We had the pain of
witnessing the usual cruelties of the Indians, who cut the dead bodies
into quarters, like butchers' meat, to put into their kettles, and
opened most of them while still warm to drink the blood. Our rascally
Ottawas particularly distinguished themselves by these barbarities, as
well as by cowardice; for they made off in the fight. We had five or
six men killed on the spot, and about twenty wounded, among whom was
Father Engelran, who was badly hurt by a gun-shot. Some prisoners who
escaped from the Senecas tell us that they lost forty men killed
outright, twenty-five of whom we saw butchered. One of the escaped
prisoners saw the rest buried, and he saw also more than sixty very
dangerously wounded." [Footnote: _Denonville au Ministre_, 25 _Aout_,
1687. In his journal, written afterwards, he says that the Senecas
left twenty-seven dead on the field, and carried off twenty more,
besides upwards of sixty mortally wounded.]
In the morning, the troops advanced in order of battle through a marsh
covered with alders and tall grass, whence they had no sooner emerged
than, says Abbe Belmont, "we began to see the famous Babylon of the
Senecas, where so many crimes have been committed, so much blood
spilled, and so many men burned.
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