oach her in any
direction without being distinctly seen and exposed to the full fire of
our swivels immediately.

The six men being left on board, our shore-party consisted of thirty-two
persons in all. We were armed to the teeth, having with us muskets,
pistols, and cutlasses; besides, each had a long kind of seaman's knife,
somewhat resembling the bowie knife now so much used throughout our
western and southern country. A hundred of the black skin warriors met
us at the landing for the purpose of accompanying us on our way. We
noticed, however, with some surprise, that they were now entirely
without arms; and, upon questioning Too-wit in relation to this
circumstance, he merely answered that _Mattee non we pa pa si_--meaning
that there was no need of arms where all were brothers. We took this in
good part, and proceeded.

We had passed the spring and rivulet of which I before spoke, and were
now entering upon a narrow gorge leading through the chain of soapstone
hills among which the village was situated. This gorge was very
rocky and uneven, so much so that it was with no little difficulty we
scrambled through it on our first visit to Klock-klock. The whole length
of the ravine might have been a mile and a half, or probably two
miles. It wound in every possible direction through the hills (having
apparently formed, at some remote period, the bed of a torrent), in no
instance proceeding more than twenty yards without an abrupt turn. The
sides of this dell would have averaged, I am sure, seventy or eighty
feet in perpendicular altitude throughout the whole of their extent, and
in some portions they arose to an astonishing height, overshadowing the
pass so completely that but little of the light of day could penetrate.
The general width was about forty feet, and occasionally it diminished
so as not to allow the passage of more than five or six persons abreast.
In short, there could be no place in the world better adapted for the
consummation of an ambuscade, and it was no more than natural that we
should look carefully to our arms as we entered upon it. When I now
think of our egregious folly, the chief subject of astonishment seems
to be, that we should have ever ventured, under any circumstances, so
completely into the power of unknown savages as to permit them to march
both before and behind us in our progress through this ravine. Yet such
was the order we blindly took up, trusting foolishly to the force of
our par