text:
The Jesuit Relations and Allied Documents, 1610-1639, Abridged

=The Jesuit Relations and Allied Documents, 1610-1639, Abridged=

Editor: Reuben Gold Thwaites

The original French, Latin, and Italian Texts, with English translations, 1896-1901. Translation to modern English, 2016.

EDITORIAL STAFF:

Editor Reuben Gold Thwaites

Editor John Swapceinski (2016)

Finlow Alexander [French]

Percy Favor Bicknell [French]

John Cutler Covert [French]

William Frederic Giese [Latin]

TRANSLATORS:

Crawford Lindsay [French]

Mary Sifton Pepper [French & Italian]

William Price [French]

Hiram Allen Sober [French]

John Dorsey Wolcott [Latin]

Assistant Editor Emma Helen Blair

Bibliographical Adviser Victor Hugo Paltsits

The original English translation is housed on the College of Arts and Sciences webserver at Creighton University. The physical volumes were scanned and transcribed by Thom Mentrak, Historical Interpreter at Ste. Marie Among The Iroquois, and then formatted and organized by Rev. Raymond A. Bucko, Jesuit. Editing and further translation by John Swapceinski.

NEW INTRODUCTION, 2016
by John Swapceinski.

Stories of Europeans' first encounters with native Americans, exploration, warfare, murder, disease, torture, and cannibalism; all these are contained in this massive tome, The Jesuit Relations, and it all occurred right here in North America during the 1600s.

In early 2014, I found online a set of documents titled the "Jesuit Relations". These reports, called "Relations", as in "relating" events to someone, were written by an order of French Catholic priests called Jesuits. Beginning in 1610, in mostly annual reports, the Jesuits wrote about their travels in "New France", meaning northeast Canada and America. These reports are the most extensive written documentation we have on the American Indians from near the time when they first encountered Europeans. In fact, there were some tribes who had not seen a European until the coming of a lonely "black robe", which is how the native Americans often referred to the Jesuits.

These Jesuit missionaries wrote annual reports on their time with various native American tribes. The totality of their work is huge; this document contains over 1.2 million words, and this is after much editing to make the document more succinct. As a point of reference, the Bible contains less than 810,000 words.

Finding these documents was surprising to me, not only because of their content, but because I had not heard mention of them before. How could this treasure-trove of early American history be so unknown? And so I decided to attempt to bring them to the public in a new, more modern edition.

A little history: before the English took control of most of North America, the French controlled most of Canada, and attempted to colonize it and to convert the native Americans to Christianity, more specifically, to Catholicism. These efforts caused much conflict with the native Americans themselves, and with the English and with the Dutch, who were establishing themselves in more southern areas like Boston, New York, and Virginia. These events came to be known as the French and Indian Wars, or the Beaver Wars. A driving force behind the conflicts was the attempt to control the fur trade, primarily the pelts of beavers. A single beaver pelt was worth about $20 and, for example, could be traded for 5 quarts of seal oil or a quart of whiskey or a brass kettle. A musket could be purchased with 10 beaver pelts.

The Jesuit Relations were written prior to 1800; the translation from French to English was completed in 1901, so they have been in the public domain for many years. Why should you read this new version, and not rely on the original translation? Here is a partial list of changes I made over the course of almost two years to make it easier and more enjoyable for the modern reader:

Translated archaic English to modern English. For example, "thee" becomes "you", and "mayest" becomes "may". However, there were some trickier ones too; I discovered through context that "incredible" used to mean "not credible", while "wonderful" meant "wondrous". Standardized the names of many native American tribes. For example, "Agnies", "Gannieges", "Moaghs", and "Annierronnons" all become "Mohawks", their more modern name.

Standardized the archaic names of many places. For example, "Manhate", "Manate", "Manathe", "Manhattes", and "Manade" all become "Manhattan". An interesting side note on the names of native American places and tribes: because there was no written language, Europeans had to spell phonetically what they heard. In addition, many native American words started with a "K", "C", or "G" sound, all of which sounded similar to the European ear. Therefore, a town like "Gandagan" could also be spelled "Kandagan" or "Candagan". I've tried to standardize on a single spelling whenever possible, but there is more work to be done here.

Converted archaic currencies to gold and silver coins. As a rule of thumb, you can think of a gold coin as $10, and a silver coin as $1.

Converted archaic units of measure to their modern American equivalents. For example, a "league" becomes 2.5 miles. In my research, I discovered that a French league was shorter than an English league, which is generally considered to be 3.5 miles, and Gold Thwaites did not do the proper conversion in his original translation from the French. I have done so now in this edition.

Translated some sections of Latin to English. My thanks to Google Translate for this.

Deleted all letter closings. For example, "I remain Your Paternity's Very humble and very obedient servant,".

Removed most stories of baptisms that conclude only in death by sickness; there were many, many of these.

Removed most prayers, particularly if they were not specific to native Americans in some way.

Removed many references to God's mercy, and exhortations to God, which occurred in many sentences. For example, the sentence: "But yet the mercy of God shines out there as much as in any other place; for, notwithstanding all these contrary dispositions, we have baptized there, in spite of the demons and hell, more than 250 persons, mostly at the height of the disease," becomes: "We have baptized there more than 250 persons, mostly at the height of the disease."

Changed most instances of the terms "barbarians" and "savages" to "Indians". Why do this? In reading the original document, I came to realize that the authors generally did not use the terms "barbarian" and "savage" in a perjorative sense; these terms were simply the vernacular of the time for referring to native Americans, and therefore I decided to change these words to something more neutral, as originally intended. The term "native Americans" could have been used, but instead I chose "Indians", both because it is shorter and because it retains something of the archaic, and of political incorrectness, which the original terms contain.

There are a few concepts you should know before starting:

When a Jesuit writes, for example, that he "went up to Montreal", a modern reader might think he meant "went North to Montreal". However, the terms "up" and "down" did not mean North and South; they invariably meant "up river" and "down river", as did "above" and "below" respectively. There being no roads in North America at the time, the extensive network of rivers and streams were their highways. So, "went up to Montreal" actually meant "went up-river to Montreal". Consequently, the "Upper Iroquois" are those farthest up-river (like the Seneca), while the "Lower Iroquois" are those farthest downriver (like the Mohawks). "Onontio" was the native American term for the French Governor, the highest French official in North America. "Sagamite" was the most common food of the native Americans; it basically means "corn soup". A "barque" was a type of European sailing ship. As a rule of thumb, there were three primary languages spoken by native Americans in Eastern to Midwest North America: Algonquin, Iroquois, and Sioux, with Algonquin outstripping the other two in both the number of tribes and overall population. Generally, tribes that spoke the same language were allies, but not always. For example, the Iroquois and the Hurons both spoke dialects of the Iroquois language, but they were bitter enemies most of the time.

I have not yet focused on fixing capitalization errors. This is something that may be done in a future edition. Please note that I purposely used "Huron" instead of "Wyandot", "Iroquois" instead of "Haudenosaunee", and "Winnebago" instead of "Ho-Chunk", simply because more people are familiar with these names.

My thanks to Creighton University for digitally scanning the Jesuit Relations, to Reuben Gold Thwaites for directing the translation from French to English, and especially to the "black robes" for documenting their times of peril and adventure. I found much to admire in these missionaries, particularly their bravery in living with tribes who the Jesuits believed, and often for good reason, would likely kill them eventually.

I hope you will enjoy these Jesuit reports. For myself, they have furnished countless hours of learning and entertainment.

ORIGINAL INTRODUCTION, 1896
by Reuben Gold Thwaites.

Norse Vikings, venturing far southward from outlying colonies in Iceland and Greenland, first coasted New France, and beached their sturdy ships on the shores of New England. But five centuries passed without result, and we cannot properly call them pioneers of American civilization. Columbus it was who unlocked the eastern door of the new world. Five years later, John Cabot, in behalf of England, was sighting the gloomy headlands of Cape Breton. Cortereal appeared in the neighborhood, in 1501, seeking lands for the Portuguese crown.

About this time, at intervals, there came to Newfoundland certain Norman French, Breton French, and Spanish Basque fishers, who, erecting little huts and drying-scaffolds along the rocky shore, sowed the first seed of that polyglot settlement of French, Portuguese, Spanish, and English which has come down to our day almost uninterruptedly. By 1520, these fishermen appear to have known the mainland to the west; for on the map of Sylvanus, in his edition of Ptolemy, that year, we find a delineation of the "square gulf," which corresponds to the gulf of Saint Lawrence. In 1520, Fagundus visited these waters for the Portuguese, and four years later Verrazano was making for the French an exploration of the coast between North Carolina and Newfoundland. Whether or not Cartier (1535) was the first to sail up the Saint Lawrence "until land could be seen on either side," no man can now tell; apparently, he was the first to leave a record of doing so. Progress up the river was checked by the Lachine Rapids, and he spent the winter on Montreal island.

France and Spain were then engaged in one of their period quarrels, and adventurers were needed to fight battles at home, so that it was six years before any attempts were made to colonize the river-lands to which Cartier had led the way. In 1541, a Picard Lord named Roberval, enjoying the friendship of Francis I, was commissioned as viceroy of the new country beyond the Atlantic, with Cartier as his chief pilot and captain-general, and a choice selection of jail-birds for colonists. Cartier started off before his chief, built a fort at Quebec, and, after a long and miserable winter, picked up a quantity of glittering stones which he took to be gold and diamonds, and gladly, set sail for home. Tradition has it that Roberval met him near the mouth of the river, but was unable to persuade him to return to his cheerless task of founding a state in an inhospitable wilderness, with convicts for citizens. Roberval, however, proceeded to Quebec with his delivery of prison dregs, and throughout another protracted winter the flag of France floated from the little entrenched camp which Cartier had planted on the summit of the cliff. Roberval's principal occupation appears to have been the disciplining of his unruly followers, a work in which the Gibbet and the lash were freely employed. He also attempted explorations up the river; but the rude task was not to his liking, and, with what remained of his battered band, he followed Cartier to France.

It is commonly said that Canada was abandoned by the French between the going of Roberval and the coming of Champlain. But, though little was done toward colonizing on the Saint Lawrence, Newfoundland was by no means neglected. Its fishing industry grew quickly. The rules of the church, prescribing a fish diet on certain holy days, led to a large use of salted fish throughout catholic Europe; and by 1578, a hundred and fifty French vessels alone, chiefly Breton French, were employed in the Newfoundland fisheries, while a good trade with the mainland Indians, as far south as the Potomac, had now sprung up. The island colony proved valuable as a supply and repair station for traders and explorers, and served as a nucleus of both French and English settlement in America.

It is difficult for us today to realize that, at any time in the world's history, enlightened folk should have thought good colonists could be made out of the sweepings of the jails and gutters of the old world. But in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, that delusion was generally entertained by would-be founders of states across sea; it required the lessons of more than a hundred years of disastrous experiments to teach discerning men that only the best of the middle class and the masses, can successfully plant a new community in the wilderness. The experiences of Cartier and Roberval on the Saint Lawrence, and of Laudonniere in Florida (1564), were of no help in influencing governmental policy at Paris. In 1590, Sir de la Roche was sent out with the usual immoral crew to succeed Roberval as the king's agent on the banks of the Saint Lawrence. Leaving part of his ill-favored gang on the desert Sable Isle, off Nova Scotia (where early in the century Baron de Lery had vainly attempted to plant a colony), La Roche started off to explore the mainland for a site. A wild storm blew his vessels to France, and the wretched skin-clad survivors of the band which he had left behind were not rescued until thirteen years had elapsed. Their tale of horror long rang in the ears of France.

In 1600-1603, Chauvin and Pontgrave made successful trading voyages to the Saint Lawrence. Samuel de Champlain was one of the group which, in 1603, followed in Cartier's track to Montreal. The same season, a Protestant, named De Monts, was given the vice-royalty and fur trade monopoly of Acadia, and in 1604 he landed a strangely-assorted company of vagabonds and gentlemen on St. Croix Island, near the present boundary between Maine and New Brunswick; but in the spring following they settled at Port-Royal, Nova Scotia, near where is now Annapolis Royal, Nova Scotia, therefore planting the first French agricultural settlement in America. Five years later, Champlain reared a permanent post on the rock of Quebec, and New France was at last, after a century of experiments, fairly under way.

Various motives influenced the men who sought to establish French colonization in America. The ill-fated agricultural colony of the French Protestants in Florida (1562-68), was an attempt of Admiral Coligny to found an enduring sanctuary for French Protestants. The enterprise of New France, on the other hand, was the outgrowth of interests more or less conflicting. Doubtless the court had passion for territorial aggrandizement; next uppermost was the wish to convert heathen nations to the catholic faith, explorers like Cartier being authorized to discover new land; the desire for pelts, through the agency of the fur trade and the possibility of the discovery of precious metals, gave commercial zest to the undertaking, and to many was the reason for existence of the colony; and lastly, was the almost universal yearning for adventure, among a people who in the seventeenth century were still imbued with that chivalric temper which among Englishmen is assigned to the Middle Ages. The inner life of New France, throughout its century and a half of existence, was largely a warring between these several interests.

Missionaries came early upon the scene. With the Calvinist De Monts were French Protestant ministers for the benefit of the settlers, and Catholic priests to open a mission among the Indians, for the court had stipulated that the Indians were to be instructed only in the faith of Rome. But no missionary work was done, for the colony was, for several years, on the verge of dissolution, and the priests became victims of scurvy. Poutrincourt, who held under De Monts the land grant for Port-Royal, Nova Scotia, did nothing to further the purposes of the court in this regard until 1610, when, admonished for his neglect, he brought out with him a secular priest, Sir Jesse Fleche, of Langres, who on June 24, "apparently in some haste," baptized twenty-one Abenakis, including the district sagamore, or chief. The account of this affair, which Poutrincourt sent in triumph to France, is the initial document in the present series.

On the twelfth of June, 1611, there arrived at Port-Royal, Nova Scotia, at the insistence of King Henry IV, two Jesuit fathers, Pierre Biard and Enemond Masse. They were, however, not favorably received by Poutrincourt and his followers; they found great practical difficulties in acquiring the Indian languages, and made slight progress in the task to which they had been set. To them came, the following year, a lay brother, Gilbert du Thet, who was soon dispatched to the head of the order, in France, with an account of the situation. In the spring of 1613, he returned, in company with Father Quentin. The little band of missionaries had no sooner established themselves at the new French colony on Mt. Desert Island, than it was attacked and dispersed by the Virginian Argall. Du Thet was killed in the fight, Masse was, with other colonists, set adrift in a boat, and Biard and Quentin were taken to Virginia, to be eventually shipped to England, and from there allowed to return to France. Several of the earlier documents of our series have to do with this first, and apparently unfruitful, mission of the Jesuits to Acadia.

In 1615, Champlain thought it time for the institution of Indian missions upon the Saint Lawrence, and introduced to Quebec four members of the fraternity of Recollects, the most austere of the three orders of Franciscans; these were Fathers Denis Jamay, Jean d'Olbeau, and Joseph le Caron, and a lay brother, Pacifique du Plessis. To d'Olbeau was assigned the conversion of the Innu of the Lower Saint Lawrence; Le Caron went to the Hurons, or Wyandots, in the vast stretch of forested wilderness west of the Ottawa River, and, before the coming of autumn, had established a bark chapel in their midst; Jamay and Du Plessis remained in the neighborhood of Quebec, ministering to the colonists and the wandering Indians who came to the little settlement for purposes of trade or sociability, or through fear of scalp-hunting Iroquois.

For ten years, these gray friars practiced the rites of the church in the Canadian woods, all the way from the fishing and trading outpost of Tadoussac to the western Lake of the Nipissings. Barefoot, save for heavy wooden sandals, coarsely clad in gown and hood, enduring a rigorous climate, to which they were unused, all manner of hardships by flood and field, they were devoted to their laborious calling in a time when elsewhere the air of New France was noisy with the strife of self-seeking trade and Politicians. Yet their mission seems without important result.

Even less successful was the enterprise of some fellow Recollects, who, in 1619, began independent work among the French fishermen and Micmacs of Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and Gaspe, but were forced in 1624, after many disasters, to abandon their task, three of them joining the group at Quebec. The little band on the Saint Lawrence, although therefore reinforced, felt compelled, in 1625, to invite the powerful aid of the Jesuits, who were holding successful missions in Asia, Africa, and South America. In response to the call, three fathers of the black gown came to Quebec this year: Masse, who had been of the old Acadian mission, Charles Lalemant, and that giant among them, in both stature and deeds, Jean de Brebeuf.

Immediately, the work began to broaden, but the records of the dual mission do not give evidence of many converts; a few Huron youth taken to France, and there instructed and baptized, being the chief gains. The wandering habits of the Indians were not favorable to persistent instruction of the young, and adults were unwilling to commit themselves to the new doctrine, even when not openly opposed to its promulgation. The summer months were usually spent by the missionaries at Tadoussac, Quebec, and Three Rivers, where trading parties from the tribes were accustomed to assemble; and when they scattered for their winter hunts, the missionaries accompanied them, sharing the toils, dangers, and discomforts of the movable camps, and often suffering from positive abuse at the hands of their not over-willing hosts.

The settlements of Port-Royal, Nova Scotia and Quebec were at this time wretched little hamlets a few dozen huts each, surrounded by a palisade, and these fell an easy prey to small English naval forces (1628-29). With their fall ended the slender mission of the Recollects and Jesuits, who were in triumph carried off to England. For a few months, France did not hold one foot of ground in North America. But as peace had been declared between France and England before this conquest, France received back all of its possessions, and the inevitable struggle for the mastery of the continent was postponed for four generations longer.

With the release of Canada to France, in 1632, the Jesuits were by the home authorities placed in sole charge of the spiritual interests of both settlers and Indians, and the history of their greatest missions begins at this time. On the fifth of July, there landed at Quebec, Fathers Paul le Jeune and Anne de Noue, and a lay brother named Gilbert. Le Jeune was the superior, and at once devoted himself to learning the language and customs of the Indians, and so studying the enormous field before him to arrange his meager forces.

The Indians

The existence of rival tribes among the Indians of North America was the most formidable obstacle in the path of the missionaries. It has always been impossible to make any hard-and-fast classification; yet the Indians presented a considerable variety of types, ranging from the Southern Indians, some of whose tribes were in a relatively high stage of material advancement and mental caliber, down to the savage root-eaters of the Rocky Mountain region. The migration of some of the Indian tribes were frequent, and they occupied over-lapping territories, so that it is impossible to fix the tribal boundaries with any degree of exactness.

Again, the tribes were so merged by intermarriage, by affiliation, by consolidation, by the numerous polyglot villages of renegades, by similarities in manner, habits, and appearance, that it is difficult even to separate the Indians into families. It is only on philological grounds that these divisions can be made. Basically, between the Atlantic and the Rockies, Hudson Bay and the Gulf of Mexico, there were four Indian languages in use, with great varieties of local dialect:

I. The Algonquins were the most numerous, holding the greater portion of the country from the unoccupied "debatable land" of Kentucky northward to Hudson Bay, and from the Atlantic westward to the Mississippi. Among their tribes were the Micmacs of Acadia, the Penobscot of Maine, the Innu of the Saint Lawrence, the ill-defined tribes of the country around Lac Saint-Jean, and the Ottawas, Ojibwes, Mascoutens, Sauks, Meskwakis, Potawatomis, and Illinois of the Upper Lakes. These Indians were rude in life and manners, were intensely warlike, depended for subsistence chiefly on hunting and fishing, lived in rude wigwams covered with bark, skins, or matted reeds, practiced agriculture in a crude fashion, and were less stable in their habitations than the Southern Indians. They have made a larger figure in our history than any other family, because through their lands came the heaviest and most aggressive movement of white population, French or English. Estimates of early Indian populations differ, but it is now believed that the number was never so great as was at first estimated by the Jesuit fathers and the earliest English colonists. A careful modern estimate is that the Algonquins at no time numbered over 90,000 people, and possibly not over 50,000.

II. In the heart of this Algonquin land was planted the ethnic group called the Iroquois, with its several distinct branches, often at war with each other. The craftiest, most daring, and most intelligent of North American Indians, yet still in the savage hunter state, the Iroquois were the terror of every native band east of the Mississippi, before the coming of the whites, who in turn learned to dread their ferocious power. The five principal tribes of this family: Mohawks, Oneidas, Onondagas, Cayugas, and Senecas, all stationed in palisaded villages south and east of lakes Erie and Ontario, formed a loose confederacy styled by themselves and the French "The Long House," and by the English "The Five Nations," which firmly held the waterways connecting the Hudson and Ohio rivers and the Great Lakes. The population of the entire group was not over 17,000 -- a remarkably small number, considering the active part they played in American history, and the control which they exercised through wide tracts of wilderness. Related to, but generally at war with them, were the Hurons of Canada, among whom the Jesuits planted their earliest missions. Champlain, in an attempt to cultivate the friendship of his Huron and Algonquin neighbors, made war on the Iroquois, and therefore secured for New France a heritage of savage hostility which contributed more than any other cause to cripple its energies and render it at last an easy prey to the rival power of the English colonies.

III. The Southern Indians occupied the country between the Tennessee River and the Gulf, the Appalachian Ranges and the Mississippi. Of a milder disposition than their Northern cousins, the Cherokees, Chickasaws, Choctaws, Creeks, and Seminoles were rather in a barbarous than in a savage state; by the time of the Revolution, they were not far behind the white proprietors in industrial or domestic methods, and numbered not above 50,000 persons. With them, this story of the Jesuit missions has little to do; the Louisiana mission, an offshoot of that of New France, did faithful work here, but the documentary result was neither as interesting nor as prolific, and necessarily occupies but small space in the present series.

IV. The Dakota, or Sioux, family mostly occupied the country beyond the Mississippi. They were and are a fierce, high-strung people, genuine nomads, and war appears to have been their chief occupation. The Jesuits worked among them, but in slight measure, on the waters of the Upper Mississippi; they met this family chiefly in the persons of the Winnebagos, one of their outlying bands, which at the time of the French occupation was resident on and about Green Bay of Lake Michigan, at peace and in confederacy with the Algonquins who hedged them about. The mission of the French Jesuits to these widely-scattered hordes of Indians forms one of the most thrilling chapters in human history. It is impossible, in this brief Introduction, to attempt anything more than the barest outline of the theme; Rochemonteix, Shea, and Parkman have told the story in detail, from differing points of view; and with these authorities, the student of the following documents is presumed to be familiar. A rapid summary of results will, however, be useful; and this we may best obtain by following the fortunes of the pioneers of the Cross through the several district missions into which their work was naturally divided.

I. The Abenaki Mission

This mission was chiefly in Maine and Acadia, and on Cape Breton Island. The Abenakis were a strong but mild-mannered Algonquin tribe, settled in villages; but, like others of their race, in the habit of taking long semi-annual journeys, each winter to hunt, and each summer to fish. We have seen that the French Jesuits, Biard and Masse, were in the field as early as 1611, soon after the establishment of Port-Royal, Nova Scotia; their predecessor being the secular French priest, Fleche, who had been introduced to the country by Poutrincourt, the land owner. Biard and Masse met with many discouragements, chiefly the opposition of Poutrincourt's son, Charles Biencourt (sometimes called Baron St. Just), who had been left in charge of the colony. Still, the missionaries learned the native language, and made many long journeys of exploration; one of Biard's trips extending as far as the mouth of the Kennebec.

They were later joined by a lay brother, Du Thet, and by Fathers Quentin and Lalemant. Joining the new French colony on Mt. Desert Island, in the spring of 1613, the establishment was almost immediately destroyed by the Virginian Argyle. In the skirmish, Du Thet was killed.

In 1619, a group of Recollects, from Aquitaine, began a mission on St. John River, in Acadia, but five years later abandoned the task, the survivors joining the Quebec mission of their order. Other Recollects were in Acadia, however, between 1630 and 1633, and later we have evidence of a small band of Capuchins ministering to French settlers on the Penobscot and Kennebec; but it is probable that they made no attempt to convert the natives.

A Jesuit mission was founded on Cape Breton in 1634, by Father Julian Perrault; and a few years later, Father Charles Turgis was at Miscou. Other missionaries soon came to minister to the Micmacs, but for many years their efforts were without result; and sickness, resulting from the hardships of the situation, caused most of the early black gowns to retreat from the attempt.

Finally, an enduring mission was established among these people, and, until about 1670, was conducted with some measure of success by Fathers Andrew Richard, Martin de Lyonne, and James Fremin. About 1673, the Recollects took up the now abandoned work, occasionally aided by secular priests from the Seminary of Quebec, and Jesuits, until at last the Micmacs from Gaspe to Nova Scotia were declared to be entirely converted to the Catholic faith.

Father Gabriel Druillettes, of the Jesuit mission at Sillery, near Quebec, went to the Kennebec country in 1646, invited there by converted Abenakis who had been at Sillery, and during visits, extending through a period of eleven years, was more than ordinarily successful in the task of gaining Indian converts to Christianity. In 1650, he made a visit to the Puritans of Eastern Massachusetts, during which was discussed the proposed union between New France and New England, against the Iroquois. Upon the final departure of Druillettes in 1657, the Abenakis were but spasmodically served with missionaries; occasionally a Jesuit appeared among them, but the field could not be persistently worked, owing to the demands upon the order from other areas. The fathers now sought to draw Abenaki converts to Sillery, and later to St. Francis de Sales, at the falls of the Chaudiere, which soon became almost exclusively an Abenaki mission.

In 1688, Father Bigot, of this mission, again entered the field of the Kennebec, at the same time that Rev. Peter Thury, a priest of the Quebec Seminary, opened a mission on the Penobscot, and the Recollect F. Simon gathered a flock at Medoktek, near the mouth of the St. John. They were in time aided and followed by others: the Jesuits being Julian Binneteau, Joseph Aubery, Peter de la Chasse, Stephen Lauverjeat, Loyard, and Sebastian Rale; the death of Rale, the greatest of them all, at the hands of New England partisans in the border strife of 1724, is a familiar incident in American history. Jesuits inherited the Penobscot mission in 1703, and with great fervor carried on the principal work among the Abenakis until the downfall of New France in 1763. The majority of the Kennebec (Norridgewock) Abenaki converts, however, emigrated to the mission of St. Francis de Sales, and from there frequently went forth upon avenging expeditions against the New England borderers.

II. The Innu Mission

This was centered at Tadoussac, and ministered to the Innu, Betsiamite Innu, Porcupine Innu, Oumamiwek Innu, Papinachois Innu, and other tribes of the Lower Saint Lawrence and the Saguenay. Tadoussac had, from the earliest historic times, been a favorite harbor and trading-station for the French; for, being at the junction of two great rivers, it was convenient as a place of assembly for the natives of the lower country. The first priests in the district had said mass there; but it was not until 1640 that a Jesuit mission was formed by Father Jean du Quen, its sphere of influence soon reaching to the upper waters of the Saguenay, Lac Saint-Jean, Hudson Bay, and the coast of Labrador. Du Quen was actively assisted by Charles Meiachkwat, an Innu convert, who built the first chapel, became a missionary, and made extended tours through the neighboring tribes.

In time, there were associated with Du Quen, Fathers Buteux and Druillettes. Protracted missionary tours were made by them, with results which were considered satisfactory as compared with other missions; although they had serious difficulties to contend with, in the prevalent drinking which the fur trade introduced among the natives, the belief in dreams, the laxity of morals, and the wiles of medicine-men, or sorcerers, as they were called by the Jesuits.

For the first few years, the missionaries spent their winters in Quebec, ministering to the colonists, and each spring went down to Tadoussac to meet the summer trading parties; but greater persistence of effort was deemed desirable, and from then, instead of returning home in the autumn, they followed the Indians upon their winter hunts, and during these wanderings endured the usual privations and hardships of traveling camps. Bailloquet, Nouvel, Beaulieu, Albanel, De Crepieul, Dalmas, Boucher, Peter Michael Laure, and Jean Baptiste Labrosse, are other names of Jesuit fathers who at different periods were engaged upon this toilsome mission.

In 1670, Tadoussac was almost deserted, owing to Iroquois raids and the ravages of smallpox; the Innu and relatives tribes were in hiding, through the vast country between Lac Saint-Jean and Hudson Bay. They were still followed by their devoted shepherds. The following year, Crepieul began a mission on Hudson Bay, and here in 1694, his auxiliary Dalmas was killed. Laure (1720-37) left us a monument of his labors in an Innu grammar and dictionary. Labrosse, the last of his order at Tadoussac, instructed many of his flock to read and write, and left a legacy of native education, which has lasted to the present day; he lived and taught long after his order had been suppressed in New France, and died at Tadoussac in 1782.

III. The Quebec And Montreal Missions

These included the several missions at Quebec, Montreal, Three Rivers, Sillery, Becancour, and St. Francis de Sales, which were designed for the wandering Innu of the district, those Algonquins of the west who could be persuaded to come and settle on the lower waters, and, in later years, such Abenakis of Acadia and Maine as sought a sanctuary upon distinctively French soil.

We have seen that Recollects were first at Quebec, ministering both to colonists and Indians, and that, in 1625, they invited the Jesuits to aid them. In 1629, the joint mission came to a close through the surrender of Quebec to the English. When the mission was reopened in 1632, Jesuits alone were in charge, their operations being at first confined to the neighboring Innu, although they soon spread throughout the entire Canadian field. In 1658, Bishop Laval founded the Seminary of Quebec, the Jesuits resigned their parishes among the colonists, and then confined themselves to their college and the Indian missions. In addition to their parish work, the priests of the seminary conducted missions in Acadia, Illinois, and on the lower Mississippi.

The year following the return of the Jesuits to Canada, Jesuit Father Buteux began his labors at Three Rivers, which was a convenient gathering-place for the fur trade. The village was frequently raided by Iroquois, but remained until the fall of New France one of the prominent centers of missionary influence. The efforts of Buteux, which lasted until His death at the hands of Iroquois in 1652, met with considerable success. His custom, like that of the other missionaries, was to be present at the French posts during the annual trading "meets," and when the Indians returned to the wilderness, to accompany some selected band. In so following the nomadic tribes, he made some of the longest and most toilsome journeys recorded in the annals of the Jesuits, and shared with his flock all the horrors of famine, disease, and inter-tribal war.

It was soon realized by the missionaries that only meager results could be obtained until the Indians were persuaded to lead a settled life. Their wandering habit nullified attempts at permanent instruction to the young; it engendered improvidence and laziness, bred famine and disease; and the constant struggle to kill fur-bearing animals for their pelts rapidly depleted the game, while the fur trade wrought contamination in many forms. Missionary efforts were at first conducive to the interests of the fur trade, by bringing far-distant tribes within the sphere of French influence; but so soon as the Jesuit sought to change the habits of the natives, to cause them to become agriculturists instead of hunters, and to oppose the rum trade among them, then the grasping commercial monopoly which controlled the fortunes of New France, and was merely "working" the colony for financial gains, saw in the Jesuit an enemy, and often placed serious obstacles in his path.

In pursuit of the settled policy, and also to protect the wretched Innu from Iroquois war-parties, the Jesuits, in 1637, established for them a palisaded mission four miles above Quebec, at first giving it the name St. Joseph, but later that of Sillery, in honor of Commander Noel Brulart de Sillery, of France, who had given ample funds for the founding of this enterprise. Here were at first gathered twenty of the Indians, who began farming, varied by occasional hunting and fishing trips, which the missionaries could not prevent. The little town slowly grew in importance, both Algonquins and Innu being represented in its population. Three years later, nuns opened a hospital at Sillery, for the reception of both French and Indian patients, and therefore added to the popularity of the mission. But in 1646 the nuns removed their hospital to Quebec; a few years later, the church and mission house were destroyed by fire; disease made sad havoc in the settlement; the thin soil became exhausted through careless tillage; Iroquois preyed upon the converts, until at last the Algonquins almost entirely disappeared; and although their place was taken by Abenakis from Maine and Acadia, until the attendance became almost solely Abenaki, the enterprise waned. In 1685, it was abandoned in favor of St. Francis de Sales, a new mission established at the falls of the Chaudiere River, not far from the Saint Lawrence Beyond a monument of later days, to the memory of Fathers Masse and De Noue, whose names are prominently connected with this work, nothing now remains to mark the site of the old Sillery mission.

From St. Francis, the mission work began to spread into Maine. St. Francis achieved a certain measure of prosperity, as Indian missions go. It became in time a source of serious trouble to the New England borderers, for many a French and Indian war-group was here fitted out against the New Englanders, during the series of bloody conflicts which marked the three-quarters of a century previous to the fall of New France. Finally, in September, 1759, Maj. Robert Rogers descended upon the village with his famous rangers, and in retaliation pillaged and burned the houses, and killed "at least two hundred Indians." New France soon after fell into the hands of the English, and, the Jesuits being suppressed, we hear little more of St. Francis de Sales.

In 1641, the missionary settlement of Montreal was founded by Maisonneuve. The Jesuits were the first resident clergy, and soon began mission work among the neighboring Indians and those who resorted there from the valleys of the Lower Saint Lawrence and the Ottawa. Soon, however, the Society of Saint-Sulpice, established in Paris by the Abbot Olier, one of the Jesuits of Montreal, took charge of the mission on Montreal Island, which in after years was moved to the Sault-au-Recollet, and from there to the Lake of the Two Mountains, where there was gathered a polyglot village composed of Iroquois, Algonquins, and Nipissings. Upon the opening of the English regime, the Jesuit and Recollect missions were suppressed, but those of the Society of Saint-Sulpice were undisturbed, so that this mission at the lake is the oldest now extant in Canada.

Among the Algonquins of the Ottawa River (or Grande Riviere), no permanent missions were attempted by any of the orders. Long the chief highway to the West, the river was familiar to traveling missionaries, who frequently ministered to the tribesmen along its banks, either at the native villages or during the annual trading councils at the French posts of Montreal, Three Rivers, and Quebec.

IV. The Huron Mission

At the time of the advent of the French, the Hurons (or Wyandots), allied in origin and language to the Iroquois, numbered about 16,000 people, and dwelt in several large villages in a narrow district on the high ground between Lake Smile and Georgian Bay of Lake Huron. Their dwellings were bark cabins, clustered within stoutly palisaded walls, and near each fortified town were fields of corn, beans, pumpkins, and tobacco. Agricultural in habit, keen traders, and in the main settled, these semi-naked Indians made short hunting and fishing expeditions, and laid up stores for the winter. They were better fighters than the Algonquins around them, yet were compelled gradually to withdraw northward and westward from Iroquois persecution, and during the period of the Jesuit missions were almost annihilated by the Iroquois.

To the southwest, across a wide stretch of unpopulated forest, were the allies and relatives of the Hurons, the Petuns, called also the Tobacco nation, a term having its origin in their custom of cultivating large fields of tobacco, which commodity they used in a wide-spread barter with other tribes. To the southeast of the Petuns, West of Lake Ontario and on both sides of the gorge of Niagara, were the peaceful Attawandarons, who, being friends alike of Iroquois, Algonquins, and Hurons, were known as the Neutral Nation. To the east of the Neutrals, strongly entrenched in the interlocking basins of the Genesee and the Mohawk, lay the dread confederacy of the Iroquois, who in time were to spread like a pestilence over the lands of all their neighbors.

The intelligence and mobility of the Hurons rendered the early prospects for missionary effort among them more promising than with the rude and nomadic Algonquins. But while at first the missionaries of New France were well received, the innate savagery of these people in time asserted itself. Their medicine-men, as bitterly fanatical as the howling dervishes of the Orient, plotted the destruction of the messengers of the new faith; the introduction of European diseases was attributed to the "black gowns"; the ravages of the Iroquois were thought to be brought on by the presence of the strangers; the rites of the church were looked upon as infernal incantations, and the lurid pictures of the Judgment, which were displayed in the little forest chapels, aroused unspeakable terror among this simple people; finally, an irresistible wave of superstitious frenzy led to the blotting out of the mission, accompanied by some of the most heart-rending scenes in the history of Christian evangelization.

In 1615, the Recollect friar, Joseph le Caron, made his way into the faraway country of the Hurons, but returned in the following year, having learned much of their language and customs. Five years later, another of his order, William Poulin, took up the weary task, being joined in 1623 by Fathers Le Caron and Nicholas Viel, and the historian of the Recollect missions, Brother Gabriel Sagard. All of them soon left the field, however, save Viel, who alone, amid almost incredible hardships, attained some measure of success; but in 1625, when descending the Ottawa to meet and arrange for co-operation with the Jesuit Brebeuf, at Three Rivers, he was willfully drowned by his Indian guide in the last rapid of Des Prairies River, just back of Montreal. Such is the origin of the name of the dread Sault-au-Recollet.

In 1626, the Jesuits Brebeuf and Anne de Noue, having received some linguistic instruction from Recollects who had been in the Huron field, proceeded there with a Recollect friar, Joseph de la Roche Daillon, to resume the work which the Recollects had abandoned. Daillon attempted a mission to neighboring Neutrals, but, being roughly handled by them, rejoined his Jesuit friends among the Hurons. Two years later, he returned to Quebec, having been preceded by De Noue, who found it impossible to master the difficult language of their dusky flock. Brebeuf, now left alone, labored gallantly among these people, and, winning the hearts of many by his easy adoption of their manners, gathered about him a little colony of those favorably inclined to his views. He was recalled to Quebec in 1629, arriving there just in time to fall into the hands of Louis Kirk, and be transported to England.

When Canada was restored to France, by the treaty of St. Germain, the Jesuits were given sole charge of the Indian missions, but it was 1634 before the Huron mission could be reopened. In September, Brebeuf, Antoine Daniel, and Davost returned to Brebeuf's old field, and commenced, in the large town of Ihonatiria, the greatest Jesuit mission in the history of New France. Others soon joined them. Additional missions were opened in neighboring towns, some of the strongest of these being each served by four fathers, who were assisted by French laymen, (or given men); while in farming, and the fashioning of implements and utensils both for the fathers and for the Indians, numerous hired laborers, from the French colonies on the Saint Lawrence, were employed in and about the missions. Charles Garnier and Isaac Jogues, with their attendants, made a tour of the Petun villages; other Jesuits were sent among the Neutrals; and even the Algonquins as far northwestward as Sault Ste. Marie were visited (1641) by Raymbault and Jogues, and looked and listened with awe at the celebration of the mass. In 1639, there was built, on the River Wye, the fortified mission house of Ste. Marie, to serve as a center for the wide-spread work, as a place for religious retreat for the fathers, and a refuge when enemies pressed too closely upon them.

The story of the hardships of the devoted missionaries, as told us by Rochemonteix, Shea, and Parkman, and recorded in the documents to be contained in this series, is one of the most thrilling in the annals of humanity. No men have performed hardier deeds than the Jesuits of the Huron mission; yet, after three years of incessant toil, they could (1640) count but a hundred converts out of a population of 16,000, and these were mostly sick infants or aged persons, who had died soon after baptism. The rugged braves scorned the approaches of the fathers, and unmercifully tormented their converts; the medicine-men waged continual warfare on their work; smallpox and the Iroquois were decimating the people.

Jogues was (1642) sent down to the colonies for supplies for the missions, but with his Huron companions was captured by an Iroquois war-group, who led them to the Mohawk towns. There most of the Hurons were killed, and Jogues and his French layman, Rene Goupil, were tortured and mutilated, and made to serve as slaves to their Indian jailers. Finally Goupil, a promising young physician, was killed, and Jogues, being rescued by the Dutch allies of the Mohawks, was sent to Europe. Supplies therefore failing them, the Huron missionaries were in a sad plight until finally (1644) relieved by an expedition to the lower country undertaken at great hazards by Brebeuf, Garreau, and Noel Chabanel. The same season, Francis Joseph Bressani, attempting to reach the Huron missions, had been captured and tortured by Mohawks; like Jogues, he was rescued through Dutch intercession and sent back to Europe, but Both of these zealots were soon back again facing the cruel dangers of their chosen task.

A temporary peace followed, in 1645, and the hope of the Jesuits was rekindled, for they now had five missions in as many Huron towns, and another established for Algonquins who were resident in the Huron district. But in July, 1648, the Iroquois attacked Teanaustaye, the chief Huron village, and while encouraging the frenzied defense, Father Daniel lost his life at the hands of the enemy. He was therefore the first Jesuit martyr in the Huron mission, and the second in New France, for Jogues had been tortured to death in the Iroquois towns, two years before.

The spirit of the Hurons was crushed in this bloody foray; large bands, deserting their towns, fled in terror to seek protection from the Petuns, while others made their way to the Manitoulin Islands of Lake Huron, and even as far west as the islands of Green Bay and the matted pine forests of Northern Wisconsin. Here and there a town was left, however, and one of the largest of these, called St. Ignatius by the Jesuits, was stormed by a thousand Iroquois on March 16, 1649. The three survivors fled through the woods to neighboring St. Louis, where were Brebeuf, now grown old in his service of toil, and young Gabriel Lalemant. Bravely did they aid in defending St. Louis, and administering to wounded and dying; but at last were captured, and being taken to the ruined town of St. Ignatius were most cruelly tortured until relieved by death.

Early in November, Fathers Garnier and Chabanel met their death in the Petun country, Garnier at the hands of Iroquois, Chabanel being killed by a Huron who imagined that the Jesuits had brought curses upon his tribe.

The missions in the Huron country were now entirely abandoned. A few of the surviving Jesuits followed their flocks to the islands in Lake Huron but, in June, 1650, the enterprise was abandoned, and the missionaries, with a number of their converts, retired to a village, founded for them, on the Island of Orleans, near Quebec. This settlement being in time ravaged by the Iroquois, a final stand was made at Lorette, also in the outskirts of Quebec, which mission exists to this day.

The great Huron mission, which had been conducted for thirty-five years, had employed twenty-nine missionaries, of whom seven had lost their lives in the work. This important field abandoned, many of the missionaries had returned to Europe disheartened, and apparently the future for Jesuit missions in New France looked gloomy enough. The Iroquois had now practically destroyed the Innu between Quebec and the Saguenay, the Algonquins of the Ottawa, and the Hurons, Petuns, and Neutrals. The French colonies of Quebec, Three Rivers, and Montreal, had suffered from repeated raids of the New York confederates, and their forest trade was now almost wholly destroyed. In this hour of darkness, light suddenly broke upon New France. The politic Iroquois, attacked on either side by the Eries and the Susquehannocks, and fearing that while so engaged, their northern victims might revive for combined vengeance, sent overtures of peace to Quebec, and cordially invited to their nations the once detested black gowns.

V. The Iroquois Mission

Champlain had early made enemies of the Iroquois, by attacking them as the allies of his Algonquin neighbors, this hostility extended to all New France, and lasted, with brief intervals of peace, for over half a century. We have seen that Jogues was the first of his order (1642) to enter the Iroquois country, as a prisoner of the Mohawks, the easternmost of the five tribes of the confederacy. Two years later, Bressani, while on his way to the Huron mission, was also captured by the Mohawks, passed through a similar experience of torture, was sold to the Dutch, and transported back to France, and again like Jogues resumed his hazardous task of attempting to tame the American Indian. During the first peace (May, 1646), Jogues, now in civilian costume, paid a brief visit to his former tormentors, the Mohawk, this time conveying only expressions of goodwill from the governor of New France. His political errand accomplished, he returned to Quebec; but in August was back again, with a young French attendant named Lalande, intent on opening a mission among the Iroquois. Meanwhile, there had been a revulsion of sentiment on their part, and the two Frenchmen had no sooner reached the Mohawks than they were tortured and killed.

During an Iroquois attack upon Quebec, seven years later (1653), Father Joseph Anthony Poncet was taken prisoner by the marauders and carried to the Mohawks, where he suffered in the same manner as his predecessors; but his captors being now desirous of a renewal of peace with the French, spared his life, and sent him back to Quebec with overtures for a renewal of negotiations. Early in July, 1654, Father Simon le Moyne was sent forth upon a tour of inspection, and returned to Quebec in September, with glowing reports of the fervor of his reception by both Mohawks and Onondagas. It was decided to rear a mission among the Onondagas, and on a four week voyage (1655) proceeded Claude Dablon and Peter Mary Joseph Chaumonot; while, to appease the jealous Mohawks, Le Moyne reopened a brief but unprosperous mission among that tribe.

At first, Dablon and Chaumonot had high hopes of their Onondaga enterprise; but mistrust soon arose in the minds of the natives, and Dablon found it necessary to proceed to Quebec and obtain fresh evidences of the friendship of the French. He returned in the early summer of 1656, accompanied by Fathers Francis Le Mercier, superior of the Canadian mission, and Rene Menard, two lay brothers, and a group of French colonists under a militia captain, who planned founding a settlement in the land of the Iroquois. By the close of the year, the work was in a promising stage; a number of Christianized Hurons, who had been adopted into the confederacy, formed a nucleus, several Iroquois converts had been made, and all five of the tribes had been visited by the missionaries. Fathers Paul Ragueneau and Joseph Imbert Duperon, who had been sent out from Quebec in July, 1657, to assist the Onondaga mission, reached it only after many perils en route; for meanwhile, there had been a fresh Iroquois uprising against the Hurons and Ottawas, in which Father Leonard Garreau lost his life near Montreal, and the entire confederacy was soon in an uproar against the white allies of its ancient enemies. The intrepid Le Moyne joined the group in November, and in the following March (1658), on learning that all of the French had been condemned to death, the entire colony stole away in the night, and reached Montreal only after a long and hazardous voyage.

The great Iroquois mission, which had cost so much in blood and treasure, was now thought to be a thing of the past. There was, however, still another chapter to the story. In the summer of 1660, after two year's of bloody forays against New France, a Cayuga chief, who had been converted at Onondaga, came to Montreal as a peace messenger, asking for another black gown to minister to the native converts and a number of French captives in the Iroquois towns. Once more, Le Moyne cheerfully set out upon what seemed a path to death; but he passed the winter without harm, and in the spring following was allowed to return to Canada with the French prisoners.

It was five years later (1665), before the government of New France felt itself sufficiently strong to threaten chastisement of the raiding Iroquois, who had long been making life a torment in the colonies on the Saint Lawrence. The Oneidas, Onondagas, Cayugas, and Senecas sued for peace; but the Mohawks were obstinate, and their villages were wasted by fire until they too asked for mercy and the ministrations of the Jesuits. Fathers James Fremin, James Bruyas, and John Pierron were sent out in 1667; later, they were assisted by Julian Garnier, Stephen de Carheil, Pierre Millet, and Boniface, so that by the close of 1668 a mission was in progress in each of the five nations. A few converts were made, among them Catherine Tegakouita, known as the "Iroquois Saint;" Catherine Ganneaktena, an Erie captive who later founded a native mission village on the banks of the Saint Lawrence; the head-men Assendase, Kryn, and Soenrese. But a great success was never possible; here as elsewhere, the vices and superstitions of the tribesmen were deep-rooted, and they had not yet reached a stage of culture where the spiritual doctrines of Christianity appealed strongly, save to a few.

The converts were subjected to so many annoyances and dangers, that isolation was thought essential, and there was established for them, opposite Montreal, the palisaded mission of St. Francis Xavier; this settlement, fostered by the French as a buffer against Iroquois attack on the colonists, was subsequently moved to Lachine Rapids and is known in our day as Kahnawake. This mission, and that of the Society of Saint-Sulpice on Montreal Mountain -- later moved to the neighboring Lake of the Two Mountains, and at Quinte Bay, were frequently recruited by Iroquois Christians, who were carefully instructed by the missionaries in the arts of agriculture and the rites of the church.

This depletion of the Iroquois population alarmed the chiefs of the confederacy. To please them, Governor Dongan of New York, himself a Catholic, introduced to the Five Nations three English Jesuits, who sought in vain to counteract the movement. The French did not abandon the Iroquois mission field until 1687, when the rising power of the English compelled them to withdraw from the country. We have, however, glimpses of occasional attempts subsequently to revive the work, Bruyas being on the ground in 1701, joined the following year by James de Lamberville, Garnier, and Le Valliant, and later by James d'Hue and Peter de Marieul. The entire group were again driven from the nations in 1708, De Marieul being the last of his order to remain on duty.

From then, the Jesuits were chiefly devoted to their mission at Kahnawake, where many Iroquois retreated before the inroads of Dutch and English settlers who were now crowding upon their lands. When the black gowns were at last expelled from New France, secular priests continued their work among the remnants of those New York Indians who had sought protection by settling among the French colonists on the Saint Lawrence.

VI. The Ottawa Mission

This embraced the tribes beyond Lake Huron, the Ojibwes at Sault Ste. Marie, the Amikwas, the Crees, the Ottawas and refugee Hurons on Lake Superior, the Menominees, Potawatomis, Sauks, Meskwakis, Winnebagos, Miamis, Illinois, and those of the Sioux who lived on or near the banks of the Mississippi. The Ottawas were the first Indians from the upper lakes to trade with the French, so that vast district became early known as the country of the Ottawas. The Huron mission was the door to the Ottawa mission. Jogues and Raimbault were with the Ojibwes at Sault Ste. Marie in 1641; but it was nineteen years after that (1660), before they were followed by another Jesuit, the veteran father Menard, who accompanied an Ottawa fleet up the great river of that name, through Lake Huron and Sault Ste. Marie, and on to Keweenaw Bay.

After a wretched winter on that inhospitable coast, spent in a shanty of fir boughs, with savage neighbors who reviled his presence, he proceeded inland intent on ministering to some Hurons who had fled from Iroquois persecution to the gloomy pine forest about the upper waters of Black River, in what is now Wisconsin. In August 1661, he lost his life at a portage, therefore being the first martyr upon the Ottawa mission.

Four years later, Claude Allouez set out for Lake Superior, and reaching Chequamegon Bay in October (1665), built a little chapel of bark upon the southwest shore of that rock-bound estuary, the famous mission of La Pointe. His flock was a mixture, Hurons and Algonquins here clustering in two villages, where they lived on fish, safe at last from the raging Iroquois, although much pestered by the wild Sioux of the west. For thirty years did Allouez travel from tribe to tribe, through the forests and over the prairies of the vast wilderness which a century later came to be organized into the Northwest Territory, and established missions at Green Bay, Sault Ste. Marie, on the Miami and, with Marquette, among the Illinois at Kaskaskia.

Later, there arrive on the scene Fathers Louis Nicholas, James Marquette, Dablon, Louis Andre, Druillettes, Albanel, and others. The field of the Northwest seemed at first, as did the Huron mission, highly promising. The missionaries were everywhere greeted by large audiences, and much curiosity was displayed concerning the rites of the church; but the nomadic habits of the Indians rendered instruction difficult. The fathers, with great toil and misery, and subject to daily danger and insult, followed their people about upon long hunting and fishing expeditions; and even when the bands had returned to the squalid village, life there was almost as comfortless as upon the trail. Among the French laymen and the Jesuit brothers were skillful workers in metal, who repaired the guns and utensils of the natives, and taught them how best to obtain and reduce the ore from lead and copper deposits. We have evidence that the copper region of Lake Superior was at times resorted to by the lay follower and their Indian attendants, to obtain material for crucifixes and for the medals which the missionaries gave to converts; and in the lead mines centering about where are now Dubuque, Iowa, and Galena, Illinois, the missionary attendants and Indians obtained lead for barter with French fur-traders, who were by this time wandering all over the Northwest.

Marquette had succeeded Allouez at La Pointe, in 1669; but it was not long before the Hurons and Ottawas of Chequamegon Bay foolishly incurred the fresh hostility of the Sioux, and the following year were driven eastward like autumn leaves before a blast. Marquette established them in a the new mission, at Point St. Ignace, opposite Mackinac; and it was from here that, in 1673, he joined the group of Louis Joliet, en route to the Mississippi River. The St. Ignace mission became the largest and most successful in the Northwest, there being encamped, during Marquette's time, about 500 Hurons and 1,300 Ottawas.

After the suspension of the publication of the Reports in 1673, we obtain few glimpses of the Ottawa mission, save in the occasional references of travelers. The several local missions in the district were probably more successful than those in any of the other fields of endeavor. La Pointe, Green Bay, St. Ignace (later Mackinac), Sault Ste. Marie, St. Joseph's, and Kaskaskia became the most important of them all; and at some of these points Catholic missions are still maintained by Franciscan friars and secular priests, French Creoles and Indians residing there. The uprising of the Meskwakis against French power, which lasted spasmodically from about 1700 to 1755, hampered the work of the Jesuits; they did not, during this period, entirely absent themselves from the broad country of the Ottawas, but conversions were few and the records slight.

There was, for a time, governmental attempt to supplant the Western Jesuits with Recollects. Several friars were with La Salle, who had a great antipathy to the disciples of Ignatius of Loyola. Father Hennepin's adventures belong to this period of Recollect effort, his colleagues at Fort Crevecoeur being Brothers Ribourde and Membre; but their mission closed with the Iroquois repulse of the French from Crevecoeur, and the consequent death of Ribourde. When La Salle retired from the region, Allouez resumed the Illinois mission of the Jesuits; and soon after arrived Fathers Gravier, Marest, Mermet, and Pinet, who, because of the more docile character of the tribes collectively known as the Illinois, -- Kaskaskias, Cahokias, Peorias, and Tamaroas -- found here relatively fruitful fields. In time, French settlements grew up around the palisaded missions, intermarriages occurred, and the work flourished for many years. Black gowns visited the prosperous Illinois towns as late as 1781, when the death of Father Meurin closed the work of his order in the Northwest.

VII. The Louisiana Mission

The Jesuit Marquette was in Louisiana in 1673, but established no mission. Nine years later, Membre, of the Recollects, accompanied La Salle into the region, and instructed natives as far down the Mississippi as the mouth; and with La Salle at his death were Anastasius Douay, of the Recollects, and the Society of Saint-Sulpice Cavalier. In 1698, Francis Jolliet de Montigny and Anthony Davion, priests of the Seminary of Quebec, established missions on the Yazoo, among the Natchez, and elsewhere in the neighborhood; to their aid, soon came others of their house, St. Come, Gaulin, Foncault, and Erborie, who labored until about 1710, when, St. Come and Foncault being killed by roving Indians, the survivors retired to the North. The Jesuit Du Rue accompanied Iberville into the country in 1699-1700, followed by De Limoges and Donge, of his order, their work continuing until about 1704.

In 1721, Father Charlevoix reported that only two priests were then in Louisiana, one at Yazoo and another in New Orleans; at the New Orleans post, a chaplain of some sort was established throughout the French regime. Capuchins and Jesuits were both admitted to Louisiana in 1722, the Capuchins to serve as priest to the French of the country, chiefly at New Orleans and Natchez, while the Jesuits were restricted to the Indian missions although permitted to maintain a house in the outskirts of New Orleans. It was not long before the Illinois mission became attached to Louisiana, and missionaries for that field usually entered upon the work by way of the New Orleans house. Missions were maintained in the villages of the Arkansas, Yazoo, Choctaws, and Alabamas: but the uprising of the Indians in the Natchez district, in 1727, led to the fall of these several missions together with that of French colonies above New Orleans.

Father Du Poisson was killed by Indians at Natchez, where he was temporarily supplying the French settlers in the absence of their Capuchin friar; Souel fell a victim to the Yazoos, at whose hands Doutreleau narrowly escaped destruction. However, the Jesuits did not despair, but soon returned to the Lower Mississippi, where they continued their labors until about 1770, although the order had in 1762 been suppressed in France.

The Louisiana mission of the Jesuits has yielded but meager documentary results; few of the papers in the present series touch upon its work, and detailed knowledge is not easily obtainable. Severed from Canada by a long stretch of wilderness, communication with the Saint Lawrence basin was difficult and spasmodic, and in the case of the Jesuits generally unnecessary; for, having their own superior at New Orleans, his allegiance was to the general of the order in France, not to his fellow-superiors in Quebec and Montreal. The several missions of New France played a large part in American history; that of Louisiana, although interesting, is of less importance.

The Jesuit Reports

A few explorers like Champlain, Radisson, and Perrot have left valuable narratives behind them, which are of prime importance in the study of the beginnings of French settlement in America; but it is to the Jesuits that we owe the great body of our information concerning the frontiers of New France in the seventeenth century. It was their duty annually to transmit to their superior in Quebec, or Montreal, a written journal of their doings; it was also their duty to pay occasional visits to their superior, and to go into retreat at the central house of the Canadian mission. Annually, between 1632 and 1673, the superior made up a narrative, or Report, of the most important events which had occurred in the several missionary districts under his charge, sometimes using the exact words of the missionaries, and sometimes summarizing the individual journals in a general account, based in part upon the oral reports of visiting fathers. This annual Report, which in bibliographies occasionally bears the name of the superior, and at other times of the missionary chiefly contributing to it, was forwarded to the provincial of the order in France, and, after careful scrutiny and re-editing, published by him in a series of volumes, known collectively as "The Jesuit Relations" (Reports).

The authors of the journals which formed the basis of the Reports were mostly men of trained intellect, acute observers, and practiced in the art of keeping records of their experiences. They had left the most highly civilized country of their times, to plunge into the heart of the American wilderness, and attempt to win to the Christian faith the fiercest savages known to history. To gain these Indians, it was first necessary to know them intimately, -- their speech, their habits, their manner of thought, their strong points and their weak. These first students of the North American Indian were not only amply fitted for their undertaking, but none have since had better opportunity for its pursuit. They were explorers, as well as priests. Bancroft was inexact when he said, in an oft-quoted phrase, "Not a cape was turned, not a river entered, but a Jesuit led the way." The actual pioneers of New France were almost always French woodsmen, in the business of the fur trade; but French woodsmen seldom kept records, and as a rule, we learn of their previous appearance on the scene only through chance allusions in the Reports. The Jesuits performed a great service to mankind in publishing their annals, which are, for historian, geographer, and ethnologist, among our first and best authorities.

Many of the Reports were written in Indian camps, amid a chaos of distractions. Insects innumerable tormented the journalists; they were immersed in scenes of squalor and degradation, overcome by fatigue and lack of proper sustenance, often suffering from wounds and disease, maltreated in a hundred ways by hosts who, at times, might more properly be called jailers; and not seldom had savage superstition risen to such a height, that to be seen writing was certain to arouse the ferocious hostility of the band. It is not surprising that the composition of these journals of the Jesuits is sometimes crude; the wonder is that they could be written at all. Nearly always, the style is simple and direct. Never does the narrator descend to self-glorification, or dwell unnecessarily upon the details of his continual martyrdom; he never complains of his lot; but sets forth his experience in phrases the most matter-of-fact. His meaning is seldom obscure. We gain from his pages a vivid picture of life in the primeval forest, as he lived it; we see him upon his long canoe journeys, squatted amidst his dusky fellows, working his passage at the paddles, and carrying cargoes upon the portage trail; we see him the butt and scorn of the Indian camp, sometimes deserted in the heart of the wilderness, and forced to wait for another flotilla, or to make his way alone as best he can.

Arrived at last, at his journey's end, we often find him vainly seeking shelter in the squalid huts of the natives, with every man's hand against him, but his own heart open to all. We find him, even when at last living in some far-away village, working to save the unbaptized from eternal damnation; we see the rising storm of opposition, invoked by native medicine-men, who to his seventeenth-century imagination seem devils, -- and at last the bursting climax of superstitious frenzy which sweeps him before it. Not only do these devoted missionaries live and breathe before us in the Reports; but we have in them our first competent account of the Indian, at a time relatively uncontaminated by contact with Europeans. We seem, in the Reports, to know this crafty Indian, to measure him intellectually as well as physically, his inmost thoughts as well as open speech. The fathers did not understand him from an ethnological point of view, as well as he is today understood; their minds were tinted with the scientific fallacies of their time. But, with what is known today, the minute details in the Reports help the student to an accurate picture of the untamed aborigine, and much that mystified the fathers, is now, by aid of their careful journals, easily explained. Few periods of history are so well illuminated as the French regime in North America. This we owe in large measure to the existence of the Jesuit Reports.

What are generally known as the Reports proper, addressed to the superior and published in Paris, commence with Le Jeune's Brieve Relations du Voyage de la Noevelle-France (1632); and then a volume, neatly printed and bound in vellum, was issued annually from the press of Sebastien Cramoisy, in Paris, until 1673, when the series was discontinued, probably through the influence of Frontenac, to whom the Jesuits were distasteful. The Reports immediately became popular in the court circles of France; their regular appearance was always awaited with the keenest interest, and assisted in creating and fostering the enthusiasm of pious philanthropists, who for many years substantially maintained the missions of New France.

In addition to these forty volumes, which to collectors are technically known as "Cramoisys," many similar publications found their way into the hands of the public, most of them bearing dates after the suppression of the Cramoisy series. Some were printed in Paris and Lyons by independent publishers; others appeared in Latin and Italian texts, at Rome and other cities in Italy; while in such journals as Mercure Francois and Annuae Litterae Societatis Jesu, occasionally were published letters from the missionaries, of the same nature as the Reports, but briefer and more intimate in tone. It does not appear, however, that popular interest in these publications materially affected the secular literature of the period; they were largely used in Jesuit histories of New France, but by others were practically ignored. General literary interest in the Reports was only created about a half century ago, when Dr. E. B. O'Callaghan, editor of the Documentary History of New York, called attention to their great value as storehouses of contemporary information. Dr. John G. Shea, author of "History of the Catholic Missions among the Indian Tribes of the United States", and Father Felix Martin, Jesuit, of Montreal, soon came forward, with fresh studies of the Reports.

Collectors at once commenced searching for Cramoisys, which were found to be exceedingly scarce, most of the originals having been literally worn out in the hands of their devout seventeenth-century readers; finally, the greatest collector of them all, James Lenox, of New York, outstripped his competitors and laid the foundation, in the Lenox Library, of what is today probably the only complete collection in America. In 1858, the Canadian government reprinted the Cramoisys, with a few additions, in three stout octavo volumes, carefully edited by Abbots Lavaliere, Planate, and Ferland. These are now rare, copies seldom being offered for sale.

There is a dramatic unity in the Jesuit Reports, as they will be presented in this series. Commencing with a report of the first conversion of Indians in New France, in 1611, by a secular priest, and soon drifting into the records of Jesuit missionary effort, they touch upon practically every important enterprise of the Jesuits, in Canada and Louisiana, from the coming of Fathers Biard and Masse, in 1611, to the death, in the closing decade of the eighteenth century, of Father Well, "the last Jesuit of Montreal."

THE JESUIT REPORTS - FOR THE MODERN READER, 1610-1764

YEAR 1610
THE CONVERSION OF THE INDIANS WHO WERE BAPTIZED IN NEW FRANCE DURING THIS YEAR, 1610. THE VOYAGE OF SIR DE POUTRINCOURT.

Sir de Poutrincourt, three times has crossed the great Ocean to carry on his enterprises. The first year was passed with Sir de Monts in seeking a suitable dwelling and a safe port for the withdrawal of the ships and their crews. In this they did not meet with much success. The second year passed in the same way, and then he returned to France. During the third year, we experimented with the soil, which yielded abundantly to our cultivation. This present year, discovering through an unfortunate experience that men are not always to be trusted, he made up his mind to depend upon no one but himself, and put to sea on the twenty-sixth of February; the weather being unfavorable, he made the longest voyage of which I have ever heard; our own, three years ago, was tedious enough, when we drifted about upon the sea for the space of two months and a half before reaching Port-Royal, Nova Scotia. But this one lasted three whole months, so that one reckless man was about to mutiny, going so far as to form wicked conspiracies; but Sir de Poutrincourt's kindness, and respect for the place where he lived in Paris, served as a shield to protect his life.

The first coast which Sir de Poutrincourt discovered was port Mouton; there, among the fogs which are common in this sea during the Summer, he encountered serious dangers, principally in the neighborhood of Cape Sable, where his ship came near foundering. Therefore, in trying to reach Port-Royal, Nova Scotia, he was carried by violent winds 100 miles beyond, namely to the Penobscot river, so fabulously described by Geographers and Historians, as I have shown in my History, where this voyage may be seen in the geographical Chart that I inserted there. From there he came to the river saint John, which is opposite Port-Royal, Nova Scotia beyond the Bay of Fundy, where he found a ship from St. Malo trading with the Indians of the country. Here complaint was made to him by a Captain of the Indians, that one of the crew of the ship had stolen away his wife and was abusing her: de Poutrincourt informed himself about the matter and then made a prisoner of the malefactor and seized the ship. But he released the ship and the sailors, contenting himself by retaining the guilty one, who escaped, however, in a sailboat, and went off with the Indians, prejudicing them against the French. Arriving, at last, at Port-Royal, Nova Scotia, these poor people received with joy de Poutrincourt and his company. And there was still greater reason for this joy, since they had lost all hope of ever again seeing the French live among them. They had had some experience of our kind treatment while we were there, and they wept bitterly when we left them three years ago.

This Port-Royal, Nova Scotia, the home of Sir de Poutrincourt, is the most beautiful earthly habitation. It is fortified upon the North by a range of 30 or 40 miles of mountains, upon which the Sun beats all day, and by hills on the Southern or Meridian shore, which forms a port that can securely harbor twenty thousand ships, being 120 feet deep at its entrance, 4 miles in width, and 10 miles long, extending to an island which is 2.5 miles in circumference: here I have sometimes seen swimming a medium-sized Whale, which came in with the tide at eight o'clock every morning. Also, there can be caught in this port, in their season, great quantities of herring, smelt, sardines, barbels, codfish, seals and other fish; and as for shell-fish, there is an abundance of lobsters, crabs, palourdes, cockles, mussels, snails, and porpoises. But whoever is willing to go beyond the tides of the sea will find in the river quantities of sturgeon and salmon, and will have plenty of sport in landing them.

When Sir de Poutrincourt arrived there, he found his buildings entire, the Indians not having touched them in any way; even the furniture remained as we had left it. The Indians asked how the French were all getting along, calling each individual by his name, and asking why such and such a one had not come back. This shows the great amiability of these people, who, having seen in us only the most humane qualities, never flee from us, as they do from the Spaniard in this new world. And consequently by a certain gentleness and courtesy, which are as well known to them as to us, it is easy to make them pliant to all our wishes, and especially so with Religion, of which we left them some good impressions when we were there. But just as we were hoping to continue the work, Sir de Monts, being unable longer to meet the expenses, and not receiving any help from the King, had to recall all those who were over there, who had not taken with them the means necessary for a longer stay. So it would have been rash to administer baptism to people whom it was necessary later to abandon, and give them an opportunity to return to their corruption.

But now that the work is being carried on in earnest, and as Sir de Poutrincourt has settled there, it is lawful to impress upon their minds the stamp of Christianity, after having instructed them in the principal articles of our Faith. And as the priests who have been taken over there are not familiar with the language of these people, de Poutrincourt has taken the trouble to teach them and to have them taught by his eldest son, a young Gentleman who understands and speaks the native language well.

The people who are at Port-Royal, Nova Scotia, and in the adjacent countries extending toward Newfoundland, are called Micmacs and have a language of their own. But beyond the Bay of Fundy, which extends into the land about 100 miles, and is 25 or 30 miles wide, the people on the other side are called Maliseets; and still farther away are the Armouchiquois (Saco Bay Indians, possibly the Massachusetts) whose language is different from that of the Maliseets, and who are fortunate in having an abundance of vines and large grapes, if they only knew how to make use of this fruit, which they believe to be poisonous. They also have excellent hemp, which grows wild, and in quality and appearance is superior to ours. Besides this, they have Sassafras, and a great abundance of oak, walnut, plum, and chestnut trees, and other fruits which are unknown to us. As for Port-Royal, Nova Scotia, there is not much fruit there; and yet the land is productive enough to make us hope from it all that Gallic France yields to us.

All these tribes are governed by Captains called Sagamores. At Port-Royal, Nova Scotia, the name of the Captain or Sagamore of the place is Membertou. He is at least a hundred years old, and may live more than fifty years longer. He has under him a number of families whom he rules, not with so much authority as does our King over his subjects, but with sufficient power to address, advise, and lead them to war, to render justice to one who has a grievance, and like matters. He does not impose taxes upon the people, but if there are any profits from hunting, he has a share of them, without being required to take part in the hunt. They sometimes give presents of Beaver skins and other things, when he is occupied in curing the sick, or in questioning his demon (whom he calls Aoutem) to have news of some future event or of the absent: for, as each village, or company of Indians, has an Autmoin, or Prophet, who performs this service, Membertou is the one who, from time immemorial, has practiced this art among his followers. He has done it so well that his reputation is far above that of all the other Captains of the country, he having been since his youth a great Captain, and also having exercised the offices of fortune teller and Medicine-man, which are the three things most effective to the well-being of man, and necessary to this human life.

This Membertou today is a Christian, together with all his family, having been baptized, and twenty others with him, on last saint John's day, the 24th of June. I have letters from Sir de Poutrincourt about it, dated the eleventh day of July. He said Membertou was named after our late good KING HENRY IV, and his eldest son was named after the Prince, now our KING LOUIS XIII. And so the wife of Membertou was named MARIE after the Queen Regent, and her daughter received the name of the Queen, MARGUERITE. The second son of Membertou, called Actaudin, was named PAUL after our Pope of Rome. The daughter of the aforementioned Louis was named Christine in honor of the eldest sister of the King. And to each other one was given the name of some illustrious person here in France.

A number of other Indians were about to camp elsewhere (as it is their custom to scatter in bands when summer comes) at the time of these ceremonies of Christian regeneration. But the devil, by inciting a wicked Frenchman to divert from the path of righteousness several Indians who had been Christians for three years; and among others a Captain named Chkoudun, a man of great influence; and he had in imitation of us, a great Cross erected in the public place of his village, called Oigoudi, at the port of the river saint John, 25 miles from Port-Royal, Nova Scotia.

This man, with others, was turned away from Christianity, by the cursed greed of this wicked Frenchman, and whom I do not wish to name now on account of the reverence I bear his father. He, to defraud this Captain, Chkoudun, of a few Beavers, went last June to bribe him, after having escaped from the hands of Sir de Poutrincourt, saying that all Poutrincourt told them about God was nonsense, that they should not believe it, that he was a fraudster, that he would kill them and get their Beavers. If he were a Calvinist, I might somewhat excuse him. But he plainly shows that he is neither one nor the other. However, he has reason to thank God for his escape from imminent peril on our voyage.

There are in that country some men of the Church. For now, there is no need of any learned Doctors who may be more useful in combating vices at home. Besides, there is a certain class of men in whom we cannot have complete confidence, who are in the habit of censuring everything that is not in harmony with their maxims, and wish to rule wherever they are. It is enough to be watched from abroad without having these fault-finders come near enough to record every movement of our hearts. And then what would be the use of so many such men over there at present, unless they wanted to devote themselves to farming? For going there is not all; what they will do when they get there, must be taken into consideration.

As for Sir de Poutrincourt's residence, he had at his departure everything that was necessary. But if a few honest people were seized with a desire to advance the cause of the Gospel there, I would advise them to make up five or six parties, each one having a well-equipped ship, and to go and establish colonies in different parts of New France, such as at Tadoussac, Gaspe, Canso, LaHave, Oigoudi, St. Croix, Penobscot, Norridgewock, and in other places, where there are assemblages of Indians, unless the head of some great family, like the King, wishes to have the sole glory of peopling these lands.

From the first land (which is Newfoundland) to the country of the Armouchiquois (Saco Bay Indians, possibly the Massachusetts), a distance of nearly 750 miles, the people are nomads, without agriculture, never stopping longer than five or six weeks in a place. These Indians get their food in this manner during three seasons of the year. For, when Spring comes, they divide into bands upon the shores of the sea, until Winter; and then as the fish withdraw to the bottom of the great salt waters, they seek the lakes and the shades of the forests, where they catch Beavers, upon which they live, and other game, as Elk, Caribou, Deer, and still smaller animals. And yet, sometimes even in Summer, they do not give up hunting: besides, there are an infinite number of birds on certain islands in May, June, July and August.

As for their beds, a skin spread upon the ground serves as mattress.

As for the Armouchiquois (Saco Bay Indians, possibly the Massachusetts) and Iroquois countries, they are not so sparsely populated, and the people cultivate the soil, from which they derive some of the comforts of life. They do not understand how to make bread very well, not having mills, yeast, or ovens; so they pound their corn in a kind of mortar, and make a paste of it as best they can, and bake it between two stones heated at the fire; or they roast this corn on the cob upon the live coals. These people who cultivate the soil are stationary, not like the others who have nothing of their own.

Farther inland, and beyond the Armouchiquois (Saco Bay Indians, possibly the Massachusetts), are the Iroquois tribes, also stationary, because they till the soil, from where they gather corn or Buckwheat, beans, edible roots, and all that we have mentioned in describing the Armouchiquois, even more, for from necessity they draw their sustenance from the earth, as they are far from the sea. However, they have a great lake in their country perhaps about 150 miles, around which they encamp. In this lake, there are large and beautiful islands inhabited by the Iroquois, who are a great people.

The farther we penetrate into the country, the more we find it inhabited, so much so that (if we believe the Spaniards), in the country called New Mexico, a long distance to the Southwest of these Iroquois, there are regularly built cities and houses of three and four stories, and even domesticated cattle, where they have named a certain river Rio de las Vaccas, or Cow river, because they saw a large number of them grazing on its banks. And this country is more than 1250 miles directly to the north of old Mexico, being near the end of the great lake of the Saint Lawrence River which (according to the Indians) is a thirty days journey in length. I believe that hardy men could live among these people, and do great work for the advancement of the Christian Religion.

As for the Micmacs and Maliseets, who are nomadic and divided, they must be made settled by farming, therefore making them remain in one place. For anyone who has taken the trouble to cultivate a piece of land does not readily abandon it, but struggles valiantly to keep it. But the execution of this plan will be slow unless a King, or some rich Prince, take this cause in hand. Yet we see an inexplicable apathy in religious matters. The enemies of that country denounce the faith so as not to lose the trade in Beaver and other furs from which they gain food, and without which they would die of starvation.

And the hope of worldly profit is not vain. For on one hand, Sir de Poutrincourt will continue to be in the country which his Majesty has granted him; where he would give assistance to all the vessels which go every year to the new World, where they encounter a thousand hardships and great numbers of them are lost. On the other hand, penetrating into the country, we might become familiar with the route to China and the Maluku Islands, through a mild climate and latitude, establishing a few campsites, or settlements, at the Falls of the great Canadian river, then at the lakes which are beyond, the last of which is not far from the great Western sea, through which the Spaniards today reach the Orient. Or the same enterprise could be carried on through the Saguenay river, beyond which the Indians say there is a sea of which they have never seen the end, which is without doubt that Northern passage that has been so long sought in vain. Then we could have spices and other drugs without asking them from the Spaniards, and the profits derived from these commodities would remain in the hands of the King, not counting the advantages of having hides, pasturage, fisheries, and other sources of wealth.

In this work, we could give employment to many of the youth of France, a part of whom languish in poverty or in idleness: while others go to foreign countries to teach the trades which in former times belonged strictly to us, and by which France was filled with prosperity; but, today, a long period of peace has not yet been able to restore her former glory, as much for the reasons just given, as for the number of idle men whom the public supports.

I consider all these poor Indians to be happy; for Envy does not emaciate them, neither do they feel the inhumanity of those who serve God hypocritically, harassing their fellow-creatures under this mask. If they do not know God, at least they do not blaspheme him, as the greater number of Christians do. Nor do they understand the art of poisoning, or of corrupting chastity by devilish craftiness. There are no poor, nor beggars, among them. All are rich, because all labor and live. But among us it is different, for more than half of us live from the labors of the others, having no trades which serve the support of human life.

If that country were settled, there are men who would do there, what they have not courage to do here. Here they would not dare to be wood-cutters, farmers, vine-dressers, etc., because their fathers were lawyers, barber-surgeons, and apothecaries. But over there, they would forget their fear of being ridiculed, and would take pleasure in cultivating their land, having a great many companions of as good families as theirs.

However, let us return to Sir de Poutrincourt, or rather to you. You who have the control of the most noble Empire, how can you see a Gentleman so full of good will, without employing and helping him? Will you let him carry off the greatest honor in the world when it might have been yours, and will you let the triumph of this affair remain with him and not share in it yourself? No, no, Madame, all must proceed from you; so upon the King, all the great deeds of the French depend. We must not yield this glory to another, while you have a Poutrincourt, a loyal Frenchman who served the late lamented King, your Husband, in affairs of State which are not recorded in history. He is not crossing the Ocean to see the country, as have nearly all the others who have undertaken similar voyages at the expense of our Kings. He shows so plainly what his intentions are, the propagation of the Christian religion in the eastern lands beyond the sea.

After having touched upon the hardships of Sir de Poutrincourt's journey, which delayed him one year, we say a word about the return of his ship, which will be brief, as the voyages from the Western world, this side of the Tropic of Cancer, are usually so. In Summer, the sea there is overhung with fogs to such an extent that for one clear day there are two foggy ones; and twice we were in fogs which lasted eight entire days. This is why Sir de Poutrincourt's son, when he was sent back to France for fresh supplies, was as long in reaching the great Codfish Banks from Port-Royal, Nova Scotia, as in getting to France from the Banks; and yet from these Banks to the coast of France there are 2000 good miles; and from there to Port-Royal, Nova Scotia, there are hardly more than 750 miles. It is upon these Banks that a great many ships are usually found all Summer, fishing for Cod, which are brought to France and are called Newfoundland Codfish.

So Sir de Poutrincourt's son (who is called Baron de Saint Just), on arriving at these Banks, laid in a supply of fresh meat and fish. While doing this, he met a ship from Rochelle and another from Havre de Grace, from where he heard the news of the death of our late good King, without knowing by whom or how he was killed. But later he met an English ship from which he heard the same thing, certain persons being accused of this parricide whom I will not here name; for they brought this accusation through hatred, being great enemies of those whom they accused.

So in fifteen days, Baron de Saint Just made the distance between the Banks and France, always sailing with the wind. Sir de Monts's crew left Havre de Grace nine or ten days after this twenty-sixth of February to go to Quebec, 100 miles beyond the Saguenay river, where Sir de Monts has fortified himself. But contrary winds compelled them to put into port. And then a report was circulated that Sir de Poutrincourt was lost in the sea with all his crew. We have no news from Quebec, but expect to hear from there soon.

If ever any good comes out of New France, posterity will be indebted for it to Sir de Monts, author of these enterprises: and if they had not taken away the license which was granted him to trade in Beaver and other skins, today we should have had a vast number of cattle, fruit-trees, people, and buildings in the province. For he desired to see everything established there to the honor of God and of France. And, although he has been deprived of the motive for continuing, yet he does not seem discouraged in doing what he can; for he has had built at Quebec a Fort and some good dwellings.

Here at Quebec, this great Saint Lawrence river narrows down and is only a cannon-shot wide; it has as great a supply of fish as any river in the world. As for the country, it is wonderfully beautiful, and abounds in game. But being in a colder region than Port-Royal, Nova Scotia, since it is 200 miles farther North, the fur there is all the finer. For (among other animals) the Foxes are black and of such beautiful fur that they put the Martens to shame. The Indians of Port-Royal, Nova Scotia can go to Quebec in ten or twelve days by means of the rivers, which they navigate almost up to their sources; and from there, carrying their little bark canoes for some distance through the woods, they reach another stream which flows into the Saint Lawrence river, and so expedite their long Voyages, which we could not do in the present state of the country. And from Port-Royal, Nova Scotia to Quebec by sea it is more than 1000 miles, going by way of Cape Breton.

Sir de Monts sent some cows there two years and a half ago, but for lack of some village housewife who understood taking care of them, they let the greater part die in giving birth to their calves. Which shows how necessary a woman is in a house, and I cannot understand why so many people slight them, although they cannot do without them. I shall always believe that, in any settlement, nothing will be accomplished without the presence of women. Without them life is sad, sickness comes, and we die uncared for. Therefore I despise those woman-haters who have wished them all sorts of evil, which I hope will overtake that lunatic in particular, who has been placed among the number of the seven Sages, who said that woman is a necessary evil, since there is no blessing in the world to be compared to her.

When Summer came, a year ago, Champlain wishing to see the country of the Iroquois, to prevent them from seizing his Fort in his absence, persuaded our Indians to go and make war against the Iroquois; so they departed with him and two other Frenchmen, to the number of eighty or a hundred, to Lake Ontario, 500 miles from Quebec. There has always been war between these two nations, as there has been between the Micmacs and the Armouchiquois (Saco Bay Indians, possibly the Massachusetts): and sometimes the Iroquois have raised as many as eight thousand men to war against, and exterminate, all those who live near the great Saint Lawrence river: and it seems that they did this, as today the language which was spoken in the time of Jacques Cartier, who was there eighty years ago, is no longer heard in that region.

When Champlain arrived there with his troops, they could not conceal themselves so well; they were seen by the Iroquois, who always have sentinels upon the routes of their enemies: and each side being well fortified, it was agreed among them not to fight that day, but to postpone the affair until the next day. The weather then was clear; so clear that scarcely had dawn chased away the shadows of the night, than a din was heard throughout the camp. An Iroquois skirmisher, having tried to issue from the fortifications, was pierced through by an arrow, which stretched him out upon his back. Then the eyes of the offended were full of anger, and each one takes his place in the line of attack and defense.

As the band of Iroquois advances, Champlain, who had loaded his musket with two balls, seeing two Iroquois, their heads adorned with feathers, marching in front, supposed they were two Captains, and wanted to advance and aim at them. But the Quebec Indians prevented him, saying: "It is not good that they should see you, for never having been accustomed to see such people as you, they would immediately run away. But withdraw behind our first rank, and when we are ready, you will advance." He did so, and in this way the two Captains were both slain by one musket shot. Victory ensued at once, for they all disbanded, and it only remained to pursue them. This was done with little opposition, and they carried off some fifty of their enemies' heads, a triumph which, upon their return, they celebrated with great festivities, consisting of continual Tabagies, dances, and chants, according to their custom.

THE CONVERSION AND BAPTISM OF THE GRAND CAPTAIN OF NEW FRANCE, WHO WAS, BEFORE THE ARRIVAL OF THE FRENCH, ITS CHIEF. CONTAINING HIS PROMISE TO SECURE THE CONVERSION OF HIS SUBJECTS ALSO, EVEN BY STRENGTH OF ARMS. SENT FROM PORT-ROYAL, NOVA SCOTIA, IN NEW FRANCE, TO SIR DE LA TRONCHAIE, DATED JUNE 28, 1610.

I did not wish the ship to depart without giving you some news of this country. The Grand Sagamore, whom we call in our language Grand Captain of the Indians, was baptized on last saint John the Baptist's day, with his wife, children, and children's children, to the number of twenty. He promises to have the others baptized, or else make war upon them. Sir de Poutrincourt and his son acted as sponsors for them in the name of the King, and of the Prince.

As for the country, I have never seen anything so beautiful, better, or more fertile; and if I had three or four Laborers with me now, and the means of supporting them for one year, and some wheat to sow in the ground tilled by their labor alone, I should expect to have a yearly trade in Beaver and other Skins amounting to three or four thousand gold coins, with the surplus which would remain to me after their support. I am sorry that did not know before my departure what I know now; if I had, I should have left no stone unturned to bring with me two or three farmers, and four barrels of wheat, which is a mere trifle. It is delightful to engage in trade over here and to make such handsome profits. If you wish to take a hand in it, let me know your intentions by the bearer, who desires to return and trade here in pursuit of what he has seen.

From Port-Royal, Nova Scotia, New France, this 28th of, June, 1610.

Bertrand.

YEAR 1611
FIRST MISSION OF THE JESUITS IN CANADA. LETTER FROM FATHER PIERRE BIARD TO THE REVEREND FATHER CLAUDE AQUAVIVA GENERAL OF THE JESUITS, ROME. DIEPPE, JANUARY 21ST, 1611.

Reverend Father,

We were to depart for New France; the Reverend Father Pierre Coton, then confessor and preacher to the king, was commissioned to select, from his Jesuits, some men capable of conducting this perilous enterprise. Many of our religious offered themselves for this distant mission. Among them was Father Pierre Biard, who then occupied the chair of theology at Lyons. The choice of the superiors fell upon him and upon Father Enemond Masse.

They both departed in 1608 for Bordeaux, where they intended to embark, but they had to wait three years. For Sir de Poutrincourt postponed his departure; then he offered as an excuse the necessity of making a trial voyage, said he, to prepare a suitable dwelling for the Fathers. He did make this journey, accompanied by a secular priest, who, yielding to a thoughtless fervor, baptized a hundred Indians without having sufficiently instructed them. Later, it was discovered that these poor people had not even understood what they had received. Three years later, on returning from his voyage, Sir de Poutrincourt, urged by the queen-mother, conveyed our Fathers to Canada. But it was with great difficulty that they reached Port-Royal, Nova Scotia, upon the coast of Acadia.

The year following their arrival, two others of our Jesuits went to join Father Quentin and Gilbert du Thet, a Brother-assistant-bishop. A two years stay in Port-Royal, Nova Scotia demonstrated to them the impossibility of making that the center of their mission, either on account of the difficulty of attracting there a great assemblage of Indians, or because of the bickering of those in command. They transferred the seat of their mission to another point upon the same coast, in latitude 45 degrees 30', according to a decree of the king. This settlement received the name of Saint Savior. They had been established there but a short time, when the English, coming upon them suddenly, took possession of the French ship, seized the land grant documents of the commander, and, by a piece of outrageous rascality, treated him as a pirate. At the moment of attack several Frenchmen were killed, and among them brother Gilbert du Thet.

When the heretic merchants saw us at Dieppe, upon the day fixed for our departure, the 27th of October of last year, 1610 (we had agreed to sail from Dieppe), they contrived a plan which they considered capable of injuring us. Two of them had made a contract with Sir de Poutrincourt to load and equip his ship, in which we were to make the voyage. They immediately declared that they would have nothing more to do with the vessel, if it were going to carry any Jesuits. It was a remarkable exhibition of malice, especially when the Catholics informed them that they were duty-bound not to reject the Jesuits, since it was the formal order of the Queen. However, nothing could be gained from them, and the Catholics were again obliged to rely on the Queen. Her Majesty writes to the governor of the city, a zealous and pious catholic, and charges him to inform the heretics that it is her will that the Jesuits be received in the ship which is about to depart for New France, and that no obstacle be put in their way.

When these letters are received, the governor assembles what is called the consistory, namely, all faithful disciples of Calvin. He reads the Queen's letters and urges them to be obedient. Some of them boldly declare that they also are of the same opinion; and they try to persuade the merchants to yield. But they also declare that they are not the masters. At least they say this in public; but in private, one of the merchants who was assigned with fitting-out the vessel, protested that he would put nothing into it; that the Queen, if she wished, could deprive him of his rights, but that he would not yield otherwise.

All proceedings were at a standstill; for there was no written contract, since agreements of this kind among noblemen are not usually put upon paper. Therefore they could not prosecute these heretics. They address themselves again to the Queen. In the presence of such insolence she quoted the words of the proverb: "Never stoop to question a churl", and added that the Fathers should go another time. The Protestants then declare that the Jesuits will not embark upon their vessel; and that if the Jesuits did occupy a place there, they must pay the price of the cargo. The malice of these Protestants was exposed in all its nakedness, for they immediately loaded every part of the ship not only with merchandise, but with all kinds of goods, never dreaming that the Catholics would be able to find the means of paying for all these things. At this news, the marchioness de Guercheville, first lady to the Queen, was indignant at seeing the forces of hell prevail. Therefore, she requested donations from Nobles, Princes, and from all the Court, to rescue the Jesuits from the malevolence of the heretics.

The ship, already loaded, was about to sail, when this lady sent to the Catholics 2,000 gold coins, with other means of assistance. Then they went directly to the heretics and said that they want the Jesuits to go with them, that such is the will of the Queen; and so the heretics must allow them to embark, or else the merchants must accept the price of the cargo and withdraw. The merchants declare that they want the value of their merchandise. (I believe they did not think the Catholics would have enough money, or else they hoped to confuse them by some other means.) The Catholics give the heretics the price they asked; and we so completely take their place, that half the ship belongs to us. At first we only asked a little corner in this vessel, at their price. Now we are masters of it.

Dieppe, January 21, 1611.

Pierre Biard

LETTER FROM FATHER BIARD, TO REVEREND FATHER CHRISTOPHER BALTAZAR, PROVINCIAL OF FRANCE, AT PARIS.

Reverend Father,

Here we are at Port-Royal, Nova Scotia, after having suffered and overcome, during the space of seven months, a multitude of trials and difficulties raised up against us at Dieppe by those belonging to the Protestants; and after having survived at sea the fatigues, storms, and discomforts of winter, winds, and tempests.

So, to begin with the preparations for our voyage, you must know about the effort put forth by two Dieppe merchants of the Protestants, who were assigned with freighting the ship, to prevent our being received upon it. For a number of years, those who began and continued to make voyages to Canada have wished some of our Jesuits to be employed for the conversion of the people of that country; and Henry the Great, the late King, of happy memory, had set aside five hundred gold coins for the voyage of the first ones who should be sent there: at this time Reverend Father Enemond Masse and I, having received the above-mentioned five hundred gold coins for our Eucharist, left Paris and arrived at Dieppe upon the day which Sir Charles Charles de Biencourt, son of Sir de Poutrincourt, had designated for our departure, the 27th of October, 1610.

The two above-mentioned merchants, as soon as they heard that two Jesuits were going to Canada, spoke to Sir Charles Charles de Biencourt and warned him that if the two Jesuits intended to embark upon the ship, they would have nothing to do with it. They were told that the presence of the Jesuits would in no way interfere with them; that, thanks to the Queen, they had the money to pay their passage without disturbing their cargo. They still persisted, however, in their refusal; and although Sir de Sicoine, governor of the city, a zealous catholic, kindly interposed, he could gain nothing from them. For this reason, Sir Robin, his son, otherwise called de Coloigne, a partner of Sir Charles de Biencourt in this voyage, thought he would go to Court and make known this difficulty to the Queen; he did so. The Queen sent letters addressed to Sir de Sicoigne, telling him to announce that the will of the present King, as well as that of the late King of eternal memory, was that these Jesuits should go to Canada; and that those who were opposing their departure were doing so against the will of their Prince. The letters were kind: and Sir de Sicoigne assembled the consistory, and read them to that body.

Despite all this, the merchants would not yield; it was merely granted that, leaving the Jesuits out of the question, they should promptly load their ship, to prevent these disputes from causing some delay in bringing the aid to Sir de Poutrincourt, which must be given promptly.

I did not see how we were to be extricated from these difficulties. Sir de Coloigne did not despair; but by a second journey he convinced the Court of an excellent plan for thwarting the merchants; namely, by paying them for their cargo and so indemnifying them. Madame de la Guercheville, recognizing the expediency of this plan, decided to try and raise the sum of money required; and she did so with such success, through the generosity of several Noblemen and Ladies of the court, that she soon collected two thousand gold coins and sent them to Dieppe. Therefore, the merchants were deprived of all the rights which they might have had in the vessel, without losing anything, and we were admitted into it.

This, and other incidents interfering with the preparations for our voyage, were the reasons why we could not leave Dieppe before the 26th of January, 1611. Sir Charles de Biencourt, a accomplished young gentleman, and well versed in matters pertaining to the sea, was our leader and commander. There were thirty-six of us in the ship, which was called la Grace de Dieu, of about sixty tons burden. We had only two days of favorable winds; on the third day we suddenly found ourselves carried, by contrary winds and tides, to within 250 or 500 feet of the breakers of the isle of Wight, in England; and it was fortunate for us that we found good anchorage there, for otherwise we should have been lost.

Leaving this place, we put into port at Hyrmice, and then at Newport; by which we lost eighteen days. The 16th of February, a good northwester arising allowed us to depart, and accompanied us out of the English Channel. Mariners, in going to Port-Royal, Nova Scotia, are not accustomed to take the direct route from the Ouessant islands to Cape Sable, which would lessen the distance, for in this way, from Dieppe to Port-Royal, Nova Scotia, there would only be about 2500 miles; but they are in the habit of going South as far as the Azores, and from there to the great bank; from there, according to the winds, to strike for Cape Sable, or Canso, Nova Scotia, or elsewhere.

They have told me that they go by way of the Azores for three reasons: first, to avoid the north sea, which is stormy; second, to make use of the south wild winds, which usually prevail there; third, to be sure of their reckonings; for otherwise it is difficult to take their bearings and arrange their route without error. But none of these reasons helped us, although we followed this custom. Not the first, for we were so tossed about by tempests and high seas that I do not think we gained much by going north or south; nor the second, because often when we wanted the South, the North wind blew, and vice versa; and not the third, as we could not even see the Azores, although we went down as far as 39 degrees 30'. Therefore all the calculations of our leaders were confused, and we had not yet reached the Azores of the great bank when some of them thought we had passed it.

The great codfish bank is not, as I thought in France, a kind of sand or mud-bank, appearing above the surface of the sea; but is a great sub-marine plateau 210, 240, and 270 feet deep, and in some places 62 miles in extent. They call it bank, because, in coming from the deep sea, it is the first place where the bottom is found with the sounding lead. Upon the border of this great bank, for the space of 8 or 10 miles, the waves are generally high, and these 8 or 10 miles are called the Azores.

We were near these Azores on Tuesday of Easter week, when suddenly we became a prey to our sworn foe, the West wind, which was so violent that we nearly perished. For eight entire days, it gave us no quarter, its vindictiveness being augmented by cold and sometimes rain or snow. In taking this route to New France, so rough and dangerous, especially in small and badly-equipped boats, one experiences the sum total of all the miseries of life. We could rest neither day nor night. When we wished to eat, a dish suddenly slipped from us and struck somebody's head. We fell over each other and against the baggage, and so found ourselves mixed up with others who had been overturned in the same way; cups were spilled over our beds, and bowls in our laps, or a big wave demanded our plates.

I was highly honored by Sir Charles de Biencourt to share his cabin. One fine night, as we were lying in bed, trying to get a little rest, an impudent wave bent our window fastenings, broke the window, and covered us over completely; we had the same experience again during the day. Also, the cold was so severe, and continued to be for more than six weeks, that we lost nearly all sensation from numbness and exposure. Father Masse suffered a great deal. He was ill about forty days, eating little and seldom leaving his bed; yet, despite all that, he wanted to fast. After Easter, he continued to improve more and more. As for me, I was happy, and was never ill enough to stay in bed even when several of the sailors had to give up.

