But their
complaints had been slighted, and every gift begrudged. The trader
Croghan brought, however, about fifty warriors, with as many women and
children, to the camp at Fort Cumberland. They were objects of great
curiosity to the soldiers, who gazed with astonishment on their faces,
painted red, yellow, and black, their ears slit and hung with pendants,
and their heads close shaved, except the feathered scalp-lock at the
crown. "In the day," says an officer, "they are in our camp, and in the
night they go into their own, where they dance and make a most horrible
noise." Braddock received them several times in his tent, ordered the
guard to salute them, made them speeches, caused cannon to be fired and
drums and fifes to play in their honor, regaled them with rum, and gave
them a bullock for a feast; whereupon, being much pleased, they danced a
war-dance, described by one spectator as "droll and odd, showing how
they scalp and fight;" after which, says another, "they set up the most
horrid song or cry that ever I heard."[211] These warriors, with a few
others, promised the General to join him on the march; but he apparently
grew tired of them, for a famous chief, called Scarroyaddy, afterwards
complained: "He looked upon us as dogs, and would never hear anything
that we said to him." Only eight of them remained with him to the
end.[212]
[Footnote 211: _Journal of a Naval Officer_, in Sargent.
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