they would betake themselves to it, and so do by their devilish wisdom
what they could not do by force; and verily this did look much like the
beginning of their enchantments. "That the Devil helpeth the heathen in
this matter, I do myself know for a certainty," said Caleb Powell; "for
when I was at Port Royal, many years ago, I did see with mine eyes the
burning of an old negro wizard, who had done to death many of the
whites, as well as his own people, by a charm which he brought with him
from the Guinea, country." Mr. Hull, the minister of the place, who was
a lodger in the house, said he had heard one Foxwell, a reputable
planter at Saco, lately deceased, tell of a strange affair that did
happen to himself, in a voyage to the eastward. Being in a small
shallop, and overtaken by the night, he lay at anchor a little way off
the shore, fearing to land on account of the Indians. Now, it did
chance that they were waked about midnight by a loud voice from the
land, crying out, Foxwell, come ashore! three times over; whereupon,
looking to see from whence the voice did come, they beheld a great
circle of fire on the beach, and men and women dancing about it in a
ring. Presently they vanished, and the fire was quenched also. In the
morning he landed, but found no Indians nor English, only brands' ends
cast up by the waves; and he did believe, unto the day of his death,
that it was a piece of Indian sorcery. "There be strange stories told
of Passaconaway, the chief of the River Indians," he continued. "I have
heard one say who saw it, that once, at the Patucket Falls, this chief,
boasting of his skill in magic, picked up a dry skin of a snake, which
had been cast off, as is the wont of the reptile, and making some
violent motions of his body, and calling upon his Familiar, or Demon, he
did presently cast it down upon the rocks, and it became a great black
serpent, which mine informant saw crawl off into some bushes, very
nimble. This Passaconaway was accounted by his tribe to be a very
cunning conjurer, and they do believe that he could brew storms, make