After escaping from these trials, we entered the ice at the Azores of the bank, 46 degrees north latitude. Some of these masses of ice seemed like islands, others little villages, others grand churches or lofty domes, or magnificent castles: all were floating. To avoid them we steered towards the south; but this was falling, as they say, from Charybdis into Scylla, for from these high rocks we fell into a level field of low ice, with which the sea was entirely covered, as far as the eye could reach. We did not know how to steer through it; and had it not been for the fearlessness of Sir Charles de Biencourt, our sailors would have been helpless; but he guided us out, despite the protests of many of them, through a place where the ice was more scattered.

On the 5th of May, we disembarked at Canso, Nova Scotia. Then we coasted along until we reached Port-Royal, Nova Scotia, where we arrived early in the morning of the 22nd of May. Our voyage had lasted four months.

The joy of Sir de Poutrincourt and his followers at our arrival is indescribable. They had been, during the entire winter, reduced to sore straits. Sir de Poutrincourt had accompanied his son a part of the way upon the son's return to France the last of July, 1610, and had gone as far as port Saint John, otherwise called Chachippe, 175 miles east and south of Port-Royal, Nova Scotia. When he was returning, as he veered around Cape Sable, he found himself in a strong current; weakened by hardships, he was obliged to yield the helm, to take a little rest, commanding his successor to always keep near the shore, even in the deepest part of the Bay. This pilot, I do not know why, did not follow his orders, but soon afterward changed his course and left the shore.

The Indian, Membertou, who was following in his boat, was astonished that Poutrincourt should take this route; but, not knowing why he did so, neither followed him nor said anything about it. So he soon arrived at Port-Royal, Nova Scotia, while Sir de Poutrincourt drifted about for six weeks, in danger of being hopelessly lost; for this worthy gentleman, when he awoke, was surprised at seeing himself in a small boat in the open sea, out of sight of land. He looked at his dial in vain, for not knowing what route his amiable pilot had taken, he could not guess where he was, nor in what direction to turn. Another misfortune was that his boat would not sail close to the wind, having been somehow Damaged in the sides. So, whether he wished to do so or not, he was always forced to sail with the wind.

A third inconvenience and misfortune was a lack of food. However, he is a man who does not easily give up, and good luck follows him. In this perplexity about the route, he fortunately decided to turn to the north, and God sent him what he desired, a favorable South wind. His thrift served him against the misfortune of hunger, for he had hunted and kept a certain number of cormorants. But how could they be roasted in a small boat, so as to be eaten and kept? Fortunately he found he had a few planks, upon which he built a fire-place, and therefore roasted the game; by the aid of which he arrived at Penobscot, formerly Norumbega, and from there to the Maliseets, from there to the harbor of Port-Royal, Nova Scotia, where by a piece of ill luck, he was nearly shipwrecked.

It was dark when he entered this harbor, and his crew began to oppose him, stoutly denying that they were in the harbor of Port-Royal, Nova Scotia. He was willing to listen to their objections, and unfortunately even yielded to them; and so turning to the lower part of the Bay of Fundy, he went wandering away off at the mercy of the winds and waves. Meanwhile the colonists of Port-Royal, Nova Scotia were in great anxiety, and had already nearly made up their minds that he was lost; the Indian, Membertou, strengthened this fear by asserting that he had seen him sail out of sight upon the sea; it was inferred that, as such and such a wind had prevailed, it was impossible for them to escape in such a boat. And they were already planning their return to France. They were astonished and exceedingly happy when they saw their Theseus return from another world; this was six weeks after his departure, just when Sir Charles de Biencourt arrived in France, whose return was expected at Port-Royal, Nova Scotia during the whole month of November of the same year, 1610. But they were surprised when they did not see him at Christmas; then they lost all hope, on account of the winter weather, of seeing him again before the end of the following April.

For this reason, they cut down their rations; but such economy was of little help, since Sir de Poutrincourt did not lessen his liberality toward the Indians, fearing to alienate them from the Christian faith. He is a magnanimous gentleman, refusing all recompense for the good he does them; so when they are occasionally asked why they do not give him something in return for so many favors, they are accustomed to answer, cunningly: "Endries ninan metaij Sagamo," that is, "Sir does not care for our beaver skins." Still, they have now and then sent him some pieces of elk-meat, which have helped him to save his own provisions. But the French had a good chance of economizing when winter came, for their mill froze up, and they had no way of making flour. Happily for them, they found a store of peas and beans, which proved to be their manna for seven weeks.

Then April came, but not the ship; now it was just as well that the mill was frozen up, for they had nothing to put in the hopper. What were they to do? Some began to fish, others to dig. From their fishing they obtained some smelts and herrings; from their digging some good roots, called chiqueli, which are abundant in certain places. And so this persistent creditor was somewhat satisfied; I say somewhat, because, when there was no bread, everything else was of little account; and they had already made up their minds that if the ship did not come during May, they would resort to the coast, in search of ships to take them back to the sweet land of wheat and vines. It was Sir de Poutrincourt's followers who talked this way; as for him, he was full of courage and knew well how he could manage to hold out until saint John's day [midsummer]. There was no need of this, for we arrived the 22nd of May. Those who know what hunger, despair, fear and suffering are, what it is to be a leader and see all one's enterprises and hard work come to nothing, can imagine what must have been the joy of Sir de Poutrincourt and his colony upon seeing us arrive.

Two persons from the settlement took one of the canoes of the Indians to go to the ship. These canoes are so made that, if you do not sit straight and steady, they immediately tip over; now it chanced that, wishing to come back in the same canoe from the ship to the settlement, somehow they did not properly balance it, and both fell into the water. Fortunately, it occurred at a time when I was walking upon the shore with Sir de Poutrincourt. Seeing the accident, we made signs with our hats as best we could to those upon the ship to come to their aid; for it would have been useless to call out, so far away was the ship, and so loud the noise of the wind. At first no one paid any attention to us, so we relied on prayer, and fell upon our knees; and God had pity upon us. One of the two caught hold of the canoe, which was turned upside down, and threw himself upon it: the other was finally saved by a boat, and so both were rescued.

But now that we have arrived in good health, it is time we were casting our eyes over the country, and were giving some consideration to the condition in which we find Christianity here. Its whole foundation consists in this little settlement of a family of about twenty persons. Sir Jesse Flesche, commonly called the Archbishop, has had charge of it; and in the year that he has lived here, has baptized about one hundred Indians. The trouble is, he has not been able to instruct them as he would have wished, because he did not know the language, and had nothing with which to support them; for he who would minister to their souls, must also resolve to nourish their bodies. This worthy man has shown great friendliness toward us, for he had made up his mind to return to France at the first opportunity, which he is now free to do without regret at leaving unattended a vine which he has planted.

They have not yet succeeded in translating into the native language the common creed, the Lord's prayer, the commandments of God, the Sacraments, and other principles necessary to the making of a Christian.

Recently, when I was at port Saint John, I was informed that among the other Indians there were five who were already Christians. Then I gave them some pictures, and to erect a cross before their wigwams, singing a Salve Regina. I had them make the sign of the cross; but I was astonished, for the unbaptized understood almost as much about it as the Christians. I asked each one his baptismal name; some did not know theirs, so they called themselves Archbishops, because it is the Archbishop who gives them their names, and so they conclude that, when they have forgotten their own names, they ought to be called Archbishops.

It was also rather amusing that, when I asked them if they were Christians, they did not know what I meant; when I asked them if they had been baptized, they answered: Hetaion enderquir Vortmandia Patriarche, that is, "Yes, the Archbishop has made us like the Normans." They call all the French "Normans", except the Breton French, whom they call Samaricois, and the Spanish Basques, Bascua.

The name of the chief, the lord of port Saint John, is Cacagous, a man who is shrewd and cunning as are no others upon the coast; that is all that he brought back from France (for he has been in France); he told me he had been baptized in Bayonne, France, relating his story to me as one tells about going to a ball out of friendship. Seeing how wicked he was, and wishing to try and arouse his conscience, I asked him how many wives he had. He answered that he had eight; and he counted off seven to me who were present, pointing them out with as much pride, instead of an equal degree of shame, as if I had asked him the number of his legitimate children.

Another, who was providing for a number of wives, made the following answer to my objections on the ground that he was a Christian: Reroure quiro Nortmandia: which means, "That is all well enough for you Norman French". So there is scarcely any change in them after their baptism. The same savagery and the same manners, the same customs, ceremonies, actions, fashions, and vices remain; no attention being paid to any distinction of time, days, offices, exercises, prayers, duties, virtues, or spiritual remedies.

Membertou, as the one who has most associated with Sir de Poutrincourt for a long time, is also the most zealous, but even he complains of not understanding us well enough; he would like to become a preacher, he says, if he were properly taught. He gave me a witty answer the other day, as I was teaching him his Lord's Prayer, according to the translation made of it by Sir Charles de Biencourt, when I had him say: Nui en caraco nae iquein esmoi ciscoi; that is, "Give us this day our daily bread". "But", said he, "if I did not ask him for anything but bread, I would be without moose-meat or fish."

This winter, this old captain was sick, and had been given up to die by the native aoutmoins, or sorcerers. It is the custom, when the Aoutmoins have pronounced the malady or wound to be mortal, for the sick man to cease eating from then on, nor do they give him anything more. But, donning his beautiful robe, he begins chanting his own death-song; after this, if he lingers too long, a great many pails of water are thrown over him to hurry his death, and sometimes he is buried half alive. The children of Membertou, though Christians, were prepared to exercise this noble duty toward their father; already they had ceased giving him anything to eat and had taken away his beautiful otter robe, and he had finished his Naenie, or funeral chant. One thing still troubled him, that he did not know how to die like a Christian, and he had not taken farewell of Sir de Poutrincourt. When Sir de Poutrincourt heard these things, he went to see him, argued with him, and assured him that, in spite of all the Aoutmoins and Pilotois, he would recover his health if he would eat something, which he was bound to do, being a Christian. The good man believed and was saved; today he tells this story with great satisfaction, and points out how God has exposed the deceit of their aoutmoins.

I shall here relate another act of the same Sir de Poutrincourt, which has been of great benefit to all these heathen. A Christian Indian had died, and (as a mark of his constancy) he had sent word here to the settlement during his sickness that he desired our prayers. After his death, the other Indians prepared to bury him in their way; they are accustomed to take everything that belongs to the deceased, skins, bows, utensils, wigwams, etc., and burn them all, howling and shouting certain cries, sorceries, and invocations to the evil spirit. Sir de Poutrincourt firmly decided to oppose these ceremonies. So he armed all his men, and going to the Indians in force, by this means obtained what he asked, namely, that the body should be given to the Archbishop, and so the burial took place according to Christian customs. This act, as it could not be prevented by the Indians, was praised by them.

The chapel they have been using is small, badly arranged, and in every way unsuited for religious services. To remedy this, Sir de Poutrincourt has given us an entire quarter of his habitation, if we can roof it over and adapt it to our needs.

After my arrival here at Port-Royal, Nova Scotia, I went with Sir de Poutrincourt as far as the Maliseets. There I met young du Pont, of Saint Malo, who, having been for some reason frightened away from the settlement, had passed the entire year with the Indians, living just as they did. He is a young man of great physical and mental strength, excelled by none of the Indians in hunting, in alertness and endurance, and in his ability to speak their language. He was afraid of Sir de Poutrincourt: but I had so much faith in him that, relying upon my word, du Pont came with me to our ship; and after making some apologies, peace was declared, to the great satisfaction of all.

If we consider the country, it is only a forest, without other conveniences of life than those which will be brought from France, and what in time may be obtained from the soil after it has been cultivated. The nation is savage, wandering and full of bad habits; the people few and isolated. They are savage, haunting the woods, ignorant, lawless and rude: they are wanderers, with nothing to attach them to a place, neither homes or relationship, neither possessions nor love of country; as a people they have bad habits, are extremely lazy, gluttonous, profane, treacherous, cruel in their revenge, and given up to all kinds of lewdness, men and women alike, the men having several wives and abandoning them to others, and the women only serving them as slaves, whom they strike and beat unmercifully, and who dare not complain; and after being half killed, if it so please the murderer, they must laugh and caress him.

With all these vices, they are exceedingly vain: they think they are better, more valiant and more ingenious than the French; and what is difficult to believe, richer than we are. They consider themselves braver than we are, boasting that they have killed Spanish Basques and Breton French, and that they do a great deal of harm to the ships, and that no one has ever resented it, insinuating that it was from a lack of courage. They consider themselves better than the French; "For", they say, "you are always fighting and quarreling among yourselves; we live peaceably. You are envious and are all the time slandering each other; you are thieves and deceivers; you are covetous, and are neither generous nor kind; as for us, if we have a morsel of bread we share it with our neighbor."

They are saying these things continually, seeing the above-mentioned imperfections in some of us, and flattering themselves that some of their own people do not have them so conspicuously, not realizing that they all have greater vices, and that the better part of our people do not have even these defects, they conclude generally that they are superior to all Christians.

Also, the Indians consider themselves more ingenious, as they see us admire some of their productions as the work of people so rude and ignorant; lacking intelligence, they give little admiration to what we show them, although more worthy of being admired. So they regard themselves as richer than we are, although they are poor and wretched in the extreme.

Cacagous, of whom I have already spoken, is gracious when he is a little elated about something; to show his kindly feelings toward the French he boasts of his willingness to go and see the King, and to take him a present of a hundred beaver skins, proudly suggesting that in so doing he will make him richer than all his predecessors. They get this idea from the extreme covetousness and eagerness which our people display to obtain their beaver skins.

Just as amusing is the remark of a certain captain, who, having heard Sir de Poutrincourt say that the King was young and unmarried: "Perhaps", said he, "I may let him marry my daughter; but according to the actions and customs of the country, the King must make me some handsome presents; namely, four or five barrels of bread, three of peas or beans, one of tobacco, four or five cloaks worth 50 silver coins apiece, bows, arrows, harpoons, and other similar articles". Such are the marks of intelligence in the people of these countries, which are sparsely populated, especially those of the Micmacs and Maliseets, which are near the sea; although Membertou assures us that in his youth he has seen chimonutz, that is, Indians, as thickly planted there as the hairs upon his head. It is maintained that they have therefore diminished since the French have begun to frequent their country; for, since then they do nothing all summer but eat; and the result is that, adopting an entirely different custom and therefore breeding new diseases, they pay for their indulgence during the autumn and winter by pneumonia, quinsy and dysentery, which kill them off. During this year alone, sixty have died at LaHave, which is most of those who lived there; yet not one of all Sir de Poutrincourt's little colony has even been sick.

What I say about the sparseness of the population of these countries must be understood as referring to the people who live upon the coast; for farther inland, principally among the Maliseets, there are a great many people. All these things, added to the difficulty of acquiring the language, the time that must be consumed, the expenses that must be incurred, the great distress, toil and poverty that must be endured, fully proclaim the greatness of this enterprise and the difficulties which trouble it. Yet many things encourage me to continue in it.

We are encouraged by the location and condition of this place. From this port where we now are, it is convenient for us to spread out to the Armouchiquois (Saco Bay Indians, possibly the Massachusetts), Iroquois, and Innu, our neighbors, which are populous nations and till the soil as we do; this situation makes us hope something for the future. For, if our Micmacs are few, they may become numerous; if they are savages, it is to civilize them that we have come here.

From Port-Royal, Nova Scotia, New France, this tenth day of June, 1611.

Pierre Biard.

YEAR 1612
LETTER FROM FATHER PIERRE BIARD TO THE REVEREND FATHER PROVINCIAL, AT PARIS. 1612

Reverend Father,

Today, January 22nd, 1612, eight months have passed since our arrival in this New France. Soon after that, I wrote you in regard to the condition in which we found this infant Church and Colony. Here is what followed:

When Sir de Poutrincourt went to France last June he left his son here, Sir Charles de Biencourt, a young man of great integrity and of estimable qualities, with about eighteen of his servants and us two priests of the Jesuits. Our duties and offices, in accordance with our calling as priests, have been performed while residing here at the house and settlement, and by making journeys abroad.

Here then are our occupations: to say mass every day; to offer public prayers morning and evening; to administer the sacraments, bury the dead; to perform the offices of the Curate, since there are no other priests in these areas. Sailors, who form most of our parishioners, are ordinarily deficient in any spiritual feeling, having no sign of religion except in their oaths and blasphemies, nor any knowledge of God beyond the simplest conceptions which they bring with them from France, clouded with lust and the complaints of heretics. The first things the poor Indians learn are oaths and vile and insulting words; and you will often hear the women Indians (who otherwise are timid and modest), hurl vulgar, vile, and shameless epithets at our people, in the French language; not that they know the meaning of them, but only because they see that when such words are used there is generally a great deal of laughter and amusement.

At these Christian services which we conduct here at the settlement, the Indians are occasionally present, when some of them happen to be at the port. I say occasionally, as they are little trained in the principles of the faith -- even the baptized, from lack of instruction, knowing but little more than the heathen. This was why we resolved not to baptize any adults unless they were previously well instructed. To instruct we must first know the language.

Sir Charles de Biencourt, who understands the Indian tongue better than anyone else here, every day takes a great deal of trouble to serve as our interpreter. But, somehow, as soon as he begins to talk about God, he feels as Moses did, his mind is bewildered, his throat dry, his tongue tied. The reason for this is that, as the Indians have no definite religion, magistracy or government, liberal or mechanical arts, commercial or civil life, they have consequently no words to describe things which they have never seen or even conceived.

Also, rude and untutored as they are, all their conceptions are limited to material things; there is nothing abstract, internal, spiritual or distinct. Good, strong, red, Black, large, hard, they will repeat to you in their jargon; goodness, strength, redness, blackness -- they do not know what they are. And as to all the virtues you may enumerate to them, wisdom, dependability, justice, mercy, gratitude, piety, and others, these are not found among them at all, except as expressed in the words happy, tender love, good heart. Likewise, they will name to you a wolf, a fox, a squirrel, a moose, and so on to every kind of animal they have, all of which are wild, except the dog; but as to words expressing universal and generic ideas, such as beast, animal, body, substance, and the like, these are altogether too advanced for them.

Add to this the great difficulty of obtaining from them even the words that they have. For, as they neither know our language nor we theirs, except a little which pertains to daily and commercial life, we are compelled to make a thousand gestures and signs to express to them our ideas, and to draw from them the names of some of the things which cannot be pointed out to them. For example, to think, to forget, to remember, to doubt; to know these four words, you will be forced to amuse our gentlemen for a whole afternoon at least by playing the clown; and then, after all that, you will find yourself deceived, and mocked again, having received, as the saying is, the mortar for the level, and the hammer for the trowel. We are still disputing, after a great deal of research and labor, whether they have any word to correspond directly to the word Credo.

All this talk about the difficulty of the language will not only serve to show how laborious is our task in learning it, but also still make our Europeans appreciate their own blessings, even in civil affairs; for these miserable people, continually weakened by hardships [enhanee], will always remain in a perpetual infancy as to language and reason. I say language and reason, because it is evident that where words, the messengers and dispensers of thought and speech, remain totally rude, poor and confused, it is impossible that the mind and reason be refined, rich, and disciplined. However, these poor weaklings and children consider themselves superior to all other men, and they would not for the world give up their childishness and wretchedness.

The second son of the grand captain Membertou, named Actodin, already a Christian, and married, fell dangerously ill. Sir de Poutrincourt, as he was about to depart for France, had visited him, and being a kind-hearted gentleman, had asked him to let himself be taken to the settlement for treatment. I was expecting this suggestion to be carried out; but they did nothing of the kind. When this became evident, not to leave this soul in danger, I went there after a few days (for it was 12 miles from the Settlement). I found my patient in a fine state; they were just about to celebrate tabagie, or a solemn feast, over his last farewell.

Three or four immense kettles were boiling over the fire. He had his beautiful robe under him (for it was summer) and was preparing for his funeral oration. The oration was to close with the usual goodbyes and lamentations of all present. The farewell and the mourning are finished by the slaughter of dogs, so the dying man may have forerunners in the other world. This slaughter is accompanied by the tabagie (solemn feast) and what follows it -- namely, the singing and dancing. After that, it is no longer lawful for the sick man to eat or to ask any help, but he must already consider himself one of the "manes," or citizens of the other world. It was in this state that I found my host.

I denounced this way of doing things, more by actions than by words; for my interpreters did not repeat the tenth part of what I wanted them to say. Still old Membertou, father of the sick man, understood the affair well enough and promised me that they should stop just where I wanted them to. Then I told him that the farewells and a moderate display of mourning, and even the tabagie (solemn feast), would be permitted, but that the slaughter of the dogs, and the songs and dances over a dying person, and what was worse, leaving him to die alone, displeased me much, that it would be better, according to their promise to Sir de Poutrincourt, to have him brought to the settlement, so he might recover. They gave me their word that they would do all that I wished; still, the dying man was not brought until two days later.

His symptoms became so serious that often we expected nothing less than that he would die on our hands. One evening, his wife and children deserted him entirely and went to settle elsewhere, thinking it was all over with him. But a few days later, he was in good health and is so today. We put upon the sufferer a bone taken from the precious relics of the glorified Saint Lawrence archbishop of Dublin in Ireland, which Sir de la Place, the estimable Abbot d'Eu, and the priests of this abbey d'Eu, gave us for our protection during the voyage to these lands. So we placed some of these holy relics upon the sick man, also offering our vows for him, and then he improved.

Influenced by this example, Membertou, the father of the one who had recovered, was strongly confirmed in the faith; and because he was then feeling the approach of the malady from which he has since died, he wished to be brought here immediately, although our Cabin is so narrow that when three people are in it, they can scarcely turn around. Still, showing his implicit confidence in us, he asked to be placed in one of our two beds, where he remained for six days. But later, his wife, daughter, and daughter-in-law having come, he himself recognized the necessity of leaving, and did so with profuse excuses, asking our pardon for the continual trouble he had given us in waiting upon him day and night. The change of location and treatment did not improve him any.

Seeing that his life was drawing to at close, I confessed him as well as I could; and after that he delivered his oration. In this speech, he said that he wished to be buried with his wife and children, and among the ancient tombs of his family. I displayed great dissatisfaction with this, fearing that the French and Indians would suspect that he had not died a good Christian. But I was assured that this promise had been made before he was baptized, and that otherwise, if he were buried in our cemetery, his children and his friends would never again come to see us, since it is the custom of this nation to shun all reminders of death and of the dead. I opposed this, and Sir Charles de Biencourt, for he is almost my only interpreter, joined with me, but in vain: the dying man was obstinate.

Rather late that evening, we administered the Anointing of the Sick to him, for he was sufficiently prepared for it. The next morning, he asks for Sir Charles de Biencourt and me, and again begins his speech. In this he declares that he has, of his own free will, changed his mind; that he intends to be buried with us, commanding his children not, for that reason, to shun the place like unbelievers, but to frequent it all the more, like Christians, to pray for his soul. He also recommended peace with Sir de Poutrincourt and his son; as for him, he had always loved the French, and had often prevented conspiracies against them. A few hours later he died a Christian death in my arms.

This was the greatest, most renowned and most formidable Indian within the memory of man; of Splendid physique, taller and larger-limbed than is usual among them; bearded like a Frenchman, although scarcely any of the others have hair upon the chin; grave and reserved; feeling a proper sense of dignity for his position as commander. God impressed upon his soul a greater idea of Christianity than he has been able to form from hearing about it, and he has often said to me in his Indian tongue: "Learn our language quickly, for as soon as you know it and have taught me well, I wish to become a preacher like you." Even before his conversion, he never cared to have more than one living wife, which is wondrous, as the great captains of this country maintain a numerous harem, no more through lust than through ambition, glory and necessity; for ambition, to the end that they may have many children, in which lies their power; for fame and necessity, since they have no other artisans, agents, servants, purveyors or slaves than the women; they bear all the burdens and toil of life.

The ground had successful crops from the little that was tilled; we made from the harvest some communion hosts. These are the first hosts which have been made from the wheat of these lands.

I made two journeys with Sir Charles de Biencourt, the one lasting about twelve days, the other a month and a half; and we have ranged the entire coast from Port-Royal, Nova Scotia to Kennebec, west-southwest. We entered the great rivers St. John, Saint Croix, Penobscot, and the above-named Kennebec; we visited the French who have wintered there this year in two places, at the St. John river and at the river Saint Croix; the Breton French at the St. John river, and captain Platrier at the river Saint Croix.

We went to see the Breton French; namely, Sir du Pont, the younger, and captain Merveille, who were wintering at St. John river, upon an island called Catons Island, some 15 miles up the river. We were still 4 miles from the island when the twilight ended and night came on. The stars had already begun to appear, when suddenly, toward the Northwards a part of the heavens became blood-red: and this light spreading, little by little, in vivid streaks and flashes, moved directly over the settlement of the Breton French and there stopped. The red glow was so brilliant that the whole river was tinged and made luminous by it. This apparition lasted some eight minutes, and as soon as it disappeared another came of the same form, direction and appearance.

There was not one of us who did not consider this meteoric display prophetic. As to the Indians, they immediately cried out, "Gara gara enderquir Gara gara," meaning "we shall have war, such signs announce war." Still, both our arrival that evening and our landing the next morning were quiet and peaceful. During the day, there was nothing but friendliness, but when evening came, somehow everything was turned topsy-turvy; confusion, discord, rage, uproar reigned between our people and those of St. Malo. I think that a cursed band of furious and bloody spirits were hovering about all this night, expecting every hour and moment a horrible massacre of the few Christians who were there: but God restrained the poor wretches. There was no bloodshed, and the next day, this nocturnal storm ended in a beautiful and delightful calm.

Sir Charles de Biencourt's goodness and prudence seemed shaken by this tempest of human passions. But I also saw clearly that if fire and arms were even once put into the hands of badly disciplined men, the masters have much to fear from their own servants. I do not think there was a single one who closed his eyes during that night.

It was three o'clock in the afternoon of the next day before I had time to feel hungry, so Constantly had I been obliged to go back and forth from one to the other. At last, about that time, everything was Settled, thank God.

Upon our return from this river Saint John, our route turned towards the country of the Armouchiquois (Saco Bay Indians, possibly the Massachusetts). Two principal causes led Sir Charles de Biencourt to take this route: first, to have news of the English and to find out if it would be possible to obtain satisfaction from them; second, to buy some Armouchiquois corn to help us pass the winter, and not die of hunger in case we did not receive help from France.

To understand the first cause, you must know that a little while before, Captain Platrier, of Honfleur, wishing to go to Kennebec, was taken prisoner by two English ships which were at an island called Catons Island, 20 miles from Kennebec. His release was caused by means of presents (this expresses it mildly), and by his promise to comply with the prohibitions laid upon him not to trade anywhere upon all this coast; the English want to be considered masters of it, and they produced letters from their King to this effect, but these we believe to be false.

Sir Charles de Biencourt, having heard all this from the mouth of captain Platrier himself, argued with these people, showing how important it was to him to oppose this confiscation of the English, so Contrary to the rights and possessions of his Majesty. "For," said he, "it is well known that the great Henry gave to Sir des Monts, in 1604, all this region from the 40th to the 46th parallel of latitude. Since this donation, this Sir des Monts, himself and through Sir de Poutrincourt, my father, his lieutenant, and through others, has frequently taken actual possession of all the country; and this, three or four years before the English had ever frequented it, or before anything had ever been heard of these claims of theirs." This and several other things were said by Sir Charles de Biencourt to encourage his people.

As for me, I had two other reasons which compelled me to take this journey: One, to give spiritual aid to Sir Charles de Biencourt and his people; the other, to observe and to study the disposition of these nations to receive the gospel.

We arrived at the Popham Colony, 200 miles from Port-Royal, Nova Scotia, the 28th of October of the same year, 1611. Our people disembarked, wishing to see the English fort, for we had learned on the way that there was no one there. As everything is beautiful at first, this undertaking of the English was praised, and the conveniences of the place enumerated, each one pointing out what he valued the most. But a few days later, they changed their views, for they saw that there was a fine opportunity for making a counter-fort there, which might have imprisoned them and cut them off from the sea and river; besides, even if they had been left unmolested they should not have enjoyed the advantages of the river, since it has several other mouths, and good ones, Some distance from there. Also, what is worse, in 15 miles of the surrounding country, there is not a single acre of good tillable land, the soil being nothing but stones and rocks. As the wind forced us to go on, when the third day came, Sir Charles de Biencourt considered the subject in council and decided to take advantage of the wind and go on up the rivers to thoroughly explore it.

We had already advanced 8 good miles, and had dropped anchor in the middle of the river waiting for the tide, when we suddenly discovered six Armouchiquois (Saco Bay Indians, possibly the Massachusetts) canoes Coming towards us. There were twenty-four persons there, all warriors. They went through a thousand maneuvers and ceremonies before accosting us, and might have been compared to a flock of birds which wanted to go into a hemp-field but feared the scarecrow. We were pleased at this, for our people needed to arm themselves and arrange the pavesade (canvas screen). They continued to Come and go; they reconnoitered; they carefully noted our numbers, our Cannon, our arms, everything; and when night came, they Camped upon the other bank of the river, if not out of reach, at least beyond the aim of our cannon.

All night there was continual lecturing, singing and dancing, for such is the kind of life all these people lead when they are together. As we supposed that probably their songs and dances were invocations to the devil, to oppose the power of this cursed tyrant, I had our people sing some sacred Hymns, as the Salve, the Ave Maris Stella, and others. But when they once got into the way of singing, the spiritual songs being exhausted they took up others with which they were familiar. When they came to the end of these, as the French are natural mimics, they began to mimic the singing and dancing of the Armouchiquois (Saco Bay Indians, possibly the Massachusetts) who were upon the bank, succeeding in it so well that the Armouchiquois stopped to listen to them; and then our people stopped and the others immediately began again. It was comical, for you would have said that they were two choirs which had a thorough understanding with each other, and scarcely could you distinguish the real Armouchiquois Indians from their imitators.

In the morning we continued our journey up the river. The Armouchiquois (Saco Bay Indians, possibly the Massachusetts), who were accompanying us, told us that if we wanted any piousquemin (corn), it would be better and easier for us to turn to the right and not, with great difficulty and risks to continue going up the river; that if we turned to the right through the branch which was just at hand, in a few hours we would reach the great captain Meteourmite, who would furnish us with all we wanted; that they would act as our guides, since they were going to visit him. Probably they gave us this advice only with the intention of ensnaring us, and making an easy conquest of us by the help of Meteourmite, whom they knew to be the enemy of the English, and whom they supposed to be an enemy of all foreigners. But their ambush was turned against themselves.

However, we believed them; so a part of them went ahead of us, part behind, and some in the barque with us. Still, Sir Charles de Biencourt was always on his guard, and often sent the boat on ahead with the sounding-lead. We had not gone more than a mile when, reaching a large lake, the sounder called out to us: "Twelve feet of water; only six feet, only six feet everywhere," and immediately afterward, "Stop! stop! cast anchor." Where are our Armouchiquois (Saco Bay Indians, possibly the Massachusetts) Indians? Where are they? They had all silently disappeared. Oh, the traitors! They had led us into a trap. "Veer about, veer about." We retrace our path.

Meanwhile, Meteourmite having been informed of our coming, came to meet us, and although he saw our prow turned about, yet he followed us. It was well that Sir Charles de Biencourt was wiser than many of his crew, whose sole cry was to kill them all. For they were as angry as they were frightened; but their anger made the most noise. Sir Charles de Biencourt restrained himself, and not otherwise showing any ill-will toward Meteourmite, learned from him that there was a route by which they could pass; so not to miss it, he would let us have some of his own people in our barque; that if we would come to his wigwam he would try to satisfy us. We trusted him, and thought we might have to repent it; for we traversed such perilous heights and narrow passes that we never expected to escape from them.

When we arrived, Sir Charles de Biencourt armed himself, and therefore arrayed proceeded to pay a visit to Meteourmite. He found him in the royal apparel of Indian majesty, alone in a wigwam that was well matted above and below, and about forty powerful young men stationed around it like a body-guard, each one with his shield, his bow and arrows upon the ground in front of him. These people are by no means simpletons.

As for me, I received that day most of the welcome; for, as I was unarmed, the most honorable of them, turning their backs upon the soldiers, approached me with a thousand demonstrations of friendship. They led me to the largest wigwam of all; it Contained fully eighty people. When they had taken their places, I fell upon my knees and repeated My Lord's Prayer, Hail Mary, Credo, and some prayers; then pausing, my hosts, as if they had understood me perfectly, applauded after their fashion, crying Ho! ho! ho! I gave them some crosses and pictures explaining them as well as I could.

Meteourmite had replied to Sir Charles de Biencourt that, as to the corn, he did not have much, but he had some skins if we wanted to trade with him. Our people in the barque, not to be taken by surprise under pretext of the trade, were armed and barricaded, leaving a place in the middle of the deck for the Indians; but in vain, for they rushed in in such Crowds and with such greediness that they immediately filled the whole ship, becoming all mixed up with our own people. Someone began to cry out, "Go back, go back." But to what good? On the other hand, the Indians revere yelling also.

Then our people were sure they were captured, and there was nothing but cries and confusion. Sir Charles de Biencourt has often said that several times he had raised his arm and opened his mouth to strike the first blow and to cry out, "Kill, kill;" but that somehow the one consideration that restrained him was that I was not on the ship, and if they came to blows I was lost. His goodwill saved not only me but also the whole crew. For, if any foolish act had been committed, none of them would ever have escaped, and the French would have been condemned forever all along the coast.

Meteourmite and some other captains saw the danger, and so caused their people to withdraw. When evening came and all had retired, Meteourmite sent some of his men to excuse the misconduct of the morning, protesting that all the disorder had originated not with him, but with the Armouchiquois (Saco Bay Indians, possibly the Massachusetts); that they had even stolen a hatchet and a platter (a great wooden dish), which he returned; that this theft had so displeased him that immediately after discovering it, he had sent the Armouchiquois away from him; that he was friendly toward us and knew well that we neither killed; nor beat the Indians of those parts, but received them at our table and often made tabagie (solemn feast) for them, and brought them a great many nice things from France, for which courtesies they loved us. These people are the greatest speech-makers in the world; nothing can be done without speeches.

But as I have spoken of the English, someone perhaps will wish to hear about their adventure, which was told to us in this place. So here it is:

In 1608, the English began to settle at one of the mouths of this Kennebec river. They had then as leader an honest man, who got along remarkably well with the natives of the country. They say, however, that the Armouchiquois (Saco Bay Indians, possibly the Massachusetts) were afraid of such neighbors, and so put the captain to death. These people make a practice of killing by magic. But the second year, 1609, the English, under another Captain, changed their tactics. They drove the Indians away without ceremony; they beat, maltreated and misused them outrageously and without restraint; consequently these poor, abused people, decided to kill the whelp before its teeth and claws became stronger.

The opportunity came one day when three boat-loads of them went away off to the fisheries. My conspirators followed in their boat, and approaching with a great show of friendliness (for they always make the greatest show of affection when they are the most treacherous), they go among them, and at a given signal each one seizes his man and stabs him to death. Thus were eleven Englishmen dispatched. Others were intimidated, and abandoned their enterprise the same year; they have not resumed it since, being satisfied to come in the summer to fish, at this Catons Island, which was 20 miles from the fort they had begun building.

So, the outrage to which captain Platrier was subjected by these English, having been committed upon this island of Catons Island, Sir Charles de Biencourt decided to go and reconnoiter it, and to leave there a memento in assertion of his rights. This he did, erecting at the harbor a beautiful cross bearing the arms of France. Some of his crew advised him to burn the boats which he found there; but as he is kind and humane he would not do it, seeing they were fishermen's boats and not men-of-war.

As the season was advancing, it being already the 6th of November, we turned our ships towards Port-Royal, Nova Scotia, stopping at Penobscot, as we had promised the Indians. The Penobscot is a beautiful river, and may be compared to the Garonne in France. It flows into the Bay of Fundy and has many islands and rocks at its mouth; so that if you do not go some distance up, you will take it for a great bay or arm of the sea, until you begin to see plainly the bed and course of a river. It is about 7 miles wide and is forty-four and one half degrees from the Equator. We cannot imagine what the Norumbega of our forefathers was, if it were not this river; for elsewhere, both the others and I have made inquiries about this place, and have never been able to learn anything concerning it.

When we had advanced 7 miles or more into the current of the river, we encountered another beautiful river called Bagaduce, which comes from the northeast to discharge its waters into the great Penobscot.

At the confluence of these two rivers, there was the finest assemblage of Indians that I have yet seen. There were 80 canoes and a boat, 18 wigwams and about 300 people. The most prominent captain was called Betsabes, a man of great discretion and prudence; and we often see in these Indians graceful qualities which will make anyone but a shameless person blush, when they compare them to most of the French who come over here.

When they had recognized us, they showed their great joy during the evening by their usual demonstrations; dancing, singing and making speeches. And as for us, we were glad to be in a country of safety; for among the Maliseets, as these are, and the Micmacs, as are those of Port-Royal, Nova Scotia, we are no more obliged to be on our guard than among our own servants, and we have never yet been deceived by them.

The next day, I went to visit the Indians. As they told me they had some sick; I went to visit them; and as priest, I recited over them the Gospel and prayers, giving each a cross to wear around the neck.

Among others, I found one stretched out, after their fashion, before the fire, wonder expressed in his eyes and face, great drops standing out upon forehead, scarcely able to speak, so severe the attack. They told me that he had been sick for four months and he could not last long. I do not know what his malady was; in any event, the second day after that I saw him in our barque, well and happy, with his cross around his neck. He showed his gratitude to me by a cheerful smile and by taking my hand. I had no means of speaking to him, as the trading was then going on, and for this reason the deck was full of people and all the interpreters were busy.

From Port-Royal, Nova Scotia, this last day of January, 1612. While I was writing these letters, the ship which was sent to our assistance has arrived safe and sound, and in it our Brother Gilbert du Thet.

Pierre Biard.

CANADIAN MISSION.

Reverend Father,

I shall first describe New France, the country, the natives, and their customs; next, in what way our Jesuits secured a mission to this country; thirdly, in what condition we found the Christian religion in this region; and finally, what has been accomplished by us so far.

And, so I may begin at the beginning and explain first what sort of a land New France is, the nature of the country and the customs of the natives, I think it will be a necessity that the whole territory be accurately described. Besides, I find this matter involved in so many errors by the older Geographers that unless we, who know these things not from hearsay only, but are eyewitnesses, come to the rescue, it is impossible that the mind, in tracing our footsteps and our journeys, should not wander as far away from the truth as it has to do from the body. They speak of a certain Norumbega and give the names of cities and strongholds of which today no trace or even report remains.

New France, as the French now call it, is that territory across the French Ocean which extends from the forty-first to the fifty-second, or even fifty-third degree of latitude. Some extend the boundaries of this region much farther, while others restrict them more narrowly, but I am not arguing this point; I merely explain what is the prevailing interpretation of them, either because this part of the country has been, for many years, explored and claimed by the French, or because the parallels bounding this western region are almost the same as those of old France.

New France has an exceedingly varied sea-coast, indented by bays and rivers, broken and irregular. Where are two principal bays of vast size, one called the gulf of Saint Lawrence, the other the Bay of Fundy. From the forty-seventh degree as far as to the fifty-first, the land opens its bosom to receive the Ocean into it, or to facilitate the outflow of the great Canadian river. This gulf is known as the gulf of Saint Lawrence, in the mouth of which lies that enormous island which the French call Newfoundland, the Indians Praesentis [Plaisance]; it is famous for its cod-fishery; the shores of the gulf and the rivers are occupied toward the North by the Excomminqui, or, as they are commonly called, the Eskimo. This tribe is savage, and is addicted to Cannibalism; although once in peaceful relations with the French for a considerable length of time, it is now on a footing of irreconcilable hostility. There follow, in the interior, toward the west, the Algonquins; then the Innu; those dwelling at the head-waters of this same great Canadian river are the Iroquois, whose territory also extends far to the South.

These Iroquois are known to the French chiefly for the perpetual warfare which they maintain against the Innu and Algonquins, allied and friendly tribes. To the South, however, the coast gradually advances up to the forty-third degree, where once more it is interrupted by a large bay called the Bay of Fundy. This gulf, advancing far into the interiors and bending toward the North and the gulf of Saint Lawrence, forms a sort of Isthmus; and this Isthmus is completed by the St. John, a long river which, taking its rise almost at the banks of the great Canadian river, empties into this Bay of Fundy. This Isthmus has a circuit of fully 1250 miles and is occupied by the Micmac tribe. In this Isthmus is Port-Royal, Nova Scotia, where we are now staying, lying on the parallel of 44 degrees 40'. But this port is not on the Ocean lying eastward, but on that gulf which I have called the Bay of Fundy. To the West and north, from the river of St. John to the river Penobscot, and even to the river Kennebec, live the Maliseet.

The mouth of this river is in latitude 43 degrees 40'. Not far distant is Saco Bay, which is the other shore or arm embracing the Bay of Fundy. For to the east lies what we call cape sable, while Saco Bay lies toward the West; both are on the forty-third parallel, though they are separated by an interval of a 250 miles. From the Kennebec river to the fortieth parallel, the whole country is in the possession of the tribe called the Armouchiquois (Saco Bay Indians, possibly the Massachusetts).

The New France tribes amount to seven in number, differing from each other in language and character: the Eskimo, the Algonquins, the Innus, the Iroquois, the Micmacs, the Maliseets, and the Armouchiquois (Saco Bay Indians, possibly the Massachusetts). But of these, neither the Eskimo, nor the Iroquois, nor Armouchiquois are well known to the French. The remaining four tribes appear already to be united in firm friendship and intimacy with them. They stay over night among us; we rove about with them, and hunt with them and live among them without arms and without fear; and as has so far appeared, without danger. This intimacy arose partly from association while fishing for Cod, which abound in these waters, and partly from trading in furs. For the Indians, who have neither copper, iron, hemp, wool, vegetables nor manufactured articles of any kind, rely on the French for them, giving in return the only thing of value they have, namely, furs. This whole region is mostly cold, owing to various causes. In the first place, the country is a wet one; for, besides being washed on almost every side by the sea, it abounds in rivers and ponds and large lakes. Islands are so numerous that the whole shore is cut up by a confused procession of them. Besides, though a land of frost, it is windy, the wind being nearly always a cold one.

Another cause of cold is the wildness of the country; for, being covered on every side by one continuous forest, it naturally follows that the soil hardly ever becomes warmed through. A third cause is the mountains, covered with Snow and perpetual frost, which are said to wall us in far away to the North and the West. We get nothing from there but piercing winds and snow-storms. Elsewhere, however, the appearance of the country is pleasing, and in many places inviting to the settler and quite promising; and as experience has shown, it is fruitful if cultivated.

The natives are not numerous. The Maliseet number less than a thousand, the Algonquins and the Innu together would not amount to much more, the Micmacs would not amount to two thousand. Thus four thousand Indians at most roam through, rather than occupy, these vast stretches of inland territory and sea-shore, For they are a nomadic people, living in the forests and scattered over wide spaces, as is natural for those who live by hunting and fishing only. They are nearly all beardless and of average stature, even a little shorter and more slender than we, but not degraded nor ill-favored in appearance; their color is not swarthy; they commonly paint their faces, and, when in mourning, blacken them.

They love justice and hate violence and robbery, a thing remarkable in men who have neither laws nor magistrates; for, among them, each man is his own master and his own protector. They have captains, leaders in war; but their authority is most precarious, if that may be called authority to which obedience is in no way obligatory. The Indians follow them through the persuasion of example or of custom, or of ties of relatives and alliance. They wage war as a tribe on account of wrongs done to a private individual. The whole race is vengeful and insolent in victory, carrying about the heads of their captives as trophies and spoils of victory. They are even said to have been addicted to the eating of human flesh, and the Eskimo and the Armouchiquois (Saco Bay Indians, possibly the Massachusetts) are said to have the same practice even now. Those, however, who are intimate with the French are far from being guilty of so great a crime.

Their whole religion consists of certain incantations, dances and sorcery, which they rely on either to procure the necessaries of life, or to get rid of their enemies; they have Autmoins, that is, medicine-men, who consult the evil Spirit regarding life and death and future events; and the evil spirit [great beast] often presents himself before them, approves or disapproves their schemes of vengeance, promises them the death of their enemies or friends, or prosperity in hunting, and other mockeries of the same sort. They even have faith in dreams; if they happen to awake from a pleasing dream, they rise even in the middle of the night and hail the omen with songs and dances. They have no temples, sacred edifices, rites, ceremonies or religious teaching, just as they have no laws, arts or government, save certain customs and traditions of which they are tenacious. If the Medicine-man predicts that a certain person will die before a fixed date, this man is deserted by all; and in his misery, feeling certain of impending death, he voluntarily condemns himself to suffer hunger and complete neglect, apparently that he may not seem to contend against fate.

If, however, he does not appear to be in a dying condition by the time predicted, his friends and relatives even hurry his death by pouring jars of cold water over his stomach. And so, the fortune teller never appears to deceive himself; although these prophets have lost much of their authority since the coming of the French, and now universally complain that their Devils have lost much of their power, compared with what it had been in the time of their Ancestors.

They so completely bury the remembrance of the dead with their bodies that they will not even tolerate their names to be mentioned afterward.

To obtain the necessaries of life, they endure cold and hunger in an extraordinary manner. During eight or ten days, if necessary, they will follow hunting in fasting, and they hunt with the greatest enthusiasm when the snow is deepest and the cold most severe. And yet these same Indians, after they have returned with their booty and installed themselves in their tents, become unwilling to perform any labor whatever, imposing this entirely upon the women.

The women, besides the difficult role of bearing and rearing the children, also transport the game from the place where it has fallen; they are the hewers of wood and drawers of water; they make and repair the household utensils; they prepare food; they skin the game and prepare the hides like fullers; they sew garments; they catch fish and gather shell-fish for food; often they even hunt; they make the canoes, skiffs of marvelous rapidity, out of bark; they set up the tents wherever they stop for the night -- the men concern themselves with nothing but the more laborious hunting and the waging of war. For this reason, almost everyone has several wives, and especially the captains, since they cannot maintain their power and keep up the number of their dependents unless they have not only many children to inspire fear or give favor, but also many slaves to perform patiently the menial tasks of every sort that are necessary. For their wives are regarded and treated as slaves.

These Indians are extremely liberal toward each other; no one is willing to enjoy any good fortune by himself, but makes his friends sharers in the larger part of it; and whoever receives guests at what they call a Tabagie (solemn feast) does not himself sit down with the others, but waits on them, and does not reserve any portion of the food for himself but distributes all; so that the host is compelled to suffer hunger during that day, unless one of his guests takes pity on him and gives him back a portion of what remains over from his own share, and they have often shown the same liberality toward the French, when they have found them in distress.

They hunt after the Lice in their heads and regard them as a dainty. They are most persistent beggars and, after the fashion of beggars and needy people, they are hypocritical -- contradicting, flattering and lying to achieve their ends. But after they have gotten their fill they go off, mocking the French and everybody else at a distance and secretly laughing at everything, even the religion which they have received. They set up their tents easily and quickly in any place with branching stakes, which they cover either with bark or skins or even with mats. The fire is built in the middle.

When our Jesuits were at last re-admitted into France, they began to negotiate with Henry the Great, through Father Coton, to obtain permission to labor in these regions. The King supported this important project; but the taking of active steps was preceded by a long delay. No Frenchmen inhabited this region with the purpose of settling here, and such as had been sent by the King as explorers, being indifferent to our holy aims, had soon returned to France, leaving these things not only unaccomplished but even almost hopeless. But our Prince promised that he would let us know when he deemed the time opportune; and from that time forward he assigned to us a sum of money for the voyage.

At this point occurred the tragic death of the King. Yet some messengers came to the new king from the man who last year requested the royal permission to found a colony in this country. This man is Jean Biencourt, commonly called Poutrincourt, of noble birth. Seizing this opportunity, we made overtures to the Queen Regent, Marie de Medicis, asking her to execute what her husband had planned, by giving a place to two of our Fathers in the ship which was to sail shortly for this place. The Queen assented; one Priest was immediately summoned from Aquitaine, and another was chosen in France.

We were to sail from Dieppe, but the ship that was to bear us to this country was so completely under the influence of Heretical merchants that it could not stir without their consent; as soon as they saw our Priests, they refused outright to let the ship sail if the Jesuits were to embark in it. The order of the Queen was alleged, and the authority of the Governor was interposed. Reliance was had on the Queen, and letters, and orders were obtained from her; but even Royal authority is, like that of the Church, unable to break or bend heretical obstinacy. Antoinette de Pons, Marchioness de Guercheville, governess to the daughters of the Queen, on learning these petty hindrances, did not hesitate to ask for aid from some of the greatest men in the council of this realm, that the refusal of the heretics might be subdued and the Jesuits permitted to sail to this land. Nor did she have any difficulty in gaining the goodwill of the Catholic Princes; the sum of two thousand gold coins was collected. This not only put an end to the immoral resistance of the heretics, but gave our Priests the influence of Masters rather than of mere passengers in the ship.

We sailed from Dieppe in a most unfavorable season on the 26th of January, of this year 1611. The ship was not large and was insufficiently equipped; the sailors were mostly heretics. As it was winter and the sea was stormy, we encountered many severe tempests and the voyage lasted four whole months, from which it is apparent how many sufferings of every kind we underwent. During the greater portion of the voyage one or the other of us lay sick and debilitated. Sometimes disputations with the heretics took place. The habit of swearing and using obscene language was repressed.

Finally, we brought the Heretics, who, through the preaching of their own Pastors regarded us as monsters, to recognize the malice of these fraudsters, so that they afterward on many occasions stood up to proclaim our praises. Such was our voyage to this land.

Before this time, scarcely any attention has ever been given by the French to converting the natives to Christ. There have been many obstacles. For the French only wandered through these regions, but did not remain here, and those who wished to remain were harassed by so many calamities that they could not give much thought to this matter. Some natives were occasionally brought to France and baptized there, but these not being sufficiently instructed, and finding themselves without shepherds as soon as they returned to these shores, immediately resumed their former habits and traditions.

We landed here on the 22nd of May, 1611. In this same year, Sir Poutrincourt had come here to establish himself permanently, and had brought a secular Priest with him. This Priest baptized nearly a hundred persons during the year, among them one of the most celebrated of the Chiefs, Henry Membertou, with his whole family, three children already married. But, since neither this Priest nor anyone else knew their language, except so far as pertains to the merest necessities of communication and trade, the neophytes could of course not be instructed in our doctrines. They accepted baptism as a sort of sacred pledge of friendship and alliance with the French.

As regards Christ, the Church, the faith and the Symbol, the commandments of God, prayer and the Sacraments, they knew almost nothing; nor did they know the sign of the cross or the word 'Christian'. So, even now, whenever we ask anyone, "Are you a Christian?" every one of them answers that he does not understand what we are asking him. But when we change the form of our question and ask, "Are you baptized?" he assents and declares himself to be already almost a Norman, for they call the French in general Normans. In other respects there is almost no change. They keep up the same manners and traditions and mode of life, the same dances and rites and songs and sorcery, all their previous customs.

We found one little chapel here, a small and poor one, but the other dwellings also, as is to be expected among new settlers, are by no means large or commodious.

Sir Poutrincourt's family is the only one here; without the women we number twenty. We two of the Jesuits have a wooden cabin in which we can scarcely turn around when we have a table in it.

We arrived here on the 22nd of May; we have now stayed here a little more than seven months. During this period we have accomplished some work both at home and abroad. Our first efforts we expended at home, so that there might be no interruption of Religious services; the secular Priest who had preceded us here, immediately on our arrival, had returned to France.

Since we have observed that those who had been previously baptized had gotten scarcely anything else through their baptism than increased peril, we have restrained this eager inclination to administer this sacrament without discrimination, and we insist that no adult person shall receive it until he has the necessary understanding of his faith. So, as we have been ignorant of the language and have been unable to explain our doctrines through any interpreter, or to commit them to writing, the course of the Gospel is, up to this point, embarrassed by these quicksands.

We try to persuade the Indians to bring their babies to us for baptism; and this they are beginning to do. We have baptized two boys, and a girl about nine years old. This girl was wasting away as much from hunger and neglect as from sickness; for this people readily despair of relief in sickness, and soon abandon those whose recovery is deemed hopeless. And so, when this girl was given up by her relatives, we asked that she be given us for baptism. They willingly gave her to us, not only for baptism but to dispose of at our pleasure, as being, they said, no longer of more value than a dead dog. But we carried her to a separate cabin and there fed her and cared for her. On her death, nine days later, we hoped that our labor had found some favor in heaven.

We soon found opportunity for another deed of charity similar to this. This was in the case of the second son of that famous Chief Membertou, who received our doctrines first, of all the Micmacs. I went to visit this chief's son, who was already at death's door. I found that, in accordance with their old custom, they were holding a tabagie, that is, a solemn feast for the distribution of his property, so that after the entertainment he might bid them farewell, after which they were to grieve his death and then to offer up a sacrifice of dogs. I criticized as well as I could, through an interpreter, these pagan actions among people who were already Christians. The father himself, Membertou, answered mildly that they were but neophytes; that I had but to command and that everything lay in my power. I said that this slaughtering of dogs was wrong, as well as this abandonment of the sick man for whom they were mourning; I added that those dances and death-songs in the presence of the sick man displeased me, though I permitted them to hold their tabagie elsewhere, as well as to visit the dying man and learn his last wishes. All replied that this was enough for them, and that they would dispense with the rest. In the name of Sir Poutrincourt, I invited them to transport to his house the sick man (who was at a great distance), and said that we hoped for his recovery, so that they might learn that the predictions of their medicine-men or prophets are false. They obeyed, and the third day after, brought to us the sufferer in a half-dying condition.

He did not die, and now, completely recovered, relates what God has done for him. Moved by this example, the elder Membertou himself, when he began to suffer from that sickness which was to be his last, desired to be brought to us and to be received into our own cabin, and even to occupy one of our beds. He lay there five days, during which we performed every friendly and even every menial service. But on the sixth day, when his wife had also come, and when she saw that there was scarcely room left for one of us to find a wretched couch on the ground in our cabin, he, of his own choice, went elsewhere, and there died a pious death.

He used to say frequently that he desired that we soon know his language. He said that as soon as he had learned it thoroughly, he would become the preacher of this heavenly doctrine among his people.

He had commanded that he should be buried in the ancient burial-place of his family, with those who were already dead (who had died as pagans). I opposed this, fearing that the French and even the Gentiles might interpret this as an affront to our faith. But he answered that it had been promised him, before he gave himself to Christ, that this place should be consecrated; and he cited a past example of something of the sort, adding that he feared that if he were buried in our cemetery, his people might avoid the place and so never return to us. I opposed all the reasons I could, and so did Sir Charles de Biencourt, the son of Sir de Poutrincourt, he being almost my only interpreter. I went off sadly, for I had accomplished nothing by arguing. Still, I did not refuse him the Anointing of the Sick, for which he was prepared.

The power of the Sacrament showed itself; the next day, he called eagerly for Sir Charles de Biencourt and myself, and told us in the hearing of all the others that he had changed his mind, and wished to be buried in our cemetery; and to teach his people that they should not avoid the place in accordance with their old and erroneous notion, but rather should love and frequent it, to utter pious prayers for him. Then he recommended to them again and again to maintain peace with us, and also gave his blessing to certain of his people, I dictating the words and guiding his hand. A short time after, he died.

We celebrated his funeral with great pomp. There has for a long time been no Chief of such great authority among these people. What is still more remarkable is that he always adhered firmly to his resolution never to have more than one wife at a time, even before his conversion.

I have explored with Sir Biencourt a large part of this whole region -- all that portion which the old geographers called Norumbega (Penobscot), including the principal rivers. The result is that not only have we come to know the country, but also to be known ourselves, and the Indians, who had never before seen a Priest or the rites of our Religion, have begun to learn something concerning it.

We have succeeded in reclaiming a certain Young Man of great courage who, through fear of Sir de Poutrincourt, has roamed about for a whole year with the Indians, adopting their ways and dress -- with suspicion of something worse. I spoke with him, and at last he confided himself to me. I brought him to Sir de Poutrincourt; peace was made, to the great joy of all, and next day the young man asked the pardon of those who surrounded him, for his evil conduct.

We make no complaint of having to drink water: as for bread, in less than six weeks the supply ran so short that now no more is allowed for a week than formerly for a single day. We are awaiting a ship that is to bring supplies. In the meanwhile, as Bakers and Artisans, a great and ancient quality with which we continue living here, but we have each fallen seriously ill; however, the Lord sustained us. We feel how great a burden it is to attend to all these household duties, in going for wood and water in cooking, in washing and mending our clothes; in repairing our cabin, and in giving the necessary time and attention to other material cares. Thus our days and nights wretchedly slip away.

From Port-Royal, Nova Scotia, in New France, the last day of January 1612.

Pierre Biard.

YEAR 1614
NEW FRANCE DURING THE YEARS 1613 AND 1614.

NEW FRANCE, an immense region adjoining the coast of Aquitaine in a westerly direction, is situated between the same parallels of latitude as is our France; and is separated from it by the moderate voyage of 2000 miles, or, where the ocean is broadest, of 2500 miles. Because it is opposite and near to our France, our ancestors called it New France; and for this nomenclature another appropriate reason occurred, in the good fortune by which our French fellow-countrymen were the first to take possession of this unknown region, and visited it in frequent voyages more than a hundred years ago. But the name of Canada, which is commonly given to this entire country, belongs only to that Northern region which is washed by the abundant waters of the Saint Lawrence River, and of the gulf which is called Saint Lawrence. The whole territory of New France is bounded on the South by the thirty-ninth parallel, and extends many miles beyond the breadth of our France. Besides, it stretches with yet unknown limits towards the North, and in vast expanses to the Chinese sea on the West; finally it is bounded Eastward by our Aquitanian and Breton Ocean, lying opposite and between the same parallels.

There ought to be in that region the same sort of Climate in every respect as that of our France, from its similar location, and this is the case. Besides, there is no reason why the soil should not be equally fertile, if farming were long continued, and if it were not for the dense shades of the almost unbroken forests. The subsoil is rich, as trees of immense size and height readily demonstrate. That the surface-soil is also imbued with great fertility is shown by the pleasing luxuriance of the vegetation over all the plains.

The people Comprise many tribes diverse in language and location, united by no mutual purposes or interests; possessing neither laws nor arts, and knowing no other means of gaining food than by fishing and hunting; having almost no conception of Deity; lazy in every occupation, and dull in those pursuits which depend upon talent or memory. On the whole, the race consists of men who are hardly above the beasts. One tribe hardly ever has communication with another, either distant or near, except such as may arise in the pursuit of offensive or defensive warfare. Even the members of the same tribe, united by a common location and the vicinity of their dwellings, are seldom accustomed to meet together, except to take measures concerning war against a common enemy. Of foreign nations, the French are almost the only people whom they admit to their harbors, for the sake of disposing of their Beaver skins and other pelts, in exchange for necessary clothing and utensils.

Among French navigators, the Breton French first explored this part of the new world in 1504; after they brought back reports of it, they had in subsequent voyages there many Companions or rivals, not only the Norman French, but also other dwellers on the Sea-coast of France. In 1524, John Verrazzano, a Florentine; and in 1534, Jacques Cartier, a Frenchman of Brittany, were sent as commanders by Francis I, King of France; and by the occupation of this region, brought it under the jurisdiction of that King. Various French expeditions, sent out at intervals, continue to maintain that possession for the Kings of France. Some of our Jesuits were also sent last year, by the authority of Henry IV, to unite the tribes joined in friendship and Alliance with the French, to Christ.

New France presents to the French, as they approach it, two coasts, one which borders upon our Ocean to the East; and another far longer, which extends Southward to the confines of Florida. The former side abounds in bays and estuaries, by which one may readily penetrate the interior; by these routes the French usually enter these regions; but, since the other coast, lying opposite our France, is rendered almost inaccessible by the intervention of a great island which they call Newfoundland, our people do not approach in that direction.

The immense plain there is watered by a river of vast size and mighty volume, its course directly eastward from almost the farthest west, until, due to the narrow strait at the island of Newfoundland and the opposition of the island itself, its mouth is broadly curved towards the Southern coast. The native name of that river is Sacque, the French have called it Saint Lawrence: its source is more than 1250 miles away, in a lake 750 miles in width. Into this main stream, other noble rivers flow from the North, such as the Saguenay, Three Rivers, the Algomequi, and many others. These rivers are open for navigation far Northward -- the Saguenay 1250 miles, the Three Rivers 1000 miles.

From the mountains upon the Southern bank of the Saint Lawrence River, other notable streams flow across to the Southern coast of the Ocean, and from these the native names for most of the tribes and districts of that region are derived; but upon some of them the French afterward conferred names after their own fashion. The rivers flowing Southward are the St. John, Penobscot, Kennebec, Saco, and Norumbega, which last stream Champlain asserts to be the same as the Penobscot.

The tribes across the Sacque or Saint Lawrence, towards the North, not far from its mouth, are the Canadis and Eskimos; at a distance from these, on the same Northern shore, toward the west, dwell the Algonquins and the Hurons. Across the Saint Lawrence, on the Southern bank, the Canadi live also, directly at the bend of the great river, which turns from the East towards the South. Beyond them, toward the West, lie the Micmacs, inhabitants of the country of Acadia; from there, toward the Penobscot River, the Penobscot Abenakis, to their right, looking Westwards near the fortress at Quebec, the Innu; beyond the Penobscot Abenakis, directly toward the Kennebec River, the Maliseets; then the the Armouchiquois (Saco Bay Indians, possibly the Massachusetts), at the Saco River, scattered over an extensive region; finally, between Florida and the great Saint Lawrence River, the Iroquois inhabit enormous tracts of both level and mountainous country.

Many of the remaining tribes of New France, especially those of the North, across the great Saint Lawrence River, our French countrymen know only from hearsay. Among those whom they know, however, they have secured as friends, and almost as allies, the Micmacs, Maliseets, Innu, the Armouchiquois (Saco Bay Indians, possibly the Massachusetts), Algonquins, and Hurons. The Iroquois, who are deadly enemies of these tribes, prove hostile to the French also, mainly because the French have waged war against them, together with their enemies. Certain of these tribes -- the Armouchiquois, Iroquois, and Hurons -- practice agriculture, though unskillfully, and plant Indian corn and the Brazilian bean.

Numerous headlands meet those who approach New France by the Southern coast: Breton, at the mouth of the great river Saint Lawrence; next in order, LaHave, Mouton, Sable, Fourchu, St. Louis, Blanc, St. Helene. Those who coast along the same shore from Cape Breton meet the harbors called Canso (Nova Scotia), Cape Sambro (Nova Scotia), Port-Royal (Nova Scotia), and Beaubassin. But those who wish to journey inland, beyond the borders of Canada, by way of the Saint Lawrence River, must pass Cape Breton at the mouth of the Saint Lawrence; Cap de l'Eveque, Cap-Chat, and some other headlands, finally reaching Tadoussac bay at the mouth of the Saguenay river, where it enters the Saint Lawrence.

Besides, in this great extent of territory, by means of numerous expeditions and in more than a century, the French have established only five settlements; the first of these was founded by Jacques Cartier during his last voyage, not at the inaccessible narrows and rocks of the place now called Saint Croix, but in almost the spot where now stands Quebec, 37 miles on this side of St. Croix. Another was built by Pierre du Gas, Sir de Monts, in 1604, upon a small island, among the Maliseets, close to their Southern shore, to which settlement and island he gave the name of Saint Croix. He also, in the same year, upon a sort of peninsula on the Acadian coast, near Port-Royal, Nova Scotia, built a small fort of the same name, defended by a ditch and a rampart. Port-Royal, Nova Scotia, and the fort of the same name as the harbor, are on what is called the Bay of Fundy, 375 miles from Cape Canso, Nova Scotia, 20 miles from the sea.

At the head of the Bay of Fundy is a harbor, reached by a channel three-quarters of a mile long; it is 5 miles long and 2 miles wide, capable of receiving 2,000 large ships, and because of its majestic appearance was named Port-Royal (Nova Scotia) by the Frenchman Champlain. A third settlement was founded by Sir de Monts, four years later, at the point of Quebec, on the Southern bank of the Saint Lawrence River, near the isle of Orleans, in the territory of the Innu; Champlain, who was in charge of the work, called this fort Quebec, from the name of the district,' and observed that in almost the same place Jacques Cartier's post of St. Croix had in former days been built. Our Fathers were laying the foundations of the fifth and last French settlement mouth of the Penobscot river, when they we vented from prosecuting the work by a descent English, and carried off into captivity, contrary to justice and the law of nations. These details Which otherwise would have delayed the orderly narrative of events, having been therefore first explained let us devote our pen to the Canadian expedition undertaken by our fathers.

Poutrincourt had asked of Henry IV the fort at Port-Royal, Nova Scotia, because it had been granted as a gift to him by Sir de Monts at the time of its establishment, which was perhaps the best reason he could give for advancing and maintaining his pretensions, and had obtained not merely a claim upon it, but its possession. Following the grant of this fort and also the government of a definite territory in New France to Poutrincourt, the King informed Father Coton that he wished to employ the services of our Jesuits in bringing the Indians to Christ. He also desired him to write to the general of the Jesuits, in his own name, in order that Fathers might be selected for this undertaking, whom the King himself would take measures to send there at the first available opportunity, while an annuity of 1,000 gold coins was to be allowed the Mission. It was during the eighth year of this century when the King made this decision in regard to Canadian affairs. But due to more weighty business which called his attention elsewhere, and also the hindrance caused by his death, but especially because of the negligence of those who were managing the Canadian province for the Crown, the departure of our Jesuits was delayed until the third year after.

The Queen had paid over 500 gold coins, according to the decree of the late King; Madames de Vernueil, de Sourdis, and de Guercheville had given generous contributions, one, the sacred furniture of the altar; another, an abundance of linen vestments; the third, a liberal allowance of money for the expenses of the voyage. Father Pierre Biard and Father Enemond Masse had been selected for the undertaking, and had prepared themselves with great courage, eagerly awaiting their departure. The day for sailing had been agreed upon by them with Biencourt, the son of Poutrincourt, and Thomas Robin, the leaders of the expedition, for the 24th day of October, 1610; but, when they arrived upon that day, the ship was undergoing repairs, and that in a negligent manner, upon the land; so far was it from being provided with suitable equipment either for navigation or for the Canadian colony. Two Protestants had devoted their services and resources to the repair of the ship, and, because Biencourt and Robin lacked means to pay for the work, the Protestant merchants had contracted for a specified portion of the profits of the voyage. By this right, as masters in the ship, they thought themselves able to declare, in the presence of the Jesuits, that there would be no place for them in the vessel; and they asserted that, if it should be otherwise, they would immediately abandon the pursuit of the work and all other business in their contract.

From this resolution, not even the authority of the Queen herself, pronounced with dignity and Severity by Sir de Sicoine the royal Governor of the city of Dieppe, could move these servants of Calvin. The matter was apparently in a desperate condition, because only this one ship was that year being fitted out for New France, and the two Protestants would not permit themselves to be moved in any respect. This difficulty of ours deeply pained Madame de Guercheville, a woman of extreme piety and great spirit; but her ingenuity speedily devised a method by which she might place us on the ship, not as passengers, but as partners, to the exclusion of the churlish Heretics. She therefore collected in a few days, from the leading men and women of the Court, 2,000 gold coins, as much as was necessary for fitting out the ship; and by raising that sum deprived the two Protestants of a share in the vessel, establishing also a sufficient capital from which there might each year be paid to the director of the Canadian undertaking an allowance for our Mission.

When, therefore, by the diligence of this woman, the obstacles which delayed us had been removed, although nearly three months had been spent in equipping the ship. Still, in the eleventh year of this century, on the 24th day of January, we set sail under the leadership of God, from the shore at Dieppe; and after a voyage lasting in all four months, arrived at Canso harbor (Nova Scotia), on the Southern coast of New France; at a distance from there of 300 miles, either by sea or land, we joyfully entered Port-Royal, Nova Scotia.

When we brought the ship to the Coast of this region, Champlain met us, a man renowned not only for his valor in other respects, but also for his voyages in this sea for seven years; we have seen him battling against masses of ice with the greatest courage, and sailing forth bravely amid all these dangers. Concerning the Saint Lawrence, the greatest river of Canada, this same Champlain writes, in his commentaries upon his voyages, that its surface is frozen to the depth of three entire yards during January and the two following months, to the distance of 250 miles upward from its mouth; and that the freezing of the water does not extend farther, although no part of the river, since it flows directly from west to east, is more Northerly than another, or more protected by mountains, so as to be warmer. He adds also that in the beginning of April, by the melting of so great a mass of ice, the broad mouth of the Saint Lawrence is almost blocked with frozen masses, which are carried forth a long distance into the sea, and usually melt within twelve days, each year.

The arrival of our Jesuits at the Bay of Fundy and Port-Royal, Nova Scotia occurred on the 26th day of June. Nothing more Opportune could have happened to Poutrincourt than the arrival of Supplies, if only these had been abundant, since his privations had compelled him to place a portion of the colony to be supported among the Indians. Besides, the fact that we had not come well-furnished with provisions was due not only to the smallness of the ship, which was of only sixty tons burden, but also to the placing of more fishing tackle than provisions in the cargo; then, finally, by thirty-six persons, the number which was on board, there was a great consumption of the ship's stores during four entire months. So, Poutrincourt, almost overwhelmed at the Outset by the necessity of maintaining sixty men in this scarcity of provisions, was forced to take early precautions in case the meagerly furnished storehouse at Port-Royal, Nova Scotia should be left bare for the coming winter. As befitting the father of the colony, he took upon himself the burden of managing this business, and resolved that he himself would cross over to France. With about forty of the people at Port-Royal, Nova Scotia, leaving his son Biencourt in command of the fort there, he set sail in the middle of July; and in the latter part of August, he reached the French coast.

Meanwhile, the greatest desire of our Jesuits was to know the language of the natives, which the Frenchmen -- caring little for it, with one exception -- could not impart by rules, or teach with advantage; so only one method remained, to learn it from the stupid natives, not by lessons, but by constant practice. Consequently, after our associates had made various attempts to placate the Indians, by gifts, by friendliness, and by every sort of service, they accomplished little. Besides employing teachers not suited for instructing, from whom nothing could be obtained unless their stomachs Were first liberally crammed, and who, being impatient of even a short delay, would often be distracted and drawn away by inquiry about any subject, the nature of the language, so deficient in words suitable for the expression of even the most common ideas, evaded the eager pursuit of our men, and disheartened them.

Of those things which fall under sight, touch, and the other senses, the names were obtained from the answers of the Indians; but for those things which elude the senses, there is the greatest scarcity of names among that race, and also a profound ignorance of the things themselves. The knowledge of the latter class was despaired of, since the Indians either could not, or would not explain the former things; one hope remained, in a young Frenchman, fluent in the native tongue, of remarkable kindness and affability, whom Father Biard also had laid under obligations to himself by favors. This was Pontgrave, the son of Pontgrave, an excellent man, who in former years, together with Champlain, represented Sir de Monts in New France; and this youth, who was preparing to pass the winter no farther than 45 miles from Port-Royal, Nova Scotia, at the river St. John, our Jesuits were anxious to meet for his aid in acquiring the Indian language.

Although Biencourt was consulted about this expedition, and also asked by our comrades that they be allowed to make progress through Pontgrave in the foreign language, they did not succeed, because such communication with Pontgrave inspired suspicion in Biencourt. While our Jesuits therefore patiently endured their troubles, God provided the opportunity for doing a kindness to Henry Membertou, a chief who was dangerously ill, by caring diligently for the salvation of both his soul and body. Among this people, the chief of each tribe is called a Sagamore, and Membertou was a Sagamore among the Micmacs, in Acadia, to the St. John river, North of the fort at Port-Royal, Nova Scotia. However, when he began to be troubled with dysentery, he was residing at Bay Ste. Marie, as they call it, between Port-Royal, Nova Scotia and the Southern coast, from where he had ordered himself to be brought into the fort, so he might profit by the care of our physicians.

Our fathers received him into their narrow Cabins and, for many days, in the absence of his wife and daughter, by day and night, amid the noxious filth of a vile disease, freely gave him their services as most diligent attendants. When he had been absolved upon Confession, he arranged with Biencourt about his burial, and said that he wished to be interred in his own ancestral burial place. Biencourt, who did not think the matter of much importance, readily consented, and, upon hearing the objections of Father Biard to his decision, believed that trouble might be prevented if that grave would be blessed according to the Christian rite. This opinion of Biencourt rendered Membertou so much the more steadfast in his resolution; Father Biard declared that he would not agree with them in this, and explained why he would not Consent. The day after, Membertou, of his own choice, requested the usual Christian burial, in which resolution he died, evidently intending by this act to leave his faith attested to all Christians and Indians, and to become a participant in the privileges of the Church. This chief was in every respect a great man, not only in the opinion of his own people but in ours.

Out of some 80 natives of New France whom, since the beginning of June, 1610, a certain Josse, a priest unfamiliar with his duties, had recklessly baptized, although they had had no religious instruction, Membertou alone, who excelled all his countrymen in acuteness and good sense, had wisely discerned how important it is not merely to be considered a Christian, but actually to live with a character agreeing to the name. And, although the entire remainder of that 80 had continued their brutish mode of life ever since Baptism, this man alone deserved to be called a Christian, and led a praiseworthy life in the midst of dense ignorance, before our Jesuits had come there.

This man survived hardly fifteen months after becoming a Christian, and was given only a few days of our training. This one man easily surpassed the chiefs who had flourished during many preceding ages. He was a distinguished example of a man of great self-restraint in continual monogamy. For, though all the rest of the natives, but especially the chiefs, covet a multitude of wives and a numerous train of progeny, and desire them as the special Support and foundation of their power, Membertou could never be persuaded to conform to this custom, because he saw that the evils arising among the quarreling wives and among the children of these rivals beneath the same roof, more than balanced the increase of resources and of power that might arise from a large family.

It is an observance of that race, from a superstitious rite which all especially revere, to never mention by name any deceased person; but to give each, according to circumstances, an additional name by which they always designate him whenever they mention him. In conformity with this custom, they called him, because he had of late been highly renowned in warlike virtues, by a name agreeing with his reputation, meaning, in their language, Great Chief.

Poutrincourt, the father of Biencourt, had sailed for France in July to procure supplies, of which there was a great scarcity in the colony at Port-Royal, Nova Scotia; but up to the following month of October no provisions had been sent from France; therefore, Biencourt decided to make a trip, together with Father Baird, to the the Armouchiquois (Saco Bay Indians, possibly the Massachusetts), who lived near the Saco river, and had plenty of Indian corn, in order by the exchange of French goods to obtain some food for the winter. But because he turned aside from the journey across the Bay of Fundy, to the St. John River, so he might exact from the young Pontgrave and the rest of the Maclouins a tax Upon their Canadian trade, and being longer delayed by disputes which arose with that colony, he waited almost beyond the time for obtaining corn; and when he finally returned to that business, deceived by the pretensions of the Indians, who had held out the hope of buying food, he sailed back empty-handed to Port-Royal, Nova Scotia.

During this trip, Father Biard fortunately Succeeded in reconciling Biencourt to Pontgrave, just as he had lately placated Poutrincourt, who had been enraged at the same man; and also preserving the life of Merveille, the Breton French, who was in great jeopardy on account of Certain suspicions; by which actions he acquired the greatest influence over them both. It was advantageous to our Priest to have men of this character indebted to him, especially because he designed to make use of their effective services in learning the Canadian languages in which Pontgrave was unusually skilled, if they should be allowed to reside together for a few days, or to meet even more frequently. They took care that Father Biard would not need to request what he desired, by politely offering him the privileges of their home; the Father was grateful to them, and for the present returned thanks, requesting them, however, to postpone their kindness to him until that time when it be proper for him to accept it; for it was not then fitting for him to desert Biencourt, especially when he was engaged in a dangerous journey.

Afterward, while Biencourt was returning from that unsuccessful trip to the Kennebec for provisions, when they had arrived at the Penobscot river and the island of St. Croix, Father Biard attempted to persuade him to send him to Pontgrave from that place, which was near at hand, for the purpose of composing a Canadian catechism, which had previously been agreed upon between them. To this request Biencourt would not Consent, except under conditions which were not in the power of the Father. Therefore, he was disappointed of the opportunity of learning the language of the natives, and was Compelled to lead an almost inactive existence in the fort, to his great vexation.

By the end of November, although the provisions were already almost exhausted, no news was received from France; and what aid they might have obtained by hunting was cut off by the deep snow that covered the ground; so it was necessary to exercise the greatest economy, so the provisions might last longer. The weekly allowance of everyone in the Colony had finally been fixed at ten ounces of bread, half a pound of lard, three dishes of peas or beans, and one of prunes. And, although the whole colony was living upon the provisions brought from France for our own use, we were treated with no more indulgence than any of the servants, nor did we wish for special privileges; although a certain rascal, in a writing published in France, has not hesitated to circulate many statements to the contrary, in the most shameless manner.

Until the 24th of January, in 1612, the scarcity of provisions lasted, upon which day a ship entered Port-Royal, Nova Scotia with a small quantity of supplies, bought and sent over by Madame de Guercheville. This pious lady had paid to brother Robert du Thet, 1,000 gold coins, contributed according to the agreement between Robin and and the Canadian Fathers, for the purpose of purchasing and conveying provisions to the colony at Port-Royal, Nova Scotia; but Poutrincourt, by means of his promissory note, cheated our brother out of 400, as he was not a sufficiently careful guardian of his trust, and so the whole sum was reduced to 600, by means of which a scanty store was provided for us.

But not even provisions to the value of that number of gold coins were placed in the vessel, for Poutrincourt's naval agent embezzled in France part of the grain purchased; and of the Supplies carried over, he delivered to the Jesuits at Port-Royal, Nova Scotia as much as he pleased and no more. Our brother Gilbert du Thet, before whose eyes most of these acts had been committed, when he saw that no account was rendered by the person in charge of the transportation of the supplies, modestly requested of Biencourt an estimation from the man who had acted as captain of the vessel; saying that it was to the interest of all the ship's company that it be shown how much had been received and expended by each individual. Biencourt admitted that nothing more just could be asked by any person.

Still, just as if Simon Imbert had been cruelly accused by our brother, Imbert so misrepresented to Biencourt the request of our brother that Imbert made Biencourt our bitter enemy. Therefore Imbert, to make Biencourt his friend and alienate him from us, and to release himself from the necessity of rendering an account, placing an evil interpretation upon the plan of Madame de Guercheville, falsely charged that a conspiracy of the Jesuits was in progress by which the authority of the Biencourts was to be destroyed in the fort at Port-Royal, Nova Scotia and in all of New France. From this slander arose those quarrels with Biencourt by which our Services were rendered useless to the tribes of New France, and to the French there.

It was easy for our Jesuits to refute the falsehoods of their defamer; and once, twice, and a third time they so completely disproved them before Biencourt that Imbert was rendered speechless by the final refutation, and was so reduced that he did not hesitate to claim that these slanders had been uttered by him while much intoxicated. Biencourt had been deeply vexed by the news which was brought, that the possession of all of New France, from its greatest river, the Saint Lawrence, to Florida, except Port-Royal, Nova Scotia, had been granted by a Royal Charter to Madame de Guercheville, and that there had been transferred to her also, by Sir de Monts, everything which he had recently possessed in this region by the grant of Henry IV. And, although he could not believe that these things were done because of our influence, still he afterwards acted towards us just as if he had so believed. The idea of Madame de Guercheville was that their respect for her authority might serve as a strong restraint to hold to their duty the Biencourts, both father and son, who up to this time had kept poor faith with us; but not by any means to deprive them of their right to Port-Royal, Nova Scotia.

But these men considered as an injury to themselves, the concern of Others in regard to their own affairs; but because their affairs at home were embarrassed, and they knew no more Convenient source of provisions for Port-Royal, Nova Scotia than Madame de Guercheville, they silently smothered their vexation, so not to lose these supplies. Our Jesuits easily exonerated themselves before Biencourt, and when he had for the time being accepted their excuses, the Fathers returned to learning the Canadian language, dividing the business between them. Father Masse went for this purpose to Louis Membertou, son of the late Henry; while Father Biard had an Indian teach him the language at home.

While Father Masse, with a young French companion, was residing with his host at the St. John river, he fell Seriously ill from long fasting and the continual annoyances of a wandering life; and although he did not die, he was reduced to the utmost weakness. During this illness, a ridiculous discussion, worthy of a Canadian intellect, took place between Membertou and his guest, the Father. The Indian approached the prostrate Father, anxious and grieved, as his face showed, because of the Priest's unfortunate condition whom he addressed with these words: "Hear me, Father; you will surely die; write to Biencourt that you have by no means perished at our hands but been overcome by disease, in order that no harm may come to us because of your death."

Father Masse answered: "I shall not do as you advise me and imprudently write to my friends, in case you should become bolder and more careless, because of my lack of foresight, and lay violent hands upon me, while still possessing my letter as proof of your innocence, which would save you from punishment."

The Indian, astonished by this Unexpected and keen reply, soon came to himself, as if from a deep sleep, and said with a smile: "Then make Jesus favorable to you by your prayers, so he may save you from the danger of death, and no one may lay the blame of your fate upon us."

"I am attending to that thing," said the Father, "cease to be anxious, for this disease will not end me."

In the calm of Port-Royal, Nova Scotia, Father Biard employed an Indian as teacher, in order to learn the Indian language. As long as he had provisions with which to furnish the table for his teacher, he made progress by the aid of his willing and efficient services, but after a few weeks the scarcity of supplies interrupted the course of learning and teaching.

The twelfth year of this century had already advanced to November, when the scanty supplies caused Biencourt great anxiety because no ship was coming from France. There had been sent to our Jesuits privately, among the preceding February's supplies, four casks of pure wheat and one of barley, which they had laid aside for their own use in the future. This grain, because of the general extremities of the colony, they judged should be added to the Common stock; and gave it to Biencourt, so he might distribute it for the daily needs of the whole Settlement, and give them an equal allowance each day With the rest of the people.

By this aid the general necessities were relieved for a time; but for the winter, and among all that crowd of people, although not numerous, this was a Scanty supply, considering the condition of the ground, which presented no opportunity for agriculture, and an uncertain chance for hunting and fishing. Besides, even if the weather and the accessibility of the places had been every way favorable for fishing, there was still lacking for this pursuit the necessary aid of a fishing boat. Therefore, while the rest of the settlers were slothfully enjoying the winter cheer of the blazing hearth, as if forgetful of their poverty, our Jesuits devoted their attention and labor to the construction of a boat. While they were engaged in this sort of work, the whole colony wondered what men so unskilled in the carpenter's art, unprovided with working tools, and unsupplied with material, were trying to do; they talked a great deal before the hearth concerning this novel venture, and flung taunts at these rash Argonauts; but our Jesuits never left their work, and hurried on in the undertaking.

In the middle of March, to the amazement of their scoffers, our friends launched their boat, Which endured the violence of the rivers and even of the sea; nor did they fear, together With their young servant and another of the household, to ascend the river flowing into the Bay of Fundy, to gather acorns and the Chiquebi root in the forest. The Chiquebi root is peculiar to this coast, and is like our potatoes, but more pleasant and useful for eating; its numerous bulbs, joined by a slender thread, grow deep in the earth. However, our collectors found that all the spots where this root grew had been already visited by the Indians, who were acquainted with the places; so that after long search each one of them could scarcely find a quantity of this food sufficient for one day.

From this harvest of acorns and roots, they turned their attention to fishing for the Eplanus, and advanced their boat farther toward the head of the river. The Eplan or Epelan is a little fish of the size of the Trichia Rothomagensis, the fish which is commonly called the Sardine, and, in the beginning of April, it leaves the ocean, and in great shoals enters the freshwater streams, where it lays the eggs for its abundant young, these streams being numerous 10 miles from the post at Port-Royal, Nova Scotia. Fishing for the Eplanus was followed by that for the Halecis, and for other sorts of river and Sea-fishes, just as opportunity and suitable place offered for capturing each, up to May.

Meanwhile, in France, the authority of the Queen was intervened, so we could be relieved from our bondage at Port-Royal, Nova Scotia, and so we could either study the language of the natives, or practice among the Indians what we had already learned. Therefore, two of our members, provided with a Royal commission for this undertaking, -- Father Quentin, and he who previously had sailed from Port-Royal, Nova Scotia for France, Gilbert du Thet, safely and joyfully reached the coast of New France in the middle of May, 1613. It was provided in the commission that we should be allowed to establish a new settlement in a suitable place, and to have a sufficient number of colonists to protect it; and for its provision there had generously been sent a year's supply of food for thirty persons, and also horses, goats, and other things of the sort. By the kindness of the Queen there were also added weapons for our defense, some supplies, and also four military tents, by which we might be sheltered while our new residence was being built.

La Saussaye, with a military title and command, was to have charge of the household of colonists, not only while the buildings were in process of construction, but also when they had been completed and fortified, so in case of attack nothing might be neglected, but the entire colony should be in a condition of defense, and the buildings in good repair. When the supplies were landed at Port-Royal, Nova Scotia, only five of us were there, out of the whole population, Biencourt being absent with the others. When the letter of the Queen, in which were orders for our freedom, had been read to Hebert, who represented Biencourt, we were allowed to collect our baggage; having done this, two days later we left Port-Royal, Nova Scotia, with the intention of founding a new settlement in the neighborhood of Penobscot. The boatmen had been notified, according to their agreement, to land at Bangor, a harbor on the shore of Penobscot, so the whole colony might there disembark, and take possession of a site for the future settlement upon the neighboring hills; but when we had stuck in a bay, this side of that, to which we gave the name of St. Sauveur (Frenchman Bay, Maine?), the boatmen declared that they had fulfilled their agreement, and that they would not continue the voyage any further.

During this dispute, we engaged in conversation with the Indians inhabiting the spot, and since they praised their own country as being far superior to that at Bangor, and requested us to choose it for our settlement, we conceived a desire to explore it. After we had examined this region, which was heartily approved by all, the whole company turned their attention to selecting a site for the building upon a suitable hill. Therefore, a Cross was erected, by way of consecrating the place; the ground was marked out for the construction of the buildings; the earth was dug up for laying the foundations; and our abode, while still in its infancy, was called by the same name as the harbor, St. Sauveur (Frenchman Bay, Maine?). La Saussaye, the commander of the colonists, took so deep an interest in agriculture that he thought of that alone, and neglected everything else; and through his excessive fervor for husbandry, called off a large portion of the colony from the work of building, and set them to farming.

La Motte, Saussaye's Lieutenant, Ronseraye, the Color-bearer, Joubert, the Drillmaster, and other men of the Company of New France were of the opinion that the building ought to be completed, and the energies of the entire Company be devoted to this, until it should be protected by fortifications against hostile violence, and might safely be inhabited. So, they were displeased because most of the colonists were taken away from building and employed in plowing by La Saussaye, whom they eagerly urged to apply the labors of all in building; but it fell upon deaf ears. So, as the views and plans of the leaders were at variance, disputes arose, such as usually take place between those who differ, when each one thinks that what he deems best ought to be preferred to the plans and undertakings of others; the result was that days were idly spent in quarreling.

The English, a few years before, had occupied Virginia, which John Verrazzano, in 1523, had explored under the authority of Francis I, King of France, and brought under his jurisdiction. It is the portion of the continent between Florida and New France, which, covering the thirty-sixth, thirty-seventh, and thirty-eighth parallels, was formerly called Mocosa, situated 625 miles Westward from the settlement at St. Sauveur (Frenchman Bay, Maine?). From the fort at Jamestown, which they have held for eight years, strongly fortified and occupied by a garrison of soldiers, they make a voyage every summer to the fishing grounds of Matinicus Isle, to obtain fish for food during the coming winter. While they were sailing there in the summer of this year, they encountered the heavy fogs which commonly prevail upon this sea during these months and while they were therefore long delayed, and ignorant of their location, they were gradually borne by the currents to our shore, not far from the harbor of St. Sauveur (Frenchman Bay, Maine?).

Then, by the information of the Indians, who mistook them for friendly Frenchmen, they learned that there was a French ship in the next bay, and that not a large vessel, nor defended by a numerous crew, and but lightly armed with brass cannon. Of course, no more welcome news than this could come to half-naked men, whose stock of provisions was exhausted -- men who, in addition to this poverty, were incited by an inborn love of robbery. So they prepared their weapons, and under full sail, and with decks cleared for action, entered directly into our harbor. When the Indian, by whom we had been betrayed, saw from these signs the hostile intentions of the English towards us, he at once recognized his mistake, and declared that he had been at fault toward us whom he thought to please. These lamentations he often repeated, when he sought pardon from us for his error, even from his Indian countrymen, who considered our misfortune their own injury, and often threatened him with violence.

Meanwhile, we were in doubt whether we should judge as friends or enemies those whom an in-shore breeze was bearing straight towards our position; while the pilot of the ship set out to meet and reconnoiter them in a small boat, but by a long circuit so he would have a way of retreat, but especially because the wind was contrary to him, but favorable to the strangers.

But there was no need of reconnoitering, for they advanced, sounding the signal for battle, only reserving their fire until they could use it at close quarters, and aim at the defenders of the Ship one by one. With fourteen great cannon, and sixty muskets, they made their attack upon our ship, which was unprepared for sailing because the anchors had not been raised, and was furnished with only ten defenders, while the gunner of the brass cannon was absent; and so the capture of our ship and all of us, whom La Saussaye had scattered about upon the shore, was a matter of no great difficulty.

Our brother Gilbert du Thet was assisting in the defense of the vessel, when an especially violent shower of bullets attacked them, in which he was stricken with a mortal wound; and although attended with great devotion by an English surgeon who was a Catholic, on the following day he died. But all of us had come into the power of the English Heretic, who, being extremely crafty, secretly abstracted from La Saussaye's trunk the Royal commission, upon which authority rested the entire establishment of our colony in New France, so he might appear to negotiate with us not as a robber, but upon an equal footing; and then he began to urge La Saussaye to prove by what right he had planted a settlement upon the shores of Canada. When La Saussaye had cited the authority and commission of the King of France, which important document he declared he still retained the keys, was brought and he was ordered to produce it; but when he opened the chest, La Saussaye recognized everything else untouched and in its proper place, but no commission appeared. When this was not forthcoming, the English Commander assumed a severe countenance and tone, and was deeply angered, calling us all runaways and mere pirates, and, declaring us worthy of death, handed over our property to his crew to be pillaged, and, finally treated us as enemies.

It seemed probable that the English, unless they should quickly be hindered, were about to cover up the outrage which they had already begun, with some greater crime, so they might conceal the previous injury by a fresh offense; so our brothers approached the Captain, revealed themselves to him, as he was still ignorant of their identity, and asked him not to adopt severe measures against their colony.

They warned him to remember the conditions of human life, saying that just as he would wish his own interests mildly handled, if a similar calamity had fallen upon him, so he ought to act humanely in the case of others; besides, that he should especially consider that he was dealing with innocent men, to whom no fault could be charged except that they had been too careless in a peaceful spot. They were heard somewhat kindly by the Captain, and received with respectful address; the only thing of which he disapproved being that Fathers of the Jesuits, who had commonly so good a reputation for piety and wisdom, should be among a band of runaways and pirates. When our Jesuits had proved by strong evidence the entire blamelessness of their colony, the Captain seemed to yield his assent, and to find as the only fault in us our neglect to preserve the commission of our expedition. From then on, he treated our Fathers with great consideration, and received them in all matters with honor, and with kindness at his table.

Meanwhile, the English captain was troubled because the pilot of our ship had escaped, together with a part of the crew; and he feared that harm might fall upon himself, because of the pilot's being free to announce what had taken place; and because the pilot came in his boat at night to the captured ship and took off from it the rest of the crew. This pilot, although a Protestant, came by night to Father Biard and implored him to employ his aid freely, and consider making their escape. Father Biard thanked him profusely; but added that he would make no plans concerning himself until he should see the entire colony placed in safety; meanwhile, the pilot ought to look out for himself, as the English Captain was making every effort to capture him.

When the pilot had received these warnings, so he might cause the English to think he had gone away, three days later, with taunting expression and words, he passed in his boat before the faces of the angry English, as if he were hurrying to seek refuge with some French ship of which he knew; and while pretending to go farther, turned about behind a neighboring island and there lay in hiding to observe the Outcome of our capture. While we were wavering between the doubtful chance of either death or imprisonment, our Indian acquaintances, having received the news of our calamity, visited us in great numbers, deeply pitying our misfortune, and most dutifully offering us the use of their scanty resources for the whole coming year, if we were willing to remain among them. However, Argall the English Captain, and his Lieutenant Turnell, had decided upon milder measures toward us than we at first expected; they had agreed with La Saussaye, the Leader of our colony, to send us back to France; but the conditions of return were of such a character that they differed little from our certain destruction. There was allowed to us, although numbering thirty persons, only one boat, which could not hold us all, even if we were crowded together as closely as possible; and these conditions La Saussaye had accepted; more, he had borne witness with his own handwriting that this had been his preference, which was the choice of certain shipwreck. However, the efforts of our Jesuits prevailed, that the whole colony should not together incur imminent danger and it was allowed that only fifteen should be placed on board the boat, of whom one should be Father Masse, while the two remaining Fathers should be carried to Matinicus Isle and entrusted to English fishermen for conveyance to France.

The rest of the colonists were to be carried to Virginia. Therefore one portion of the settlers, under the lead of La Saussaye, entered the boat to set out for France, although ignorant of the region and of seamanship, and unprovided with charts, to whom God in time sent the Protestant pilot, who had taken great pains to observe the fortunes of his countrymen, so if any opportunity should offer, he might bear aid to them in their distress. He had landed upon the continent, and in the Canadian manner of life and custom like one of the Indians, was traversing the entire coast, to ascertain our condition, when fortunately he happened upon the boat which had set out.

