An Account of the Chikkafah Nation. 357
trembling army had polled themfelves out of danger. In the midft of the night they decamped, and faved themfelves by a well-timed retreat, left the Chikkafah triumphant, and infpired them with the fiercenefs of fo many tygers ;. which the French often fatally experienced, far and near, till the late cefiion of Weft-Florida to Great Britain. I have two of thefe mells, which I keep with veneration, as fpeaking trophies over the boafting Mon- fieurs, and their bloody fchemes.
Tn the year 1 748, the French fent a party of their Indians to ftorm fome of the Chikkafah traders' houfes. They accordingly came to my trading houfe firft, as I lived in the frontier : finding it too dangerous to at tempt to force it, they patted with their hands a confiderable time on one of the doors, as a decoy, imitating the earneft rap of the young wo men who go a vifiting that time of night. Finding their labour in vain, one of them lifted a billet of wood, and ftruck the fide of the houfe, where the women and children lay , fo as to frighten them and awake me< my maftiffs had been filenced with their venifon. At laft, the leader went a-head with the beloved ark, and pretending to be directed by the di vine oracle, to watch another principal trader's houfe, they accordingly made for it, when a young woman, having occafion to go out of the houfe, was mot with a bullet that entered behind one of her breads and through the other, ranging the bone ; Hie fuddenly wheeled round, and tumbled down, within the threfhold of the houfe the brave trader inftantly bounded up, founding the war whoop, and in a moment grafped his gun, (for the traders beds are always hung round with various arms of defence) and rei- cued her the Indian phyfician alfo, by his fkill in fimples, foon. cured her.
As fo much halh been already faid of the Chikkafah, . in the ac counts of the Cheerake, Mufkohge, and Choktah, with whofe hiflory, theirs was necefiarily interwoven, my brevity here, . I hope will be excufed. The Chikkafah live in as happy a region, as any under the fun. It is temperate ; as cool in fummer, as can be wifhed, and but moderately cold in winter, There is froft enough to purify the air, but not to chill the blood; and the fnow does not lie four-and-twenty hours together; This extraordinary benefit, is not from its fituation to the equator, for the Cheerake country, among the Apalahche mountains is colder, in a furprifing degree ; but from the nature and levelnels of the extenfive circumjacent lands, which in general are very fertile,. They have no running dream in
their.
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