disadvantages of the climate, and therefore it is no wonder that they
found themselves involved at this period in a complication of hardships.

[Sidenote] And from the Indians.

To enhance their distress, they were surrounded with tribes of warlike
savages, who viewed them with a jealous eye, and were by no means pleased
at the encroachments made on their natural possessions. The tribes called
Stonoes and Westoes were particularly troublesome. The colonists, indeed,
were furnished with arms and ammunition from the storehouse of the
proprietors, yet as they lived in the midst of perpetual alarms, their
condition must have been deplorable. Nor did the musket give those
strangers to the woods such an advantage over the bow and arrow in the
hands of the Indians, as some people may be apt to imagine. The savage,
quick-sighted, and accustomed to perpetual watchfulness, springs from his
den behind a bush, and surprizes his enemy with the pointed arrow before
he is aware of danger. He ranges through the trackless forest like the
beasts of prey, and safely sleeps under the same canopy with the wolf and
bear. His vengeance is concealed, and sends the tidings in the fatal
blow. The first settlers were obliged to stand in a continual posture of
defence; and as they could not be supposed to understand the political
methods of managing their barbarous neighbors, they must have been
subjected to all the hardships arising from their ignorance and dangerous
condition.

While one party was employed in raising their little habitations, another
was always kept under arms, to watch the motions of these Indians. The
governor shared those hardships along with his fellow adventurers, and by
his example animated and encouraged them to perseverance. The only fresh
provisions they could procure were fish from the river, and what game