Upon being received on board, he showed himself an able leader in their perplexities, and united his boat and fourteen sailors to ours as comrades in the voyage and its labors. Up to the time the French ships were found, a lucky catch of fish twice relieved their hunger; they were also aided by various meetings with the Indians upon that coast, of whom Louis Membertou received them, when famishing, with a liberal present of elk meat. Roland and some other chiefs furnished a supply of bread, and others most generously gave a bountiful provision of fish and birds. But of all blessings, the most grateful was the news, which the chief Roland gave us, that on the neighboring coast, at Cape Sambro, Nova Scotia and Prospect, Nova Scotia harbor, were two ships preparing to return to France. The two boats, quickly directing their course there, fortunately arrived before the vessels left; and all having been received on board, they made sail and arrived safe and sound at St. Malo, a town in Brittany, where Father Masse was received with the greatest kindness by the Bishop of St. Malo and the people of the town.

Concerning Fathers Biard and Quentin, it had been decided that they should be brought to Matinicus Isle, and from there by the aid of the English fishermen, should be conveyed to France; but these plans having been changed, it was resolved that they should be sent to Virginia; they, with five others of the colonists, being placed on board the captured vessel, which was in command of Turnell, while eight other settlers had entered Captain Argall's ship. The governor of Virginia had heard something concerning the captive Jesuits and was preparing severe punishment for them; this news had come to our Jesuits and the rest of the prisoners on board the ships, and deprived some of their nightly rest. This report was not idle rumor, for when the ship bearing our Jesuits had reached Virginia, they were exposed to his fury. Argall, however, who had given his word to our Jesuits, opposed the Governor in his attempt to punish them, and declared that as long as he lived, no danger should befall his prisoners. But, when the Governor obstinately persisted in his purpose, Argall produced the Royal charter, upon which our colony had been introduced into New France, and by its authority the Governor was restrained, and dared proceed no further.

In a meeting of the council, the whole affair was more carefully discussed, and all agreed upon the decision that Argall, with three ships, should take the Jesuits back to New France; that he should from there send them and certain other prisoners to France; that he should chastise La Saussaye and his military force, who were said, although falsely, to be in possession of the fort at Port-Royal, Nova Scotia; and that he should plunder and level to the ground all the houses of the French. He therefore returned to that coast of New France, occupied by the French, where he plundered and burned the forts of St. Croix and Port-Royal, Nova Scotia, which were bare of defenders, destroyed all evidences of the French occupation, and erected English monuments in various places, declaring the whole coast to be under the sway of the British King.

While Father Biard was present during these proceedings, his life was twice endangered, because he had dissuaded Argall, with many words, from entering Port-Royal, Nova Scotia, on the ground that there would be no profit in the undertaking, from which they afterward obtained an uncommon booty; because he was unwilling to become a guide to those places where plunder was sought; also because slanders had been uttered against him by some Frenchmen in that region; for all these reasons, he offended Argall and Turnell deeply, to his own great peril.

Argall left Port-Royal, Nova Scotia and started for Virginia in the early part of November, 1613, but, on the day after he set sail, an exceedingly violent storm arose, by which the ships were driven apart in diverse directions. Captain Argall's vessel was finally borne to Virginia; the smaller of the two captured ships, with its crew, was never seen again; the larger of these, which Turnell commanded, and on board of which we were, after being dreadfully beaten for sixteen days by continuous tempests, had reached almost desperate straits because of the exhaustion of its provisions, when the storm finally ceased, and we resumed our voyage towards Virginia with a favoring wind. We were distant not more than 62 miles from the coast of Virginia, where the Governor was planning our destruction, and for this reason the voyage was hateful to us; when a contrary wind which suddenly arose turned our bow towards the Azores islands of Portugal, situated at a distance of almost 1750 miles due East from that point.

Since the force of this wind did not abate, Turnell foresaw that his life would be endangered should he come into the power of the Portuguese, because he was conveying as prisoners, Priests, who had been torn from their settlement and robbed; and he was still more troubled because, persuaded by the false charges of the French at Port-Royal, Nova Scotia, he believed Father Biard to be a Spaniard, so that he dreaded, with good reason, a denunciation of his offense before the Portuguese, if our Fathers should resolve to accuse him. Therefore he acknowledged that the power of God was deservedly hostile to him upon that voyage; and overcome by this calamity, although he had been extremely unfriendly to Father Biard up to that time, he began to soften and become more amiable toward him. Besides, even if the force of the wind were not driving them to the Azores, scarcity of provisions and fresh water compelled them to go there; so, it was necessary for Turnell to take precautions in case the presence of our Fathers should cause him damage; but no danger was to be feared from them, if the ship should remain at a distance at anchor, and the necessary provisions should be secured by sending a small boat into the harbor, as the Captain hoped to do. Matters turned out contrary to his expectations; for when we approached Faeal, one of the Azores islands, we were compelled to enter the inmost harbor, and take a position among the other ships under the eyes of the inhabitants.

Having entered there a little too swiftly, when our vessel collided with a Spanish treasure-ship and carried away its forward jib, the Spanish Captain shouted out that we were pirates, and aroused his crew to arms. A few weeks before, a Frenchman had plundered a ship in the same harbor by a sudden attack; so the Spaniards, fearing a similar fate, had been even more alarmed on this occasion, and thought an investigation still more necessary in the case of an Englishman. Turnell was therefore obliged to disembark upon the land, where the Spanish held him as a hostage while the interior of the ship was being thoroughly searched; the Fathers, meanwhile, carefully hid behind a boat, so the Englishman might suffer no harm on their account, if they should be discovered. Concealment was difficult, as the affair arose suddenly, and there were so many careful searchers, who rummaged the entire interior of the ship; but our Jesuits escaped their sharp eyes, to their own delight, because they had therefore preserved the Englishman; but with greater pleasure to the Englishman because he recognized that he had been saved, contrary to his expectations and his deserts, by those whom he had most wickedly deprived of their liberty.

This service and remarkable good-faith, the English recognized with marked signs of gratitude, and often afterward spoke of the Fathers with great praise, especially before their Ministers. Three entire weeks the English ship remained in that harbor, and the same length of time the Fathers were hidden away and deprived of the sunlight; then, abandoning the voyage to Virginia, Turnell proceeded to Britain. But, when a storm had diverted us from the direct pursuit of our voyage, it carried us violently Westward to the coast of Wales; and when here provisions failed the ship, Turnell entered the town of Pembroke for the sake of obtaining supplies. The officials of this town suspected him of piracy upon the high seas, because, although an Englishman, he was sailing in a French vessel, and produced no written testimonials of the authority under which he was making his voyage; and when he made oath that he had been separated by a storm from his Captain, Argall, he was not believed.

When every sort of evidence had failed him, he cited, as witnesses for his statements, the two Jesuits whom he had on-board the ship, whose incorruptible integrity, he said, no mortal could deservedly call in question. Therefore, when the Fathers had been respectfully interrogated, and had given their testimony in public before the magistrate, Turnell was placed in honor, and was believed to have done everything honestly, as befitted a gentleman; our Jesuits were treated with distinction and were entertained as guests by the Mayor of the City, the Magistrate of that common people.

When Nicolas Adams, who then represented the Minister of the marine at Pembroke, and in the presence of whom our Jesuits had given their testimony, heard that they had extremely bad food upon the ship, he directed that they should be entertained at the home of the Magistrate whom we have mentioned, and that upon his own responsibility everything should be abundantly supplied to them; and if they should lack the means to repay him, he said that for the sake of God he would willingly do them the favor of meeting the expense, because he thought it unbecoming that no kindness should be shown among the citizens of Pembroke to men distinguished in every way for merit and learning.

A message had been sent to the King of Britain concerning our Jesuits; and while an answer to that was being awaited, many came, for the purpose of seeing and conversing with the fathers, from the ranks of the nobles, of the officials, and even of the ministers, four of whom one of the councilors put into debate with our Jesuits, with the desire of testing their doctrine. Besides, when their case had been reported at Court, the ambassador of the King of France had already heard that a ship with French Jesuits had been captured, and urged the release of all and especially of our Jesuits, because he had from his King strict commands to this effect. There was therefore no delay in the conveyance of our Jesuits from Pembroke to Dover, from where, after a short passage, they safely arrived, after almost ten months of captivity, at Itius Portus, a town on the French coast. Here they were received most honorably, with special kindness from Sir d'Arquien, Commander of the Royal garrison, and Dean Boulaye; a suitable Eucharist was also given to them, which was abundant for their needs during the trip to their College at Amiens.

LETTER OF FATHER PIERRE BIARD, TO THE REVEREND FATHER CLAUDE AQUAVIVA, GENERAL OF THE JESUITS, AT ROME. MAY 26, 1614.

Reverend Father,

I confine myself to this one matter: in what manner, after our violent capture by the English in New France, we were taken from place to place, and at last restored to our native land.

There were only four of our Jesuits in New France in the last year, 1613. Then we first began to build, in a convenient place, a new settlement, a new colony, etc. But most unexpectedly, some English from Virginia were driven upon our shores, who attacked our ship with the utmost fury, at a time when nearly all its defenders were occupied on land. Resistance was still made for a time, but we were soon compelled to surrender. In the struggle, two of the French were killed, four were wounded; and, in addition, our brother Gilbert Duthet received a mortal wound. He made a most Christian end, the following day, under my ministration.

Our ship having been captured and everything pillaged, it was a great concession to us priests and Jesuits that we were not killed. The Indians came to us stealthily and by night; and with great generosity and devotion, commiserated our misfortune, and promised us whatever they could. The condition of things was such that either death itself, or a more calamitous misfortune, everywhere threatened us. There were in all thirty of us, in these distressing circumstances. One consideration rendered the English less severe, namely, that one of our boats had escaped, in spite of their watchfulness; and as they had no doubt that it would bear witness to the violence done us, they had to spare our lives, for they feared reprisals and dreaded our king.

Therefore they finally offered to leave for our thirty survivors a single boat, in which we might coast along the seashore, on the chance of finding some French vessel to take us back to our own country. It was shown that this boat could not hold over fifteen men; but nothing further could be obtained, even from among our own boats. Father Enemond Masse embarked with fourteen companions in the boat, and the Lord favored him. I went to the english captain and obtained a promise from him that I and Father Jacques Quentin, my companion, and also John Dixon -- who had been admitted into the Jesuits -- and one servant, should be transported to the neighboring islands where the English usually fish, and that we should there be recommended to these English fishermen; so that, having been carried by them to England, we might easily return from there into France. I obtained a promise to this effect, but there was no good faith in this promise, for they carried us off, together with the Frenchmen who remained, fifteen in all, straight to their own country, Virginia, at least 625 miles away. In Virginia, a new peril arose; for the governor there wished to hang us all, and especially the Jesuits. But the captain who had taken us resisted, alleging his promise to us. Finally this promise, or their fear of our king, prevailed.

After this episode, the captain who had taken us was commissioned to return to that part of New France where he had plundered us, and to plunder any French ships he might find, and burn all the houses and settlements. There remained two French settlements there, that of Saint Croix and that of Port-Royal, Nova Scotia, where I had remained for two years. Three ships were equipped for this expedition, two which they had taken from us, and a third and larger one, the man-of-war, as they call it, which had taken us. So eight of us Frenchmen were taken in this vessel, in view of any opportunity that might arise of sending us back to our own country. These vessels returned first to the place where we had been captured, and all the crosses that we had set up they overthrew. On the same spot, before our departure, they hanged one of their number whom they had apprehended in some plot.

Here a new peril arose. The English wished to go to the settlement of Saint Croix, although it had at this time no inhabitants. Some salt, however, had been left there. No one except myself knew the way; and the English knew that I had been there formerly; they demand that I lead them. I do all I can to evade and refuse this proposal, but it avails me nothing. They see clearly that I am unwilling to obey. At this, the captain grows angry and my peril becomes imminent, when suddenly they find the place, without my help, and plunder and burn it. They captured an Indian, who guided them to Port-Royal, Nova Scotia.

Although this had delivered me from one great danger, it still involved me in another, greater one. For after they had plundered and burnt Port-Royal, Nova Scotia (which by some inexplicable chance they had found abandoned by its inhabitants), some Frenchman, one of those men who had deserted Port-Royal, brought an accusation against me, which was nothing less than this: that I was a native Spaniard; and that, on account of certain crimes committed in France, I dared not return there. Then the captain, already incensed against me, asked his followers whether they did not think it would be just to cast me forth on the shore and abandon me there.

The opinion of the majority prevailed, who thought it better to take me back to Virginia, and there to return me to that unlucky tree which I had escaped. Thus I escaped death for the moment: and so we soon after started on our return voyage to Virginia. But, two days later, so fearful a tempest arose that the ships were separated, and none of us knew what became of the others. The captain of our ship, after he had endured the storm for three weeks, and had begun to run short of various necessaries, particularly of fresh water, concluding that there was no hope of getting back to Virginia for a long time, decided to run to the Portuguese islands called Azores.

Through this decision, I again found myself in a greater peril; greater I may call it, since I had here companions in my danger. The sixteen Englishmen, on approaching these islands, began to reflect that they were lost if we priests and Jesuits appeared; for we would be set free on the instant by these Portuguese Catholics, and they would be punished as pirates and persecutors of priests. This anxiety troubled them. But what were they to do? Should they throw us overboard, or would it suffice to conceal us? In this uncertainty, the captain sent for me, and laid the matter before me. I said to him that death itself was not a greater evil, in my estimation, than to be the occasion of misfortune to others. I promised, if he chose to conceal us, that I would lend myself to this scheme in good faith. What made him believe me? I do not know, truly; but this I do know -- that if he had foreseen the dangers into which he subsequently fell, he would not have trusted me.

He hid us in the hold of the vessel; during three weeks we did not see the sun; but the captain encountered so many difficulties in the port of the island Faal, and the vessel was visited so frequently during this space of three weeks that it seems marvelous that we escaped detection. But this also helped the Jesuits; for the English saw that if we had wished to show ourselves, and to expose them, it would frequently have been in our power to do so. They afterward, when in England, often praised our good faith. Escaping from these perils, our captors decided to return to England rather than to Virginia, which was so much farther distant, and which was to be reached only by a long voyage, for which they lacked all the necessaries.

We set sail for England. Our voyage was a long one, and was marked by many reversals; finally, losing our bearings in the fog and the cloudy weather, we deviated from the right course and were carried to Wales, not far from Ireland. In Wales, our captain, having landed near the town of Pembroke to gather provisions, was seized and detained as a pirate, because of certain appearances pointing that way. He, however, to recover his liberty, denied being a pirate; and as a proof of his innocence, he cited the fact that he had in his vessel two Jesuits from whose own lips they could learn the truth, if they summoned them.

Winter was then fully upon us, and in the ship we were lacking everything. And so, had we not been provided for, we should have died of cold and hardships. The Jesuits are at once summoned, and are led into the town. We are ordered to give our evidence. We attest what was perfectly true, that our captain was a royal officer and not a pirate, and that what he had done to us had been done in obedience to orders, rather than from his own free will. Accordingly, our captain was set free; and together with him, we were detained in the town while awaiting orders from London. These were long delayed; and in the interval, we frequently engaged in arguments with the ministers, and more frequently with others, for nearly everyone was permitted to have access to us, although we were not allowed to go out. In every other respect, we were kindly treated.

Finally, we received orders to sail from Pembroke to London. But the voyage proved a long one. Protracted delays intervened; to avoid a long enumeration of these, let me just say that, by order of the english king, we were landed at Dover, and from there sent to Calais in France. At Calais, we were hospitably received by the Governor and the dean of the city, and rested three days; from there we came to Amiens, where we now are.

We remained in captivity during nine months and a half. We were in the ship all the time, except when we landed at Pembroke. There were three months during which we daily received only about two ounces of bread, and a small quantity of salt fish, with water that was nearly always fetid; so that we marvel at not having fallen sick. Few of the English escaped illness, and some of them even died.

Pierre Biard.

Amiens, May 26, 1614.

YEAR 1616
NEW FRANCE, OF ITS LANDS, NATURE OF THE COUNTRY, AND OF ITS INHABITANTS, OF THE VOYAGE OF THE JESUIT FATHERS TO SAID COUNTRY, AND THEIR WORK THERE UP TO THE TIME OF THEIR CAPTURE BY THE ENGLISH. BY FATHER PIERRE BIARD, OF GRENOBLE, OF THE JESUITS. LYONS, LOVYS MVGVET, RUE MERCIERE. 1616. TO THE KING.

Sire,

I present to your Majesty these letters about your New France, the description of the country, and the account of the manners and strange and barbarous ways of the Indians. Your express command, with that of the Queen, your mother, carried me and some of my Companions there more favorably than wind and tide; your Royal generosity supported me there for some years; and your mighty authority delivered me from the hands of certain English Pirates.

They compelled us to leave the Place, and held us prisoners several months in their ship, and a hundred times prepared the rope and the gallows for our execution, respect for Your Majesty alone having prevented them from carrying out their wicked plans, particularly upon my person. Delivered now from this danger, and still wet from the shipwreck in the port of your France, I lay at your feet this little book in humble gratitude that, if I am living and writing, it is due to your help and favor, Sire.

Pierre Biard.

THE LOCATION OF NEW FRANCE, AND THOSE WHO FIRST ATTEMPTED TO SETTLE THERE.

WE call New France the lands and countries of America or the West Indies, which are upon the other shore of the Atlantic Ocean, towards the setting Sun, opposite us and lying directly in the same line from East to West.

They have given it this name of New France principally for two reasons. The first, because these lands are parallel to our France, nothing lying between France and New France, except our Western sea, in its narrowest part more than 2000 miles wide; in its widest, a little less than 2500 miles.

The second reason is that this country was first discovered by Breton French, in 1504, one hundred and eleven years ago, and since then they have not ceased to visit it. The Norman French also assisted in these early discoveries; among whom we read that Captain Thomas Aubert of Dieppe sailed in 1508, and brought back from there some of the Natives, whom he exhibited to the wonder and applause of France. Two years before him, Captain Jean Denys of Honfleur, had made the same discovery; but, as he brought back only some fish, and Geographical charts, he has not become so renowned as Thomas Aubert. After the year 1523, John Verrazzano skirted all the coast from Florida to Cape Breton, and took possession of it in the name of his master, Francis I. I believe it was John Verrazzano who was father to this title of "New France;" for Canada (a name by which they also frequently call it) is not, properly speaking, all this extent of country which they now call New France; but it is only that part, which extends along the banks of the great Saint Lawrence River, and the Gulf of Saint Lawrence; this being only the most Northern part of New France.

Acadia, or the Micmacs country farther South, is next to Canada, and still farther down, on the other side of the Bay of Fundy, is Penobscot. Of these two words, Penobscot and Acadia, there no longer remains any remembrance in the country, yet there is of Canada, which was discovered principally by Jacques Cartier in 1524, and then in a second voyage ten years afterward in 1534.

Ever since the first of these discoveries, the French have been talking about cultivating and inhabiting these wildernesses. (Wildernesses they certainly are, the whole country being but an interminable forest.) Certain individuals, such as Roberval and Sir de la Roche, and others, have even attempted it. But the most widely known and latest voyage undertaken for this purpose was that of Sir de Monts, Pierre du Gas, who has been highly commended for it. Having considerable money at his disposal, and having associated with him for this object certain Merchants of Rouen, of saint Malo and of la Rochelle, he received from the late Henry the Great, of happy memory, full power and authority, as Lieutenant of the King in these said countries, from the fortieth to the forty-sixth parallel of latitude, for there ended the power given him to dispose of lands. However, his rights of trade and government extended to the 54th parallel, as can be learned from the Royal letters that were sent to him. And so, by Sir de Monts's Commission, they narrowed down the boundaries of New France: for until now it had extended as far South as Florida, while now it is generally bounded on the South by the thirty-ninth parallel of latitude. Its Eastern boundary is our sea; its Western will be the China sea, if we have force and courage enough; as to other boundaries, it has none which are definite, the country being unlimited, and ten or twelve times more extensive than our entire France.

Sir de Monts, having the authority and power mentioned, and being well equipped and accompanied, left France in 1604, just a hundred years after the discovery of this country, and went to live upon the Coast of Penobscot among the Maliseet people, upon a small Island, called Saint Croix. But misfortune overtook him there, for he lost a great many of his people by sickness.

Leaving there the following year, forced by necessity, he changed his dwelling place to Port-Royal, Nova Scotia, towards the East Southeast, some 65 miles away, in Acadia or the Micmacs country. Here he remained only two years, for the associated merchants, seeing that their outlay exceeded their receipts, no longer cared to continue the experiment. So they all had to return to France, leaving nothing as a monument of their adventure except two dwellings entirely empty, that of Saint Croix, and that of Port-Royal, Nova Scotia; and bringing no greater spoils back with them than the description of the Seas, Capes, Coasts, and Rivers, which they had traversed. These are all the chief results of our efforts up to the years 1610 and 1611.

THE WEATHER, SEASONS, AND TEMPERATURE OF NEW FRANCE.

THIS country being parallel to our France, in the same climate and latitude, by a principle of Astrology it ought to have the same physical forces, deviations and temperatures; for it does not vary in those particulars any more than, for example, Grenoble, Vienne, and Bourdeaux, Paris and Cornoaille, Marseilles and Bayonne, vary among us; that is, only as one place is farther to the East than the other; also, its days are of the same length, its astral conditions the same, it has the same seasons and temperature. New France extends three degrees farther south than ours does, which stops at Fontarabie, at the 42nd parallel; while New France extends at least to the 39th, and farther, if it pleases his Majesty not to give up anything that his predecessor, Francis I, had acquired. Still, whatever the Astrologers may say, that country is colder than our France, and they differ from each other in regard to weather and seasons.

The causes of that cold not being in the sky, we must seek them upon the earth. I shall show accurately some experiments I made continuously for two years and a half, I might say three years and a half, only I consumed nearly a year at various times in voyages away from the mainland. The place where I remained the longest was Port-Royal, Nova Scotia, almost on the 45th parallel of north latitude. At that place the snow came towards the end of November, and it never entirely thawed in the woods until about the last of February, unless, as often happened, a heavy rain, or strong South wind came to melt it. But no sooner did this snow melt than more fell. Outside the woods, and in the open places, it did not last any longer than it does in France, but it snows oftener there than it usually does in France. The deepest snow I have seen in that country was not quite a foot and a half. When the Northwest wind (which we call here Galerne) lashes itself into a fury, the cold there is insufferable, but it lasts only eight or ten days at the most, then the weather becomes milder for a while, as it is in France, and people would no longer be prevented from going on with their work, or even from going back and forth, as in France, if they had the same accommodations we have here.

But whatever I saw here was extreme poverty, some wretched cabins, open in many places; our food, peas and beans, scarce in quantity; our drink, pure water; the clothes of our people all in rags; our supplies found in the woods from day to day; our medicine, a glass of wine on great holidays; our restoratives, perhaps a trifle from hunting a little feathered game; the place uninhabited, no footprints upon the paths, our shoes only fit for the fireside. After this, say there is no winter in Canada. But at least the water there is excellent, and the air healthful, for despite all these discomforts, we always kept our health, being never less than twenty in number, and that in three years only two of us died of disease, one a man from St. Malo and the other a Breton French; yet the Breton French died more for lack of a little bread and wine to restore him (there being a lack of all those things) than from the malignancy of the disease.

Remember how Jacques Cartier lost almost all his people, the first winter he passed in this country; and also how Sir de Monts lost about half of his, the first winter at St. Croix, and the following winter, which was the first at Port-Royal, Nova Scotia, Sir de Monts also experienced great loss, but not as much, and the third year still less. Likewise, at Quebec, afterward, several died the first year, and not so many the second. This collection of incidents will serve to show us the causes of sickness and of health, which we have experienced so differently.

The common disease was Scurvy, which is called land disease. The limbs, thighs, and face swell; the lips decay, and great sores come out upon them; the breath is short, and is burdened with an irritating cough; the arms are discolored, and the skin covered with blotches; the whole body sinks under exhaustion and languor, and nothing can be swallowed except a little liquid.

Sir de Champlain attributes the cause of these diseases to the dampness inhaled by those who plow this ground, which has never been exposed to the sun. His statements are plausible; but they may be confronted by the fact that sailors, who only go to the coast to fish, and do not clear the land at all, often fall ill of this malady, and especially the Breton French, for it seems to pick them out from all the others. Also, that we, who were well, worked a great deal in the soil and out in the open air, yet we scarcely knew what this evil was, except me, to a slight degree, during the second winter, when I became much bloated from fever and extreme weakness; but my gums and lips were not affected, and my illness passed off in ten or twelve days. I believe it was a great benefit to us that our dwelling was not new, and that, the space around the settlement having been cleared for a long time, we had a free and pure circulation of air. And I believe that this is principally what Champlain meant.

I have heard of others who argued differently, and with Logic. They believed that living inactive during a long and gloomy winter, like that of Canada, had been the cause of this disease among the new inhabitants. Of all Sir de Monts's people who wintered first at Saint Croix, only eleven remained well. These were a jolly company of hunters, who preferred rabbit hunting, to the air of the fireside; skating on the ponds, to turning over lazily in bed; making snowballs to bring down the game, to sitting around the fire talking about Paris and its good cooks. Also, as to us who were always well at Port-Royal, Nova Scotia, our poverty relieved us of two great evils, that of excessive eating and drinking, and of laziness. For we always had good exercise of some kind, and our stomachs were not overloaded. I believe that this medicine was of great benefit to us.

Let us return to the weather and seasons. I noticed once that two February days, the 26th and 27th, were as beautiful, mild, and spring-like as are those in France about that time; still, the third day after, it snowed a little and the cold returned. Sometimes in summer, the heat is as intolerable as in France; but it does not last long, and soon the sky begins to be overcast.

The foliage appears upon the trees later than it usually does in France, yet it has not done so this year, 1614, for when I arrived in Picardie towards the end of April, I did not find the season any more advanced there. It seemed to me that in Canada everything sprouted sooner. The weather and season over there are just like what we have experienced here this year in Paris and Picardie, except for the drizzling rains and fogs, which are more common in that country. At Port-Royal, Nova Scotia we had scarcely any during the Summer, except near the coast. But among the Maliseets and at Penobscot, these fogs often continue for three and four days, a discouraging thing, and we were afraid they would keep our crops from ripening; still, we have too many examples to the contrary. For at Port-Royal, Nova Scotia, which is colder, and more changeable, they ripened, and I had a three year experience there. Also, Champlain asserts that at St. Croix, which is upon this same coast (in a chilly and cloudy location) their wheat and other crops always ripened.

But what can be the cause of this frost and cold, so much greater than we usually have in France? It is good to consider it, since even Penobscot, where our settlement of St. Sauveur (Frenchman Bay, Maine?) was located, is as far South, as our most Southern Provinces, Guienne, Languedoc, and Dauphine. But we cannot assign the cause to the mountains, for we have not seen any high ones there, such as our Sevenes, Mesain, Chartreuse, and a large part of Auvergne, Velay, Dauphine and Provence; and it is out of the question that so slight an elevation as is to be seen in Penobscot, could cause so great a variation in such a vast extent of country; also the great cold of that country does not come from the coast, where the greatest elevations are to be found, which is the Northeast, but from the Northwest, which is entirely flat. Drake, traversing the sea West of this country, in the region of New Albion, below the strait of Anian, at 40 degrees, 42 degrees, and 44 degrees North latitude, encountered such severe cold that he was forced to turn back.

Likewise, in the Norridgewock Abenaki country, which is in the same latitude in the interior of the continent, the Spaniards found high mountains, and such severe cold that they could not remain there; those countries, from which comes the most severe cold, are West of us, and this might be the cause of these frosts and fogs, through a continuous current of air. But why, both in new Albion and in the Norridgewock Abenaki country, does it become so cold? We cannot know the cause of that, they say, and must believe that there are certain influences, which we do not discover. They must give the cold rather strong wings to make it come to us from 1000 or 1250 miles. For I believe there are as many and more than that, up to new Albion; however, we often notice that a single mile and even less makes a noticeable difference in the heat and cold, light and darkness, dryness and humidity, and all such other variations, so much so that it is remarkable.

As to us, we found only two causes for the difference between the two countries, as to weather and seasons; one is that Canada has more Water, and the other that it is uncultivated. For, in the first place, you will see that this region is indented with gulfs and bays, and that its lands, hollowed out by the waters, are much more intersected by rivers, and occupied by a number of ponds and lakes, which would be a great ornament and convenience to the country if it were inhabited, but all this also causes the cold and fogs, as well upon the borders of the sea and rivers. We have never lived anywhere else, for we have not penetrated into the country except through the sea and rivers. Acadia, otherwise called the Micmac, where Port-Royal, Nova Scotia is, is almost a peninsula; also it is more chilly and more variable than Penobscot, which is better and in every way more habitable and fertile.

The second cause of the cold is similar, namely, the wild and primitive condition of the land; for this is only a boundless forest, and so the soil cannot be readily warmed by the sun, either because it has a hard crust, never having been plowed, or on account of the trees, which cast upon it a perpetual shade, or because the snow and water stagnate there for a long time with no possibility of being consumed. And so, from these lands nothing can arise except cold, gloomy, and moldy vapors; and these are the fogs when the wind ceases, and our piercing cold when they are put in motion and blown into a fury. But, if the land were inhabited and cultivated, from it and from the dwellings of the inhabitants would arise warm and dry fumes; also, the sun would find it prepared to feel its rays, and to scatter the cold and fogs; this was evident to us from actual observation. For upon the small part which we plowed, the snow always melted sooner than upon the other parts, and from there, the fogs usually began to scatter, and little by little to disappear.

THE SOIL, TRIBE; AND VEGETATION.

THE soil, principally in Penobscot, is as good as that of France; you know this by its black color, by the high trees, strong and straight, which it nourishes, by the plants and grasses, often as high as a man, and similar things.

At St. Sauveur (Frenchman Bay, Maine?), in the middle of June, we planted some grain, fruit seeds, peas, beans, and all kinds of garden plants. Three months afterward, in the middle of September, we returned to see the results of our husbandry; the wheat had not come up (it was not sown in season) the barley was tufted, but not ripe, the peas and beans perfectly good, but still green, the beans were only in blossom; all the rest had come up admirably, even the onions and scallions; the fruit seeds had shot up, some a whole foot, the lowest ones a half a foot high.

The whole country is simply an interminable forest; for there are no open places except upon the margins of the sea, lakes, and rivers, and where meadows have been made by the overflows of the sea and rivers; there are many such places which are beautiful, immense fields of grass and pasture, like those near Chinictou Bay, and the river of Port-Royal, Nova Scotia, and others.

But here we must avoid an illusion by which many have been inadvertently imposed upon. For hearing those who come from foreign countries tell about their wealth and fertility, often with exaggeration (for they think they will get a better hearing), they suppose that the things boasted about in these countries are found everywhere in abundance. As, for example, if someone were speaking of France, he might say that he had seen groves and forests of nothing but chestnut, orange, olive, pear, and apple trees, so loaded that they were breaking down.

But the stranger hearing this would be deceived by it; for he would suppose that in all parts of France, he would find this condition of things; but the chestnuts are in Perigord, 250 miles away from the oranges, which are in Provence; and the apples are in Caux in Normandy, 250 miles from the chestnuts and 500 miles from the olives. When the country is well populated and settled, as France is, this favorable representation may show great good fortune, for, by means of transportation and trade, all these riches can be interchanged; but in an uncultivated and uncivilized country like Canada, it makes no more difference than if they only had one thing in a place. I say this because prudence is of great importance to those who go to clear new lands, as we Frenchmen are so willing to go there with our eyes shut and our heads down; believing, for example, that in Canada, when we are hungry, all we will have to do is go to an Island, and there by the skillful use of a club, right and left, we can bring down birds each as big as a duck, with every blow. This is well said, as our people have done this more than once and in more than one place. It is all well if you are never hungry except when these birds are on the Islands, and if you happen to be near them. But if you are 125 or 150 miles away, what are you going to do?

There is no difficulty in finding a place that is good for one thing -- a good and beautiful harbor; fine meadows and a fertile soil; a picturesque hill, a pleasant river, or brook, etc. But to choose a place where all desirable qualities are united is not the good fortune of an ordinary man, but the plan of a wise investigator: for the uses, success, and perfection of a place is not that it be complete, but that there be no lack of what is essential and important. That is why I say that the country over there will be worth as much as this one, after it is well cultivated; but we should prefer, that there, everything be in a small space, which we do not find here in our extensive Kingdom, after so long a period of cultivation.

In several places, we found the grape, and wild vines which ripened in their season. It was not the best ground where we found them, being full of sand and gravel, like that of Bourdeaux. There are a great many of these vines at St. John river, in 46 degrees of latitude, where are to be seen also many walnut and hazel trees, and yet the under layer of soil is not good there. No other kinds of fruit trees are found in all this country; but there is every species of wild shrub and forest trees, such as the oak, beech, elm, poplar, etc., and some cedars, at least what the French call cedars.

If the country were inhabited there might be some profit made from its mines; for there is a silver one at the Bay Ste. Marie, according to Sir Champlain; and two of beautiful and pure copper, one at the entrance to Port-Royal, Nova Scotia, and the other at the Bay of the mines; one of iron at the river St. John, and others elsewhere. Sandstone, slate, mica, coal, and all kinds of stone are not lacking.

All this New France is divided into different tribes, each one having its own separate language and country. They assemble in the Summer to trade with us, principally at the great river. To this place come also several other tribes from far off. They barter their skins of beaver, otter, deer, marten, seal, etc., for bread, peas, beans, prunes, tobacco, etc.; kettles, hatchets, iron arrow-points, awls, barrels, cloaks, blankets, and all other such commodities as the French bring them. Certain tribes are now our implacable enemies, such as the Eskimos, who inhabit the Northern coast of the great Gulf of Saint Lawrence and do us a great deal of harm. This warfare was begun (as they say) when certain Spanish Basques tried to commit a wicked outrage. However, they paid well for their cursed immorality, but not only they, for on their account both the St. Malo people and many others suffered, and still suffer a great deal every year. For these Indians are passionate, and give themselves up to death with desperation, if they are in hopes of killing, or doing anyone an injury.

There are only three tribes which are on good terms of friendship with us, the Innu, the Micmacs, and the Maliseets. I can witness to the friendship of the Maliseets and Micmacs, for I have lived among them, and for the Innu I have heard others speak. As to other tribes, no confidence can be placed in them. The French have nothing to do with them except to explore their coasts, and even then they are badly treated, although Champlain does not complain of these Indians at all, in his latest explorations up the great river.

This friendship of these tribes was especially noticeable after our rout by the English. For, as soon as they heard about it, they came to us at night, and consoled us as best they could, offering us their canoes and their help to take us anywhere we wished to go. They also made the proposition, that if we wanted to live with them, there were three Captains -- Betsabes, Aguigueou and Asticou, each one of whom would take ten of our band (since there were thirty of us left), and would take care of us until the following year, when the French ships would arrive upon the coast; and that in this way we should be able to go back to our own country without falling into the hands of the wicked Ingres, as they call the English. These were not false pretenses to entrap us, for you will hear farther on of the good treatment received from them by Father Enemond and his band; and at Port-Royal, Nova Scotia during three winters, when we had great need of them, how faithful and reliable we found them, although, if they had intended to do us any harm, excellent opportunities for doing so existed.

THE CHARACTER, DRESS, DWELLINGS, AND FOOD OF THE INDIANS.

THE nature of our Indians is in itself generous and not malicious. They have rather a happy disposition, and a fair capacity for judging and valuing material and common things, deducing their reasons with great nicety, and always seasoning them with some pretty comparison. They have a good memory for material things, such as having seen you before, of the peculiarities of a place where they may have been, of what took place twenty or thirty years before, etc.; but to learn anything by heart -- there's the trouble; there is no way of getting a consecutive arrangement of words into their heads.

They have no beards, the men no more than the women, except some of the more robust and virile. They have often told me that at first we seemed to them ugly with hair both upon our mouths and heads; but gradually they have become accustomed to it, and now we are beginning to look less deformed. You could not distinguish the young men from the girls, except in their way of wearing their belts. For the women are girdled both above and below the stomach, and are less nude than the men; also they are usually more ornamented with decorations, that is, with chains, ornaments, and such finery after their fashion; such is the nature of the sex everywhere, fond of adornment. Generally speaking, they are of lighter build than we are; but handsome and well-shaped, just as we would be if we continued in the same condition in which we were at the age of twenty-five. You do not encounter a big-bellied, hunchbacked, or deformed person among them: those who are leprous, gouty, affected with gravel, or insane, are unknown to them.

Any of our people who have some defect, such as the one-eyed, squint-eyed, and flat-nosed, are immediately noticed by them and derided, especially behind our backs and when they are by themselves. For they are droll fellows, and have a nickname readily at command, if they think they have any occasion to look down upon us. And this habit of self-aggrandizement is a contagion from which no one is exempt. You will see these poor Indians, despite their great lack of government, power, letters, art and riches, yet holding their heads so high that they underrate us, regarding themselves as our superiors.

Their clothes are trimmed with leather lace, which the women dress and treat on the side which is not hairy. They often treat both sides of elk skin, like our buff skin, then decorate it prettily with paint put on in a lace-like pattern, and make gowns of it; from the same leather they make their shoes and strings. The men do not wear trousers, because (they say) they hinder them too much, and place them in chains; they wear only a piece of cloth over their middle; in Summer they often wear our capes, and in Winter our bed-blankets, which they improve with trimming and wear double. They are also willing to make use of our hats, shoes, caps, woolens and shirts, and of our linen to clean their infants, for we trade them all these commodities for their furs.

Arrived at a certain place, the first thing they do is to build a fire and arrange their camp, which they have finished in an hour or two; often in half an hour. The women go to the woods and bring back some poles which are stuck into the ground in a circle around the fire, and at the top are interlaced, in the form of a pyramid, so that they come together directly over the fire, for there is the chimney. Upon the poles they throw some skins, matting or bark. At the foot of the poles, under the skins, they put their baggage. All the space around the fire is strewn with leaves of the fir tree, so they will not feel the dampness of the ground; over these leaves are often thrown some mats, or seal-skins as soft as velvet; upon this they stretch themselves around the fire with their heads resting upon their baggage; and what no one would believe, they are warm in there around that little fire, even in the greatest rigors of the Winter. They do not camp except near some good water, and in an attractive location. In Summer the shape of their houses is changed; for then they are broad and long, that they may have more air; then they nearly always cover them with bark, or mats made of tender reeds, finer and more delicate than ours made of straw, and so skillfully woven, that when they are hung up the water runs along their surface without penetrating them.

Their food is whatever they can get from hunting and from fishing; for they do not till the soil at all; but God has not left these poor creatures without proper provision, which is to them like fixed rations assigned to every moon; for they count by Moons, and put thirteen of them in a year. For example, in January they have the seal hunting: for this animal, although it is aquatic, still spawns upon certain Islands about this time. Its flesh is as good as veal; and also they make of its fat an oil, which serves them as sauce throughout the year; they fill several moose-bladders with it, which are two or three times as large and strong as our pig bladders; and in these you see their reserve casks. Likewise, in February and until the middle of March is the great hunt for Beavers, otters, moose, bears (which are good), and for the caribou, an animal half ass and half deer.

If the weather then is favorable, they live in great abundance, and are as arrogant as Princes and Kings; but if it is against them, they are to be pitied, and often die of starvation. The weather is against them if it rains a great deal, and does not freeze; for then they can hunt neither deer nor beavers. Also, when it snows a great deal, and does not freeze over, for then they cannot put their dogs upon hunting, because they sink down; the Indians themselves do not do this, for they wear snowshoes on their feet which help them to stay on top: yet they cannot run as fast as would be necessary, the snow being too soft.

In the middle of March, fish begin to spawn, and to come up from the sea into certain streams, often so abundantly that everything swarms with them. Anyone who has not seen it could scarcely believe it. You cannot put your hand into the water, without encountering them. Among these fish the smelt is the first; this smelt is two and three times as large as that in our rivers; after the smelt comes the herring at the end of April; and also Canadian geese, which are large ducks, double the size of ours, come from the South and eagerly make their nests upon the Islands. Two Canadian goose eggs are fully equal to five hen's eggs. Also come the sturgeon, and salmon, and the great search through the Islets for eggs, as the waterfowl, which are there in great numbers, lay their eggs then, and often cover the Islets with their nests.

From May up to the middle of September, the Indians are free from all anxiety about their food; for the cod are upon the coast, and all kinds of fish and shellfish; and the French ships with which they trade, and they understand how to make themselves courted. They set themselves up for brothers of the King, and it is not expected that they will withdraw from the whole farce. Gifts must be presented and speeches made to them, before they condescend to trade; this done, they must have the Tabagie, i.e. the banquet. Then they will dance, make speeches and sing "Adesquidex, Adesquidex", that is, that they are good friends, allies, associates, confederates, and comrades of the King and of the French.

Water game abounds there, but not forest game, except, at certain times, birds of passage, like bustards and gray and white geese. There are to be found there gray partridges, which have beautiful long tails and are twice as large as ours; there are a great many wild pigeons, which come to eat raspberries in July, also several birds of prey and some rabbits and hares.

Our Indians in the middle of September withdraw from the sea, beyond the reach of the tide, to the little rivers, where the eels spawn, of which they store a supply; they are good and fat. In October and November comes the second hunt for elks and beavers; and then in December comes a fish called by them Ponamo, which spawns under the ice. Also then the turtles bear little ones, etc. These, but in a still greater number, are the revenues and incomes of our Indians; such, their table and living, all prepared and assigned, everything to its proper place.

Our foresters start off to their different places with as much pleasure as if they were going on a stroll; they do this easily through the skillful use of canoes, which are little skiffs made of birch-bark, narrow and closed at both ends, like the crest of a morion; the body is like a large hollow cradle; they are eight or ten feet long; besides so capacious that a single one of them will hold an entire household of five or six persons, with all their dogs, sacks, skins, kettles, and other heavy baggage. And the best part of it is that they can land wherever they like, which we cannot do with our small sailing boats; for the most heavily-loaded canoe draw only half a foot of water, and unloaded, it is so light that you can easily pick it up and carry it with your left hand; so rapidly paddled that in good weather you can make 75 or 100 miles a day; still we scarcely see these Indians going along at this rate, for their days are all nothing but pastime. They are never in a hurry. Quite different from us, who can never do anything without hurry and worry.

THE GOVERNMENT OF THE INDIANS.

These Indians, not having a great nation, either in number of people, since they are few; nor in wealth, since they are poor, only living from hand to mouth; nor in ties and bonds of union, since they are scattered and wandering; cannot have great government. Yet they cannot do without it since they are men. So what they have is this:

There is the Sagamore, who is the eldest son of some powerful family, and consequently also its chief and leader. All the young people of the family are at his table and in his retinue; it is also his duty to provide dogs for hunting, canoes for transportation, provisions and reserves for bad weather and expeditions. The young people flatter him, hunt, and serve their apprenticeship under him, not being allowed to have anything before they are married, for only then can they have a dog and a bag; that is, have something of their own, and work for themselves. Still they continue to live under the authority of the Sagamore, and often in his company; as also do several others who have no relations, or those who of their own free will place themselves under his protection and guidance, being themselves weak and without a following. All that the young men capture belongs to the Sagamore; but the married ones give him only a part, and if these leave him, as they often do for the sake of hunting and supplies, returning afterward, they pay their dues and homage in skins and like gifts. From this, there are some quarrels and jealousies among them, as among us, but not so serious.

When, for example, someone begins to assert himself and to act the Sagamore, when he does not render the tribute, when his people leave him or when others get his people away from him; then there are criticisms and accusations, that such a one is only a half Sagamore, is newly hatched like a three-days' chicken, that his crest is only beginning to appear; that he is only a Sagamochin, a Baby Sagamore, a little dwarf. And therefore ambition reigns beneath the thatched roofs, as well as under the gilded.

These Sagamies divide up the country and are nearly always arranged according to bays or rivers. For example, for the Penobscot river, there is one Sagamore; another for the St. Croix; another for the St. John, etc. When they visit each other, it is the duty of the host to welcome and to banquet his guests as many days as he can, the guests making him some presents; but it is with the expectation that the host will reciprocate, when the guest goes to depart, if the guest is a Sagamore, otherwise not.

It is principally in Summer that they pay visits and hold their State Councils; I mean that several Sagamores come together and consult among themselves about peace and war, treaties of friendship and treaties for the common good. It is only these Sagamores who have a voice in the discussion and who make the speeches, unless there be some old and renowned Autmoins, who are like their Priests, for they respect them much and give them a hearing the same as to the Sagamores. It happens sometimes that the same person is both Autmoin and Sagamore, and then he is dreaded. Such was the renowned Membertou, who became a Christian.

In these assemblies, if there is some news of importance, like that their neighbors wish to make war upon them, or that they have killed someone, or that they must renew the alliance, etc., then messengers fly from all parts to make up the more general assembly, that they may have all the confederates, which they call Ricmaneu, who are generally those of the same language. Still, the confederation often extends farther than the language does, and war sometimes arises against those who have the same language. In these assemblies, they resolve upon peace, truce, war, or nothing at all, as often happens in the councils where there are several chiefs, without order and subordination, from where they frequently depart more confused and disunited than when they came.

Their wars are nearly always between language and language, or country and country, and always by deceit and treachery. They have the bow and the shield, or buckler, but they never place themselves in a line of battle, at least from what I have been able to learn. And they are by nature fearful and cowardly, although they are always boasting, and do all they can to be renowned and to have the name of "Great-heart." Meskir Kameramon, "Great-heart," among them is the crowning virtue.

If the offenses are not between tribes, but between compatriots and fellow citizens, then they fight among themselves for slight offenses, and their way of fighting is like that of women here, they grab for the hair; holding on to this, they struggle and jerk in a terrible fashion, and if they are equally matched, they keep it up one whole day, or even two, without stopping until someone separates them; and in strength of body and arms they are equal to us; but if they are more skillful in wrestling and nimble running, they do not understand boxing at all. I have seen one of our little boys make an Indian, a foot taller than himself, fly before him; placing himself in the posture of a noble warrior, he placed his thumb over his fingers and said, "Come on!" However, when the Indian was able to catch him up by the waist, he made him cry for mercy.

The little offenses and quarrels are easily adjusted by the Sagamores (chiefs) and common friends. And they are hardly ever offended long, as far as we know. I say as far as we know, for we have never seen anything except always great respect and love among them; which was a great grief to us when we turned our eyes upon our own shortcomings. For to see an assembly of French people without reproaches, slights, envy, and quarrels with each other, is as difficult as to see the sea without waves.

The great offenses, as when someone has killed another, or stolen away his wife, etc., are to be avenged by the offended person with his own hand; or if he is dead, it is the duty of the nearest relatives; when this happens, no one shows any excitement over it, but all dwell contentedly upon this word habenquedouic, "he did not begin it, he has paid him back: quits and good friends." But if the guilty one, repenting of his fault, wishes to make peace, he is usually received with satisfaction, offering presents and other suitable atonement.

They are in no way ungrateful to each other, and share everything. No one would dare to refuse the request of another, nor to eat without giving him a part of what he has. Once when we had gone a long way off to a fishing place, there passed by five or six women or girls, heavily burdened and weary; our people through courtesy gave them some of our fish, which they immediately put to cook in a kettle, that we loaned them. Scarcely had the kettle begun to boil when a noise was heard, and other Indians could be seen coming; then our poor women fled quickly into the woods, with their kettle only half boiled, for they were hungry. The reason of their flight was that, if they had been seen, they would have been obliged by a rule of politeness to share with the newcomers their food, which was not too abundant. We had a good laugh then; and were still more amused when they, after having eaten, seeing these Indians around our fire, acted as if they had never been near there and were about to pass us all by as if they had not seen us before, telling our people in a whisper where they had left the kettle; and they, like good fellows, comprehending the situation, knew enough to look unaware, and to better carry out the joke, urged them to stop and taste a little fish; but they did not wish to do anything of the kind, they were in such a hurry, saying coupouba, coupouba, "many thanks, many thanks." Our people answered: "May God be with you since you are in such a hurry."

THEIR MARRIAGES, AND SPARSENESS OF POPULATION.

CONTRARY to our custom, in their marriages the father does not give a dower to his daughter to establish her with someone, but the lover gives beautiful and suitable presents to the father, so that he will allow him to marry his daughter. The presents will be in proportion to the rank of the father and beauty of the daughter; dogs, beavers, kettles, axes, etc. But they have a rude way of courting; for the suitor, as soon as he shows a preference for a girl, does not dare look at her, nor speak to her, nor stay near her, unless accidentally; and then he must force himself not to look her in the face, nor to give any sign of his passion, otherwise he would be the laughingstock of all, and his sweetheart would blush for him. After a while, the father brings together the relatives, to talk over the match with them, whether the suitor is of proper age, whether he is a good and nimble hunter, his family, his reputation, his youthful adventures; and if he suits them, they will lengthen or shorten, or make stipulations as to the time and manner of his courtship as they may think best; and at the end of this time, for the wedding there will be solemn Tabagie and feasts with speeches, songs and dances.

According to the custom of the country, they can have several wives, but the greater number of them that I have seen have only one; some of the Sagamores (chiefs) pretend that they cannot do without this plurality, not because of lust (for this nation is not unchaste) but for two other reasons. One is to retain their authority and power by having a lot of children; for in that lies the strength of the house, in the great number of allies and connections; the second reason is their entertainment and service, which is great and laborious, since they have large families and a great number of followers, and therefore require a number of servants and housewives; they have no other servants, slaves, or laborers but the women.

These poor creatures endure all the hardships of life; they prepare and build the houses, or cabins, furnishing them with fire, wood, and water; prepare the food, preserve the meat and other provisions, that is, dry them in the smoke to preserve them; go to bring the game from the place where it has been killed; sew and repair the canoes, mend and stretch the skins, cure them, and make clothes and shoes of them for the whole family; they go fishing and do the rowing; undertake all the work except that alone of the grand chase, besides having the care and so weakening nourishment of their children. They bind their babies upon little slats, like those which hang from the shoulders of street-porters in Paris, with the wings taken away. These slats hang from a broad strap fastened to their foreheads; therefore burdened with their children, they go to the water, to the woods, and to fish. If the child cries they begin to dance and sing, therefore rocking their little one, and when it stops crying they go on with their work.

So for these reasons, some of the Indians try to defend their Polygamy, further alleging that otherwise there would be an extinction of the family for lack of descendants. And therefore their renowned Membertou is worthy of greater praise, because although he was the greatest Sagamore (chief), the most followed, and the most feared, that they had had for several centuries, yet he did not care to have more than one wife at a time; although a Pagan, he judged from instinct that this plurality was both infamous and troublesome, on account of the quarrels which always arose from it, as much among the wives as among the children of different mothers.

These women, although they have so much trouble, yet are not cherished any more for it. The husbands beat them unmercifully, and often for a slight cause. One day a certain Frenchman criticized an Indian for this; the Indian answered angrily: "Have you nothing to do but to see into my house, every time I strike my dog?" The comparison was bad, the retort was sharp. Few divorces occur among them, and (as I believe) little adultery. If the wife should so far forget herself, I believe it would be a matter of life and death to the two adulterers. The immorality of the girls is not considered so important, nor do they fail for this reason to find husbands.

As to their dress, demeanor, and manners, the women and girls are modest and bashful; the men also are not immodest, and are much insulted, when some foolish Frenchman dares to meddle with their women. Once, when a certain madcap took some liberties, they came and told our Captain that he should look out for his men, informing him that anyone who attempted to do that again would not stand much of a chance, that they would kill him on the spot. They always put up a separate cabin for the women when they have their period, for then they believe them to be infectious.

They often complain that since the French began to mingle with and carry on trade with them, they are dying fast, and the population is thinning out; they assert that, before this association and communication, all their countries were populous, and they tell how one by one the different coasts, according as they have begun to trade with us, have been more reduced by disease; adding that the reason why the Armouchiquois (Saco Bay Indians, possibly the Massachusetts) do not diminish in population is because they are not careless. Then they often puzzle their brains, and sometimes think that the French poison them; at other times that they give poison to the wicked and vicious of their nation to help them vent their spite upon someone. This last supposition has foundation, for we have seen them have some arsenic and sublimate which they said they bought from certain French Surgeons, to kill whoever they wished, and boasted that they had already experimented upon a captive, who (they said) died the day after taking it. Others complain that the merchandise is often counterfeited and adulterated, and that peas, beans, prunes, bread, and other things that are spoiled are sold to them; and that is what corrupts the body and gives rise to the dysentery and other diseases which always attack them in Autumn.

Still, the principal cause of all these deaths and diseases is not what they say it is, but it is something to their shame; in the Summer time, when our ships come, they never stop gorging themselves excessively during several weeks with various kinds of food not suitable to the inactivity of their lives; they get drunk, not only on wine but on brandy; so it is no wonder that they have to endure some pains of the stomach in the following Autumn.

This nation takes little care for the future, but, like all the other Indians, enjoys the present; they are not urged to work except by present necessity. As long as they have anything, they are always celebrating feasts and having songs, dances and speeches; if there is a crowd of them, you should not expect anything else. To speak of restraint is equal to proposing a riot. If you tell them that they will be hungry in the Winter: "Endriex," they will answer you, "It is all the same to us, we shall stand it well enough: we spend seven and eight days, even ten sometimes, without eating anything, yet we do not die."

Still, if they are by themselves, and where they may safely listen to their wives (for women are everywhere better managers), they will sometimes make some storehouses for the Winter, where they will keep smoked meat, roots, shelled acorns, peas, beans, or prunes bought from us, etc. The storehouses are like this: they put these provisions in sacks, which they tie up in big pieces of bark; these they suspend from the interlacing branches of two or three trees so that neither rats nor other animals, nor the dampness of the ground, can injure them. These are their storehouses. Who is to take care of them when they go away? for, if they stay, their stores would soon be consumed; so they go somewhere else until the time of famine. Such are the only guards they leave, for this is not a nation of thieves. If only the French Christians who go among them would not set a bad example in this respect. But as it is now, if a certain Indian is suspected of having stolen anything, he will immediately throw this fine defense in your teeth, "we are not thieves, like you."

Returning to the sparseness of the population, there are still some other reasons for it; this being the principal one, that in a life so irregular, so needy and so painful, a man's constitution cannot hold out unless it be strong, and even then he is liable to accidents and incurable injuries. Their wives, on account of their heavy work, are not prolific, for at most they have children every two years, and they are not able to nourish their offspring if they have them oftener, as they nurse them for three years if they can. Their childbirth lasts hardly two hours; often the children are born on the march, and a little while afterward the mothers will go on with their work as before.

I have often wondered how many of these people there are. I have found from the Accounts of the Indians themselves, that in the region of the great river, from Newfoundland to Saco Bay, there cannot be more than nine or ten thousand people. I will give you the enumeration of them: The Micmacs, 3000 or 3500. The Maliseets to Penobscot, 2500. From Penobscot to Kennebec and from Kennebec to Saco Bay, 3000. The Innu, 1000. This is about ten thousand people, and I believe it is the highest number. The other tribes are not known to us.

THE MEDICINE OF THE INDIANS.

Our poor Indians live only from hand to mouth, and so are always subject to the fear of hunger, first and strongest of all wants; they have no opportunity of developing their minds in the pursuit of knowledge; not even of providing arts and trades for the relief of life. For this reason they not only lack all literature and fine arts, but also (unfortunately) medicine, whether for the preservation of their health, or for the cure of their diseases, except the little that I shall describe.

They keep themselves well (principally in Summer) by the use of hot rooms and sweat boxes, and by the bath. They also use massage, afterward rubbing the whole body with seal oil, causing them to emit an odor which is disagreeable to those not accustomed to it. Still, when this oiling process is over, they can stand heat and cold better, and their hair is not caught in the branches, but is slippery, so that rain and tempest do not injure the head, but glide over it to the feet; also that the mosquitoes (which are vicious there in Summer, and more annoying than one would believe) do not sting so much in the bare parts, etc. They also use tobacco, and inhale the smoke as is done in France. This is a help to them, and necessary, considering the great extremes of cold and bad weather and of hunger and overeating or satiety which they endure; but also many ills arise from it, on account of its excessive use. It is the sole delight of these people when they have some of it, and also certain Frenchmen are so bewitched with it that, to inhale its fumes, they would sell their shirts. All their talks, treaties, welcomes, and endearments are made under the fumes of this tobacco. They gather around the fire, chatting and passing the pipe from hand to hand, enjoying themselves in this way for several hours. Such is their inclination and custom.

Those among them who practice medicine are identical with those who are at the head of their Religion, i.e. Autmoins, whose service is the same as that of our Priests and our Physicians. But they are not Priests, but genuine sorcerers; not Physicians, but tricksters, liars, and cheats. All their science consists in a knowledge of a few simple laxatives, or astringents, hot or cold applications, palliatives or irritants for the liver or kidneys, leaving the rest to luck; nothing more. But they are well versed in tricks and impositions, of which I shall give you a sample, assuring you that I have not misrepresented or fabricated anything of all that I shall tell you, although it may seem incredible. An Indian, feeling ill, stretches himself out near the fire: then they say; Ouescouzy, Ouescouzy, "he is sick." When his turn comes, they give him his share of whatever they have boiled, roasted, or dragged over the coals, just the same as the others, for they are not accustomed to seek or prepare any special food for him. If the sick man eats what is given him, it is a good sign; otherwise, they say that he is sick, and after some days (if they can) they will send for the Autmoin, whom the Spanish Basques call Pilotoys; i.e., sorcerer.

This sorcerer, having studied his patient, breathes, and blows upon him some unknown enchantments; you would say that these chest winds ought to dispel the impaired bodily fluids of the patient. If he sees after some days, that despite all his blowing the evil does not disappear, he finds the reason for it according to his own ideas, and says it is because the Devil is there inside of the sick man, tormenting and preventing him from getting well; but that he must have the evil thing, get it out by force and kill it. Then all prepare for that heroic action, the killing of Beelzebub. And the Autmoin (medicine-man) advises them to be upon their guard, for it can easily happen that this insolent fellow, seeing himself badly treated by him, may hurl himself upon one of the crowd, and strangle him upon the spot. For this reason he allots to each one his part of the farce; but it would be tedious to describe, for it lasts fully three hours.

The trickster hides a stick in a deep hole in the ground, to which is attached a cord. Then, after various chants, dances, and howls over the hole, and over the sick man, who is not far away, of such kind that a well man would have enough of it to deafen him, he takes a sword and slashes it about so furiously that the sweat comes out in great drops all over his body and he froths like a horse. Then the spectators, being already intimidated, he, with a frightful and demonic voice, redoubles his roars and threats that they must take care, that Satan is furious and that there is great peril. At this cry, the poor dupes turn pale as death, and tremble like the leaf upon the tree.

At last this fraudster cries out in another and more joyous tone: "There is the accursed one with the horn: I see him extended there at bay and panting within the ditch. But courage, we must have him all and exterminate him entirely." All the strongest rush for the cord to raise Satan, and pull and pull. But they are far from getting him, as the Autmoin (medicine-man) has fastened the stick too well. They pull again as hard as they can, but without success, while the sorcerer goes, from time to time, to utter his blasphemies over the hole; and making as if to give great thrusts to the diabolical enemy, little by little uncovers the stick which, at last, by hard pulling, is torn out, bringing with it some rubbish, which the charlatan had fastened to the end, such as decayed and moldy bones, pieces of skin covered with dung, etc. Then they are all overjoyed; wicked Lucifer has been killed. "Nepq. Nepq. Stop, do you see his tracks? Oh victory! You will get well, sick man; be of good cheer, if the evil is not stronger than you, I mean, if the Devil has not already given you your deathblow."

For this is the last Scene of the farce. The Autmoin says that, the Devil being already killed, or seriously hurt, or at least gone away, it remains to be seen if he has given a death wound to the patient. To guess this he will have to dream; he is in great need of sleep, for he has worked hard. Meanwhile, he gains time to observe the crisis of the disease. Having slept well and dreamed, he looks again at his patient and, according to the symptoms which he observes, he declares that he is either to live or to die. He is not so foolish as to say that he will live, if the symptoms are not encouraging. He will then say, for instance, that he will die in three days.

Hear now in what a fine fashion he verifies his prophecies. In the first place, the sick man, since he has been therefore appointed to die, does not eat, and they no longer offer him anything. But if he does not die by the third day, they say that he has something of the Devil in him, which does not permit him to die easily, so they rush to his aid. Where? To the water. What to do? To bring kettles full of it. Why? To pour the cold water over his navel, and therefore extinguish all vital heat, if any remain to him. He must die the third day, since if he is not going to do it himself, they kill him.

Father Enemond Masse once found himself in the midst of this kind of foolery, and demonstrated to them plainly the falsity of it. But it is impossible to tell you to how great a degree custom and influence can prejudice, even in the presence of visible proof. All your arguments are annihilated by this single phrase which they always have at hand, Aoti Chabaya, "That is the Indian way of doing it. You can have your way and we will have ours; everyone values his own wares." But in spite of these mournful Autmoin (medicine-man) predictions, we have seen some who have been saved and have recovered their health, through the good care and nursing of the French, as for instance Membertou, whom Sir de Poutrincourt delivered from just such a death as this; and in our time his son, Actodin; which has discredited these wicked Magicians.

In regard to the cure of sores, the Autmoins (medicine-men) know no more; for all they can do is to suck the wound and charm it, applying to it some simple remedies at random. However, the general impression is that they must make many and valuable presents to the Autmoin, so that he may have a more skillful hand: for they say that that counts a great deal in all kinds of diseases. Likewise, the sorcerers have also this privilege, that of receiving from all and giving to none, as a wicked old man boasted to Father Enemond Masse. This is a fine exemption from taxes: Give nothing and take all.

THEIR WILLS, FUNERAL RITES, AND BURIALS, AND THEIR RELIGION.

THE sick man having been appointed by the Autmoin to die, all the relations and neighbors assemble and, with the greatest possible solemnity, he delivers his funeral oration: he recites his heroic deeds, gives some directions to his family, recommends his friends: finally, says goodbye. This is all there is of their wills. As to gifts, they make none at all; but, quite different from us, the survivors give some to the dying man, as you will hear. But we must except the Tabagie (solemn feast), for it is a general injunction which must be observed everywhere, so that the ceremonies may be according to law.

So if the dying man has some supplies on hand, he must make Tabagie (solemn feast) of them for all his relatives and friends. While it is being prepared, those who are present exchange gifts with him in token of friendship; dogs, skins, arrows, etc. They kill these dogs to send them on before him into the other world. The said dogs are afterward served at the Tabagie, for they find them palatable.

Having banqueted they begin to express their sympathy and sorrowful Farewells, their hearts weep and bleed because their good friend is going to leave them and go away; but he may go fearlessly, since he leaves behind him beautiful children, who are good hunters and brave men: and good friends, who will avenge his wrongs, etc. They go on in this way until the dying man expires and then they utter horrible cries; and a terrible thing are their Naenias [funeral dirges] which continue day and night, sometimes lasting a whole week, according to how great the deceased is, and to the amount of provisions for the mourners. If there are none at all, they only bury the dead man, and postpone the funeral rites and ceremonies until another time and place, at the good pleasure of their stomachs.

Meanwhile all the relatives and friends daub their faces with black, and often paint themselves with other colors; but this they do to appear more pleasing and beautiful. To them black is a sign of grief and mourning.

They bury their dead in this manner: First they wrap the body and tie it up in skins; not lengthwise, but with the knees against the stomach and the head on the knees, as we are in our mother's womb. Afterward they put it in the grave, which has been made deep, not upon the back or lying down as we do, but sitting, a posture which they like much, and which among them signifies reverence. For the children and the youths seat themselves like this in the presence of their fathers, and of the old, whom they respect. We laugh at them, and tell them that way of sitting is the fashion with monkeys, but they like it and find it convenient.

When the body is placed, as it does not come up even with the ground on account of the depth of the grave, they arch the grave over with sticks, so that the earth will not fall back into it, and therefore they cover up the tomb. If it is some illustrious person, they build a Pyramid or monument of interlacing poles; as eager in that for glory as we are in our marble and porphyry. If it is a man, they place there as a sign and emblem, his bow, arrows, and shield; if a woman, spoons, decorations or jewels, ornaments, etc. The most beautiful part of all is that they bury with the dead man all that he owns, such as his bag, his arrows, his skins and all his other articles and baggage, even his dogs if they have not been eaten. Besides, the survivors add to these a number of other such offerings, as tokens of friendship.

These funeral rites finished, they flee from the place, and, from then on, they hate all memory of the dead. If they have to speak of him sometimes, it is under another and a new name. As for instance, the Sagamore (chief) Schoudon being dead, he was called "the Father". Membertou was called "the great Captain," and so on.

All their religion is only the tricks and charms of the Autmoins (medicine-men). They have many other similar sacrifices which they make to the Devil, so they will have good luck in hunting, victory, favorable winds, etc. They believe also in dreams, that no kind of nonsense may be wanting to them. Also, they say that the Magic of the sorcerers often calls forth spirits and optical illusions to those who believe them, showing snakes and other beasts which go in and out of the mouth while they are talking; and several other Magical deeds of the same kind. But I never was present at any of these spectacles. We were told before we went there that the evil spirit tormented the bodies of these poor people before baptism, but not afterward; I saw nothing of all this, nor heard of it while I was there, although I inquired into the matter carefully. I put this down here to confute the false witnesses of God, as St. Paul calls them; namely, those who relate false miracles to glorify God; to show that the writer of the memoir, who has forged such a lie, does not intend to glorify God in advancing these miracles so much as to charge that they were manufactured by the Jesuits.

The Indians have often told me that, in their Fathers' time, and before the coming of the French, the Devil tormented them a great deal, but that he does not do it any more, as it appears. Membertou has assured me that when he was still Autmoin (for he was one, and celebrated too), the Devil appeared to him many times; but that he had avoided him, knowing well that he was wicked, because he never commanded him to do anything but evil.

They believe in a God, so they say; but they cannot call him by any name except that of the Sun, Niscaminou, nor do they know any prayers or manner of worshiping him. When I asked a young Autmoin about this, he answered, that when they were in great need he put on his sacred robe (for the Autmoins have a precious robe, expressly for their wild parties) and turning toward the East said, Niscaminou, hignemouy ninem marcodam: "Our Sun, or our God, give us something to eat;" that after that they went hunting cheerfully and with good luck; he could not tell me anything more. They have an incoherent and general idea of the immortality of the soul and of future reward and punishment: but further than this they do not seek nor care for the causes of these things, occupied and engrossed always either in the material things of life, or in their own ways and customs.

THE MEANS AVAILABLE TO AID THESE NATIONS

YOU have heard about the nature of the lands of New France, and the more important habits, arts, and customs of the inhabitants. After considering the whole subject thoroughly, the result of all these opinions, sentiments, experiments, arguments, and conjectures of the wise can hardly be otherwise than this: namely, that there is no probability of ever being able to convert or help these Nations to salvation, if there is not established there a Christian and Catholic colony, having means to maintain it, and upon which all the countries depend, even as to provisions and worldly needs.

How can these colonists and emigrants be sheltered, provided for, and kept together there? It is great folly for small companies to go there, who picture themselves Baronies, and I do not know what great fiefs and demesnes for three or four thousand gold coins, for example, which they will have to sink in that country. It would be still worse if this foolish idea would occur to people who flee from the ruin of their families in France: for to such covetous people it invariably happens, not that, being one-eyed, they would be kings among the blind, but that, blind, they would go to throw themselves into a wretched pit; and possibly instead of a Christian stronghold, they would found a den of thieves, a nest of brigands, a receptacle for parasites, a refuge for rogues, a hotbed of scandal and all wickedness.

On the other hand, the expenses, difficulties, and possible inconveniences should not be so exaggerated that the success of the enterprise is despaired of. For, if it should be managed well, I believe that there are several private houses in Paris which have the means necessary for such an undertaking, if God would but give them the desire to do it.

NECESSITY OF THOROUGHLY INSTRUCTING THESE PEOPLE BEFORE BAPTIZING THEM.

IT is against nature, in whatever aspect you may wish to take it, that the child, as soon as it is born, is able to nourish and sustain itself: for it is not in vain that the mother's breasts become large for a time. So what some have imagined is also unreasonable, that no other outlay is necessary for this colony which we are establishing in New France, except enough in the beginning to transport and locate our people there; supposing that they will find enough to maintain them there, either by trading or otherwise. That is like wishing to have children born with teeth and beards, and introducing mothers without breasts or milk. Expenses will always be necessary there during the first years, until the land is sufficiently cultivated, trades introduced, households arranged; and until the main parts of the colony have shown a reasonable and steady growth: and to that we must make up our minds.

But if it is necessary throughout the world to diligently instruct the people before introducing them into the Church, and to communicate to them the sacrament of baptism, it is necessary to do it in these places; the reason being that the Indians are a wandering people and pass their lives without permanent settlements; therefore they cannot ordinarily attend mass nor prayers nor public services.

To say that it is enough to create, without thinking of how to maintain, is saying that it is good to give life to take it away cruelly, which is worse than that of a murderer. Also, experience has already shown this need of properly instructing before Baptizing, in a country where the people are not Indian but civilized; not wandering, but stationary; not abandoned, but under the watchful care of Pastors, namely in Peru and Mexico. For at first they baptized them readily. What happened then? They unexpectedly found on their hands a Synagogue of Samaritans rather than a Church of the faithful. For these who were too soon Baptized willingly came to Church but it was to mutter there their ancient idolatries. They observed the appointed saints' days, but it was while carrying on their ancient sacrifices, dances, and superstitions; they went to Communion, but without knowing either the Creed or Confession, and emerging from there, they went off to get drunk and to sing to the Devil their usual sorceries. I mean to observe the ancient practice of the Church by giving Baptism cautiously, first having candidates and Seekers, then Christian trainees, and at last Baptism.

When the Jesuits arrived in New France, they found that about eighty persons had already been baptized there; but they could not get the list of names, although they put themselves to some trouble to do so. Encountering some of these new converts, they tried to find out the extent of their knowledge, and for all found out that they did not know even how to make the sign of the Cross; some did not know their Baptismal names, and when asked if they were Christians, they made signs to show that they had never heard the word. They did not know any prayers and gave no evidence of any change from the past, always retaining the same old sorceries, coming to Church only for company's sake, or through curiosity. Some of our countrymen tell us that when they were by themselves, they insolently made sport of our ceremonies, and that when they were well questioned, it was learned that they had accepted Baptism solely as a sign of friendship with the Normans, for that is what they call us.

An exception to this number was the great Membertou, for he was a Christian at heart, and desired nothing better than to be able to receive thorough instruction so he could teach the others. The Jesuits, perceiving all these things, resolved not to baptize a single adult, unless he had been well instructed. For, as it is an injustice to persuade anyone to sign a promise without having him understand the conditions to which he binds himself: how much worse is it to force a rational being to make a solemn profession of the law of God when he has never been told the rules and duties? The Indians reproached us for this injustice; when the Jesuits requested that they should give up Polygamy, since they were duty bound to do so, the Indians told them that we were wicked people, that we had tried to make them agree to conditions that they had never understood. For these reasons, the Jesuits put themselves to work with all possible diligence to translate into Canadian the Lord's prayer and the Commandments of God and of the Church, with a brief explanation of the Sacraments, for this was all the Theology they needed.

Meanwhile, many complaints arose among our French people because no one was being baptized. For we live in an age in which anyone who knows how to read is a great Theologian; and whoever has the least care for his own soul, believes himself to be the most proper person to rule the Church of God. "This is not to be tolerated" (they were saying, according to the Factum); "these people are useless here; we must write to France about them;" and other threats, which were made to Father Biard, who tried to pacify them, and among other things said: "My friends, if the Jesuits were ambitious for mere glory, you would show them the right way to attain it; i.e. to baptize, as soon as possible, as many people as they can; for, these conversions being known in France, the Printers of Paris would not have delayed to make the Hawkers hoarse, crying and commending such news through the streets of the city. We shall be slandered, we are well aware of it; do not believe that we are so stupid. We baptize the little children in accordance with their parents' wishes, and with the hope that we shall have means of instructing them, when they come to a reasonable age. The aged, who die, we also baptize, instructing them as well as we can, and as time permits. As to the others, who are not in immediate danger of death, we shall baptize them also when we shall be able to instruct them in their own language, and when they will know how to answer us. For the adult who is baptized, must answer for himself, and not the godfather for him. Help us, and do not worry, thinking they will perish if they have not received Baptism; for surely they will perish, and in a worse manner, if they have received it in a bad spirit."

Since we have mentioned the Factum written against the Jesuits, and as we must expose, one by one, the lies there contained, we explain what that Factum is, who was its Author, and what are said to have been the causes for its being issued to the world.

THE CAUSES WHICH LED THE JESUITS TO GO TO NEW FRANCE IN 1611, AND WHAT HAD BEEN ACCOMPLISHED THERE BY THE FRENCH FROM THE YEAR 1608 UP TO THE TIME OF THEIR ARRIVAL.

WE have discussed the countries and peoples of New France, and in speaking of the means of aiding these Nations, we stumbled upon the Factum, written and published against the Jesuits. As this slanderer, beginning with the embarkation of the Jesuits, pursues them, dogging their footsteps in Canada through woods and rivers, upon sea and land, day and night, in all their travels and dwelling places, everywhere spying them out, to draw down upon them, covertly and treacherously, his deceits and slanders; for this reason we must go back upon our route, to give a true account of their actions and conduct.

Towards the end of 1607, Sir de Monts's entire company returned to France, and this New France was then entirely deserted by our countrymen. However, in the following year, 1608, Sir de Monts chose as his Lieutenant Sir de Champlain, and sent him on a tour of discovery along the great Saint Lawrence River; Champlain did admirably there, establishing the settlement of Quebec. But as to the deeds, journeys, and discoveries of this Champlain, there is no need of my outlining them to you, as he himself has given excellent descriptions of them in his books.

Sir Jean Charles de Biencourt, called de Poutrincourt, before Sir de Monts left New France, asked from him the gift of Port-Royal, Nova Scotia. Sir de Monts granted it to him, stipulating that within the two succeeding years Sir de Poutrincourt should go there with several other families to cultivate and inhabit it, which he promised to do. In 1607, all the French having returned, Sir de Poutrincourt presented to the late Henry the Great the deed of gift made to him by Sir de Monts, humbly requesting his Majesty to ratify it. The King favored the Request, and, contriving some way by which he could give effective aid to this French colony, told Father Coton that he would like to make use of his Jesuits for the conversion of the Indians; that he should write to the Father-General about it; and that they should designate some persons who should prepare to undertake these voyages; that he would summon them at the first opportunity; promising one thousand gold coins for their support.

Father Coton obeyed his Majesty, and soon it was understood that persons were to be chosen for this mission. Many offered themselves to take part in the work, as is usual in such expeditions, in which there is a great deal of work and little honor; and among others who presented themselves was Father Pierre Biard, then teaching Theology at Lyons; this Father was chosen and sent to Bourdeaux towards the end of 1608. For they thought at Lyons that the project of so powerful a Prince, having been known so many months before, could not be otherwise than speedily executed. But Father Biard was as much deceived in regard to the place, as the time. For at Bourdeaux they were surprised when they heard why he had come there. There was no news of any embarkation for Canada. No preparation, no reports or news.

Towards the end of 1609, Sir de Poutrincourt came to Paris, where his Majesty, having learned that this Sir had not stirred from France, was angry with him. This Sir answered that he would take leave of him at once, to go directly to look after the equipment for his voyage. Father Coton, having heard of the farewell of Sir de Poutrincourt, went to see him and offered him the company of some of his Order. He received the answer that it would be better to wait until the following year; that as soon as he arrived at Port-Royal, Nova Scotia, he would send his son back to France, and that with him, such persons should come as it might please the King to send. Then he left Paris, and spent the entire Winter in making preparations.

The following year, 1610, he embarked near the end of February, but arrived late at Port-Royal, Nova Scotia, about the beginning of June: here, having assembled as many Indians as he could, he had about 24 or 25 of them baptized on saint john's day, by a Priest named Sir Josse Flesche, surnamed "the Archbishop." A little while afterward, he sent back to France Sir Charles de Biencourt, his son, about nineteen years old, to take this news of the baptism of the Indians, and to speedily bring back relief; for they were poorly provided against hunger for the coming Winter.

He was able to find assistance through an association which he had formed with Sr. Thomas Robin, called de Coloignes, belonging to a good family, and under the authority of his father; through this association it was agreed that de Coloignes should provide the settlement of Port-Royal, Nova Scotia for five years, with all necessary things, and that he should furnish abundant means for trade with the Indians; and in return for this he would have profits. De Coloignes and Biencourt arrived at Paris the following August and, through them, the Court learned of these Baptisms. All were pleased about it, but unfortunately this holiday was not the one of gifts.

Madame la Marquise de Guercheville is zealous for the conversion of souls: seeing such an excellent opportunity, she asked Father Coton if some of his Jesuits were going to New France this time. Father Coton replied that he was surprised at Sir de Poutrincourt, who had promised him that, when his son returned, he would summon the Jesuits who had been chosen by the King; but, in spite of this, he made no mention of them in his letters. Madame la Marquise made inquiries of Sir Robin: he answered that all the responsibility of embarkation had been delegated to him, but he had no special instructions for the Jesuits; but that he knew that Sir de Poutrincourt would feel highly honored to have them with him.

Upon hearing these promises, Father Pierre Biard came to Paris, and a companion, Father Enemond Masse, of Lyons. These two, destined for the voyage to Canada, conferred with Sir Robin and Sir Biencourt, and the meeting place was appointed at Dieppe on the 24th of October of the same year, 1610. "For by that time," they said, "everything will be ready, if the wind and the tide are favorable."

So the Jesuits were soon in a state of preparation, for the Queen had sent to them the five hundred gold coins promised by the late King. Madame la Marquise de Vernueil furnished them amply with sacred vessels and robes for saying Mass; Madame de Sourdis furnished them liberally with linen, and Madame de Guercheville granted them a fair Eucharist. Thus provided for, they reached Dieppe at the time appointed.

THE OPPOSITIONS, AND THE DIFFICULTIES, WHICH AROSE AT DIEPPE: AND HOW THEY WERE OVERCOME.

The rendezvous had been appointed for the Jesuits at Dieppe for the 24th of October, for at that time the ship would be like the bird upon the branch, only waiting to fly. But they found at Dieppe that the ship had not even been repaired. Also, at their arrival there was great excitement among those of the Calvinist Religion. For Sir Robin, who took entire charge of the shipping, had given commission to two merchants of the Protestant Faith, called du Chesne and du Jardin, to attend to the repairing and loading of the ship, under promise to pay them for their time and expense, and to form a partnership with them to divide the profits which would be derived from the trade in skins, and from the cod fisheries. The Merchants had advanced little in the work and began to delay more than ever. For they were obstinate that, if the Jesuits were going to enter the ship, they would simply put nothing in it; they would not refuse any other Priests, and would even support them, but as to the Jesuits, they would not accept them.

The Court was informed of this, and the Queen ordered Sir de Sicoine, Governor of Dieppe, to indicate that she desired what her deceased husband had planned in his lifetime, namely, that the Jesuits should go to the countries of New France; and therefore, if they opposed this voyage, they were opposing her purpose and good pleasure. But this was a poor spur to action. Our Merchants would not advance one step, and for lack of money, Sir Biencourt and Sir Robin had to placate them; and for this reason they promised that the Jesuits should never enter their ship. Under this promise, the Merchants set to work to equip it, especially since the Jesuits were no longer under their eyes, having retired to their College at Eu.

Madame la Marquise de Guercheville, having heard about this open contempt for the wishes of the Queen, was indignant at seeing some insignificant peddlers so overbearing: and so she decided justly that they ought to be punished in a way that would hurt them most; namely, that they should be set aside. Having learned that all the Merchants could have furnished would not amount to more than two thousand gold coins, she asked a contribution from all the greatest Princes of the Court; in this way, the sum of two thousand gold coins was soon collected.

This Lady considered that this sum would accomplish two great benefits for New France. The first was that this would be a good fund with which to maintain the Jesuits there, so that they would not be a burden to Sir de Poutrincourt, or anyone else, nor would it be necessary to repeat every year the taking up of collections for them. The second benefit was that, by this arrangement, the profit from pelts and fish, which this ship would bring back, would not return to France to be lost in the hands of the Merchants, but would contribute to the interests of Canada, and would remain in the possession of Sir Robin and Sir Poutrincourt, and would be used for the maintenance of Port-Royal, Nova Scotia and the French residing there. It was concluded that this money, having been used for the benefit of Canada, the Jesuits should participate in the business with Sir Robin and Sir Biencourt, and should share with them the profits which would be derived; the management and sales of said merchandise to remain with Robin and Biencourt.

This was the contract Of partnership, over which they have cried until they are hoarse.

THE VOYAGE, AND ARRIVAL AT PORT-ROYAL, NOVA SCOTIA

The meeting of the Jesuit partners with Sir Robin, to arrange for the equipment of his vessel for Canada, was very favorable. He was the son of a gentleman, but he did not have millions at command; his father did not want to hear about the voyages beyond the sea, having recently undertaken the great salt enterprise, which required so much capital and investment. I say this because the slanderer writer blames the Jesuits that Sir Charles de Biencourt did not depart sooner from Dieppe to New France; it was just the contrary, since it was for their sake that money was found to unfurl the sails to the wind. So they left their moorings the twenty-sixth of January, 1611. Yet they departed too soon for such a late arrival; four months were consumed in the voyage; and first they went to land at Canso, Nova Scotia, on account of which they were compelled to keep near the shore, with stops at several places. Along this coast to Port-Royal, Nova Scotia, it is about 300 miles.

On our way, towards the last of April, we had seen Sir Champlain, who was making his way through the icebergs to Quebec. These masses of ice were enormous, for the sea was in some places covered with them as far as the eye could reach. And, to cross them, they had to be broken with bars and pointed irons inserted in the escobilles or beak of the ship; it was freshwater ice, and had drifted down more than 250 miles to the deep and open sea through the great Saint Lawrence River. In some places there appeared vast and lofty pieces of floating and wavering ice, 180 and 240 feet out of the water, as big and broad as if several castles were joined together, or as if the Church of notre Dame de Paris, with part of its Island, houses, and palaces should go floating out upon the water. The Hollanders have seen still more enormous and wondrous ones at Spitsbergen, and in the strait of Ubaigats, if what they have published about them is true. We arrived at Port-Royal, Nova Scotia on the 22nd of June of the same year, 1611.

Let us say a word about the way in which the Jesuits lived during the voyage. They had no servant during the entire voyage, except their own hands and feet: if their linen was to be washed, their clothes cleaned and patched, if other needs had to be provided for, they had the privilege of doing it themselves, as well as the least. Secondly, they did not meddle with anyone's authority, or make any pretense of having control or rights over the ship: Sir Charles de Biencourt was sole and absolute master: and this kind of submissiveness they always continued afterward at Port-Royal, Nova Scotia. Their usual exercises were singing divine service Sundays and holidays, with a little urging or sermon: every morning and evening, they assembled the whole crew for prayer, and during Lent for urging, only three times a week. Their conversation was such, that captain Jean d'Aune and the pilot, David de Bruges, both Protestants, have often expressed their approval of it to Sir de Poutrincourt; and frequently since then, in Dieppe and other places, have affirmed that they then found the Jesuits quite different from what they had previously pictured, namely, honest and courteous men, of good conduct and pure consciences.

SIR DE POUTRINCOURT'S CONDITION AT THE TIME OF THEIR ARRIVAL, AND HIS JOURNEY TO THE MALISEETS.

OUR arrival caused great joy on both sides -- great on the part of those arriving, because of their longings, and the tediousness of so long a voyage; but more than double was that of Sir de Poutrincourt who had been in great distress during the entire Winter. For having had with him twenty-three people, without sufficient food to nourish them, he had been obliged to send some off among the Indians, to live with them: the others had had no bread for six or seven weeks, and without the assistance of these same Indians, I do not know but that they would all have perished miserably. The aid that we brought them was only a glass of water to a thirsty man. First, because there were thirty-six of us in our company, and these, added to the 23 men that he had, made fifty-nine mouths every day at his table; and Membertou the Indian besides, with his daughter and crew. After living four months upon the sea, our provisions were diminished, especially since our vessel was small, being only fifty or sixty tons burden, and provisioned more for fishing than anything else. For this reason it was left to Sir de Poutrincourt to think how he could promptly send back such a large family, in case everything should be consumed, rather than to secure trade and fish, in which lay all hope of resources for a second voyage. But he could not entirely refrain from doing some trading; for he had to make money, both to pay the wages of his servants, and for journeys here and there when in France.

For these purposes then, he departed some days afterward in his ship, with nearly all his crew, to go to one of the Maliseets' ports, called Pierre Blanche, 55 miles from Port-Royal, Nova Scotia, directly to the West. He hoped to find there some help in food supplies from the French ships which he knew were in the habit of trading in that place. Father Biard wished to accompany him, to study the country and character of the Natives, and his wish was granted. They found there four French ships, one belonging to Sir de Monts, one from La Rochelle, one Breton French or St. Malo ship, belonging to Pont Grave, commanded by a relation of his named Captain la Salle, and also a Breton French barque; these four vessels must be well remembered, to understand what follows.

Sir de Poutrincourt, calling up each one of these four vessels in succession, made them recognize his son as vice-Admiral: then he asked them for help, dwelling upon the dire necessity to which he had been reduced during the past Winter, and promising to reimburse them in France. Each one contributed. But God pardon the Rochelois, for they defrauded the Excise, giving spoiled bread for good.

While this business was going on, Father Biard learned that young du Pont was on shore, among the Indians; that the year before he had been made a prisoner by Sir de Poutrincourt, and, having made his escape from him, he had been forced to roam the woods in great distress, and even then did not dare go to his ship, in case he should be caught. Father Biard, hearing all these things, asked Sir de Poutrincourt to have some consideration for the great merits of Sir du Pont, the father, and to think of the high hopes he had entertained for his son: adding that it would be a great misfortune if the French, in running to the ends of the earth to convert the Indians, should happen to lose their own citizens there. Sir de Poutrincourt yielded and permitted Father Biard to go in search of this young man, with the promise that, if he could persuade him to come freely and acknowledge the authority of this Sir de Poutrincourt, no harm would be done to him, and all the past would be put under foot and buried. The Father departed, and was successful in his efforts, for he brought du Pont to Sir de Poutrincourt, and after peace and reconciliation were accomplished, they fired off the cannon.

SIR DE POUTRINCOURT'S RETURN TO FRANCE, AND THE DIFFICULTY OF LEARNING THE LANGUAGE OF THE INDIANS.

WE have before now explained the necessity which was urging Sir de Poutrincourt to send his people back to France without delay. He wished to take them there himself, to more efficiently arrange all the affairs and especially to procure an immediate supply of provisions: for unless he did this, those whom he was leaving at Port-Royal, Nova Scotia would be without means of passing the Winter, in evident danger of being carried off by famine. For this reason then, he departed about the middle of July of the same year, 1611, and arrived in France at the end of the following month of August; he left his son, Sir Charles de Biencourt, in his place, with twenty-two persons, counting the two Jesuits, who, seeing that for the conversion of the Pagans, the language of the country was necessary, decided to study it with all diligence. But it would be hard to understand the great difficulties which they encountered: the principal one being, that they had neither interpreter nor teacher. Sir Charles de Biencourt, and some of the others, knew a little of it, enough for trade and usual affairs; but when there was a question of speaking about religious matters, there was the difficulty.

Therefore, they had to learn the language by themselves, inquiring of the Indians how they called each thing. And the task was not so wearisome as long as what was asked about could be touched or seen: a stone, a river, a house; to strike, to jump, to laugh, to sit down. But when it came to internal and spiritual acts, which cannot be demonstrated to the senses, and with words which are called abstract, such as, to believe, to doubt, to hope, to speak, to perceive, an animal, a body, a substance, a spirit, virtue, vice, sin, reason, justice, etc. -- for these things they had to labor and sweat. They did not know by what route to reach them, although they tried more than a hundred; there were no gestures which would sufficiently express their ideas, not if they would use ten thousand of them. Meanwhile, our gentlemen Indians, to pass away the time, made abundant sport of their pupils, always telling them a lot of nonsense.

And yet if you wanted to take advantage of this fun, if you had your paper and pencil ready to write, you had to set before them a full plate with a napkin underneath. As it was, they even became angry and went away, if we wished to detain them a little. As these Indians have no formulated Religion, government, towns, nor trades, so the words for all those things are lacking; Holy, Blessed, Angel, Grace, Mystery, Sacrament, Temptation, Faith, Law, Prudence, Subjection, Authority, etc. Where will you get all these things that they lack? And the beauty of it is that, after having racked our brains by force of questions and researches, and after thinking that we have at last found the philosopher's stone, we find only that a ghost has been taken for a body, a shadow for a substance, and that all this precious Elixir has gone up in smoke. They often ridiculed us instead of teaching us, and sometimes palmed off on us indecent words, which we went about innocently preaching as beautiful sentences from the Gospels.

A solution presented itself to the Jesuits, by which they could extricate themselves from these perplexities. It was to go and find young du Pont, who had made up his mind to pass the winter on the St. John river, some 45 or 50 miles from Port-Royal, Nova Scotia. For since this du Pont had already lived a long time in the country, even living among the natives, he understood the language, and that he could at least properly explain the questions so as to get from the Indians suitable answers; these were necessary to write down a little Catechism, and some Christian instruction. Father Biard then decided to go and look for du Pont, deciding to cross the Bay of Fundy in a canoe. But Sir Charles de Biencourt was opposed to this decision, taking great offense at it; and we had to yield to him, to have peace.

A VOYAGE MADE TO THE ST. CROIX RIVER, AND THE DEATH OF THE CHIEF, MEMBERTOU.

TOWARD the end of August of the same year, 1611, Sir Charles de Biencourt, having heard that the ship of Captain Platrier, from the town of Honfleur, was engaged in fishing at Campobello Island, 52 miles Westward from Port-Royal, Nova Scotia, decided to go and find him, to recommend to him one of his men, whom he wished to send back to France with letters, to urge the expected help, and to represent their pitiable condition. Father Biard accompanied him, and they encountered this ship so opportunely, that if they had been eight minutes later, their chance would have been lost; for already it was unfurling its sails to return to France. When we had boarded it, we learned that Captain Platrier had decided to pass the Winter on the Island of Saint Croix, and that Sir Charles de Biencourt would get his fifth-share from there. This news made Sir Charles de Biencourt resolve to go to Saint Croix at once, before Captain Platrier had means of fortifying himself: for he wished to collect from him the Fifth of all his merchandise and trade, for wintering in the country.

The Island of Saint Croix is 15 miles from Campobello Island, in the middle of a river. Sir Charles de Biencourt went to this place, accompanied by eight people, and, well-armed, marched into the place, having left Father Biard in one end of the Island upon the rocks, awaiting the outcome; because the Father had arranged with Charles de Biencourt, that in case of any invasion or warlike act or force against the French, he should be left in some place apart, so that everyone might know that he was a friend of both parties, and that he would willingly intervene to make peace between those at variance, but under no circumstances would he take sides with either.

All passed off happily: Platrier treated us as well as he could: and with his aid, Sir Charles de Biencourt recovered a barque, which was at Campobello Island, with which he returned to Port-Royal, Nova Scotia, where a new duty awaited them: for Henry Membertou, the Chief of the Indians who was the first to receive baptism, had come from the Bay Saint Marie to have himself treated for a disease which had overtaken him. Father Enemond Masse had put him in his little Cabin, even in Father Biard's bed, and was there taking care of him like a father and servant. Father Biard, finding the patient in his bed, was glad of this opportunity for charity; and both set to work to attend him day and night, without anyone else to relieve them in the work, except the Apothecary Hebert, who brought medicines and food which were to be given him. One of their greatest hardships was to cut and carry all the wood that was needed day and night: for the nights began to be quite chilly, and there always had to be a good fire on account of the bad odor, for the disease was dysentery.

At the end of five or six days of such service, the wife and daughter of Membertou came to stay with him, and so Father Biard asked Sir Charles de Biencourt to have the invalid moved to some of the other cabins of the settlement, since there were two or three of them empty; for it was neither good nor seemly that there should be women in their cabin day and night; and still less that they should not be there, being the wife and daughter of the sick man. On the other hand, the cabin was so small, that when four persons were in it, they could not turn around.

These considerations were only too evident, but Charles de Biencourt was not inclined to have the patient moved to any of the cabins of the settlement; but he had one put up outside, where the invalid was taken. This change did not do him any good, for he became evidently worse from then on, and died four or five days later. Still, the Jesuits never failed to aid and attend him, furnishing everything they could, and waiting on him up to the time of his death.

This good Indian, having confessed and received the Anointing of the Sick, told Sir Charles de Biencourt that he wished to be buried with his fathers and ancestors. Father Biard was opposed to this proposition, admonishing him that it was not lawful for him, a Christian, to wish to be buried with Heathens whose souls were to be lost; especially since in doing so he would cause great scandal, since, when the Indians heard and saw that he had not wanted to be buried with us, they would readily entertain the suspicion that he had been a Christian only in appearance. In any case, that all this would always seem like contempt for Christian burial, etc. Sir Charles de Biencourt replied for Membertou that they would have the burial place blessed, and that such a promise had been made to Membertou. Father Biard answered that that would not do; for, to bless this place, they would have to disinter the Pagans who were buried there, which would cause them to be abominated by all the Indians, and would savor too much of impiety. These reasons did not help, because the sick man, believing that Sir Charles de Biencourt was on his side, persisted in his determination.

To make them understand that this affair was of greater importance than they thought, Father Biard informed them that the interment would take place without him, and he wanted them to understand it from that time on, protesting that he would have nothing to do with any such counsels and decisions, and then he departed. However, so the sick man would not think that what was mere duty and charity was anger, he returned less than an hour afterward, and began again to wait upon him as before. The next morning the Indian, of his own free will, changed his mind, and said that he wanted to be buried in the common burying ground of the Christians, to prove his faith to all, and to be able to participate in the prayers which he had there seen offered. He died a good Christian, and his death saddened the Jesuits, for they loved him, and were loved by him in return. He often said to them; "Learn our language quickly, for when you have learned it, you will teach me; and when I am taught I will become a preacher like you, and we will convert the whole country." The Indians have no recollection of ever having had a greater or more powerful Chief. He was bearded like a Frenchman; and if only all the French were as circumspect and prudent as he was. Such is the true story of the sickness and death of Membertou.

THE VOYAGE TO THE ST. JOHN RIVER: AND THE QUARREL WHICH OCCURRED THERE.

