many of them half
consumed by vultures and wolves. The birds and beasts, with wild
cries, were devouring their prey. Parties were sent out to scour the
woods. But no signs of the savages could be found. In fact the Esopus
tribe was no more. It was afterwards ascertained that the wretched
remnant had fled south and were finally blended and lost among the
Minnisincks and other southern tribes.

The fort was so strong that it required not a little labor to destroy
it. It was necessary to cut down or dig up the palisades, which were
composed of trunks of trees twenty feet long and eighteen inches in
diameter. Several cornfields were found in the vicinity wherever an
opening in the forest and fertile soil invited the labor of the
indolent Indian. Two days were occupied in cutting down the corn,
already beautiful in its golden ripeness, and in casting the treasure
into the creek. The palisades were then piled around the dwellings and
in a few hours nothing remained of the once imposing fortress but
smoking embers.

This Indian fort or castle, it is said, stood on the banks of what is
now called the Shawangunk kill, in the town of the same name, at the
southwestern extremity of Ulster county. It seems as though it were
the doom of armies on the march, ever to encounter floods of rain.
Scarcely had the troops commenced their return ere the windows of
heaven seemed to be opened and the fountains of the great deep to be
broken up.

At ten o'clock on the morning of the 5th of October, 1664, the march
was commenced. The rain came on like that of Noah's deluge. The short
afternoon passed away as, threading ravines and climbing mountains,
they breasted the flood and the gale. The drenched host was soon
enveloped in the gloom of a long, dark, stormy night. Weary and
shelterless, the only couch they could find was the dripping sod, the
only canopy, the weeping skies. The weeping skies! yes, nature seemed
to weep and mourn over the crimes of a lost race,--over man's
inhumanity to man. It was not until the evening of the next day, the
rain still continuing, that these weary soldiers reached their home at
Esopus.

CHAPTER XII.

ENCROACHMENTS OF THE ENGLISH.

Annihilation of the Esopus Tribe.--The Boundary
Question.--Troubles on Long Island. The Dutch and English
Villages.--Petition of the English.--Embarrassments of
Governor Stuyvesant.--Embassage to Hartford.--The
Repulse.--Peril of New