Edited by Hannah Willden
On Monday (as I said) they set their Wigwams1 on fire and went away2 It was a cold morning, and before us there was a great Brook with ice on it; some waded through it, up to the knees & higher, but others went till they came to a Beaver-dam, and I amongst them, where through the good providence of God, I did not wet my foot. I went along that day mourning and lamenting, leaving farther my own Country, and travelling into a vast and howling Wilderness, and I understood something of Lot’s Wife’s Temptation3, when she looked back: we came that day to a great Swamp, by the side of which we took up our lodging that night.
When I came to the brow4 of the hill, that looked toward the Swamp, I thought we had been5 come to a great Indian Town (though there were none but our own Company). The Indians were as thick as the trees: it seemed as if there had been a thousand Hatchets going at once: if one looked before one there was nothing but Indians, and behind one, nothing but Indians, and so on either hand, I myself in the midst, and no Christian soul near me, and yet how hath6 the Lord preserved me in safety? Oh the experience that I have had of the goodness of God, to me and mine!7
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Wigwam: A dome-shaped dwelling of arced poles covered with bark, built by Native Americans ↩
Capitalization, italicization, punctuation, and spelling from the 1682 version of Rowlandson’s narrative have been retained to maintain the utmost authenticity to the original work and author’s intent where clarity is not impeded. ↩
Lot’s wife’s temptation: Genesis 19:26, while fleeing the destruction of Sodom upon the angels command, “Escape for thy life: look not behind thee, neither tarry thou in all the plain: escape into the mountain, lest thou be destroyed,” (Genesis 19:17), Lot’s wife looks back and is turned into a pillar of salt. There is not a specific reason for why Lot’s wife looked back or was turned into a pillar of salt. One common view for Lot’s wife turning into a pillar of salt is as punishment for disobeying the angel and looking back on her previous life of sin before salvation, betraying her longing for that way of life. Another view is that Lot’s wife is turned into a pillar of salt because she sinned with salt: when the angels came, Lot’s wife went around to the neighbours for salt for their feast and betrayed the angels presence. Christianity ↩
Brow: top of the hill. OED Online ↩
had come ↩
Archaic third-person singular of have. OED Online ↩
See AmherstCollege.maps for an interactive map with Rowlandson’s narrative ↩