Sir Charles de Biencourt took a barque away from Campobello Island, so he could make a journey there to the Armouchiquois (Saco Bay Indians). This is the name of the people who live below the forty-third parallel, toward the Southwest. They begin at Saco Bay, and are said to be numerous. Lack of provisions urged Sir Charles de Biencourt to make this voyage, because, as these people till the soil and put away stores of grain, he hoped, by means of trade or in some other way, to get help from them to provide against the famine which awaited us during the Winter. His barque was equipped too late for such a long journey, for we were not ready until the third of October, and he still wanted to go to the Saint John river before making this voyage.

The river saint John is to the Northwest of Port-Royal, Nova Scotia, the intermediate space being occupied by the Bay of Fundy, 35 miles wide. The entrance to this river is narrow and dangerous: for the ship has to pass between two rocks where the current of the tide is tossed from one to the other, flashing between them as swift as an arrow. Beyond these rocks lies a frightful and horrible precipice, and if you do not pass over it at the proper moment, and when the water is smoothly heaped up, of a hundred thousand barques not an atom would escape, but men and goods would all perish.

Young du Pont and Captain Merveille had gone to stay some 15 miles up this river St. John, with a company of not more than seven or eight, all Breton French. Sir Charles de Biencourt wished to exact from them, a Fifth of all their merchandise, because they were residents of the country; it was for this purpose he undertook this voyage. We were in all sixteen Frenchmen, and two Indians, who guided us.

As we were sailing up the river, being already about a 3 and a half miles from the Breton French settlement, towards nightfall a phenomenon appeared to us, which filled us with terror. The heavens became wondrously red over the Breton French house, and then the glow, separating into long rays and flashes of light, moved on and melted away over this settlement. This appeared twice. Our Indians, when they saw this wonder, cried out in their language: Gara gara: Maredo. "We shall have war, there will be blood." The French also made some Prophecies then, each according to his own idea. We arrived opposite their settlement when the night had already closed in, and there was nothing we could do then, except to fire a salute from the light cannon, which they answered with one from the swivel gun.

When morning came, two Breton French presented themselves upon the bank, and indicated to us that we could disembark without being molested, which we did. It was learned from them that their Captains were not there, but had gone away up the river three days before, and no one knew when they would return. Sir Charles de Biencourt placed a bodyguard at the door of the house, and sentinels all around it. The Breton French were astonished at this. The more timid considered themselves lost; the more courageous stormed, and fumed, and defied them.

When night came and it was already dark, Captain Merveille returned to his lodgings, knowing nothing of his guests. The sentinel, hearing him approach, uttered his, "Who goes there?" The Breton French, thinking this was one of his own people, answered mockingly, "Who goes there yourself?" and continued upon his way. The sentinel fired off his musket at him, and it was a great wonder that Merveille was not killed or wounded. But he was astonished, and still more so when he saw some soldiers upon him with naked swords, who seized him and took him into the house; you may imagine how men of gunpowder and of rope act at such times, with their cries, their threats, and their gestures. The poor man had not been well for several days, and was wearied from his journey. He had had several discouraging losses and sicknesses that year, enough to break him down. So, seeing himself suddenly fallen into an abyss, he did not know where he was. He lay down at full length before the fire, and began to lament: the guards were all around him.

Father Biard, seeing the confusion of the whole house, and not being able to restore order, began to pray, kneeling at the foot of a bench which was against one of the beds, some distance from the fire. Merveille, having had some chance to realize his unfortunate condition and to collect himself, and, having seen Father Biard praying, started up in great agitation, and ran, and threw himself on his knees before the Father; and although he had never before spoken to him, said: "My Father, I ask you to confess me, I am a dead man." Father Biard got up to console him, seeing that he was troubled; the whole bodyguard likewise turned their eyes upon them, and each one looked to see if there was anything to fear.

A certain madcap stepped forward and picked up, at two good paces from Merveille, a carbine, all loaded and primed, with the trigger down, and cried: "Oh, the traitor! He wanted to get hold of this carbine and have a few shots with it." The Breton French answered that that could not be because since his arrival, he had always been in their hands; and so it was impossible for him to have prepared or even seen this carbine; and if he had seen it, he was too far away to get hold of it without being prevented. But in spite of all he said, he, and three others of his men, who seemed to be the worst, were bound.

Merveille had his hands bound behind his back so tightly, that he could not rest, and he began to complain pitifully. Father Biard taking pity on him, asked Sir Charles de Biencourt to have the sufferer untied, saying that, if they had any fears about this Merveille, they might enclose him in one of the bedrooms, and that he would stay at the door to prevent his going out: that if any noise were heard, the punishment for it should fall upon him as well as upon the other. Sir Charles de Biencourt granted Father Biard's request, and Merveille was untied and confined in one of these bedrooms, Father Biard being at the door.

I could not describe to you what a night this was: for it passed in continual alarms, gunshots and rash acts on the part of some of the men.

In the afternoon, Father Biard asked leave to go and find du Pont, with Sir Charles de Biencourt's promise that he would receive nothing but good treatment. But when this Father had gone half a mile, this du Pont came up of his own choice, and all disturbances were quieted. Sir Charles de Biencourt borrowed Merveille's barque, and took it away with him, together with one of the Breton French, who afterward died at Port-Royal, Nova Scotia.

THE VOYAGE TO KENNEBEC, AND THE RETURN TO PORT-ROYAL, NOVA SCOTIA.

This visit to St. John river was only a diversion from the greater expedition to the Armouchiquois (Saco Bay Indians) to get some corn. When we had come to terms with the Breton French, we unfurled our sails and turned towards the land of the Armouchiquois (Saco Bay Indians). Before departing, Sir du Pont and Merveille asked Father Biard to consent to remain with them; but he answered that for now he could not do it, as it would not be right to leave Sir Charles de Biencourt in such a dangerous voyage; and that it was important to him to study the people and location of the places, and to familiarize the minds of the Indians with the ways of Christianity, although it might be only in passing by. But he hoped, when this journey was over, to come and pass the Winter with them, and with their aid to compose his Catechism in the native language. For this, he asked Sir du Pont to prepare, questioning the Indians about the fitness of words which might correspond to those of our language and Religion.

We arrived at Kennebec towards the end of October. Kennebec is a river near the Armouchiquois (Saco Bay Indians), in latitude forty-three and two-thirds degrees, and Southwest of Port-Royal, Nova Scotia about 175 miles. It has two quite large mouths, one distant from the other at least 5 miles; it is also cut up by numerous arms and branches. Besides, it is a great and beautiful river; but we did not see good soil there any more than at the St. John river. They say, however, that farther up, away from the sea, the country is fine and life there agreeable, and that the people till the soil. We did not go farther up than 7 miles; we whirled about through so many eddies, and shot over so many precipices, that several times it was a great miracle that we did not perish. Some of our crew cried out at two different times that we were lost: but they cried too soon. The Indians cajoled us with the hope of getting corn; then they changed their promise of corn to that of trade in beaver skins.

While this trading was going on, Father Biard had gone, with a boy, to an Island nearby, to celebrate Mass. The Indians, on account of the trading to take place, crowded eagerly into our barque; from curiosity, I think, because they did not often see such sights. Our people were afraid that this was only a trick, and that under the pretense of trading, they wanted to get possession of the barque; therefore they armed and barricaded themselves not to be taken unawares. Seeing then that, despite their threats, they continued to file in, and there were already about thirty of them upon the deck, they decided that they were trying to take them by surprise, so they had already taken aim to shoot. Sir Charles de Biencourt has often said, and often repeated since then, that several times he had at his tongue's end the words, "Kill, kill." But that he was restrained by the consideration that Father Biard was on shore, and that he would not escape being massacred if harm were done to any of the Indians.

This consideration was a blessing to Father Biard, and saved us all: for if the attack had been begun, they could never have escaped the passionate wrath and furious pursuit of the Indians, in a river which has so many turns and windings, and which is often narrow and dangerous; besides, this coast could not have become hospitable towards the French for a hundred years afterward, so much would the Indians have taken the offense to heart. The Chiefs, seeing to what a state of fear their people had driven the French, began to draw them off hastily and to bring order out of the confusion.

These people do not seem to be bad, although they drove away the English who wished to settle among them in 1608 and 1609. They made excuses to us for this act, and recounted the outrages that they had experienced from these English; and they flattered us, saying that they loved us much, because they knew we would not close our doors to the Indians as the English did, and that we would not drive them from our table with blows from a club, nor set our dogs upon them. They are not thieves like the Armouchiquois (Saco Bay Indians), and are the greatest speech-makers on earth. Nothing is done without speeches. Father Biard went to see them twice, and (as he did everywhere) prayed God in their presence, and showed them some pictures and tokens of our faith, which they willingly kissed, having their children make the sign of the Cross, and presenting them to him for his blessing: they listened with great attention and respect to what was told them. The trouble was, that they have an altogether different language, and an Indian had to serve as interpreter, who, knowing little of the Christian Religion, still acquitted himself with credit in the eyes of the other Indians; and to look at his face and hear his talk, he played the Doctor grandly; whether successfully or not, I cannot tell.

We were at Kennebec until the fourth or fifth of November, a season already too advanced to go on any farther, according to our first intention; so Sir Charles de Biencourt set out upon his return, thinking it the lesser evil to endure Winter and want at Port-Royal, Nova Scotia, comfortably lodged and warm, awaiting God's mercy, than to risk passage upon the sea in this stormy season, being now among Barbarians and enemies, with famine to fear besides; for our provisions began to be scarce: therefore we turned towards Penobscot, on our way back to Port-Royal, Nova Scotia.

At Penobscot we found an assemblage of eighty canoes of Indians, and a boat, in all about three hundred people. From there we passed on to the Island of St. Croix, where Platrier gave us two barrels of peas or beans; they both proved a great boon to us.

Here Father Biard asked Sir Charles de Biencourt to let him go on to the river St. John so that he could find du Pont and go to work on the Catechism, as they had agreed at his departure. But this Sir was not willing to grant his request, unless on the condition that he would feed and keep with him, until the following Spring, the sailors who would take him there; a Condition totally impossible. Therefore he had to give up his Catechism, and return with the others to Port-Royal, Nova Scotia, much to his regret.

While we were away, no one had remained at the settlement of Port-Royal, Nova Scotia except Father Enemond Masse and a young Parisian, called Valentin Pageau. The Father lived austerely, in the manner of a Hermit, seeing no one, except occasionally two or three Frenchmen who were cultivating the land 5 miles away, and perhaps some Indian who was passing by. Shortly after his return, Father Biard fell ill of a light but slow and chronic malady, which gave to Father Enemond an occasion for charity.

The snow began on the 26th of November, and with it (what grieved them the most) the cutting down of their rations. There was given to each individual for the entire week only about ten ounces of bread, half a pound of lard, three bowls of peas or beans, and one of prunes. The Jesuits never had more than the other members of the company, and it is an impudent lie which the slanderer alleges to the contrary.

During all this time, the Indians did not come to see us, except rarely some of Membertou's family, to bring us some offering from hunting. Then there was great feasting and hilarity, and our people would begin to feel a little encouraged.

HOW MADAME LA MARQUISE DE GUERCHEVILLE OBTAINED FROM THE KING THE LANDS OF NEW FRANCE, AND THE HELP WHICH SHE SENT THERE.

SIR du Poutrincourt, having returned to France in August of 1611, searched on all sides for ways of being able to help his people, who he knew could not continue long without reinforcements and fresh food. The trouble was to find some favorable winds to swell the sails, for without this no ship could advance. Considering that Madame la Marquise de Guercheville had the conversion of the Indians much at heart; that she had already procured some donations for the Jesuits, he thought that she might readily favor this good work. He spoke to her about it, and the Lady responded that she would willingly enter into the partnership, which Sir Robin and the Jesuits had formed with him for assisting Canada, provided that this was the wish of the partners, and that she would aid them all. You may judge whether the Jesuits ought to have refused this proposition, or whether Sir Robin, upon whom Canada already weighed rather heavily, was dissatisfied with it.

Thus the contract of association was entered into, the Lady being authorized to do this by Sir Charles de Biencourt, chief Equerry of his Majesty, and Governor of Paris, her honored and worthy husband. By this contract, it was arranged that the Lady should give at once a thousand gold coins for the loading of a ship, and she would have a share both in the profits which said ship would bring back from the country, and in the lands which his Majesty had given to Sir de Poutrincourt. In this contract, Sir de Poutrincourt reserves for himself Port-Royal, Nova Scotia and its lands, and says that it is not to be understood that he enters into transference of other Seigneuries, Capes, Harbors, and Provinces, which he gives to understand he possesses in that country, outside of Port-Royal, Nova Scotia. Madame la Marquise summoned Sir de Poutrincourt to produce the papers and documents, by which he could prove these his so great domains; he excused himself, saying that he had left them in New France. This answer made the Lady suspicious, and, as she is prudent, means were not lacking to guard against fraud; for she arranged with Sir Pierre du Gua, called de Monts, that he should give up to her all rights, claims and pretensions that he had in New France, based upon the deed of gift made to him by the late Henry the Great. Also, she secured letters from his Majesty, by which a deed of gift was newly granted her of all the lands, ports, and harbors of New France from the great river to Florida, with the sole exception of Port-Royal, Nova Scotia. And in this way he, who was thought to be so shrewd, found himself, against his choice, locked up and confined as in a prison within his Port-Royal, Nova Scotia; because he has not and never has had, other lands, Capes or harbors, Islands or continent, except Port-Royal, Nova Scotia and its coasts. But now this Lady holds all the rest by a double title; namely, by donation or cession of Sir de Monts, and by a deed of gift newly granted by his Majesty now reigning.

She, fearing her money might be wrecked before it had embarked upon the sea, confided it to the hands of a Jesuit lay brother, who was being sent to New France to help the Priests who were already there. The Jesuit was to deliver this money at Dieppe into the hands of a merchant, so he could use it in the purchase of food, merchandise, and freight; but he was too confiding. For at the requisition of Sir de Poutrincourt, he allowed four hundred gold coins to be drawn without other security than a note of hand. Therefore he used only six hundred gold coins for this entire cargo.

This is not all. Sir de Poutrincourt confided the administration of the ship and the management of affairs to a certain servant of his called Simon Imbert, a former innkeeper at Paris, at that time seeking in the woods of New France something with which to pay his creditors. The ship belonged to a Captain, called Nicolas l'Abbe, of Dieppe, an honest and prudent man. So this vessel, therefore equipped and freighted, departed from Dieppe the 31st of December in the depth of winter, and arrived happily at Port-Royal, Nova Scotia on the 23rd of January in the following year, 1612, having consumed only two months in the journey.

THE BEGINNING OF THE DISPUTES BETWEEN SIR CHARLES DE BIENCOURT AND THE JESUITS, AND THE CAUSES OF THAT; THE ACCUSATION MADE AGAINST GILBERT DU THET, AND HIS DEFENSE.

GREAT was the rejoicing over the relief provided by the arrival of this ship, on account of the severe straits to which the colonists had been reduced.

But this joy did not last long, Sir Charles de Biencourt being ill-at-ease on account of the news brought by Simon Imbert about the partnership formed with the Marquise de Guercheville. The Jesuit Gilbert du Thet, went to see Sir Charles de Biencourt; and in the presence of Father Biard, he said to him: that he was surprised that, as Simon Imbert had had the management of the entire embarkation, still he had not brought any list of the ship's company, nor charter group, nor invoice of what had been shipped, nor statement of how the money of Madame la Marquise de Guercheville had been spent. That they did not wish to accuse him before having found him guilty; still, before admitting his innocence, there was a great deal to investigate in the whole matter, and especially with his having sold at Dieppe wheat which had been given him to be shipped -- an act which would prove to be a great disadvantage to the settlement, which was in need of provisions more than of anything else. Also, that he counted seven barrels of Sea-biscuits dispensed during the voyage, and he did not say that of these seven, two were furnished by a certain Robert de Rouen as his share; so, for this reason, seven barrels should not have been charged to the company, but only five.

Charles de Biencourt was requested to investigate the whole affair prudently. Such was the simple protest that was made to him by the Jesuit; and Sir Charles de Biencourt has often testified since then that this matter could not have been called to his attention with greater delicacy than it was. But, instead of doing what was requested, he went and reported the whole affair to Simon Imbert, adding that the Jesuit lay brother had accused him. Imbert told him that the partnership formed with Madame la Marquise de Guercheville was a means invented by the Jesuits to drive him out of his broad Seigneuries of Canada.

The Jesuits, twice in the presence of Sir Charles de Biencourt and of the whole settlement, convicted this Imbert of duplicity, by the same witnesses which he had put forward; and the second time they pressed him so hard that he was compelled to say he had been drunk when he had spoken therefore.

A JOURNEY MADE BY FATHER ENEMOND MASSE, AND ANOTHER BY FATHER BIARD.

RECONCILIATION was accomplished afterward, and everything calmed down. The Jesuits, devoting themselves to the study of the Indian language, thought to better learn the practices, habits and life of the country, would be to go away and live with the natives, wandering about as they did through mountains and valleys, and adopting their ways. They offered themselves to Louis Membertou, to live with him in that way, if he would receive them: he agreed to do so willingly. Father Enemond Masse desired that this enterprise should fall to him; also, he was judged more suitable for it by the common voice of the settlement, on account of his practical ingenuity, ready to find a remedy for every inconvenience. He went away then, with Louis Membertou and his family, beyond the Bay of Fundy to St. John river, and began his training period in this Nomadic life.

This life is without order and without daily food, without bread, without salt, and often without anything; always moving on and changing, in the wind, in the air, and in bad weather; for roof, a wretched cabin; for couch, the earth; for rest and quiet, vile cries and songs; for medicine, hunger, and hard work. It was a painful mode of living. Father Enemond, to everywhere preserve a religious propriety, had taken with him a young and vigorous French boy, who helped him. But both master and servant soon found themselves in a bad condition through such irregular diet: they became thin, and lost their strength, color, and cheerfulness; their legs grew big and heavy, their minds were dulled, and a low fever set in; however, this soon passed away, and then little by little they regained their usual appearance, and each was restored to his customary vigor. Father Enemond thought he was going to lose his sight, without any disease of the eyes.

During this time, Father Biard remained at Port-Royal, Nova Scotia, having with him an Indian whom he fed and made use of as a teacher of the Indian language. He fed him from his own daily food, and even waited on him; for the Indians, either from laziness, or from lofty courage, do not deign to do any work, such as going for water, for wood, to the kitchen, etc., for they say that belongs to the women. So he entertained this Indian, and was his apprentice in the language for three weeks, but he could keep it up no longer, for lack of something to give him to eat; this grieved him exceedingly, for the Indian was good-natured, and willing to live with him.

While Father Enemond was sick among the Indians, an amusing incident occurred. As the Father was in a cabin, apart from the others on account of his illness, Loys Membertou, apparently in great trouble, came to see him, and said to him: "Listen, Father. you are going to die; I predict it. Write now to Biencourt and to your brother, that you have died of disease, and that we did not kill you."

"I shall take care not to do that" (said Father Enemond), "for possibly after I had written this letter, you would kill me, and then you would take there your innocent letter, saying you had not killed me."

Here the Indian, seeing what was meant (for he is not dull), and recovering his equanimity, began to laugh. "Well then" (said he), "pray Jesus that you may not die, so they will not accuse us of having killed you."

"I am doing so," said Father Enemond; "do not fear, I shall not die."

Towards the end of August of this year, 1612, Sir Charles de Biencourt wished to go to the Bay of Mines, 52 or 55 miles from Port-Royal, Nova Scotia: he was ill-prepared to go there, in a wretched boat, having food for only eight days, and lacking all other provisions. Father Biard, however, offered to accompany him, because Charles de Biencourt promised to seek news of Father Enemond, of whom we had heard nothing for two months, and who, we feared, had fallen into some trouble or sickness.

Although so badly provisioned, still we went not only to the Bay of Mines, but also to Chinictou; Champlain calls this Bay, the Bay de Genes. At this Chinictou there are many large and beautiful meadows, extending farther than the eye can reach; many rivers discharge their waters into it, through some of which one can sail far up on the route to Gaspe. The Indians of this place may number sixty or eighty people, and they are not so nomadic as the others, either because the place is more retired, or because game is more abundant, there being no need of their going out to seek food. The country is, mostly, agreeable, and would be fertile if it were cultivated. It is within the forty-sixth degree of north latitude.

Upon our return from this Bay, God preserved us twice in the midst of the tempest. And the third escape is what I am going to describe.

We had carried with us food for only eight days and it had already been fifteen since our departure. Bad weather kept us beyond the Bay of mines, on the St. John river side; and if the contrary winds had continued, it would have been all over with us, as we would have had to die of hunger, for we had nothing. When night came, Father Biard persuaded the company to make a vow to our Lord. In the morning, the wind arose, and by its aid we crossed the Bay, which is 20 miles wide. When we reached shore on the Port-Royal, Nova Scotia side, the wind failed us; also we had the tide against us, and we were 37 miles from Port-Royal, Nova Scotia.

For this reason, Sir Charles de Biencourt left us, preferring to go on foot with the Indians: but he made a mistake, for immediately after his departure, good weather returned, by the aid of which, we arrived the same day at Port-Royal, Nova Scotia; but Charles de Biencourt did not get there until three days later, after much suffering. The Indians were ready to receive baptism, but there was nothing for them to eat during the four or five days in which they would have to be instructed. For we were in need of everything. It was put off until the coming of the ship, which was expected from day to day; but the expectation was vain. And therefore the opportunity for this good deed was lost, to our great regret.

Father Biard, being again at home, Father Enemond arrived the same day, safe and sound.

WHAT HAPPENED DURING THE WINTER AND SPRING FOLLOWING, 1613.

SIR Charles de Biencourt fully expected to receive help from France before Winter, especially since it had been said that there were three or four ships on the way, and already we were looking to see where we could store so many things as were coming in this fleet. Trusting in this, Sir Charles de Biencourt had traded almost everything. He was therefore astonished, when on All Saints' day, he found himself without hope of any relief that year.

The Jesuits, who had not built much (as the saying is) upon these visionary expectations, had reserved in their storeroom five large containers of grain, four of pure wheat and one of barley, which had been sent from France for their own use. It made in all fourteen barrels of good grain. When they saw Sir Charles de Biencourt's necessity, they went to him and cheerfully offered him their means, saying that he should take all their grain with the sole exception of two barrels of wheat and one of barley, which they wished to reserve for various emergencies of want and sickness, both for themselves and the others. As to the remainder, they would not touch it, except to receive as usual their daily portion like the others. Sir Charles de Biencourt accepted the offer, and its conditions, and according to these we began to live.

Meanwhile, the Jesuits decided to construct a boat while the others were sitting around the fire doing nothing. For they foresaw that, without this, they would surely die of hunger after the two months in which their barley would last; and having no boat, they could not go for acorns, shells, roots, or fish, nor to any place where there would be hope of finding something. For the roads in that country are the rivers and the sea.

When they began to carry out this plan of constructing a boat, they were both laughed at; for the master of the work was their servant, who knew nothing more about it than an apprentice; his assistants were two Priests, who had never followed this trade. "Still" (someone said) "Father Enemond can do anything; and in case of need he will be found to be a good Sawyer of planks, a good caulker, and a good Architect. But of what use will Father Biard be in such work?"

"Do you not know" (answered the other) "that when the boat is done, he will give it his blessing?"

Thus they chattered, and talked it over leisurely around the fire. But the Jesuits lost no time in sawing planks, planing boards, seeking bent wood, making oakum out of bits of rope which they found, and tramping over the woods in search of resin. In the middle of March, their jolly-boat was upon the water, equipped, adorned and fitted up bravely, to the admiration of those who had sneered at it: and on the other hand, Sir Charles de Biencourt, who in the beginning of Winter had had three good sailboats, at the end did not have any at all; and he was forced, out of the wrecks of these, to patch up a clumsy boat large enough for three people at the most, which leaked so badly that it could not go 7 continuous miles upon the sea, without sinking.

The boat being ready and under sail, Father Biard, with the servant and another who had joined them, named Jean Baptiste Charpentier, first made a trip up the river. They went in search of acorns and roots. These roots in the Indian language are called Chiquebi, and grow readily near oak trees. They are like truffles, but better, and grow under the ground strung to each other like a rosary. There are many of them in certain places, yet it is difficult to find any place where the Indians have not already been digging, and therefore only small ones are to be found. Also we must work hard to get enough of them for a day's food.

After having gone to the upper part of the river for acorns and roots, he went to get some Smelts. The Eplan or Epelan is a little fish like the sardine of Rouen, which, coming from the sea, spawns in certain brooks toward the beginning of April. There is one of these brooks 10 miles from Port-Royal, Nova Scotia, which sometimes completely swarms with them at that season. For this reason the Indians also go there to camp and live.

After the Smelts come the Herrings, which in like manner spawn in another river. Father Enemond Masse engaged in this fishing for herring, and later for cod, until the coming of May. And therefore we were dragging on our miserable lives until the arrival of the ship, whose voyage and route we must take up from farther back.

LA SAUSSAYE'S ARRIVAL AT PORT-ROYAL, NOVA SCOTIA, AND AFTERWARDS, AT ST. SAUVEUR (FRENCHMAN BAY, MAINE?).

THEY fitted up a ship in France to take the Jesuits away from Port-Royal, Nova Scotia, and to found a new French settlement in a more suitable place. The chief of this expedition was Captain la Saussaye, who was to winter in the country with thirty persons, counting the two Jesuits and their servant, whom he was to take up at Port-Royal, Nova Scotia. He had with him two other Jesuits, Father Quentin and Gilbert du Thet, whom he was to take there; but they were to return to France in case the two at Port-Royal, Nova Scotia were not dead, of which there was some doubt. The entire company, counting the Sailors, numbered 48 persons.

The master of the ship was Charles Flory of Habbe-ville, a discreet, hardy and peaceable man. The Queen had contributed four of the King's tents or pavilions, and some munitions of war. Sir Simon le Maistre had devoted himself to the freighting and provisioning, and Gilbert du Thet, the Jesuit lay brother, an industrious man, had not spared himself; so they were amply provided with everything for more than a year, besides the horses and goats which were being taken over for domestic purposes. The ship was of a hundred tons burden.

This expedition departed from Honfleur on the 12th of March, 1613, and landed first at LaHave (Nova Scotia) on the coast of Acadia, on the 16th of May, having consumed two entire months in the passage. At LaHave, Mass was said and a Cross erected, upon which was placed the coat of arms of Madame la Marquise de Guercheville, as a sign of having taken possession of it in her name. From there putting to sea again, they came to Port-Royal, Nova Scotia.

At Port-Royal, Nova Scotia they only found five persons; namely, the two Jesuits, their servant, the Apothecary Hebert, and another. Sir Charles de Biencourt and the rest of his people were all far away, some here, some there. Because Hebert was taking the place of Charles de Biencourt, they presented to him the Queen's letters, which contained the royal command to release the Jesuits and to let them go wherever they pleased; so the Jesuits took away their property in peace. And on that day as well as on the following, they made it as pleasant for Hebert and his company as they could, so that this arrival would not be a cause of sadness to them. At their departure, (although they were not in need of anything) they left them a barrel of bread and some bottles of wine, that the Farewell might be received with equally good grace.

Unfavorable winds kept us about five days at Port-Royal, Nova Scotia, and then a favorable Northeaster arising, we departed, intending to go to the river Penobscot, to the place called Bangor, the site destined for the new colony, and having many great advantages for such a purpose. But God decreed otherwise. For when we were to the Southeast of the Island of Menauo, the weather changed, and there came upon the sea such a dense fog that we could see no more by day than by night. We had serious misgivings in this time of danger, because in this place there are breakers and rocks, against which we were afraid of striking in the darkness; the wind not permitting us to draw away and stand out to sea. We continued therefore two days and two nights, veering now to one side, now to the other. When evening came, we began to see the stars, and by morning the fogs had all disappeared. We recognized that we were opposite Mount desert, an Island, which the Indians call Pemetiq. The pilot turned to the Eastern shore of the Island, and there located us in a large and beautiful port. We called this place and port Saint Sauveur (Frenchman Bay, Maine?).

WHY WE STAYED AT SAINT SAUVEUR (FRENCHMAN BAY, MAINE?); THE GOOD QUALITIES OF THE PLACE.

Here in this Port of St. Sauveur (Frenchman Bay, Maine?), a great contention arose between the Sailors and our company because the contract stipulated that the Sailors should be held at anchor in a Port of Acadia, and should remain there for the space of three months; the sailors maintained that they had arrived at a Port of Acadia, and that therefore this term of three months should begin to run from the time of this arrival. It was explained to them that the Port was not the one that had been designated to them by the name of Bangor, and therefore the time would not begin to be counted until they were there. The Pilot obstinately opposed this, maintaining that a ship had never gone as far as Bangor, and that he had no intention of becoming a discoverer of new routes; there was also some mistake about the name Acadia meaning Penobscot, which strengthened the dispute; reasons here, reasons there; nothing but argument, a bad omen for the future.

During these quarrels, the Indians signaled to us with smoke. This means that we can go and find them if we need them, which we did. The Pilot incidentally remarked to these Indians that the Port-Royal, Nova Scotia Fathers were in his ship. They answered that they would like to see the one with whom they had become acquainted two years before at Penobscot. This was Father Biard, who went immediately to see them, and in asking about the route to Bangor, said he wished to go there to live. "But," said they, "if you wish to stay in these regions, why do you not rather remain here with us, who have as good and beautiful a place as Bangor?" And they began to sing the praises of their home, assuring him that it was so healthy, and so agreeable, that when the Indians are sick in other parts, they have themselves brought to this place and here recover. These blessings did not affect Father Biard much, for he knew that the Indians did not lack that with which almost everyone is abundantly provided, namely, the ability to praise their own wares.

Father Biard decided to go there, especially since it was only 7 miles away, and there would result no greater loss of time than one afternoon; so he got into one of their canoes with Sir de la Mote, Lieutenant, and Simon the interpreter, and went off.

When we arrived at Asticou's cabins, we found him sick, but not to death, for it was only a cold that troubled him; so having assured ourselves of his good condition, we had plenty of leisure to go and visit this place, so boasted about and so much better for a French settlement than Bangor. And we found that the Indians were not wrong in praising it so highly; and having carried the news to the chiefs of our company, and they having come to view the place, all unanimously agreed that we ought to stay there and not look for anything better.

This place is a beautiful hill, rising gently from the sea, its sides bathed by two springs; the land is cleared for twenty or twenty-five acres, and in some places is covered with grass almost as high as a man. It faces the South and East, and is near the mouth of the Penobscot, where several broad and pleasant rivers, which abound in fish, discharge their waters; its soil is dark, rich and fertile; the Port and Harbor are as fine as can be seen, and are in a position favorable to command the entire coast; the Harbor especially is as safe as a pond. For, besides being strengthened by the great Island of Mount desert, it is still more protected by certain small Islands which break the currents and the winds, and fortify the entrance. There is not a fleet which it is not capable of sheltering, nor a ship so deep that could not approach within a cable's length of the shore to unload. It is situated in latitude forty-four and one-third degrees, a position still less northerly than that of Bourdeaux.

Having landed at this place and planted here the Cross, we began to work; and with the beginning of work also began the quarrels, a second sign and omen of our ill luck. The cause of these dissensions was principally that la Saussaye, our Captain, amused himself too much in cultivating the land, while all the chiefs of the enterprise were urging him not to employ the laborers for that purpose, but to get to work without delay upon the houses and fortifications, which he did not wish to do. From these disputes sprang others, until the English brought us all to an understanding with each other, as you will hear immediately.

OUR CAPTURE BY THE ENGLISH.

VIRGINIA is that continent which our forefathers called Mocosa, between Florida and New France under the 36th, 37th, and 38th parallels of north latitude. This country was first discovered and taken possession of by John Verrazzano in the name of Francis the first; but the English, having explored it since then; namely, in the years 1593 and 1594, finally came there to inhabit it only seven or eight years ago. Their principal settlement, which they call Jamestown is distant from St. Sauveur (Frenchman Bay, Maine?), where we were located, about 625 miles in a direct line. Judge if they have any good reason for quarreling with us.

These English of Virginia are accustomed every year to come to Matinicus Isle, which is 62 miles from our St. Sauveur (Frenchman Bay, Maine?), to store a supply of codfish for the winter. They were making for this place, as usual, in the Summer of the year of which we are speaking, 1613, when they were caught in the fogs and drizzling rains which often spread over these lands and seas during the summer. In the few days that they continued, the current imperceptibly cast them much farther to the Northeast than they thought. For they were fully 200 miles nearer to New France than they supposed, being in the neighborhood of our port. But not recognizing the place, unfortunately some Indians passed that way, who went to see them, supposing they were French people looking for us. The English understood nothing of the Indian language, but from their gestures and actions they easily gathered that they were trying to make them understand that a vessel was nearby, and it was a French vessel, for they heard the word "Normandia," the name by which we were called: and the acts of courtesy which the Indians performed to please them, they recognized as French ceremonies of civility and politeness. Therefore the English, who were in need of food and all other things, ragged and half-naked, inquired diligently as to the size of our ship, how many Cannon we had, how many men, etc.

Having received full and satisfactory answers, they uttered a joyful shout, indicating that this was just what they had been looking for, and that the Indians might lead them to us. The Indians misunderstood the matter; for they thought that these were some good friends of ours, who were in great anxiety about us, and who, through friendship, wished to see us. So one of them remained in the English ship to conduct them there; this he did, a favorable wind having arisen. The English, when they discovered us, began to prepare themselves for the fight, and it was then that the poor simple Indian recognized that he had been imposed upon, when he began to weep and to deplore his mistake, and to curse those who had therefore deceived him. Often since then he has lamented and asked forgiveness for his misadventure, both from us and from the other Indians; for they wished to take revenge upon him for our misfortune, thinking he had been the malicious cause of it.

We, gazing upon this ship bearing down upon us from far off, with full sails, did not know what to think, whether they were friends or foes, French or strangers. The Pilot went out in a boat on a tour of discovery, while the others armed themselves. La Saussaye remained on shore and there kept most of the men: Lieutenant la Mote, Ensign Ronsere, Sergeant Joubert, and all the more resolute men went to the ship. For it was there that the good men ought to be found.

The English ship came on swifter than an arrow, driven by a favorable wind, all screened in pavesade (canvas screen) of red, the banners of England flying, and three trumpets and two drums making a horrible din. Our pilot, who had gone out reconnoitering, did not return to his ship, because (said he) the English had the wind of him, and therefore, not to fall into their hands, he started to go round an Island. In any event, the ship was now deprived of half its Sailors, and had only ten men altogether to defend it; and of these there were none who understood naval warfare except Captain Flory, who lacked neither courage nor the ability to command. But he had not time enough to prepare, nor the men, so he could not heave the anchor to free the boat; which is the first thing to be done in a battle at sea. But how useless would it have been to heave anchor, when the sails were all disarranged. For as it was Summer, and, as the vessel was lying in port without fear of danger, they had stretched their sails in the form of a cradle from Stern to bitts, to shade the deck, so they could not be undone in so short a time. But this proved to be a lucky mischance: for in this way our people were well shielded during the fight, so that the English were not able to pick out any particular one for their musket shots, and fewer men were killed or wounded.

At their approach, as it is usual to call upon them to say who they are, our people called out in sailor-fashion their "O O." But the English did not respond in this tone, but in another far more violent with loud volleys from musket and cannon. They had fourteen pieces of artillery and sixty musketeers, trained to serve on ships, etc., and came to attack us upon the flanks, in front, behind, and wherever there was need, in regular order, as well as foot soldiers do on land.

The first volley from the English was terrible, the whole ship being enveloped in fire and smoke. On our side they responded coldly, and the artillery was altogether silent. Captain Flory cried, "Fire the cannon, fire," but the Cannoneer was not there. Gilbert du Thet, who in all his life had never felt fear or shown himself a coward, hearing this command and seeing no one obey it, took a match and made us speak as loudly as the enemy. Unfortunately, he did not take aim; if he had, perhaps there might have been something worse than mere noise.

The English, after this first and furious volley, came alongside of us, and held an Anchor ready to grapple our bitts. Captain Flory opportunely paid out more cable, which stopped the enemy and made them turn away, for they were afraid if they pursued us we would draw them into shallow water; then seeing our vessel fall back, and therefore being reassured, they again began to approach us, firing off the muskets as before. It was during this second charge that Gilbert du Thet received a musket shot in his body and fell stretched out across the deck. Captain Flory was also wounded in the foot, and three others in other places, which made them signal and cry out that we surrendered, for it was evidently an unequal match. At this cry the English jumped into their boat to come to our ship. Our men also, misled by bad advice, jumped into theirs with the hope of gaining the shore, for they feared the arrival of the victors.

These, however, reached the ship before our men could get away from it, and so they began to yell to them to come back, and, to enforce the order, fired upon them. Frightened at this, two of our men threw themselves into the sea, in order, I believe, to swim to the shore; but they were drowned, either because they were already wounded, or (what seems more probable) because they were struck and wounded in the water. These were two promising young fellows, one from Dieppe, called le Moyne, the other named Nepveu, of the town of Beauvais; their bodies did not appear until nine days later, when means were found to recover them and they were given a religious burial. Such was the capture of our ship.

THE PLUNDERING OF OUR SHIP, AND OF OUR PEOPLE, AND THE DISTRESSES WE ENDURED.

THE victorious Englishman came on shore, where we had our tents and our houses just begun, and had our Captain searched for in all directions, saying that they wished to see our commissions; that this land belonged to them, and so they had fallen upon us when they found us there; still, if we could show our good faith in the matter, and that we had come there under the authority of our Prince, that they would show some regard for it, wishing in no way to violate the alliance between our two Kings. But the trouble was, la Saussaye could not be found, and on this account the shrewd and cunning Englishman seized his trunks, skillfully picked the locks, and, having found there our commissions and royal land grant documents, took possession of them; then, putting everything else back in its place, each article just as he had found it, nicely fastened the trunks again.

The next day, la Saussaye having returned, the English Captain, who knew his lesson remarkably well, received him kindly and made his first inquiries with a fine show of courtesy; then he came to the point and demanded his commission, so there might be no doubt when the words Of our King were actually seen. La Saussaye answered that the letters were in his trunks. These were brought, and before he unlocked them he was advised to look closely to see if they had been tampered with, for they were acting with all sincerity. La Saussaye found that all was in good order, but he could not find the letters. Then the English Captain changed his manner and his voice, and, frowning in the most proper manner, said he, "Are you imposing on us? You tell us that you have a commission from your King, but you cannot produce any evidence of it. You are Outlaws and Pirates, every one of you, and merit death." Then he set his soldiers to plundering, and in this the whole afternoon was consumed.

From the shore, we looked on at the pillage of our property: for the English had left us on shore while they remained on the water, where they joined our vessels to theirs, for we had two, our ship and a barque constructed at this place and newly equipped. We were reduced to a pitiful state, but this was not the end. The next day, they came on shore, and robbed us also of what we had there. Not all at one time, but at intervals, and whenever they came on shore, always appropriating some of our mantles, clothes, and other things. Once they maltreated and abused two of our men, which so frightened part of the others that they fled to the woods like poor hunted beasts, half-naked and without food, not knowing what would become of them.

Gilbert du Thet was struck down by a musket ball during the fight. When the English boarded our ship, they put him, with all the other wounded men, into the hands of their Surgeon. This Surgeon was a Catholic, and known as such. He was charitable, and did us a thousand kind services. As soon as Father Biard learned about Gilbert du Thet's wound, he sent a request to the Captain to have all the wounded carried on shore; this was granted, and so this Gilbert had an opportunity to confess, and he died. He passed away with great steadfastness, resignation, and devotion, twenty-four hours after he was wounded.

Up to this time, the Jesuits had not been recognized by the English, except as Priests. Father Biard and Father Enemond Masse went to the ship to speak with the English Captain, and explained to him openly that they were Jesuits, who had come to these regions to convert the Indians; then they implored him, so he might have pity upon these poor French; and that in their wretched condition he might see how changeable are the affairs of this world, allow them to return to France, their native country, and furnish them means for it. The Captain listened to them kindly, and answered with like courtesy: "But," (said he, pretending), "I am astonished at you Jesuits, who are generally regarded as conscientious and religious men, being here in the company of pirates, marauders, and idle wanderers, who are men without calling, without law, and without honor."

Father Biard answered that their whole company were honest people and were recommended by the King of France, and so summarily refuted all opposing arguments, that the English Captain had to seem to agree with him, conquered by his logic. "Certainly," he added, "there has been some fault in therefore losing your letters. Still, I shall consider the matter of your return with your Captain." And from that time until our departure, he always had the two Fathers eat at his table, showing them great respect and courtesy. He had a thorn in his side, which caused him much uneasiness; it was the Pilot and Sailors who had escaped, and of whom he could get no news. This pilot, called "Bailleur," from the city of Rouen, had gone out to reconnoiter, and could not return to the ship in time to defend it; therefore he turned his boat aside, and when night came took in with him the other Sailors, and withdrew to a place of safety, out of sight of the English and beyond their power.

At night, he came to talk over with us what was to be done. He performed this kind act especially for the Jesuits; for he came to Father Biard and implored him not to mistrust him because he was of the Protestant Religion, assuring him that he would not fail him, nor any of the Fathers, as he was speaking from a sincere heart. Father Biard thanked him affectionately; he told him, however, that he did not wish to think of himself, until he saw all the others on a safe road, and then let happen to him what may. He admonished the Pilot to be careful not to fall into the hands of the English, for the Captain was trying hard to catch him. The Pilot wisely profited by this advice, and by that of the others. For, during the next two or three days, he went about in defiance of the English, as if making his escape and going for a ship, seeming to say to them that they should not count upon him this time. But he only withdrew behind some Islands not far off, to be on the lookout and to see what fortune might befall us. I believe this made the English Captain decide not to subject us to any worse treatment, however much he might have wished to do so. Judging from what we experienced afterward, he was a shrewd and cunning Captain, but still a gentleman of noble courage; nor were his men inhuman or cruel to any of us.

It is impossible to imagine the anxiety we endured, for we did not know which way to turn. From the English, we expected only death or at least slavery; but to remain in this country, and for so many men to live among the Indians in their way for a whole year, looked to us like a long and miserable death. These good Indians, having heard about our misfortune, came and offered to do their best for us, promising to feed us during the Winter, and showing a great deal of sympathy for us.

THE MEANS WHICH WERE FOUND TO RETURN TO FRANCE, AND HOW THIRTY OF OUR PEOPLE ARRIVED THERE AFTER MANY TRIALS.

THE English Captain, whose name was Samuel Argal, and his Lieutenant, William Turnel began, as they had promised, to negotiate with our Captain la Saussaye about our return. The English offered some unfair conditions, but to make the story short, the conclusion was that as one boat remained to us of the two we had had, they would leave it for us, and with it we could go where God directed us. The English Captain, crafty as he was, wished to have a written acknowledgment signed by la Saussaye, in which he should testify that it was by his own choice that this course had been taken.

When this decision was heard, Father Biard went to see the Captain, and represented to him that there remained thirty persons, and that it was not possible for so many people to crowd into so small a vessel, and still less possible that they could make 375 miles, and cross bays of 25 and 30 miles, which would be necessary before they found any French ship in which they could take refuge: that such a thing was plainly throwing ourselves into the jaws of death. The Englishman answered that la Saussaye did not think so, but if they wished to lighten this boat he would find a means of doing so; that he would take to Virginia the workmen who wished to go there, under promise that they would not force them in the matter of Religion, and that, after one year of service, they would send them back to France. Three accepted this offer.

Sir de la Mote likewise had consented to go to Virginia with the English Captain, who honored him, because he had found him sword in hand, and saw in him many other good qualities, which proved a great advantage to all our company. He was permitted to take with him some who were to enjoy the same favor as he did. Captain Flory also decided to try the same fortune, because he was encouraged to hope that he might therefore recover his ship. Father Biard asked that four of them, namely two Jesuits and two others, might be taken to the Pencoit Islands and recommended to the English fishermen, who are usually there, so they might return to France. This the English Captain granted willingly.

Thus the boat was sufficiently lightened, and our whole company was arranged in three equal divisions; for fifteen were with the Pilot, fifteen with the English, and fifteen had embarked in the boat left to them. Of this fifteen, Father Enemond Masse was one; the company in that boat chose him.

This boat was then given in charge of la Saussaye, and of Father Enemond Masse, Jesuit, whom the English Captain highly honored. He delivered it over to them with a small supply of food, and other provisions. But our poor men were in great trouble when they had to sail their vessel; for there were only two or three sailors, and these had neither map nor knowledge of the country. However, the Pilot, who had placed his men in security, anxious to know how the rest of the company were faring, disguised himself as an Indian and went spying about the place; he opportunely encountered this boat, which was sailing off with no knowledge of navigation. They had great success in catching large Lobsters or Sea crabs, and the Indians generously gave them quantities of birds and fish and all other things they had.

Thus they fell in with the boat containing the Sailors, and in their company reached the Island of Menano. This Island is at the entrance to the Bay of Fundy, and from there they went as far as Long Island; in this passage they had to cross 25 miles of an angry sea caused by the strong and violent currents which flow between, and unfortunately, bad weather kept them there eight or nine days. Beautiful weather followed, by means of which they reached Long Island.

Here God had prepared a storehouse, for they found in this place a good pile of salt, which Sir Charles de Biencourt had previously left there, and to find use for it they caught a lot of fish. Thus provisioned, they passed on to Cape Forchu, where they found the Chief, Louis Membertou, who gave Father Enemond Masse a hearty welcome and tried to keep him there. But the Father excused himself, giving as his reason the necessity of remaining with his company. The Indian made Tabagie (solemn feast) for them all with Moose Meat, and then they rounded Cape Sable more cheerfully.

When they were in the neighborhood of Port an Mouton, they saw before them four boats filled with Indians, who were returning from the trading station. It was Roland and other Chiefs, who immediately recognized Father Enemond, and showed him a generosity wonderful; namely, by giving half a Sea Biscuit to each of his companions, and a whole one to him. See the world turned upside down, the Indians freely furnishing bread to the French. This bread seemed like Manna to our afflicted Frenchmen, for they had tasted none for three weeks. And to complete the fulfillment of their wish, the Indians told them that not far from there were two French ships, one at Cape Sambro, Nova Scotia and the other at Prospect, Nova Scotia. This caused our Pilgrims to hurry, so they could see the ships.

These two ships were from Saint Malo, one belonging to Dupont the Younger, this ship being only about fifty tons burden; Captain Vible Bullot commanded the other, of a hundred tons, and (a good omen) called the "Sauveur." Each of these two took its half of the whole band, but those in the smaller vessel suffered a great deal, being in need of everything, room, food, and water, and being horribly shaken up by tempests and adverse winds; our disaster, however, happened opportunely for this vessel, because it had lost many of its crew, and could scarcely have returned without this chance meeting and fresh reinforcement afforded by our wanderers.

In the larger vessel, called the Sauveur, they fared better, as the Sailors were so kind-hearted that, of their own free will, they restricted their own rations, and left several good places for the accommodation of their guests. Father Enemond Masse had taken refuge in this one; and the Pilot, Alain Yeon, showed him great kindness.

They were likewise attacked by tempests, and experienced the truth of the saying about St. Elmo's fire, or the consoling Brothers, that when two appear at once, it is a good omen. For two appeared for a quarter of an hour upon the Lateen Sail-yard, and soon after, the fury of the tempest and the sea abated.

Both ships arrived safe at St. Malo, almost at the same time, although the "Sauveur" had departed twelve days later.

THE VOYAGE TO VIRGINIA; AND THE RETURN TO NEW FRANCE.

Here were now two-thirds of our company conducted back to France, safe and sound, among their friends and relatives, who listen to them as they relate the stories of their wondrous adventures. Consequently you will wish to know what became of the other third, who remained behind in the hands of the English. A longer and more varied fate awaits them, and all will not emerge from there unharmed.

The English had three vessels; namely, their own, with which they had captured us, of a hundred and thirty tons; ours, which they had seized, of a hundred tons; and a barque of twelve tons, which they had likewise taken from us, and would not give back to be used for our return. They filled these three vessels with their people, and distributed us among them. Sir de la Mote, Captain Flory, and half of the rest, making in all eight persons, were placed in the "Capitanesse," and the others, seven in number, remained in the captured ship, of which Lieutenant Turnel was made Captain.

As the beginning of their ill luck, the Jesuits were not taken to Matinicus Isle, according to the promise, but were taken straight to Virginia with the rest of the crowd, who were consoled with bright hopes, as (said they) the Marshal of Virginia was a great friend of the French, as he had secured all his more important honors through the recommendation of the late Henry the Great, having been his soldier and pensioner. This was preached to us frequently.

But our preachers did not take their text from the Gospels. For this charming Marshal, who had the fiber and character of a Frenchman, as they said, when he heard an account of us, talked about nothing but ropes and gallows, and of having every one of us hanged. We were badly frightened, and some lost their peace of mind, expecting nothing less than to ignominiously walk up a ladder to be let down by a rope. But Captain Argal showed great magnanimity in defending us: for he opposed the Marshal, urging the promise given by him. And as he found himself too weak in this opposition, he showed our commissions and Royal land grant documents, which he had secretly removed from la Saussaye's trunks. And it was in this way that we learned that he had made use of such a trick, for otherwise we should never have found out. The Marshal, seeing these warrants of our King, and the determination of the Captain, did not dare go any further; so, after several days spent in great fear, we were informed that their promise would be kept.

How they were going to keep it, and what means would be found to send us back to France, was the great question. The General, the Marshal, and all the other Important persons of Virginia assembled in Council. The result and conclusion of their consultation was to act still worse than ever, since it seemed to them they had the power to do so. For it was decreed that Captain Argal, with his three vessels, should return to New France, plunder and demolish all the fortifications and settlements of the French which he should find along the entire coast as far as Cape Breton: namely, to 46 and one half degrees north latitude, (for they lay claim to all this territory) that he was to have la Saussaye hanged, with all of his men whom he found remaining within these limits; that he should likewise plunder the ships which he encountered, finding means, however, to allow their people to return to France, in case they showed no resistance; and that we old prisoners should be placed together with those whose lives had therefore been spared.

In accordance with this decision, Argal again started for New France, stronger than before, for he had three vessels, and higher expectations; because the booty he had taken from us strengthened both his greed and his hopes. However, he did not take with him half of our people, I do not know why. In his vessel were Captain Flory and four others; in that of Lieutenant Turnel, (which was the one captured from us) the two Jesuits and a boy.

They directed their course first to St. Sauveur (Frenchman Bay, Maine?), for they expected to find la Saussaye and a newly arrived ship there. They were mistaken, as la Saussaye was in France. They burned our fortifications and tore down our Crosses, raising another to show they had taken possession of the country. This Cross had carved upon it the name of the King of great Britain. Also, on account of a conspiracy, they hanged one of their men in the place where, eight days before, they had torn down the first of our Crosses.

From St. Sauveur (Frenchman Bay, Maine?), they sailed for St. Croix, Sir de Monts's old settlement; and as they knew that Father Biard had been there, Argal wished him to conduct them there; but the Father would not consent to do so. This caused him to be in complete disgrace with Argal, and in great danger of his life. Despite this, Argal wandered about, up and down, and, by force of searching all places thoroughly and, comparing them with the maps which he had taken from us, he at last found the place himself. He took away a good pile of salt, which he found there, burned the settlement, and destroyed all traces of the name and claims of France, as he had been commanded to do.

THE TAKING AND BURNING OF PORT-ROYAL, NOVA SCOTIA; FATHER BIARD TWICE IN GREAT DANGER.

CAPTAIN Argal, having destroyed Saint Croix, did not know in what direction to sail to reach Port-Royal, Nova Scotia, according to his commission, and hesitated all the more as he was afraid of being stranded upon such a dangerous coast without a guide who was familiar with the area; and judging from the recent example of Father Biard, he did not expect that any Frenchman would consent to guide him, or give him sincere advice in the matter. For this reason, he began to look for an Indian, and by force of much running about, lying in ambush, inquiring, and skillful maneuvering, he caught the Chief, an experienced man, and well acquainted with the country; under his guidance, he reached Port-Royal, Nova Scotia. This was bad luck for the French, as the English entered the Port by Moonlight, and dropped anchor in sight of the settlement, at a distance of more than 5 miles; so, if the French had been on their guard, they would have had an excellent opportunity to prepare for a fight, or to run away, for on account of the tide, the English were not in front of the settlement until ten or eleven o'clock the next day. I do not know what they were doing. In any event, when the English landed, they found no one in the fort, and saw shoes and clothing all scattered about; so they were doubly pleased by this capture, first, because they met no resistance; and second, because they found a fair supply of booty, which they were not anticipating.

This unlooked-for capture of booty nearly cost Father Biard his life; as the English had already lost a great deal of time looking for Saint Croix, and afterward in finding an Indian who might act as their guide, Lieutenant Turnel had been of the opinion that it would be better to abandon the voyage to Port-Royal, Nova Scotia, and return as soon as possible to Virginia; giving as his reasons that the place was dangerous and the season too far advanced (for it was the end of October); that there would be no profit in the end, because they would find nothing there but misery and French hatred, without being requited for it by any reward. Lieutenant Turnel had heard these arguments from Father Biard, with whom he often took pleasure in conversing, and considered them good. When Captain Argal had such an easy entry, and afterward at the settlement of Port-Royal, Nova Scotia found such a quantity of booty in food, clothes and utensils, he reproached his Lieutenant for his advice, and for his confidence in the Jesuits, and gave him a smaller part of the plunder. The Lieutenant was angry, and even more so because he had always had the reputation of being a man of intelligence and good judgment, which he had now forfeited, on account of the Jesuit.

There was an English Puritan, master of the larger vessel, more malicious than all the others, yet hypocritical, for he made the finest compliments in the world; but the other Englishmen advised us not to trust him, as he was wickedly prejudiced against us. So this man, seeing his opportunity, persuaded the Captain and Lieutenant, who he saw were aroused, to leave the Jesuit on shore, saying he did not deserve that the English should give him food since he had tried to prevent them from obtaining it, and offering a thousand other arguments. I do not know what rescued the Jesuit so opportunely from this danger, unless it were his simplicity. For he dropped upon his knees before the Captain upon two different occasions, to move him to pity towards the French of Port-Royal, Nova Scotia, who were wandering about through the woods, and to persuade him to leave them some food, their boat, and other means of passing the Winter.

See now what different requests were being made to this Captain: for as Father Biard was petitioning him on behalf of the French, a Frenchman was shouting out from afar, with most scandalous insults and abuse, that he ought to be slain. Argal (who has a noble heart), seeing the so sincere affection of the Jesuit, and, on the other hand, the infuriated inhumanity of this Frenchman, considered that it would always be a disgrace to him, if, without hearing from both sides, he should cast off, on account of a sly accusation, him to whom he had given his word. And so he rejected both the persuasions of the Englishman, and the rage of the Frenchman, looking upon the Jesuit all the more favorably as he saw that, however much he was attacked, there was no deterioration in his conduct.

This Captain, having taken away from Port-Royal, Nova Scotia everything that seemed convenient to him, even the boards, bolts, locks, and nails, set the place on fire. A pitiable thing, for in an hour or two the work of several worthy people, during a number of years, was reduced to ashes. The English destroyed all evidences of the dominion of the French; even to making use of pick and chisel upon a large and massive stone, on which were cut the names of Sir de Monts and other Captains, with the fleur-de-lis. This done, they weighed anchor to sail away, but bad weather detained them three or four days at the mouth of the Harbor.

While they remained anchored here, a Frenchman from among those at the Port asked to confer with them; his request was granted. Among the nice things which this fine parliamentarian did was to say to the English Captain that he was surprised that he had not already rid the world of the harmful Jesuit, who was in one of his ships. That if he were not dispatched, perhaps some ill luck might allow him to take revenge upon the English by some wicked treason, in his way and at his opportunity. For the Jesuit was (said this Frenchman) a true and native Spaniard, who, having committed several crimes in France, on account of which he was a fugitive from justice, had also been the cause of a great deal of scandal at Port-Royal, Nova Scotia, and there could not be the slightest doubt that he would do something still worse to the English.

Argal, when he heard it said that Father Biard was a native Spaniard, could not believe it; but this charge, made in writing and signed by five or six persons, was handed to him: and they urged him strongly to put on shore and desert Father Biard. But the more they urged him, the less the Englishman would yield to them, because he could not escape the dishonor of having broken faith and failed in doing justice; but, if he kept him until he got to Virginia, he could count upon having him executed there, also receiving praise for keeping his word, and for his patience in bearing with him. For when he would communicate to the Marshal this statement of the French, and add that the Father would not consent to guide them to the Island of St. Croix, and had tried to keep the English from going to Port-Royal, Nova Scotia, he would not escape the hands of the Marshal. He was saved that time, and still more wondrously since then. Meanwhile, it is necessary to be cautious in believing slanders; for Father Biard had lived in Port-Royal, Nova Scotia, and had always been universally recognized for what he is; namely, a good, native-born Frenchman, who had never even been in Spain, neither he, nor his father, nor his mother, nor any of his relatives. Despite all this, a Frenchman was found so possessed with the spirit of bloodshed, that to have him killed, he was led to commit such a monstrous act of imposition.

THE DEPARTURE FROM PORT-ROYAL, NOVA SCOTIA; VARIOUS ADVENTURES OF THE SHIPS; AND HOW WE WERE COMPELLED TO STOP AT THE AZORES.

ON the ninth of November of this year, 1613, the English left Port-Royal, Nova Scotia, intending to go back to Virginia, and there to enjoy their booty during the following winter. From this time on, Lieutenant Turnel only looked upon Father Biard as an abominable rascal: he hated him still more when he thought of the past, for then he had openly shown his esteem for him on account of his naive simplicity and open candor. But having seen the testimony in writing of so many Frenchmen, who assured him that he was a native Spaniard, and a wicked man, he preferred to believe that the Jesuit was a liar, rather than to disbelieve so many others who accused him. Therefore his hatred was all the more irreconcilable against the deep hypocrisy (as he thought) of a Spaniard, pretending to be a Frenchman, which he, reputed to be a man of wisdom, had not been able to discover in so long a time, but had allowed himself to be drawn by it into friendship. Such was the wrath of Captain Turnel, whom I shall subsequently call simply Captain and no longer Lieutenant, because we are going to be separated from the other ships; hear in what way.

On the second day after our departure, on the eve of St. Martin, so terrible a storm arose that our three vessels were scattered so effectually that they never came together afterward, but all sailed away in different directions. The barque was never seen again, and, no news of it having been heard, no one doubts that it was lost with the six Englishmen who were on board.

The Ship "Capitanesse," which Argal commanded, safely reached port in Virginia, after three weeks. The Marshal listened willingly to Captain Argal as he told all that had taken place, and awaited Father Biard, to shorten for him his voyages and to make him find the end of the world from the middle of a hangman's ladder; but God disposes of his creatures according to his own good pleasure, and not according to the whims of human authority.

The two Jesuits and a French boy were in the captured ship which had been committed to the care of Captain Turnel; this ship, separated from Argal by the tempest, was so incessantly followed by it for sixteen days, that the Captain, losing hope of being able to reach Virginia, called together all his people, and took counsel with them upon the best way to save their lives. There seemed to be no probability that they would much longer be able to combat the storms so as to keep near Virginia, because they had in the ships the horses taken from Port-Royal, Nova Scotia, and these spoiled as much of the water as they drank; the winds had so torn their sails and broken their gunwales and ropes, that they had nothing left with which to repair them; the stock of food was low, except the codfish, of which they had enough; but as to bread, they had had, during three months, only two ounces a day to each person, rarely three; and so there remained little of it.

In this consultation, the sailors were of the opinion that their honor demanded them to hold out some days longer. And in approval of their decision, fair weather came the next day, and bore them so far ahead that they judged they were no more than 62 miles from their port. To tell the truth, the Jesuits did not pray for this fair weather, knowing to what fate it was carrying them. God, taking pity on them, aroused a vigorous southwester, which blew right in the Englishmen's teeth, and forced them to lie to, to reef the sails, and to examine their consciences.

The Captain, seeing this fury Of the winds and waves, thought it prudent not to persist in his course, but decided to make for the Azores, 1750 miles from there, to provide for their necessities and to wait for good weather. He turned the prow in that direction, and immediately they killed the horses which had been spoiling and drinking the water, so that it was all infected and had a bad smell; and even this was measured out to us in small quantities. But the horseflesh was good, according to the taste of the Jesuits.

During these furious and horrible tempests, when all had good reason to look into their consciences, God especially inclined the Captain to do so. Once, when he was feeling repentant, he called Father Biard and held with him the following conversation, which I here insert almost word for word: for this Captain spoke good French, and many other common languages, besides Latin and Greek, which he understood; he was a man of great intelligence and a thorough student:

"Father Biard," (said he) "God is angry at us; he is angry at us but not at you; angry at us, because we went to make war upon you without first giving you notice, which is contrary to the rights of nations. But I protest that it was contrary to my advice, and my inclination. I did not know what to do; I had to follow; I was merely a servant. But I tell you, I see that God's wrath is kindled against us, but not against you, although on your ledger, for you do nothing but suffer. But, Father Biard, did not charity make you lie, when you told me we should find nothing but misery at Port-Royal, Nova Scotia?"

"Pardon me," answers the Father, "remember that I told you only that when I was there, I saw and found nothing but misery."

"That would be all right," says the Captain, "if you were not a Spaniard, as they say you are, for, being one, the great good which you desire for the French is not on account of the love you bear them, but on account of your hatred of the English."

Upon this, Father Biard entered into a long explanation; but he could never eradicate this opinion from the Captain's mind, who said it was not credible that five or six Frenchmen would have consented to sign a false accusation against a Priest, one of their own fellow-citizens, deriving no other profit than to destroy him.

Both the Captain and his crew were perplexed, when they found themselves near the Azores. The reason for this was that these Islands are inhabited by Catholic Portuguese, so the English judged that, in anchoring there, they would have to allow the ship to be visited; and if in this visit the priests were discovered, it would be all over with them, since the Jesuits, as Catholics, would be liberated, and they, the English, would be hanged, or at least condemned to the chain and ball, as robbers of Priests. The remedy for this evil was an easy one; namely, to make the Jesuits take a leap into the sea. But our Lord caused the Captain to decide to conceal them in the hold of the ship, hoping this would suffice for their security, as it did; but the good faith of the Jesuits assisted there, as you will hear.

HOW THE SHIP WAS VISITED AT THE AZORES, AND HOW THE JESUITS KEPT THEIR PROMISE TO THE ENGLISH.

GOD'S hand was stretched over the Jesuits for their protection, as you have been able to see. This divine protection was even more evident in removing all fears of danger from the Captain, for if he had foreseen the great risks which he ran, I am not sure that he or his crew would have been so conscientious as not to have resolved upon murder.

They came to the Island of Faeal, one of the Azores, where, upon their arrival, they intended only to anchor near the town, to send their boat for a supply of water, which they needed most, and to buy a few biscuit and other necessary articles. In this way, it was easy to conceal the Jesuits; for those vessels which are some distance from the land are only slightly visited, and, this visit over, all danger is past. This was the reason why the Captain so readily resolved not to use cruelty. But fate found other means, which he had not considered; for he had to enter the harbor and remain in full view of the town, and of other ships.

There our ship ran afoul of a small Spanish ship, loaded with sugar, and broke its bowsprit; the Spaniards thought this was a ruse by means of which to surprise their vessel and rob it, just as a French ship had done in the same port five weeks before; and so they began to cry "pirates!" at the same time arming their crew; just a little more and they would have come to blows. There was great commotion and noise in the town, and considerable alarm throughout all the ships in the harbor.

The Captain had to go on shore, and remain there as a hostage and security; and even then, no one could believe that he was other than a Pirate. They came to visit and revisit the ship, and the Jesuits played hide and seek, from top to bottom, from dungeon to hold, always finding some new hiding place. During the liveliest and fiercest suspicions, the Spaniards came to visit the ship, and the poor Fathers and the French boy were huddled behind a boat, still and breathless; for if they had even breathed a little loud, or moved hand or foot, they would have been discovered. The thing was so dangerous that our English were seized with a panic. But the Jesuits wished to continue to keep faith with them for several reasons, and among others to make the slanderers of the Catholic Church see that they attributed to it wrongfully the doctrine that it is not necessary to keep faith with heretics; which is totally false and contrary to its belief.

The Spaniards never discovered the fathers in their visit, and went away with a high opinion of the English. The English, recovering from the panic into which they had been thrown, began to embrace the Fathers as effusively, and to make as great a celebration in acknowledgment of their sincerity, as a company of friends would make at a peaceful reunion after a long separation. These same English have often since then praised the Fathers for their dependability, in the presence of their Ministers in England; and the Ministers have then made great demonstrations of astonishment and admiration.

THE ARRIVAL IN ENGLAND; AND THE DELIVERANCE OF THE JESUITS.

THE English were occupied three entire weeks at this Island, which we call Focal, and during this time the poor Jesuits were not able to see the Sun. As these English were in need of money, they could not fit themselves out there, and this made them firmly decide to make no further attempt to return to Virginia, but to go back to England, especially since they now found themselves in the present year, 1614, which was the term of their service.

On our way to England, the tempest cast us out of la manche (as it is called); that is, out of the Channel between France and England, and we had to take refuge in the Harbor of Milford Haven, in the Province of Wales. There again all provisions failed us, which compelled our Captain to go to Pembroke, the principal city of this place. But at Pembroke he was taken prisoner, as they suspected him of being a Pirate. The suspicion arose from the fact that he and his crew were English, yet their ship was made after French models, which made them think he came from Port de Gryp on the Arcin Islands, this side of Cape Escumant. The Captain justified himself as well as he could, by telling the truth; but they did not believe him, as he had no Commission, and could not have had, because being nothing but a Lieutenant he followed his Captain, from whom he was accidentally separated by the storm, as you have heard. For this reason, he had to produce as witnesses of his honesty, the two Jesuits whom he had in his ship, irreproachable men, as he said, and said truly.

Immediately, by command of the Magistrate, the Jesuits were summoned to come on shore, where they were respectfully interrogated in a Court of justice. They stated the facts of the case and, upon their testimony, the Captain was acknowledged to be a gentleman of honor and of worth; as to the disentanglement of our difficulties about New France, these were to be reserved for the King. Still, we had to make a long stay at Pembroke, awaiting an answer from London, for it was necessary to send there, partly to obtain money, partly to make known the affair to the high Admiral, and the company of Merchants who have charge of Virginia.

This call of the Jesuits was a contrivance of providence, which everywhere assisted them; as, if they had remained in the ship, as they were doing, lacking everything, in the depths of winter (for it was February), and had continued to do this during four weeks, it is probable that they would have died of cold and starvation; but, by means of this summons, they became known to the judge, honorable and grave person as he is, and he, having heard how badly off they were in the ship, had them lodged in the house of the Mayor of the city, and paid for them himself, saying they might pay it back if they had the means, otherwise it would be given to God. "For" (said he), "it would be a great disgrace to us if such honorable and learned men were not received among us with courtesy." This kind Gentleman's name is Nicolas Adams, Vice admiral of Pembroke.

During this stay, all kinds of people went to see them, and some from a great distance, through curiosity to see Jesuits dressed in their robes, as they were then and always have been until their return to France. Ministers, justices, Gentlemen, and others came to confer with them; even a Lord of the great Council wished to have the pleasure of pitting four Ministers against them in debate. I say Ministers, to make myself intelligible to the French, for in England they call them Priests. And the Chief one in the debate was an Archdeacon, for the English still have a great many things in common with the Catholic Church, as the Order of the religious Hierarchy, Archbishops, Bishops, Priests, Archpriests, Archdeacons, Curates, etc.; the Episcopal laying on of hands in the ordination of Priests, and lesser Orders, and in the confirmation of children; the Chrism and its ceremonies, the sign of the Cross, the Image of this and of other things; the Psalms and usual form of worship, the prescribed Saints' days, the Vigils, Fasts, Lent, Abstinence from meat on Friday and Saturday; Priestly robes, and consecrated vessels. And those who condemn all these things, as the Protestants of France and of Scotland do, and call them damnable superstitions, and inventions of the Antichrist, are by the English called Puritans, and are detested by them as abominable plagues.

When at last an answer came from London, it was learned that the Ambassador of France had heard about the arrival of this ship, and was negotiating its surrender, especially the surrender of the Jesuits, having had orders to do so from the King of France. This was another effect of God, since it caused our arrest in the Province of Wales to be known to all; for we have strong proofs that if the Merchants, in whose hands lay the administration of Virginia, had been able to have their own way, not one foreigner who was to be found in Virginia would ever have returned to his own country.

The Jesuits were taken by a long roundabout way to the Harbor of Sandwich, and from there sent to Dover by order of the King, and from Dover to Calais, having been nine months and a half in the hands of the English. Sir d'Arquien, Governor of Calais, and Sir la Baulaye, Dean, gave them a warm reception and provided them with means to return to their College at Amiens.

THE RETURN OF SIR DE LA MOTE, OF CAPTAIN FLORY AND OTHERS, AND THE SURRENDER OF THE SHIP.

SHORTLY after this liberation of the Jesuits, God rescued nearly all the others who had been shipwrecked, and in the following way.

The boy who was with the Jesuits, called Guillaume Crito, was taken to London and from there sent to his Father at Honfleur. Sir de la Mote also returned to England in a vessel from the Bermudas, which had stopped at Virginia.

Captain Argal generously contended with Marshal Thomas Deel (of whose great asperity of temper you have heard us speak) to obtain from him permission for Sir de la Mote to return, and at last it was granted.

This Sir la Mote was astonished when suddenly, on arriving in England, no one spoke to him any more, nor looked at him, and he found himself abandoned by all; and the worst of it was that he was taken sick on board the ship. He immediately suspected the nature of the danger which threatened him, and from where it came; namely, from the Virginia merchants, who would have liked to get rid of him, and did not know how. Therefore he tried by secret means, and finally succeeded in having his story told to Sir de Bisseaux, Ambassador of the King of France, who immediately sent to him two Gentlemen who had him liberated and well treated. At the same time, Madame la Marquise de Guercheville sent la Saussaye to London, to request the surrender of the ship, and reparation for the wrongs involved in this immoral robbery. The ship has been given up, but nothing else has been obtained.

And now, just as our ship, having been set free, was about to wing her way to France, her native land, Captain Flory, her Master, arrives upon the scene to step in and take command of her. Captain Argal, about to return to England, had rescued him and two other Frenchmen from the hands of the Marshal. This Argal has shown himself such a person that we have reason to wish for him that he may now serve a better cause and one in which his nobility of heart may appear, not in the ruin, but in the preservation of honest men. Of all our number, three died in Virginia, and four still remain there, for whose liberation everything possible is being done.

WHAT PROGRESS THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION HAS MADE IN NEW FRANCE.

I consider it a great advantage that we have learned more and more about the nature of these Canadian territories and lands, the character of the inhabitants, the means of helping them, the obstacles which are liable to arise against the progress of the work, and the help that must be given to oppose the enemy.

But yet, it is a great result that the French have won the confidence and friendliness of the Indians, through the great familiarity and frequent communication which they have had with them. For the foundation must always be laid before raising the capital; that is, we must make them citizens, or good hosts and friends, before making them brothers. This confidence and this intimacy is already so great that we live among them with less fear than we would in Paris. For in Paris we can not sleep without having the doors well bolted; but there we close them against the wind only, and sleep no less securely for keeping them open. At first they fled from us, and feared us; now they wish us with them.

When we first disembarked and visited St. Sauveur (Frenchman Bay, Maine?), and pretended that we did not like the place, and that we thought of going elsewhere, these simple natives lamented. On the other hand, the Chief of Bangor, called "Betsabes," came to persuade us, with a thousand promises, to go to his place, having heard that we had some intention of making a settlement there. And we must not conclude that other nations have made this friendship as well as we, for these Indians, having (as they supposed) some advantage over the English, threw themselves upon them with fury, thinking to get revenge for the injury that had been done us; but they were not successful in their attack. Likewise, towards the end of 1611, the Hollanders merely wishing to land at LaHave, Nova Scotia to take in some fresh water, our Indians attacked them fiercely, and made away with six of them, among whom was the Captain of the ship.

The Archbishop Flesche baptized perhaps eighty of them, the Jesuits only about twenty, and these were little children, except three, who were baptized in the last extremity of sickness, and from there have gone to enjoy a life of bliss; as have also some of the little children. We had composed our Catechism in the Indian language, and had begun to be able to talk some kind of jargon with our Christian trainees. We were founding a new and pleasant colony; it was our Autumn, our time of harvest. And at this moment, the one who is jealous of all good came and, wickedly setting fire to all our work, bore us away from the field.

THE REASONS WHY THE FRENCH HAVE APPROPRIATED BY GOOD RIGHT THE LANDS OF NEW FRANCE, AGAINST THE PRETENSIONS OF THE ENGLISH.

I have given an Account of the character of the lands and the inhabitants of New France, and have described to you the conduct of the Jesuits, and the adventures that befell them; there remains then the third topic: the explanation of the dispute that has now arisen between the French and English in regard to these countries, and the arguments for and against both sides. The curious Reader will be glad to learn just what the point of contention is; it is even due to the honor of the French people, to make known to all nations how suitable the reasons, and in what sincerity of conscience our Kings have taken possession of these lands.

The English do not dispute with us all of New France. For they dare not refuse what everybody grants us, but they only contest some of the boundaries. They grant us then a New France, but bound it by the shores of the Gulf and great Saint Lawrence River, and restrict us within the 47th, 48th, and 49th degrees of north latitude. At least they do not allow us to go farther south than the forty-sixth degree, claiming all that country from Florida and the 33rd degree up to Canso, Nova Scotia and the Islands of Cape Breton.

The reasons for their pretensions are, that about the year 1594, twenty-two years ago, having entered that great gulf of the American sea which was formerly called Mocosa, and there having found a river and country which pleased them, they made attempts at settlement, giving it the name of Virginia; but, having been opposed by the natives, and other accidents having overtaken them, they were at last forced to give it up entirely, not having lived there more than two or three years. Still, since King James came to the throne, they decided to reconquer and cultivate it. The King, favoring this project, granted some important Privileges to those who undertook this colony, and, extended their right of occupation from the 33rd degree of north latitude up to the 45th, giving them power to attack all foreigners whom they might find within these limits, and fifty miles out into the sea. These land grant documents of the King were drawn up during the fourth year of his reign, and in 1607 on the 10th of April, seven years ago, for I am writing this in 1614.

So that is what I have been able to learn from all the charters and instructions which our contestants bring forth to support them in their rights and claims; and while we are being confined within the limits of old Canada, they are holding themselves at large with plenty of elbow room, giving us our share at their good pleasure. This is how we would answer them according to law:

1. Their own Royal land grant documents, upon which they found their claims, contradict them in their pretensions. Because it is said expressly, with specific exception: We give them all the lands up to the 45th degree, which do not belong to any Christian Prince. At the date of these letters, the King of France actually possessed these lands at least up to the 39th degree. Everyone knows this through the voyages of Champlain, for he relates in these that, in 1607, Sir de Monts was at Port-Royal, Nova Scotia, and, through his people and authority, ruled all the country to the 39th degree as Lieutenant of the King of France.

2. Again, if the English wish to say that they did not begin to take possession of their Virginia from the year 1607, but from the year 1594, when they discovered it, we answer that the river (the James river) which they began then to possess, is in latitude 36 degrees, and that this their claim might be of some value, if it were only a question of retaining this said river, and 17 or 20 miles on either side of it, for our eyes can generally reach as far as that; but that a ship, merely because it had entered a river, should claim dominion thirty times farther than the eye can reach; this is wishing to have arms, or rather greediness, indeed monstrous. But let us suppose it could be done.

It will follow that Ribaud and Laudoniere, having gone to Florida in fine array by the authority of King Charles IX, in the years 1564, 1565, and 1566, to cultivate the land, and there having extended Carolina to the 30th parallel of north latitude, took possession as far as the 38th and 39th parallels; and so see the English out of their Virginia according to their own maxims.

3. Yet if being in a place gives possession (as the English presuppose) of eight or nine degrees farther on, why is it that they, being at the 36th, can advance to the 45th better than we (as they acknowledge) being at the 46th, can go down to the 37th? What greater rights have they than we?

4. But to better declare the justice of our cause, what we have explained above must be recalled; namely, that the King of France took possession of these lands before any other Christian Prince, by right of first discovery. For it is true, and is acknowledged by all, that the Breton French and Norman French first discovered the great Bank, and Newfoundland, sailing along the coast to Cape Sable, which is in the 43rd degree, up to where the great Bank extends. This discovery was made in 1504, one hundred and ten years ago.

5. Also, all acknowledge that, by the command of the great King Francis, John Verrazzano took possession of these countries in the name of France, beginning at the 33rd degree of north latitude up to the 47th. This was done in two voyages, the last of which was made in 1523, ninety years ago.

6. Also, Jacques Cartier first entered the great river in two voyages that he made, and discovered the lands of Canada. His last voyage was in 1534. It is a wonder that the English grant us the lands of Jacques Cartier's discovery, wishing as they do to deprive us of the 45th degree; for this discovery dates back much farther than the others of the more southern parts. And the great river is so situated that the possession of these lands is almost useless to anyone who does not possess at least as far as the 40th degree. Look at the map.

7. Also it is wondrous how these English say they have granted us Newfoundland, and still went there to live four years ago, near the 48th or 49th degree.

8. By the common consent of all Europe, New France is represented as extending at least as far as the 38th or 39th degree, as it appears on the maps of the world printed in Spain, Italy, Holland, Germany, and England itself. Also, it is the French, and not others, who have made a description of it, have given it its names, have tamed the Indians, have traded and always had communication with them from the first discovery up to the present time. And it was in the forty-third degree that Sir de la Roche went to settle, establishing his colony in 1598. And, since the year 1603, Sir de Monts received as a gift all the lands from the 40th degree to the 46th degree, from the late Henry the Great, of happy memory, who also declared by express letters, that nothing which was brought away from there, or taken there, was liable to foreign custom duty, as that country was a just part and legitimate outgrowth of this Kingdom, and in no way a foreign one.

9. And surely, in addition to the reasons here given, common justice favors this declaration; for those lands are parallel to our France, and not to England. They are contiguous with us, so that having been found unoccupied by us and beyond our shores they accrue to our inheritance, as the law of Alluvions determines.

10. Finally the late Count de Soyssons was invested with the government of the said countries, and bore the title to it in his lifetime; and today the Prince places this in the rank of his other prerogatives and principal honors.

REASONS WHY THE CULTIVATION OF NEW FRANCE OUGHT TO BE UNDERTAKEN IN EARNEST.

1. New France is another France in the conditions of the elements; in extent of country, ten or twelve times larger; in quality, as good if it be cultivated; in location, upon the shore opposite to ours, to give us the knowledge and mastery of the sea, and of navigation; I say there are a thousand blessings and advantages. Another France and another Spain to be cultivated.

2. Next, the attempts which we have already made so many times for a hundred and ten years, oblige us to continue, unless we wish to lose the fruit of so much time consumed, and to suffer the loss both of so many men and so much wealth, as has been necessary in acquiring a knowledge of these lands, Coasts, Gulfs and different places, which we have obtained, as well as the good will of the people.

3. If we give up or become indifferent, we have before our eyes many others, who have shown us that they have courage. And in case we did not do our duty, there is nothing to prevent others from doing theirs.

Let us consider whether it is advantageous to lose the profit, which is brought from these countries every year by more than five hundred of our ships, which go there either on whaling expeditions, or for cod and other fish, or for trade in furs of the Beaver, Elk, Marten, Seal, Otter, etc. For we must not expect to have any share in this if others seize the property, as has been shown during these years by the disputes which occurred at Spitsbergen and elsewhere.

YEAR 1625
LETTER FROM THE REVEREND FATHER CHARLES LALLEMANT, SUPERIOR OF THE MISSIONS IN CANADA, TO SIR DE CHAMPLAIN.

Sir,

Here we are in the district of your Lieutenancy, where we arrived after having one of the most successful voyages ever. The General, after having told us that it was impossible to give us lodging either in the settlement or in the fort, and that we must either return to France, or withdraw to the Recollect Fathers, forced us to accept the latter offer. The Fathers received us with so much charity that we feel forever under obligations to them.

One of our Fathers, together with the Recollect Father who came from France, went to the trading station with the intention of going to the Hurons or to the Iroquois, as they should think best after consulting Father Nicolas, who was to be at this trading station to confer with them. But it happened that poor Father Nicolas was drowned in the last of the rapids, for which reason they returned, as they knew no one there, and had no knowledge of the language or of the country. We are therefore awaiting your arrival, to determine what will be well to do.

Charles Lalemant.

Quebec, this 28th of July, 1625.

LETTER FROM FATHER CHARLES LALEMANT, SUPERIOR OF THE MISSIONS OF CANADA, TO THE REVEREND FATHER MUTIO VITELLESCHI, GENERAL OF THE JESUITS, AT ROME. QUEBEC, THIS 28TH OF JULY, 1625.

Reverend Father,

You should not be surprised to have received no letters from us during the year since our last; for we are so remote from the seacoast that we are visited only once a year by French vessels, and then only by those to whom navigation here is allowed, for to others it is prohibited; So that, if by any mischance those merchant ships should be wrecked, or be taken by pirates, we could look to God alone for our daily bread. For from the Indians, who have scarcely the necessaries of life for themselves, nothing is to be hoped.

During the past year, we have devoted ourselves almost entirely to learning the dialect of the Indians, excepting a month or two spent in cultivating the soil, to obtain such slight means of subsistence as we could. Father Jean Brebeuf, a prudent man, and of a robust constitution, passed the sharp winter season among the Indians, acquiring a considerable knowledge of this strange tongue. We, meanwhile, learning from interpreters who were unwilling to communicate their knowledge, made as much progress as we could hope, contrary to the expectation of all. But these are only the rudiments of two languages; many more remain. For the languages are multiplied with the number of the tribes; and this land, extending so far in every direction, is inhabited by at least fifty different tribes.

Our labors this year have had no further fruit than a knowledge of the country, of the natives, and of the dialects of two tribes, if the Indians alone be considered. As regards the French, whose number does not exceed forty-three, we have not been negligent. We have heard their general confessions, relating to their whole past life, after first urging the necessity of this confession.

We are all well. Hardly one of us uses bed-linen when he sleeps. All our time that is not devoted to the salvation of our fellow-men is occupied in tilling the soil. Far greater would be our growth in virtue, if another of Our Brothers were not more desirable as superior. This is easy for you to remedy, as I feel myself far better fitted for obedience than for command. I hope that you will grant me this.

Some workmen have been sent to us this year from France, to construct the first dwelling of the Jesuits here, which we considered as indispensable on account of our French, who settle here and nowhere else. Others will be built later among other tribes from whom we expect greater results. To those that have fixed settlements, we shall in a short time send one of our number or rather two; Father Jean de Brebeuf and Father Anne de Noue. They must be taken there by the Indians, for they cannot use any other boatmen.

Father Philibert Noyrot returns to France to promote the interests of our enterprise. He needs your influence to negotiate freely with those who have charge of our affairs. Our own Fathers at Paris, for some reason put difficulties in our way, and seem rather unfriendly to our mission; so that, but for the favor of Father Coton, of blessed memory, our affairs would have fallen to the ground.

As Father Noyrot is to return at the beginning of spring, another of our members will be necessary at Paris, or at Rouen, to fill his place and to look after our interests, sending us yearly what supplies we need, and receiving our letters. So there remain seven of us here; four priests, Father Enemond Masse, as admonitor and confessor, Father Jean de Brebeuf, Father Anne de Noue, and myself; and three lay brothers, Gilbert Burel, Jean Goffestre, and Francois Charreton.

Charles Lalemant.

New France, August 1st.

YEAR 1626
LETTER FROM FATHER CHARLES L'ALLEMANT SUPERIOR OF THE MISSION OF CANADA; OF THE JESUITS. SENT TO FATHER JEROME L'ALLEMANT, HIS BROTHER, OF THE JESUITS. THE MANNERS AND CUSTOMS OF THE INDIANS INHABITING THAT COUNTRY; AND ON WHAT TERMS THEY LIVE WITH THE FRENCH CHRISTIANS WHO RESIDE THERE, TOGETHER WITH THE DESCRIPTION OF THE TOWNS OF THAT COUNTRY.

I have not been able to communicate with you since last year (about the middle of July), because the ships touch here only once a year; and therefore news can be expected from us only from year to year. And if these ships failed once, it would not be surprising if you did not receive news before two years; besides, during the intervening year we should be forced to look entirely to God for the necessaries of life. Since my last letters, the following is what I have been able to learn about this country, and what has been done here. This country is of vast extent, being easily a 2500 or 3000 miles long, and in width extending about 40 degrees toward the Orient. It is bounded by the Ocean sea, and towards the West by the sea of China. Many Tribes inhabit it, about 38 or 40 having been named to me, besides those which are unknown; of the existence of which, however, the Indians assure us.

The place inhabited by the French, called Quebec, is in 46 and one-half degrees, upon the shore of one of the most beautiful rivers in the world, called by the French the Saint Lawrence River. Quebec is about 500 miles from the mouth of this river, and yet the tide ascends 85 or 100 miles above us. The narrowest part of this river is opposite the settlement, and yet its width here is more than half a mile. Although the country where we are, being in latitude about 46 and one-half degrees, is farther South than Paris by nearly two degrees, yet the Winter generally lasts here 5 months and a half; the snow is 3 or 4 feet deep, but it is so firm that it does not usually melt until near the middle of April, and it always begins in November. During all this time the earth is never seen; our Frenchmen have even told me that they dragged their maypole over the snow on the first day of May, in the year of our arrival, and that with snowshoes; for it is the custom in this country to walk on snowshoes during the winter, for fear of sinking into the snow, in imitation of the Indians; who never go otherwise to hunt the moose. The mildest Winter that has been seen is the one that we have passed here (say the Old inhabitants), and yet the snow began to fall on the 16th of November and to melt towards the end of March.

The long duration of the snow might cause one to somewhat doubt whether wheat and rye would grow well in this country. But I have seen some as beautiful as that produced in your France, and even what we have planted here yields to it in nothing. To better provide against scarcity, it would be well to plant some meslin; rye and oats grow here the best in the world, the grains being larger and more abundant than in France. Our peas are so beautiful; it is wondrous to see them. The farther up the River we go, the more we see of the fertility of the soil. The prevailing winds in this country are the Northeast, Northwest, and Southwest. The Northeast brings the snows in Winter, and the rains in other seasons. The Northwest is so cold that it penetrates even to the marrow of the bones; yet the Sky is serene when it blows.

From the mouth of the River to this place, none of the land is cleared, there being nothing but forests. This Tribe does not occupy itself in tilling the soil; there are Only 3 or 4 families who have cleared 2 or 3 acres, where they sow Indian corn, and they have been doing this for only a short time. I have been told that it was the Reverend Recollect Fathers who persuaded them to do it. That cultivated by the French in this place is of small area, only 18 or 20 acres at the most.

500 miles from here, ascending the River, Tribes are found which are more settled than those which are here; they build large villages which they fortify against their enemies, and cultivate the land in earnest. They have stores of Indian corn, and do not die of starvation like those here. Yet they are more savage in their customs, and commit all kinds of shameless acts, without disgrace or any attempt at concealment.

Although this River takes us to these Tribes, yet the difficulty in getting there is great, on account of the rapids which are found in the River; (these are certain falls of water which entirely prevent navigation.) Therefore, when the Indians reach these rapids, they are compelled to carry their boats upon their shoulders with all their baggage, and to go overland, sometimes 5, 7, 10, or 20 miles; and the French have to do the same when they go there. The Reverend Recollect Fathers made this journey occasionally and carried all their food for a year, or the means of buying it; for to expect the Indians to give it to you is folly, unless they have taken you under their protection, and you wish to live in their villages and cabins; then they would feed you for nothing. But who could make up his mind to do this? Religious eyes could not support the sight of so much lewdness, carried on openly. Therefore, the Reverend Recollect Fathers were compelled to build their cabins apart; but they also, on that account, had to buy their food.

There has been no Jesuits among these Tribes this year. When we arrived here last year, there was one Recollect Father who came with the Indians to the trading station, 87 miles above this settlement; but when coming down the last of the rapids, his canoe overturned and he was drowned. In descending the river, the Indians do not land on reaching the rapids, but only in going up. Thus the rapids make these Tribes difficult to access. Although there have been no Jesuits among these Tribes, the merchants have sent Frenchmen there to gain the good will of the Indians, and to persuade them to come yearly to the trading station.

As to the customs of the Indians, they are altogether savage. From morning until night they have no other thought than to fill their stomachs. They come to see us only to ask for something to eat; and if you do not give it to them they show their dissatisfaction. They are real beggars, if there ever were any, and yet proud as they can be. They consider the French less intelligent than they. Vices of the flesh are common among them. One of them will marry several women, and will leave them when he pleases, and take others. There is one here who married his own daughter, but all the other Indians were indignant at him for it. As to cleanliness among them, that never enters into the question; they are dirty about their eating, and in their cabins they are covered with vermin, which they eat when they catch them.

It is a custom of this Tribe to kill their fathers and mothers when they are so old that they can walk no longer, thinking that they are therefore doing them a good service; for otherwise they would be compelled to die of hunger, as they have become unable to follow the others when they change their location. When I had it explained to one of them that the same thing would be done for him when he became old, he answered that he certainly expected it.

Their method of making war against their enemies is generally through treachery, watching to find them alone; and if they are not strong enough to make prisoners of those whom they encounter, they shoot them with their arrows, then cut off their heads, which they bring back to show their people. But, if they can take them to their cabins as prisoners, they subject them to unparalleled cruelties, killing them by inches; and strange to say, during all of these tortures, the victim sings constantly, considering it a dishonor if he cries out or complains. After the victim is dead, they eat him, and no one is so insignificant that he does not get his share.

They have feasts to which they invite each other, and even some of their French acquaintances; at these feasts they give to each one his part on a dish or plate of bark; and when they are "eat-all" feasts, nothing must be left, otherwise you would be compelled to pay something, and would lose your reputation as a brave man. At the feasts which are given in honor of the death of someone, they set aside a part for the deceased as well as for the others, which they throw into the fire; they are careful that the dogs shall not share in this feast, and so they gather up all the bones and throw them into the fire.

They bury the dead, and with them all their belongings, such as candlesticks, furs, knives, etc. When I asked an old man one day why they placed all this baggage in the grave, he replied that they did so so the deceased might use it in the other world; and when I answered that when anyone looked into the grave all the baggage was seen there, which was a proof that the deceased did not use it, he replied, that the body of the kettles, furs, knives, etc., remained, but that the soul of the kettles, knives, etc., went off to the other world with the deceased, and that he made use of them there. Thus they believe in the immortality of our Souls; and they assure you that after death they go to Heaven, where they eat mushrooms and hold communication with each other.

They call the Sun Jesus; and it is believed that the Spanish Basques, who formerly frequented these places, Introduced this name. When we offer Prayers, it seems to them that we address our Prayers to the Sun, as they do. While on the subject of the Sun, the Indians here believe that the earth is pierced through and through; and that, when the sun sets, it hides in one hole in the earth, and comes out next morning through the other. They have no form of divine worship, nor any kind of Prayers. They believe, however, that there is One who made all, but they do not render him any homage. Among them there are persons who make a profession of talking to the Devil; these are also the Physicians, and cure all kinds of diseases. The Indians have great fear of these people, and humor them in case they do them some injury.

Little by little we shall learn more of the other Tribes, who are more settled in their habits; but, as to these where we now are with the French, they are wanderers only during six months of the year, which are the six Winter months, roving depending on how they find game, only two or three families erecting their cabins together in one place, two or three in another, and so on. The other six months of the year, twenty or thirty come together upon the shore of the River near our settlement, part at Tadoussac, and the same number 100 miles above us; and there they live upon the game which they have captured during the Winter; that is, on smoked moose meat, and food for which they have traded with the French.

I wrote something about their clothing last year, and how they always go bare-headed; they wear no other clothes than a moose skin or a Beaver robe, which consists of 5 or 6 Beaver Skins sewed together; and they wear these skins as, without making any comparison, the priests wear their Capes, attached in front only by a leather strap. Sometimes they wear a belt, sometimes none at all, and still nothing improper is noticed on that account, as they modestly cover the parts which decency demands should be covered. In Winter they have leggings and shoes made of moose skin, but the shoes, the uppers as well as the soles, are as pliable as a glove.

Their faces are usually painted red or grayish brown, and this is done in different styles, according to the fancy of the women, who paint their husbands and children, whose hair they also oil with bear or moose grease. The men are no more bearded than the women; they pull their beards out to be more agreeable to the women. I have seen only three or four who had not done so, and this but recently in imitation of the French; yet they did not have beards. The color of their skin is strongly inclined to black; not one is seen whose skin is white, and yet nothing is so white as their teeth. They go upon the rivers in light birch-bark canoes, neatly made; the smallest of them can hold 4 or 5 persons and leave room for their little baggage. The oars are proportioned to the canoes, one at the bow and one at the stern; ordinarily, the woman holds the one at the stern, and consequently steers. These poor women are real pack mules, enduring all hardships. When delivered of a child, they go to the woods two hours later to replenish the fire of the cabin. In the Winter, when they break camp, the women drag the heaviest loads over the snow; the men have as their share only hunting, war, and trading.

All of their wealth consists in the furs of different animals, but principally of the Beaver. Before the time of the association of those Gentlemen of the Company of New France, to whom the King gave this trade, the Indians were visited by many people, to such an extent that an Old Man told me he had seen as many as twenty ships in the port of Tadoussac. But now, since this business has been granted to the Company of New France, which today has a monopoly over all others, we see here not more than two ships which belong to it, and that only once a year, about the beginning of June. These two ships bring all the merchandise which these Gentlemen of the Company of New France use in trading with the Indians; that is, the cloaks, blankets, nightcaps, hats, shirts, sheets, hatchets, iron arrowheads, needles, swords, picks to break the ice in Winter, knives, kettles, prunes, raisins, Indian corn, peas, crackers or sea biscuits, and tobacco; and what is necessary for the sustenance of the French in this country besides. In exchange for these they carry back hides of the moose, lynx, fox, otter, black ones being encountered occasionally, martens, badgers, and muskrats; but they deal principally in Beavers, in which they find their greatest profit. I was told that during one year they carried back as many as 22,000. The usual number for one year is 15,000 or 12,000, at two gold coins each, which is not doing badly. Their expenses are heavy, as they keep here forty persons and more, who are paid and maintained; this in addition to the expense of the crews of two ships, which consist of at least 150 men, who receive their wages and food. These wages are not all the same. They are generally 50 gold coins, but some receive a hundred gold coins. I know an Interpreter who receives two hundred gold coins, and a certain number of hides which he is permitted to carry away each year. He trades them off as his own merchandise.

