in profound silence. The soldiers were affected with sentiments not less
serious; and as they explored the bewildering labyrinths of those vast
forests, their hearts were often melted with inexpressible sorrow; for
they frequently found skeletons lying across the trunks of fallen trees, a
mournful proof to their imaginations that the men who sat there, had
perished of hunger, in vainly attempting to find their way to the
plantations. Sometimes their feelings were raised to the utmost pitch of
horror by the sight of sculls and bones scattered on the ground--a certain
indication that the bodies had been devoured by wild beasts; and in other
places they saw the blackness of ashes amidst the relics,--the tremendous
evidence of atrocious rites.

At length they reached a turn of the river not far from the principal
scene of destruction, and the Indian who remembered the death of the two
officers, stopped; the detachment also halted. He then looked around in
quest of some object which might recall, distinctly, his recollection of
the ground, and suddenly darted into the wood. The soldiers rested their
arms without speaking. A shrill cry was soon after heard; and the other
guides made signs for the troops to follow them towards the spot from
which it came. In the course of a short time they reached the Indian
warrior, who, by his cry, had announced to his companions that he had
found the place where he was posted on the day of battle. As the troops
approached, he pointed to the tree under which the officers had fallen.
Captain West halted his men round the spot, and with Sir Peter Halket and
the other officers, formed a circle, while the Indians removed the leaves
which thickly covered the ground. The skeletons were found, as the Indian
expected, lying across each other. The officers having looked at them some
time, the Major said, that as his father had an artificial tooth, he
thought he might be able to ascertain if they were indeed his bones and
those of his brother. The Indians were, therefore, ordered to remove the