soldiery with a care that seemed better fitted to the experience of four or
five additional years. It could be seen, however, that her person, though
molded with the same exquisite proportions, of which none of the graces were
lost by the traveling dress she wore, was rather fuller and more mature than
that of her companion.
No sooner were these females seated, than their attendant sprang lightly into
the saddle of the war-horse, when the whole three bowed to Webb, who in
courtesy, awaited their parting on the threshold of his cabin and turning their
horses' heads, they proceeded at a slow amble, followed by their train, toward
the northern entrance of the encampment. As they traversed that short distance,
not a voice was heard among them; but a slight exclamation proceeded from the
younger of the females, as the Indian runner glided by her, unexpectedly, and
led the way along the military road in her front. Though this sudden and
startling movement of the Indian produced no sound from the other, in the
surprise her veil also was allowed to open its folds, and betrayed an indescribable
look of pity, admiration, and horror, as her dark eye
followed the easy motions of the savage. The tresses of this lady were shining
and black, like the plumage of the raven.
Her complexion was not brown, but it rather appeared charged with the color of
the rich blood, that seemed ready to burst its bounds. And yet there was
neither coarseness nor want of shadowing in a countenance that was exquisitely
regular, and dignified and surpassingly beautiful. She smiled, as if in pity at
her own momentary forgetfulness, discovering by the act a row of teeth that
would have shamed the purest ivory; when, replacing the veil, she bowed her
face, and rode in silence, like one whose thoughts were abstracted from the
scene around her.