I now tell what we have done since our arrival in this country, which was the last of June. The months of July and August passed by, partly in writing letters, partly in getting a little acquainted with the country, and in seeking a proper place for our settlement, so we could show the Reverend Recollect Fathers that we desired to relieve them as soon as possible of the inconvenience which we caused them. After having carefully considered all the places, and after having consulted with the French people, and especially with the Reverend Recollect Fathers, we planted the Cross on the 1st day of September upon the place which we had chosen. The Reverend Recollect Fathers took part in the ceremony with the most prominent of the French, and after dinner all of them went to work. We have continued this work ever since, we five, uprooting trees and breaking the ground whenever we had time. The snow intervened, and we were compelled to give up our work until Spring.

During the work, the thought of acquiring a knowledge of the language of this country was constantly in our minds; for we could expect nothing from the Interpreters. Still, I made up my mind to speak to the Interpreter of this Tribe, saying to myself that at the worst, I could only be refused as the others had been. So, after having striven to correct the impressions concerning our Jesuits that exist in this country, can you believe that we have found here the "Anti-Coton" pamphlet, which was circulated from chamber to chamber, and which was finally burned, about four months after our arrival? Having tried to give other impressions, I applied then to the Interpreter of this Tribe and asked him to teach us the language. Strange to say, he at once promised me that, during the winter, he would give me all the help that I could ask of him. The General was ordered by his associates to send him back to France, or else to reduce his wages; and he [the interpreter] asked him so earnestly to return the same year that we arrived, that the General was compelled to use his authority, and to tell him that his wages would not be reduced, to make him stay this year; and he remained, to our great satisfaction. This Interpreter had never wanted to communicate his knowledge of the language to anyone, not even to the Reverend Recollect Fathers, who had constantly asked him for ten years; and yet he promised me what I have told you, the first time I urged him to do so, and he kept his promise faithfully during that Winter.

However, as we did not feel certain that he would keep his word, and fearing the Winter would pass and we would make no progress in the language, I consulted with our Fathers as to the propriety of two of us going to spend the Winter with the Indians, far into the depths of the forest, so, by constant association with them, we might gain the knowledge we sought. Our Fathers were of the opinion that it would be sufficient for one to go, and that the other ought to remain to attend to the spiritual needs of the French. So this good fortune fell to the lot of Father Brebeuf. He left on the 20th of October and returned on the 27th of March, having been distant from us 50 or 60 miles all the time. During his absence I reminded the Interpreter of his promise, which he kept.

I had hardly learned from him what I desired, when I decided to go and spend the remainder of the Winter with the first Indian who should come to see us. So I went off with one on the 8th of January, but I was compelled to return 11 days later; for, as they could not find enough for themselves to eat, they were compelled to come back to the French. As soon as I returned, I lost no time in urging the Interpreter of another Tribe to teach me what he knew; and I was astonished that he should do it so freely, as in the past he had been so reserved in regard to the Reverend Recollect Fathers. He gave us all that we asked for; it is true that we did not ask all that we would have wished; as we noticed in him a mind somewhat coarse, it would not have been to our advantage to have urged him beyond his depth. We were, however, highly pleased with what he gave us; and what is noteworthy, this Interpreter was to return to France the same year that we arrived, and this was to be done through the intervention of the Recollect Fathers and through our influence, as we deemed it necessary for the good of his soul; we carried the day over the head of the General of the fleet, who was resolved in any event to send him back to the Tribe whose Interpreter he was. So he arrived here where we are, with the French who were returning from the trading station, resolved to go back to France, the ships being on the point of leaving.

The evening before his intended departure, he came to see us at the Reverend Recollect Fathers', to bid us Farewell. While he was with us he was taken with a severe attack of pneumonia and was put to bed, so nicely and comfortably, that the ships had to go back without him, and by this means he remained with us, out of all danger of ruining himself; for it was the fear of this which had caused us to urge his return. Before he recovered from this sickness, in which he expected to die, he assured us that the Winter would never pass by without his giving us assistance, a promise which he kept in every respect. If he had gone back to France that year, we would have made hardly any more progress than the Reverend Recollect Fathers did in 10 years.

In this way we passed most of the winter. Besides these occupations, I have gone, on holy days and Sundays, to say Mass for the French. Father Brebeuf did the same; and we have made such progress that we have won the hearts of all the people of the settlement, and have lived on good terms with the Chief.

About the middle of Lent, I ventured to ask the Captain to give us the Carpenters of the settlement to help us build a little cabin at the place we had begun to clear away, and he courteously granted my request. The carpenters asked for nothing better than to work for us; they worked with such good will, that, despite the unfavorableness of the weather and of the season (for there was still a foot and a half of snow), they had finished our cabin by Monday of Holy week; and besides, they had sawed over 250 planks, both for the roof and for the sides of the cabin, twenty rafters, and hewn over twenty-five large pieces necessary for the construction of the cabin.

There is no security for our lives among these Indians. If a Frenchman has in some way offended them, they take revenge by killing the first one they meet, without any regard for favors which they may have received from the one whom they attack. If during the night they dream they must kill a Frenchman, woe to the first one whom they meet alone. They attach great faith to their dreams. Some of them will tell you two days before the coming of a ship the hour of its arrival, and will give no other explanation except that they have seen it while asleep. These are reputed among them to have communication with the Devil. Their conversion will give us trouble. Their sinful and lazy lives, their rude and untutored minds, able to comprehend so little, the scarcity of words they have to explain our mysteries, never having had any form of divine worship, will tax our wits.

If I can, I shall go among some of the other tribes; and in that event, no further news need be expected from me, because I shall be so far away that it will be hard to communicate with you; and if that should happen, I say farewell to you and to everyone until we meet in Heaven. The help which has reached us from France is a good beginning for this Mission, but things are not yet in such a condition that God can be faithfully served here. The heretic holds as complete dominion here as ever, and therefore I send back Father Noiroit, so he may finish what he has begun; he is the most capable one for this affair. If our Fathers wish the success of this Mission, they should allow him to proceed. He returns much against his inclination, principally on account of his sufferings upon the sea. I send his companion with Father Brebeuf, 750 miles from here, to one of those tribes which has a permanent location. They will soon be there if they find Indians to conduct them, otherwise they will be forced to return here; I am expecting news from them daily. I have just learned that they have gone. When our Fathers had embarked, the Indians tried two or three times to make them go ashore, asserting that their canoes were too heavily loaded; but at last the Indians were won by means of presents.

If God gives success to this mission, it will open a way to an infinite number of tribes which have permanent settlements. I would have been glad to be one of the group; but our Fathers did not deem it beneficial, considering it good that I should remain here, both for the establishment of our little home and for the welfare of the French. You will be astonished at my having sent Father Brebeuf, who already had some knowledge of the language of this tribe; but his talents influenced me. We shall have great need of workers.

The disposition on the part of the Indians is such that something good may be looked for. When the interpreter asked one of their Captains if they would all be glad if one of us should go among them to teach them to know God, he answered that they desired nothing better; then, having examined the house of the Recollects where we were, he added that they could not build us a stone house like that one; "But ask them," said he to the interpreter, "if they will be satisfied upon their arrival to find a cabin made similar to ours."

There was a drought in their country this year, and they attributed it to the fact that they had no Jesuits among them; all this gives us strong hopes. As to the people of this Tribe, I had them called together to say whether they wanted to be instructed, and to give us their children for the same purpose. They all answered that they did. They are waiting for us to build; and it is for us to cultivate their affection and to learn their language. Meanwhile, I would request those who are interested in this country not to be disappointed if they do not promptly receive news of the hoped-for converts. The conversion of the Indians takes time. The first six or seven years will appear sterile to some; and if I said ten or twelve, I would possibly not be far from the truth.

A little Huron is going to see you; he longs to see France. He is fond of us and manifests a strong desire to be instructed; still, his father and the Captain of the nation wishes to see him next year, assuring us that, if he is satisfied, he will give him to us for some years. It is of importance that he should be thoroughly satisfied; for, if this child is once instructed, it will open the way to many tribes where he will be useful. And the return of the interpreter of that tribe to France is opportune, the Interpreter whom he loves so much, that he calls him his father. I pray our Lord to bless his voyage.

Charles l'Allemant.

Quebec, this 1st of August, 1626.

YEAR 1629
LETTER FROM THE REVEREND FATHER L'ALLEMAND, SUPERIOR OF THE MISSION OF JESUIT FATHERS, IN NEW FRANCE SENT FROM BORDEAUX TO THE REVEREND FATHER SUPERIOR OF THE JESUIT COLLEGE AT PARIS, AND DATED 22ND NOVEMBER, 1629.

Reverend Father,

The shipwreck was accompanied by the death of the Reverend Father Noyrot and of our brother Louis, two men who were destined to be of great service to our Seminary. Of the four of us who were in the barque, God equally divided them, taking two and leaving two.

Our wreck was caused by a heavy gust of wind from the Southeast, which arose when we were near the shore, a wind so strong that in spite of all the diligence of our Pilot and his Sailors, we could not avoid striking the rocks. This was on the 26th day after our departure, saint Barthelemy's day, about nine o'clock in the evening. Of the 24 who were in the barque, only ten escaped, the others being drowned. The two nephews of Father Noyrot kept company with their uncle, and there the bodies were buried, among others that of Father Noyrot and our brother; of the seven others, we have no news, despite the search that has been made.

It would be difficult for me to tell you how Father de Vieuxpont and I escaped the shipwreck; for in regard to myself, I had decided to remain in the ship's cabin with our brother Louis. We were preparing ourselves to meet death, which could not be further away than three minutes, when I heard someone call me on the deck of the ship. I thought it might be someone who was planning my rescue. I went up and found it was Father Noyrot, who asked me to give him absolution. After having given it to him, and having all sung together the Salve Regina, I had to remain above, for there was no means of descending, the sea being so high and the wind so furious, that, in less than no time, the side which leaned toward the rocks was broken in pieces. I was near Father Noyrot, when a wave struck the ship so hard on the side where we were that it broke everything, separating me from Father Noyrot, from whose lips I heard these last words: In manus tuas Domine ("In your hands, Lord"). I found myself, after this blow, entangled in four pieces of wood, two of which struck me so hard on the chest and the other two hit me so heavily upon the back, that I thought I should die before being engulfed in the waves; but then came another wave, which, freeing me from these pieces of wood, carried me off, and my cap and slippers, and scattered the rest of the ship over the sea. Fortunately, I fell upon a plank to which I clung, and which was attached to the rest of the side of the ship.

We were then at the mercy of the waves, which did not spare us, but which rose, I do not know how many feet above us, and then fell forward over our heads. After having floated about a long time in this manner, in the darkness of the night, looking around me I saw that we were surrounded on all sides by pine trees, and near the shores of what seemed to be an island; then examining a little more closely, I counted six persons who were not far from me, two of whom noticed me, and motioned for me to try and come near them. This was difficult, for the blows I had received from the debris of the ship had weakened me. I did so well, however, that with the aid of my planks, I reached the place where they were, and I found myself sitting upon the mainmast, which was still firmly fastened to a part of the ship. I did not remain there long, for as we neared the island, our Sailors soon leaped to the land, and all those who were on the side of the ship were soon brought to the shore. There were then seven of us together; I had neither cap nor shoes, my cassock and clothes were all torn, and I was so bruised by blows from the wreck, that I could not stand up; and someone had to support me while I was trying to reach the woods; for I had received two hard blows upon both legs, but especially upon the right one, which I still feel; my hands were cut and bruised, the flesh torn from my hips; I was badly wounded in the chest.

All seven of us withdrew into the woods, as wet as those who have just been soaked in the sea. We lay down near each other to keep warm; the ground and the grass, which had been wet by the rain of the previous day, were not yet in a condition to dry us; and that is how we spent the rest of the night, during which Father de Vieuxpont (who, thank God, was unharmed) slept well.

The next morning, at daybreak, we reconnoitered the place where we were, and discovered that it was an island, from which we could go to the mainland. We found many things upon the shore that had been thrown up by the sea; I found there two slippers, a cap, a hat, a cassock, and several other necessary articles. Best of all, God sent us five barrels of wine, about ten pieces of lard; oil, bread, and cheese, also a musket, gunpowder, and everything necessary to make a fire.

After having pulled all these upon the shore, everybody went to work to build a boat out of the wreck of the ship, in which we might sail along the coast in search of some fishing boat. So we began to work with the poor tools at our disposal, and considerable progress was made by the fourth day, when we learned of a boat under sail, coming towards the place where we were. They received on board one of our sailors, who went alone to the Place near which it was to pass. They took him into their ship to speak with their Captain, to whom he told our misfortune. The captain immediately entered a boat and came in search of us, offering a passage to all of us. See us then in safety, for the next night we all slept in his ship. It was a Spanish Basque, which was fishing 3 miles from the rock where we were wrecked; and as they would not finish their fishing for some time, we stayed with them during the remainder of August and the entire month of September.

On the first of October, an Indian arrived, and told the Master that if he did not leave, he would be in danger of being surprised by the English. This news decided his departure. The same Indian told us that Captain Daniel was 62 miles away, and was building a house, and that he had left the French with one of our Fathers there. This led me to say to Father de Vieuxpont, who urged me to permit him to remain with this Indian upon this coast, for he was one of the best Indians that could be found; "Father Vimont will be happy to have a companion. This Indian offers to conduct you to the place where Sir Daniel is; if you wish to remain there, you may do so; if you wish to go to spend a few months with the Indians to learn their language, you may do so."

Father de Vieuxpont was happy at this opportunity, so he embarked in the Indian's boat. I gave him all that we had saved, except the large Painting, which the Spanish Basque sailor had taken possession of; but I had intended to make him surrender it upon our return, if another misfortune had not overtaken us.

So we left the coast on the 6th of October; and after having suffered the most furious tempests that we had yet experienced, we entered, the fortieth day after our departure, the port near St. Sebastien, where we were wrecked a second time, the Ship being broken into a thousand pieces and all the codfish being lost. All we could do was to escape in a sailboat into which I threw myself, in my slippers and nightcap, and in this outfit I went to find our Fathers at St. Sebastien, from where I departed eight days later, and arrived at Bourdevac, near Bordeaux, the 20th of this month.

YEAR 1632
THE JOURNEY TO NEW FRANCE, MADE IN APRIL, 1632 BY FATHER PAUL LE JEUNE, OF THE JESUITS. 1632. SENT TO REVEREND FATHER BARTHELEMY JACQUINOT, PROVINCIAL OF THE JESUITS, IN THE PROVINCE OF FRANCE.

My Reverend Father:

Having been notified by you, on the last day of March, that I should embark as early as possible at Havre de grace, to sail directly for New France, the joy that I felt was so great that I have experienced nothing like it for twenty years. I left Dieppe the next day, and, going to Rouen, Father de Noue, our Brother Gilbert, and I, united in one company. From Havre we went to Honfleur, and on Low Sunday, April 18th, we set sail.

We had fine weather at first, and made about 1500 miles in ten days; but we could hardly cover 500 hundred miles on the following thirty-three days. After this fine weather we had little but storms and contrary winds, except a few pleasant hours from time to time. I had sometimes seen the angry sea from the windows of our little house at Dieppe; but watching the fury of the Ocean from the shore is different from tossing upon its waves. During three or four days we were close-reefed, as sailors say, our helm fastened down. The vessel was left to the will of the billows and the waves, which bore it at times upon mountains of water, then suddenly down into the depths of the sea. You would have said that the winds were unchained against us. Every moment we feared they should snap our masts, or that the ship would spring a leak; and there was a leak, which would have sunk us if it had been lower down. It is one thing to reflect upon death in one's bedroom, before the image on the Crucifix; but quite another to think of it in the midst of a tempest and in the presence of death itself.

We found winter in summer; that is, in May and a part of June, the winds and the fogs chilled us; Father de Noue's feet and hands were frozen; and I had pains in my head or heart, which scarcely left me at all during the first month; and a keen thirst, because we ate nothing but salted food, and there was no fresh water upon our vessel. The size of our cabins was such that we could not stand upright, kneel, or sit down; and what is worse, during the rain, the water fell at times upon my face. All these discomforts were shared by the others; but the poor sailors suffered many more. All that is past; I would not have wished to be in France. I get along better than Father de Noue, who, for a long time, was hardly able to eat; as to our Brother, he is like the Amphibious animals; he is just as much at home on the sea as on the land.

On Pentecost day, just as I was ready to preach, as I usually did on Sundays and great feast days, one of our sailors began to cry out, "codfish! codfish!" He had thrown in his line and had brought out a large one. We had already been on the banks several days, but had caught little. On that day we drew in as many as we liked. It was a pleasure to see so great a slaughter, and so much of this blood shed upon the deck of our ship. These fresh supplies were welcome to us after such continuous storms.

On the following Tuesday, the first day of June, we saw land. It was still covered with snow, for the winter, always severe in this country, was extreme this year. Some days before, the 15th and 18th of May, being still distant from land about 500 miles, we had encountered two icebergs of enormous size, floating upon the sea. They were longer than our ship and higher than our masts, and as the Sunlight fell upon them you would have said they were Churches, or rather, mountains of crystal. When a great number of them are encountered, and the ship finds itself caught among them, it is soon broken into pieces.

On Thursday, June, 3rd, we passed into the country through one of the most beautiful rivers in the world (the Saint Lawrence). The great Island of Newfoundland intercepts it at its mouth, leaving two openings whereby it can empty into the sea, one to the North and the other to the South. We sailed in through the one to the South, which is about 32 or 35 miles wide. Upon entering, you discover a gulf 375 miles wide; going farther up, where this grand river begins to narrow, it is, even there, 92 miles wide. Where we are, in Quebec, distant over 500 miles from its mouth, it is still a mile wide.

At the entrance of this gulf, we saw two rocks, one appearing to be round, the other square. You would say that God had thrown them into the midst of the waters, like two birdhouses, as a retreat for the birds that withdraw there in such multitudes that you would almost tread upon them; and if you do not obtain a good foothold, they rise up in such number that they may knock you over. Boats, or little skiffs, full of them are brought back to the ships, when the weather permits approach to these islands, which the French have named the Isles of birds. Ships come into this Gulf on whaling expeditions. We have seen a great many fishing also for cod. I saw here a number of seals, and our people killed some of them. In this great river, which is called the Saint Lawrence, white porpoises are found, and nowhere else. The English call them white whales, because they are large compared with the other porpoises; they go up as far as Quebec.

On the day of Holy Trinity, we were compelled to stop at Gaspe, a large body of water Extending into this country. It was here that we trod land for the first time since our departure. We found here two ships, one from Honfleur and the other from Biscaye, which had come to fish for cod.

We went into the woods; the snow was still deep, and so strong that it bore our weight. In the morning there was a hard frost; and when I went to wash my hands in the torrent of water which flowed down from the mountains, I found the edges of it completely frozen. Here our people killed a number of large gray partridges, as large as our chickens in France. They also killed some hares, larger-footed than ours, and still a little white; for in this country the hares are all white, while the snow lasts, and during the summer they resume their color like that of the European hares.

The next day we again set sail, and on the 18th of June we cast anchor at Tadoussac. This is another bay or small cove, near which there is a river named Saguenay, which empties into the great Saint Lawrence River. This river is as beautiful as the Seine, about as rapid as the Rhone, and deeper than many places in the sea, for it is said to be 480 feet deep in its shallowest places. As we were on our way to the shore, one of our soldiers killed a great eagle near its eyrie. Its head and neck were entirely white, the beak and feet yellow, the rest of the body blackish; it was as large as a Turkey-cock. We stayed here from the 14th of June to the 3rd of July; that is, 19 days. It was still cold when we arrived, but before leaving we felt excessive heat; and yet it was only the spring, since the trees had only just begun to put forth their foliage. In a short time the leaves, the buds, the flowers, and the fruit appear here and ripen; I mean the wild fruit, as there is no other.

It was here that I saw Indians for the first time. As soon as they saw our vessel, they lighted fires, and two of them came on board in a little canoe neatly made of bark. The next day a Chief, with ten or twelve Indians, came to see us. When I saw them enter our Captain's room, where I was, it seemed to me that I was looking at those maskers who run about in France in Carnival time. There were some whose noses were painted blue, the eyes, eyebrows, and cheeks painted black, and the rest of the face red; and these colors are bright and shining like those of our masks; others had black, red, and blue stripes drawn from the ears to the mouth. Still others were entirely black, except the upper part of the brow and around the ears, and the end of the chin; so that it might have been truly said of them that they were masquerading. There were some who had only one black stripe, like a wide ribbon, drawn from one ear to the other, across the eyes, and three little stripes on the cheeks. Their natural color is like that of those French beggars who are half-roasted in the Sun, and the Indians would be white if they were well covered. To describe how they were dressed would be difficult. All the men, when it is a little warm, go naked, with the exception of a piece of skin which falls from just below the navel to the thighs. When it is cold, or probably in imitation of the Europeans, they cover themselves with furs of the Beaver, Bear, Fox, and other animals of the same kind, but so awkwardly, that it does not prevent the greater part of their bodies from being seen. I have seen some of them dressed in Bear skin, just as St. John the Baptist is painted. This fur, with the hair outside, was worn under one arm and over the other, hanging down to the knees. They wore a belt around the body with a cord made of a dried intestine. Some are entirely dressed. They are like the Grecian Philosopher who would wear nothing that he had not made. It would not take a great man years to learn all their crafts. All go bareheaded, men and women; their hair, which is uniformly black, is long, greasy, and shiny, and is tied behind, except when they are mourning.

The women are decently covered; they wear skins fastened together on their shoulders with cords; these hang from the neck to the knees. They girdle themselves also with a cord, the rest of the body, the head, the arm and the legs being uncovered. Yet there are some who wear sleeves, stockings, and shoes, but in no other fashion than what necessity has taught them. Since they trade with the French for capes, blankets, cloths, and shirts, there are many who use them; but their shirts are as white and as greasy as dishcloths, for they never wash them. Also, they have good figures, their bodies are well made, their limbs well proportioned, and they are not so clumsy as I supposed them to be. They are fairly intelligent. They do not all talk at once, but one after the other, listening patiently. A Sagamore, or Captain, dining in our room one day, wished to say something; and not finding an opportunity, because they were all talking at the same time, at last asked the company to give him a little time to talk in his turn.

In the wide stretches of territory in this country, there are a great many wholly barbarous tribes, so they often make war upon each other. When we arrived at Tadoussac, the Indians were coming back from a war against the Iroquois, and had taken nine of them; those of Quebec took six, and those of Tadoussac three. Sir Emery de Caen went to see the captives, hoping to save the life of the youngest one. I pleaded for all three, but was told that great presents were necessary, and I had none. Having arrived at the cabins of the Indians, which are made of poles, clumsily covered with bark, the top left uncovered for the purpose of letting in light and of leaving an opening for the smoke to go out, we entered that of the war Captain, which was long and narrow. There were three fires in the middle, distant from each other by five or six feet. Having entered, we sat on the ground, which was covered with little branches of fir, for they have no other seats. This done, they brought in the prisoners, who sat down beside each other. The eldest was over 60, the second about 30, and the third was a young boy from 15 to 16 years old. They all began to sing, to show that they were not afraid of death, however cruel it might be. Their singing seemed to me disagreeable; the cadence always ended with reiterated aspirations, "oh! oh! oh! ah! ah! ah! hem! hem! hem!" etc.

After singing, they were made to dance, one after the other. The eldest one rose first, and began to walk the room, entirely naked, except a piece of fur which covered what nature has. He stamped his feet upon the ground while marching, and sang continuously. This was all the dance; and while it was going on, all the other Indians in the hut clapped their hands, or beat their thighs, drawing this aspiration from the depths of their stomachs, "a -- ah, a -- ah, a -- ah;" and then when the prisoner stopped they cried, "o -- oh, o -- oh, o -- oh;" and, when the one reseated himself, the other took up the dance. Sir de Caen asked when they would be killed. "Tomorrow," they answered.

I went to see them again, and I found three wooden stakes erected where they were to be executed; but news came from Quebec that a treaty of peace was being negotiated with the Iroquois, and it would perhaps be necessary to surrender the prisoners, and therefore their death was delayed. There is no cruelty comparable to what they practice on their enemies. As soon as the captives are taken, they brutally tear off their nails with their teeth; I saw the fingers of these poor creatures, and was filled with pity; also I saw a large hole in the arm of one of them; I was told that it was a bite of the Indian who had captured him; the other had a part of a finger torn off, and I asked him if the fire had done that, as I thought it was a burn. He made a sign to show me that it had been taken off by the teeth. I noticed the same cruelty among the girls and women, when these poor prisoners were dancing; for, as they passed before the fire, the women blew and drove the flame over in their direction to burn them.

When the hour comes to kill their captives, they are fastened to a stake; then the girls, as well as the men, apply hot and flaming brands to those portions of the body which are the most sensitive, to the ribs, thighs, chest, and several other places. They raise the scalp from the head, and then throw burning sand upon the skull, or uncovered place. They pierce the arms at the wrists with sharp sticks, and pull the nerves out through these holes. They make them suffer all that cruelty that the Devil can suggest. At last, as a final horror, they eat and devour them almost raw. If we were captured by the Iroquois, perhaps we would be obliged to suffer this ordeal, since we live with the Innu, their enemies. So enraged are they against everyone who does them an injury that they eat the lice and other vermin that they find upon themselves, not because they like them, but only, they say, to avenge themselves and to eat those that eat them.

While these poor captives were dancing and singing, there were some men of our crew who laughed when they saw this exhibition of barbarism. But what a sad subject for laughter; it made my heart ache. I thought nothing of coming to Canada when I was sent here; I felt no particular affection for the Indians, but the duty of obedience was binding, even if I had been sent a thousand times further away; but even if I had had an aversion to this country, seeing what I have already seen, I should be touched, had I a heart of bronze. If only those who can aid these poor souls and contribute something to their salvation could be here, if only for three days. I believe that a longing to help them would seize powerfully upon their souls. But let no one be astonished at these acts of barbarism. Before the faith was received in Germany, Spain, or England, those nations were not more civilized.

Mind is not lacking among the Indians of Canada, but education and instruction are. They are already tired of their miseries, and stretch out their hands to us for help. The tribes which have stationary homes could be easily converted. Much suffering must be endured among the Hurons, but great results may be expected. It is only necessary to know the language; and if Father Brebeuf had not been compelled by the English to leave here, they having taken possession of the French fort, he would already have advanced the glory of God in that country. As to the strange and wandering tribes like those near Quebec, where we live, there will be more difficulty. The means of assisting them, in my opinion, is to build seminaries, and to take their children, who are bright and amiable. The fathers will be taught through the children. Even now there are some among them who have begun to cultivate the soil and sow Indian corn, having become weary of their difficult and miserable way of living.

Great fruits have been obtained in the East Indies and in south America, although there have been found in those countries not only vices to combat, but also strange superstitions, to which the people were more attached than to their lives. In New France there are only sins to destroy, and those in a small number; for these poor people, so far removed from all luxury, are not given to many offenses. If there are any superstitions or false religions in some places, they are few. The Indians think only of how to live and to avenge themselves upon their enemies. They are not attached to the worship of any particular Divinity. They are permitted to take a number of wives, but they do not take more than one. I have heard of one man only who had two, and he was censured for it. Anyone who knew their language could manage them as he pleased. Therefore I will apply myself, but I shall make little progress this year, for reasons which I shall write in detail.

But let us come back to the continuation of our voyage. Some time before we weighed anchor in Tadoussac there rose a squall, as the sailors say, or a storm so furious that it threw us into great peril, although we were in the house of safety, what I call the bay of Tadoussac. The thunder grumbled terribly, furious winds made our vessel roll so that, if this squall had continued, it would have turned us upside down; but the fury of the storm abated, and therefore we escaped this danger.

The 3rd of July, we left Tadoussac and went to cast anchor at the Spanish Basque scaffold, a place so called because the Spanish Basques go there to catch whales. As it was calm and we were awaiting the tide, I went ashore. I thought I would be eaten up by the mosquitoes, which are little flies, troublesome in the extreme. The great forests here engender several species of them; there are common flies, gnats, flies, mosquitoes, large flies, and a number of others; the large flies sting furiously, and the pain from their sting, which is piercing, lasts for a long time; there are only a few of these large flies. The gnats are small, hardly visible, but perceptibly felt; the fireflies do no harm; at night they look like sparks of fire, casting a greater light than the glowworms that I have seen in France; taking one of these flies and holding it near a book, I could read easily. As to the mosquitoes, they are disagreeable beyond description. No one could work, especially in the open air, during their reign, unless there was smoke nearby to drive them away. Some people are compelled to go to bed after coming from the woods, they are so badly stung. I have seen men whose neck, cheeks, and whole face were so swollen that you could not see their eyes. They cover a man completely with blood when they attack him; they war upon some people more than others. Thus far they have treated me kindly enough; I do not swell when they sting me, which is the case with few people unless they are accustomed to them. If the country were cleared and inhabited, these little beasts would not be found here, for already there are only a few of them at the fort of Quebec, on account of the cutting down of the neighboring woods.

The 4th of July we weighed anchor to land at a place 10 miles from Quebec; but the wind was so furious that we thought we would be wrecked in the port. Before reaching Quebec we came to an Island called saint Lawrence, in the middle of this great river, which is fully 17 miles in length; the western end of it is only about 2 miles away from the French settlement. We cast anchor near the middle of this Island, intending to land; but the wind and tide struck our ship with so much force that the cable broke like a thread, leaving the anchor in the water. At a half mile distant, another anchor was cast, and the cable broke just as the first one did.

In the midst of this struggle, as the violence of the winds redoubled, the cable fastening the boat to the stern of our ship also broke, and in an instant our boat disappeared. Three days later, some Indians came and told us where it had grounded. If it had been driven upon the rocks, as it was upon the mud, it would have been broken into a hundred pieces. If this hurricane had fallen upon us an hour earlier, in a dangerous place, our Pilots say it would have been all over with us. When we were about 2 miles from the end of our pilgrimage, the third anchor was cast, and it stopped us. A French barque that we had met at Tadoussac, and which came with us, lost two anchors as we did.

On the 5th of July, which was Monday, two months and 18 days since the 18th of April, when we sailed, we reached the much desired port. We cast anchor in front of the fort which the English held; we saw at the foot of this fort the poor settlement of Quebec all in ashes. The English, who came to this country to plunder and not to build up, not only burned a greater part of the detached buildings which Father Charles Lallement had had built, but also all of that poor settlement of which nothing now is to be seen but the ruins of its stone walls. This inconveniences the French, who do not know where to lodge.

The next day, Captain Thomas Kirke was summoned, a man of French nationality, born at Dieppe, who had gone over to England, and who, with David and Louis Kirke, his brothers, and one Jacques Michel, also born at Dieppe, all French Protestants, had thrown themselves upon this poor country, where they have done great damage.

This poor Jacques Michel, full of sadness at not having been rewarded as he desired by the English, or rather by the renegade and anglicized French, died suddenly, after the surrender of this country. He was buried at Tadoussac. I have learned here that the Indians exhumed his body, and showed it every imaginable indignity, tore it to pieces and gave it to their dogs; but such are the wages of traitors.

Sir Emery de Caen had already sent a boat from Tadoussac with an extract from the Commissions and land grant documents of the Kings of France and of England, by which the English Captain was commanded to surrender the fort in eight days. Having seen the Letter, he answered that he would obey when he had seen the original. It was therefore brought to him the day after our arrival; meanwhile, we celebrated Mass in the oldest house in this country, the home of Madame Hebert, who had settled near the fort during the lifetime of her husband. She has a fine family, and her daughter is married here to an honest Frenchman. God is blessing them every day; he has given them beautiful children; their cattle are in fine condition, and their land produces good grain. This is the only French family settled in Canada. They were seeking some way of returning to France; but, having learned that the French were coming back to Quebec, they began to regain courage. When they saw our ships coming in with the white upon the masts, they did not know how to express their joy.

The Englishman, having seen the land grant documents signed by the hand of his King, promised that he would go away within a week, and he began preparations for going, although with regret; but his people were all glad of the return of the French, for they had been given only six pounds of bread for an entire week. They told us that the Indians had helped them to live during most of the time.

On the following Tuesday, the 13th of July, they restored the fort to the hands of Sir Emery de Caen, and Sir du Plessis Bochart, his Lieutenant; and on the same day set sail in the two ships that they had anchored here. Our French People were happy, seeing the dislodgement of these Anglicized Frenchmen, who have done so much injury to these poor countries, and who have prevented many Indians from being baptized, especially among the Hurons. It is the duty of our French people to think of their preservation, and to put this country, in a short time, in such a condition that they will not have to depend upon supplies from France, which will be easy enough to do if they will only work.

The English left, and we again entered our little home. The only furniture we found there was two wooden tables, such as they were; the doors, windows, sashes, all broken and carried away, and everything going to ruin. It is still worse in the house of the Recollect Fathers. We found our cleared lands covered with peas; our Fathers had left them to the English covered with wheat, barley, and Indian corn; and meanwhile this Captain Thomas Kirke has sold the full crop of peas, refusing to give them to us for the harvest he had found upon our lands. It is great that such a guest has left our house and the entire country.

On the eve of our departure from Tadoussac, news came that the Iroquois prisoners had been put to death at Quebec, and that those at Tadoussac must share the same fate the next day. I pleaded their cause, and promised to give what would be necessary to feed them during their passage to France, even to find someone to receive them as soon as they would reach there. I trusted to the charity of many good people who would not withhold donations to rescue the bodies of these poor creatures from the sufferings they endured, and their souls from eternal damnation. So I approached Sir du Plessis Bochart, our Lieutenant, and explained the situation to him. Donations are given in France to restore men to liberty who are imprisoned for debt, and why should not something be done for these poor slaves of Satan? I promised him that we would give all that we could.

du Plessis Bochart took up the subject, and in the evening presented it to those who ate at our Captain's table. They answered that it would require large gifts to save the prisoners' lives. Sir du Plessis Bochart said that they [the French] would give what they could, and that large gifts were unnecessary, as the three Iroquois prisoners could be demanded in exchange for one Frenchman who had been killed a few years ago, or at least two could be demanded, and they would be surely given up. The interpreter who had talked to them assured me that it was an easy matter. Then a thousand objections were urged, and one of the company cried out that the captives ought to die; that he would rather strangle them, that they were rascals, and that in talking to an Indian in Quebec, the Indian had advised him to have them killed. If the death of these poor wretches brought profits to the fur trade which people come here to carry on, there would be some reason for this eagerness for their death; but neither their life nor their death could affect it. How important it is that those sent to this country should be carefully chosen. It is true that Sir Emery de Caen did not approve of this cruelty. However, the wind being favorable to us on the following day, we spread our sails, and left these poor abandoned creatures there in the hands of their enemies, who disposed of two of them in a horrible manner; we were told they did not kill the youngest.

Upon our arrival in Quebec, we heard of the death of six prisoners held by the Indians, the result of the drunkenness which has been introduced here by the Europeans. The English Clergyman, who was not of the same Faith as his people, for he was a Protestant or Lutheran, and the Kirkes are Calvinists or of some other more immoral Religion (they held this poor Minister a prisoner in our house for six months), told me that the Innu wanted to negotiate a peace with the Iroquois, and that the one who was in charge of the prisoners had promised him that they would not be killed. Still, this wretch being drunk with brandy, which he had procured from the English in exchange for Beavers, called his brother and commanded him to go and strike one of the Iroquois with a knife and kill him, which he did. Thus all thoughts of peace vanished. They were talking about killing the others. The Minister, hearing this, said to the Indian that in killing this prisoner he had not kept his word. "It is you," answered the Indian, "and yours, who killed him; for, if you had not given us brandy or wine, we would not have done it." Since I have been here, I have seen only drunken Indians; they are heard shouting and raving day and night, they fight and wound each other, they kill the cattle of madame Hebert; and when they have returned to their senses, they say to you, "It is not we who did that, but you who gave us this drink." When they have slept off their drunkenness, they are as good friends with each other as ever, saying to each other: "you are my brother, I love you; it is not I who wounded you, but the drink which used my arm." I have seen some of them with badly bruised faces; even the women get drunk, and shriek like furies.

I expect that they will kill some of us French People one of these days, as they have already thought of doing; and after eight o'clock in the morning it is not safe to go to see them without arms, if they have any wine. Some of our men, going to see them after dinner, an Indian tried to kill them with his hatchet, but other Indians who were not drunk came to their assistance. When one of them is drunk, the others tie him by his feet and arms, if they can catch him. Some of their Captains have come to plead with the French not to sell them brandy or wine, saying that they would be the cause of the death of their people.

Let us finish the talk about these Iroquois. The English Captain was asked if he wanted some of them. As he supposed he would have to make them a present, he answered, "no," and said that they could do with them what they pleased. This is the way they were treated:

They had pulled out their nails with their teeth as soon as they were taken. They cut their fingers off on the day of their torture; then they tied their two arms together at the wrist with a cord, and two men pulled it as hard as they could at both ends, the cord entering into the flesh and breaking the bones of these poor wretches, who cried out in a horrible manner. Thus having their hands tied, they were bound to posts, and the girls and women gave presents to the men to be allowed to torment the poor victims to their heart's content. I did not remain during this torture; I could not have endured such diabolical cruelty; but those who were present told me that they had never seen anything like it. "You should have seen those furious women," they said, "howling, yelling, applying the fire to the most sensitive and private parts of the body, pricking them with awls, biting them with savage glee, laying open their flesh with knives; doing everything that madness can suggest to a woman. They threw fire upon them, burning coals, hot sand; and when the sufferers cried out, all the others cried still louder, so the groans should not be heard, and that no one might be touched with pity. The upper part of their forehead was cut with a knife, then the scalp was raised, and hot sand thrown upon the exposed part." There are some Indians who wear, through bravado, these scalps covered with hair and mustaches. One can still see over two hundred dents made by the awls in these scalps. They practiced upon them all the cruelties that I have above related in speaking of what I had seen at Tadoussac, and many others, which do not occur to me at present.

When they are told that these cruelties are horrible and unworthy of a man, they answer you: "You have no courage in allowing your enemies to live; when the Iroquois capture us, they do still worse; this is why we treat them as cruelly as we can." They killed an Iroquois Chief, a powerful and courageous man who sang while being tortured. When he was told that he must die, he said, as if overjoyed, "Good, I am much pleased; I have taken a great many of the Innu, my friends will take still more of them, and they will avenge my death." Then he began to tell about his prowess, and to say farewell to his relatives, to his friends and to the allies of his tribe, to the Dutch Captain who goes to trade for furs in the country of the Iroquois by the Northern sea. After they had cut off his fingers, broken the bones of his arms, torn the scalp from his head, and had roasted and burned him on all sides, he was untied and the poor creature ran straight to the river, which was not far from there, to refresh himself. They captured him again, and made him endure the fire still another time; he was blackened, completely scorched, and the grease melted and oozed out of his body, yet with all this he ran away again for a second time, but, having captured him again, they burned him a third time; at last he died during these tortures. When they saw him fall, they opened his chest, pulled out his heart and gave it to the little children to eat; the rest was for them. These poor wretches live in fear because the Iroquois are always on the watch for the Innu to do as much for them. That is why our Captain, wishing to send someone to the Hurons, could never find any Indian who would go.

This is enough about their cruelty; let us say a few words about their simplicity. An Indian coming to see the English Captain this winter, and seeing that everything was covered with snow, felt compassion for his brother who was buried near the French settlement. So he said to the Captain: "Sir, you have no pity for my poor brother; the air is so beautiful and the Sun so warm, but still you do not have the snow taken off his grave to warm him a little." It was in vain that he was told that dead bodies have no feeling; it was necessary to clear away the snow from the grave to satisfy him.

Another who was present at the Litanies repeated by some Frenchmen, hearing the frequent use of the words ora pro nobis ("pray for us"), and not hearing the pronunciation distinctly, thought they said carocana ouabis, that is, "white bread;" he was astonished that they should so often repeat the words carocana ouabis, "white bread, white bread," etc.

They believe that the thunder is a bird, and an Indian one day asked a Frenchman if they did not capture them in France; having told him yes, he asked the Frenchman to bring him one, but a little one; he feared that it would frighten him if it were large.

Here is something that has consoled me: A certain Indian named la Nasse, who lived near our Fathers and cultivated the land, seeing that the English molested him, withdrew to the Islands, where he continued to cultivate the land; hearing that we had returned, he came to see us and has promised that he will come back and build his cabin near us, and that he will give us his little boy. This will be our first pupil; we shall teach him to read and write. This good man told us that the Indians do not act right; that he wished to be our brother, and live as we do. Madame Hebert told us that he has wished for our return for a long time.

Several Indians ask us news of the Reverend Father Lallemant, of Father Masse, and of Father Brebeuf, whom they readily call by their names, and inquire if they will not return next year. These simple creatures have confidence in us; here is an example of it.

The 6th of August, Sir Emery de Caen, coming to see us in our little house, distant a good mile from the fort, remained to dine with us. While we were at the table, two families of Indians, men, women, and little children, approached the spot where we were. The outside door of our house being open, all is open, the English having broken the others; that is why these simple people were in the room, where we were, before we were aware of it. They wanted to ask me to keep some of their baggage for them. I noticed their patience, for, although they had started on a long journey which they were going to make, still they did not interrupt us once during the dinner, nor afterward while they saw me with our Captain. They sat down in one place or another, and I had a piece of bread, of which they are fond, given to each of them.

At last, Sir de Caen having departed, one of them approached me and said: Ania Kir Captaina? "My brother, are you Captain?" They were asking for the superior of the house. They call their Captain "Sagamore," but by associating with the Europeans they have come to use the word Capitana. Our Brother answered, eoco; that is, "yes." Then he made a speech to me, saying that they were going hunting or fishing for Beavers, and that I should keep their baggage; that they would return when the leaves fell from the trees. They asked me often if thieves ever came into our house, and carefully scrutinized the places where their baggage might be best concealed. I answered that everything was safe in our house, and having shown them a little room which could be locked, they seemed happy, placing there three or four packages covered neatly with the bark of trees, telling me that they contained great riches. I do not know what is there; but, at the best, all their riches are only poverty. Their gold and silver, their diamonds and pearls, are little white grains of seashell, which do not seem to amount to much.

Having piled up their baggage, they asked me for a knife, and I gave them one; then they asked me for some string to tie to an iron arrow-point or dart, with barbed teeth. They throw these darts against the Beavers, and hold the end of the string, letting it go to the bottom of the water where the wounded Beaver dives; and when it has lost blood and become weak, they draw it back by this string, of which they never let go until they have their prey. Having then made them a present of the piece of string, they said to me: Ania Capitana ouias amiscou: "My brother, the Captain, we will bring you the meat of a Beaver," and they told me that it would not be smoked. They know that the French people do not like their dried food: that is, their meat dried in smoke, for they have no other salt than smoke to preserve their meats.

Another Indian, while we were at Tadoussac, brought me two bottles of wine to keep in my cabin. As he was long in coming back after them, I notified Father de Noue and our Brother that, if he asked assistance of them, they should send him to me. I feared that he would mistake one of them for me; but he made no mistake. In the evening, as I was reading my prayer book, he came and sat down beside me, and waited until I had finished. Then he pulled me and said: Ania Cabana, "My brother, let us go to your cabin." I understood him well, and restored him his bottles, which had cost him some good furs. These examples show what confidence they have in us. Anyone who knew their language perfectly would be powerful among them.

I have become teacher in Canada: the other day I had a little Indian on one side of me, and a little Negro or Moor on the other, to whom I taught their letters. After so many years of teaching, see me at last returned to the A, B, C, with so great satisfaction that I would not exchange my two pupils for the finest audience in France. This little Indian is the one who will soon be left entirely with us. The little Negro was left by the English with this French family which is here. We have taken him to teach and baptize, but he does not yet understand the language well; therefore we shall wait some time yet. When we talked to him about baptism, he made us laugh. His mistress asking him if he wanted to be a Christian, if he wanted to be baptized and be like us, he said "yes;" but he asked if he would not be skinned in being baptized. I think he was frightened, for he had seen those poor Indians skinned. As he saw that they laughed at his questions, he replied in his dialect, as best he could: "You say that by baptism I shall be like you: I am black and you are white, I must have my skin taken off then to be like you." Then all began to laugh more than ever, and, seeing that he was mistaken, he joined in and laughed with the others.

I calculated the other day how much earlier the Sun rises on your horizon than it does on ours, and I found that you have daylight a little over six hours earlier than we do. Our Sailors usually count 43 miles for a degree of the equinoctial and all other great circles, and otherwise reach the conclusion that there are, from here to you, 2500 miles and over, which will consequently make 57 degrees 12 minutes of a great circle upon which we ought to calculate a direct route from here to you. Suppose then our latitude to be 46 and two-thirds degrees, and that of Dieppe 49 and two-thirds; the computation made exactly by the solution of a triangle made on the earth, between our two places and the pole, will give us 91 degrees and 38 minutes for the angle which is made at the pole by our two meridians, and consequently for the part of the equinoctial which is the measure of this angle, and this is just the difference in our longitudes. This number of degrees being reduced to time, counting one hour for every 15 degrees, we shall have six hours and six minutes earlier, for the time that the Sun rises with you than it does here; so that on Sunday when you count three o'clock in the morning, it is here still only nine o'clock on Saturday night. I am writing this about eight in the morning, and it is two in the afternoon where you are.

All considered, this country here is fine. As soon as we had entered into our little home, the 13th of July, we began to work and dig the earth, to sow purslane and turnips, and to plant lentils, and everything grew well; a short time afterward, we gathered our salad. But the misfortune was that our seeds were spoiled, I mean a part of them; namely, those sent to Sir du Plessis Bochart; for those our Brother brought us grew well. You would be astonished to see the great number of ears of rye which were found among our peas; they are longer and more grainy than the most beautiful I have ever seen in France.

Last Friday, August 20th, the day of saint Bernard, having gone to see a sick person on board our vessel, and going from there to greet Sir de la Rade and Captain Morieult, newly arrived, I thought I would be drowned, with two Frenchmen who were with me in a little Native canoe which we use.

The tide was violent; the person who was behind in this canoe wishing to detach it from the ship, the tide gave him a turn, also the canoe and ourselves, and see us all three carried away by the fury of the waves to the middle of the great Saint Lawrence River. Those in the ship cried, "Save them, save them, help!" but there was no sailboat there. We caught hold of the canoe; as I felt that it was whirling about so rapidly that the water came a great way over my head, and that I was suffocating, I let go of the canoe to swim. I never knew this exercise very well, and it was over 24 years since I had tried it. I had made scarcely sixteen feet when, my cassock winding around my head and my arms, I felt that I was going to the bottom. I had already given my life to our Lord, without asking him to rescue me from this danger; believing it better to let his will be done, I accepted death cheerfully; I was already half drowned, when a boat that was on the shore of the river, and two Indians in their canoe, hurried towards us. Nothing was seen of me but a little end of my cassock; they dragged me out by that, and if they had been a few seconds later, I would have been dead.

I was so choked by the water that I had lost all feeling; it was not fear, for I was resigned to die in the water from the first day I had put my foot on the vessel, and I had strengthened this resignation in the tempests which we had upon the ocean. My faculties remained as long as I had any strength left, and it seemed to me that I saw myself dying; I thought there was more pain in drowning than there is. To be brief, we were all three saved.

Two Englishmen having been drowned in those bark canoes, which are frail, Captain Kirke had a little wooden boat made for passing from our house to the fort, because there is a river between the two; I thought this boat would remain with us. The person who took possession of it promised it to Father de Noue, but he has since changed his mind; if he had given it to us, this near-drowning would not have happened.

Tomorrow, on the 25th of August, I am to baptize a little Iroquois child who is to be taken to France, never to return to this country; he was given to a Frenchman, who made a present of him to Sir de la Rade.

I implore you to give aid to these poor people who are in good numbers, the Canadians (Micmacs?), Innus, Hurons and Algonquins, the Nation of the Bear, the Petun nation, the Nipissings, and many others. I saw the Hurons arrive; in their 50 canoes and more, they made a fine sight upon the river. They are large, well-made men.

I expected to end this little narrative on the 24th of August, but it will not be until after the baptism of this little child. I have just baptized him. Sir Emery de Caen is his Godfather; madame Coullart, daughter of madame Hebert, his Godmother. His name is Louis and he was baptized on saint Louis's day. This poor little one, who is only about four years old, cried all the time before his baptism, and ran away from us; I could not hold him. As soon as I began the ceremony, he did not say a word; he looked at me attentively and did everything that I would have him do. I believed that he was an Iroquois, but I have learned that he belongs to the Mascouten; his Father and his Mother and he were taken in war by the Algonquins, who burned the parents and gave the child to the French.

Paul le Jeune.

From the midst of a forest more than 2000 miles in extent, at Quebec, this 28th of August, 1632.

YEAR 1633
NEW FRANCE IN 1633. SENT TO THE REV. FATHER BARTH. JACQUINOT PROVINCIAL OF THE JESUITS, IN THE PROVINCE OF FRANCE. BY FATHER PAUL LE JEUNE OF THE JESUITS, SUPERIOR OF THE RESIDENCE OF QUEBEC.

My Reverend Father:

We were in doubt whether Sir de Champlain, or someone else in behalf of the Company of New France, or whether Sir Guillaume de Caen was to come, as he had last year announced in our ship as we were leaving France. Each one defended his side, and presented his probable reasons respectfully and modestly; when all at once Sir de Champlain arrived with the orders of the Cardinal, and ended the dispute in favor of the Company of New France.

That day was one of the good days of the year; we have been filled with strong hopes that at last, after so many storms, God would look upon our poor Indians with a merciful eye, as he has given courage to those Gentlemen of the Company of New France to carry out their purpose in spite of the opposition that demons, envy, and the greed of men, have aroused against them. I do not know how it happens, but I do know that since they interest themselves in the glory of God, in the spread of the Gospel, in the conversion of souls, we feel an affectionate interest in their affairs; so much so that, if things would go according to our wishes, they would gain more in one month than they have lost in all the years that their plans have been thwarted. They are also our Fathers, since they provide here for a part of us, and give their affection abundantly to us.

We have felt a peculiar pleasure in the behavior of the French who are wintering here. I had some fear during our voyage that immorality might cross the sea with us; but the good example of the chiefs who were in command at this place, the distance from all debauchery, the work which has been done in preaching, and in the administration of the sacraments, have held all strictly in the line of duty; and although we had among us persons of two different parties, still it seemed that love and respect generally ruled both sides. A number made a general confession of their whole lives. Those who hardly ever spoke of fasting, except in jest, have observed it strictly, becoming obedient to their mother, the Catholic Church.

Let us begin with the departure of our vessels last year, and follow the months which have glided away since then, when we, Father de Noue and I, concluded that we must find some means of devoting ourselves to the study of the language, without a knowledge of which we cannot help the Indians. I then threw all other cares aside, and began to turn over the leaves of a little manuscript Dictionary that had been given to me in France; but it was full of errors.

On the 12th of October, seeing that I made little progress, learning a few stray words with a great deal of trouble, I went to visit the cabins of the Indians, with the intention of going there often, and accustoming my ear to their tongue. They were encamped at a distance of more than 2 miles from our house, and through fear of getting lost in the woods, I made a long detour on the shores of the great Saint Lawrence River. Oh what a trial it was to climb the rocks on diamond point. The place is therefore named by the French, because a quantity of pretty little diamonds are found there. These roads are frightful; I went on my hands and knees, with great fear of falling. I passed through places so narrow that when the tide arose and prevented me from continuing on my way, I could not turn back, the passage seemed to me so dangerous. I climbed upon the rocks and, seizing a branch which had arrested the fall of an uprooted tree, this tree came rolling toward me with so much force that if I had not escaped the blow, it would have crushed and thrown me into the river.

When I reached the cabins of the Indians, I saw their place for drying eels. This work is done entirely by the women, who empty the fish, and wash them carefully, opening them, not up the belly but up the back; then they hang them in the smoke, first having suspended them upon poles outside their huts to drain.

They gash them in a number of places, so the smoke may dry them more easily. The quantity of eels which they catch in the season is incredible. I saw nothing else inside and outside of their cabins. They and the French eat them continually during this season, and keep a large quantity of them for the time when meat is not eaten; I mean the French, for the Indians usually have no other meat than this until the snow is deep enough for Moose hunting. As I went about from hut to hut, a little boy about twelve years old came straight up to me. A few days before, meeting him somewhere, I had given him a caress, as he seemed to me bright and modest. Having recognized me he said: Ania achtam achtam; "My brother, come, come." He guided me to the hut of his parents, where I found an old woman who was his grandmother; he said two or three words to her which I did not understand, and this good old woman presented me with four smoked eels. I dared not refuse them for fear of making her angry. I sat down upon the ground near her grandson, and took out a piece of bread that I had brought with me for my dinner; I gave some to the little boy, to his grandmother, and to his mother, who came in. They roasted an eel for me upon a little wooden spit, which they thrust into the ground near the fire. They then presented it to me upon a small piece of bark. I ate it with the child, of whom I asked some water; he brought me some in a dipper or dish made of bark. As soon as I had drunk, all those in the cabin drank after me.

The little boy, having handled the roasted eel, which was greasy, used his hair as a napkin, and the others rubbed their hands on the dogs. The good old woman, seeing that I was looking for something upon which to wipe my hands, gave me some powder made of dry and rotten wood. It is with this that the mothers clean their little children, for they have no other towels. After having dined, this simple woman made me a speech, and gave me some more eel: it seemed that she was commending her son to me, but I did not understand. I took out my paper, and told her as well as I could that her son should come to see me and bring the eels they had given me, as I could not carry them back with me on account of the difficulties of the road, promising her something for her trouble. I do not know whether they understood my jargon, but I have not seen them since. Having returned to our lodgings, and recounted to Father de Noue the difficulties of the road, he told me that in going to the Hurons, one would encounter forty places much more difficult then the one of which I spoke. Seeing that a great deal of time was lost in going to and from the cabins, I sought another means of finding out something about the language, of which I shall soon speak.

On the 13th of the same month of October, the Indian named Manitougache, surnamed by the French La Nasse, came to see us with a number of others, making us the trustees and guardians of their sacks and possessions. I asked one of them his name; he bowed his head, without saying a word. A Frenchman asked it of another, saying to him: Khiga ichenicasson? -- "What is your name?" He answered, "namanikisteriten, I know nothing about it." I have since learned that they do not like to tell their names before others, I do not know why. If, however, you ask someone what another's name is, he will tell you freely, though he will not tell his own. I have had a number of children tell me, who asked me my name, and, seeing that I told them freely, they told me theirs also.

On the 24th, having gone to say Mass at the French settlement, a Captain of the Indians came to see Sir Emery de Caen, and told him that, the Algonquins having gone to war against the Iroquois, one of their men had been killed and the other taken prisoner. This had so frightened the Innus that they all returned from the hunt for beavers and bears, to camp near our fort, for fear of being surprised by their enemies. They wanted to unite, so they could be stronger; but they feared famine in abandoning the hunt. They asked us therefore if we would supply them with food, in the event of their remaining together. The answer was that we would not give anything on credit that year; this was what they were relying upon. I was told about an act of generosity on the part of this captain. Having been sent as a spy upon the Iroquois, he encountered the spy of the enemy, and seeing each other face to face, the Iroquois, believing himself stronger than the Innu Indian, said to him: "Do not let us have our people killed, but let us wrestle and see which can carry his companion away." The proposal being accepted, this captain, who was the spy of the Innus, so tired out his man that, having thrown him down, he bound him, loaded him upon his back like a piece of wood, and carried him away to his people.

The same day, the Indian Manitougache, otherwise La Nasse, (it is he of whom I wrote to you last year, that he wanted to come and settle near us, as he has since done), returning from the bear hunt, came to eat and sleep with us. Having eaten well, he began to laugh and gently strike his naked belly, saying, tapone nikispoun, "in truth, I am full." This is the way they thank their hosts for the good treatment they have received. When they say nikispoun, "I am full," that is, they have been handsomely entertained. He carried with him a great shield, long and wide. It easily covered my whole body, and reached from my feet to my chest. They raise it up and entirely cover themselves with it. It is made of one single piece of light cedar. I do not know how they can plane so large and so wide a plank with their knives; it was a little bent or curved, to cover the body; and so if an arrow or blow should split it, it might still hold together, it was sewed at the top and bottom with a leather string. They do not carry these shields upon their arms; they pass the cord which holds them over the right shoulder, protecting the left side, and when they have cast their missile they have only to withdraw the right side to put themselves under cover.

I shall say here that the Indians are fond of sagamite. The word "Sagamiteou" in their language means water, or warm gruel. They have extended its meaning to signify all sorts of soups, broths, and similar things. This "sagamite," of which they are fond, is made of cornmeal; if they are short of that, we sometimes give them some of our French flour, which, being boiled with water, makes simple paste. They eat it with appetite, especially when we place in it a little "pimi;" that is, oil, for that is their sugar. They use it with their strawberries and raspberries when they eat them, and their greatest feasts are of fat or of oil. They sometimes bite into a piece of solid white grease as we would bite into an apple; this is their high living. I have been told that, before kettles were brought to them from France, they cooked their meat in bark dishes which they called ouragans. I wondered how they could do that, for there is nothing easier to burn than this bark. I was answered that they put their meat and water into these dishes, then they place five or six stones in the fire; and when one is burning hot, they throw it into this fine soup, and, withdrawing it to place it in the fire again, they put another one which is red-hot in its place, and therefore continue until their meat is cooked. Pierre, the Indian of whom I shall speak subsequently, assured me that some of them, having lost or broken their kettles, still resorted to this old custom, and that it did not take so long to cook the meat as one would imagine.

On the 27th of October, the eve of saint Simon and saint Jude, we saw an eclipse of the moon, which confirmed the observations which I made last year, that in France it is daylight a little over six hours sooner than it is here. For the Almanac had announced that the eclipse would commence at midnight in France, and we saw it about six o'clock in the evening. Therefore I concluded that the difference in the beginning of our days and our nights is six hours; so that now you are in the middle of night, while I am writing this about six o'clock in the evening.

On the 28th, some French hunters, returning from the islands which are in the great Saint Lawrence River, told us that game swarmed there; bustards, geese, ducks, teal, and other birds. They assured us also that there were apples in those islands, sweet but small; and that they had eaten plums which would not be in any way inferior to our apricots in France if the trees were cultivated.

The Indians spoil everything, for, when they come to a fruit tree, they cut it down to get the fruit.

On the 31st, an Indian, surnamed Brehault on account of his loud voice, in coming back from the hunt asked us for a night's lodging and consequently for his supper. We gave peas both to him and to his two children who were with him. He ate so ravenously that, to make the best of the occasion, he threw aside the pewter spoon that had been given to him, and took the great pot-ladle to eat with; and as his dish was not big enough, he dipped into the saucepan, and even used it as a ladle, observing no other law of politeness than what his great appetite suggested to him. I let him go on for some time. After he had eaten well, he dipped some water out with the same pot-ladle, drinking it with great relish and throwing back into the pail what was left. This is all the manners they have.

I have seen many others, looking for something with which to dip water, take a little kettle, the bottom of which is like that of a saucepan, and drink cheerfully from it and with as much satisfaction as you would in France drink excellent wine from a crystal glass. The most greasy vessels are the most agreeable to them, for there is nothing they relish so much as grease; they usually drink liquids hot and they eat from the ground. Those who know us do not now indulge in such gross incivilities in our presence.

On the first day of November, all Saints' day, having learned that a poor miserable Indian, eaten by a malignant ulcer or scrofulous affection, was in a wretched hut beyond the great Saint Lawrence, abandoned by everybody except his wife, who was caring for him the best she could, we did all in our power to have him brought near our house, so we might help him both in regard to his body and his Soul. Father de Noue and our Brother went to see him, and they were filled with compassion for him. I asked our French interpreter to persuade the Indians to bring him to us, for we could not go and fetch him. He spoke to one of them in my presence, who asked what he would be given for it.

He was told that he would be given something to eat. I had them tell him that he was ungrateful; that the sick man was of his tribe, and that we who were not of it wished to help him, and still he refused him that little assistance. For this he made no other excuse than that he was going soon to the hunt, and that he had no time to take his canoe there. The Indians care little for men whose condition is so low that life is despaired of; they sometimes kill them, or leave them in the woods to get rid of them, or to avoid seeing them gradually fail.

On the 5th of the same month of November, a tall young Indian, returning from beaver hunting, called upon us, crying out that he was dying of hunger. He brought a number of roots, among them several bulbs of the red lily variety, of which there are a great many here. We gave him something, and tasted these bulbs, which are good to eat; he made no other sauce than to boil them in a little water without salt, which the Indians do not use, although they are now accustoming themselves to it.

On the eighth, Manitougache, surnamed la Nasse, and all his family, consisting of two or three households, came and encamped near our house. They told us that two or three families of Indians had been devoured by large unknown animals, which they believed were Devils; and that the Innus, fearing them, did not wish to go hunting in the neighborhood of Cape de Tourmente and Tadoussac, these monsters having appeared in that neighborhood. It was afterward suspected that the Indians had spread this report, to draw them from the other side of the river.

On the 9th I went to see these newcomers; and while in their cabin I heard two men singing, but I could not tell where they were. I looked all around in the cabin, but did not see them, and yet they were there in the middle of it, shut up as in an oven, where they had placed themselves to have a sweat. They make a little low tent of bark, and cover it with their fur robes; then they heat five or six stones and put them into this oven, which they enter entirely naked. They sing all the time while in there, gently striking the sides of these stoves. I saw them come out all wet with perspiration; this is the best of their medicines.

On the 12th of November, winter made its first appearance, beginning to besiege us with its ice. Having spent a long time on that day in one of the large cabins of the Indians, where there were a number of men, women, and children of all kinds, I noticed their wondrous patience. If so many families were together in our France, there would be nothing but disputes, quarrels, and revilings. The mothers do not get impatient with their children, they do not know what it is to swear, their only oath consisting of this one word tapone, "in truth;" there is no jealousy among them; they aid and relieve each other generously, because they expect a return of the favor. If this expectation fail, they respect the person no longer, whoever he may be.

Just as a man in Europe attends to his appearance with care when he is going to pay a visit to some respectable family, so these Indians have their faces painted when they make visits. The son of Manitougache wishing to go to our settlement, I saw his mother grease him and paint him red; she did the same to her husband. They find this so agreeable that the little children do not think they are beautiful unless their faces are smeared over with something. I saw one rubbing his fingers upon a rusty axe, and then making streaks upon his face with the rust. I made a small cross with some ink upon the brow of a little boy; he acted proud, and the others considered him beautiful.

The most beautiful teeth in France are the whitest; in the Maldive Islands, whiteness of teeth is considered a deformity, they paint them red to be beautiful; and in Cochin China, if my memory serves me, they paint them black. Which is right?

On the 13th, Manitougache, our guest and neighbor, came to tell us that a great many Iroquois had been seen near Quebec. All the Innus trembled with fear. He asked if his wife and children could not come and lodge with us. We answered that he and his sons would be welcome, but that girls and women were not permitted to sleep in our houses as they never entered them in France; and that, just as soon as we could close our doors, they would not again be opened to them. He then sent his whole group, all the young people, to cabins in the neighborhood of Quebec, where they were told that some musketeers would be sent to protect them. As to himself, having been invited by the Captain of the Indians to accept his cabin until the fright should have passed away, he answered that, if he had to die, he wanted to die near us; and having therefore placed his people in security, he returned to us.

On this same day, Pierre Pastedechouan came to make his home with us. This young man had been taken to France in his childhood by the Reverend Recollect Fathers. He had been baptized at Angers, the Prince of Guimenee being his godfather. He speaks French and the Indian Tongue well. Having been brought back to his country, he was again placed in the hands of his brothers, to recover the use of his own language, which he had almost forgotten. This poor wretch has become a barbarian like the others, and persistently followed barbaric customs while the English were here. Hearing of the return of the French, he visited Sir Emery de Caen, at Tadoussac, who invited him to go to Quebec, which he did.

He intended to take him for his interpreter, having him eat at his table, and treating him kindly. Meanwhile, I desired to obtain a greater knowledge of the language; and seeing that I made no progress, for lack of a teacher, I had been hoping that we should have this young man with us for a while. As they wanted to make use of him at the fort, he was treated kindly. Besides, while breathing only liberty, he rather abhorred our house than loved it. This poor young man, being in too easy a position, could not stand his prosperity. He displeased Sir de Caen; once and twice, he was disgraced, and restored to favor. Meanwhile, I asked Sir de Caen to send him to us, in the event that it was not agreeable to him to keep him at the fort; that he would oblige us, and do a service to this poor abandoned creature. He granted our request readily; now this poor boy, seeing that he has lost the friendship of Sir de Caen, goes over to Sir du Plessis Bochart. This was but going from bad to worse. For Sir du Plessis Bochart, knowing his mischievous tricks, and desiring that he should live with us, rejected him, promising him his friendship provided that he would spend some months in our house, where he might resume the duties of a good Christian.

Sir de Caen treated him in the same way; see him therefore excluded from the fort. Nothing was lacking but that he should in some way be abandoned by the Indians also. He had married the daughter of Manitougache; she, having become somewhat dissatisfied with him, left him. Such are the marriage ties of the Indians, who bind themselves by only a loose knot; little is necessary to separate them, unless they have children, for then they do not leave each other so easily.

Being therefore repulsed, he came and threw himself into our arms, which were only too widely opened for him. We provided him with a suit of French clothes that a valet of Sir du Plessis Bochart gave him. We gave him as warm a welcome as was possible.

Having gained this advantage, I begin to work incessantly. I make conjugations, declensions and some little syntax, and a dictionary, with incredible trouble, for I was compelled sometimes to ask twenty questions to understand one word, so changeable was my teacher's way of teaching. Oh, how grateful I am to those who sent me some Tobacco last year. The Indians love it to madness. Whenever we came to a difficulty, I gave my teacher a piece of tobacco, to make him more attentive. In all the years that we have been in this country, no one has ever been able to learn anything from the interpreter named Marsolet, who said he had sworn that he would never teach the Indian tongue to anyone. Father Charles Lallemant won him, and I think I have acquired what he learned from him, but I could not make use of it; the construction of the language, entirely different from that of the European languages, is not declared there.

Before knowing a language, it was necessary for me to make the books from which to learn it; and although I do not hold them to be so correct, yet now, at the time when I am writing, when I compose anything, I make myself understood very well by the Indians. It all lies in composing often, in learning a great many words, in acquiring their accent; and my occupations do not permit it. I was thinking of going with them next winter into the woods, but I foresee that it will be impossible, tied as I am. If my teacher had not left me, I should have made considerable progress in a few months.

I have noticed in the study of their language that there is a certain jargon between the French and the Indians, which is neither French nor Indian; and yet when the French use it, they think they are speaking the Indian Tongue, and the Indians, in using it, think they are speaking good French. I wrote a few words of it last year that I characterized as Indian words, believing them to be so. For example, the word, Ania, is an alien word, the Indians making use of it on every occasion in speaking to the French, and the French in speaking to the Indians, and all use it to say "my brother;" but in the real Indian Tongue of the Innus, Nichtais means "my eldest brother," Nichim "my youngest;" the word Sagamo is used by only a few here to say "Captain." The correct word is Oukhimau; I believe this word, Sagamo, comes from Acadia; there are many others like it. When a person first visits a country, he writes a great many things upon the word of others, believing them to be true; time reveals the truth. I have been told many different things about the customs of these tribes; we shall have time enough to learn how true they are.

This language is poor and rich. It is poor because, having no knowledge of thousands and thousands of things which are in Europe, they have no names to indicate them. It is rich, because in the things of which they have a knowledge, it is fertile and plentiful; it seems to me that they do not pronounce it well. The Algonquins, who differ from the Innus only as the Provencal French from the Norman French, have a pronunciation that is altogether charming and agreeable. I do not think that I have ever heard any language spoken which is formed in the same manner as this. Father Brebeuf assures me that the language of the Hurons is of the same construction. People may call them Barbarians as much as they please, but their language is regular. I am not yet a perfect master of it.

Pierre Pastedechouan has told us that his grandmother used to take pleasure in relating to him the astonishment of the Natives, when they saw for the first time a French ship arrive upon their shores. They thought it was a moving Island; they did not know what to say of the great sails which made it go; their astonishment was redoubled in seeing a number of men on deck. The women at once began to prepare houses for them, as is their custom when new guests arrive, and four canoes of Indians ventured to board these vessels. They invited the Frenchmen to come into the houses which had been made ready for them, but neither side understood the other. They were given a barrel of bread or biscuit. Having brought it on shore they examined it; and finding no taste in it, threw it into the water. Our Indians said the Frenchmen drank blood and ate wood, therefore naming the wine and the biscuits.

As they were unable to understand to what nation our people belonged, they gave them the name which has since always clung to the French, ouemichtigouchiou; that is, a man who works in wood, or who is in a canoe or vessel of wood. They saw our ships, which were made of wood, their little canoes being made only of bark.

On the 20th of November, our Indian, it is what I shall designate this good Manitougache, surnamed la Nasse, began building a wooden cabin near our little house, on the site of the one which the English had burned down. He himself made boards with a hatchet, cutting certain kinds of wood that are easily split. He burned an old boat that he had seen stranded and abandoned upon an Island; and with the nails which he obtained, he made a fair little house or cabin with his boards. The other Indians came to see it, and we Frenchmen also, praising his ingenuity. I gave him the name of Jesus on a paper, to put inside of it somewhere, and he hung it up in the best place.

Something amusing happened to an Indian who came to see it. This simple man examined the little wooden house, and not knowing where to enter, being unable to find the door, he went round and round it, and, thinking there was no entrance, went away as he came. One would say that he ought to have knocked; but this is not the custom of the Indians. They enter everywhere without saying a word, or without any greeting. Their houses are not closed; all can enter who will, as they have only an old skin which serves as a door. Still, we never hear of thieves among them, or seldom, I mean among the Innus; but the Hurons make a business of thieving. They also make better houses, being settled, and not leading a vagabond and wandering life like those of this country. The Hurons consider a man clever who can escape the hand of a thief, or who knows how to steal without being caught. But, if he be discovered, you may whip him as much as you like and he will say nothing. He suffers his punishment patiently, not as a penalty for his crime, but for his awkwardness in being caught.

On the 27th of the same month of November, the winter, which had already appeared in the distance from time to time, completely besieged us, for on that and the following days the snow fell so heavily that it deprived us of the sight of the earth for five months.

I shall tell you what sort of winter we have had here. It has been beautiful, and good, and long. It was beautiful because it was as white as snow, without mud and without rain. I do not know that it has rained three times in four or five months, but it has often snowed.

It was good, because the cold has been severe; it is considered one of the most rigorous winters that they have had for a long time. There was everywhere four or five feet of snow, in some places, over ten, before our house, a mountain: the wind drifting it, and we, on the other hand, shoveling it away to make a little path before our door. It rose like a wall, all white, higher by one or two feet than the roof of our house. The cold was at times so violent that we heard the trees split in the woods, and in breaking make a noise like that of firearms. It happened to me that while writing near a big fire, my ink froze; and I had to place a little pan full of hot coals near my inkstand, otherwise I should have found black ice instead of ink.

This extreme cold lasted only ten days, not continuously, but at different times. The rest of the time, although the cold exceeds that of France, it is tolerable; and it is easier to work here in the woods than it is in France, where the winter rains are so penetrating. But one must be provided with good mittens, unless he wants to have his hands frozen; and yet our Indians visited us sometimes half-naked, without complaining of the cold. This teaches me that, if nature can accustom itself to this cold, nature and grace can give us the heart and strength to support it cheerfully. If there is cold, there is wood.

The winter has been long; from the 27th of November up to the end of April, the ground was all the time white with snow; and from the 29th of the same month of November up to the 23rd of April, our little river was frozen, but in such a way that a hundred wagons could have passed over it without shaking it. The ice is of such thickness that, when they were breaking it near Quebec, to launch a barque, Sir du Plessis Bochart told me that, being on land, it was all he could do to reach the top of a piece of ice with a musket-rest that he held in his hand. All this should not astonish anyone. All who are here say that they have suffered more from cold in France than in Canada.

The Scorpion carries its own antidote: in the countries most subject to sickness, more remedies are found: if disease is there, medicine is not far away. On the 3rd of December we began to change our foot-gear, and to use snow-shoes; when I first put these great flat skates on my feet, I thought that I should fall with my nose in the snow, at every step I took. But experience has taught me that God provides for the convenience of all nations according to their needs. I walk freely now on these snow-shoes. As to the Indians, they do not hinder them from jumping like bucks or running like deer.

They make shoes of Elk skins, which they use with their snow-shoes. They have not ingenuity enough to harden or tan leather; therefore they use none. In the summer, they go barefooted; in the winter, their shoes must be of a pliable skin, otherwise they would spoil their snow-shoes. They make them broad and ample, to line them inside with a layer of old rags against the cold. If we had some French leather here a little softer than the hard, untanned cowhide, it would be of incomparable service to us, especially in the spring, when the snow begins to melt toward the south. For the shoes of the Indians take water like a sponge, and those leathers from France would keep the feet dry.

On the 5th of December there was a strong wind, which has happened several times. The Northeastern is violent here; one day it tore away a part of the roof of a house at the fort. Father de Noue, returning that day from celebrating Mass, said that he and the young man accompanying him were compelled to hold on to each other, for fear that the wind would carry them away.

About this time, in going into the woods where there were a number of Indians encamped, I found a dead body which the Indians had enshrouded; it was raised high upon wooden scaffolds, and near it were its clothes and other belongings, covered with bark (that is their mourning cloth). I asked when they would bury it. They answered me: "When it stops snowing." The snow was then falling fast.

At the time of this occurrence someone told me that, when an Indian dies, the others strike on his cabin, crying: "oue, oue, oue," etc. And when I asked an Indian the reason for this, he told me that it was to make the spirit come out of the cabin.

The body of the dead man is not taken out of the common door of the cabin. They raise the bark from the spot where he died, and take it out through that. I asked why; the Indian answered me that the common door was the door of the living, and not of the dead, and consequently the dead should not pass there. As he believed that he had perfectly satisfied me, and as he was laughing at me, I asked him if, when he had killed a Beaver, he made it enter and go out by the common door. "Yes," said he. "It is then," said I, "the door for the dead as well as for the living." He replied that a Beaver is an animal. Then I answered, laughing, "Your door then is a door for animals, and you call it a door for the living." He cried out, "Certainly, that is true," and began to laugh.

I asked him also why they buried the clothes of the dead with them. "They belong to them," said he, "why should we take them away from them?"

If you press them, they are not obstinate. They follow a certain routine in their superstitions, for which they can give no reason. This is why they are the first to laugh when you make them understand that their customs are ridiculous. True, I have seen some who are much attached to their dreams.

They have different kinds of feasts. I know some special features of them, but shall wait until another year, that I may speak of them with more certainty.

At the feasts for the dead, they always throw what is left into the fire. At other feasts the rule is to eat all, and it is better to burst than to leave anything.

Nearly all the Indians have a little Castipitagan or tobacco pouch. Some are made from the skin of the muskrat, in such a way that the animal seems quite entire, there being only a little opening at the head made in skinning it. Others are made of other animals. Some of them carry a part of an arm or a hand of an Iroquois whom they have slain, which is so skillfully prepared that the nails remain entire. You would think it was a solid hand, when they fill it with tobacco or something else. I have not seen any of these, but I have been assured that it is so.

Sometimes, to show that they have courage, an Indian will bind his bare arm to that of another; then putting between the two arms, upon the flesh, a piece of lighted tinder, they leave it until it is entirely consumed, burning themselves to the bone. The man who withdraws his arm and shakes off the fire is considered lacking in courage. I have not seen this act of barbarism. I am told that a Frenchman who was among the Hurons, came near losing his arm in trying to play at this fine game with an Indian.

The Indians are patient, but the order which they maintain in their occupations aids them in preserving peace in their households. The women know what they are to do, and the men also; and one never meddles with the work of the other. The men make the frames of their canoes, and the women sew the bark with willow branches or similar small wood. The men shape the wood of the snow-shoes, and the women do the sewing on them. Men go hunting, and kill the animals; and the women go after them, skin them, and clean the hides. It is they who go in search of the wood that is burned. In fact, they would make fun of a man who, except in some great necessity, would do anything that should be done by a woman. Our Indian, seeing Father de Noue carrying wood, began to laugh, saying: "He's a woman;" meaning that he was doing a woman's work. But a short time afterward, his wife falling sick, and having no one in his cabin who could assist him, he was compelled to go out himself in search of supplies; but he went only at night, when no one could see him.

An old man had dreamed, or rather seen, as he said, a large number of Iroquois who were dispersing, and searching for the Innus. The other Indians consulted then as to what they should do, some saying that it would be well to take the advice of those people who spoke to God, meaning us. This dream passed away in smoke.

When I asked Pierre Pastedechouan how to say in his language: "Where are your brothers?" as a woman Indian was passing by, he was loath to answer; giving me as a reason that it would make her sad, and make her cry because her brothers were dead. "We do not speak any more of the dead among us," said he, "the relatives of the dead never use anything that was used by the dead man during his lifetime."

On the 15th of the same month of December, a large number of Algonquins having come to see us, one of them seeing me writing, took a pen and wanted to do the same; but seeing that he did not accomplish much, and that I was smiling, he began to blow upon what he had written, thinking that he could blow it away like powder. I had them all told that we came to teach them. They answered that I was doing well to learn their language; and that, when I should know it, everything would be easy on both sides.

On the 19th, the snow being already deep, the Indians captured eight elks or moose. About that time one of them, named Nassitamirineou, and surnamed by the French Brehault, told them that he had dreamed that they must eat all of those Moose; and that he knew how to pray to God, who had told him that it was his will that they should eat all, and that they should give none of them away, if they wanted to capture others. The Indians believed him, and did not give a piece to the Frenchmen. This was told to me in the presence of the dreamer. He did not admit all, yet it seemed probable; for having settled near us, and having heard us speaking of God, he was just the man to talk about it afterward, and to play the learned among his people.

On the 21st of December, God sent us two little boys, Manitougache having presented to us a little one whose life he had saved, and whom we accepted; and as we were afraid that he would be lonesome, we thought to find another to keep him company. A woman came, bringing her little son, about seven years old. When we saw him, we said to each other, "This is just what we wanted." I at once asked the mother, if she would not like to give us her child, saying that we would care for it as best we possibly could. "Ah," said she, "I came here to ask Manitougache to give him to you, and to ask you to take him."

The oldest, the one given to us by Manitougache, has neither father nor mother, and so we are sure of keeping him. We have named him Fortune, until he can be baptized. Oh, what good fortune he has met with! Being at Tadoussac, abandoned by everyone, an Indian gave a musket to our Pierre, telling him to kill this miserable child, because, having no parents, he would be abandoned by everyone. Our Indian, on hearing that, had pity on the little one, took him, and fed him up to the time when he gave him to us.

We have called the younger one Bienvenu. He seems intelligent, and of a pleasant and endearing nature. We are not so sure that he will remain with us, because the Indians are extremely fickle and capricious. One of his relatives, hearing that he had been given to us, objected, saying that their Captain had forbidden them to give any of their children to the French. Then the mother of the child intervened, declaring that the Captain had not taken care of her child; and that it did not belong to him to dispose of it, but to her who was the mother, and who had reared him since his infancy. The father of the child, having learned that his former wife, who had left him, had given the child to us, was pleased, saying that it would fare very well with us. The one who was promised to us last year would like now to be with these two others. But we cannot charge ourselves with him now, we must not undertake more than we can perform.

It is a pleasure to see these two children; they are my little pupils. They are beginning to read, and know how to pray, in Latin and in their own language. Sometimes they make us laugh by their childish prattle. Before eating we make them say the blessing. Therefore, when they want to eat, they come to us and say, "My Father, blessing;" that is to say, "Give me something to eat." When they saw a little dog given something to eat, they told us that it had not said its blessing. "I am going," said one of them, "to say it for him." As we laughed at this, his companion said to him: nama irinisionakhi attimoukhi; that is, "The dogs have no mind, they do not say their blessing, it is only for men to say that." You can hear them, going and coming, humming the Lord's Prayer, pronouncing first one part and then another, during which there happened the other day an amusing incident. Sir Emery de Caen was dining at our house. As we served upon the table the little that we had, one of the children, looking at what was set out and seeing that it was not for him, began to say as it happened to occur to him: Et ne nos inducas in tentationem ("And lead us not into temptation"), causing the whole company to laugh.

On the second day of January, I saw a number of Indians trying to cross the great Saint Lawrence River in their canoes. Usually this river does not freeze in the middle; it floats immense pieces of ice, according to the course and movement of the current. These poor fellows approached large pieces of the floating ice, sounded them with their paddles, then mounted them, and drew their canoes up after them, crossing over to reach the water on the other side of the ice. Nimble as they are, not infrequently some of them are drowned.

I saw an Indian dragging his mother behind him over the snow. The coaches and wagons of this country are sledges made of bark or wood, the horses are the men who draw them. This poor old woman was tied upon one of these sleighs; and her son, being unable, conveniently, to take her down by the common path of a mountain which borders the river along which he was going, let her roll down the steepest place to the bottom, and then went by another route to find her. As I could not bear this act of impiety, I said so to some of the Indians who were near me. They answered: "What would you have him do with her? She is going to die anyway; take her and kill her, since you have pity for her; you will do her a service, because she will not suffer so much; perhaps her son will leave her in the midst of the woods, as he is unable either to cure her or to drag her after him, if he does not find something to eat." This is the way they take care of the sick that they think are going to die. They hurry death by a blow from a club or an axe, when they have a long journey to make, and do this through compassion.

On the third of the same month, the wife of our Indian being sick, he came to ask me for my knife with which to bleed her. The Indians draw blood from the head. One day when I was in a cabin, an Indian Woman, looking at a writing case I was holding, adroitly took my penknife, without my perceiving it, and made several openings in the upper part of her forehead, then returned it to me. I was astonished when I saw her bleeding. She told me she had a headache, and wanted to cure it. They have seen our way of bleeding, and believe it to be good; La Nasse came and asked me to aid his wife in the same way. I told him that I knew nothing about it; and as he wanted to take my knife, I told him to wait until the next day, when I would ask the Surgeon to go and see her, which he did. Meanwhile, I went to see her in her cabin; it was cold; she was bareheaded, according to their custom, biting a lump of snow, trying to cure a bad cold which almost choked her. Such are the delicate practices of the country. The next day, after having been bled, she went out to gather wood as usual.

We have not been lonely all winter, as a number of Indians have been to see us. They pass by our house in large crowds, going Moose hunting. Among them were the Prince and his mother, the Princess. It is what the French call a fine looking Indian. You would say that this family has something inexpressibly noble about it; and if they were dressed in the French style, they would not yield in good appearance to our French gentlemen.

When this young man came to see us, I asked him if he had a son, and if he would not like to give him to us to teach. He answered me "yes." His mother had a little girl with her; and I, thinking that it was a boy, called her, asking her grandmother to give him to us. She began to laugh. Thinking that it might be a girl, I said that we did not take them, but that some day some worthy women would come from France, who would teach their daughters. Then," said she, "I shall give her to them."

I see that it is necessary to teach the girls as well as the boys, and that we shall do nothing or little, unless some good household has the care of this sex; for the boys that we shall have reared in the knowledge of God, when they marry Indian girls or women accustomed to wandering in the woods, will, as their husbands, be compelled to follow them and therefore fall back into barbarism, or to leave them, another evil full of danger.

Is there not some Lady in France who has enough courage to found here a Seminary for girls, to be under the care of some good courageous widow, assisted by two brave young women, who would live in a house which might be built near the home of that estimable family that is here? There are Ladies in Paris who yearly spend over twenty thousand silver coins in pocket-money; if they would apply a part of this, then they would not be put to shame when they appear before God.

On the 10th of January, the cold was severe. I see daylight a great part of the winter only through ice. The crusts of ice gather upon the windows of my cell or little room, and fall like a piece of glass, when the cold relaxes. It is through this crystal that the Sun sends us his light.

Several times I have found large pieces of ice, formed by my breath, attached to my blanket in the morning; and forgetting to shake them off, I found them there still in the evening. I have sometimes seen them in France, but rarely, and they were small compared with these.

As we have neither a spring nor a well, we have to go for water every day to the river, from which we are distant about 500 feet. But to get it, we must first break the ice with heavy blows from an axe; and after that we must wait until the sea comes up, for when the tide is low you cannot get water because of the thickness of the ice. We throw this water into a barrel, which is not far from a good fire; and yet we must be careful to break the layer of ice every morning, otherwise, in two nights, it would be one mass of ice, even if the barrel were full.

One of our countrymen was thirsty, when in the woods, and so thought to lap a little snow from the axe which he held; when he touched the iron, his tongue stuck fast, and froze so quickly and so solidly, that in suddenly withdrawing the axe, he tore almost all the skin from his tongue.

All of this would have almost made me believe in France that this country is unbearable. Some days are cold and penetrating, but they are few, and the rest are more than tolerable. Here they roll on the snow as they do in France upon the grass of our meadows; I do not mean to say that it is less cold than it is white, but the days are fine, and the Sun is warmer than in many parts of France. We are, they say, on the same parallel with la Rochelle. The least exercise we take generally dispels the rigor of the cold.

How often, when coming to a hill or a mountain which I must descend, I have rolled down to the bottom on the snow, experiencing no other discomfort than to change for a little while my black habit for a white one, and all this is done with much laughter. For if you do not stand firmly upon your snow-shoes, you will whiten your head as well as your feet.

How many times have I done this also upon the icy heights of the river banks along which I was going. It was an Indian who taught me this trick, known to everybody here; he went ahead of me, and, seeing that his head was in danger of reaching the river before his feet, he let himself roll the whole length of the ice, and I after him. The best of it is that you have only to do it once, to understand the trick. I was afraid, at first; for the rising tide, lifting up those great blocks of ice, cracks them in many places, and the water, splashing up on the banks of the river, makes a thin layer of ice over the thicker one. When you try walking upon the thin ice, it breaks under you. The first time I tried it, I thought it was all going to sink under me. But I do not believe that a cannon could crack the thickest ice. When you walk upon it in the spring, it is then that there is danger of stepping into a hole and going under.

On the 12th of the same month, an Indian came to me, and said that Father de Noue was the cause of a heavy wind which was blowing; I asked him why. He told me that, although the sky had been red in the morning, the Father had worked in the woods at an early hour, and that that was the cause of the wind; that, when the Montaignaits saw a flaming sky, they remained at rest in their cabins, and so arrested the wind. "I shall warn Father de Noue," said he, "that another time he should not leave his cabin when the sky is so red; and he will see that the wind will not blow." I began to laugh, and tried by every means in my power to drive this superstition from his mind, and at last he laughed at it just as much as I did. It was not so easy for him to give it up; for the Indians agree readily with what you say, but they continue to act upon their own ideas.

Passing on from one subject to another, I talked to him of God. Talking to him therefore in my jargon, and more frequently by signs and gestures than otherwise (for I talk more with my hands than with my tongue), I made him comprehend something of the power of God. Then he told me that the God of France was a great deal more powerful and a greater Captain or Lord than the God of his country. "For," said he, "your God is great; and ours, or his children at least, come from a water rat which the French call the muskrat."

But, speaking of musk, the Indians cannot bear the odor of it. Someone said to me that once, when he had something about him like musk, they told him he smelled bad. So they believe that this animal has a bad smell, while an old piece of fat would seem to them to have a pleasant odor. You may judge if certain things are not more acceptable to the smell of some people than others, and whether our fancies and customs have not great power over us.

As this Indian gave me an occasion to speak of their God, let me say that it is a great mistake to think they have no knowledge of any divinity. When in France I was astonished at that, knowing that Nature has given this sentiment to all other nations of the earth. The Indians have no public or common prayer, nor any form of worship usually rendered to one whom they hold as God, and their knowledge is only as darkness. But it cannot be denied that they recognize some nature superior to the nature of man. As they have neither laws nor government, therefore there is no ordinance which concerns the service of this superior nature; each one acts according to his own understanding. I do not know their secrets; but, from the little that I am about to say, it will be seen that they recognize some divinity.

They say that there is a certain one whom they call atahocan, who made all things. Talking one day of God, in a cabin, they asked me what this God was. I told them that it was he who could do everything, and who had made the Sky and earth. They began to say one to the other, "Atahocan, Atahocan, it is Atahocan."

They say there is one named Messou, who restored the world when it was lost in the waters. You see that they have some traditions of the Flood, although mingled with fables. This is the way, as they say, that the world was lost:

This Messou, going hunting with lynxes, instead of dogs, was warned that it would be dangerous for his lynxes (which he called his brothers), in a certain lake nearby. One day, as he was hunting an elk, his lynxes gave it chase into the lake; and when they reached the middle of it, they were submerged in an instant. When he arrived there and sought his brothers, a bird told him that it had seen them at the bottom of the lake, and that certain animals or monsters held them there. He leaped into the water to rescue them; but immediately the lake overflowed, and increased so much that it drowned the whole earth.

The Messou, astonished, gave up all thoughts of his lynxes, to meditate on creating the world again. He sent a raven to find a small piece of the earth, with which to build up another world. The raven was unable to find any, everything being covered with water. He made an otter dive down, but the depth of the water prevented it from going to the bottom. At last, a muskrat descended, and brought back some earth. With this bit of earth, Messou restored everything to its former condition. He remade the trunks of the trees, and shot arrows against them, which were changed into branches.

It would be a long story to recount everything; how he took vengeance on the monsters that had taken his hunters, transforming himself into a thousand kinds of animals to circumvent them. This great Restorer, having married a little muskrat, had children who repopulated the world.

You see by these stories that the Indians have some idea of a God. They have even some form of sacrifice; Father Brebeuf assured me that, when passing the winter with them, he saw them put a little Elk or Moose under the ashes and burn it. He has learned since then that another was burned at the same time and in the same manner, in another cabin; and asking the reason for it, they answered that it was for the recovery of a sick man.

There are some men among them who make a profession of consulting their Manitou. By this word "Manitou" they understand, as among us, an Angel or some powerful being. I believe they think that there are good and bad Manitous.

The Son-in-law of our Indian, wishing to go hunting, took counsel with the Manitou near our house. He made a little wooden Cabin, shutting himself inside toward nightfall, singing, crying, and howling. The others were around him. I asked a Frenchman to fire a shot of the musket, to frighten them with the noise; but I am not sure that they heard it, so great was the uproar. The Manitou told him to go hunting in a certain direction, that he would find Moose there, and no Iroquois. The Manitou was proved a liar; for the hunter returned almost starved, having found little. As to the Iroquois, he could not have run against any, because he kept at a great distance from them. I believe that the greater number of these consulters of the Manitou are only deceivers and charlatans. Despite this, when they advise anything, it is carried out exactly. If one of them should tell the Indians that the Manitou wanted them to lie down naked in the snow, or to burn themselves in a certain place, he would be obeyed. And this Manitou, or Devil, does not talk to them any more than he does to me.

Still, I am inclined to think that there are some among them who have communication with the Devil, if what the Indians say is true, because some are seen to walk upon their huts, without breaking them down. They become furious and act as if possessed, striking blows hard enough to fell an ox, and yet the pain passes away soon. Without any great injury, they cover themselves with blood, and are healed in a moment. They relate many other similar things; but, when I question them closely, they admit that they have not seen them, but have only heard of them. One does not need to offer any serious objections to their stories to confuse them.

On the 15th of the same month, our Indian came to see us, and said that one of his sons-in-law had dreamed that we would give him a piece of petun, or tobacco, as long as his hand. I refused him, saying that I did not give anything on account of dreams; that they were only folly, and that, when I knew his language, I would explain to him how they originated. He replied to me that all nations had something especially their own; that, if our dreams were not true, theirs were; and that they would die if they did not execute them. According to this idea, our lives depend upon the dreams of an Indian; because, if they dream that they have to kill us, they will surely do it if they can.

At another time, one of them had a dream that to be cured of a disease, from which he was suffering, he must kill a certain Frenchman; so he sent for him. When the Frenchman entered his cabin, he said to him: "Come nearer my brother, I want to talk with you." His wife, who knew the plans of her husband, told the Frenchman to be on his guard in going near him; and the sick man had placed an axe at hand, with which to kill him. This shows one of the great risks that we run here; it does not frighten me; we may die for God in dying because of a dream.

But to return to our Indian; I asked him if it would be necessary to execute my dream, in case I had dreamed that I should kill him. He replied that his son-in-law's dream was not bad; and just as he believed us when we told him something, or when we showed him a picture, so likewise we ought to believe him when he told us something that was accepted by his people. More than that, he was astonished that we, who did not use tobacco, liked it so much. Finally, we found it necessary to give him some, taking good care to make him understand that it was not in consideration of his dream, and that we would refuse him whatever he asked under that pretext. He said he would no longer believe in such fancies, but that his son-in-law could do as he liked. This superstition is too deeply implanted in his mind for him to give it up so easily.

On the 21st of the same month, I baptized a little Indian about three years old, stricken with a fatal disease; and seeing that he was in danger of dying in the woods, his grandmother had dragged him about with her from one place to another; we asked her, if he should recover, if she would not like to give him, to us, to care for and teach. She answered that, if he were not so sick, she would give him to us at once. His parents consented, so we resolved to baptize him. Our Pierre gave him his name. This poor child may drag on a few years, but there is hardly a hope that he will ever recover his health.

