Page:Surprising life and sufferings of Peter Williamson.pdf/10

 tender parents and the unhappy children. Nor could the tears, the shrieks, of these unhappy victims prevent their horrid massacre, for having thus seal red them and plundered the house of every thing that was moveable, they set fire to the same, where the poor creatures met their final doom, whilst the hellish miscreants stood at the door rejoicing, and echoing back in their diabolical manner, the piercing cries, heart-rending groans, and paternal and affectionate soothings, which issued from this most horrid sacrifice of an innocent family. Shocking as these barbarities must appear to the human heart, it must feel redoubled horror when we mention the other means made use of by the unprovoked and always treacherous enemies of Britain—the French.

As the Indians worship the images of some inferior deities, whose anger they seem to dread; and on which account the generality of our travellers denominate the objects of their devotion, devils; though at the same time it

''long knife that they hang round their neck and carry with them. They cut the skin round as much of the head as they think proper, sometimes quite round from the neck and forehead, then take their fingers and pluck it off, and often leave the unhappy creatures so served, to die in a most miserable manner Some who are not cut too deep in the temples or skull, live in horrid torments many hours, and sometimes a day or two after. The scalps or skins thus taken off, they preserve and carry home in triumph where they receive, as is said before considerable sum for every one.''