Indian tradition, he turned his prow homeward on the 14th of June, with the intention on the way of making one more attempt to find the island of Bimini.

In the outset of his return he discovered a group of islets abounding with sea-fowl and marine animals. On one of them his sailors, in the course of a single night, caught one hundred and seventy turtles, and might have taken many more, had they been so inclined. They likewise took fourteen sea wolves, and killed a vast quantity of pelicans and other birds. To this group Juan Ponce gave the name of the Portugas, or turtles, which they still retain.

Disheartened at length by the perils and trials with which nature seemed to have beset the approach to Bimini, as to some fairy island in romance, he gave up the quest in person, and sent in his place a trusty captain, Juan Perez de Ortubia, who departed in one of the other ships, guided by the experienced old woman of the isles, and by another Indian. As to Juan Ponce, he made the best of his way back to Porto Rico, where he arrived infinitely poorer in purse and wrinkled in brow, by this cruise after inexhaustible riches and perpetual youth.

Thus ended the romantic expedition of Juan Ponce de Leon. Like many other pursuits of a chimera, it terminated in the acquisition of a substantial good. Though he had failed in finding the fairy fountain of youth, he had discovered in place of it the important country of Florida.-W. IRVING.

THE New England Colonies suffered little from the hostilities of the Indians for half a century after the settlement of Plymouth, in 1620. The treaty Massassoit made with the first settlers, the amicable and humane policy of the colonial government, and the zealous efforts of the ministers to Christianize the Indians, were the principal causes of this peaceful progress. But when the whites greatly outnumbered the Indians in New England, the knowledge of their own strength led them to fancy themselves secure, and encouraged the ruder sort to tyrannize over the red man.

King Philip of Pokanoket was the first of the Indian chiefs who undertook to organize the red men against the whites, and, though he failed eventually in his purpose, his genius is not the less remarkable.

He was the youngest son of Massassoit, and was originally named Pometacom. He succeed his brother, Wamsotta, as Sachem of Pokanoket, in 1657. They had been christened by the English, at the request of their father, and then received the names of the heroes of antiquity, Philip and Alexander.

When Philip formed his plan to unite the tribes of New England against the white invaders of the soil of their fathers, he was successful in securing the assistance of all whom he called upon. His design was made known to the settlers through the treachery of an Indian named Sassamon.

Philip, finding that war would be forced upon him, resolved to be first in the field. His tribe, having sent their wives and children to the Narragansetts for security, commenced hostilities at Swansey. They menaced and insulted the inhabitants, and, after killing some of the cattle in the fields, broke open and robbed the houses. One of the Indians being shot by the English during these proceedings, they took revenge by killing eight of the settlers. Thus commenced

King Philip's war, June 24, 1675.

Rapid marches, sudden attacks, merciless cruelty and quick retreat characterized nearly all the Indian operations. The English sent detachments after them; but the ambuscade ensnared the whites, or the foe retreated too rapidly to be overtaken. Parties on their way to church, or families at the fireside, were suddenly attacked and butchered in cold blood. The towns of Taunton, Namasket and Dartmouth were laid in ashes. In July, a party of English surrounded King Philip in a swamp; but the wily chief escaped into the western part of Massachusetts, the country of the Nipmucks, whom he incited to take up arms against the colonists. This tribe set fire to the town of Quaboag, and massacred many of the inhabitants.

The colonists succeeded in forcing the Narragansetts into a treaty, whereby they agreed to surrender any hostile Indians who should retreat to their territory. The eastern tribes, and those on the Connecticut River, joined in the war on the side of Philip. Hadley, Hatfield, Deerfield, Northfield and Sugarloaf Hill bore witness to their treachery and cruelty. In October the Springfield Indians deserted the alliance of the English, and the Narragansetts broke their treaty. The settlers, under the command of Josiah Winslow, marched against the latter, slew a thousand of them, and the remnant of the tribe withdrew to the Nipmuck country. Several open conflicts with the Indians now took place in quick succession, and though the English suffered some severe reverses, their foes were gradually diminishing till but a shadow of their former power remained.

Philip, with a small band of faithful warriors, sought shelter among the Mohawks; but they forced him to fly from

their country, and once more he returned to Mount Hope, in Rhode Island, his favorite place of retreat. His wife and son accompanied him; and they were snatched from his side by a party of English, who narrowly missed taking Philip himself. In August, 1676, his camp, in a swamp, was surprised by the colonists led by Captain Church, and Philip was shot by a treacherous Indian. His youngest son, the last of the family, was sent to the West Indies and died in slavery. The conduct of the colonists during the latter part of the war was as cruel and unsparing as that of the Indians themselves. Philip's body was treated with indignity, being beheaded and quartered by Church's order.

King Philip possessed a bold and active spirit, was cunning and shrewd; but, like the rest of his race, he was incapable of forming a comprehensive idea of the whites and their power of union. He saw their steady increase, and was moved by it to hatred which vented itself in atrocities and bloodshed. He had always rejected all persuasions to Christianity. When Rev. John Eliot once preached before him, he took hold of a button of the good man's coat, and said: "I do not value the Gospel any more than that." Stern and implacable to the last, he fell with his weapon in his hand.

THE FATE OF CANONCHET.

At the time that Philip effected his escape from Pocasset, his fortunes were in a desperate condition. His forces had been thinned by repeated fights, and he had lost almost the whole of his resources. In this time of adversity he found a faithful friend in Canonchet, Chief Sachem of all the Narragansetts. He was the son and heir of Miantonimo, the great Sachem who, after an honorable acquittal of the charge of conspiracy, had been privately put to death at the perfidious instigations of the settlers. "He was the heir," says the old chronicler, "of all his father's pride and insolence, as well as of his malice towards the English;" he certainly was the heir of his insults and injuries, and the legitimate avenger of his murder. Though he had forborne to take an active part in this hopeless war, yet he received Philip and his broken

forces with open arms, and gave them the most generous countenance and support. This at once drew upon him the hostility of the English, and it was determined to strike a signal blow, that should involve both the Sachems in one common ruin. A great force was, therefore, gathered together from Massachusetts, Plymouth and Connecticut, and was sent into the Narragansett country in the depth of winter, when the swamps, being frozen and leafless, could be traversed with comparative facility, and would no longer afford dark and impenetrable fastnesses to the Indians.

Apprehensive of attack, Canonchet had conveyed the greater part of his stores, together with the old, the infirm, the women and children of his tribe, to a strong fortress, where he and Philip had likewise drawn up the flower of their forces. This fortress, deemed by the Indians impregnable, was situated upon a rising mound or kind of island, of five or six acres, in the midst of a swamp; it was constructed with a degree of judgment and skill vastly superior to what is usually displayed in Indian fortification, and indicative of the martial genius of these two chieftains.

Guided by a renegade Indian, the English penetrated, through December snows to this stronghold, and came upon the garrison by surprise. The fight was fierce and tumultuous. The assailants were repulsed in their first attack, and several of their bravest officers were shot down in the act of storming the fortress, sword in hand. The assault was renewed with greater success. A lodgment was effected. The Indians

were driven from one post to another. They disputed their ground inch by inch, fighting with the fury of despair. Most of their veterans were cut to pieces; and after a long and bloody battle Philip and Canonchet, with a handful of surviving warriors, retreated from the fort, and took refuge in the thickets of the surrounding forest.

The victors set fire to the wigwams and the fort; the whole was soon in a blaze; many of the old men, the women and the children perished in the flames. This last outrage overcame even the stoicism of the savage. The neighboring woods resounded with the yells of rage and despair, uttered by the fugitive warriors as they beheld the destruction of their