Toward the end of January the son and the sons-in-law of our Indian, being near Cape de Tourmente, told their father, who was settled near us, that there was good hunting there. He went there with the rest of his family. Then, coming back to see us, he said that if we loved him, we would go to visit him in his cabin, and he would give us some Venison. "You have given me," said he, "of your store when I was hungry; my people will think you are angry with me, if you do not come to see us." He brought us news that the Indian, Brehault, was dead; and that he had left two children, a boy and a little girl. As we desired to send some children to France to have them educated, so they could afterward help their people, Father de Noue made up his mind to follow this good Indian, a journey with difficulties.

Here are the details of that: The inns found on the way are the woods themselves, where at nightfall they stop to camp; each one unfastens his snowshoes, which are used as shovels in cleaning the snow from the place where they are going to sleep. The place cleaned is usually made in the form of a circle; a fire is made in the middle of it, and all the guests seat themselves around it, having a wall of snow behind them, and the Sky for a roof. The wine of this inn is snow, melted in a little kettle which they carry with them, provided they do not wish to eat snow in lieu of drink. Their best dish is smoked eel. As they must carry their blankets with them for cover at night, they load themselves with as few other things as possible.

When the Father reached the cabin, they did not know what welcome to give him. There are no greetings here; they say neither "good day" nor "good evening." Their signs of rejoicing, or expressions of thanks, consist of this aspiration; "Ho! ho! ho! ho!" etc. They greet people here by actions.

Immediately each begins his work; one puts water, or rather snow, in a kettle; another places it on the fire; another throws in large pieces of Venison, not washing them for fear of losing the grease. This being half cooked, it is withdrawn to put in some more. While so engaged, one of the sons-in law of la Nasse returns from the hunt, bringing two Beavers; he tears them to pieces at once, and throws them into the kettle, in proof of his joy at seeing the Father. Another gives him a young and tender Beaver, with the request that he should be most careful not to give the bones to the dogs, otherwise they believe they will take no more Beavers. They burn these bones carefully. If a dog should eat them, there would be no more good hunting. The Father told me that he was astonished at their waste of meat. This is a great misfortune for these miserable people, for they have nothing but feasts when they have plenty, and are generally dying of hunger the next day.

They went a distance of 7 miles from there to get a Moose they had killed, to give the meat of it to the Father, with a thousand excuses, saying that perhaps we might not find it good. They pressed the Father to remain with them a few days, saying that they had seen wood which had been gnawed, an infallible sign that they would find more Elk.

When the Father wished to depart, they made three sledges which they loaded with meat; one for him, another for our man Pierre, who was there, and the third for a Frenchman who accompanied the Father. They had moved scarcely 500 feet when the Father suddenly stopped short; he could see nothing and could hear nothing. The smoke of the cabin, the snow outside, the lack of nourishment, for he had eaten only a little of that half-cooked meat, and the difficulties of the way had weakened him so that he was, compelled to return from where he came. He had carried with him a little bread and a few peas; but the Indians had taken possession of them at once, so fond are they of them, telling him that he could eat as much as he wanted of these things on his return to our house. The good Indian La Nasse, seeing the Father's weakness, asked him if he wished to remain.

"No," said he, "but I cannot drag this load which you have given me."

"Very well," answered the Indian, "I will drag it for you, and I will take this great sealskin to wrap you up in, and draw you to your house. If you are sick, take courage, I will not abandon you."

They returned to the house as best they could, our Pierre running before them to bring the news. We hurriedly sent a boy with a bottle of cider and some bread to renew their strength. The wind blew so violently in their faces that they were compelled to leave their sledges 7 miles from Quebec, and send for them on the following day. The Father, who was sick only from overwork, having rested, immediately recovered.

In this narrative you have an illustration of what we have to suffer in accompanying the Indians in their wanderings, and what must necessarily be done if we wish to aid in saving them. And from this you may see what kind of men should be chosen for this mission. We do not suffer these discomforts while remaining in the house. All that we have to bear here is endurable. But, when it is necessary to become an Indian with the Indians, one must take his life and all that he has, and throw it away, contenting himself with a large and heavy cross.

One thing is more than intolerable. It is their living together promiscuously, girls, women, men, and boys in a smoky hole. And the more progress one makes in the knowledge Of the language, the more vile things one hears. May one's eyes be not offended; I am told that they are not. I did not think that the mouth of the Indian was so foul as I notice it is every day. To sleep on the earth, covered with a few branches of pine, nothing but the bark between the snow and your head; to drag your baggage over the mountains, to let yourself roll down into frightful valleys; to eat only once in two or three days, when there is no hunting; that is the life you must lead in following the Indians. If the hunting is good, there is no lack of meat; if not, one must be in danger of dying from starvation, or of enduring great suffering. One of our Frenchmen, who lived with them last winter, told us that during two days he ate nothing but a small piece of candle that he had accidentally carried in his pocket. This is the treatment that I shall perhaps have next winter; because if I wish to learn the language, I must necessarily follow the Indians. I fear, however, that our growing family may keep me here this year; but sooner or later I must go. I would like to be there already, I am so sick at heart to see these poor straying souls, without any help because of our inability to understand them.

I must speak here of the charge which the Indians make against the French. It is that they love what is theirs; when you refuse anything to an Indian, he immediately says Khisakhitan, "You love that," sakhita, sakhita, "Love it, love it;" as if they would say that we are attached to what we love, and that we prefer it to their friendship. Our Indian would like to live with us as a brother; he would like to have us divide with him all that we have. "I will give you," said he, "all that I possess, and you will give me all that belongs to you." In this way, we should eat in a month all the provisions for a year, for they never stop eating as long as they have anything. Having nothing more, they go in search of something, and ask for it persistently. This simple fellow realizes that this is not a good way, and, when I show him that it is not good to use up his food so quickly, he says: "It is not I who do that, it is my wife." He is astonished when we give him a piece of Bear or Moose six weeks after he has given it to us, for in that time they eat two, three, and four bears in his cabin, if they capture that many.

On the 21st of March, an Indian who was eating at our house, upon the ground, according to their custom, stopped suddenly, saying that he would eat no more, -- if he did, he would die. I asked him why, and he told me that he had seen a bright light revolve around his plate. I was about to put my hand upon the plate, and he cried out, Khiga nipin, Khiga nipin, "You will die, you will die." As I am becoming familiar with their fancies, to make him understand his simplicity, I took a spoonful or two of what he was eating, and ate it myself. He looked at me with astonishment, and, seeing that I was not sick, "I will eat also," said he, "since you have eaten of it."

Some Spanish Basques or Englishmen have communicated to them the fear that the French were seeking to poison them. That is why many of the Indians invite you to first taste whatever you give them. Concerning this, a amusing thing happened to an Indian who was addicted to drink. Sir du Plessis Bochart having presented him with a glass of wine, or of cider, he turned about, and gave it to a Frenchman to taste; this Frenchman tasted it so well that there was none of it left. The Indian, who saw what he was doing, cried out, egouspe, egouspe, "It is enough, it is enough." But the other drank the last drop, giving the empty glass to the Indian, as a lesson that, another time, he must be less suspicious.

On the 22nd, our Pierre having caught a Beaver, an Indian skinned and our brother washed it. This woman, seeing that he let some of the blood of the animal fall to the ground, cried out: "In truth, this man has no sense;" and turning to Pierre she said: "You will catch no more Beavers, for the blood of yours has been spilled." It is one of their superstitions, that you must not spill the pure blood of the Beaver upon the ground, if you wish to have good hunting, at least Pierre has told us so.

On the first day of April, the Captain of the Algonquins came to see us, and brought us some Elk meat, his people having killed ten of these animals. Although the Indians will give you something for a "thank you," (this is a word they have learned from the French), you must make them some return for another "thank you," otherwise you will be looked upon as ungrateful. They are willing enough to receive without giving; but they do not know what it is to give without receiving. If you will follow them into the woods, they will feed you without asking anything of you, if they think that you have nothing. But if they see that you have something, and they want it, they will not stop asking you for it until you have given it.

To return to this Captain; I asked him if he had a son, and if he would not give him to us to be educated. He asked me how many children I wanted, and said that I already had two. I told him that in time I should perhaps feed twenty. He was astonished. "will you clothe so many as well?" asked he. I answered that we would not take them until we had the means to clothe them.

He replied that he would be glad to give us his son, but that his wife did not wish to do so. The women have great power here. A man may promise you something, and, if he does not keep his promise, he thinks he is sufficiently excused when he tells you that his wife did not wish to do it. I told him then that he was the master, and that in France women do not rule their husbands. "That is very well," said he, "but I know enough to instruct my son; I shall teach him to make speeches. Instruct the Innus first; if you succeed, then we will give you our children."

On the 18th and 20th of April, it thundered loudly and violently, with sharp flashes of lightning, and yet the river was still frozen, and the ground white with snow; this showed us that there was heat in the air, and these snows and this cold were accidental and contrary to the nature of the climate. We are on a parallel with la Rochelle. All the Frenchmen can testify that they have never seen in the heart of France so warm a month of May as they have experienced in Quebec.

The heat here is intense and burning, and yet there has been frost every month of the year. I am not surprised at these frosts. We have on the North of us a chain of mountains, probably 250 or 500 miles in extent. We are not distant 15 miles from these stupendous mountains, probably always covered with snow. Imagine whether the wind coming from that direction can bring much heat.

Besides, we are in a forest covering from 2000 to a 2500 miles. We live upon the banks of two rivers, one of which would swallow up the four great rivers of France without overflowing. See here the real cause and source of the cold. If the country were cleared as far as the mountains, we should probably have one of the most fruitful valleys in the universe. Experience teaches us that the woods engender cold and frosts. The lands owned by the family living here, having been cleared more than ours, are sooner freed from snow, and less subject to cold in the morning. Neither do we feel these rigors so often as do those who live in the house of the Reverend Recollect Fathers, who are farther in the woods.

There are many days in the winter when the heat of the Sun makes itself felt a great deal more than it does in France. The first day that I saw our river frozen, I was astonished, because it was mild weather; and in seeking a reason for it, this came to my mind. A river always freezes first along its banks; and when the tide rises, it loosens this ice and carries it higher up. Not far from us there is a waterfall or some rocks, which prevent the tidal ice from passing beyond them. This ice being therefore massed and pressed together in the river, which is in the midst of. so great a wood that the snow and cold are easily preserved, it becomes consolidated; and thousands and thousands of blocks of ice are frozen into one mass which goes on increasing every day, making a great bridge over the whole river. Lombardy is not far from the Alps, the summits of which are always white with snow, and yet I do not know that Europe has a more agreeable and more fertile valley than that country. I would say the same of the place in which we live, if it were cleared and cultivated. Everything depends upon clearing the land. But oh, my God! What labor there will be in clearing a forest encumbered with fallen trees, I might well say, since the Flood.

On the 23rd of the same month of April, we saw the ice float away; it is a frightful spectacle. I was told that pieces a mile long were seen passing before the fort. These are the banks of frozen water which the current of the great river goes on loosening. Upon our little river the ice is not so alarming; still I have seen it carry away large pieces of earth, tear up stumps, and crush the trees which it had enclosed. You can see the trees moving erect on these pieces of ice, in the middle of the river, which in a single tide appears as beautiful and as clear as if it had never been frozen.

On the 7th of May an Indian called to see la Nasse, our neighbor; as I saw that he was not well, I addressed him, speaking to him of God and urging him to rely on him. He answered me: "You know Jesus, pray to him for me, for I do not know him; I know only our Manitou." I told him to say these words often from his heart: "Oh Jesus, who are good, have pity on me." He died a short time afterward.

The Innus held him as one of their great sorcerers or consulters of Manitou. I shall know for certain, some day, whether there is any trickery in their doings or not. At present, I can only say that some of them say "yes" and others "no." That is to say that there is nothing sure.

Last year I was teacher of two pupils; I have become rich, for I now have more than twenty. After the departure of my teacher, I gathered up and arranged a part of what he taught me, and what I had written, accommodating myself to his humor, he often dictating only what happened to suit his fancy. Having therefore brought together most of my riches, I began to compose something in the way of a Catechism, or on the principles of the faith. Taking my paper in hand, I began to call a few children by ringing a little bell. At first I had six, then twelve, then fifteen, then twenty, and more. I have them say the Lord's Prayer, the Hail Mary, and the Credo, in their language. I explain to them, crudely, the mysteries of the Holy Trinity and of the Incarnation, and at every few words I ask them if I speak well, if they can understand perfectly; they all answer me: eoco, eoco, ninisitoutenan, "yes, yes, we understand."

We begin the Catechism by this prayer, after having made the sign of the Cross: Noukhimami Jesus, iagoua Khistinohimaonitou Khik hitouina caie Khiteritamouin. Ca cataouachichien Maria ouccaonia Jesu, cacataouachichien Joseph aiamihitouinan. "My Lord, or Captain, Jesus, teach me your words and your will! Oh, good Mary, Mother of God! Oh, good Joseph, pray for us!"

We finish with a Lord's Prayer that I have composed almost in rhyme, in their language, which I have them sing; and I have each one of them given a bowlful of peas, which they enjoy much. When there are many of them, I give only to those who have answered well. It is a pleasure to hear them sing in the woods what they have learned. The women sing also, and come occasionally to listen at the windows of my class room, which serves also as a refectory, pantry, and everything else. I was ready to go to the cabins, to gather in all the children; but the arrival of Sir Champlain, who brought us some visitors, occupied me for some time. As soon as I am freed from the more pressing duties, I shall again take up this work.

When I talk to them about the Son of God, they ask me if God is married, as he has a son. It is the men that ask that question. They are astonished when I tell them that God is neither a man nor a Woman; they ask how he is made then; I answer that he has neither flesh nor bones, and that he is like the soul. One of them made me laugh, for he replied: "The soul has neither bones nor flesh, I saw mine, and it had neither." I wished to instruct him then; but they have no words to express the purely spiritual ideas, or, if they have, I do not know them. Thus far, I am only feeling my way; and what causes me the most regret is that, not being able to understand them, I fear that my ignorance will be of long duration, as they do not remain long in one area.

For these wandering and vagabond people, the harvest will be later, but it will come in its own time; I see favorable indications of it. In the first place, the fear that the Algonquins have of their enemies, the Iroquois, makes them abandon their country; and as they, naturally, love it, they are requesting that some of us settle among them, having planned to enclose a village around the fort which they will build there, and to gather all of their forces there, which the Company of New France will like.

Secondly, he who knew their language well would be all-powerful among them, however little eloquence he might have. There is no place in the world where Rhetoric is more powerful than in Canada; it is entirely simple and without disguise; and yet it controls all these tribes, as the Captain is elected for his eloquence alone, and is obeyed in proportion to his use of it, for they have no other law than his word. An Indian Captain once asked the Englishman who was here, to help them in their wars; the Englishman, wishing to evade him, answered with superficial reasons: that some of his men were sick, and that his people would not get along well with the Indians. And this Captain so pertinently refuted all his objections that the Englishman was compelled to say: "I need my men, I am afraid the French will come and attack us." Then the Indian said: "Now you are talking; we understand you well; so far, you had said nothing."

In the third place, these people may be converted by means of seminaries; and how necessary it is to educate at Quebec the children of the Indians, who belong to settlements farther up the river. We shall have the children at last; for they will give them, if they see that we do not send them to France. As to the children of this area, they must be sent up there. The reason is that the Indians prevent their instruction; they will not tolerate the chastisement of their children, whatever they may do; they permit only a simple reprimand. Besides, they think they are doing you some great favor in giving you their children to instruct, to feed, and to dress. They will ask a great many things in return, and will be persistent in threatening to withdraw their children, if you do not consent to their demands.

On the 14th of May, I baptized the little Negro of whom I spoke last year. He was brought here by Englishmen from the island of Madagascar, otherwise Saint Lawrence, which is not far from the Cape of Good Hope, toward the East. It is a great deal warmer in his country than here. These Englishmen gave him to the Kirkes, who held Quebec; and one of the Kirkes sold him for fifty gold coins, to a person named le Bailly, who presented him to this estimable family that is settled here. This child could not be more contented than he is, and it has been a recreation for me to teach him. Wishing to know whether the inhabitants of his country were Muslims or Pagans, I asked him if there were no houses there in which they prayed to God, if there were no Mosques, if they did not talk there of Muhammad.

"There are," said he, "Mosques in our country."

"Are they large?" I asked him.

"They are," he answered, "like those of this country."

On telling him that there were none in France nor in Canada, "I have seen some," said he, "in the hands of the French and English who brought them into our country, and now they use them to shoot with." I saw that he meant to say muskets, and not Mosques; I smiled, and so did he.

On the 19th, news was brought that an English vessel had entered Tadoussac a few days before; we did not know whether it was a trading vessel, or whether there was some trouble between France and England. Each one formed his own conjectures, and everyone was upon his guard. The following Sunday, day of Holy Trinity, having gone to say Mass at the fort, I was told that, if we heard two cannon shots, we should promptly withdraw with our French people into the fortress.

The next day, on the 22nd of the same month of May, we heard the sound of the cannon early in the morning. In the uncertainty as to what was going on, Father de Noue took our Indian and started for Quebec; and he brought back without delay the news that Sir de Champlain had arrived, and that Father Brebeuf was coming as fast as possible to our little house. Meanwhile, Father Brebeuf enters. Several Indians were with us, and, seeing our joy at this happy meeting, cried out, according to their custom when they are pleased, chtee! chtee! rejoicing with us over the arrival of the Father, who told us that father Masse was at Tadoussac, and that Father Daniel and Father Davost were also coming to see us from the grand Chibou. He brought me such a quantity of letters that I was overcome upon seeing the testimonials of affection of so many estimable people. Having learned of the arrival of Sir de Champlain, I went to greet him.

Arriving at the fort, I saw a squad of French soldiers, armed with pikes and muskets, who approached, beating their drums. As soon as they had entered, Sir de Caen gave the keys of the fort to Sir du Plessis Bochart, who delivered them the next day to Sir de Champlain, to take command of the ships according to the decree of the Cardinal. I thanked Sir de Champlain, as well as I could, for the kindness shown by him to our Fathers, for it was great, as Father Brebeuf has told me.

On the 24th of May, eighteen canoes of Indians having descended to Quebec, Sir de Champlain, suspecting that they might go on to the English, who had three vessels at Tadoussac and a barque far up the river, went into the Cabins of these Indians, and made to them a suitable address through Sir Olivier, the interpreter. He said to them through the lips of this interpreter that the French had always loved and defended them, that he had assisted them in person in their wars; that he had cherished the Father of the Captain to whom he was talking, who was killed at his side in a battle where he himself was wounded by an arrow; that he was a man of his word, and that, despite the discomforts of the sea voyage, he had returned to see them again, as they had expressed a wish that a French settlement should be made in their country, to defend them against the incursions of their enemies. He contemplated granting this desire, and it would already have been granted but for the obstacles created by the English; he was then engaged in repairing the ruins that these wicked guests had left behind them; that he would satisfy them all as soon as he attended to the more urgent affairs; that the Fathers (speaking of us), would remain among them and would instruct them. Yet, despite the great obligations that the Indians were under to the French, they had descended the river with the intention of going to see the thieves who came to pillage the French. He said they should consider well what they were doing; that these robbers were only birds of passage, while the French would remain in the country, as it belonged to them. This is a part of the speech that Sir de Champlain delivered to them.

During this speech, the Captain and his men listened attentively. He, among others, appeared to be in deep thought, drawing from his stomach from time to time this aspiration, while they were speaking to him, ham! ham! ham! as if approving the speech of the interpreter, which, when finished, this Captain arose to answer, but with a keenness of rhetoric that might have come out of the schools of Aristotle. He won, in the beginning of his speech, the good will of all of the French by his profound humility, which appeared with exceeding grace in his gestures and in his language.

"I am," said he, "only a poor little animal, crawling about on the ground; you Frenchmen are the great of the earth, who make all tremble. I do not know how I dare to talk before such great Captains. If I had someone behind me who would suggest what I ought to say, I would speak more boldly. I am bewildered; I have never had any instruction; my father left me young; if I say anything, I go seeking it, at hazard, and it is what makes me tremble.

"You tell us that the French have always loved us; we know it well, and we would lie if we said the contrary. You say that you have always been true, and we have always believed you. You have assisted us in our wars, we love you all the more for it.

"You say that the French have come to live at Quebec to defend us, and that you will come into our country to protect us. I remember well to have heard our fathers say that, when you were below at Tadoussac, the Innus went to see you and invited you, unknown to us, to ascend the river above here, where our fathers, having seen you, loved you, and prayed you to make your home there.

"As to the settlement you say we have asked for at Three Rivers, I am only a child; I have no recollection, I do not know that I have asked for it! You, you have your Massinahigan; (that is, a knowledge of writing), which makes you remember everything. But, regardless, you will always be welcome." Note the discretion of this man, to make it plain that not only the Indians, but the French, desire this settlement. He continued his speech, saying, "When you will come up there with us, you will find a land better than this; you will make a house like this to live in" (he indicated a little space with his hand); "that is, you will make a fortress. Then you will make another house like that," designating a large space, "and then we shall no longer be dogs who sleep outside; we shall go into that house." He meant to say an enclosed village. "Then we shall no longer be suspected of going to see those who do not love you. You will sow wheat; we shall do as you do, and we shall no longer go to seek our food in the woods; we shall no longer be wanderers and vagabonds.

"It was Sir de Caen, who believed that I had sent Beavers to the foreigners; I sent to those areas a few Moose skins, not in trade, but to cut off the arms of our enemies. You know that the Iroquois have long arms; if I had not cut them, we should have been captured by them long ago. I send presents to tribes who are their neighbors, to the end that they should not unite with them; it is not to offend the French, but to preserve ourselves. You say that we wish to go to the English; I will tell my men that they should not go there. I promise you that neither I, nor they who have any sense, will do that; but if there is some young man who jumps over there without being seen, I shall not know what to do; you know that youth cannot be restrained. I shall forbid everyone from going there, anyone who does so has no sense. You can do everything, place your boats in the way and capture the Beavers of those who attempt to go.

"You say that the Fathers will live among us, and will teach us. This good fortune will be for our children; we, who are already old, shall die ignorant. This blessing will not come as soon as we should like to have it.

"You say that we must be careful what we do; grasp us by the arm, and we shudder; grasp us afterward by the heart, and the whole body trembles. We do not want to go to the English; their Captain wanted to make an alliance with me and take me for his brother, and I did not desire it; I withdrew, saying that he was too great a Captain. I reflected upon a word that you had said to us, that you would return; therefore I always awaited you. You have been truthful, you will still be so in coming to see us in our country. I have but one fear; it is that in the association of the French with our people, someone may be killed, then we would be lost; you know all are not prudent, but that the wiser ones will always do their duty."

This was the answer of this Indian, who astonished our French people. They told me how he raised his voice according to the subjects he spoke of, then lowered it with so much humility that he won the hearts of all who looked at him, though they did not understand him.

The conclusion was that Sir de Champlain said to them: "When that great house shall be built, then our young men will marry your daughters, and we shall be one people." They began to laugh, answering: "You always say something cheering to rejoice us. If that should happen, we would be happy." Those who think that the Indians have dull and heavy intellects will recognize by this speech that they are not so stupid as they may have been painted.

On the 29th, Sir de Champlain came to hear Mass in our little chapel and we kept him for dinner. As good luck had it, our Indian had brought us a small piece of Bear, which we presented to him. Having tasted it, he began to laugh, and said to me: "If they knew in France that we were eating Bears, they would turn their faces away from our breath, and yet you see how good and delicate the meat is."

After dinner, I went to greet Captain de Nesle in his ship, a number of little Indians following me. I took but six or seven with me, and had them sing their Lord's Prayer in the Indian Tongue aboard the Ship. Our Frenchmen enjoyed it. The best of all for them was that Captain de Nesle gave them some "Cascaracona," and some "toutouch pimi;" it is what they call biscuits and cheese. Upon our departure, as the Captain had the cannon fired in our honor, the children looked on with amazement, and showed themselves so happy that, if one would pay for their songs in that way, they would like to gain their food by singing.

On the last day of May, la Nasse, our Indian, came to tell us that one of their men had dreamed that some Frenchmen would be killed. Either because the Devil had given them this sentiment, or that among all their dreams there is now and then one that happens to be true, on the 2nd day of June, the Iroquois killed two of our Frenchmen and wounded four others, one of whom died shortly afterward. This catastrophe happened in this way: a barque and sailboat were ascending the great Saint Lawrence River; the sailboat went ahead, and, to hurry its speed, sailors went ashore to tow it with lines or cords. As they came to double a point of land, thirty or 40 Iroquois, who were in ambush, fell upon them with horrible cries; they killed the two men first encountered, with blows from their hatchets, then discharged a storm of arrows so suddenly and unexpectedly that our Frenchmen did not know which way to turn, not having foreseen the attack.

They even dared to try to board the sailboat in their canoes; and had it not been that a Frenchman took aim at them with his musket, and that the barque, which was not far away, speedily equipped a boat to come to the rescue, having heard the cries of the combat, it is probable that not one of them would have escaped. The Iroquois, seeing the musket, and the other boat coming to their help, fled, first skinning the heads of those whom they had killed and bearing away the scalps.

On the 8th of June, Father Masse arrived from Tadoussac, and caused us great joy, as he had been so long sick upon the sea, and is now well. He told us that Pierre Pastedechouan was more wicked than ever; that the English who were at Tadoussac had ruined him by drunkenness. If this Indian were intelligent, corrupted as he is by these miserable heretics, he would be a powerful obstacle to the spread of the faith; even now, he will cause only too much injury to it. To judge from his conduct, it would seem that he was given to us to draw from him the principles of his language, and not for the welfare of his soul, as he now goes against God and against the truth.

I have never experienced in France anything like the heat and the drought which we have had here during this month of June. Everything on the earth burns, and nothing prospers in such weather; and yet it froze one morning in the house of the Recollect Fathers. The night so intensifies the coolness of the woods as to cause these morning frosts. We are near that house, and yet it did not happen with us, because we are more exposed to the air.

On the 16th of the same month of June, we restored one of our little children to its mother, you having informed us that you did not yet have the means to establish a seminary here, and consequently had not sent those who had been appointed to look after the instruction of these children. Perceiving that this woman might take away her child secretly, and fly with it to the woods, for fear that we might send it to France, I preferred to restore it to her freely, that she might understand that, if we kept children, it was not to hold them by force from their parents, but for their own good; also that she might say to the other Indians that the children were well fed with us, and so lead them to let us have theirs, when we have the means to care for them.

This poor woman asked me why I gave up her child, and when she should bring it back. I answered that, since the arrival of the ships, I had always noticed that she was afraid we would send it to France, despite the assurances I had given her to the contrary. We did this to prove to her that we were true to our word, and also to relieve her of all fear that we might not restore it to her hands; that, as soon as I knew their language, and after we had built, we would take it again with many others. But the principal reason which persuaded me to restore it to her is that I feared she might take it unknown to us; and then she would have forged a thousand lies among the Indians to excuse herself, and, as I do not know their language well, I should not have been able to justify ourselves. This would have caused the Indians to refuse their children to us when the time comes to ask them. Oh, what a great misfortune it is not to be able to give one's reasons, to speak only stammeringly and by signs.

On the 23rd of the same month, Sir du Plessis Bochart sent word to us that twelve or fourteen canoes of the tribe of sorcerers (Nipissings) had gone down as far as Saint Croix, about 37 miles above Quebec. A few days before, we had seen a dozen belonging to another tribe called the Iroquet Algonquins, from the name of their Captain, also going down. God be blessed, since the fear of the Iroquois did not prevent their coming. These sorcerers, it is what the French call that tribe, because they make a special profession of consulting their Manitou, or talking to the devil, these sorcerers came as far as Quebec. One of them was looking attentively at a little French boy who was beating a drum; and, going near to him so as to see him better, the little boy struck him a blow with one of his drumsticks, and made his head bleed badly. Immediately all the people of his tribe who were looking at the drummer, seeing this blow given, took offense at it. They went and found the French interpreter, and said to him:

"See, one of your people has wounded one of ours; you know our custom well; give us presents for this wound." As there is no government among the Indians, if one among them kills or wounds another, he is, providing he can escape, released from all punishment by making a few presents to the friends of the deceased or the wounded one. Our interpreter said: "You know our custom; when any of our number does wrong we punish him. This child has wounded one of your people; he shall be whipped at once in your presence." The little boy was brought in; and when they saw that we were in earnest, that we were stripping this little pounder of Indians and drums, and that the switches were ready, they immediately began to ask for his pardon, alleging that it was only a child, that he had no mind, that he did not know what he was doing; but, as our people were still going to punish him, one of the Indians stripped himself entirely, threw his blanket over the child, and cried out to him who was going to do the whipping: "Strike me, if you will, but you will not strike him;" and therefore the little one escaped. All the Indian tribes of these areas cannot chastise a child, nor see one chastised. How much trouble this will give us in carrying out our plans of teaching the young.

On the 24th of the same month, Father Daniel, arriving, brought us news of the coming of Captain Morieult in the ship in which he had left Father Davost at Tadoussac; he having come up ahead, by means of a barque which was going on to Quebec.

On the last day of June, the French Interpreter, who had been a long time among these sorcerers (Nipissings), and who but recently came from them, came to see us with three Indians who were his guests; we gave them something to eat; they recognized Father Brebeuf at once, having passed the winter with him among the Hurons. We took them into our little Chapel, which we have this year begun to decorate.

Last year, for Altar-piece, we had nothing but an old sheet with two little card pictures upon it. As they have sent us this year a few little ornaments, we have decorated it as best we could. The Indians gazed at it with fixed attention; raising their eyes to the Altar ceiling, and seeing the Holy Spirit pictured as a dove, surrounded by rays of light, they asked if that bird was not the thunder; for they believe that the thunder is a bird; and when they see beautiful plumes, they ask if they are not the feathers of the thunder. I asked if they would be glad to have someone go and teach them in their country, and give them an explanation of the pictures that we showed them. They said that they would be glad.

On the second of July, one of our Frenchmen was struck down while washing some clothes in a brook near the fort. It was believed to have been the act of some Iroquois; there was a great deal of running and searching, but nothing was found. Father Brebeuf and Father de Noue were near the settlement in a cabin of the Hurons. On hearing the noise, they ran out and went to see the poor man who had been wounded; he was speechless and survived only two days after receiving the blows. Finally two Indians, Innus, informed the French who the murderer was. He was seized and taken to the fort, where he confessed that he had committed the crime. He is an Indian of the Weskarini Algonquin nation. This is what led him to the act of cruelty: One of his relatives, upon going to war, recommended him to kill a certain Indian whom he named. This wretch had often tried to surprise and kill him; but, seeing that he had not accomplished it, the other being always on the lookout, he vented his wrath upon the first Frenchman whom he found alone.

The Interpreter told me that the Indians told him reproachfully that it was brandy and not that Indian who had committed this murder, meaning to say that he was drunk when he struck the blow. "Put your wine and your brandy in prison," they say: "It is your drinks that do all the evil, and not we." They believe themselves to be entirely excused from the crimes they commit, when they say that they were drunk. I do not readily believe in this, because they feign this madness very well when they wish to hide their malice.

Father Brebeuf found a sick child; he spoke of baptizing him, when the grandmother answered: "I shall be satisfied to have you baptize him, provided that you can cure him." The Interpreter of the Algonquins, who makes himself readily understood by the Innus, being present, the Father gave them a little talk upon Baptism and its effects. "Baptism always cures the soul, and does no harm to the body, but on the contrary often restores it to health." They asked how much water it took for baptism. The Father answered that no attention was paid to the quantity.

The next day Father de None and I went to see the child. The greatest sorcerer they have among them, according to the Interpreter, who arrived shortly afterward, sang and blew upon the child to cure him. They had made a little retreat where the child was. Two or three times I tried to get near it, but was not permitted. The Indians stopped me every time. I waited until this fine doctor had treated his patient; the child, naked as one's hand, lay in a cradle of bark, upon pulverized rotten wood. He was burning with a high fever; and this charlatan, to cure him, was beating upon and whirling around an instrument full of little stones, made exactly like a tambourine. With all this he howled exceedingly. He and his companion, to cure this little boy of a fever, made enough noise to give one to a healthy man. The sorcerer approached the patient, and blew all over the body, as I conjectured, for I could not see what he was doing, but I heard his breath drawn from the depths of his stomach. He beat the tambourine in the child's ears, during which there was great silence among the other Indians who were in the same cabin. His medicine having been given, he called me and told me I might then see the child, and that I should give him my opinion; as to him, he believed that the child had something or other black in his body, and it was what made him sick. See the result of this great noise. I approach, I feel the pulse of the child, I discover a raging fever; and I tell him that he has a sickness which we call fever, that he must be left to rest, and not be killed by this great noise which makes him worse; that recently I had an attack of fever, and that rest had cured me. The sorcerer replied: "That is good for you people; but for us, it is how we cure our sick."

On the 27th of July, Louis de Saint Foy, surnamed by the Indians Amantacha, came back to Sir de Champlain, who had sent him to meet a great crowd of Hurons who were expected from day to day. Already a few canoes had arrived on different days, sometimes seven or eight, sometimes ten or twelve at a time; but at last, on the 28th of July, there arrived about one hundred and forty all at once, carrying easily five hundred Hurons -- or 700, as some say -- with their merchandise.

The Kichesipirini Algonquins and the Algonquins, two tribes on the route from the Hurons to Quebec, had tried to dissuade them from visiting the French, saying we would do them a bad turn on account of the death of one Etienne Brule, whom they had killed; and that an Algonquin of the Weskarini Algonquin nation, having killed a Frenchman, had been taken prisoner, and had been condemned to death; also that the same would be done to some Huron. Their plan was to get all the merchandise from these Hurons at a low price, in order afterward to come themselves and trade it, with either the French or the English. Louis Amantacha, meeting them above, assured those of his tribe of the good feeling of the French toward them, declaring that they could put him to death if the French did not give them a warm welcome. As to Brule, who had been murdered, he was not looked upon as a Frenchman, because he had left his nation and gone over to the service of the English. He convinced them so thoroughly that six or seven hundred Hurons came to Quebec; a greater number were on the way, but some of them went back because they had become frightened, and others because they had lost their merchandise in gambling.

These Indians are great gamblers, and some of them come to trade with the French for this purpose alone; others come to look on, some to steal, and the wisest and the richest to trade. I do not believe that there is a people under heaven more given to stealing than the Hurons. It is necessary to have your eye both on their feet and on their hands, when they enter a place. It is said that they steal with their feet as well as with their hands. I saw one, at our house, casting his eyes on one of the carpenter's tools of our brother. Thinking he might take it, I watched him as well as I could, but he was more skillful in taking than I was in watching. He concealed the tool so adroitly that I did not see him make any movement. But seeing that the place was empty, I suspected what had happened. I told Father Brebeuf of it; and as he understands their language tolerably well, he spoke to my man, who tried to deny the theft at first, but at last confessed and laughingly returned the property. Father de Noue detected another who stole a little piece of tin which served as a needle to a poor quadrant instrument that I had fashioned; another stole a letter through the window of Father Masse's room.

To steal, and not to be discovered, is a sign of superior intelligence among them. Utility is not always the sole object of their thefts. A Frenchman, having heard that the Hurons were great thieves, sneered at their boasted cunning, saying that he would give them all they could steal from him; some of them visited him and he gave them something to drink; their thanks was to steal his cup, and so shrewdly did they do it that he did not miss it until they were gone.

I could scarcely tell you how the people of this tribe wear their hair; each one follows his own fancy. Some wear it long and hanging over to one side like women, and short and tied up on the other, so skillfully that one ear is concealed and the other uncovered. Some of them are shaved just where the others wear a long mustache. I have seen some who had a large strip, closely shaved, extending across the head, passing from the crown to the middle of the forehead. Others wear in the same place a sort of queue of hair, which stands out because they have shaved all around it.

On the 29th of the same month of July, having learned that the Hurons were to hold a council, when they would take some action concerning our Fathers who were destined for their country, Father Brebeuf and I went to see them. I found Louis Amantacha in their midst. I had an interview with them about some serious matters; and passing from one subject to another, he told me that he was highly pleased because our Fathers were going to the help of his tribe. He was trying to find someone who would take them, or rather to choose someone, for a great number had offered themselves to Father Brebeuf; he himself wanted to take one of us with him. He promised us wonders, and, as evidence of his appreciation of the assistance you are sending to the Hurons, his countrymen, he writes to you with his own hand, also assuring me that he will return the coming year to Quebec, to take back to his country the other Fathers who will be sent there. "It is too few," said he, "only three Jesuits for so many thousand people which make up our tribe." He asked me to give him a little book containing the pictures of the mysteries of our Faith, so he could show them to the people of his tribe, and therefore take the opportunity to teach them. But as I did not have any he told me that he would write Sir le Maistre. I have enclosed the letters he sends to you with these.

I believe that this young man is well known to you. He was taken to France by our Fathers, and baptized in Rouen through their agency; the Duke de Longueville was his godfather, and Madame de Villars his godmother. He remained in the hands of the English, after they had taken the French fleet and all this country. He was so well taught that one of the Captains, named Kirke, who had little liking for our Jesuits, as he is a heretic, publicly confessed that the Jesuits know how to bring up children well, seeing the deportment of this young Indian. Sir Olivier, the French Interpreter, reported this to me as something which he had heard himself from the mouth of this French Protestant Captain. After this capture of the French, this poor young man remained some time with the English, and then with the Indians of his tribe.

But let us speak of the Council of his tribe. After it had assembled, Sir de Champlain had us summoned. I have been told that Louis XI once held his council of war in the country, having for throne only a fallen tree that he happened to find in the midst of a field. This is the picture of the council of the Hurons, only they are seated a little lower still, that is to say, flat upon the ground, all pell-mell without any order, unless it be that the people of one tribe or village are placed near those of another. While in France they are discussing precedence, and amusing themselves in offering a chair to one whom they would consider impertinent if he accepted it, here they will have held and concluded three councils among the Indians, who, upon the whole, continue to be grave and serious in their rather long speeches. There were about sixty men in their assembly, without counting the young men who were scattered.

Each one getting the best place he could find, a Captain began his speech, the substance of which was that the Huron tribe, the tribe of the Bear, and others, had met for the purpose of holding a council with the French. When this speech was finished, all the Indians, as a sign of their approval, drew from the depths of their stomachs this aspiration, ho, ho, ho, raising the last syllable high. When this speech was finished, and the council had declared itself lawfully assembled by this fine method of assent, the same Captain began another speech, adding nothing to what he had said already, unless it were that they had come to see their friends and brothers, the Frenchmen, and, to strengthen this friendship and alliance, they all offered presents to their captain, Sir de Champlain, and then they presented to him three packages of beaver skins. The end was that the Indians expressed their approval of this speech by reiterating their aspiration, ho! ho! and the Frenchmen by accepting the presents offered. The same captain, continuing his speech, said that all these people were happy at the return of Sir de Champlain, and that they all came to warm themselves at his fire. The fuel they brought to the fire was two or three more packages of beaver skins, which they gave him as a present. This third speech was immediately approved like the second.

Then Sir de Champlain began to speak, and told them that he had always loved them, that he wished much to have them as his brothers, and, having been sent in behalf of our great King to protect them, he would do it willingly; that he had sent to meet them a barque and a sailboat, and that the Iroquois had treacherously killed three of our men; that he did not lose heart on that account, that the French feared nothing, and that they cherished their friends dearly; that they must not believe those who would like to divert them from coming to see the French, and that, having given them their word, they would keep it, as they had been able to observe in the past; that he still recognized old men among their people, from having gone to war with them; that he thanked them for their presents, and would know how to repay them. He added that our Fathers were going to see them in their country, as a proof of the affection which we bore them, telling marvelous things in our favor. "These are our Fathers," said he, "we love them more than our children or ourselves; they are held in high esteem in France; it is neither hunger nor want that brings them to this country; they do not come to see you for your property or your furs. Here is Louis Amantacha, of your own tribe, who knows them, and who knows that I tell the truth. If you love the French people, as you say you do, then love these Fathers; honor them, and they will teach you the way to Heaven. This is what makes them leave their country, their friends, and their comforts, to instruct you, and especially to teach your children a knowledge so great."

Two Captains spoke after that. They vied with each other in trying to honor Sir de Champlain and the French, and in testifying their affection for us. One of them said that, when the French were absent, the earth was no longer the earth, the river was no longer the river, the sky was no longer the sky; but upon the return of Sir de Champlain everything was as before; the earth was again the earth, the river was again the river, and the sky was again the sky.

The other Captain confessed that the Indians were timid and apprehensive, but that Sir de Champlain was frightful in his looks; that, when he was in battle, a glance from his eye struck terror into the hearts of his enemies; and addressing the youth of his tribe, he said: "Be careful now, listen to what you are told; do not say we have not talked this all over in open council; I warn you now, so you shall obey later."

The conclusion of the council was that Father Brebeuf told them, in their language, that we were going with them to live and to die in their country; that they would be our brothers, that subsequently we would be of their people; and that if our Fathers did not live in each one of their villages, it would not be because they did not love the whole tribe, but because they could not live in so many places, being so few in number; that the time was not distant when our brothers would come to aid us, and then one of us would live in each one of their villages, and that we would teach them how to be forever happy. Louis Amantacha confirmed all this; and all the Indians, according to their custom, indicated their satisfaction by their profound aspiration: "ho, ho, ho, ho!" Then they surrounded Father Brebeuf, each one wanting to carry him away in his boat.

Some came to me and touched my hand, saying to each other: "See how much they look alike," speaking of the Father and of me, "they are two brothers." The people of the village where our Fathers had lived, addressing Father Brebeuf, said to him: "Open your heart to us, conceal nothing; where do you wish to live in our country? do you wish to live in our Houses or have one apart?"

"I wish to have a separate one," said the Father.

"Very well," answered they, "we will all go and build our houses around you; we separated, and broke up our villages on the death of the Frenchman who was killed in our country; and everyone went away, some here and some there. As soon as you will have chosen your place, we will return with you, and you will defend us; for what would we do without you?"

On the last of July, Sir de Champlain and the captains of the vessels here, having come to receive Indulgences in our little Chapel, so many Hurons came also that we were compelled to close our door, saying that we were having a feast, to prevent them from entering. It is a maxim among them that they will never put their feet in the cabin of anyone who is having a feast. It is only to the invited that entrance is permitted. Despite this, as they were curious to see, one of them put his head in at a window and called his comrades; Sir de Champlain, enjoying their wonder, gave a piece of lemon peel to one of them, who, on tasting it, cried out: "Oh, how good that is!" He divided it with those who were with him, who were all seized with the same admiration. They asked what it was; Sir de Champlain said to them, laughing, that it was the rind of a French pumpkin. This astonished them much, and they said to each other that our pumpkins were wonderful. Then, those who had not tasted appeared at the window, and asked Sir de Champlain if all the pumpkins were eaten, saying that they would like to taste them, so as to tell about them in their country. You can judge for yourself how all in the room began to laugh! After evening prayers, they were allowed to enter the Chapel, which was neatly decorated according to our limited means.

It was here that they were completely astonished. We had placed Statues of St. Ignace and of St. Xavier upon our altar; they looked upon them with awe, believing them to be living persons; they asked if they were Ondaqui. The word Oqui, and its plural Ondaqui, means among them some divinity; what they recognize as above human nature. They asked also if the tabernacle was their house, and if those Ondaqui dressed themselves in the ornaments which they saw around the Altar. After Father Brebeuf explained to them what these Images represented, they put their hands on their mouths and struck them in sign of astonishment. There were three Images of the Virgin in different places. They asked successively about each one, who it was; the Father explaining to them that it was the mother of him who had made everything. They began to laugh, asking how it could possibly be that a single person had three mothers; for they took the three figures for the representation of three different persons. They were told that these three images represented the same person. How fortunate it would be if all the mysteries of our faith could be well represented! These images help a great deal, and speak for themselves.

Toward evening, Father Brebeuf having gone to Quebec, or to the French fort, where the Hurons were, to see those with whom our Fathers were to embark, the Captain of la Rochelle (it is what our French people have named one of the Huron villages or Settlements, having given the names of the French cities to these poor straggling villages) accosts Father Brebeuf and tries to persuade him to go and live in his village, offering to carry him and as many more as he wished to have go:

"Come with me," said he, "you will be safe with our people, no one will steal from you; I hold the whole country upon my shoulders, I shall protect you; we all love you, you will lack nothing; our country is the best among the Hurons. I see clearly that you have fear of offending those of the village where you have lived, and who wish to have you. You are master of your actions, tell them that you wish to come with us, and they will say nothing more to you."

The father took time to think it over. Having told us of this rivalry among the villages, each desiring to have our Fathers, I said to him that it seemed to me they ought to imitate St. Peter and St. Paul, who went forth to attack idolatry in the principal city of the world, and in like manner the most renowned Village of the Hurons ought to be their dwelling place; for, if that one came under the yoke of the law of God, all the others would easily submit to it. So he decided to remain at la Rochelle, this place being one of the largest and the most populous of this tribe; and besides, it is there that all the Councils of this country are held for final action. The trouble was that he dared not declare his wish, for fear of offending the other Villages.

He made up his mind to ask Sir de Champlain to notify all the Captains that it was his wish that all the French should go and live at la Rochelle, which he did. These Captains asked why all of the other villages should be deprived of this blessing, saying that, as six Frenchmen were going, they ought to be lodged in six villages or towns. "No," said Sir de Champlain, "I desire that they should all live together, for two reasons" (notice that reasons must be given to these people to pacify them): "I send," said he, "two little boys and a young man with the Fathers. If they are separated, they will perhaps quarrel with your people, for they will have no one to govern them; besides, if our Frenchmen are separated, they will go where they please, and, if some of the other Frenchmen or your people wish to talk to one of them, they will not know where to find them. But, if they all live together, those who remain at home will know where the absent ones can be found. Have a little patience, and you will all have Frenchmen in your villages." They were all then satisfied, except the captain of the village where Father Brebeuf and Father de Noue had lived, for he expected that they would return to rebuild the village which had been abandoned.

And so, the place of living of our Fathers being decided, it remained to be seen with whom they would each embark. To avoid all jealousies, Father Brebeuf had all the captains and the oldest among them assemble in council. This discontented captain did not go there, but he reproached the captain of la Rochelle with having been the cause of the French not going to his village. The captain of la Rochelle defended himself from the charge as best he could, saying that such was the wish of Sir de Champlain. Finally, in case he should offend this angry man, he excused himself from furnishing passage for one of the Fathers, saying that his canoe was manned only by young people who were not fit to paddle, and that we would find only too many other persons who would be glad to convey us. Our Fathers were anxious to embark together in the canoes of one village, but it was decided in the council that it was necessary to satisfy the other villages by allowing them to carry some of the Fathers up into the country. And so it was that our Fathers were to be taken to different villages, to meet afterward at la Rochelle.

On the first day of August, the Hurons came to see our Chapel, having heard it spoken of by those who had seen it; and I believe that, if they had made a longer stay at Quebec, there would not have been one who did not visit it. Their fair is soon over. The day of their arrival, they build their huts; the second, they hold their councils and give their presents; the third and fourth, they trade, sell, buy, barter their furs and their tobacco for blankets, hatchets, kettles, capes, iron arrow-points, little glass beads, shirts, and many similar things. It is a pleasure to watch them during this trading. When it is over they take one day more for their last council, for the feast which is generally made for them, and the dance; and early the next morning they disappear like a flock of birds.

Those who had sold their goods early came to see our home, attracted there by the description they had heard of the beauty of our Chapel. Father Brebeuf entertained them: and, after he had spoken about Paradise and Hell to one of their companies, a man interrupted him, asking "And what shall we do, Echom" (that is the name they give to the Father), "that we may escape these great torments?" When the Father told them what they must do, they assured him that they were ready to obey. He said that this Chapel was the place in which we offered prayers to the great God of the sky, that they must kneel down, and that they should pray to him in their hearts. I saw them all get on their knees one beside the other, before the Altar, or rather they squatted down, for they do not know what kneeling is, as it is not one of their postures.

Their prayer, which was not long, having been made, the Father asked one of them what he had said to the great God. He replied: "I said to him, 'Have courage to aid us, and to give us a good voyage.'" That was the prayer of this poor Indian.

On the 3rd of the same month of August, Sir de Champlain made a feast for all the Hurons. The dishes of this feast were sagamite, composed of peas, of bread-crumbs or powdered sea biscuit, and of prunes; all this was boiled together in a great kettle which is used for making beer, with water and no salt, and they thought it good indeed.

On the 4th, another council was held; I was present with Father Brebeuf, because the embarkation of our Fathers was to be talked over. Sir de Champlain made his presents, which corresponded in value to those that the Hurons had made him. To accept presents from the Indians is to bind oneself to return an equivalent. A great many things were spoken of in this council; among others, the Hurons asked for the liberation of the Indian prisoner who had recently killed a Frenchman. Sir de Champlain sought to make the Hurons understand that it was not right to restore him to liberty; and that, having killed a Frenchman who had done him no harm, he deserved death. The Hurons were satisfied with the reason given them. They spoke also of the friendship contracted between them and the French, saying that it would be strengthened by the Fathers going into their country.

The Hurons were the happiest people in the world. Those who were to embark and to carry the Fathers in their canoes had already received pay for their future trouble; we had placed in their hands the parcels or little baggage of the Fathers.

We had gone to the Storehouse to sleep, Father de Noue and I, with our three Fathers, so we could see them off early the next morning in their little canoes, and might say to them our last farewell, when all at once our joy was changed into sadness. At about ten or eleven o'clock that night, a one-eyed Indian, belonging to the Island tribe, closely allied to the tribe of the prisoner, went among the cabins of all the Indians crying out that they should be careful not to take any Frenchmen in their canoes, and that the relatives of the prisoner were on the watch along the river to kill the Frenchmen, if they could catch them during the passage. On the previous Sunday some Indians of the same tribe as the prisoner had held a council with the captains of the Innus, of the Kichesipirini Algonquins, and of the Hurons, to determine how they might secure the pardon of this prisoner.

This Kichesipirini Algonquin, whose tribe was allied to the tribe of the murderer, raised this general cry among the cabins, warning everyone not to give passage to a Frenchman, unless they wished to place him in evident danger of his life. Having heard the cry, and Father Brebeuf, who was listening, having interpreted its meaning to me, I went with Father de Noue to the fort to give information of the same to Sir de Champlain. We had been sleeping in the storehouse of the French, around which the Indians were encamped. The Fort was opened to us; and after having made known the object of our night visit, we returned to the place from where we had departed. Upon the way we found the Captains of the Indians in council, to whom the Interpreter, according to the order of Sir de Champlain, declared that he desired to talk to them once more before their departure. The next morning, at daybreak, an Indian passed through the camp proclaiming that they were not to depart that day; and that the young men should keep the peace, and that those who had not sold all their merchandise should sell it.

About eight or nine in the morning, Sir de Champlain again assembled the Captains of the Hurons, the Kichesipirini Algonquins who had made this outcry, and the Captain of the Innus. He asked the Indian why he had aroused that opposition; he answered that the whole country was in a state of alarm, and that it would be lost if the French were embarked to be taken to the Hurons, for the relatives of the prisoner would not fail to kill some of the group and that then war would be declared; that the Hurons even would be dragged into it; for, if they defended the French, they would be attacked, and that therefore the whole country would be lost; that he had not aroused any opposition, but had merely made known the wicked plans of the murderer's relatives; that, if the prisoner were released, these troubles would immediately be ended, and that the river and the whole country would be free. The Hurons were asked if they still adhered to their wish to take us to their country. They answered that the river was not theirs, and that great caution must be observed with those other tribes, if they were to pass by in security. As far as they were concerned, they asked nothing better than to furnish passage to the French.

I observed the discretion of these Indians, for they gave evidence of their affection for us, in such a way as not to offend the tribes through which they must pass in coming to Quebec. One of them, addressing the Kichesipirini Algonquin, said: "Listen; when we shall be up there in your country, do not say that we have not spoken in behalf of the prisoner; we have done all that we could, but what answer would you have us make to the reasons given by Sir de Champlain? The French are the friends of all of us; if it depended only upon us, we would embark them."

It must be confessed that the Hurons showed a strong inclination to take our Fathers with them. Sir de Champlain, seeing this so sudden change, did all in his power, and gave us liberty to advance all the reasons we could, to the end that our fathers might be set on their way. He urged strong and pertinent reasons; he used threats; he proposed peace and war; nothing more could be desired. But to all this the Indian answered that they could not restrain their young men; that he had given warning of their wicked intentions, and that the French ought to postpone their departure for this year; that they would vent their anger upon the Iroquois, their enemies, and then the river would be free. "Do not blame us," said he, "if misfortune overtakes you; for we could not restore order." Then, to win over this Indian, I asked for the pardon of the prisoner, having previously agreed upon this with Sir de Champlain, who replied to me that it was a matter of life and death with him, and that our great King would ask him to give an account of the man who had been killed. I asked him to suspend the execution of the death sentence, until the King might be spoken to, and his will learned. And then, following my point, I addressed the Indians, representing our affection for them; saying that we had never sought the death of anyone; that we everywhere tried to promote peace. Sir de Champlain did admirably, saying that we talked to God; that we were loved by all who knew us.

The Hurons answered that we had proposed a good solution; that of postponing the death of this Indian until we should have news from our great King. I then asked the Kichesipirini Algonquin, asking him whether the prisoner's relatives, if they knew that we were pleading for him, would not allow us to pass if they encountered us. "What do you wish me to say?" he answered, "they are furious. If the prisoner is not liberated, there is no safety; they will pardon no one." Then the Interpreter replied: "If they act the part of devils, so will we."

Sir de Champlain intimidated them, saying they must look out for themselves; that if an Indian was seen with arms, he would give permission to his men to fire upon him and kill him; that the Indians had threatened him himself, because he went about alone; but subsequently he would not go around like a child, but like a soldier. "I am a friend to all, you are my friends," said he to the Hurons; "I love you; I have risked my life for you, I will risk it again; I will protect you; but I am the enemy of evil-doers."

It will be said that the Captain of the tribe of the murderer ought to have seized all those who had wicked plans against the French. But these Indians have no system of government, and their Captain has no such authority. What he can do, is to ask these wicked people to give up their plans. It has happened before, when the Indians feared the Europeans more than they do now. If one of their men wanted to kill a Frenchman, either having dreamed that he was to do it, or from other cause, the others flattered him and gave him presents, fearing that he would carry out his wicked intentions, and in this way they might lose the whole country. It is a great matter if they warn the French to be on their guard, as they did recently, saying that there were some young men who were prowling about in the woods to kill any Frenchman that they could find by himself; and therefore we are not safe among these people.

Father Brebeuf, seeing that his journey was broken up, and that it would be foolhardy to undertake it, not through fear of death, but that they would involve the French in war against these people, in case they were killed. Father Brebeuf, seeing the way closed for that year, addressed the Hurons, saying: "You are our brothers, we wish to go to your country to live and die with you; but, as the river is closed, we shall wait until the coming year, when all will be peaceable." They replied that they were sorry, and that a year would soon pass away.

Upon the dispersion of this assembly, we went through the cabins, to get the little baggage of our Fathers that we had already placed in the hands of the Indians to be carried to their country. These poor people regretted this unfortunate affair much; and some of those of the village of la Rochelle said to the Father that, if he wished to go with them, they would carry him, and they hoped to give him a peaceful passage. But that would be placing himself and them and the French in danger. Thus the hope of going into the Huron country is lost for this year. Below are two reasons which have closed it to us for a long time.

The first is found in the interests of the Kichesipirini Algonquins, the Algonquins, and the other tribes which are between Quebec and the Hurons. These people, to monopolize the profit of the trade, prefer that the Hurons should not go down the river to trade their pelts with the French, desiring themselves to collect the merchandise of the neighboring tribes and carry it to the French; that is why they do not like to see us go to the Hurons, thinking that we would urge them to descend the river, and that, the French being with them, it would not be easy to bar their passage. The second reason may be found in the fear of the Hurons, who see that the French will not accept presents as a compensation for the murder of one of their countrymen; they fear that their young men may do some reckless deed, for they would have to give up, alive or dead, anyone who might have committed murder, or else break with the French. This makes them uneasy. Aside from this, as Sir de Champlain has told them that there is no true friendship unless visits are interchanged, they are desirous, at least in appearance, to have us in their country.

To return to our Hurons: Louis Amantacha, seeing that we were not going to his country, and that he was to leave us next morning at daybreak, came to sleep in our little house, to confess and to receive communion once more before his departure. This he did, causing us great consolation; and on the following day, August 6th, all the Hurons packed their baggage, and in less than no time took away their houses and their riches, and carried them off, to use them on the road of about 750 miles, which is the distance estimated to be between Quebec and their country.

I only fear one thing in this delay; that Old France fail to give New France the necessary aid, seeing the harvest is so slow in ripening. But let it be remembered that mushrooms spring up in a night, while it requires years to ripen the fruits of the palm. It was 38 years before anything was accomplished in Brazil. I do not say this to defer for a long time the conversion of the Indians. If our Fathers had gone among the Hurons this year, I expected to write that these Indians had received the faith. Oh, whoever would see in one of the great streets of Paris what I saw three days ago near the great river Saint Lawrence, five or six hundred Hurons in their Indian costumes, some in bear skins, others in beaver, and others in Elk skins, all well-made men of splendid figures, tall, powerful, good-natured, and able-bodied, whoever would see them, Oh, what compassion this spectacle would excite in these people.

In these beginnings, much confidence is given to the reports of those who have had experience among the Indians. I have observed that after having seen two or three Indians do something, it is at once reported to be a custom of the whole Tribe. Add to this that there are many tribes in these countries who agree in a number of things, and differ in many others; so that, when it is said that certain practices are common to the Indians, it may be true of one tribe and not true of another.

We are all in good health, and we implore you to send us persons capable of learning the languages. It is most necessary for the welfare of the souls in this country.

As to the soil, I send you some of its fruits; they are heads of wheat, of rye, and of barley that we planted near our little house. We gathered last year a few wisps of rye that we found here and there among the peas; I counted in some of them 60 kernels, in others 80, in others 112. We threshed these gleanings and took from them a little rye, which will this year pay us very well for the trouble that we had in gleaning it last year. The little wheat which we sowed before the snows is beautiful; what was sown in the spring will not ripen, because it is winter wheat. We must have some March wheat, and some that is beardless, for these are said to be the best.

The barley is finer than in France; and if this country were cleared, fertile valleys would be found. The woods are troublesome; they retain the cold, engender the slight frosts, and produce great quantities of vermin, such as grasshoppers, worms, and insects, which are especially destructive in our garden; we shall rid ourselves of them, little by little.

Paul le Jeune.

YEAR 1634
LETTER FROM FATHER PAUL LE JEUNE, TO THE REVEREND FATHER PROVINCIAL OF FRANCE, AT PARIS. QUEBEC, 1634.

Reverend Father,

Let us begin with what has occurred this year. We have lived in great peace among ourselves, with our working people, and with all the French.

I have been pleased with all our Fathers. Father Brebeuf is a man chosen of God for these lands; I left him in my place for six months, with the exception of nine days, while I passed the winter with the Indians. Everything went on peacefully during that time. Father Daniel and Father Davost are quiet men. They have studied the Huron language thoroughly, and I have taken care that they should not be diverted from this work. Father Masse has had the care of the domestic affairs and of our cattle, in which he has succeeded well. Father de Noue, who has a good heart, has had the care of our laborers, directing there in their work, which is difficult in these beginnings. Our Brother Gilbert has felt better this winter than the last, as it has not been so severe. I gave him liberty to return this year, but he preferred to remain. We shall see how he will succeed with our Brother Liegeois who, in My opinion, will do very well. I am the most imperfect of all and the most impatient.

I have passed the winter with the Indians. Famine almost killed us.

For the year which we are about to begin at the departure of the ships, this is the way in which we shall be distributed and what we shall do: Father Brebeuf, Father Daniel, and Father Davost, with three brave young men and two little boys, will be among the Hurons. I believe that they must now be near the place where they intend to go. Father Brebeuf and Father Daniel exposed themselves to great suffering; for they went away without baggage, or without the money necessary to live.

We shall live at Three Rivers, Father Buteux and I. This place is upon the great river, 75 miles farther up than Quebec, upon the way to the Hurons; it is called Three Rivers, because a certain river which flows through the land empties into the great river by three mouths. Our French people are this year beginning a settlement there, and two of our Fathers must be there. I have been doubtful for a long time as to who should go. Father Brebeuf and Father de Noue thought that I should remain at Quebec; but I saw that Father Lalemant was apprehensive of this new abode, believing that he would never return if he were sent there. I decided to go there myself.

I do not know how the house will be arranged; we shall be mixed up with workmen -- drinking, eating, and sleeping with them; they cannot make other provision for us of any kind. All this does not appall me, for the cabins of the Indians, in which I lived this winter, are much worse. Father Buteux pleases me, for he takes this cheerfully. We shall study the language there, although less advantageously than at Quebec, on account of the lodging, in which there will be a greater hubbub than in the cabins of the Indians; for our French people, with whom we shall be with, are not so calm and patient as these Indians. Also, I had intended this winter to keep an Indian with me at Quebec to instruct me, since I am beginning to be able to question them; this cannot be done at Three Rivers; but it is of no importance, I shall do what can.

There will remain at Quebec, Father Lallemant, Father Masse, Father de Noue, and our two Brothers, with all our men.

Let us speak now of our household servants.

1. It is the nature of working people to complain and to grumble.

2. The difference in wages makes them complain: A carpenter, a brickmaker, and others will earn more than the laborers, and yet they do not work so much; I mean that it is not so hard for them as for the others, because they are following their professions, and the others are doing more laborious things: inde querimoniae. They do not consider that a master-mason may exert himself less than a laborer, although he earns more.

3. Most do not follow their trades, except for a short time; a tailor, a shoemaker, a gardener, and others, are amazed when required to drag some wood over the snow; besides, they complain that they will forget their trades.

4. The work is great in these beginnings; the men are the horses and oxen; they carry or drag wood, trees, or stones; they till the soil, they harrow it. The insects in summer, the snows in winter, and a thousand other inconveniences, are troublesome. The youth who in France worked in the shade find here a great difference. I am astonished that the hardships they have to undergo, in doing things they have never done before, do not cause them to make a greater outcry than they do.

5. They all lodge in one room; and as they have not all learned to control their passions, and are of dispositions altogether different, they have occasions for causeless quarrels.

6. As we are more or less dependent upon them, not being able to send them back when they fail to do right, and as they see that a stick for the purpose of chastising them is of little use in our hands, they are much more arrogant than they would be with laymen, who would urge them with severity and firmness.

Despite all this, we have passed the year peaceably, reprimanding some, punishing others, though rarely -- often pretending not to see; and as it is not enough that peace should dwell among us, but that it should be firmly established, if it be possible, I deem it best to do what I am about to say.

Only good workmen are needed here; so it would be good for us to have three capable Brothers, to perform the minor duties of the house, cooking, baking, making shoes, making clothes, looking after the garden, the sacristy, washing, tinkering, caring for the cattle, the milk, butter, etc. All these duties would be divided among these three good Brothers, and therefore we would be relieved of giving wages to workmen who perform these duties, and who complain when they are given other things to do. All our men should be engrossed with the heavy tasks, and consequently I ask you to send us two good Brothers. Our Brother Liegeois, who is beginning very well, will be the third. As to our Brother Gilbert, perhaps he will be sent back; if not, he will work slowly at carpentry, for he is already broken down and hindered by a fracture. The following are the Brothers upon whom my choice would fall; our Brother Claude Fremont and our Brother the locksmith, whom you promised in your letters to send us next year. I do not know either of them, but I am told that they are both peaceable and good workmen. If this be true, please send them to us. One of them could be easily sent to the Hurons or to Three Rivers.

With these good Brothers, we should have here at least ten men capable of building, cultivating, and reaping, of doing everything. Whoever could do still more, would be the best; these who are altogether occupied with the heavy work, will not complain of those who perform the minor duties. We have already four of these men, so there remain six to be sent; and we shall send back next year all those we have, except these four. The following ought to be the arrangement of the household for the coming year in regard to work, if it please you: ten good workmen and three or four of our Brothers; namely, Our Brother Liegeois, Our Brother Claude Fremont, Our Brother the locksmith, whose name I do not know, and our Brother Gilbert, if he remain. In regard to the six workmen for whom we ask, the following will be their trades: two strong carpenters, at least one of them understanding how to erect a building; a joiner, and three workmen who can be employed in clearing the land, in using the pit saw (they need not know this trade, but must have only willingness and strength to do it), in reaping, in helping the carpenters, the mason, the brickmaker in watching the cattle, in doing everything that is required of them; for this, strong men are needed, and those who are willing. If we cannot have two carpenters, let one good one, at least, come over; and instead of the other, such a workman as I have just described. It is easy to describe a good workman, but difficult to find one. I shall explain to you elsewhere our need of having these ten men.

As to the four who desire or were desiring to enter our Jesuits, Ambroise, who gave such satisfaction at Orleans and elsewhere, and who even here rendered some good services, wished to go away this year. He has a good disposition and is an excellent workman. If he gives satisfaction, we will ask you to receive him next year; if not, he will not secure any letter of recommendation. As for Louis, he does wonders in his trade; but when he is given something else to do, he is discontented. The rough and heavy work to be done here discourages him, as well as Robert Hache. They are both good boys, but they have not enough courage, and perhaps not enough strength, for the work in Canada. They almost asked to return this year, but the fear of not being received stopped them.

As to Jacques Junier, he perseveres in doing right. He has now been a long time in the country; and I have told him that he would be received when he went back to France. Two things prevent his returning this year: the first is that it is exceedingly disagreeable for him to make a sea voyage, as he becomes sick; the second, that the house can scarcely get along without him, he is so necessary to us in every way. He is a young man who says nothing, but does much. As I was representing to Father Lallemant that you would send him back to us as soon as possible, Father Lallemant said to me: "The difficulty which our Reverend Father Provincial will have in allowing him to make his training period here arises from his belief that it would not be approved at Rome; were it not for this, he loves our mission so much that he would leave him here, who needs only the gown to be a Jesuit; and if he conducts himself in religion as he does in the world, they will be satisfied with him. I shall write now to Rome," said he, "to the end that they may grant us this favor, which is important for the good of our house; inform Our Reverend Father Provincial of this." I am doing so through this letter. If he must return, he will return.

Let us speak of the Fathers whom this mission needs. Two are needed among the Hurons; if they make peace with the Iroquois, for I am told that it is being negotiated, a number more will be needed, as we must enter all the stationary tribes. If these people receive the faith, they will cry with hunger, and there will be no one to feed them, for lack of persons who know the languages. Besides, the Brothers who should be among the Iroquois would exert themselves to preserve the peace between them and Hurons; still, on account of the uncertain of this peace, we ask for only two Fathers to go to the Hurons. There must be a superior at Three Rivers, and two Fathers must remain at Quebec, near our French people; so this makes five priests and two Brothers.

As for the two Fathers who will be sent to the Hurons, they could be sent from there to the Neutral tribe, or among the Iroquois, or to some other tribe; or even be kept among the Hurons, who number thirty thousand people in a small extent of country. For Quebec, I ask two Fathers; if Father Lallemant is superior, he will remain with Fathers Masse and de Noue, and with our people, to ensure the success of the house; the two Fathers will be at the fort, where they talk of building them a little house or a room; they will say Mass for our French people; they will perform the service of pastors, and will learn the language of the Indians, going to visit them when they encamp around the place. They will have a boy, who will every week bring them their food from our house, distant from the fort a good mile.

I ask a superior for Three Rivers, for it is not too much to keep three Fathers there, so that there may be always two free for the Indians. But if you wish to send only two, Father Buteux, to whom I shall this year teach what I know of the language, will remain with the one at Quebec, or at Three Rivers, and I with the other; but three are not too many for Three Rivers; one will be for our French people, the two others for the Indians; it may happen that one of them will be sent to the Hurons, with the two who must go up there. I am inclined to think that Father Brebeuf may ask more than two; so that, if you can send us five Fathers and two Brothers, it will not be too many. I often call to mind what I once heard him say, "I have as many people as I need, but I do not say where the food will be found to nourish them." To that I have no answer. I am restricting myself, because, for the good of this mission, it would be well to have more people than we are asking. The Indians who are at Three Rivers are all sick, and are dying in great numbers.

Father Benier asks me to write to Rome for him. He hopes they will open to him the door which the Provincials have closed to him in France. I have written them, as he requested me.

Father Lallemant being Superior at Quebec, Father Vimont and Father Buteux will remain at the fort; Father Benier, Father Pinette, or Father Garnier, and Father Le Jeune, at Three Rivers. Father Pinette, or Father Garnier, and Father Mercier, who is at the college of Paris, for the Hurons. I ask for the best workers that I can have, because such are needed here.

We have a house which contains four rooms below: the first serves as chapel, the second as refectory, and in this refectory are our rooms. There are two little square rooms of moderate size, for they are proportioned to a man's height; there are two others, each of which has a dimension of eight feet; but there are two beds in each room. These are rather narrow quarters for six persons; the others, when we are all together, sleep in the attic. The third large room serves as kitchen, and the fourth is the room for our working people; this is our entire lodging. Above is an attic, so low that no one can dwell there; to this we mount with a ladder.

There was another building of the same size, opposite this one. The English burned half of it, and the other half is covered only with mud; it serves us as a barn, a stable, and a carpenter's room. Our workmen this year have made boards, have gone to the woods to get the trees, have placed doors and windows throughout, have made the little rooms in the refectory, some furniture, tables, stools, tables for the chapel, and other similar things; they have enclosed our house with large poles of the fir tree, making for us a fine court about a hundred feet square, being superintended in this work by Father de Noue. These poles are fourteen feet high, and there are about twelve hundred of them. It looks well, and is useful. We have placed some gates there, which Louis has bound with iron. In addition to all this, we have cultivated, tilled, and seeded our cleared lands.

The following is what must be done in future: We must build a small house upon a point of land which is opposite. We need only cross the river to reach it; the water almost surrounds this point, forming a peninsula. We have begun to enclose it with stakes on the land side, and we shall keep there our cattle; that is, our cows and pigs; for this purpose we must build a little house, for those who will take care of them, and also some good stables sheltered from the cold.

Last year, they sent us a man as a carpenter who was not one; and for this reason there has been no building this year, which has done us great harm. We must also repair the damages in the building burned by the English. They have been doing this since the coming of the ship, which brought us a carpenter; we must have planks with which to cover it, and make doors, windows, etc. We must make a barn in which to put our crops. We must have a well; we have to go for water 500 feet from the house, which causes us great trouble, especially in the winter, when we have to break the ice of the river to get it. We must repair and enlarge our cellar, which we have kept in good order. We must rebuild more than half of the building where we now are, and put a new roof upon it, for the rain and snow penetrate everywhere; at first, our Fathers made only a miserable hut in which to live; the English neglecting it, it would have fallen to the ground if we had not returned to preserve it; it is made only of planks and small laths, upon which some mud has been plastered.

We must have people to look after the cattle; the little ground that we have must be tilled and sown; the harvest must be cut and gathered in. We must prepare firewood, which they have to get at some distance away, and without a cart. We must have some lime made.

There are a thousand things which I cannot mention, but you may see whether ten persons are too many for all this. We would ask for twenty or thirty, if there were anything with which to feed and maintain them; but we restrict ourselves to ten, with three of our Brothers; and even then I do not know if they will be able to furnish, in France, what will be necessary, so great are the expenses.

WHAT MAY BE EXPECTED OF THIS HOUSE FOR THE ASSISTANCE OF THE MISSION, AND THE EXPENSES NECESSARY FOR OUR SUPPORT.

There are four staples which make up the greatest expense of this mission: the pork, butter, drinks, and flour, which are sent; in time, the country may furnish these things. As to pork, if from the beginning of this year we had had a building, no more of it, or not much, would have had to be sent next year; we have two fat sows which are each suckling four little pigs, and these we have been obliged to feed all summer in our open court. Father Masse has raised these animals for us. If that point of which I have spoken were enclosed, they could be put there and during the summer nothing need be given them to eat; I mean that in a short time we shall be provided with pork, an article which would save us 200 gold coins.

As to butter, we have two cows, two little heifers, and a little bull. Sir de Caen left his cattle here when he saw that he was ruined; we took of them three cows, and for the family which is here, three others; they and we each gave to Sir Giffard a cow, so we have remaining 2 cows. For lack of a building, they cost us more than they are worth, for our working people have to neglect more necessary things for them; they spoil what we have sown; and they cannot be tended in the woods, for the insects torment them. They have come three years too soon, but they would have died if we had not taken them in; we took them when they were running wild. In time, they will provide butter, and the oxen can be used for plowing, and will occasionally furnish meat.

As to drinks, we shall have to make some beer; but we shall wait until we have built, and until a brewery is built; these three articles are assured, with time.

As to grains, some people are inclined to think that the land where we are is too cold. Let us proceed systematically, and consider the nature of the soil: these last two years all the vegetables, which come up only too fast, have been eaten by insects, which come either from the neighborhood of the woods, or from that land which has not yet been worked and purified, nor exposed to the air. In midsummer these insects die, and we have fine vegetables.

As to the fruit trees, I do not know how they will turn out. We have two double rows of them, one of a hundred feet or more, the other larger, planted on either side with wild trees which are well rooted. We have eight or ten rows of apple and pear trees, which are also well rooted; we shall see how they will succeed. I have an idea that cold is injurious to the fruit, but in a few years we shall know from experience. Formerly, some fine apples have been seen here.

As to the Indian corn, it ripened nicely the past year, but this year it is not so fine.

As to peas, I have seen no good ones here; their growth is too rapid. They succeed very well with this family, who live in a higher and more airy location.

The rye has succeeded well for two years. We planted some as an experiment, and it is fine.

Barley succeeds also. There remains the wheat; we sowed some in the autumn, at different times; in some places it was lost under the snow, in others it was so well preserved that no finer wheat can be seen in France. We do not yet know which time is best before winter to put in the seed; the family living here has always sown spring wheat, which ripens nicely in their soil. We sowed a little of it this year, and will see whether it ripens.

I report all this because Sir de Lauson wrote to us that we should transport our people to Three Rivers, where they were going to make a new settlement, saying that everything would ripen better there. There was hesitation as to whether it should be done; at least they wanted us to send three or four men there. I have always thought that our forces should not be divided, and that one house should be made successful, which might afterward be the support of the others. In fact, those who went there first send word that the soil is sandy, and that all would mature for a time; but that this soil will soon be exhausted. I am going to live there with Father Buteux; we shall see what there is in it. Even if the soil is good, I do not think that the care of this house, where we are, should be given up: it is the landing place of the ships; it ought to be the storehouse, or place of refuge; the advantages for raising cattle here, on account of the meadows, are great. As to the grains, if the worst comes to the worst, we have oats, but I hope that we shall also have good wheat, and that time will show us when it ought to be sown; if the spring grains ripen, wheat oats, and barley will be produced here very well. From this, let us draw some conclusions as to what should be done.

First, we must build some place where we our selves can stay, and can keep our animals and crops.

Second, we must now sow what is necessary for the cattle, and try as soon as possible, in a few years, to have some pork and butter.

Third, being lodged, all our working people will apply themselves to clearing and cultivating the land, to have grains. The following is the order which we ought to follow, in regard to the worldly; when we shall have built, we shall no longer keep any carpenters or artisans, but only wood-choppers and laborers, for the maintenance of the house. Occasionally we shall borrow an artisan from the fort, giving a man in his place for the time during which we shall keep him. Or rather, we shall keep domestic servants, and shall maintain men who will clear and cultivate the land by shares, and therefore being interested in their work, we shall not have to take any trouble for them.

Here is another matter: They are talking about beginning new settlements in different places, and of having there some of our Fathers. We cannot settle and build everywhere; it will be all we can do if we make the place where we are prosper; and therefore, for the other settlements, two or three of our Fathers, or two Fathers and a boy, can go to them, and these gentlemen will lodge and maintain them, and will furnish everything for the church or chapel that they see fit.

We are going, Father Buteux and I, to live at Three Rivers expressly to assist our countrymen. We are going to take furniture for the sacristy, and clothes for ourselves, and, what is stranger still, our own food, which we shall give to them; for we shall eat with them, for lack of a dwelling where we might be by ourselves. We do this willingly, for these gentlemen are much attached to us, and assist us as much as they can, according to the condition of their affairs: also we will do all that we can for their sakes; for, besides carrying with us to Three Rivers everything, even to the wax and the candles, we have sent to the Hurons three or four more persons than we should have done, were it not for their affairs which I have entrusted to our men. They have given something for this object, according to what Father Lallemant has told me. I do not wish to implore them; but I am aware that they are glad to know that we will serve them willingly, and that we shall expect them to give what is necessary for the maintenance of our Fathers in the new settlements; and that they will furnish their chapel, as they have done this year this one at Quebec; and that they will give also wages and food to the men whom we shall keep for their sakes; and on their account, either among the Hurons, or elsewhere. We keep these men with us, so they may not become corrupted with the Indians and show a bad example, as those did who were here formerly. This is all there is to be said for the worldly interests of this mission; let us come to the spiritual.

First, we shall hope to have in time a great harvest among the Hurons, greater and nearer, if we can send there many laborers to pass into the neighboring tribes, all to be under the leadership and command of the Superior who will be among the Hurons. These people are settled and populous; I hope that Father Buteux will know in one year as much of the Innu language as I know of it, to teach it to the others, and therefore I shall go wherever I shall be wanted. It is not that I expect anything of myself, but I shall try to serve at least as a companion. These people, where we are, are wandering, and few in number; it will be difficult to convert them, if we cannot make them stationary.

As to the Seminary, if we could only have a fund for this purpose! In the structures of which I have spoken, we marked out a little place for the beginning of one, waiting until some special houses be built expressly for this purpose. If we had any built, I would hope that in two years Father Brebeuf would send us some Huron children; they could be instructed here with all freedom, being separated from their parents.

As to the children of the Indians in this country, there will be more trouble in keeping them; I see no other way than what you suggest, of sending a child every year to France. Having been there two years, he will return with a knowledge of the language, and having already become accustomed to our ways, he will not leave us and will retain his little countrymen. But Sir de Champlain told me that Sir de Lauson had recommended him not to let any Indian go over, small or great. I asked him last year to allow this to be done; I have an idea that Father Lallemant has some share in this advice and in this conclusion.

Here are the reasons why they think that it is not beneficial for them to go over: 1st. The example of the two who have gone over and who have been ruined. I answer that Louis the Huron was taken and corrupted by the English; and yet he has here performed the duties of a Christian, confessing last year at his arrival, and at his departure from Quebec; he is now a prisoner of the Iroquois. As to Pierre the Innu, taken into France by the Recollect Fathers, when he returned here, he fled from the Indians; he was compelled to return among them, to learn the language, which he had forgotten; he did not wish to go, even saying: "They are forcing me; but, if I once go there, they will not get me back as they wish." At that time, the English came upon the scene, and they have spoiled him; I may add that I have not seen an Indian so savage and so barbarous as he is.

Father Lallemant's other reason is that it will cost something to maintain these children in France, and the mission is poor. If they are in a college, their board will have to be paid; if they are elsewhere, that will diminish the charity which would be given by the persons who support them. I answer that the colleges will not take anything for board; and if it were necessary to pay this, I find the affair so important that it ought to be given. Father Lallemant begins to appreciate my reasons, for I assured him that we could not retain the little Indians, if they be not removed from their native country, or if they have not some companions who help them to remain of their own free will. We have had two of these: in the absence of the Indians they obeyed tolerably well, but when the Indians were encamped near us, our children no longer belonged to us, we dared say nothing. If we can have some children this year, I shall do all I can to have them go over, at least two boys and a little girl, who will find three homes for one. Several places have asked me for them.

You see how important it is, not only not to divert to some other places what is given for the mission at Quebec, but still more to find something for the maintenance at least of a house which may serve as a retreat for Our Associates, as a seminary for children, and for Our Brothers who will one day learn the languages, for there are a great many tribes differing altogether in their language.

NEW FRANCE ON THE GREAT RIVER SAINT LAWRENCE, IN 1634. SENT TO THE REVEREND FATHER PROVINCIAL OF THE JESUITS IN THE PROVINCE OF FRANCE. BY FATHER PAUL LE JEUNE, OF THE JESUITS, SUPERIOR OF THE RESIDENCE OF QUEBEC.

Reverend Father,

All that I shall say regarding the Indians, I have either seen with my own eyes, or have received from the lips of natives, especially from an old man well versed in their beliefs, and from a number of others with whom I have passed six months with the exception of a few days, following them into the woods to learn their language. These people have not all the same idea in regard to their belief, which will some day make it appear that those who treat of their customs are contradicting each other.

THE GOOD CONDUCT OF THE FRENCH.

WE have passed this year in great peace and on good terms with our French. The wise conduct of Sir de Champlain, Governor of Quebec and of the Saint Lawrence River, who honors us with his good will, holding everyone in the path of duty, has caused our words to be well received; and the Chapel which he has had built near the fort, in honor of our Lady, has furnished excellent facilities to the French to receive the Sacraments of the Church frequently, which they have done on the great Feast Days of the year, and many every month.

Could it be believed that there is one of our Frenchmen in Canada, who, to offset the lust which is carried on in other places during the Carnival, came, on last shrove Tuesday, with bare head and feet, over the snow and ice from Quebec, all the way to our Chapel; that is, a good mile, fasting the same day, to fulfill a vow made to Our Lord; and all this was done without any other witnesses than God, and our Fathers who met him.

During Lent, not only abstinence from forbidden meats and fasting were observed, but there was a certain one who took the discipline more than thirty times, extraordinary devotion in soldiers and artisans, such as are most of our Frenchmen here. Another has promised to use the tenth part of the profits he makes, during the course of his whole life, in works of piety.

One of our Frenchmen, worthy of credence, told us about Jacques Michel, a French Protestant, who brought the English to this country. This wretch, having upon the eve of his death vomited forth a thousand blasphemies against God and against our holy Father Ignatius, and having uttered this imprecation, that "he would be hanged if he did not give a couple of slaps before the next evening to one of our Fathers who was captured by the English," uttering the most unseemly insults against him, was soon afterward overtaken by an illness which bereft him of all consciousness, and caused him to die the next day. Four circumstances in this incident astonished the French Protestants themselves, -- the illness which seized him a few hours after his blasphemies; the mistake of the Surgeons, who were numerous, in giving soporific remedies to a man in a lethargy; his so sudden death, expiring without anyone perceiving it, although there were six men around him; the rage of the Indians against his body, which they disinterred and hanged, according to his imprecations, and then threw to the dogs. The English, who were in the fort at Quebec, having heard this tragic story, were amazed; and said that if the Jesuits knew all that, they would make miracles out of it.

THE CONVERSION, BAPTISM, AND HAPPY DEATH OF CERTAIN INDIANS.

The fifth Indian baptized this year was a child. His Father told Sir Olivier, the interpreter, that he would be glad if they would do to his son what was done to little French children; meaning that they should baptize him. This poor little child of about eight months flew away to Heaven. The following night, his father brought the body, having with him eighteen or twenty Indians, men, women, and children. They had wrapped it in Beaver skins, and over that was a large piece of linen cloth, which they had bought at the store, and over all a great double piece of bark. I unrolled the parcel to see if the child was inside; then I laid it in a coffin which we had made for it, and this pleased the Indians wonderfully, for they believe that the soul of the child will use in the other world of souls all the things that have been given to it at its departure.

I told them that the soul was now in Heaven, and that it had no concern whatever with these trifling things. Still we let them go on, for fear that if we tried to prevent them, which I might have done (for the father already wavered)-- the others would not permit us to baptize their children when they were sick, or at least would not call us after they died. These simple people were enchanted, seeing five Priests in surplices honoring this little Indian angel, chanting, and covering the coffin with a beautiful cloth, and strewing it with flowers.

When it came to lowering him into the grave, his mother placed his cradle there, with a few other things, according to their custom; and soon after she drew some of her milk in a little bark ladle, which she burned immediately. I asked why this was done, and a woman answered me that she was giving drink to the child, whose soul was drinking this milk. I instructed her upon this point, but I still speak the language so poorly that I scarcely made her understand me.

I shall finish this Chapter with an account of the remarkable punishment of a Canadian Woman, who, having closed her ear to God during her sickness, seems to have been rejected at her death. When Father Breboeuf went to see her, to speak to her about receiving the faith, she laughed at him and scorned his words. Having been prostrated by sickness, and the Indians wishing to break camp, they carried her to a worthy family who have lived here for a long time; but, as they had no place to keep her, these Indians dragged her to the fort; if we had not been so far away, they would probably have brought her to us, for I am inclined to think that they presented her to our Frenchmen because we had received with so much kindness the two deceased Christian Indians. Sir de Champlain gave her shelter for one night. Those who were in the room where she was placed had to leave, as they could not bear the odor from this woman.

In the morning, Sir de Champlain caused a number of the Indians to be called; and being reproached by him for their cruelty in abandoning this creature, who was of their tribe, they took her and dragged her toward their Cabins, repulsing her as they would a dog, and giving her no covering. This wretched woman, finding herself abandoned by her own people and exposed to the severity of the cold, asked that we should be called. But, as there were no Frenchmen there, the Indians did not care to come all the way to our house, a good 2 miles from their Cabins; so that hunger, cold, disease, and the children of the Indians killed her. We did not hear of this tragedy until some days after her death. If we had a Hospital here, all the sick people of the country, and all the old people, would be there. As to the men, we will take care of them according to our means; but, in regard to the women, it is not becoming for us to receive them into our houses.

THE MEANS OF CONVERTING THE INDIANS.

The following is the way in which to acquire an ascendancy over our Indians.

First, is to make ourselves feared by the Iroquois, who have killed some of our men and who recently massacred two hundred Hurons, and took more than a hundred prisoner. This is the only door through which we can escape the contempt into which the negligence of those, who before now held the trade of this country, have thrown us, through their greed.

The second means of commending ourselves to the Indians would be to send a number of capable men to clear and cultivate the land, who, joining with others who know the language, would work for the Indians, on condition that they would settle down, and themselves put their hands to the work, living in houses that would be built for their use; by this means becoming located, and seeing this miracle of charity in their behalf, they could be more easily instructed and won. While conversing this Winter with my Indians, I communicated to them this plan, assuring them that when I knew their language perfectly, I would help them cultivate the land if I could have some men, and if they wished to stop roving, representing to them the wretchedness of their present way of living, and influencing them perceptibly, for the time being. The Sorcerer, having heard me, turned toward his people and said, "See how boldly this black robe lies in our presence." I asked him why he thought I was lying. "Because," said he, "we never see in this world men so good as you say, who would take the trouble to help us without hope of reward, and to employ so many men to aid us without taking anything from us; if you should do that," he added, "you would secure most of the Indians, and they would all believe in your words."

If I can draw any conclusion from the things I see, it is that not much ought to be hoped for from the Indians as long as they are wanderers; you will instruct them today, tomorrow hunger snatches your hearers away, forcing them to go and seek their food in the rivers and woods. Last year I stammered out the Catechism to a good number of children; as soon as the ships departed, my birds flew away, some in one direction and some in another. This year, I hoped to see them again, as I speak a little better; but, as they have settled on the other side of the great river Saint Lawrence, my hopes have been frustrated. To try to follow them, as many Jesuits would be needed as there are cabins, and still we would not attain our object; for they are so occupied in seeking food in these woods that they have not time to save themselves. Besides, I do not believe that, out of a hundred Jesuits, there would be ten who could endure the hardships in following them. I tried to live among them last Autumn; I was not there a week before I was attacked by a violent fever, which caused me to return to our little house to recover my health. Being cured, I tried to follow them during the Winter, and I was ill most of the time.

These reasons make me think that we shall work a great deal and advance little, if we do not make these Indians stationary. As for persuading them to till the soil, I much doubt whether we shall be able to attain this for a long time, for they know nothing whatever about it. Besides, where will they store their harvests? As their cabins are made of bark, the first frost will spoil all the roots and pumpkins that they will have gathered. If they plant peas and Indian corn, they have no place in their huts to store them. But who will feed them while they are beginning to clear the land? For they live only from one day to another, having ordinarily no provisions to sustain them during the time that they must be clearing. Finally, when they had killed themselves with hard work, they could not get from the land half their food, until it was cleared and they understood how to make the best use of it.

With the assistance of a few good, industrious men, it would be easy to locate a few families, especially since some of them have already spoken to me about it, therefore of themselves becoming accustomed, little by little, to extract something from the earth.

I know there are persons of good judgment who believe that, although the Indians are nomadic, the good seed of the Gospel will take root, although more slowly. They imagine also that, if a few families come over here, as they are already beginning to do, the Indians will follow the example of our French and will settle down to cultivate the land. I believed these ideas when we first came over here; but the communication which I have had with these people, and the difficulty that men accustomed to a life of idleness have in embracing one of hard work, such as cultivating the soil, cause me to believe now that if they are not helped, they will lose heart, especially the Indians at Tadoussac.

As to those Indians of Three Rivers, where our French People are going to plant a new colony this year, they have promised that they will settle down there and plant Indian corn; this is not altogether assured, but probable, as their predecessors once had a good village in that place, which they abandoned on account of the invasions of their enemies, the Iroquois. The Captain of that region told me that the land there was good, and they liked it much.

The third means of making ourselves welcome to these people, would be to build here a seminary for little boys, and in time one for girls, under the direction of some brave mistress. May it inspire some to so noble an enterprise, and to divest them of any fear that the weakness of their sex might persuade in them at the thought of crossing so many seas and of living among Barbarians. In the last voyage there came some women who were pregnant, and they easily surmounted these difficulties, as others had done before them.

I would like to keep here, where we are, the children of the Hurons. Father Breboeuf leads us to hope that we shall have some, if he goes with our Fathers into those well-populated countries, and if there is anything with which to found a seminary.

The reason why I would not like to take the children of one area and teach them in that area itself, but rather in some other place, is because these Indians cannot bear to have their children punished, nor even scolded, not being able to refuse anything to a crying child. They carry this to such an extent that upon the slightest pretext they would take them away before they were educated. But if the little Hurons, or the children of more distant tribes, are kept here, a great many advantages will result, for we would not be annoyed and distracted by their fathers while instructing the children; it will also compel these people to show good treatment to the French who are in their country, or at least not to do them any injury. And, lastly, we shall obtain the object for which we came into this distant country; namely, the conversion of these nations.

THE BELIEF, SUPERSTITIONS, AND ERRORS OF THE INNU INDIANS.

The Indians believe that a certain one named Atahocam had created the world, and that one named Messou had restored it. I have questioned upon this subject the famous Sorcerer and the old man with whom I passed the Winter; they answered that they did not know who was the first Author of the world, that it was perhaps Atahocam, but that was not certain; that they only spoke of Atahocam as one speaks of a thing so far distant that nothing sure can be known about it; and the word "Nitatahokan" in their language means, "I relate a fable, I am telling an old story invented for amusement."

As to the Messou, they believe that he restored the world, which was destroyed in the flood; it appears that they have some tradition of that great universal Flood which happened in the time of Noah, but they have burdened this truth with a great many irrelevant fables.

This Messou went hunting, and his Lynxes, which he used instead of dogs, having gone into a great lake, were held there. The Messou, seeking them everywhere, was told by a bird that it had seen them in this lake. He went in, to get them out; but the lake overflowed, covering the earth and swallowing up the world. The Messou, astonished, sent a raven in search of a little piece of ground, with which to rebuild the earth, but he could not find any; he made an Otter descend into the abyss of waters, but it could not bring back any; at last he sent a muskrat, which brought back a little morsel, and the Messou used this to rebuild this earth which we inhabit. He shot arrows into the trunks of trees, which made themselves into branches; he performed a thousand other wonders, avenged himself upon those who had detained his Lynxes, and married a muskrat, by whom he had children who have re-populated this world. So this is the way in which the Messou restored all things.

Our Indian told Father Breboeuf that his people believe that a certain Indian had received from Messou the gift of immortality in a little package, with a strict injunction not to open it; while he kept it closed, he was immortal, but his wife, being curious and incredulous, wished to see what was inside this present; and having opened it, it all flew away, and since then the Indians have been subject to death.

They also say that all animals, of every species, have an elder brother who is the source and origin of all individuals, and this elder brother is wondrously great and powerful. The elder of the Beaver, they tell me, is perhaps as large as our Cabin, although his junior (the ordinary Beaver) is not as large as our sheep. These elders of all the animals are the juniors of the Messou. This worthy restorer of the Universe is elder brother to all beasts. If anyone, when asleep, sees the elder or progenitor of some animals, he will have a fortunate chase; if he sees the elder of the Beavers, he will take Beavers; if he sees the elder of the Elks, he will take Elks, possessing the juniors through the favor of their senior whom he has seen in the dream.

I asked them where these elder brothers were. "We are not sure," they answered me, "but we think the elders of the birds are in the sky, and that the elders of the other animals are in the water."

They recognize two progenitors of the seasons; one is called Nipinoukhe, it is this one that brings the Spring and Summer. This name comes from Nipin, which in their language means Springtime. The other is called Pipounoukhe, from the word Pipoun, which means Winter; it therefore brings the cold season. I asked them if Nipinoukhe and Pipounoukhe were men, or if they were animals of some other species, and where they usually dwelt; they replied that they did not know exactly what form they had, but they were quite sure they were living, for they heard them talking or rustling, especially at their coming, but they could not tell what they were saying. For their dwelling place, they share the world between them, the one keeping on one side, the other upon the other; and when the period of their stay at one end of the world has expired, each goes over to the area of the other.

When Nipinoukhe returns, he brings back with him the heat, the birds, the green vegetation, and restores life and beauty to the world; but Pipounoukhe lays waste everything, being accompanied by the cold winds, ice, snows, and other phenomena of Winter. They call this succession of one to the other Achitescatoueth; meaning that they pass reciprocally to each others' places.

Also, they believe that there are certain Genii of light, or Genii of the air, which they call Khichikouai from the word Khichikou, which means "light" or "the air." The Genii, or Khichikouai are acquainted with future events; they see far ahead; this is why the Indians consult them, not all the Indians but certain tricksters, who know better than the others how to impose upon and amuse these people. I have been present when they consulted these fine Oracles, and here is what I have observed.

Towards nightfall, two or three young men erected a tent in the middle of our Cabin; they stuck six poles deep into the ground in the form of a circle, and to hold them in place they fastened to the tops of these poles a large ring, which completely encircled them; this done, they enclosed this structure with blankets, leaving the top of the tent open; it is all that a tall man can do to reach to the top of this round tower, capable of holding 5 or 6 men standing upright. This house made, the fires of the cabin are all extinguished, and the brands thrown outside, in case the flame frighten away the Genii or Khichikouai, who are to enter this tent; a young trickster slipped in from below, turning back the covering which enveloped it, then replaced it when he had entered, for they must be careful that there be no opening in this fine palace except from above.

The trickster, having entered, began to moan softly, as if complaining; he shook the tent at first without violence; then becoming animated little by little, he commenced to whistle, in a hollow tone, and as if it came from afar; then to talk as if in a bottle; to cry like the owls of these countries, which have stronger voices than those of France; then to howl and sing, constantly varying the tones; ending by these syllables, ho ho, hi hi, guigui, nioue, and other similar sounds, disguising his voice so that it seemed I heard those puppets which showmen exhibit in France. Sometimes he spoke Innu, sometimes Algonquin, retaining always the Algonquin intonation, which, like the Provencal French dialect, is vivacious.

At first, he shook this structure gently; but, as he continued to become more animated, he fell into so violent an ecstasy that I thought he would break everything to pieces, shaking his house with so much force that I was astonished at a man having so much strength; for, after he had once begun to shake it, he did not stop until the consultation was over, which lasted about three hours. Whenever he would change his voice, the Indians would at first cry out, moa, moa, "listen, listen;" then, as an invitation to these Genii, they said to them, Pitoukhecou, Pitoukhecou, "enter, enter." At other times, as if they were replying to the howls of the trickster, they drew this aspiration from the depths of their chests, "ho, ho."

I was seated like the others, looking on at this wondrous mystery, forbidden to speak; but as I had not vowed obedience to them, I intruded a little word into the proceedings. Sometimes I asked them to have pity on this poor trickster, who was killing himself in this tent; at other times I told them they should cry louder, for the Genii had gone to sleep.

Some of these Indians imagined that this trickster was not inside, that he had been carried away, without knowing where or how. Others said that his body was lying on the ground, and that his soul was up above the tent, where it spoke at first, calling these Genii, and throwing from time to time sparks of fire.

The Indians, having heard a certain voice that the trickster counterfeited, uttered a cry of joy, saying that one of these Genii had entered; then speaking to him, they cried out, Tepouachi, tepouachi, "call, call;" that is, "call your companions." Then the trickster, pretending to be one of the Genii and changing his tone and his voice, called them. Meanwhile, our sorcerer, who was also present, took his drum, and began to sing with the trickster who was in the tent, and the others answered. Some of the young men were made to dance, among others the Apostate, who did not wish to, but the sorcerer made him obey.

At last, after a thousand cries and howls, after a thousand songs, after having danced and thoroughly shaken this fine structure, the Indians believing that the Genii or Khichikouai had entered, the sorcerer consulted them. He asked them about his health (for he is sick), and about that of his wife, who was also sick. These Genii, or rather the trickster who counterfeited them, answered that, as to his wife, she was already dead, that it was all over with her. I could have said as much myself, for one needed not to be a prophet or a sorcerer to guess that, as the poor creature was already struck with death; in regard to the sorcerer, they said that he would see the Spring. Knowing his disease, -- which was a pain in the loins, or rather an infirmity resulting from his lust and excesses, for he is vile to the last degree, I said to him, seeing that he was otherwise healthy, and that he drank and ate heartily, that he would not only see the spring but also the Summer, if some other accident did not overtake him, and I was not mistaken.

After these interrogations, these fine oracles were asked if there would soon be snow, if there would be much of it, if there would be Elks or Moose, and where they could be found. They answered, or rather the trickster, always disguising his voice, that they saw a little snow and some moose far away, without indicating the place, having the prudence not to commit themselves.

So this is what took place in this consultation, after which I wished to get hold of the trickster; but, as it was night, he made his exit from the tent and from our little cabin so swiftly that he was outside almost before I was aware of it. He and all the other Indians, who had come from the other Cabins to these beautiful mysteries, having departed, I asked the Apostate if he was so simple as to believe that the Genii entered and spoke in this tent. He began to swear his belief, which he had lost and denied, that it was not the trickster who spoke, but these Khichikouai or Genii of the air, and my host said to me, "Enter you yourself into the tent, and you will see that your body will remain below, and your soul will mount on high." I did want to go in; but, as I was the only one of my group, I foresaw that they might commit some outrage upon me, and, as there were no witnesses there, they would boast that I had recognized and admired the truth of their mysteries.

I had a great desire to know the nature of these Genii; the Apostate knew nothing about them. The sorcerer, seeing that I was discovering his mines, and that I disapproved of his nonsense, did not wish to explain anything to me, so that I was compelled to make use of my wits. I allowed a few weeks to pass; then, springing this subject upon him, I spoke as if I admired his doctrine, saying to him that it was wrong to refuse me, since to all the questions which he asked me in regard to our belief, I answered frankly and without showing any reluctance. At last, he allowed himself to be won over by this flattery, and revealed to me the secrets of the school. Here is the fable which he recounted to me, touching the nature and the character of these Genii.

Two Indians consulted these Genii at the same time, but in two different tents; one of them, a wicked man who had treacherously killed three men with his hatchet, was put to death by the Genii, who, crossing over into the tent of the other Indian to take his life, as well as that of his companion, were themselves surprised; for this trickster defended himself so well that he killed one of these Khichikouai or Genii; and therefore it was found out how they were made, for this One remained in the place where he was killed. Then I asked him what was his form. "He was as large as the fist," he replied; "his body was of stone, and rather long." I judged that he was cone-shaped, large at one end, and gradually becoming smaller towards the other. They believe that in this stone body there is flesh and blood, for the hatchet with which this Spirit was killed was bloody. I inquired if they had feet and wings, and was told they had not. "Then how," said I, "can they enter or fly into these tents, if they have neither feet nor wings?" The sorcerer began to laugh, saying in explanation, "In truth, this black robe has no sense." This is the way they pay me back when I offer some objections to something which they cannot answer.

As they made a great deal of the fire which this trickster threw out of his tent, I told them that our Frenchmen could throw it better than he could; for he only made a few sparks fly from some rotten wood which he carried with him, as I am inclined to think, and if I had had some resin I could have made the flames rise for them. They insisted that he entered this house without fire; but I had happened to see someone give him a red-hot coal which he asked to light his pipe.

So that is their belief touching the foundations of things good. What astonishes me is their ingratitude; for, although they believe that the Messou has restored the world, that Nipinoukhe and Pipounoukhe bring the seasons, that their Khichikouai teach them where to find Elks or Moose, and render them a thousand other good deeds, yet I have not been able to learn that they render them the slightest honor. I have only observed that in their feasts, they occasionally throw a few spoonfuls of grease into the fire, pronouncing these words: Papeouekou, Papeouekou; "Make us find something to eat, make us find something to eat." I believe this prayer is addressed to these Genii, to whom they present this grease as the best thing they have in the world.

Besides these foundations of things good, they recognize a Manitou, whom we may call the devil. They regard him as the origin of evil; they do not attribute great malice to the Manitou, but to his wife, who is a real she-devil. The Manitou does not hate men. He is only present in wars and combats, and those whom he looks upon are protected; the others are killed. So for this reason, my host told me that he prayed to this Manitou everyday to not cast his eyes upon the Iroquois, their enemies, and to always give them some Iroquois in their wars.

As to the wife of the Manitou, she is the cause of all the diseases which are in the world. It is she who kills men, otherwise they would not die; she feeds upon their flesh, gnawing them upon the inside, which causes them to become emaciated in their illnesses. She has a robe made of the most beautiful hair of the men and women whom she has killed; she sometimes appears like a fire; she can be heard roaring like a flame, but her language cannot be understood. From this come those cries and howls, and those beatings of the drum which they make around their sick, as if to prevent this she-devil from giving the deathblow, which she does secretly so that no one can defend himself, for he does not see her.

Also, the Indians persuade themselves that not only men and other animals, but also all other things are endowed with souls, and that all the souls are immortal; they imagine the souls as shadows of the animate objects; never having heard of anything purely spiritual, they represent the soul of man as a dark and sombre image, or as a shadow of the man himself, attributing to it feet, hands, a mouth, a head, and all the other parts of the human body. So this is the reason that they say the souls drink and eat, and therefore they give them food when anyone dies, throwing the best meat they have into the fire; and they have often told me that the next morning they find meat which has been gnawed during the night by the souls.

Having declared to me this fine article of their faith, I propound to them several questions.

"First, where do these souls go, after the death of man and other creatures?"

"They go," they say, "very far away, to a large village situated where the Sun sets."

"All your country," I say to them (meaning America), "is an immense Island, as you seem to know; how is it that the souls of men, of animals, of hatchets, of knives, of kettles, the souls of all things that die or that are used, can cross the water to go to this great village that you place where the sun sets? do they find ships ready to embark them and take them over the water?"

"No, they go on foot," they answer me, "fording the water in some places."

"And how," I respond, "can they ford the great Ocean which you know is so deep, for it is this great sea which surrounds your country?"

"You are mistaken," they answer; "either the lands are united in some places, or there is some passage which is fordable over which our souls pass; and we know that no one has yet been able to pass beyond the North coast."

"It is because (I answer them) of the great cold in those seas, so that if your souls take this route they will be frozen and all stiff from cold, before they reach their villages."

Secondly, I ask them, "What do these poor souls eat, making so long a journey?"

"They eat bark," they said, "and old wood which they find in the forests."

"I am not astonished," I replied, "that you are so afraid of death that you shun it so; there is hardly any pleasure in going and eating old wood and bark in another life."

Thirdly; "What do these souls do when they arrive at their dwelling place?"

"During the daytime, they are seated with their two elbows upon their two knees, and their heads between their two hands, the usual position of sick Indians; during the night, they go and come, they work, they go hunting."

"Oh, but they cannot see at all during the night," I replied.

"You are an ignoramus, you have no sense," they answered; "souls are not like us, they do not see at all during the day, and see clearly at night; their day is in the darkness of the night, and their night in the light of the day."

"In the fourth place, what are these poor souls hunting during the night?"

"They hunt for the souls of Beavers, Porcupines, Moose, and other animals, using the soul of the snowshoes to walk upon the soul of the snow, which is in that country; they make use of the souls of all things, as we here use the things themselves."

"When they have killed the soul of a Beaver, or of another animal, does that soul die entirely, or has it another soul which goes to some other village?"

My sorcerer was nonplussed by this question; and as he is quick-witted, he dodged the question, seeing that he was going to involve himself if he answered me directly; for if he had answered me that the soul would die entirely, I would have told him that when they first killed the animal, its soul would have died at the same time; if he had answered that this soul had a soul which went away into another village, I would have shown him that every animal would have, according to his doctrine, more than twenty, more than a hundred souls, and that the world would have to be full of these villages to which they withdrew, and yet no one had ever seen one of them. Recognizing that he was about to entangle himself, he said to me, "Be silent, you have no sense; you ask things which you do not know yourself; if I had ever been in that country, I would answer you."

At last, I told them that the Europeans navigated the whole world. I explained to them and made them see by a round figure what country it was where the sun sets according to their idea, assuring them that no one had ever found this great village, that all that was nothing but nonsense; that the souls of men alone were immortal; and that if they were good, they would go to heaven, and if they were bad, they would descend into hell, there to burn forever; and that each one would receive according to his works.

"In that," he said, "you lie, in assigning two different places for souls; they go to the same country, at least ours do; for the souls of two of our countrymen once returned from this great village, and explained to us all that I have told you, then they returned to their dwelling place." They call the milky way, Tchipai meskenau, the path of souls, because they think that the souls raise themselves through there in going to that great village.

They have great faith in their dreams, imagining that what they have seen in their sleep must happen, and that they must execute whatever they have therefore imagined. This is a great misfortune, for if an Indian dreams that he will die if he does not kill me, he will take my life the first time he meets me alone. Our Indians ask almost every morning, "have you seen any Beavers or Moose, while sleeping?"

And when they see that I make sport of their dreams, they are astonished and ask me, "What do you believe then, if you do not believe in your dream?"

"I believe in him who has made all things, and who can do all things."

"You have no sense, how can you believe in him, if you have not seen him?"

The Indians are great singers; they sing, as do most of the nations of the earth, for recreation and for devotion, which with them means superstition. The tunes which they sing for pleasure are usually grave and heavy. Occasionally they sing something gay, especially the girls, but mostly, their songs are heavy, sombre and unpleasant; they do not know what it is to combine chords to compose a sweet harmony. They use few words in singing, varying the tones, and not the words. I have often heard my Indian make a long song with these three words, Kaie, nir, khigatoutaouim, "And you will also do something for me." They say that we imitate the warbling of birds in our tunes, which they do not disapprove, as they nearly all take pleasure both in singing and in hearing others sing; and although I told them that I did not understand anything about it, they often invited me to sing some song or prayer.

As for their superstitious songs, they use them for a thousand purposes, for which the sorcerer and that old man have given me the reason. Two Indians, they told me, being once in great distress, seeing themselves within two finger-lengths of death for lack of food, were advised to sing, and they would be relieved; and so it happened, for when they had sung, they found something to eat. As to who gave them this advice, and how it was given, they know nothing; however, since that time, all their religion consists mainly in singing, using the most barbarous words that come into their minds.

The following are some of the words that they sang in a long superstitious rite which lasted more than four hours: Aiase, manitou, aiase manitou, aiase manitou, ahiham, hehinham, hanhan, heninakhe hose, heninakhe, enigouano bahano anihe ouibini naninaouai nanahouai nanahouai aouihe ahahe aouihe; concluding with ho! ho! ho! I asked what these words meant, but not one could interpret them to me; for not one of them understands what he is singing, except in the tunes which they sing for recreation.

They accompany their songs with drums. I asked the origin of this drum, and the old man told me that perhaps someone had dreamed that it was a good thing to have, and therefore it had come into use. I thought it most probable they had derived this superstition from the neighboring tribes; for I am told (I do not know how true it is) they imitate to a great degree the Micmacs, a tribe still more superstitious than those of this country.

As to this drum, it is the size of a tambourine, and is composed of a circle three or four finger-lengths in diameter, and of two skins stretched tightly over it on both sides; they put inside some little pebbles or stones, to make more noise; the diameter of the largest drums is of the size of two palms; they call it chichigouan, and the verb nipagahiman means, "I make this drum sound." They do not strike it, as do our Europeans; but they turn and shake it, to make the stones rattle inside; they strike it upon the ground, sometimes its edge and sometimes its face, while the sorcerer plays a thousand apish tricks with this instrument.

Often the spectators have sticks in their hands and all strike at once upon pieces of wood, or upon hatchet handles which they have before them, or upon their "ouragans", that is, upon their bark plates, turned upside down. To this din they add their songs and their cries; I might say their howls, so much do they exert themselves at times; I leave you to imagine this beautiful music. This miserable sorcerer with whom my host and the renegade made me pass the winter, contrary to their promise, almost made me lose my head with his uproar; for every day, toward nightfall, and often toward midnight, at other times during the day, he acted like a madman. For a long time, I was sick, and although I asked him to moderate a little and to give me some rest, he acted still worse, hoping to find a cure in these noises which only made me worse.

They make use of these songs, of this drum, and of this noise, in their sicknesses. I explained it fully last year; but since that time, I have seen so much foolishness, nonsense, absurdity, noise, and din made by this wretched sorcerer to cure himself, that I should become weary in writing, and would tire you if I should try to make you read the tenth part of what has often wearied me almost beyond endurance.

Occasionally this man would enter as if in a fury, singing, crying and howling, making his drum rattle with all his might; while the others howled as loudly as he, and made a horrible din with their sticks, striking upon whatever was before them; they made the little children dance, then the girls, then the women; he lowered his head and blew upon his drum, then blew toward the fire; he hissed like a serpent, drew his drum under his chin, shaking and turning it about; he struck the ground with it with all his might, then turned it upon his stomach; he closed his mouth with the back of one hand, and then with the other; you would have said that he wanted to break the drum to pieces, he struck it so hard upon the ground; he shook it, he turned it from one side to the other, and, running around the fire several times, he went out of the cabin, continuing to howl and bellow; he struck a thousand attitudes, and all this was done to cure himself. This is the way they treat their sick. I am inclined to think that they wish to command the disease, or to frighten the wife of Manitou, whom they believe as the origin and cause of all evils.

They sing and make these noises also in their sweating operations. They believe that this medicine, which is the best of all they have, would be of no use if they did not sing during the sweat. They plant some sticks in the ground, making a sort of low tent, for, if a tall man were seated there, his head would touch the top of this hut, which they enclose and cover with skins, robes, and blankets. They put in this dark room a number of heavy stones which they have had heated and made red-hot in a good fire. Then they slip entirely naked into these sweat boxes. The women occasionally sweat as well as the men. Sometimes they sweat all together, men and women, pell-mell. They sing, cry and groan in this oven, and make speeches; occasionally the sorcerer beats his drum there.

I heard him once acting the prophet there, crying out that he saw Moose; that my host, his brother, would kill some. I could not refrain from telling him, or rather those who were present and listened to him as if to an oracle, that it was probable that they would find a male, since they had already found and killed two females. When he understood what I was driving at, he said to me sharply, "Believe me, this black robe has no sense."

They are so superstitious in these uproars and in their other nonsense that if they have sweats to cure themselves, or to have a good hunt, or to have fine weather, they think nothing would be accomplished if they did not sing, and if they did not observe these superstitions. I have noticed that, when the men sweat, they do not like to use women's robes with which to enclose their sweat boxes, if they can get any others. When they have shouted for three hours or so in these stoves, they emerge completely wet and covered with their sweat.

They also sing and beat drums in their feasts, as I shall explain in the chapter upon their banquets. I have seen them do the same thing in their councils, mingling there other trickeries. I suspect that the sorcerer invents every day some new contrivance to keep his people in a state of agitation, and to make himself popular. One day I saw him take a javelin and turn the point down and the handle up (for their javelins have a long stick for a handle); he placed a hatchet near this javelin, stood up, pounded on his drum, uttered his usual howls, pretended to dance, and walked around the fire.

Then, concealing himself, he drew out a nightcap, in which there was a whetstone which he placed in a spoon made of wood, which had been wiped expressly for this purpose; then he lighted a bark torch, and passed from hand to hand the torch, the spoon, and the stone, which was marked with stripes, all examining it attentively, one after the other, and philosophizing, as it seemed to me, over this stone, in regard to their chase, which was the subject of their council or assembly.

These poor wretches sing also in their sufferings, in their difficulties, in their perils and dangers. During the time of our famine, I heard nothing throughout these cabins, especially at night, except songs, cries, beating of drums and other noises; when I asked what this meant, my people told me that they did it to have a good chase, and to find something to eat. Their songs and their drums also play a part in the witchcraft of the sorcerers.

Here is what I saw them do on the twelfth of February. As I was reciting my prayers, toward evening, the sorcerer began to talk about me: aiamtheou, "He is making his prayers;" then, pronouncing some words which I did not understand, he added: Niganipahau, "I will kill him at once." The thought occurred to me that he was speaking of me, seeing that he hated me for several reasons; but especially because I tried to show that all he did was mere nonsense and child's play.

Just as I was thinking that he wanted to take my life, my host said to me, "have you some powder that kills men?"

"Why?" I asked.

"I want to kill someone," he answered me. Imagine whether I finished my prayers without any distraction, for I knew that they were disinclined to kill any of their own people, and that the sorcerer had threatened me with death some days before, although only in jest, as he told me afterward; but I did not have much confidence in him. I wished to learn if they had me in mind, and so I asked them where the man was that they wished to kill; they answered me that he was in the neighborhood of Gaspe, more than 250 miles away from us. I began to laugh, for I had never dreamed that they would try to kill a man 250 miles away.

I inquired why they wished to take his life. They answered that this man was a Canadian sorcerer, who, having had some trouble with ours, had threatened him with death and had given him the disease from which he had suffered so long, and which was going to consume him in two days, if he did not prevent the stroke by his art. I told them that God had forbidden murder, and that we never killed people; that did not prevent them from pursuing their purpose. My host, foreseeing the great commotion which was about to take place, said to me, "You will have a headache; go off into one of the other cabins nearby."

"No," said the sorcerer, "there will be no harm in his seeing what we do."

They had all the children and women go out, except one who sat near the sorcerer. I remained as a spectator of their mysteries, with all the Indians of the other cabins, who were summoned.

All being seated, a young man comes bearing two pickets, or sharply-pointed sticks; my host prepares the charm, composed of little pieces of wood shaped at both ends like a serpent's tongue, iron arrow-points, pieces of broken knives, bits of iron bent like a big fishhook, and other similar things; all these are wrapped in a piece of leather. When this is done, the sorcerer takes his drum, all begin to chant and howl, and to make an uproar; after a few songs, the woman who had remained arises, and goes all around the inside of the cabin, passing behind the backs of the people who are there.

When she is reseated, the magician takes these two stakes; then, pointing out a certain place, begins by saying, "Here is his head," (I believe he meant the head of the man whom he wished to kill); then with all his might he drives these stakes into the ground, tilting them toward the place where he believed this Canadian was. Then my host comes to assist his brother; he makes a tolerably deep ditch in the ground with these stakes; meanwhile the songs and other noises continue incessantly. The ditch made and the stakes planted, the servant of the sorcerer, I mean the Apostate, goes in search of a sword, and the sorcerer strikes with it one of these pickets; then he descends into the ditch, assuming the posture of an excited man who is striking heavy blows with the sword and dagger; for he has both, in this act of a furious man. The sorcerer takes the charm wrapped in skin, puts it in the ditch, and redoubles his sword-cuts at the same time that they increase the uproar.

Finally, this mystery ends, and he draws out the sword and the dagger all covered with blood, and throws them down before the other Indians; the ditch is hurriedly covered up, and the magician boastfully asserts that his man is struck, that he will soon die, and asks if they have not heard his cries; they all say "no," except two young men, relatives of his, who say they have heard some dull sounds, and as if far away. Oh, how glad they make him!

Turning toward me, he begins to laugh, saying, "See this black robe, who comes here to tell us that we must not kill anyone." As I am looking attentively at the sword and the dagger, he has them presented to me. "Look," he says, "what is that?"

"It is blood," I answer, "of what? Of some Moose or other animal."

They laugh at me, saying that it is the blood of that Sorcerer of Gaspe (the Micmacs).

"How?" I answer them, "he is more than 250 miles away from here."

"It is true," they reply, "but it is the Manitou; that is, the Devil, who carries his blood under the earth." If this man is a Magician, you decide; I consider that he is neither Sorcerer nor Magician, but that he would like to be one. All that he does, in my opinion, is only nonsense to amuse the Indians. He would like to have communication with the Devil or Manitou, but I do not think that he has.

I have seen our pretended Magician perform the same witchcraft on two other occasions. He observed all the above mentioned ceremonies, except that he changed the charm, for he made use of four sticks made in the shape of spindles, except that they were heavier, and that they had something like teeth in certain places. Also he used the end of the tail and the foot of a Porcupine, and some hairs of the Moose and of the Porcupine, bound together in a little sheaf. Another time he used these spindles also, and a foot of the Porcupine or of another animal, the bone of some beast, an iron similar to that which they fasten to a door to pull it open, and some other absurd things. His servant, the renegade, held all these things ready for him, and beat the drum while his Master was occupied in the ditch. These are a part of their actions, among which are mingled their songs, their cries, their howls and uproar.

Their Religion, or rather their superstition, consists also in praying; but what prayers they make! In the morning, when the little children come out from their Cabins, they shout, Cacouakhi, Pakhais Amiscouakhi, Pakhais Mousouakhi, Pakhais, "Come, Porcupines; come, Beavers; come, Elk;" and this is all of their prayers.

When the Indians sneeze, and sometimes even at other times, during the Winter, they cry out in a loud voice, Etouctaian miraouinam an Mirouscamiklti, "I shall be glad to see the Spring." At other times, I have heard them pray for the Spring, or for deliverance from evils and other similar things; and they express all these things in the form of desires, crying out as loudly as they can, "I would be glad if this day would continue, if the wind would change," etc. I could not say to whom these wishes are addressed, for they do not know, at least those whom I have asked have not been able to enlighten me.

They pray The Manitou not to cast his eyes upon their enemies, so they may be able to kill them. These are all the prayers which I have heard the Indians make; I do not know whether they have others; I do not think they have. They have a kind of a sacrifice, for they throw upon the fire grease which they skim from the kettle where the meat is cooking, uttering this prayer, Papeouekou, Papeouekou, "make us find something to eat, make us find something to eat." I believe that they address this prayer to their Khichikouai, and perhaps to others besides. The following is a superstition which annoyed me.

On the twenty-fourth of November, the Sorcerer assembled the Indians, and entrenched himself with some robes and blankets in one quarter of the Cabin, so that neither he nor his companions could be seen. There was a woman with them, who marked on a triangular stick, half a spear in length, all the songs they recited. I asked a woman to tell me what they were doing in this enclosure, and she answered me that they were praying; but I believe she made this response because, when I prayed and they asked me what I was doing, I told them, Nataiamihiau missi ca Khichitat, "I am praying to him who made all things;" and so when they sang, when they howled, and beat their drums and their sticks, they told me that they were making prayers, without being able to explain to me to whom they were addressed. The renegade told me that this superstitious rite, which lasted more than five hours, was performed for a dead person; but, as he lies oftener than he tells the truth, I tell it for what it is worth.

They call this superstition Ouechibouan. After these long prayers, the Sorcerer gave the pattern of a little sack, cut in the form of a leg, to a woman, to make one of leather. This she filled, I thought, with Beaver hair, for I felt the leg and it seemed to me light and full of soft hair. I asked often what it was, and why they made this little crooked sack, but they never told me. I only know that they call it Manitoukathi; meaning, leg of the Manitou, or of the Devil; for a long time it was hung in the Cabin, at the place where the Sorcerer was seated; afterward, it was given to a young man to wear hung from his neck. It was one of the accompaniments of these long prayers; but I have not been able to find out for what purpose it was used.

Now and then they observe a rigorous fast, not all of them, but certain ones who desire to live a long time. My host, seeing that I ate only once a day during Lent, told me that some of their people fasted to have a long life; but he added that they withdrew alone into a little Cabin apart from the others, and while there they neither drank nor ate, sometimes for eight and at other times for ten days; others have told me that they emerge from this Cabin like skeletons, and that sometimes they are brought out half dead. I have not seen any of these great fasters, but I have seen great diners.

I have seen another devotion performed by the Sorcerer, which belongs only to those of his profession. They build for him a little Cabin distant from the others a stone's throw or two, into which he retires to remain there alone eight or ten days, more or less. Day and night he can be heard crying, howling and beating his drum; but he is not so solitary that others do not go to help him sing, and that the women do not visit him, and it is here that great lust is carried on.

The Indians are also religious in regard to their dead. My host, and the old man of whom I have spoken, confirmed what I have already written before, that the body of the deceased does not go out through the common door of the Cabin, but the bark is raised at the place where the dead man is, to make a passageway for the corpse.

Also, they say that the soul goes out through the chimney, or at the opening which they make at the top of their huts. They strike heavy blows with a stick upon the Cabins, that this soul may not delay, and that it may not come near a child, for it would kill it. They bury with the dead man his robes, his kettles, and other belongings, because they love him, and also in order that he may make use of the soul of all these things in the other life. They throw the best meat they have into the fire, to give something to eat to the soul of the deceased, which eats the soul of this food. They do not stretch out the bodies of their dead lengthwise, as we do those of our dead, but they place them in a crouching position like a person who is seated upon his heels. They cut a little tuft of hair from the dead man to present to his nearest relative. I do not know why they do this. But let us make another list of their superstitions and of their ignorance, as what I have just reported concerns in some manner their ridiculous religion; the following may properly be called superstitions.

The Indians do not throw to the dogs the bones of female Beavers and Porcupines, at least, certain specified bones; they are careful that the dogs do not eat any bones of birds and of other animals which are taken in the net, otherwise they will take no more except with incomparable difficulties. Yet they make a thousand exceptions to this rule, for it does not matter if the vertebrae or rump of these animals be given to the dogs, but the rest must be thrown into the fire. Yet, as to the Beaver which has been taken in a trap, it is best to throw its bones into a river. It is remarkable how they gather and collect these bones, and preserve them with so much care that you would say their game would be lost if they violated their superstitions. As I was laughing at them, and telling them that Beavers do not know what is done with their bones, they answered me, "You do not know how to catch Beavers, and you wish to talk about it." Before the Beaver was entirely dead, they told me, its soul comes to the Cabin of him who has killed it, and looks carefully to see what is done with its bones; if they are given to the dogs, the other Beavers would be told of it and therefore they would make themselves hard to capture. But they are glad to have their bones thrown into the fire, or into a river; especially the trap which has caught them is glad of this.

I told them that the Iroquois, according to the reports of the one who was with us, threw the bones of the Beaver to the dogs, and yet they catch them often; and that our Frenchmen captured more game than they did, and yet our dogs ate these bones. "You have no sense," they replied, "do you not see that you and the Iroquois cultivate the soil and gather its fruits, and not we, and that therefore it is not the same thing?" I began to laugh when I heard this irrelevant answer. The trouble is, I only stutter, I take one word for another, I pronounce badly; and so everything usually passes off in laughter. What great difficulty there is in talking with people without being able to understand them. Also, in their eat-all feasts they must be careful that the dogs do not taste even the least of it.

They believe that the hail has understanding and knowledge. When my host was giving a feast that Winter, he said to a young man, "Go tell the Indians of the other Cabin that they may come when they wish, that everything is ready; but do not carry a torch." It was night, and there was a heavy hailstorm. So I heard the Indians going out from their Cabins, crying to their people, "Do not make any light for us, because it hails." I afterward asked the reason for this, and they answered me that the hail possessed intelligence, and that it hated the light, usually coming only at night-time; that, if torches were carried out of doors, it would stop, and they would be sorry for this, for it helped them to capture the Moose. I told them that the hail was nothing but the water of the rain, congealed by the cold, which was greater at night on account of the absence of the Sun, and so it hailed then oftener than in the middle of the day. They answered me in their usual way, "you are an ignoramus; do you not see that it has been cold all day long, and that the hail has waited until night to come?" I tried to tell them that the clouds had not yet gathered, but they said, eca titou eca titou nama Khitirinisin, "keep still, keep still, you have no sense." This is how they pay me, and how they often pay the others.

Through superstition, my host cuts off the end of the tail from all the Beavers he takes, and strings them together. I asked why; and the old man told me that it was a resolution or promise that he had made to take many Beavers. As to whom he made this vow, neither he nor I would be able to tell.

They put upon the fire a certain flat bone of the Porcupine; then look at its color attentively, to see if they will hunt these animals with success.

When one of their men is lost in the woods, seeing that he does not return to his Cabin, they hang a fuse to a pole to direct him, and that done, they tell me that he sees the fire and finds his way back. When the mind has once strayed from the path of truth, it advances far into error. But, in regard to their fuse, it is not made like ours. For wick, they use the skin of an eagle's thigh, covered with down, which takes fire easily. They strike together two metallic stones, just as we do with a piece of flint and iron or steel; in place of matches, they use a little piece of tinder, a dry and rotten wood which burns easily and continually until it is consumed. When they have lighted it, they put it into pulverized Cedar bark; and by gently blowing, this bark takes fire. That is how they light their fires.

I brought a French fuse with me, and five or six matches. They were astonished at the ease with which I could light a fire; the trouble was that my matches were soon exhausted, as I had failed to bring enough. They have still another kind of fuse. They twist a little Cedar stick, and this friction causes fire, which lights some tinder. I have never seen them use this fuse, which is more familiar to the Hurons than to the Innu.

When one of them has taken a Bear, there are extensive ceremonies before it is eaten. One of our people took one, and this is what they did: First, the Bear having been killed, the man who killed it did not bring it back, but he returned to the Cabin to impart the news, so that someone might go and see the prize, as something precious; for the Indians prefer the meat of the Bear to all other kinds of food; it is that the young Beaver is in no way inferior to it, but the Bear has more fat, and therefore the Indians like it better.

Second, the Bear being brought, all the marriageable girls and young married women who have not had children, as well as those of the Cabin where the Bear is to be eaten, and of the neighboring cabins, go outside, and do not return as long as there remains a piece of this animal, which they do not taste. It snowed, and the weather was severe. It was almost night when this Bear was brought to our Cabin; immediately the women and girls went out and sought Shelter elsewhere, the best they could find. They do this with much suffering; for they do not always have bark at hand with which to make their house, which in such cases they cover with branches of the Fir tree.

In the third place, the dogs must be sent away, in case they lick the blood, or eat the bones, or even the offal of this beast, so is it prized. The latter are buried under the fireplace, and the former are thrown into the fire. These were the observations which I made during the performance of this superstition. Two banquets are made of this Bear, as it is cooked in two kettles, although all at the same time. The men and older women are invited to the first feast, and, when it is finished, the women go out; then the other kettle is taken down, and of this an eat-all feast is made for the men only. This is done on the evening of the capture; the next day toward nightfall, or the second day, I do not exactly remember, the Bear having been all eaten, the young women and girls return.

If the bird which they call Ouichcatchan, which is nearly the size of the magpie, and which resembles it (for it is gray in the places where the magpie is black, and white where it is white), tries to get into their Cabins, they drive it away carefully, because, they say, they would have a headache; they do not give any reason for this, but have, if they are to be believed, learned it by experience. I have seen them take the throat of this animal, split it open, and look into it attentively. My host tells me, "If I find inside a little bone of the Moose (for this bird eats everything) I shall kill a Moose; if I find a bone of the Bear, I shall kill a Bear;" and so on with other animals.

In the famine which we endured, our Indians would not eat their dogs, because they said that, if the dog was killed to be eaten, a man would be killed by blows from an axe.

My host, throwing some pine branches into the fire, listened attentively to the noise which they made in burning, and pronounced some words. I asked him why he went through this ceremony; "To capture Porcupines," he answered me. What connection there is between these burning branches and their hunting, they neither do nor can explain.

They do not eat the marrow of the vertebrae or backbone of any animal whatever, for they would have a backache; and if they were to thrust a stick into these vertebrae, they would feel the pain as if someone had driven it into theirs. I did it purposely, to persuade them; but a disease of the mind so great as is a superstition firmly established for so many centuries is not eradicated in a moment.

They do not eat the little embryos of Moose, which they take from the wombs of the mothers, except at the end of the hunt for this animal. The reason is that their mothers love them, and they would become angry and difficult to capture, if their offspring were eaten so young.

They recognize only ten Moons in the year, I mean most of the Indians, for I made the Sorcerer admit that there are twelve.

They believe that the February Moon is longer by several days than the others, and therefore they call it the great Moon. I asked them from where came the Eclipse of the Moon and of the Sun.

They answered that the Moon was eclipsed, or appeared to be dark, because she held her son in her arms, which prevented her brightness from being seen.

"If the Moon has a son, she is married, or has been," I told them.

"Oh, yes," they replied, "the Sun is her husband, who walks all day, and she all night; and if he be eclipsed, or darkened, it is because he also sometimes takes the son which he has had by the Moon, into his arms."

"Yes, but neither the Moon nor the Sun has any arms," I answered.

"You have no sense; they always hold their drawn bows before them, and that is why their arms do not appear."

"And whom do they wish to shoot?"

"Ah, how do we know?"

I asked them what those spots meant that appear on the Moon.

"You know nothing at all," they said; "it is a cap which covers her head, and not spots."

I inquired why the son of the Sun and of the Moon was not bright like his parents, but black and gloomy.

"We do not know," said they; "if we had been in the Sky, we might answer you." Also, they think that he comes now and then upon earth; and when he walks about in their country, many people die.

I asked them if they had never seen Comets, those Stars with long tails, and what they were.

"We have seen them," they answered; "it is an animal that has a long tail, 4 feet, and a head; we can see all that," they said.

I asked them about the thunder; they said that they did not know what animal it was; that it ate snakes, and sometimes trees; that the Hurons believed it to be a large bird. They were led to this belief by a hollow sound made by a kind of swallow which appears here in the Summer. I have not seen any of these birds in France but have examined some of them here. They have a beak, a head, and a form like the swallow, except that they are a little larger; they fly about in the evening, repeatedly making a dull noise. The Hurons say that they make this noise from behind, as does also the bird which they think is the thunder; and that there is only one man who has seen this bird, and he only once in his lifetime. This is what my old man told me.

These are some of their superstitions. I believe that anyone who knew their language perfectly, to give them good reasons promptly, would soon make them laugh at their own stupidity; for sometimes I have made them ashamed and confused, although I speak almost entirely by my hands, I mean by signs.

People complain, in France, of a Mass if it lasts more than half an hour; a Sermon limited to an hour seems too long; those religious services are performed hardly once a week; and yet those poor ignorant people cry and howl all the time. The Sorcerer often brings them together at midnight, or at two or three o'clock in the morning, in a cold which freezes everything. Day and night he holds them with bated breath, during not one nor two hours, but three or four in succession, to perform their ridiculous devotions. They make the poor women go out from their Cabins, rising at midnight and carrying their little children over the snow to their neighbors. Men, harassed by the work of the day, who have eaten but little and hunted a long time, at the first cry waken and promptly go themselves to this Witches' Sabbath; and what will seem beyond all belief, I have never known a single complaint to arise among them, neither among the women nor the men, nor even the children, each one showing himself prompt and glad to obey the voice of the Sorcerer or trickster.

THE GOOD THINGS WHICH ARE FOUND AMONG THE INDIANS.

IF we begin with physical advantages, they possess these in abundance. They are tall, erect, strong, well proportioned, agile; and there is nothing effeminate in their appearance. Those little Fops that are seen elsewhere are only caricatures of men, compared with our Indians. I almost believed, before now, that the Pictures of the Roman Emperors represented the ideal of the painters rather than men who had ever existed, so strong and powerful are their heads; but I see here upon the shoulders of these people the heads of Julius Caesar, of Pompey, of Augustus, of Otho, and of others that I have seen in France, drawn upon paper, or in relief on medallions.

As to the mind of the Indian, it is of good quality. I believe that souls are all made from the same stock, and that they do not materially differ; therefore, these Indians having well formed bodies, and organs well regulated and well arranged, their minds ought to work with ease. Education and instruction alone are lacking. Their soul is a soil which is naturally good, but loaded down with all the evils that a land abandoned since the birth of the world can produce. I naturally compare our Indians with certain villagers, because both are usually without education; I have not seen anyone so far, of those who have come to this country, who does not admit that the Indians are more intelligent than our ordinary peasants.

Besides, if it is a great blessing to be free from a great evil, our Indians are happy; for the two tyrants who provide torture for many of our Europeans, do not reign in their great forests, I mean ambition and greed. As they have neither political organization, nor offices, nor any authority, for they only obey their Chief through good will toward him, therefore they never kill each other to acquire these honors. Also, as they are contented with a mere living, not one of them gives himself to the Devil to acquire wealth.

They make a pretense of never getting angry, not because of the beauty of this virtue, for which they have not even a name, but for their own contentment and happiness, I mean, to avoid the bitterness caused by anger. The Sorcerer said to me one day, speaking of one of our Frenchmen, "He has no sense, he gets angry; as for me, nothing can disturb me; let hunger oppress me, let my nearest relation pass to the other life, let the Iroquois, our enemies, massacre our people, I never get angry." What he says is not an article of faith; for, as he is more arrogant than any other Indian, so I have seen him oftener ill-tempered than any of them; he often restrains himself by force, especially when I expose his foolishness. I have only heard one Indian pronounce this word, Ninichcatihin, "I am angry," and he only said it once. But I noticed that they kept their eyes on him, for when these Indians are angry, they are dangerous and unrestrained.

Whoever professes not to get angry, ought also to make a profession of patience; the Indians surpass us to such an extent that we ought to be ashamed. I saw them, in their hardships and in their labors, suffer with cheerfulness. My host, marveling at the great number of people who I told him were in France, asked me if the men were good, if they did not become angry, if they were patient. I have never seen such patience as is shown by a sick Indian. You may yell, storm, jump, dance, and he will scarcely ever complain.

I found myself, with them, threatened with great suffering; they said to me, "We shall be sometimes two days, sometimes three, without eating, for lack of food; take courage, Chibine, let your soul be strong to endure suffering and hardship; keep yourself from being sad, otherwise you will be sick; see how we continue to laugh, although we have little to eat." One thing alone casts them down, it is when they see death, for they fear this beyond measure; take away this fear from the Indians, and they will endure all kinds of degradation and discomfort, and all kinds of trials and suffering, patiently.

They are much attached to each other, and agree admirably. You do not see any disputes, quarrels, enmities, or reproaches among them. Men leave the arrangement of the household to the women, without interfering with them; they cut, and decide, and give away as they please, without making the husband angry. I have never seen my host ask a giddy young woman, who he had with him, what became of the provisions, although they were disappearing fast. I have never heard the women complain because they were not invited to the feasts, because the men ate the good pieces, or because they had to work continually, going in search of the wood for the fire, making the Houses, dressing the skins, and busying themselves in other laborious work.

Each one does her own little tasks, gently and peacefully, without any disputes. However, they have neither gentleness nor courtesy in their utterance; and a Frenchman could not assume the accent, the tone, and the sharpness of their voices without becoming angry, yet they do not.

They are not vindictive among themselves, although they are toward their enemies. Here is an example that ought to confuse many Christians. In the stress of our famine, a young Indian from another area came to see us, who was as hungry as we were. The day on which he came was a day of fasting for him and for us, for there was nothing to eat. The next day, our hunters having taken a few Beavers, a feast was made, at which he was well treated; he was told also that the trail of a Moose had been seen, and that they were going to hunt for it the next day; he was invited to remain and to have his share of it; he answered that he could stay no longer, and, having inquired about the place where the animal was, he went away. Our Hunters, having found and killed this Elk the next day, buried it in the snow, according to their custom, to send for it on the following day. During the night, this young Indian searched so well that he found the dead beast, and took away a good part of it without saying a word. When the theft became known to our people, they did not get into a rage and utter maledictions against the thief, all their anger consisted in sneering at him; and yet this was almost taking away our life, this stealing our food when we were unable to obtain any more.

Some time afterward, this thief came to see us; I wanted to represent to him the seriousness of his offense, but my host imposed silence; and when this poor man attributed his theft to the dogs, he was not only excused, but even received to live with us in the same Cabin. Then he went for his wife, whom he carried upon his back, for her legs are paralyzed; a young female relative who lives with him brought his little son; and all four took their places in our little hut, without ever being reproached for this theft; on the contrary, they were received kindly, and were treated as if belonging to the family. Tell an Indian that another Indian has slandered him, and he will bow the head and not say a word; if they meet each other afterward, they will pretend not to know anything about it, acting as if nothing had been said. They treat each other as brothers; they harbor no spite against those of their own nation.

They are generous among themselves and even make a show of not loving anything, of not being attached to the riches of the earth, so that they may not grieve if they lose them. Not long ago, a dog tore a beautiful Beaver robe belonging to one of the Indians, and he was the first one to laugh about it. One of the greatest insults that can be offered to them, is to say, "That man likes everything, he is stingy." If you refuse them anything, here is their reproach, as I remarked last year: Khisakhitan Sakhita, "You love that, love it as much as you will." They do not open the hand halfway when they give, I mean among themselves, for they are as ungrateful as possible toward strangers. You will see them take care of their relatives, the children of their friends, widows, orphans, and old men, never reproaching them in the least, giving them abundantly, sometimes whole Moose.

As there are many orphans among these people, for they die in great numbers since they are addicted to drinking wine and brandy, these poor children are scattered among the Cabins of their uncles, aunts, or other relatives. Do not suppose that they are snubbed and reproached because they eat the food of the household. Nothing of the kind; they are treated the same as the children of the father of the family, or at least almost the same, and are dressed as well as possible.

They are not fussy in their food, beds, and clothes, but are slovenly.

They never complain of what food is given them; if it be cold, if it be warm, it does not matter. When the food is cooked, it is divided without waiting for anyone, not even the master of the house; a share is reserved for him, which is given to him cold. I have never heard my host complain because they did not wait for him, even if he were only a few steps from the Cabin. They often sleep upon the ground. They will pass one, two, and three days without eating, not ceasing to row, hunt, and fatigue themselves as much as they can.

THEIR VICES AND THEIR IMPERFECTIONS.

THE Indians imagine that they ought to enjoy the liberty of Wild colts, rendering no homage to anyone, except when they like. They have reproached me a hundred times because we fear our Captains, while they laugh at and make sport of theirs. All the authority of their chief is in his tongue; for he is powerful in so far as he is eloquent; and even if he kills himself talking and lecturing, he will not be obeyed unless he pleases the Indians.

I do not believe that there is a nation under heaven more given to sneering and bantering than that of the Innu. Their life is passed in eating, laughing, and making sport of each other, and of all the people they know. There is nothing serious about them, except occasionally when they make a pretense among us of being grave and dignified; but among themselves, they are real buffoons and genuine children who ask only to laugh. Sometimes I annoyed them a little, especially the Sorcerer, by calling them children, and showing them that I never could place any reliance upon their answers, because, if I questioned them about one thing, they told me about something else, only to get something to laugh and jest about; and consequently I could not know when they were speaking seriously, or when they were jesting. The usual conclusion of their conversations is: "Really, we did make a great deal of sport of such and such a one."

I have shown in my former letters how vindictive the Indians are toward their enemies, with what fury and cruelty they treat them, eating them after they have made them suffer all that an incarnate fiend could invent. This fury is common to the women as well as to the men, and they even surpass the men in this respect. They eat the lice they find upon themselves, not that they like the taste of them, but because they want to bite those that bite them.

These people are little moved by compassion. When anyone is sick in their Cabins, they ordinarily continue to yell and storm, and make as much noise as if everybody were in good health. They do not know what it is to take care of a poor invalid, and to give him the food which is good for him; if he asks for something to drink, it is given to him, if he asks for something to eat, it is given to him, but otherwise he is neglected; to coax him with love and gentleness, is a language which they do not understand. As long as a patient can eat, they will carry or drag him with them; if he stops eating, they believe that it is all over with him and kill him, as much to free him from his sufferings as to relieve themselves of the trouble of taking him with them when they go to some other place. I have both admired and pitied the patience of the invalids whom I have seen among them.

The Indians are slanderous beyond all belief, even among themselves, for they do not even spare their nearest relations, and they are deceitful. If one speaks ill of another, they all jeer with loud laughter; if the other appears upon the scene, the first one will show him as much affection and treat him with as much love, as if he had elevated him to the third heaven by his praise. The reason of this is that their slanders and derision do not come from malicious hearts, but from a mind which says what it thinks, and which seeks pleasure from everything, even from slander and mockery. So they are not troubled even if they are told that others are making sport of them, or have injured their reputation. All they usually answer to such talk is, mama irinisiou, "He has no sense; he does not know what he is talking about;" and at the first opportunity, they will pay their slanderer in the same coin.

Lying is as natural to Indians as talking, not among themselves, but to strangers. I would not be willing to trust them, except if they would fear to be punished if they failed in their duty, or hoped to be rewarded if they were faithful to it. They do not know what it is to keep a secret, to keep their word, and to love with constancy, especially those who are not of their nation, for they are harmonious among themselves, and their slanders and teasing do not disturb their peace and friendly communication.

The Innu Indians are not thieves. The doors of the French are open to them, because their hands can be trusted; but as to the Hurons, if a person had as many eyes as they have fingers on their hands, he still could not prevent them from stealing, for they steal with their feet. They make a profession of this art, and expect to be beaten if they are discovered. They will endure the blows which you give them, patiently, not as an acknowledgment of their fault, but as a punishment for their stupidity in allowing themselves to be detected in their theft.

Eating among the Indians is like drinking among the drunkards of Europe. Those dry and ever-thirsty souls would willingly end their lives in a tub of wine, and the Indians in a pot full of meat; those over there talk only of drinking, and these here only of eating. It is giving a sort of insult to an Indian to refuse the pieces which he offers you. A certain one, seeing that I had declined what my host offered me to eat, said to me, "You do not love him, since you refuse him." I told him that it was not our custom to eat at all hours; but I would take what he would give me, if he did not give it to me so often. They all began to laugh; and an old woman said to me that if I wished to be loved by their tribe, I must eat a great deal. When you feed them well, they show their satisfaction with your feast in these words, tapoue nimitison, "I am eating," as if their highest contentedness were in this action; and at the end of the banquet, they will say as an act of thanks, tapoue, nikhispoun, "I am full;" meaning, "You have treated me well; I am full to bursting." They believe that it is foolish and stupid to refuse; the greatest satisfaction that they can have in their Paradise is in the stomach.

Their first act, upon awakening in the morning, is to stretch out their arms toward their bark dish full of meat, and then to eat. When I first began to stay with them, I tried to introduce the custom of praying to God before eating, and I pronounced a blessing when they wanted it done. But the Apostate said to me, "If you want to pray as many times as they will eat in your Cabin, prepare to say your blessing more than twenty times before night." They end the day as they begin it, always with a morsel in their mouths, or with their pipes to smoke when they lay their heads on the pillow to rest.

The Indians have always been gluttons, but since the coming of the Europeans, they have become such drunkards that, although they see that these new drinks, wine and brandy, are depopulating their country, they cannot abstain from drinking, taking pride in getting drunk and in making others drunk. They die in great numbers; but I am astonished that they can resist dying as long as they do. For, give two Indians two or three bottles of brandy, they will sit down and, without eating, will drink, one after the other, until they have emptied them. The Company of New France is praiseworthy in forbidding the trade in these liquors. Sir de Champlain wisely takes care that these restrictions are observed, and I have heard that General du Plessis Bochart has had them enforced at Tadoussac.

I have been told that the Indians are tolerably chaste. I shall not speak of all, not having been among them all; but those whom I have met are lewd, both men and women. In place of saying, as we do often, through wonder, "Jesus! what is that? My God! who has done that?" these vile people pronounce the names of the private parts of man and woman. Their lips are constantly foul with these obscenities; and it is the same with the little children. So I said to them that if hogs and dogs knew how to talk, they would adopt their language. If the shameless Sorcerer had not come into the Cabin where I was, I should have gained much from my people, and not one of them would dare to speak of impure things in my presence; but this impertinent fellow ruled the others. The older women go almost naked, the girls and young women are modestly clad; but, among themselves, their language has the foul odor of the sewers. However, if liberty to gorge oneself in such filth existed among some Christians, as it does among these people, one would see different exhibitions of excess from what are seen here; for, even despite the laws, immorality strides more openly in France than here, for here the eyes are not offended. The Sorcerer alone has been guilty of any brutish action in my presence; the others only offended my ears, but, perceiving that I heard them, they were ashamed.

As these people are well aware of this corruption, they prefer to take the children of their sisters as heirs, rather than their own, or than those of their brothers, calling into question the fidelity of their wives, and being sure that these nephews come from their own blood. Also, among the Hurons, who are more promiscuous than our Innu because they are better fed, it is not the child of a Captain but his sister's son who succeeds the father.

The Sorcerer told me one day that the women were fond of him, for, as the Indians say, it is his demon that makes women love him. I told him that it was not honorable for a woman to love anyone except her husband, and that he himself was not sure that his son, who was there present, was his son. He replied, "You have no sense. You French people love only your own children; but we all love all the children of our tribe." I began to laugh, seeing that he philosophized in horse and mule fashion.

With all these fine qualities, the Indians have another, more annoying, but not so wicked; it is their pleading toward strangers. I have a habit of calling these countries, "the land of pleading toward strangers," because the flies, which are the symbol and visible representation of it, do not let you rest day or night. During certain Summer months, the flies attack us with such fury, and so continually, that no skin is proof against their sting, and everyone pays his blood as tribute. I have seen persons so swollen after being stung by them that one would think they would lose their eyes, which can scarcely be seen; now this annoyance can be dispelled by smoke, which the flies cannot stand, but this remedy attracts the Indians; if they know our dinner hour, they come purposely to get something to eat. They ask continually, and with such incessant urgency, that you would say that they are always holding you by the throat. If you show them anything whatever, however little it may be adapted to their use, they will say, "do you love it? Give it to me."

A certain man said to me one day that in his country, they did not know how to conjugate the verb do, in the present, and still less in the past. The Indians are so ignorant of this conjugation that they would not give you the value of a silver coin, if they did not expect to get back two gold coins; for they are ungrateful in the highest degree.

We have kept here and fed for a long time our sick Indian, who came and threw himself into our arms to die a Christian. All his fellow-Indians were astonished at the good treatment we gave him; on his account, his children brought a little Elk meat, and they were asked what they wished in exchange, for the presents of the Indians are always trades. They asked some wine and Gunpowder, and were told that we could not give them these things; but that, if they wished something else that we had, we would give it to them gladly. A good meal was given them, and finally they carried back their meat, since we did not give them what they asked for, threatening that they would come after their father, which they did; but the good man did not wish to leave us. From this sample, judge of the whole piece.

Do not think that they act this way among themselves; on the contrary, they are grateful, liberal, and not in the least persistent toward those of their own nation. If they conduct themselves like this toward our French, and toward other foreigners, it is because we do not wish to ally ourselves with them as brothers, which they would like very much. But this would ruin us in three days, for they would want us to go with them, and eat their food as long as they had any, and then they would come and eat ours as long as it lasted; and when there was none left, we would all set to work to find more. For that is the kind of life they live, feasting as long as they have something; but, as we know nothing about their mode of hunting, and as this way of doing things is not praiseworthy, we do not listen to them. Therefore, as we do not regard ourselves as belonging to their nation, they treat us in the way I have described. If any stranger, whoever he may be, unites with their group, they will treat him as one of their own nation. A young Iroquois whose life they had spared, was like a child of their own family. But if you carry on your affairs apart from them, despising their laws or their customs, they will drain from you, if they can, even your blood. There is not an insect, nor wasp, nor gadfly, so annoying as an Indian.

Let us speak of their uncleanness. They are dirty in their habits, in their postures, in their homes, and in their eating; yet there is no lack of propriety among them, for everything that gives satisfaction to the senses, passes as propriety.

They are dirty in their homes; the entrance to their Cabins is like a pig-pen. They never sweep their houses, they carpet them at first with branches of pine, but on the third day these branches are full of fur, feathers, hair, shavings, or whittlings of wood. Yet they have no other seats, nor beds upon which to sleep. From this it may be seen how full of dirt their clothes must be; this dirt and filth does not show as much upon their clothes as upon ours.

The Sorcerer, leaving our Cabin for a while, asked me for my cloak, because it was cold, he said, as if I more exempt from the rigors of Winter. I lent it to him, and, after having used it more than a month, he returned it to me at last so nasty and dirty that I was ashamed of it, for it was covered with phlegm and other filth which gave it a different color. Seeing it in this condition, I purposely unfolded it before him, so he could see it. Knowing what I meant, he aptly remarked to me, "You say that you would like to be an Innu and Indian like us; if that is so, do not be troubled about wearing the cloak, for that is just the way our clothes look."

As to their postures, they follow their own sweet wills, and not the rules of good breeding. The Indians never prefer what is decent to what is agreeable. I have often seen the pretended magician lie down entirely naked, except a miserable strip of cloth dirtier than a dish-cloth, and blacker than an oven-mop, draw up one of his legs against his thigh, place the other upon his raised knee, and lecture his people in this position, his audience being scarcely more graceful.

As to their food, it is little cleaner than the swill given to animals, and not always even as clean. I say nothing in exaggeration, as I have tasted it and lived upon it for almost six months. We had three persons in our Cabin afflicted with scrofula, the son of the Sorcerer, whose ear was disgusting and horrid from this disease; his nephew, who had it in his neck; and a daughter, who had it under one arm. I do not know whether this is the real scrofula; whatever it is, this sore is full of pus, and covered with a horrible-looking crust. They are nearly all attacked by this disease, when young, both on account of their filthy habits, and because they eat and drink indiscriminately with the sick.

I have seen them a hundred times paddle about in the kettle containing our common drink; wash their hands in it; drink from it, thrusting in their heads, like the animals; and throw into it their leavings; for this is the custom of the Indians, to thrust sticks into it that are half-burned and covered with ashes; to dip there their bark plates covered with grease, the fur of the Moose, and hair; and to dip water with kettles as black as the chimney; and after that, we all drank from this black broth, as if it were ambrosia. This is not all; they throw there the bones that they have gnawed, then put water or snow in the kettle, let it boil, and behold their wine. One day, some shoes, which had just been taken off, fell into our drink; they soaked there as long as they pleased, and were removed without exciting any special attention, and then the water was drunk as if nothing whatever had happened. I am not fussy, but I was not thirsty as long as this wine lasted.

They never wash their hands expressly before eating, still less their kettles; and the meat they cook, not at all, although it is usually (I say this because I have seen it hundreds of times) all covered with the animal's hairs, and with those from their own heads. I have never drunk any broth among them from which I did not have to throw out many of these hairs, and a variety of other rubbish, such as cinders, little pieces of wood, and even sticks with which they have stirred the fire and frequently stirred up the contents of the kettle. I have occasionally seen them take a blazing brand and put it in the ashes to extinguish it, then, almost without shaking it, dip it into the kettle where our dinner was simmering.

When they are engaged in drying meat, they will throw down upon the ground a whole side of the Moose, beat it with stones, walk over it, trample upon it with their dirty feet; the hairs of men and of animals, the feathers of birds, if they have killed any, dirt and ashes, all these are ground into the meat, which they make almost as hard as wood with the smoke. Then when they come to eat this dried meat, all goes together into the stomach, for they have not washed it. In fact, they think that we are foolish to wash our meat, for some of the grease goes away with the water.

When the kettle begins to boil, they gather the scum carefully and eat it as a delicacy. They gave some to me as a favor, and during our famine I found it good; but since then, when I sometimes happened to decline this present, they called me fussy and proud. They take delight in hunting rats and mice, the same as rabbits, and find them just as good.

The Indians do not eat as we French do from a dish or other vessel, common to all those at the table; but one of them takes down the kettle from the fire and distributes to each one his share; sometimes presenting the meat at the end of a stick, but oftener without taking this trouble, he will throw you a piece of meat boiling hot, and full of grease, as we would throw a bone to a dog; saying, Nakhimitchimi, "Take it! this is your share, here is your food." If you are quick, you catch it in your hands; otherwise, look out that your gown does not catch it, or that the ashes do not serve as salt, for the Indians have no other.

I found myself much embarrassed, in the beginning, for not daring to cut the meat they gave me in my bark dish, for fear of spoiling the dish. I did not know how to manage it, not having any plate. Finally, I had to become an Indian with the Indians. I cast my eyes upon my companion, then I tried to be as brave a man as he was. He took his meat in his open hand, and cut from it morsel after morsel, as you would do with a piece of bread. But if the meat is a little tough, or if it slips away from the knife from being too soft, they hold one end of it with their teeth, and the other with the left hand, then the right hand plays upon it in violin fashion, the knife serving as a bow. And this is so common among the Indians that they have a word to express this action, which we could only explain with several words.

If you were to lose your knife, as there are no knife-sellers in these great forests, you are compelled to take your share in your two hands, and to bite into the flesh and into the fat, as bravely as you would bite into a quarter of an apple. God knows how the hands, the mouth, and a part of the face shine after this operation. The trouble was, I did not know upon what to wipe them. To carry linen with you would require a mule, or a daily washing; for, in less than no time, everything is converted into dish-cloths in their Cabins. As to them, they wipe their hands upon their hair, which they allow to grow long, or else upon their dogs. I saw a woman who taught me a secret; she wiped her hands upon her shoes, and I did the same. I also used Moose fur, pine branches, and, especially, powdered rotten wood. These are the hand-towels of the Indians. One does not use them as pleasantly as a piece of Holland linen, but perhaps more gaily and joyously.

THE MEATS AND OTHER DISHES WHICH THE INDIANS EAT, THEIR SEASONING, AND THEIR DRINKS.

AMONG their land animals they have the Elk, which is here generally called the Moose; Castors, which the English call Beavers; Caribou, by some called the Wild ass; they also have Bears, Badgers, Porcupines, Foxes, Hares, Whistler or Nightingale, this is an animal larger than a Hare; they eat also Martens, and three kinds of Squirrels.

As to birds, they have Bustards, white and gray Geese, several species of Ducks, Teals, Ospreys and several kinds of Divers. These are all river birds. They also catch Partridges or gray Hazel-hens, Woodcocks and Snipe of many kinds, Turtle doves, etc.

As to Fish, they catch, in the season, different kinds of Salmon, Seals, Pike, Carp, and Sturgeon of various sorts; Whitefish, Goldfish, Barbels, Eels, Lampreys, Smelt, Turtles, and others.

They eat, besides some small ground fruits, such as raspberries, blueberries, strawberries, nuts which have little meat, hazelnuts, wild apples sweeter than those of France, but much smaller; cherries, of which the flesh and pit together are not larger than the pit of the Bigarreau cherry in France. They have also other small Wild fruits of different kinds, in some places Wild Grapes; all the fruits they have (except strawberries and raspberries, which they have in abundance) are not worth one single species of the most ordinary fruits of Europe.

They eat roots, such as bulbs of the red lily; a root which has a taste of liquorice; another that our French People call "rosary," because it is distinguished by tubers in the form of beads; and some others, not numerous.

When they are pressed by famine, they eat the shavings or bark of a certain tree, which they call Michtan, which they split in the Spring to get from it a juice, sweet as honey or as sugar; I have been told of this by several, but they do not enjoy much of it, so scanty is the flow.

These are the meats and other articles of food upon which the Indians, of these countries where we are, subsist. I omit several other species of animals, but I do not recall them at present.

Besides these foods, which this people find in their own country without cultivating the soil, they have also grains and Indian corn, which they trade for Moose skins with the Hurons, who come down as far as Quebec or the Three Rivers. They also buy Tobacco from that nation, who bring large quantities of it with them every year.

Besides, they get from our French People galette, or sea biscuit, bread, prunes, peas, roots, figs, and the like. You have here the food of these poor people.

As to their drinks, they make none, either from roots or fruits, being satisfied with pure water. The broth in which they have cooked the meat, and another broth which they make of the ground and broken bones of the Elk, serve as beverages.

A certain peasant said in France that, if he were King, he would drink nothing but grease; the Indians do drink it often, and even eat and bite into it, when it is hard, as we would bite into an apple. When they have cooked a fat Bear, or two or three Beavers, in a kettle, you will see them skim off the grease from the broth with a large wooden spoon, and taste this liquor as if what they had were the sweetest wine. Sometimes they fill with it a large bark dish, and it goes the rounds of the guests at the feast, each one drinking with pleasure. At other times, having gathered this clear grease, they throw into it a quantity of snow; this they do also in their greasy soup, when they wish to drink it somewhat cool. You will see great lumps of grease floating on the top of this drink, and yet they swallow it like wine.

These are all the kinds of beverages to be found among the Indians, and which they had me taste during the Winter. There was a time when they had a horror of our European drinks; but they have now become so fond of these that they would sell themselves to get them.

They generally drink everything warm or tepid, and sometimes blame me when they see me drink cold water, telling me that I will become thin, and that it will chill me even to the bone. Also, they do not mix their eating and drinking as we do; but they first distribute the meat or other dishes; then, having eaten what they want, they divide the broth, or it is put in a certain place, and each one goes and drinks as he likes.

With all their animals, birds and fish, the Indians are almost always hungry; the reason for this is that the birds and fish are migratory. Besides, they are not great hunters, and are still poorer managers; for what they kill in one day is not seen the next, except the Elk and Eels, which they dry when they have them in great abundance. So, during the months of September and October, they live mostly upon fresh eels; in November, December and often in January, they eat their smoked eels, some Porcupines, which they take during the lighter snowfalls, also a few Beavers, if they find them.

When the heavy snows come, they eat fresh Moose meat; they dry it, to live upon the rest of the time until September; and with this they have a few birds, Bears, and Beavers, which they take in the Spring and during the Summer. If the hunt for all these animals does not succeed (which with them occurs only too often), they suffer.

THEIR FEASTS.

ONLY actual hunters, and those who have been hunters, are usually invited to their feasts, to which widows go also, especially if it is not an eat-all feast. The girls, married women, and children, are nearly always excluded. I say nearly always, for occasionally they are invited. I have known them to have "Acoumagouchanai", that is, feasts where nothing is to be left, to which everyone was invited, men, women, and little children. When they have a great abundance of food, sometimes the women have a feast of their own, where the men are not found.

Their way of inviting is straightforward and without ceremony. When all is cooked and ready to eat (for no one is invited before), someone goes through the Cabins of those who are to be invited; or else they will cry out to them this word, from the place where the feast is given, khinatonmigaouinaouau, "You are invited to the banquet." The men to whom this word is addressed, answer, ho ho, and immediately taking their own bark dish and wooden spoon, come to the Cabin of the one who is to entertain them. When all the men are not invited, those who are desired are named. The absence of ceremony spares these simple people many words.

In all the feasts, as well as in their ordinary meals, each one is given his part, from which only two or three have the best pieces, for they do not divide them. For example, they will give the tongue of a Moose and all the giblets to a single person, the tail and head of a Beaver to another; these are the best pieces, which they call Mascanou, "the Captain's part." As to the fat intestines of the Moose, which are their great delicacies, they usually roast them and let everyone taste them, as they do another dish, which they hold in high esteem, namely, the large intestine of the beast, filled with grease, and roasted, fastened to a cord, hanging and turning before the fire.

Also they are magnificent in these feasts, for they only offer the good meat, separating it expressly, and giving to each one abundantly, when they have it.

They have two kinds of feasts, one at which everything is eaten; the other at which the guests eat what they please, carrying away the rest to divide with their families. This last feast is praiseworthy, for there is no excess, each one taking as much as he likes of the portion given to him; I would venture to say that it is a happy invention to preserve friendship among them, and for each to help feed the others. For usually the heads of families only eat a part of their share, carrying the rest to their wives and children. The trouble is that their feasts come too often. In the famine through which we passed, if my host took two, three, or four Beavers, immediately, whether it was day or night, they had a feast for all the neighboring Indians. And if those people had captured something, they had one also at the same time; so that, on emerging from one feast, you went to another, and sometimes even to a third and a fourth. I told them that they did not manage well, and that it would be better to reserve these feasts for future days, and in doing this they would not be so pressed with hunger. They laughed at me. "Tomorrow" (they said) "we shall make another feast with what we shall capture." Yes, but more often they captured only cold and wind.

As to their "leave-nothing" feasts, this is one of their great devotions, because they make these feasts to have a successful chase. They must be careful that the dogs taste nothing of this, or all will be lost, and their hunting will be worthless. And notice that, the more they eat, the more effective is this feast. So they give to one man what I would not try to eat with three others. They would rather burst than to leave anything. True, they can help each other; when one can eat no more, he asks his companions to assist him; or else he may pass the remains of his part along to the others, who each one take some of it, and after all this, if anything remain, it is thrown into the fire. The one who eats the most is the most admired. You will hear them describing the prowess of their jaws, naming the quantity and the parts of the beast which they have eaten.

God knows what kind of music follows this banquet, for these Indians give full liberty to their stomachs and bellies, to utter whatever sounds they please, to relieve themselves. As to the odors that are then exhaled in their Cabins, they are stronger than the perfume of roses, but not so sweet. You see them pant and blow, like people full up to their throats; and as they are naked, I saw that they were swollen as high as their necks. Still, with it all, they have mettle there inside, for their stomachs retain what is given them. I have known only the Sorcerer's stomach to be dissatisfied with what it received; many others came near it, but they held their own. Occasionally, I have seen some of them sick after these excesses.

But let us notice the order which they observe in these banquets. Those who are to be entertained having been invited, they come each with his ouragan, or dish, and his spoon, and enter the Cabin without ceremony, each one taking his place as he comes. They seat themselves around the kettle which is over the fire, turning their plates upside down before them. Their chairs are the ground, covered with pine branches; and no order of precedence is observed. All the members of the circle are bent forward; and one is as noble as the other. Sometimes one will say to another who enters, Outaiappitou, "Come here, sit you there."

Each one sits in the posture of a monkey, drawing up his legs against his thighs. If it is an eat-all feast, not a word is said, they only sing; and if there is a Sorcerer or Manitousiou present, he beats his drum; but they are not always so strict that they do not hold some little conversation. If it is not a leave-nothing feast, they have a little conversation about their hunting, or the like, but most frequently about their pranks.

After some talk, the server of the feast, who is usually the one who gives it, takes down the kettle from the fire, or the kettles, if there are several, -- and, placing them before him, he makes a speech or begins a song, and all the others join in. Sometimes he does neither, but simply says the words at the opening of the feast, which are never omitted, namely, he declares of what it is composed; for example, he will say, "Men who are assembled here, it is such and such a one who gives this feast." They all answer in deep chest tones, ho-oo. "The feast is composed of the flesh of Beavers." They again utter this aspiration, ho-o-o. "There is also some Cornmeal." Ho-o-o, they respond, to each of the different dishes.

As to their less solemn feasts, the one who gives them addresses each one of his friends, or relatives, and says to him, "My cousin, or my uncle, here is a Beaver that I have taken, we will now eat it;" and then everyone utters his ho-o-o; and the feast has begun, from which they do not emerge until the words with which they are to terminate it are uttered. When this is done, the distributor sometimes collects the grease from the kettle and drinks it all by himself; at other times, he shares it with his friends; then again, he fills a large, deep dish which is offered to all the guests and each one drinks his share.

If the feast is of peas, flour, Cornmeal, or such half-liquid things, he takes the Ouragans, or dishes, of each one and divides what is in the kettle, as equally as he can, returning their plates to them well filled, without noticing at what end he began. There is neither honor nor disgrace in being served first or last. If the feast is of meat, he draws it out with a pointed stick, puts it into some bark dishes before him; then, having cast his eyes over the number of guests, he distributes it as he pleases, giving to each one abundantly, but not equally. For he will give the dainty morsels to his intimate friends; and even when he has given to each of them a good piece, beginning with those who are not of his Cabin, he will serve them again, even two or three times, and not the others. No one is offended at this proceeding, for it is the custom.

He usually offers the meat on the end of the stick, naming the part of the animal which he is giving; if it is the head of a Beaver or of a wild Ass, or some other animal, he will say, Nichta Koustigouanime, "My cousin, here is your head;" if it is the shoulder, he will say, "Here is your shoulder;" and if it is the intestines, he will name it in the same way; at other times they simply say, Khimitchimi, "Here is your meat." But bear in mind that they have not the ambiguity in their language that we have in ours. They tell a story about a certain one, who, meeting his friend, said to him through courtesy, "If I had something worthy of you, I would invite you to breakfast at our house, but I have nothing at all." His servant hearing him, answered in good faith, "Excuse me, Sir, you have a calf's head." If this were said in the Innu language, there would be nothing ridiculous in it, for they have nothing ambiguous in such terms, the words which mean "my own head" and "the head of an animal which is given me," being altogether different.

The one who gives the feast and who serves it never takes part, but is satisfied in watching the others, without keeping anything for himself. However, when there is a scarcity of food, as soon as the meat is taken from the kettle, his neighbor or friend chooses the best pieces for politeness and puts them aside; then when all is distributed, he presents them to the distributor himself, saying to him, "Here is your meat," and he answers like all the others, ho-o-o.

They have some ceremonies, which I do not well understand, when they have a Bear feast; the one who has killed it has the entrails roasted over some pine branches, pronouncing some words which I do not comprehend. There is some great mystery in this; also they give him the heart-bone of the animal, which he carries in a little embroidered purse hung around his neck. When they have a Moose feast, the one who has given it its deathblow, and who gives the feast, after having distributed the flesh, throws some grease into the fire, saying, papeouekou, papeouekou, of which I have already explained the meaning.

The feast distributed, if it is an eat-all, each one eats in silence, although some do say a word or two from time to time. In the other feasts, although they are usually permitted to speak, they speak little, and are astonished at the French who talk more at the table than at any other time, so they call us cackling Geese. Their mouths are almost as large as eggs, and it is the delight they have in tasting and relishing what they eat that closes their mouths, and not politeness. You would take genuine pleasure in seeing them attack, in their great bark dishes, a boiled or roasted Beaver, especially when they have just come from hunting, or in seeing them tackle a bone. I have seen them hold the foot of a Moose in their two hands by one end, the mouth and the teeth doing duty at the other, so that they seem to be playing on those long German flutes, except that they go at it with a little too much force to hold their wind long. When they are eating something that they are fond of, you will hear them say from time to time, tapoue nimitison, "I am eating," as if anyone doubted it. This is the great proof that they offer of the pleasure they experience at your feast. Having sucked, gnawed, and broken the bones which fall to them, to get out the grease and marrow, they throw them back into the kettle of broth which they are to drink afterward. At the eat-all banquets this unmannerly trick is not practiced, for there are no bones.

Having eaten the meats that have been offered, the broth is served from the kettle, each one drinking of this according to his thirst. If it is a banquet of devotion, that is, a leave-nothing feast, sometimes they are also obliged to drink all the broth. At other times, it is enough if they eat all the meat, being free to drink what they lack of the broth. When the Master of the feast sees them stop eating, he pronounces the words which terminate the banquet, which are the following, or others like them: Egou Khe Khiouiecou, "Now you will go away; return this feast when you please." The feast concluded, some remain a little while to talk, and others leave immediately, going out without saying a word; sometimes they say, Nikhiouan, "I am going;" the answer is, Niagoute, "Go then." See the profuseness of their compliments.

THEIR HUNTING AND FISHING.

LET us begin with the Elk. When there is little snow, they kill it with arrows, the first that we ate being taken in this way. But it is a great stroke of luck when they can approach these animals within range of their bows, as they scent the Indians at a great distance, and run as fast as Deer. When the snow is deep, they pursue the Elk on foot, and kill it with thrusts from javelins which are fastened on long poles for this purpose, and which they hurl when they dare not or cannot approach the beast. Sometimes they chase one of these animals for two or three days, the snow being neither hard nor deep enough; while at other times a child could almost kill them, for, the snow being frozen after a slight thaw or rain, these poor Moose are hurt by it, and cannot go far without being slaughtered.

I had been told that the Elk was as large as an Auvergne mule. True, its head is as long as that of a mule, but I find it as large as an ox. I have only seen one of them alive; it was young, and the branches or horns were just emerging from its head; I never saw in France either a heifer or young bullock that was as big or as high as it was. It is tall and erect, like the Deer; its horns are lofty, branching, and somewhat flat, not round like those of a Deer; I speak of the horns that I have seen, but there may be other kinds. I have been told that the female always bears two little ones, always male and female. On the contrary, my Indians tell me that she sometimes bears one, and sometimes two; and that once they found three in a female, which astonished them as if it were a marvel.

I have sometimes thought that, in time, these animals might be domesticated, and could be used to till the soil and to draw sledges over the snow, which would be a great comfort.

When the Indians have killed a number of Elks, and passed several days in feasting, they begin to think about drying them and laying them away. They will stretch upon poles the two sides of a large Moose, the bones of that having been removed. If the flesh is too thick, they raise it in strips and slash it besides, so that the smoke may penetrate and dry all parts. When they begin to dry or smoke this meat, they pound it with stones and tramp it under foot so that no juice may remain to spoil it. At last, when it is smoked, they fold and arrange it in packages, and this forms their future store. Dried meat is poor food, but the fresh meat of the Elk is easy to digest. It does not remain long in the stomach, therefore the Indians do not cook it much. In regard to taste, it seems to me that beef is not inferior to good Elk meat.

The Castor or Beaver is taken in several ways. The Indians say that it is the animal well-beloved by the French, English and Spanish Basques, by the Europeans. I heard my host say one day, jokingly, Missi picoutau amiscou, "The Beaver does everything perfectly well, it makes kettles, hatchets, swords, knives, bread; and it makes everything." He was making sport of us Europeans, who have such a fondness for the skin of this animal and who fight to see who will give the most to these Indians, to get it; they carry this to such an extent that my host said to me one day, showing me a beautiful knife, "The English have no sense; they give us twenty knives like this for one Beaver skin."

In the Spring, the Beaver is taken in a trap baited with the wood it eats. The Indians understand perfectly how to handle these traps, which are made to open, when a heavy piece of wood falls upon the animal and kills it. Sometimes when the dogs encounter the Beaver outside its House, they pursue and take it easily; I have never seen this chase, but have been told of it; and the Indians highly value a dog which scents and runs down this animal.

During the Winter they capture them in nets and under the ice, in this way: They make a slit in the ice near the Beaver's House, and put into the hole a net, and some wood which serves as bait. This poor animal, searching for something to eat, gets caught in a net made of good, strong, double cord; and emerging from the water to the opening made in the ice, they kill it with a big club.

The other way of taking them under the ice is more noble. Not all the Indians use this method, only the most skillful; they break with blows from the hatchet the Cabin or house of the Beaver, which is wonderfully made. In my opinion no musket ball can pierce it. During the Winter it is built upon the shore of some little river or pond, is two stories high, and round. The materials of which it is composed are wood and mud, so well joined and bound together that I have seen our Indians in Midwinter sweat in trying to make an opening into it with their hatchets. The lower story is in or upon the edge of the water, the upper is above the river. When the cold has frozen the rivers and ponds, the, Beaver secludes himself in the upper story, where he has provided himself with wood to eat during the Winter. He sometimes, however, descends from this story to the lower one, and from there he glides out under the ice, through the holes which are in this lower story and which open under the ice. He goes out to drink and to search for the wood that he eats, which grows upon the banks of the pond and in the pond itself. This wood at the bottom is fastened in the ice and the Beaver goes below to cut it and carry it to his house. The Indians having broken this house, these poor animals, which are sometimes in great numbers under one roof, disappear under the ice, some on one side, some on the other, seeking hollow and thin places between the water and ice, where they can breathe. Their enemies, knowing this, go walking over the pond or frozen river, carrying a long club in their hands, armed on one side with an iron blade made like a Carpenter's chisel, and on the other with a Whale's bone, I believe. They sound the ice with this bone, striking upon it and examining it to see if it is hollow; and if there is any indication of this, then they cut the ice with their iron blade, looking to see if the water is stirred up by the movement or breathing of the Beaver. If the water moves, they have a curved stick which they thrust into the hole that they have just made; if they feel the Beaver, they kill it with their big club, which they call ca ouikachit; and drawing it out of the water, go and make a feast of it at once, unless they have great hopes of taking others.

I asked them why the Beaver waited there until it was killed. "Where will it go?" they said to me; "its house is broken to pieces and the other places where it could breathe between the water and ice are broken; it remains there in the water, seeking air, and meanwhile it is killed." Sometimes it goes out through its House, or some hole; but the dogs which are there, scenting and waiting for it, have soon caught it.

When there is a river nearby, or an arm of water connecting with the pond where they are, they slip into that; but the Indians dam up these rivers when they discover them, breaking the ice and planting a number of stakes near each other, so that the Beaver may not escape in that direction. I have seen large lakes which saved the lives of the Beavers; for our people, not being able to break all the places where they could breathe, therefore could not trap their prey.

Sometimes there are two families of Beavers in the same House, two males and two females, with their little ones. The female bears as many as seven, but usually four, five, or six. They have four teeth, two below, and two above, which are wonderfully drawn out; the other two are small, but these are large and sharp. They are used to cut the wood for their food, and the wood with which they build their house; they sharpen these teeth when they are dull, by rubbing and pressing them against each other, making a little noise which I have myself heard.

The Beaver has soft fur, the hats made of it being an evidence of this. It has short feet which are well adapted to swimming, for the nails are united by skin, in the same way as those of river-birds or seals; its tail is entirely flat, long and oval-shaped. I measured one of a large Beaver; it was a palm and eight fingers in length, and almost one palm of the hand in width. It was thick, and was covered, not with hair, but with a black skin looking like scales; however, these are not real scales. The Beaver here is regarded as an amphibious animal, and therefore it is eaten in all seasons. My idea is that the grease when melted is more like oil than grease; the flesh is good, but a little stale in the Spring, and not so in Winter. But if the pelt of the Beaver excels the pelt of the sheep, the flesh of the sheep is superior to that of the Beaver, not only because it tastes better, but also because the Sheep is larger than the Beaver.

The Porcupine is taken in a trap, or by hunting with dogs. The dog having discovered it, it is sure to be killed if it is not near its abode, which it makes under large rocks; having reached this, it is in a place of safety, for neither men nor dogs can crawl into it. It cannot run upon the snow, and is therefore soon put to death. It is hardly larger than a good-sized sucking-pig. Its points or quills are white, long, and rather thin, interlaced and mixed with black or grayish hair.

In France, I have seen specimens of the Porcupine with quills three times longer and ten times thicker, and much stiffer than those of the Porcupines of this country. The Indians have told me that near the Saguenay river, toward the North, these animals are much larger. They singe them as we do pigs in France; and, after they are scraped, they are boiled or roasted, and are quite edible, although rather tough, especially the old ones, but the young ones are tender and delicate. But in taste they are not equal to either our Wild Boar or our common Pig.

This animal has crooked feet, which it turns outward. Its quills have this peculiarity: if they stick into a dog or person they keep on penetrating, insinuating themselves or slipping in, little by little, and coming Out opposite where they entered. For example, if they stick into the back of the hand they will go through it, and come out on the inside. I have often seen dogs bristling with these quills, already thrust half-way into them when their Masters draw them out. Wishing to examine the first one that was brought into the Cabin where I was staying with the Indians, I caught it by the tail and drew it toward me. All those who were looking on began to laugh at the way I went at it; and although I had tried to take hold of it adroitly, still a number of these little spears stuck into my hand, for there is no needle so sharp. I immediately drew them out, and threw them into the fire.

Bears are taken in a trap, in the Spring. In the Winter they are found in hollow trees, to which they withdraw, passing several months without eating, and yet they continue to be fat. They fell a tree, to make their prey emerge, which they kill upon the snow, or as it is coming from its abode.

Hares are caught in nets, or are killed with arrows or darts. I have already stated elsewhere that these animals are white during the snow, and gray at other times. They seem to be a little higher and more rough-footed than those of France. They kill Martens and Squirrels in the same way. These are the methods of hunting land animals, so far as I have seen them.

As to the birds, some are killed with bows, arrows and Darts being used; but this is done rarely. Since they have come into possession of firearms, through their trade with the English, they have become fair Huntsmen, some of them shooting very well. My host is one of their best musketeers; I have seen him kill Canadian geese, Ducks and Snipes; but their gunpowder is soon exhausted.

As to their fishing, they use nets as we do, which they get in trade from the French and Hurons. They have a special way of fishing for Salmon; but, not having seen it, I will not speak of it.

In regard to Eels, they fish for them in two ways, with a weir and with a harpoon. They make the weirs ingeniously, long and broad, capable of holding five or six hundred eels. When the water is low, they place these upon the sand in a suitable and retired spot, securing them so that they are not carried away by the tides. At the two sides they collect stones, which they extend out like a chain or little wall on both sides; so that this fish, which always swims toward the bottom, encountering this obstacle, will readily swim toward the mouth of the net, to which these stones guide it. When the sea rises, it covers the net; then, when it falls, they go and examine it. Sometimes they find there one or two hundred Eels in a single tide, at other times three hundred, often none at all; at other times six, eight, ten, according to the winds and the weather. When the sea is rough, many of them are taken; when it is calm, few or none, and then they rely on their harpoon.

This harpoon is an instrument composed of a long pole, two or three fingers thick, at the end of which they fasten a piece of pointed iron, which is provided on both sides with two little curved sticks, which almost come together at the end of the iron point. When they strike an eel with this harpoon, they impale it upon the iron, the two pieces of stick yielding by the force of the blow and allowing the eel to enter; then closing of themselves, because they only open through the force of the blow, they prevent the impaled eel from getting away. This harpoon fishing is usually done only at night. Two Indians enter a canoe, one at the stern, who handles the oars, and the other at the bow, who, by the light of a bark torch fastened to the prow of his boat, looks around searchingly for the prey, floating gently along the shores of this great river.

When he sees an Eel, he thrusts his harpoon down, without loosening his hold of it, pierces it in the manner I have described, then throws it into his canoe. There are certain ones who will take three hundred in one night, and even more, sometimes few. It is wonderful how many of these fish are found in this great river in September and October; and this immediately in front of the settlement of our French, some of whom, having lived several years in this country, have become as expert as the Indians in this art. It is thought that this great abundance is supplied by some lakes in the country farther north, discharging their waters here, and making us a present of this manna that nourishes us.

The Indians dry these long fish in smoke. After they are brought into their Cabins, they let them drain a little while; then, cutting off their heads and tails, they open them up the back, and after they are cleaned, they are cut with slits, so that the smoke may thoroughly penetrate them. The poles of their Cabins are all loaded with these eels. After being well smoked, they are piled together in large packages, about a hundred being placed in each. Here you have their food up to the season of snow, which brings them the Moose.

They kill the Seal with blows from a club, surprising it when it comes out of the water. It goes to Sun itself upon the rocks, and not being able to run, if it is ever so little distant from its element it is lost.

Whoever wishes to gain a full knowledge of these countries should read what Sir de Champlain has written about them. But, before I pass on, I must say a few words about four animals that I have never seen in France.

One of them is called by the Indians Ouinascou; our French call it the whistler or Nightingale. They have given it this name, because although it belongs to land animals, yet it sings like a bird; I might say that it whistles like a well taught Linnet, except that I think it only knows one song; that is to say, it has not a great variety of tones, but it says very well the lesson that nature has taught it. It is about the size of a Hare and has a reddish skin. Some have assured me that it rolls itself into a ball, and, like the Dormouse, it sleeps all Winter, it being impossible to awaken it. I have only seen this animal in the Summer; it is excellent eating, and excels the Hare.

The other is a low animal, about the size of a little dog or cat. I have seen three or four of them. It has black fur, beautiful and shining; and has upon its back two perfectly white stripes, which join near the neck and tail, making an oval which adds to their grace. The tail is bushy and well furnished with hair, like the tail of a Fox; it carries it curled back like that of a Squirrel. It is more white than black; and at the first glance, you would say, especially when it walks, that it ought to be called Jupiter's little dog. But it is so stinking and casts so foul an odor that it is unworthy of being called the dog of Pluto. No sewer ever smelled so bad. I would not have believed it if I had not smelled it myself. Your heart almost fails you when you approach the animal; two have been killed in our court, and several days afterward there was such a dreadful odor throughout our house that we could not endure it.

The third is a flying Squirrel. There are three kinds of squirrels here. The first are the common squirrels, which are not so beautiful as those in France. The others, which our French call Swiss, because they are spotted upon the back, are beautiful and small. The flying Squirrels are rather pretty, but their chief merit lies in their flying. Not that they have wings, but they have a certain piece of skin on both sides, which they fold up neatly against their stomachs when they walk, and spread out when they fly. I do not think they take long flights; I saw one of them flying, and it sustained itself well in the air. My host gave me one; I would send it to you, but death has freed it from so long a voyage.

The fourth is called by our French the fly-bird, because it is scarcely larger than a bee; others call it the flower-bird, because it lives upon flowers. It is in my opinion one of the great rarities of this country, and a little marvel of nature. God is more wondrous in this little bird than in a large animal. It hums in flying, like the bee; I have sometimes seen it hold itself in the air and stick its bill into a flower. Its bill is rather long, and its plumage seems to be a mottled green. Those who call it the flower-bird would speak more correctly if they would call it the flower of birds.

THEIR CLOTHES AND ORNAMENTS.

Our wandering Innu Indians' only thought is to live; they eat to live; they cover themselves to keep off the cold, and not for the sake of appearance. Grace, politeness, the knowledge of the arts, natural sciences, and much less supernatural truths, have no place in this hemisphere, or at least in these countries.

These people do not think there is any other science in the world, except that of eating and drinking; and in this lies all their Philosophy. They are astonished at the value we place upon books, seeing that a knowledge of them does not give us anything with which to drive away hunger. They cannot understand what we ask from God in our prayers. "Ask him," they say to me, "for Moose, Bears, and Beavers; tell him that you wish them to eat;" and when I tell them that those are only trifling things, that there are still greater riches to demand, they laughingly reply, "What could you wish better than to eat your fill of these good dishes?" They have nothing but life; yet they are not always sure of that, since they often die of hunger.

During the Winter all kinds of garments are appropriate to them, and all are common to both women and men, there being no difference at all in their clothes; anything is good, provided it is warm. They are dressed properly when they are dressed comfortably. Give them a hood, and a man will wear it as well as a woman; for there is no article of dress, however foolish, which they will not wear in all seriousness if it helps to keep them warm. Since they have had communication with our Europeans, they are more motley than the Swiss. I have seen a little six-year-old girl dressed in the greatcoat of her father, who was a large man; yet no Tailor was needed to Adjust it to her size, for it was gathered around her body and tied like a bundle of sticks. One has a red hood, another a green one, and another a gray, all made, not in the fashion of the Court, but in the way best suited to their convenience. Another will wear a hat with the brim cut off, if it happens to be too broad.

The women have for dress a long shirt, or a hooded cloak, or a greatcoat, or a blanket, or some skins tied in as many places as may be necessary to keep out the wind. A man will wear one sock of leather, and another of cloth; just now they are cutting up their old coverings or blankets, with which to make sleeves or socks; and imagine how neatly and smoothly they fit. To them, propriety is convenience; and as they only clothe themselves according to the needs of the weather, as soon as the air becomes warm or when they enter their Cabins, they throw off their garments and the men remain entirely naked, except a strip of cloth which conceals what cannot be seen without shame. As to the women, they take off their bonnets, sleeves and stockings, the rest of the body remaining covered. In this you have the clothing of the Indians, now during their communication and association with our French.

These people always go bareheaded, except in the most severe cold, and even then some of them go uncovered, which makes me think that few of them used hats before their communication with our Europeans; nor do they know how to make them, buying them already made, or at least cut, from our French people. So for their head gear they have nothing but their hair, both, men and women and even the children, for they are bareheaded in their swaddling clothes.

Their clothes are made of the skin of Elk, Bears, and other animals. The ones that they value the most are made of the skins of a kind of little black animal found in the Huron country; it is about the size of a Rabbit, the skin is soft and shiny, and it takes about sixty of them to make a robe. The tails of the animals are fastened to the bottom, to serve as fringe; and the heads above, to make a sort of border. These robes are nearly square in shape; the women paint colored stripes on them from top to bottom, which are about as wide as two thumbs, and are equally distant from each other, giving the effect of a kind of lace-work.

The men wear their robes in two ways. When it is a little warm they do not put these around them, but carry them over one arm and under the other; or else stretched across the back, and held in place by two little leather strings which they tie over the chest. This does not prevent them from appearing almost naked. When it is cold they all, men and women, wear the robe under one arm and over the shoulder of the other, then crossed; and therefore they wrap themselves up comfortably, though awkwardly, against the cold; for when this garment is tied below the chest, they turn it up, fasten and tie it down near the belt or middle of the body, these folds forming a big belly or large flap in which they carry their little belongings. I once saw a comedian in a theater in France, whose belly was built out exactly like those affected by our Indian Men and Women in Winter.

As these robes do not cover their arms, they make themselves sleeves of the same skin, and draw upon them the stripes of which I have spoken, sometimes lengthwise, sometimes around. These sleeves are broad at the top, covering the shoulders and almost uniting at the back, two little strings fastening them in front and behind, but so clumsily that a bundle of thorn-sticks are better put together than the women are muffled up in these skins. There is no difference between the garments of a man and those of a woman, except that the woman is always covered with her robe, while the men discard theirs or wear them carelessly in warm weather.

Their socks are made of Moose skin, from which the hair has been removed, nature and not art setting the fashion for them; they are considered well made if the feet and legs go into them, no ingenuity being used in making corners; they are made like boots, and are fastened under the foot with a little string. The seam, which is scarcely more than basted, is not at the back of the leg, but on the inside. When they sew them, they leave an edge of the skin itself, which they cut into fringe, occasionally fastening to this a few decorations. These socks are long, especially in front, for they leave a piece which reaches quite high, and covers a great part of the thigh; to the upper edge of this piece are fastened small cords, tied to a leather belt which they all wear next to their skin.

Their shoes are not hard like ours, for they do not know enough to tan the leather. Our deerskin gloves are made of skin which is firmer, or at least as firm, as their Moose skins of which they make their shoes. Also they have to wait until these hides have been used as robes, and until they are well oiled, otherwise their shoes would shrink at the first approach to the fire, which they do anyhow, well oiled as they are, if they are brought too near the heat. Besides, they absorb water like a sponge, so that the Indians cannot use them in this Element, but they are serviceable against snow and cold. It is the women who are the seamstresses and shoemakers; it costs them nothing to learn this trade, and much less to procure diplomas as master workmen; a child that could sew a little could make the shoes at the first attempt, so ingeniously are they designed.

They make them large and capacious, especially in the Winter. To furnish them against the cold, they generally use a Rabbit skin, or a piece of an old blanket folded two or three times; with this they put some Moose hair; and then, having wrapped their feet in these rags, they put on their shoes, occasionally wearing two pairs, the one over the other. They tie them over the instep with a little string which is wound about the corners of the Shoe. During the snows we all, French and Indians, have made use of this kind of foot gear, to walk upon our Snowshoes; when the Winter had passed, we resumed our French shoes, and the Indians went barefoot.

Those who can have or buy our French shirts wear them in the new fashion; for, instead of wearing them under, as we do, they put them on over all their clothes, and, as they never wash them, they are in no time as greasy as dish-cloths; but this is just as they wish them to be, for the water, they say, runs over them and does not penetrate into their clothes.

THE LANGUAGE OF THE INNU INDIANS.

I WROTE last year that their language was rich and poor, full of abundance and full of scarcity, scarcity appearing in a thousand different ways. All words for piety, devotion, virtue; all terms which are used to express the things of the other life; the language of Theologians, Philosophers, Mathematicians, and Physicians, of all learned men; all words which refer to the regulation and government of a city, Province, or Empire; all that concerns justice, reward and punishment; the names of an infinite number of arts which are in our Europe; of an infinite number of flowers, trees, and fruits; of an infinite number of animals, of thousands and thousands of contrivances, of a thousand beauties and riches, all these things are never found either in the thoughts or upon the lips of the Indians. As they have no true religion nor knowledge of the virtues, neither public authority nor government, neither Kingdom nor Republic, nor sciences, consequently all the expressions, terms, words, and names which refer to that world of wealth and grandeur must necessarily be absent from their vocabulary; so the great scarcity. Let us now turn the tables and show that this language is fairly gorged with richness.

First, I find an infinite number of proper nouns among them, which I cannot explain in our French, except by circumlocutions.

Second, they have some Verbs which I call absolute, to which neither the Greeks, nor Latins, nor we, nor any language of Europe with which I am familiar, have anything similar. For example, the verb Nimitison means, "I eat," without saying what; for, if you determine the thing you eat, you have to use another Verb.

Third, they have different Verbs to indicate an action toward an animate or toward an inanimate object; and yet they join with animate things a number of things that have no souls, as tobacco, apples, etc. Let us give some examples: "I see a man," Niouapaman iriniou; "I see a stone," niouabate; but in Greek, in Latin, and in French the same Verb is used to express, "I see a man, a stone, or anything else." "I strike a dog," ni noutinau attimou; "I strike wood," ninoutinen misticou. This is not all; for, if the action terminates on several animate objects, another Verb has to be used, "I see some men," niouapamaoueth irinioueth, ninoutinaoueth attimoueth, and so on with all the others.

In the fourth place, they have Verbs suitable to express an action which terminates on the person reciprocal, and others still which terminate on the things that belong to him; and we cannot use these Verbs, referring to other persons not reciprocal, without speaking improperly. I will explain myself. The Verb nitaouin means, "I make use of something;" nitaouin agouniscouehon, "I am using a hat;" but when I come to say, "I am using his hat", that is, the hat of the man of whom I speak, we must change the verb and say, Nitaouiouan outagoumiscouhon; but, if it be an animate thing, the verb must again be changed, for example, "I am using his dog," nitaouiouan otaimai. Also observe that all these verbs have their moods, tenses and persons; and that they are conjugated differently, if they have different terminations. This abundance is not found in the languages of Europe; I know it of some, and conjecture it in regard to others.

In the fifth place, they use some words upon the land, and others upon the water, to indicate the same thing. As, for instance, I want to say, "I arrived yesterday;" if by land, I must say, nitagochinin outagouchi, if by water, I must say, nimichagan outagouchi. I wish to say, "I was wet by the rain;" if it were in walking upon land, I must say, nikimiouanoutan, if it were upon the water, nikhimiouanutan. "I am going to look for something;" if upon land, I must say, ninaten, if by water, ninahen; if it is an animate thing, and upon land, I must say, ninatau; if it be animate and in the water, I must say, ninahimouau; if it is an animate thing that belongs to someone, I must say, ninahimouau; if it is not animate, niuahimouau. What a variety! We have in French only a single expression for all these things.

In the sixth place, a single one of our adjectives in French is associated with all our substantives. For example, we say, "the bread is cold, the tobacco is cold, the iron is cold;" but in our Indian tongue these adjectives change according to the different kinds of substantives, tabiscau assini, "the stone is cold;" tacabisisiou nouspouagan," my tobacco pipe is cold; "takhisiou khichtemau, "this tobacco is cold;" tacascouan misticou, "the wood is cold." If it is a large piece, tacascouchan misticou, "the wood is cold;" siicatchiou attimou, "this dog is cold;" and therefore you see a strange abundance. All these adjectives, and even all the nouns, are conjugated like Latin impersonal verbs. For example, tabiscau assini, "the stone is cold;" tabiscaban, "it was cold;" cata tabiscan, "it will be cold;" and so on. Noutaoui, is a noun which means, "my father;" noutaouiban, "it was my father, or my deceased father;" Cata noutaoui, "it will be my father," if such expressions could be used.

In the seventh place, they have so tiresome an abundance that I am almost led to believe that I shall remain poor all my life in their language. When you know all the parts of Speech of the languages of our Europe, and know how to combine them, you know the languages; but it is not so concerning the tongue of our Indians. Stock your memory with all the words that stand for each particular thing, learn the knot or Syntax that joins them together, and you are still only an ignoramus; with that, you can make yourself understood by the Indians, although not always, but you will not be able to understand them. The reason for this is that, besides the names of each particular thing, they have an infinite number of words which indicate several things together. If I wish to say in French, "the wind drives the snow," it is enough for me to know these three words, "the wind," the verb "drive," and "the snow," and to know how to combine them; but it is not so here. I know how they say "the wind," routin; how they say "it drives something noble," as the snow is in the Indian estimation, the word for this is rakhineou; I know how they say "it snow," it is coune. But, if I try to combine these three words, Routin rakhineou coune, the Indians will not understand me; or, if they understand, will begin to laugh, because they do not talk like that, merely making use of a single word, piouan, to say "the wind drives or makes the snow fly."

Likewise, the verb nisiicatchin, means "I am cold;" the noun nissitai, means "my feet;" if I say nisiicat chin nissitai, to say "my feet are cold," they will understand me; but I shall not understand them when they say Nitatagouasisin, which is the proper word to say, "my feet are cold." And what hinders the memory is that such a word has neither relation, nor any affinity, in its sound, with the other two; it often happens that I make them laugh in talking, when I try to follow the construction of the Latin or French language, not knowing these words which mean several things at once. From this it happens, also, that often I do not understand them, although they understand me; for as they do not use the words which indicate one thing in particular, but rather those that mean a combination of things, I knowing only the first, and not even the half of those, could not understand them if they did not have sufficient intelligence to vary and choose more common words, for then I try to unravel them.

This is enough to show the richness of their language; if I were thoroughly acquainted with it, I would speak with more certainty. I believe they have other riches which I have not been able to discover.

The Innu have not so many letters in their Alphabet as we have in ours; they confuse B and P, and also C, G, and K; that is, if two Indians were to pronounce the same word, you would think that one was pronouncing a B, and the other a P, or that one was using a C or K, and the other a G. They do not have the letters F, L, consonant V, X, and Z. They use R instead of L, saying Sir du Pressi for Sir du Plessi; they utter the sound of P instead of consonant V, Sir Olipier instead of Sir Olivier. But, as their tongues are flexible, they will soon acquire our pronunciation if they are instructed, especially the children. Father Brebeuf tells me that the Hurons have no M, at which I am astonished, for this letter is almost natural, so extensively is it used.

If you ask me if I made much progress in the knowledge of this language during the winter I spent with these Indians, I answer frankly, "no;" and here are the reasons:

First, my defective memory, which was never good, and which continues to wither every day. Oh, what an excellent man for these countries is Father Brebeuf! His excellent memory, and his amiability and gentleness, will produce much good among the Hurons.

Second, the malice of the sorcerer, who sometimes prevented them from teaching me.

Third, the deceit of the Apostate, who, contrary to his promise, and despite the offers I made him, was never willing to teach me, his disloyalty even going so far as to purposely give me a word of one meaning for another.

In the fourth place, famine was for a long time our guest; and I scarcely ventured in her presence to question our Indians, their stomachs not being like barrels which sound all the louder for being empty; they resemble the drum, -- the tighter it is drawn, the better it talks.

In the fifth place, my attacks of illness made me give up the care for the languages of earth, to think about the language of the other life where I was expecting to go.

In the sixth place, the difficulty of this language, which is not slight, has been no small obstacle to prevent a poor memory like mine from advancing far. Still, I talk a jargon, and, by force of shouting, can make myself understood.

I almost fear I shall never be able to speak the Indian tongues with the fluency necessary to preach to them, and to answer at once, without stumbling, their demands and objections, being so occupied as I have been.

WHAT ONE MUST SUFFER IN WINTERING WITH THE INDIANS.

EPICTETUS says that he who intends to visit the public baths must previously consider all the improprieties that will be committed there; so that, when he finds himself surrounded by the derision of a mob of scoundrels who would rather wash his head than his feet, he may lose none of the gravity and modesty of a wise man. I might say the same to those who desire to cross over the seas, to seek and to instruct the Indians. It is for their sake that I shall pen this Chapter, so that, knowing the enemy they will encounter, they may not forget to fortify themselves with the weapons necessary for the combat, especially with patience of iron or bronze, or rather with a patience entirely of gold, to bear bravely the great trials that must be endured among these people. Let us begin by speaking of the house they will have to live in, if they wish to follow them.

To have some conception of the beauty of this structure, its construction must be described. I shall speak from knowledge, for I have often helped to build it. When we arrived at the place where we were to camp, the women, armed with axes, went in the great forests, cutting the frame-work of the inn where we were to lodge; meanwhile the men, having drawn the plan of that, cleared away the snow with their snowshoes, or with shovels which they make and carry expressly for this purpose. Imagine now a great ring or square in the snow, two, three or four feet deep, according to the weather or the place where they encamp. This depth of snow makes a white wall for us, which surrounds us on all sides, except the end where it is broken through to form the door. The framework having been brought, which consists of twenty or thirty poles, more or less, according to the size of the cabin, it is planted, not upon the ground but upon the snow; then they throw upon these poles, which converge a little at the top, two or three rolls of bark sewed together, beginning at the bottom, and the house is made. The ground inside, as well as the wall of snow which extends all around the cabin, is covered with little branches of fir; and as a finishing touch, a wretched skin is fastened to two poles to serve as a door, the doorposts being the snow itself. Let us examine in detail all the comforts of this elegant Mansion.

You cannot stand upright in this house, as much on account of its low roof as the suffocating smoke; and consequently you must always lie down, or sit flat upon the ground, the usual posture of the Indians. When you go out, the cold, the snow, and the danger of getting lost in these great woods drive you in again more quickly than the wind, and keep you a prisoner in a dungeon which has neither lock nor key.

This prison, in addition to the uncomfortable position that one must occupy upon a bed of earth, has four other great discomforts, cold, heat, smoke, and dogs. As to the cold, you have the snow at your head with only a pine branch between, often nothing but your hat, and the winds are free to enter in a thousand places. For do not imagine that these pieces of bark are joined as paper is glued and fitted to a window frame; they are often like the plant mille-pertuis, except that their holes and their openings are a little larger; and even if there were only the opening at the top, which serves at once as window and chimney, the coldest winter in France could come in there every day without any trouble. When I lay down at night I could study through this opening both the Stars and the Moon as easily as if I had been in the open fields.

Still, the cold did not annoy me as much as the heat from the fire. A little place like their cabins is easily heated by a good fire, which sometimes roasted and broiled me on all sides, for the cabin was so narrow that I could not protect myself against the heat. You cannot move to right or left, for the Indians, your neighbors, are at your elbows; you cannot withdraw to the rear, for you encounter the wall of snow, or the bark of the cabin which shuts you in. I did not know what position to take. Had I stretched myself out, the place was so narrow that my legs would have been halfway in the fire; to roll myself up in a ball, and crouch down in their way, was a position I could not retain as long as they could; my clothes were all scorched and burned. You will ask me perhaps if the snow at our backs melted under so much heat. I answer, "no, no;" that if sometimes the heat softened it, the cold immediately turned it into ice. However, both the cold and the heat are endurable, and some remedy may be found for these two evils.

But, as to the smoke, it is martyrdom. It almost killed me, and made me weep continually, although I had neither grief nor sadness in my heart. It sometimes grounded all of us who were in the cabin; that is, it caused us to place our mouths against the earth to breathe. For, although the Indians were accustomed to this torment, yet occasionally it became so dense that they, as well as I, were compelled to prostrate themselves, and to eat the earth, to not drink the smoke. I have sometimes remained several hours in this position, especially during the most severe cold and when it snowed; for it was then the smoke attacked us with the greatest fury, seizing us by the throat, nose, and eyes. How bitter is this drink! How strong its odor! How hurtful to the eyes are its fumes!

I sometimes thought I was going blind; my eyes burned like fire, they wept or distilled drops like an alembic; I no longer saw anything distinctly, like the good man who said, video homines velut arbores ambulantes. I repeated the Psalms of my prayer book as best I could, knowing them half by heart, and waited until the pain might relax a little to recite the lessons; and when I came to read them they seemed written in letters of fire, or of scarlet; I have often closed my book, seeing things so confusedly that it injured my sight.

Someone will tell me that I ought to have gone out from this smoky hole to get some fresh air; and I answer him that the air was usually so cold at those times that the trees, which have a harder skin than man, and a more solid body, could not stand it, splitting even to the core, and making a noise like the report of a musket. Still, I occasionally emerged from this den, fleeing the rage of the smoke to place myself at the mercy of the cold, against which I tried to arm myself by wrapping up in my blanket like an Irishman; and in this garb, seated upon the snow or a fallen tree, I recited my Hours; the trouble was, the snow had no more pity upon my eyes than the smoke.

As to the dogs, which I mentioned as one of the discomforts of the Indians' houses, I do not know that I ought to blame them, for they have sometimes rendered me good service. True, they exacted from me the same courtesy they gave, so that we reciprocally aided each other, illustrating the idea of mutuum auxilium. These poor beasts, not being able to live outdoors, came and lay down sometimes upon my shoulders, sometimes upon my feet, and as I only had one blanket to serve both as covering and mattress, I was not sorry for this protection, willingly restoring to them a part of the heat which I drew from them. As they were large and numerous, they occasionally crowded and annoyed me so much that in giving me a little heat, they robbed me of my sleep, so that I often drove them away. In doing this one night, there happened to me a little incident which caused some confusion and laughter: an Indian having thrown himself upon me while asleep, I thought it was a dog, and finding a club at hand, I hit him, crying out, "Ache, Ache", the words they use to drive away the dogs. My man woke up astonished, thinking that all was lost; but having discovered from where came the blows, "You have no sense," he said to me, "it is not a dog, it is I." At these words I do not know who was the more astonished of us two; I gently dropped my club, sorry at having found it so near me.

Let us return to our dogs. These animals, being famished, as they have nothing to eat, any more than we, do nothing but run to and fro gnawing at everything in the cabin. As we were as often lying down as sitting up in these bark houses, they frequently walked over our faces and stomachs; and so often and persistently, that, being tired of shouting at them and driving them away, I would sometimes cover my face and then give them liberty to go where they wanted. If anyone happened to throw them a bone, there was immediately a race for it, overturning all whom they encountered sitting, unless they held themselves firmly. They have often overturned my bark dish, and all it contained, in my gown. I was amused whenever there was a quarrel among them at our dinner table, for there was not one of us who did not hold his plate down with both hands on the ground, which serves as table, seat, and bed both to men and dogs. From this custom arose the great annoyance we experienced from these animals, who thrust their noses into our bark plates before we could get our hands in. I have said enough about the inconveniences of the Indians' houses, let us speak of their food.

When I first went away with them, as they salt neither their soup nor their meat, and as filth itself presides over their cooking, I could not eat their mixtures, and contented myself with a few sea biscuit and smoked eel; until at last, my host took me to task because I ate so little, saying that I would starve myself before the famine overtook us. Meanwhile, our Indians had feasts every day, so that in a short time we found ourselves without bread, without flour, without eels, and without any means of helping ourselves. For besides being far in the woods, where we would have died a thousand times before reaching the French settlement, we were wintering on the other side of the great river, which cannot be crossed in this season on account of the great masses of ice which are continually floating about, and which would crush not only a small boat but even a great ship.

As for hunting, the snows not being deep compared to other years, they could not take the Elk, and so brought back only some Beavers and Porcupines, but in so small a number and so seldom that they kept us from dying rather than helped us to live. My host said to me during this time of scarcity, "Chibine, harden your soul, resist hunger; you will be sometimes two, sometimes three or four days without food; do not let yourself be cast down, take courage; when the snow comes, we shall eat." It was not our Lord's will that they should be so long without capturing anything; but we usually had something to eat once in two days; we often had a Beaver in the morning and, in the evening of the next day, a Porcupine as big as a suckling Pig. This was not much for nineteen of us, but this little sufficed to keep us alive. When I could have, toward the end of our supply of food, the skin of an Eel for my day's food, I considered that I had breakfasted, dined, and supped well.

At first, I had used one of these eel skins to patch the cloth gown that I wore, as I forgot to bring some pieces with me; but when I was so sorely pressed with hunger, I ate my pieces; and if my gown had been made of the same stuff, I would have brought it back home much shorter than it was. Indeed, I ate old Moose skins, which are much tougher than those of the Eel; I went through the woods biting the ends of the branches, and gnawing the more tender bark. Our neighboring Indians suffered still more than we did, some of them coming to see us, and telling us that their comrades had died of hunger. I saw some who had eaten only once in five days, and who considered themselves well off if they found something to dine upon at the end of two days; they were reduced to skeletons, being little more than skin and bones. We occasionally had some good meals; but for every good dinner we went three times without supper.

When a young Indian of our cabin was dying of hunger, they often asked me if I was not afraid, if I had no fear of death; and seeing me firm, they were astonished, once in particular, when I saw them almost falling into a state of despair. When they reach this point, they play at "save himself who can;" throwing away their bark and baggage, deserting each other, and abandoning all interest in the common welfare, each one strives to find something for himself. Then the children, women, and for that matter all those who cannot hunt, die of cold and hunger. If they had reached this extremity, I would have been among the first to die.

So these are the things that must be expected before undertaking to follow them; for, although they may not be pressed with famine every year, yet they run the risk every winter of not having food or little, unless there are heavy snowfall and a great many Moose, which does not always happen.

If you were to ask me what my feelings were in the terrors of death, and of a death so lingering as is what comes from hunger, I can hardly tell.

After this famine, we had some good days. The snow, which had been only too deep to be cold, but too shallow to take the Moose, having increased toward the end of January, our Hunters captured some Moose, which they dried. Either on account of my lack of moderation, or because this meat, dried as hard as wood and as dirty as the street, did not agree with my stomach, I fell sick in the beginning of February. So see me obliged to remain all the time lying upon the cold ground; this did not tend to cure me of the severe cramps that tormented me and compelled me to go out at all hours of the day and night, plunging me every time in snow up to my knees and sometimes almost up to my waist, especially when we had first begun our encampment in anyone place. These severe attacks lasted about eight or ten days, and were accompanied by a pain in the stomach, and a weakness in the heart, which spread through my whole body. I recovered from this sickness, but not entirely, for I was only dragging myself around at mid-Lent, when I was again seized with this disease. I tell the following to show how little help may be expected from the Indians when a person is sick. Being thirsty one day, I asked for a little water; they said there was none, and that they would give me some melted snow if I wanted it. As this drink was bad for my disease, I made my host understand that I had seen a lake not far from there, and that I would like to have some of that water. He pretended not to hear, because the road was somewhat bad; and it happened like this not only this time, but at any place where the river or brook was a little distance from our cabin. We had to drink this snow melted in a kettle whose copper was less thick than the dirt; if anyone wishes to know how bitter this drink is, let him take some from a kettle just out of the smoke and taste it.

As to the food, they divide with a sick man just as with the others; if they have fresh meat they give him his share, if he wants it, but if he does not eat it then, no one will take the trouble to keep a little piece for him to eat when he wants it; they will give him some of what they happen to have at the time in the cabin, namely, smoked meat, and nothing better, for they keep the best for their feasts. So a poor invalid is often obliged to eat among them what would horrify him even in good health if he were with our Frenchmen.

It remains for me yet to speak of their conversation, to make it understood what there is to suffer among these people. I had gone in company with my host and the Renegade, on condition that we should not pass the winter with the Sorcerer, whom I knew as a wicked man. They had granted my conditions, but they were faithless, and kept not one of them, involving me in trouble with this pretended Magician.

This wretched man and the smoke were the two greatest trials that I endured among these Indians. The cold, heat, annoyance of the dogs, sleeping in the open air and upon the bare ground; the position I had to assume in their cabins, rolling myself up in a ball or crouching down or sitting without a seat or a cushion; hunger, thirst, the poverty and filth of their smoked meats, sickness, all these things were merely play to me in comparison to the smoke and the malice of the Sorcerer, with whom I have always been on a bad footing, for the following reasons:

First. because, when he invited me to winter with him, I refused; and he resented this, because he saw that I cared more for my host, his younger brother, than I did for him.

Second. because I could not gratify his covetousness, I had nothing that he did not ask me for, often taking my mantle off my shoulders to put it on his own. As I could not satisfy all his demands, he looked upon me with an evil eye; even if I had given him all the little I had, I could not have gained his friendship, because we were at variance on other subjects.

Third. seeing that he acted the Prophet, amusing these people by a thousand absurdities, which he invented every day, I did not lose any opportunity of convincing him of their nonsense and childishness, exposing the senselessness of his superstitions. This was like tearing his soul out of his body; for, as he could no longer hunt, he acted the Prophet and Magician more than ever before, to preserve his credit, and to get the dainty pieces. So that in shaking his authority, which was diminishing daily, I was touching the apple of his eye and wresting from him the delights of his Paradise, which are the pleasures of his jaws.

Fourth. In the fourth place, wishing to have sport at my expense, he sometimes made me write vulgar things in his language, assuring me there was nothing bad in them, then made me pronounce these shameful words, which I did not understand, in the presence of the Indians. Some women having warned me of this trick, I told him I would no longer soil my paper nor My lips with these vile words. He insisted, however, that I should read before all those of the cabin, and some Indians who had come there, something he had dictated to me. I answered that if the Apostate would interpret them to me, I would read them. That Renegade refusing to do this, I refused to read. The Sorcerer commanded me imperiously, with high words, and I at first asked him gently to excuse me; but as he did not wish to be thwarted before the Indians, he persisted in urging me, and had my host, who pretended to be vexed, urge me also.

At last, aware that my excuses were of no help, I spoke to him peremptorily, and, after reproaching him for his lewdness, I addressed him in these words: "You have me in your power, you can murder me, but you cannot force me to repeat indecent words."

"They are not such," he said.

"Why then," said I, "will they not interpret them to me?" He emerged from this conflict much exasperated.

Fifth. In the fifth place, seeing that my host was attached to me, he was afraid that this friendliness might deprive him of some choice morsel. I tried to relieve him of this fear by stating publicly that I did not live to eat, but that I ate to live; and that it mattered little what they gave me, provided it was enough to keep me alive. He retorted sharply that he was not of my opinion, but that he made a profession of being dainty; that he was fond of the good pieces, and was obliged when people gave them to him. Although my host gave him no cause for fear in this direction, yet he attacked me at almost every meal as if he were afraid of losing his precedence. This fear increased his hatred.

Sixth. In the sixth place, when he saw that the Indians of the other cabins showed me some respect, knowing besides that I was a great enemy of his deceits, and that, if I gained influence among his flock, I would ruin him completely, he did all he could to destroy me and to make me appear ridiculous in the eyes of his people.

Seventh. In the seventh place, add the aversion which he and all the Tadoussac Innu had against the French since their communication with the English; and judge what treatment I might have received from these Indians, who love this miserable Sorcerer, against whom I was generally in a state of open warfare. I thought a hundred times that I should only emerge from this conflict through the gates of death. He treated me shamefully, it is true; but I am astonished that he did not act worse, seeing that he is an idolater of those superstitions which I was fighting with all my might.

He tried to make me the laughingstock of small and great, abusing me in the other cabins as well as in ours. He never had, however, the satisfaction of inciting our neighboring Indians against me; they merely hung their heads when they heard the blessings he showered upon me. As to the servants, instigated by his example, they continually heaped upon me a thousand taunts and a thousand insults; and I was reduced to such a state that, so not to irritate them or give them any occasion to get angry, I passed whole days without opening my mouth. Believe me, if I have brought back no other fruits from the Indians, I have at least learned many of the insulting words of their language.

They were saying to me at every turn, eca titou, eca titou nama khitirinisin, "Shut up, shut up, you have no sense." Achineou, "He is proud;" Moucachtechiou, "He plays the parasite;" sasegau, "He is arrogant;" cou attimou, "He looks like a Dog;" cou mascoua, "He looks like a Bear;" cou ouabouchou ouichtoui, "He is bearded like a Hare;" attimonai oukhimau, "He is Captain of the Dogs;" cou oucousimas ouchtigonan, "He has a head like a pumpkin;" matchiriniou, "He is deformed, he is ugly;" khichcouebeon, "He is drunk." So these are the colors in which they paint me, and a multitude of others, which I omit.

The best part of it was that they did not think sometimes that I understood them; and seeing me smile, they became embarrassed, at least those who sang these songs only to please the Sorcerer. The children were troublesome, playing numberless tricks upon me, and imposing silence when I wanted to talk. When my host was at home, I had some rest; and when the Sorcerer was absent, I was in smooth water, managing both great and small just as I wished. So these are some of the things that have to be endured among these people. This must not frighten anyone; good soldiers are animated with courage at the sight of their blood and their wounds. One does not always encounter a famine; one does not always meet Sorcerers or tricksters with so bad a temper as that one had; if we could understand the language, and reduce it to rules, there would be no more need of following these Indians. As to the stationary tribes, we can have our cabins apart, and consequently be freed from many of these great inconveniences.

CONTAINING A JOURNAL OF THINGS WHICH COULD NOT BE STATED IN THE PRECEDING CHAPTERS.

After the departure of our French, who left the roadstead of Quebec on the 16th of August of last year, 1633, to sail for Tadoussac and from there to France, -- to have opportunity of conversing with the Indians, and therefore learning their language, I crossed the great Saint Lawrence River to a cabin of branches, and went every day to school in those of the Indians, who were encamped around me -- allured by my hopes, if not of bringing the Renegade to a sense of his duty, at least of drawing from him some knowledge of the language. This poor wretch had newly arrived from Tadoussac, where he had shown great repugnance to the French. The famine which afflicted this Apostate and his brothers caused them to come up to Quebec in search of food.

As they were occupied in fishing, I was often in their cabin, and occasionally invited the Renegade to come again and pass the winter with us in our little house. He would readily have agreed to this, had he not taken a wife from another nation than his own, and he could not send her away then. Therefore, seeing that he could not follow me, I threw out some hints about passing the winter with him; but during these negotiations, a furious tempest having one night swept down upon us, Father de Noue, two of our men, and myself, in our cabin, I was seized with a violent fever, which made me go back to our little home to recover my health.

The Apostate discussed my plan with his brothers. There were three of them; one named Carigonan, and surnamed by the French "the Married Man", because he made a great deal of the fact that he was married. He was the most famous sorcerer, or manitousiou, (therefore they call these tricksters) of all the country; it is he of whom I have spoken above. The other was called Mestigoit, a young man about thirty-five or forty years of age, a brave Hunter, and endowed with a good disposition. The third was called Sasousinat, and died a good Christian. The sorcerer, having learned from the Renegade that I wished to pass the winter with the Indians, came to see me toward the end of my sickness, and invited me to share his cabin, giving me as his reason that he loved good men, because he himself was good, and had always been so from his early youth.

He asked me if Jesus had not spoken to me about the disease which tormented him. "Come," said he, "with me, and you will make me live now, for I am in danger of dying." But as I knew him for a impudent fellow, I refused him as gently as I could; and taking the Apostate aside, who also wished to have me, as he had shown to Father de Noue that he had some desire to return to God, I told him that I would be glad to winter with him and with his brother Mestigoit, on condition that we should not go across the great river, that the sorcerer should not be of our group, and that he, who understood the French language well, would teach me. They both agreed to these three conditions, but they did not fulfill one of them.

On the day of our departure, I gave them, for my support, a barrel of sea biscuit, which we borrowed from the storehouse of those Gentlemen of the Company of New France, a sack of flour, some ears of Indian corn, some prunes, and some parsnips. They urged me strongly to take a little wine, but I did not wish to yield to them, fearing they would get drunk. However, having promised me they would not touch it without my permission, and having assured them that, if they did, I would throw it into the sea, I followed the advice of those who counseled me to carry a little barrel of it. Also I promised Mestigoit that I would take him for my host, for the Apostate is not a Hunter, and has no management; but I promised to give him a present upon our return, which I did. It was the expectation of this food which made them wish to have a Frenchman with them.

So I embarked in their sailboat on the 18th of October precisely, making profession as a little pupil on the same day that I had previously begun the profession of master of our schools. When I went to take leave of our Governor, he recommended me particularly to the Indians; and my host answered, "If the Father dies, I will die with him, and you will never see me in this country again." Our French people showed the most profound regret at my departure, knowing the dangers that one encounters in following these Indians. When all our Farewells were said, we set sail about ten o'clock in the morning. I was the only Frenchman, with twenty Indians, counting the men, women and children. The wind and tide were favorable, and we turned to go down past the Island of Orleans to another Island called by the Indians Ca ouahascoumagakhe; I do not know whether it was the beauty of the day which spread over this Island, but I found it pleasant.

As soon as we had set foot on land, my host took a musket he had bought from the English, and went in search of our supper. Meanwhile the women began to build the house where we were to lodge. The Apostate, having observed that everyone was busy, returned to the boat that was lying at anchor, took the keg of wine, and drank from it with such excess that he fell into the water and was nearly drowned. Finally he got out after considerable scrambling, and started for the place where they were putting up the cabin. Screaming and howling like a demon, he snatched away the poles and beat upon the bark of the cabin, to break everything to pieces. The women, seeing him in this frenzy, fled to the woods, some here, some there. My Indian, whom I usually call my host, was boiling in a kettle some birds he had killed, when this drunken fellow, coming upon the scene, broke the crane and overturned everything into the ashes. No one seemed to get angry at all this, but then it is foolish to fight with a madman. My host gathered up his little birds and went to wash them in the river, drew some water and placed the kettle over the fire again.

The women, seeing that this madman was running on the shores of the Island, foaming like one possessed, ran quickly to get their bark and take it to a place of security, in case he should tear it to pieces, as he had begun to do. They scarcely had time to roll it up when he appeared, completely infuriated, and not knowing upon what to vent his fury, for they had suddenly disappeared, thanks to the darkness which had begun to conceal us. He approached the fire, which could be seen on account of its bright light, and was about to take hold of the kettle to overturn it again; when my host, his brother, quicker than he, seized it and threw the water into his face, boiling as it was.

Imagine how this poor man looked, finding himself deluged with hot water. The skin of his face and whole chest changed. He redoubled his howls, and began to pull up the poles which were still standing. My host has told me that he asked for an axe, with which to kill me; I do not know whether he asked for one, as I did not understand his language; but when I went up to him and tried to stop him, he said to me in French, "Go away, it is not you I am after; let me alone;" then pulling my gown, "Come," said he, "let us embark in a canoe, let us return to your house; you do not know these people here; all they do is for the belly, they do not care for you, but for your food." To this I answered in an undertone and to myself, "in wine there is truth."

As the night was coming on rapidly, I retired into the woods, to escape being annoyed by this drunkard, and to get a little rest. While I was saying my prayers near a tree, the woman who managed the household of my host came to see me; and gathering together some leaves of fallen trees, said to me, "Lie down there and make no noise," then, having thrown me a piece of bark as a cover, she went away. So this was my first resting place at the inn of the Moon, which shone upon me from all sides. The rain coming on, a little before midnight, made me fear that I might get wet, but it did not last long. The next morning I found that my bed, although it had not been made up since the creation of the world, was not so hard as to keep me from sleeping.

The next day, I wanted to throw the barrel, with what was left of the wine, into the river, as I had told them I would do, in case anyone abused it; but my host, seizing me around the waist, cried out, eca toute, eca toute, "Do not do that, do not do that. Do you not see that Petrichtich" (it is what they call the Renegade in derision) "does not know anything, that he is a dog? I promise you that we will never touch the barrel unless you are present." I yielded, and made up my mind to distribute it liberally, to free myself of the fear that a little wine might make us drink a great deal of water; for, if they were to get drunk while we were sailing, we would be lost.

We intended leaving this Island in the morning; but the tide fell sooner than we expected, and stranded our Boat. So we had to wait for the evening tide, upon which we embarked, and sailed away by the aid of the Moon as well as of the wind. We reached another Island, called Ca ouapascounagate. As we arrived about midnight, our people did not take the trouble to make a house; and we slept in the same bed and lodged at the same inn as the night before, under the shelter of the trees and sky.

The next day we left this Island to go to another one, called Ca chibariouachcate; we might have called it the Island of the white Geese, for I saw there more than a thousand of them in one flock.

The following day we tried to leave, but the bad weather compelled us to land again at the end of this same Island. It is a solitude, like all the country; that is, it has only temporary inhabitants, for these people have no fixed habitation. It is bordered by rocks so massive, so high, and so craggy, and is covered so picturesquely with Cedars and Pines that a Painter would consider himself favored to view it to derive an idea of a desert frightful in its precipices and pleasing in the variety and number of its trees. As it is indented by bays full of mud, there hides here such a quantity and variety of game, some of which I have never seen in France, that it must be seen to be believed.

Leaving this Island of game, we sailed all day and toward nightfall landed at a small Island, called "Atisaoucanich etagoukhi", that is, place where dyes are found; I am inclined to think that our people gave it that name, for they found there some little red roots which they use in dyeing their decorations. I would like to call it the Isle of misfortune; for we suffered a great deal there during the eight days that the storms held us prisoners. It was night when we disembarked; the rain and wind attacked us, and meanwhile we could scarcely find five or six poles to serve as beams for our house, which was so small, so narrow, and so exposed for such weather as this, that in trying to avoid one discomfort we fell into two others. We had to shorten ourselves, or roll up like hedgehogs, in case we scorch the half of our bodies. For our supper, and dinner as well, because we had eaten nothing since morning, my host threw to each one a piece of the biscuit I had given him, informing me that we were not to drink anything with our food, as the water of this great river began to be salty in this place. The next day we collected some rainwater, which had fallen into dirty rocks, and drank it with as much enjoyment as they drink wine in France.

They had left our sailboat at anchor in a strong tidal current. I told them it was not safe, and that it ought to be placed under shelter behind the Island; but, as we were only waiting for a good breeze to depart, they did not listen to me. During the night the tempest increased, so that it seemed as if the winds were uprooting our Island. Our host, foreseeing what might occur, roused the Apostate, and urged him to come and help him save our sailboat, which threatened to go to pieces. Either this wretch was lazy, or he was afraid of the wind; for he did not even try to get up, giving as his only reason that he was tired. During this delay, the wind broke the cable of the anchor, and in an instant carried away our sailboat.

My host, seeing this fine management, came and said to me, "Nikanis (My good friend), the sailboat is lost; the winds, which have loosened it, will break it to pieces against the rocks which surround us on all sides." Who would not have been vexed at that Renegade, whose negligence caused us untold trials, considering that we had a number of packages among our baggage, and several children to carry? Yet my host, barbarian and savage that he is, was untroubled at this accident; but fearing it might discourage me, he said to me, "Nikanis, are you angry at this loss, which will cause us so many difficulties?"

"I am not happy about it," I answered.

"Do not be cast down," he replied, "for anger brings on sadness, and sadness brings sickness. Petrichtich does not know anything; if he had tried to help me, this misfortune would not have happened." And these were all the reproaches he made. It humiliates me that considerations of health should check the anger of an Indian; and that the law of God, and the hope of his great rewards, cannot check the anger of a Christian.

The above misfortune was soon followed by another. In addition to the sailboat, we had a little bark Canoe, and the tide, rising higher than usual through the force of the wind, robbed us of that; and there we were, more than ever prisoners. I neither saw tears nor heard complaints, not even among the women, upon whose shoulders this disaster fell more particularly, as they are like beasts of burden, usually carrying the baggage of the Indians; on the contrary, everybody began to laugh.

When morning came, we all ran along the edge of the river, to learn some news of our poor sailboat and our Canoe. We saw both of them stranded a long distance from us, the sailboat among the rocks and the Canoe along the edge of the woods of the mainland. Everyone thought they were all in pieces; as soon as the sea had receded, some ran toward the sailboat, and others toward the Canoe. Wonderful to relate, nothing was harmed; I was amazed, for out of a hundred ships, scarcely one would have been saved in those violent blasts of wind, and upon those rocks.

While the wind held us prisoners on this unhappy Island, a number of our people went to visit some Indians who were 12 or 15 miles from us, so that there only remained in our cabin the women and children, and the Iroquois.

During the night, a woman, who had gone out, returned terribly frightened, crying out that she had heard the Manitou, or devil. At once, all the camp was in a state of alarm, and everyone, filled with fear, maintained a profound silence. I asked the cause of this fright, for I had not heard what the woman had said; eca titou, eca titou, they told me, Manitou, "Keep still, keep still, it is the devil."

I began to laugh, and rising to my feet, went out of the cabin; and to reassure them I called, in their language, the Manitou, crying in a loud voice that I was not afraid, and that he would not dare come where I was. Then, having made a few turns in our Island, I re-entered, and said to them, "Do not fear, the devil will not harm you as long as I am with you, for he fears those who believe in God; if you will believe in God, the devil will flee from you."

They were astonished, and asked me if I was not afraid of him. I answered, to relieve them of their fears, that I was not afraid of a hundred of them; they began to laugh, and were gradually reassured. Seeing that they had thrown some eels in the fire, I asked them the reason for it. "Keep still," they replied; "we are giving the devil something to eat, so that he will not harm us."

My host, upon his return, having learned this story, thanked me for giving courage to his people, and asked me if I had no fear of the Manitou, or devil, and if I knew him well; as for them, they feared him more than a thunderbolt. I answered that, if he would believe in him who made all, the Manitou would have no power over him; that for ourselves, being helped by him whom we worshiped, the devil had more fear of us than we had of him. He was astonished, and told me that he would be glad if we knew his language, for you must be aware that we were making each other understand more through our eyes and hands than through our lips.

I arranged a few prayers in their language, with the help of the Apostate. As the Sorcerer had not yet come, I repeated them in the morning and before our meals; if the wretched Magician had not come with us, these Indians would have taken great pleasure in listening to me. My host asked me a thousand questions, -- why we died, where our souls went, if night was universal all over the world, and similar things, -- and was attentive to my answers.

I observed that the young women did not eat from the same dish as their husbands. I asked the reason, and the Renegade told me that the young unmarried women, and the women who had no children, took no part in the management of affairs, and were treated like children. Thence it came that his own wife said to me one day, "Tell my husband to give me plenty to eat, but do not tell him that I asked you to do so."

One night, when everyone had sunk into a deep sleep, I began to talk to this poor miserable Renegade. I showed him that while he was in our house, he had lacked for nothing of what we had, and that he might have spent his life there peacefully; but that in forsaking God, he had rushed into the life of a brute, which would finally end in hell if he did not open his eyes.

"I see clearly," he replied, "that I am not doing right; but my misfortune is that I have not a mind strong enough to remain firm in my determination; I believe all they tell me. When I was with the English, I allowed myself to be influenced by their talk; when I am with the Indians, I do as they do; when I am with you, it seems to me your belief is the true one. Would that I had died when I was sick in France, and I would now be saved. As long as I have any relatives, I will never do anything of any account; for when I want to stay with you, my brothers tell me I will rot, always staying in one place, and that is the reason I leave you to follow them."

I urged all the reasons I could to strengthen him; but his brother, the Sorcerer, will upset all my plans, for he does whatever he wills with this poor Apostate.

On the thirtieth day of October, we went away from this unhappy Island, and, toward nightfall, disembarked at another Island which bears a name almost as big as it is, for it is not a mile in circumference; and this is what our Indians tell me it is called, "Ca pacoucachtechokhi chachagou achiganikhi, Ca pakhitaouananiouikhi"; I believe they forge these names upon the spot. This Island is only a big and frightful rock; as there was no spring of fresh water, we had to drink dirty rainwater that we collected in the bogs and upon the rocks. The sail of our sailboat was thrown over some poles, on our arrival at this place, and this formed our shelter; our beds were white and green, I mean there were so few pine branches under us that in several places we touched the snow, which three days before had begun to cover the earth with a white mantle.

We found here the cabin of an Indian, named Ekhennabamate, whom our host was seeking. He learned from him that his brother, the Sorcerer, had passed by, a short time before; and that, having the wind against him, he had not gone far. He did not wait until broad daylight to follow him; his Canoe, paddled by three men, went like the wind; and on the first of November, a beautiful day, he brought back this Demon, I mean the Sorcerer. I was surprised when I saw him, for I was not expecting him, imagining that my host had gone hunting; would that he had, and that this miserable prey had escaped from his hands.

As soon as he came, there was nothing but feasting in our cabins; we had only a little food left, but these Indians ate it with as much calmness and confidence as if the game they were to hunt was shut up in a stable.

One day, when my host had a feast in his turn, the guests made me a sign that I should make them a speech in their language, as they wanted to laugh; for I pronounce the Indian as a German pronounces French. Wishing to please them, I began to talk, and they burst out laughing, pleased to make sport of me while I learned to talk. I said that I was a child, and that children made their fathers laugh with their stammering; but in a few years I would become large, and then, when I knew their language, I would make them see that they were children in many things, ignorant of the great truths of which I would speak to them.

Suddenly I asked them if the Moon was located as high as the Stars, if it was in the same Sky; where the Sun went when it left us; what was the form of the earth. (If I knew their language perfectly, I would always propose some natural truth, before speaking to them of the points of our belief; for I have observed that these curious things make them more attentive.)

One of them beginning to speak, after having confessed that they could not answer these questions, said to me: "But how can you know these things, since we do not know them?"

I immediately drew out a little compass that I had in my pocket, opened it, and, placing it in his hand, said to him, "We are now in the darkness of night, the Sun no longer shines for us; tell me now, while you look at what I have given you, in what part of the world it is; show me the place where it must rise tomorrow, where it will set, where it will be at noon; point out the places in the Sky where it will never be."

My man answered with his eyes, staring at me without saying a word. I took the compass and explained to him with a few words all that I had just asked about, adding, "Well, how is it that I can know these things and you do not know them? I have still other greater truths to tell you when I can talk."

"You are intelligent," they responded; "you will soon know our language." But they were mistaken.

As the bow and arrow seem to be weapons invented by Nature, since all the Nations of the earth have made use of them, so you might say there are certain little games that children find out for themselves without being taught. The little Indians play hide-and-seek as well as the little French children. They have a number of other childish sports that I have noticed in our Europe; among others, I have seen the little Parisians throw a musket ball into the air and catch it with a little bat scooped out; the little Innu Indians do the same, using a little bunch of Pine sticks, which they receive or throw into the air on the end of a pointed stick. The little Iroquois have the same pastime, throwing a bone with a hole in it, which they interlace in the air with another little bone. I was told this by a young man of that nation as we were watching the Innu children play.

My Indian and the Sorcerer, his brother, having learned that there were a great many Innu near the place where they wished to pass the winter, decided to turn Northward, in case we should starve each other. They decided to go to the place where my host and the Renegade had promised me they would go; but we had scarcely made 7 miles in crossing the great river, when we met four canoes which turned us back to the South, saying the hunting was not good up North. So I had to remain with the sorcerer, and to winter beyond the great river, in spite of all I could urge to the contrary. I realized well the dangers into which they were throwing me, but I saw no other remedy than to trust in God.

As soon as these new Indians, who had come in the four canoes, had landed, my host made them a banquet of smoked eels, for we were already out of bread. Hardly had these guests returned to their cabin, when they made a feast of peas which they had bought in passing through Quebec. But that you may understand the excesses of these people, I will add that in emerging from this banquet, they went to a third, prepared by the sorcerer, composed of eels, and of the flour I had given to my host. This man gave me a hearty invitation to be one of the group. He had made a little apartment in our cabin with skins and blankets, and all the guests entered this place. They gave me my share in a little bark plate; but, as I was not altogether accustomed to eating their mixtures, so dirty and flavorless.

After having tasted it, I wanted to give the rest to one of the relatives of my host; but they immediately cried out, Khita, Khita, "Eat all, eat all," acoumagouchan, "It is an eat-all feast."

I began to laugh, and told them they were playing a game of "burst themselves open," seeing they had already had two feasts, and were making a third at which nothing was to be left.

My host, hearing me, said, "What are you saying, Nikanis (My good friend)?"

"I am saying that I cannot eat all."

"Give it to me," he answered, "give me your plate, I will help you." Having presented it to him, he gulped down all it contained in two swallows, thrusting out a tongue as long as your hand to lick the bottom and sides, so that nothing might remain.

When they were full almost to bursting, the Sorcerer took his drum and invited everyone to sing. The best singer was the one who howled the loudest. At the end of this uproar, seeing that they were in a good humor, I asked permission to talk. This being granted, I began to affirm the affection I had for them, "You see," I said, "what love I bear you; I have not only left my own country, which is beautiful and pleasant, to come into your snows and vast woods, but I have also left the little house we have in your lands, to follow you and learn your language. I cherish you more than my brothers, since I have left them for love of you; it is he who has made all who has given me this affection for you."

The Sorcerer, stopping me, said in a loud voice, "When I see him, I will believe in him, and not until then."

I answered: "When you tell me that your father or one of your friends has said something, I believe what he has said, supposing that he is not a liar, and yet I have never seen your father; also, you believe that there is a Manitou, and you have never seen him. You believe that there are Khichikouai, or Spirits of light, and you have not seen them."

"Others have seen them," he answered.

"You could not tell," said I, "neither when, nor how, nor in what way, nor where they were seen; and I can tell you the names of those who have seen the Son of God upon earth, when they saw him, and where; what they have done, and in what countries they have been."

On the twelfth of November, we at last began to go into the country, leaving our sailboats and Canoes, and some other baggage, on the Island with the long name, which we left at low tide, crossing the meadow which separated us from the mainland. Up to this time, we had journeyed through a country where fish abound, always upon the water or on Islands. From this time on, we were going to invade the Kingdom of wild beasts, a country far broader in extent than all France.

The Indians pass the winter in these woods, ranging here and there to get their food. In the early snows, they seek the Beaver in the small rivers, and Porcupines upon the land; when the deep snows come, they hunt the Moose and Caribou.

We made in these vast forests, from the 12th of November, 1633, when we entered them, to the 22nd of April of this year 1634, when we returned to the banks of the great Saint Lawrence River, twenty-three halts, sometimes in deep valleys, then upon lofty mountains, sometimes in the low flat country; and always in the snow. These forests are made up of different kinds of trees, especially of Pines, Cedars and Firs. We crossed many torrents of water, some rivers, several beautiful lakes and ponds, walking upon the ice.

Upon our entrance into these regions, there were three cabins in our company, nineteen persons being in ours, sixteen in the cabin of the Indian named Ekhennabamate, and ten in that of the newcomers. This does not include the Indians who were encamped a few miles away from us. We were in all forty-five persons, and our provisions were getting low.

This is the order we followed in breaking up our camps, in tramping over the country and in erecting our tents and pavilions. When our people saw that there was no longer any game within 7 or 10 miles of us, an Indian, who was best acquainted with the way to the place where we were going, cried out in a loud voice, one fine day outside the cabin, "Listen, men, I am going to mark the way for breaking camp tomorrow at daybreak." He took a hatchet and marked some trees which guided us. They do not mark the way except in the beginning of winter; for, when all the rivers and torrents are frozen, and the snow is deep, they do not take this trouble.

When there are a number of things to be carried, as often happens when they have killed a great many Elk, the women go ahead, and carry a part of them to the place where they are to camp the following day. When the snow is deep, they make sledges of wood which splits, and which can be peeled off like leaves in thin, long strips. These sledges are narrow, because they have to be dragged among masses of trees closely crowded in some places; but, to make up for this, they are long. One day, seeing the sledge of my host standing against a tree, I could scarcely reach to the middle of it, stretching out my arm as far as I could. They fasten their baggage upon these, and, with a cord which they pass over their chests, they drag these wheel-less chariots over the snow.

As soon as it is day, each one prepares to break camp. They begin by having breakfast, if there is any; for sometimes they depart without breakfasting, continue on their way without dining, and go to bed without supping. Each one arranges his own baggage, as best he can; and the women strike the cabin, to remove the ice and snow from the bark, which they roll up in a bundle. The baggage being packed, they throw it upon their backs or loins in long bundles, which they hold with a cord that passes over their foreheads, beneath which they place a piece of bark so that it will not hurt them. When everyone is loaded, they mount their snowshoes, which are bound to the feet so that they will not sink into the snow; and then they march over plain and mountain, making the little ones go on ahead, who start early, and often do not arrive until late. These little ones have their load, or their sledge, to accustom them to fatigue; and they try to stimulate them to see who will carry or drag the most.

To paint to you the hardships of the way, I have neither pen nor brush that could do it; they must be experienced to be appreciated, and this dish must be tried, to know how it tastes. We did nothing but go up and go down; frequently we had to bend halfway over, to pass under partly-fallen trees, and step over others lying upon the ground whose branches sometimes knocked us over, gently enough to be sure, but always coldly, for we fell upon the snow. If it happened to thaw, Oh God, what suffering! It seemed to me I was walking over a road of glass, which broke under my feet at every step. The frozen snow, beginning to melt, would fall and break into blocks or big pieces, into which we often sank up to our knees, and sometimes to our waists. If there was pain in falling, there was still more in pulling ourselves out, for our snow-shoes were loaded with snow, and became so heavy that, when we tried to draw them out, it seemed as if somebody were tugging at our legs to dismember us. I have seen some who slid so far under the logs buried in the snow that they could not pull out either their legs or their snowshoes without help. Imagine a person loaded like a mule, and judge how easy is the life of the Indian.

In the discomforts of a journey in France, villages are found where one can refresh and fortify oneself; but the inns that we encountered, and where we drank, were only brooks; we even had to break the ice to get some water. We did not make long stages, which would have been impossible for us.

When we reached the place where we were to encamp, the women went to cut the poles for the cabin, and the men to clear away the snow. A person had to work at this building, or shiver with cold for three long hours upon the snow, waiting until it was finished. Sometimes I put my hand to the work to warm myself, but usually I was so frozen that fire alone could thaw me. The Indians were surprised at this, for they often sweat under the work. Assuring them now and then that I was cold, they would say to me, "Give us your hands that we may see if you tell the truth;" and, finding them frozen, touched with compassion, they gave me their warm mittens and took my cold ones. This went so far that my host, after having tried it several times, said to me, "Nikanis (My good friend), do not winter any more with the Indians, for they will kill you." I think he meant that I would fall ill, and, as I could not be dragged along with the baggage, they would kill me; I began to laugh, and told him that he was trying to frighten me.

The cabin finished, either toward nightfall or a little before, they began to talk about dinner and supper all in one, for as we had departed in the morning, after having eaten a small morsel, we had to have patience to reach our destination and to wait until the hotel was erected, to lodge and eat there. But, unfortunately, on this particular day, our people did not usually go hunting; and so it was for us a day of fasting as well as a day of work.

We left the banks of the great river on the 12th of November and pitched our camp near a torrent, traveling in the way I have just described, each one carrying his pack. All the Indians made sport of me because I was not a good pack horse, being satisfied to carry my cloak, which was heavy enough; a small bag in which I kept my little necessaries; and their sneers, which were not as heavy as my body; and this was my load. My host and the Apostate carried upon poles, crossed in the form of a stretcher, the wife of the Sorcerer, who was sick; they placed her on the snow, while waiting for the cabin to be made, and there she passed more than three hours without fire, and did not once complain nor show any sign of impatience. I was more troubled about her than she was about herself, for I often appealed to them to make at least a little fire near her; but the answer was that she would get warm when the cabin was made. These Indians are hardened to such sufferings; they expect if they fall sick to be paid in the same coin. We stayed three days at this camp.

It was here that the Indians consulted their genii of light. As I had always shown my amusement at this superstition, and on all possible occasions had made them see that the mysteries of the Sorcerer were nothing but child's play. This unscrupulous man, the day afterward, went through with the performance I am going to describe.

My host invited all the neighboring Indians to the feast; when they had come and seated themselves around the fire and the kettle, waiting for the banquet to be opened, the Sorcerer, who had been lying down opposite me, suddenly arose, not yet having uttered a word since the arrival of the guests. He seemed to be in an awful fury, and threw himself upon one of the poles of the cabin to tear it out; he broke it in two, rolled his eyes around in his head, looked like a man out of his senses, then facing those present, he said to them, Iriniticou nama Nitirinisin, "Oh, men, I have lost my mind, I do not know where I am; take the hatchets and javelins away from me, for I am out of my senses." At these words, all the Indians lowered their eyes to the ground, and I raised mine to heaven, imagining that this man was acting the madman to take revenge on me, to take my life or at least to frighten me, so that he could reproach me afterward that my God had failed me in time of need, and to proclaim among his people that I, who had so often testified that I did not fear their Manitou, had turned pale before a man.

I faced this furious man with as much assurance as if I had had an army at my side. This braggart, redoubling his furies, did a thousand foolish acts of a lunatic or of one bewitched; sometimes he would cry out at the top of his voice, and then would suddenly stop short, as if frightened; he pretended to cry, and then burst into laughter like a wanton devil; he sang without rules and without measure, he hissed like a serpent, he howled like a wolf, or like a dog, he screeched like an owl or a night hawk, rolling his eyes about in his head and striking a thousand attitudes, always seeming to be looking for something to throw. I was expecting every moment he would tear up one of the poles with which to strike me down, or that he would throw himself upon me; but to show him that I was not astonished at these devilish acts, I continued, in my usual way, to read, write and say my little prayers; and when my hour for retiring came, I lay down and rested as peacefully through his wild parties, as I would have done in a profound silence; I was already as accustomed to go to sleep in the midst of his cries and the sound of his drum, as a child is to the songs of its nurse.

The next evening, at the same hour, he seemed disposed to enter into the same infuriated state, and to again alarm the camp, saying that he was losing his mind. Seeing him already half-mad, it occurred to me that he might be suffering from some violent fever; I went up to him and took hold of his arm to feel the artery; he gave me a frightful look, seeming to be astonished, and acting as if I had brought him news from the other world, rolling his eyes like one possessed. Having touched his pulse and forehead, I found him as cool as a fish, and far from fever as I was from France. This confirmed my suspicion that he was acting the madman to frighten me, and to draw down upon himself the compassion of all our people, who in our famine were giving him the best they had.

On the 20th of the same month of November, finding no more Beavers and Porcupines in our area, we resumed our journey, this being our second camp. They took counsel in this place as to what they should do to get something to eat. We were already reduced to such extremities that I made a good meal of a skin of smoked eel, which a few days before I had thrown to the dogs. Here two incidents occurred which touched my heart. Once when I threw a bone or remnant of an eel to the dogs, a little boy, more nimble than they, threw himself upon the bone, and gnawed and bit into it. Another time, a child having asked for something to eat, when he was told there was nothing at all, the poor little fellow's eyes filled, and tears as big as peas rolled down his cheeks, and his sighs and sobs filled me with pity, although he tried to suppress them. One lesson they teach their children is to be brave in time of famine.

On the 28th of the same month, we broke camp for the third time. It was snowing hard; but the bad weather could not stop us. I was surprised, in this third halt, not to see them bring the invalid; but I did not dare ask what had become of her, for they do not want anyone to mention the dead. In the evening, I went to the Renegade, and asked him in French where this poor woman was, if he had killed her, seeing her about to die, as he had once before killed, with blows from a club, a poor girl who was on the point of death, which he himself had told to our French.

"No," said he, "I have not killed her."

"Who has then," said I, "is it the young Iroquois?"

"No, no," he answered, "for he went away early this morning."

"It was my host, or the Sorcerer her husband, for she was still able to talk when I left the cabin this morning."

He bowed his head, admitting tacitly that one of them had put her to death. But, since then, an old man has told me that she died a natural death a little while after I departed. I am unable to say which is correct.

I have observed three kinds of natural medicines among the Indians. One of these is their sweat-box, of which I have spoken above; the second consists in making a slight gash in the part of the body where the pain is, covering it with blood which they make issue from these cuts abundantly. They once made use of my pen-knife to cut the head of a child ten days old. The third of these medicines is composed of the scrapings of the inside bark of the birch, at least it seems to be this tree. They boil these scrapings in water, which they afterward drink to make them vomit. They often wanted me to drink this potion when I was sick, but I did not think it would agree with me.

On the day of saint Francois Xavier, our pretended Magician began in the evening to beat his drum and to utter his howls as usual; for he gave us this entertainment every night at our first sleep. I saw that everyone was asleep, and, knowing that this poor man made all this racket to cure himself, I entered into conversation with him. I began by expressing a great deal of affection for him, and by heaping praises upon him, as bait to draw him into the nets of truth. I made him understand that if a mind as capable of great things as his was should know God, that all the Indians, influenced by his example, would like to know him also.

He opened his ears, and said to me, "Your speech is good; go away and pray, and tell your God to cure me."

I replied to him, "if you get back your health while I am praying, you would attribute your recovery to your drum, which you would not have given up, and not to God."

"No," he replied, "I shall not think it has come from my drum; I have sung and have done all I could, yet I have not been able to save the life of one man; I myself am sick, and to cure myself have made use of all the resources of my art; and see I am worse than ever. I have used all my inventions to save the lives of my children, especially of the last one who died only a short time ago, and to save my wife, who has just passed away, yet all this has not succeeded; so if you cure me I shall not attribute my health to my drum nor to my songs."

On the 3rd of December, we began our fourth camp, having broken camp without trumpets, but with drums, for the Sorcerer never forgot his. We pitched our camp near a broad and rapid, but rather shallow, river, which they called Ca pititetchiouetz; it flows into the great river Saint Lawrence, almost opposite Tadoussac. Our Indians, having no food for a feast here, made a banquet of smoke; each inviting the others to his cabin, they passed around a little earthen plate containing Tobacco; everyone took a pipeful, which he smoked, returning his hand to the dish if he wanted to smoke any more. The fondness they have for this herb is beyond all belief.

They go to sleep with their reed pipes in their mouths, they sometimes get up in the night to smoke; they often stop in their journeys for the same purpose, and it is the first thing they do when they reenter their cabins. I have lighted tinder, so as to allow them to smoke while paddling a canoe; I have often seen them gnaw the stems of their pipes when they had no more tobacco, I have seen them scrape and pulverize a wooden pipe to smoke it. They pass their lives in smoke, and at death fall into the fire.

I brought some tobacco with me, but not for myself, as I do not use it. I have given liberally to several Indians, saving some to draw from the Apostate a few words of his language, for he would not say a word if I did not pay him with this money. When our people had consumed what I had given them, and what they had of their own, I had no more peace. The Sorcerer was so annoying in his demands for it that I could not endure him; and all the others acted as if they wanted to eat me when I refused them. In vain, I told them that they had no consideration, that I had given them more than three times as much as I had reserved for myself. "You see," I said to them, "that I love your language and that I must buy it with this money, for if it is lacking, no one will teach me a word; you see if I need a glass of water, I must go a long way to get it, or I must give a bit of tobacco to a child to get it for me; you tell me that tobacco satisfies hunger; if the famine which now presses us continues, I wish to experiment with it, so leave me the little I have in reserve." It was impossible to resist their teasing, and I had to draw out the last bit, with astonishment at seeing people so passionately fond of smoke.

On the sixth of the same month, we broke camp for the fifth time. I had a mishap at our departure, for, instead of taking the right road, I started upon another that had been well beaten down by our hunters, and so I went some distance without perceiving that I was lost. After a long stage, I observed that the way divided into five or six others, which led in several directions. So I was brought to a standstill. There was a little child who had followed me, and whom I did not dare to leave, for it would at once begin to cry. I followed first one and then another of these paths; and seeing that they wound here and there, and that they were marked by only one kind of snowshoe, I concluded that these ways did not lead to the place where my Indians were going to encamp. I did not know what to do with the little boy; for, having found out our mistake, he did not dare lose me out of his sight without going into spasms; and besides, as he was only about six years old, he could not keep up with me as I increased my speed.

I decided to leave him my cloak, to show that I intended to return, if I found the right way, making him a sign that he should wait, for we did not understand each other. So I threw my cloak upon the snow, and retraced my steps, crying out from time to time to make myself heard by our people, in case the right road was not far away from me. I shout and halloo in these great forests, but no one answers; the silence is profound, for even the trees do not rustle, as there is no wind. The cold was so severe that I was sure I would die during the night, if I had to pass it upon the snow, having neither axe nor tinder with which to make a fire. I go, I come, I turn on all sides; but I find nothing which does not confuse me still more. The last thing that a man abandons is hope; I continued to hold on to it by the little end, imagining every moment that I was going to find my way; but at last, after many windings, seeing that human beings could give me no help, I stopped to offer my little prayers to the Creator. The thought came into my mind that I was not lost, since God knew where I was; and I slowly approached the river I had crossed on leaving the cabin. I cried out, I called again, but everybody was already far away.

I was beginning to loosen my hold upon the little thread of hope that I had held up to that time, when I saw some snowshoe tracks behind the brushwood. I went there; I found what I had so long been seeking. At first I was not sure this was a good road, so I reconnoitered it carefully. When I had advanced some distance, I met the Apostate, who was coming in search of us. He asked me where the little child was; and I replied that I had left it near my cloak. "I have found your cloak," he said, "and have carried it to the new cabin; but I have not found the child." This was a great shock to me; to go in search of it would be to lose myself a second time. I prayed the Apostate to go, but he turned a deaf ear to my requests. I started directly for the cabin, to advise them of the matter, and finally reached it, sore all over and bruised from the hardships and length of the journey, which I had made without finding other inn than the frozen brooks.

As soon as the Indians saw me, they asked where the little boy was, crying out that I had lost him. I told them the story, assuring them that I had left my cloak with him, that I might go back and find him; but as he had left that place, I did not know where to look for him, especially since I had no more strength left, having eaten nothing since early morning, and then only two or three mouthfuls of smoked meat. They comforted me with a little frozen water, which I melted in a dirty kettle, and this was all the supper I had, for our hunters had not caught anything, so we had to fast that day. As to the child, two women, having heard me describe the place where I had left it, went in search and found it. You must not be astonished if a Frenchman sometimes loses himself in these forests, for I have known some of our cleverest Indians to wander about in them more than a whole day.

On the 20th of December, although the Indians do not usually take the road in bad weather, yet we had to break up during the storm, and move away quietly without any breakfast, for hunger drove us onward; the trouble is, it followed us everywhere we went, for we found no game anywhere, or at least little of it. At this camp, which was the sixth, the Renegade came to tell me that the Indians were terrified; and my host, addressing me seriously, asked if I did not know some remedy for their misfortune. "There is not," said he, "enough snow to kill Moose, Beavers, and Porcupines; we find almost no game; what shall we do? do you not know what may happen to us? do you not see within yourself what ought to be done?" I wanted to tell him that our God was good and powerful, and we ought to rely on his mercy, but as I did not speak well, I asked the Apostate to be my interpreter, but this wretch is possessed of a mute devil; he never wants to talk.

On the 24th of December, we broke up for the seventh time. We departed without eating, and journeyed for a long, long time, then worked at house-building; and for our supper Our Lord gave us a Porcupine as large as a sucking pig, and a hare. It was not much for our eighteen or twenty people.

The next day was for us a day of fasting. I was given nothing at all to eat. Hunger, which makes the wolf come out of the woods, made me go farther in, to seek the little ends of the trees, which I ate with delight. Some women, having thrown to the dogs, either unintentionally or otherwise, some bits of hide from which they make the strings for their snowshoes, I gathered them up and made a good dinner of them; although the dogs themselves, when they have so little to eat, will not touch them. I have often eaten, especially during that month, scrapings of bark, bits of leather, and similar things, and yet they have never made me ill.

One evening, when my host returned to the cabin, carrying three Beavers, I extended to him my hand. He approached joyfully and asked what he should do.

I said to him, "Nikanis (My good friend), we must thank God who has helped us."

"What for indeed?" said the Apostate, "we could not have failed to find it even without the aid of God."

If this traitor had given me a sword-thrust, he could not have saddened me more. My host told me that he would do what I wished; and he might have fulfilled his duty, had not the Sorcerer intervened. For, as the Apostate had no authority among the Indians, I intended to await the banquet they would have, where all the Indians would be assembled; so that they would be better disposed to recognize his assistance.

But when I was about to speak to them, the Renegade, angry at being the only one who had not taken something, not only would not help me, but even imposed silence upon me, abruptly commanding me to keep still. "I will not do it," I said to him, "if you are ungrateful, the others are not." The Sorcerer, seeing they were rather disposed to listen to me, and believing that, if they gave me their attention, he himself would lose much of his authority, said to me, arrogantly, "Hold your tongue, you have no sense; this is no time to talk, but to eat." I tried to ask him if he had no eyes, if he did not plainly see the help of God, but he would not listen to me. The others, who were maintaining a profound silence, seeing that the Sorcerer was hostile to me, did not dare ask me to speak; so the one who prepared the banquet began to distribute it, and the others to eat. This happened on Monday.

On the Wednesday following, my host and a young hunter killed with arrows the Moose whose tracks we had seen; they saw others afterward, but, as there was so little snow, they could not approach within arrow-shot of them. As soon as they had captured this game, they divided it up, bringing a large part of it to our cabins, and burying the rest under the snow. Everyone was happy, and a great banquet was made, to which I was invited. Seeing the big pieces of meat they gave to each one, I asked the Apostate if this was an eat-all feast.

He answered, "yes;" and I said to him, "It is impossible for me to eat all they have given me."

"You must," he answered, "you must eat it all; the others have to eat all theirs, and you must eat all yours."

I made him understand that God forbids such excess, and I would not do it even if my life depended upon it. This wicked blasphemer, to arouse the others against me, said that God was angry because they had something to eat.

"I did not say that," I replied to him in Indian, "but that he prohibits eating to excess."

The Sorcerer answered me, "I am never so well off as when I am full."

As I could not finish my portion, I invited one of my neighboring Indians to take a part of it, giving him some tobacco as a reward for what he would eat for me. I threw another piece of it, secretly, to the dogs. The Indians began to suspect something, from the fight that took place among these animals; and commenced to cry out against me, saying that I was contaminating their feast, that they would capture nothing more, and that we would die of hunger. When the women and children heard of this afterward, they looked at me as a bad man, reproaching me disdainfully, and saying that I would be the cause of their death; if God had not granted us anything for a long time, I would have been in danger of being put to death for having committed such a sacrilege. To prevent the recurrence of this misfortune, after that they gave me only a small portion; and they also told me that I should not eat any more than I wanted to, that they would eat the rest, but I should take care not to throw any to the dogs.

On the thirtieth of the same month of December, we broke camp, and in the course of our journey we passed over two beautiful lakes covered with ice. We turned toward the place where our Moose was hidden, which would not last long in this eighth camp.

The Sorcerer asked me if I did love the other life that I had described as so full of all blessings; having replied that I did love it, "And I," said he, "I hate it, for to go there one must die, and that is something I have no desire to do; and yet if I believed that this life was miserable, and that the other was full of delights, I would kill myself, to be freed from the one and to enjoy the other." I answered that God forbade us to kill ourselves, or to kill anyone else, and if we destroyed ourselves we would go down into a life of misery, for having acted contrary to his commands.

"Oh well," said he, "you should not kill yourself; but I will kill you, to please you, so you can go to Heaven and enjoy the pleasures that you tell about." I smiled, and replied to him that I could only with sin agree to have my life taken.

"I see plainly," said he, sneeringly, "that you have not yet the desire to die any more than I have."

"None," said I, "to bring about my own death."

At this time, our hunters having followed a Moose, and not having been able to capture it, the Apostate began to blaspheme, saying to the Indians, "The God who is sorry when we eat, is now glad that we have not anything to dine upon." And another time, seeing them bringing some Porcupines, "God," said he, "will be angry because we are going to fill ourselves up." This poor wretch has some fear of hell, which he tries to suppress as much as he can. As I was threatening him with these torments one day, "Perhaps," he replied, "we people here have no souls, or perhaps they are not made like yours, or it may be that they do not go to the same place. Who has ever come back from that country to bring us news of it?" I answered that one cannot see the Sky, without recognizing that there is a God; that one cannot conceive that there is a God, without conceiving that he is just, and that consequently he renders to each one according to his works, so there are great rewards or great punishments. "That's all very well," said he, "for you others, whom God helps; but he has no interest in us, for we still die of hunger unless we find game."

On the fourth of January of this year 1634, we started to make our ninth settlement since our departure from the banks of the great river, always seeking something upon which to live. I reproached the Sorcerer with not being a good Prophet, for he had assured me, the last two times when we had broken camp, that it would snow abundantly as soon as we had changed our dwelling place, which had proved to be untrue. I reported this to my host to take away some of the belief that he has in this man. He answered that the Sorcerer had not assured me that it would snow, but simply that he thought it would. "No," said I, "he assured me that he saw the snow coming, and that it would fall as soon as we had settled down." Khikhirassin, he replied, "You have lied." As soon as you tell them something they do not wish to agree to, they pay you in this coin.

On the eve of Epiphany, my host told me that he had had a dream which caused him much anxiety. "I have seen in my sleep," said he, "that we were reduced to the last extremity of hunger; and that he who has made all assured me that you would fall into such a stupor that, not being able to put one foot before the other, you would die alone, abandoned in the midst of the woods; I fear that my dream will be only too true, for we are now in as great need as ever for lack of snow." I had an idea that this dreamer might play some bad trick on me and abandon me, to prove himself a Prophet. For this reason I made use of his weapons, dream against dream. "As for me," I replied, "I have dreamed just the opposite; for in my sleep, I saw two Moose, one of which was already killed and the other still living."

"Good," said the Sorcerer, "that's nice; have hope, you tell us good news." I had had this dream some days before.

"Well," I said to my host, "which of our two dreams will be found to be true? You say we shall die of starvation, and I say we shall not." He began to laugh.

On the day that the three Kings adored our Lord, we received three pieces of bad news. The first was that the young Iroquois who had gone hunting the day before, had not returned; and as they were aware that hunger had weakened him so that he could not go far, they thought he was dead, or lying somewhere so weak from lack of food that hunger and cold would kill him. In fact, he has never yet appeared; some thought he might have tried to return to his own country, but most are sure he is lying dead somewhere upon the snow. He was one of the three prisoners at Tadoussac of whom I spoke in the first letters I sent from these countries; his two compatriots were executed with unparalleled cruelties, but his life was saved because he was young, at the request of Sir Emery de Can, whom we asked to intercede for him. This poor young man had kind memories of me, and had a great desire to live in our house; but the Sorcerer, to whom he belonged, would neither give nor sell him.

The second piece of bad news was brought by a young Indian who came from another area, who told us that an Indian of a more distant cabin had died of hunger, and that his people were terrified at not finding anything to eat; when he saw us suffering from the same scarcity, he was frightened still more.

The third news was that our people had discovered the trail of several Indians who were nearer to us than we thought, for they were coming to hunt upon our grounds, taking away our game and our lives at the same time. These three pieces of news discouraged our Indians; the alarm spread everywhere, and all walked with bowed heads. I do not know how I looked, but they seemed to me much emaciated, sad and mournful. If the Apostate had consented to help me influence and win over the Sorcerer, this was the time to do it; but his mute devil tied his tongue.

I must here speak of the little esteem the Indians have for him. He has fallen into great embarrassment, in trying to avoid a slight reproach. He gave up Christians and Christianity, because he could not suffer the taunts of the Indians, who jeered at him occasionally because he was settled and not wandering, as they were; and now he is their laughingstock. He is a slave to the Sorcerer, in whose presence he would not dare to move. His brothers and the other Indians have often told me that he has no sense, that he is a buzzard, that he resembles a dog, that he would die of hunger if they did not feed him, that he gets lost in the woods like a European; the women make fun of him, if some child cries because it does not have enough to eat, they say to it, "Hush, hush, do not cry; Petrichtich (they call him this in sport) will bring back a Beaver, and then you will have something to eat." When they hear him return, "Go and see," they say to their children, "if he has not killed a Moose;" therefore making sport of him for being a poor hunter, a great reproach among the Indians. Because such men cannot find wives or retain them, the Apostate, with the help of his brothers, has already had four or five, all of whom have left him. The one he has had this winter told me she would leave him in the Spring, and, if she had belonged to this part of the country, she would have left him then. I hear that she has deserted him.

On a certain day, when our hunters had gone out, a council of women was held in our cabin. As they did not think I could understand, they spoke aloud and freely, tearing this poor Apostate to pieces. The occasion for this was that, the day before, he had not carried anything home to his wife from a feast to which he had been invited, and which was not an eat-all feast. "Oh, the glutton," they said, "who gives his wife nothing to eat! If he could only kill something! He has no sense; he eats everything like a dog." There was great excitement among the women over this subject, for, as they do not usually go to the feasts, they would be sorely affected if their husbands lost the good habit they have of bringing home the remains to their families. The Apostate coming in while these women were drawing this picture of him, they knew how to put a good face on the matter, showing faces as smiling as usual, even to such an extent that the one who had said the worst things about him, gave him a bit of tobacco, which was then a great present.

On the ninth of January, an Indian, who came to visit us, said that a man and a woman of the place from which he had come had starved to death, and that several others were on the verge of starvation. The poor man fasted the day of his arrival as well as we, for there was nothing to eat; and we had to wait until ten o'clock of the next night, when my host brought in two Beavers, which were a great blessing to us.

On the following day our people killed the second Moose, at which there was general rejoicing. True, it was a little marred by the arrival of an Indian, and of two or three women and a child, whom famine would have slaughtered, if they had not happened to come to our cabin. They looked most hideous, the man especially, more so than the women, one of whom had given birth to a child ten days before in the snow, and had passed several days without eating.

But admire the love these Indians have for each other. These new guests were not asked why they came upon our boundaries, if they were not well aware that we were in as great straits as they were, and that they were coming to take the morsel out of our mouths. On the contrary, they were received, not with words, but with deeds; without exterior ceremony, for of this the Indians have none, but with charity. They threw them large pieces of the Moose which had just been killed, without saying another word but, mitisoukou, "eat;" and it would have been wrong to ask them then to use their mouths for any other purpose. While they were eating, a feast was prepared, at which they were treated generously, for the portion given to each one of them more than filled their ouragans (bark dishes), which are large.

On the sixteenth of the same mouth, we rambled about the country; and not being able to find the place we wanted, we could only lodge in an inn that we erected hurriedly; the next day we pursued our journey, passing over a mountain so high that even though we did not ascend to its summit, yet the Sorcerer told me that if the Sky, which was obscured by a cloud, had been clear, we might have seen at the same time both Quebec and Tadoussac, distant from each other at least 100 miles. I saw precipices beneath me, which made me tremble. In the midst of some plains, I saw mountains which seemed to me like little towers, or rather diminutive castles, although they were large and high. Imagine how hard it is for these Indians to drag their baggage so high. I had trouble in getting up, but still more in coming down; for, although I was going away from the precipices, yet the slope was so steep that it was easy to roll down and break one's head against a tree.

On the twenty-ninth, we finished our descent of this mountain, and carried our house up the slope of another to which we were going. As this was the end of our pilgrimage, we shall begin subsequently to turn back and direct our course toward the Island where we had left our sailboat. We saw here the sources of two little rivers, which flow into a river as large, our Indians say, as the Saint Lawrence; they call it Oueraouachticou.

This twelfth camp saved us from famine; for the snow was deep enough to impede the long legs of the Elk, and we had something to eat. At first, there was nothing but feasts and dancing; but this did not last long, as they soon began to dry the meat. Passing therefore from starvation to good food, I felt very well; but when we changed from fresh meat to smoked, I fell ill, and did not entirely recover my health until three weeks after my return to our little house.

From the beginning of February until April we always had something to eat; but it was smoked meat, so hard and so dirty, and in so small quantities, except a few days of plenty which passed in feasting, that our Indians counted these last months, as well as the preceding ones, among the months and winters of their famines. They told me that to live moderately well and without suffering, they had to have an Elk as large as an ox every two days, both because we were rather numerous, and also because people eat a great deal of meat when they have neither bread nor anything else to make the food hold out; add to this that they are great diners, and that Elk meat does not remain long in the stomach.

I have forgotten to say elsewhere that the Indians count the years by winters. To say, "How old are you?" they say, "How many winters have you passed? "They count also by nights, as we do by days; instead of saying, "It happened three days ago," they say, "three nights ago."

On the fifth of February, we left our twelfth dwelling to proceed to our thirteenth. I was sick; the Sorcerer was killing me with his cries, his howls, and his drum; he continually reproached me with being proud, saying that the Manitou had made me sick as well as the others.

"It is not," I said to him, "the Manitou or devil that has caused this sickness, but bad food, which has injured my stomach, and other hardships that have weakened me." All this did not satisfy him; he did not cease to attack me, especially in the presence of the Indians, saying I had mocked the Manitou, and that he had revenged himself upon me for my pride.

One day, when he was casting these slurs upon me, I sat upright, and said, "So you may know it is not your Manitou who causes sickness and kills people, hear how I shall speak to him." I cried out in their language, in a loud voice, "Come, Manitou; come, demon; murder me if you have the power, I defy you, I mock you, I do not fear you; you have no power over those who believe and love God; come and kill me if your hands are free; you are more afraid of me than I am of you."

The Sorcerer was terrified and said, "Why do you call him, since you do not fear him? it is the same as calling him to kill you."

"Not at all," said I; "but I am calling him to make you see that he has no power over those who worship the true God, and to show you that he is not the sole cause of sickness, as you think."

On the ninth of the same month of February we scoured the plains. The Sorcerer, in spite that I was sick, would force me to carry some of the baggage; but my host took pity on me, and, having encountered me on the way when I was ready to sink from exhaustion, he took what I carried, of his own free will, and placed it upon his sledge.

On the fourteenth and fifteenth, we made long stages, to go and plant our cabin near two small Moose that my host had killed. Upon the way, as we discovered the tracks of a third, my host interrupted the journey to go and look for it. I belonged to the rear guard of our army; that is, I was coming up slowly behind the others, when suddenly this Elk appeared, coming straight toward me, and after it my host in hot pursuit. The snow was deep, and therefore, before it had gone 420 yards, it was killed. We encamped near there and made a feast of it. The Apostate, continuing to blaspheme here, asked me why I prayed to him who neither saw nor heard anything. I criticized him sharply and imposed silence upon him.

On the sixth day of March, we shifted our quarters. The Sorcerer, the Renegade, and two young hunters, directed their steps before us straight to the banks of the great river. The cause of this separation was that my host, a good hunter, had discovered four Moose, and a number of Beaver lodges; and not being able alone to hunt in places so widely separated, the Sorcerer took these young hunters to chase the Moose, and he remained for the Beavers. This separation was fraught with both good and evil for me. With good, because I was freed from the Sorcerer; I have no words to describe the pertinacity of this wicked man. With evil, because my host did not capture any Moose, and we had nothing to eat but smoked meat, which was distasteful to me; for, if he captured any Beavers, they were smoked, except the little ones, which we ate; the finest and best ones were reserved for the feasts they were to give in the Spring, at the place where they had appointed a rendezvous.

On the thirteenth of the same month, we made our eighteenth camp near a river, whose waters seemed to me sweet as sugar after the dirt of the melted snow that we drank at former campsites, out of a greasy and smoky kettle.

I began here to experience the discomfort of sleeping upon the ground, which was cold in winter and damp in Spring; for my right side, upon which I lay, became so benumbed from cold that it scarcely had any sense of feeling. Fearing I would only carry half of myself back to our little house, the other being paralyzed, I promised a shirt and a little gown to a child, for a miserable piece of Moose skin, which his mother gave me; this undressed skin was about as hard as the ground, but not as damp. Of this I made my bed, which was so short that the ground, which had up to that time taken possession of all my body, still kept the half of it.

After the departure of the Sorcerer, my host took pleasure in asking me questions, especially about the things of nature. One day he asked me how the earth was made; and bringing me a piece of bark and some charcoal, he had me describe it. So I drew for him the two Hemispheres; and after having traced Europe, Asia and Africa, I came to our America, showing him that it is an immense Island. I described for him the coast of Acadia, the great Island of Newfoundland, the entrance and gulf of our great Saint Lawrence River, the people who inhabit its banks, the place where we then were. I went up as far as the Algonquins, the Iroquois, the Hurons, to the neutral nation, etc., showing him the places more and less populous. I passed to Florida, to Peru, to Brazil, etc., speaking to him in my jargon the best I could about these countries. He asked me more particularly about the countries of which he had some knowledge.

Then having listened to me patiently, he exclaimed, using one of their words expressive of great admiration, Amonitatinaniouikhi! "This black robe tells the truth," speaking to an old man who was looking at me; and turning toward me, he said, "nikanis (My good friend), you cause our wonder; for we are acquainted with most of these lands and tribes, and you have described them as they are."

Then I urge, "As you see I tell the truth in speaking of your country, you should also believe that I do not lie in speaking of the others."

"I do believe therefore," he replied.

I followed up my point: "As I am truthful in speaking about things of the earth, you should persuade yourself that I am not lying when I speak to you about the things of Heaven; and therefore you ought to believe what I have told you about the other life."

He paused a few moments, and then, having reflected a little, said, "I will believe you when you will know how to speak; but we have now too much trouble in understanding each other."

He asked me a thousand other questions, about the Sun, the roundness of the earth, France, and he frequently spoke to me about our good King. He was surprised when I told him that France was full of Captains, and that the King was the Captain of all the Captains. He asked me to take him to France to see him and give him some presents. I began to laugh, telling him that all their riches were nothing but poverty compared to the splendors of the King.

"I mean," said he, "that I will make presents to his followers; as to him, I will be content to see him." He recounted afterward to the others what he had heard me say.

Another time, he asked me if there were any great falls in the sea, that is, waterfalls. There are a great many in the rivers of this country. You will see a beautiful river flowing along peacefully, and all at once it will fall into a lower bed, as the land does not slope gradually, but as if by steps in certain places. We see one of these falls near Quebec; it is called the "falls of Montmorency." They are formed by a river which comes from the interior, and falls from a high level into the great river saint Lawrence, the banks enclosing it being considerably elevated at this place. Some of the Indians believe that the sea has these waterfalls, and that a great many ships are lost in them. I removed this error by telling them that these inequalities are not found in the Ocean.

On the twenty-third of March, we again crossed the river Capititetchioueth, over which we had passed on the third of December.

On the thirtieth of the same month, we encamped upon a beautiful lake, having passed another smaller one on our way, both of them still frozen over as hard as in the middle of winter. Here my host, seeing that I was weak and cast down, consoled me, saying, "Do not be sad; if you are sad, you will become still worse; if your sickness increases, you will die. See what a beautiful country this is; love it; if you love it, you will take pleasure in it, and if you take pleasure in it, you will become cheerful, and if you are cheerful, you will recover." I took pleasure in listening to the conversation of this poor Indian.

On the first day of April, we left this beautiful lake, and drew rapidly toward our rendezvous. We passed the night in a miserable smoky hole, and in the morning continued on our way, going farther in these two days than we had previously gone in five. God favored us with fine weather, for there was a hard frost, and the air was clear. If it had thawed as on the preceding days, and we had sunk down in the snow, as sometimes happened, either they would have had to drag me, or I would have remained on the way, so ill was I. It is true that nature has more resistance than she makes believe; I experienced this that day, when I was so weak that, if I sat down upon the snow occasionally to rest myself, my limbs would tremble, not from cold, but from a weakness which caused the perspiration to come out upon my forehead. As I was thirsty, I tried to drink some water from a torrent that we were passing. The ice, which I broke with my club, fell under me and separated into a big cake. When I saw myself with my snowshoes on my feet, upon this ice, floating in a rapid current, I leaped to the edge of the torrent before consulting as to whether I ought to do it or not, and nature found strength enough to escape from this mass of water, not wishing to drink so much of it at once; I had nothing but the fear of a peril which was sooner escaped than realized.

The danger passed, I pursued my way slowly; I was not likely to be strong, for, besides the malady from which I had been suffering since the last day of January, and which had not entirely left me, during these last days I had not been eating more than three mouthfuls of smoked meat in the morning, and would walk nearly all the rest of the day without any other refreshment than a little water, when I could get any. At last I arrived after the others upon the banks of the great river, and, three days later, namely, on the fourth of the same month of April, we made our twenty-third camp, going to build our cabin on the Island where we had left our sailboat. Here we were badly lodged; for, in addition to the presence of the Sorcerer who had returned to us, we were so full of smoke that we could stand no more; besides, as the water of the great river was salty here, and as there was no spring in the Island, we could only drink snow or rainwater, and that dirty. I did not make a long stay in this place. My host, seeing that I was not getting well, decided to take me back to our little house; the Sorcerer wished to dissuade him from this, but I broke up his conspiracies.

On the fifth of April, my host, the Apostate, and I embarked in a little canoe to go to Quebec upon the great river, after having taken leave of all the Indians. As it was still cold, we had not gone far when we found that a little ice had formed during the night, which covered the surface of the water; seeing that it extended quite far, we entered it, the Apostate, who was in front, breaking it with his paddle. But either it was too sharp, or the bark of our gondola too thin; for it made an opening which let the water into our canoe and fear into our hearts. So see us all three in action, my two Indians paddling, and I baling out the water. We drew with all the strength of our paddles to an Island which we fortunately encountered.

When we set foot upon shore, the Indians seized the canoe, drew it out of the water, turned it upside down; lighted their tinder, made a fire, sewed up the slit in the bark; applied to it their resin, a kind of gum that runs out of trees; placed the canoe again in the water, and we reembarked and continued our journey. In view of this danger, I told them that, if they expected to encounter much of this sharp ice, it would be better to return from where we had come, and wait until the weather was warmer. "It is true," replied my host, "that we came near perishing; if the hole had been a little larger it would have been all over with us. But let us pursue our way, this little ice does not frighten me."

Towards the third hour of the evening we saw before us a horrible bank of ice which blocked our way, extending across the great river for a distance of more than 10 miles. We were a little frightened, but my people approached it still, as they had noticed a small opening in it; they glided into this, turning our little gondola first to one side and then to the other, to always make some headway. At last, we found these masses of ice so firmly wedged together that it was impossible either to advance or recede, for the movement of the water closed us in on all sides. In the midst of this ice, if a sharp wind had arisen, we would have been crushed and broken to pieces, we and our canoe, like the grain of wheat between two millstones; for imagine these blocks of ice, larger and thicker than the millstone and hopper together.

My Indians, seeing our predicament, leaped from one piece of ice to another, like squirrels from tree to tree; and pushing it away with their paddles, made a passage for the canoe, in which I sat alone, nearer dying from water than from disease. We struggled along in this way until five o'clock in the evening, and then we landed. These Indians are skillful in such encounters. They asked me from time to time, in the greatest danger, if I were not afraid; truly nature is not fond of playing at such games, and their leaps from ice to ice seemed to me to be full of peril both for them and for me, especially as their father, as I have been told, was drowned under similar circumstances. We escaped also from this danger, which did not seem to them as great as the first.

When we reached land, our house was the foot of a tree, where we lay down, after having eaten a bit of smoked meat and drunk a little melted snow. I repeated my little prayers, and rested beside a good fire which counteracted the frost and cold of the night.

The next day we embarked early. The tide, which had brought us these legions of icebergs, had carried them during the night to the other side, so we were for some distance free from this annoyance; but the wind arose, and as our little gondola began to dance upon the waves, we turned shoreward and hurriedly landed. I had asked my people to take with them some pieces of bark, with which to make a cabin to cover us at night, and food enough for several days, as we were not sure that the bad weather might not cause us delays. They did neither one thing nor the other, so we had to lie out in the open air, and make one day's food last four; they had expected to go hunting, but, as the snow was melting, they could not pursue the game. The weather promising to clear up, we embarked again, but scarcely had we gone 7 miles when the wind, growing stronger, cast us upon the ice which the tide was bringing back, and caused us to glide quickly through a little stream, and all three to leap upon these great blocks of ice which were along its edge, and therefore to gain land, our Indians carrying our bark ship upon their shoulders.

We were lodged upon a point of land exposed to all the winds. As a shelter, we placed our canoe back of us, and fearing rain or snow, my host threw a wretched skin upon some poles, and, our house was made. The winds were so boisterous all night that they nearly blew away our canoe. The next day the storm continuing upon the water, and my people having nothing to eat, they went hunting during most wretched weather. The Renegade did not capture anything; but my host brought back a young partridge, which served as breakfast, dinner, and supper. True, I bad eaten some leaves of the strawberry plant that I had found upon the ground, from which the snow had recently melted in some places. So we passed this day without resuming our journey.

That night the storm, gusts of wind, and the cold, attacked us with such fury that we had to surrender to these forces, and get up half-frozen (for we had been lying upon the bare ground, not having taken the trouble to cover it with pine branches) and go into the woods to borrow from the trees their shelter against the wind and their covering against the Sky. Here we made a good fire and went to sleep upon ground still damp from snow which had probably covered it the night before. We set this day and this night down in the calendar of wretched days and nights, yet it was for us a period of good fortune. For, if these tempests and winds had not held us prisoners upon the land while they were clearing away the ice and driving it down the river, it would have been massed across the way to the Islands by which we must pass; and we would have had to die from too much drink crushing our canoe, or from too little food, caused by having to stop in some deserted Island. If we had escaped it would have been with great difficulty. Besides, I was so weak and sick when I embarked that if I had foreseen the hardships of the way, I would have expected to die a hundred times; yet Our Lord began to strengthen me, so that I aided my Indians to paddle, especially toward the end of our journey.

The day after these tempests being still rather windy, my host and the Apostate went hunting. An hour after their departure the Sun shone out brightly, the air became clear, the winds died away, the waves fell, the sea became calm; it mended, as the sailors say. Then I was in great perplexity about following my Indians to call them back, for it would have been like a turtle pursuing a greyhound. I turned my eyes to Heaven; and when I lowered them, I saw my people running like deer along the edge of the wood straight toward me. I immediately arose, and started for the river, bearing our little baggage. When my host arrived, eco, eco, pousitau, pousitau, "Quick, quick, let us embark, let us embark!" No sooner said than done; the wind and tide favored us, we glided on with paddle and sail, our little bark ship cutting the waves with incomparable swiftness. We at last arrived about ten o'clock in the evening at the end of the great Island of Orleans, from which our little house was not more than 5 miles away. My people had eaten nothing all day; I encouraged them. We tried to go on, but the current of the tide, which was still ebbing, being rapid, we had to await the flood to cross the great river. Therefore we went into a little cove, and slept upon the sand, near a good fire that we lighted.

Toward midnight, the tide again arising, we embarked. The Moon shone brightly, and wind and tide made us fly. As my host would not take the direction I advised, we nearly perished in the port; for, when we came to enter our little river, we found it still covered with ice. We tried to approach the banks, but the wind had piled up great masses of ice there, striking and surging against each other, which threatened us with death if we approached them. So we had to veer around and turn our prow to the wind and work against the tide.

It was here I saw the valor of my host. He had placed himself in front, as the place where the greatest danger was to be found. I saw him through the darkness of the night, which filled us with terror while augmenting our peril, strain every nerve and struggle against death, to keep our little canoe in position amid waves capable of swallowing up a great ship. I cried out to him, Nikanis ouabichtigoueiakhi ouabichtigoueiakhi, "My good friend, to Quebec, to Quebec, let us go there." When we were about to double the Sailor's leap, the bend where our river enters the great river, you might have seen him ride over one wave, cut through the middle of another, dodge one block of ice, and push away another, continually fighting against a furious Northeast wind which we had in our teeth.

Having escaped this danger, we would have liked to land; but an army of icebergs, summoned by the raging wind, barred our entrance. So we went on as far as the fort, coasting along the shores, and sought in the darkness a little gleam of light or a small opening among these masses of ice. My host having seen a rerin, or turn, which is at the bottom of the fort, where the ice did not move, as it was outside the current of wind, he turned away with his paddle three or four dreadful masses of it which he encountered, and dashed in. He leaped quickly from the Canoe, fearing the return of the ice, crying, Capatau, "Let us land;" the trouble was that the ice was so high and densely packed against the bank that it was all I could do to reach to the top of it with my hands; I did not know what to take hold of to pull myself out of the Canoe and to climb up upon these icy shores. With one hand I took hold of my host's foot, and with the other seized a piece of ice which happened to project, and threw myself into a place of safety with the other two. A clumsy fellow becomes agile on such occasions.

All being out of the Canoe, they seized it at both ends and placed it in safety; and when this was done, we all three looked at each other, and my host, taking a long breath, said to me, nikanis khegat nipiacou, "My good friend, a little more, and we would have perished;" he still felt horror over the gravity of our danger. If he had not had the arms of a Giant (he is a large and powerful man), and an ingenuity uncommon among either Frenchmen or Indians, either a wave would have swallowed us up, or the wind would have overturned us, or an iceberg would have crushed us. Only a little while ago, one of our Frenchmen was drowned under like circumstances, yet less dangerous, for there was no longer any ice.

Having escaped so many perils, we crossed our river on the ice, which was not yet broken; and three hours after midnight, on Palm Sunday, April 9th, I reentered our little house. I found the house filled with peace and blessings, everyone being in good health. The Governor, learning of my return, sent to me two of our most prominent Frenchmen, to inquire after my health. His affection for us is evident. One of the heads of the old family in the country also hurried to express his joy at my return. They knew by the small amount of snow that had fallen that Winter that the Indians, and consequently I, would suffer from famine; and so some even shed tears of joy at seeing me escaped from so great a danger.

I wanted to describe this journey, to show you the great hardships that must be endured in following the Indians; but I ask those who have any desire to help them not to be frightened; because it will no longer be necessary to make these visits when we shall know their languages and reduce them to rules.

On the 31st Of May, a sailboat arrived from Tadoussac which bore the news that three vessels of the Associates had arrived, two being in that port, and the third at Moulin Baude, a place near Tadoussac, therefore named by the French. They were waiting for the fourth, commanded by Sir du Plessis Bochart, general of the fleet, who came soon afterward and gave high praise to Captain Bontemps for having shown meritorious conduct in the capture of the English ship, of which I have spoken above. As soon as this good news was brought to Sir de Champlain, as he never omits any occasion to show his good will, he sent us news of that by a special messenger, sending us also the letters of Reverend Father Lallement who wrote me that he had arrived with Our Brother Jean Ligeois in good health, and that the first breeze would bring him to us. It is easy to guess with what joy we blessed and thanked our Lord for this good and so favorable news. He arrived two days later in the barque commanded by Sir Castillon, who is said to have done good work in the capture of the English.

On the 24th of the same month, feast of St. John the Baptist, the English ship, commanded by Captain de Lormel, came up so far, and brought us Father Jacques Buteux in fairly good health. The General, honoring us with his letters, sent me word that this good Father had been sick during the passage; the Father told us that he had been so effectively nursed and assisted by the General and his Surgeon that he felt overwhelmed by their kindness; he feels better now than ever before.

On the first of July, Father Breboeuf and Father Daniel left in a barque to go to Three Rivers, there to wait for the Hurons. This barque was destined to begin a new settlement there. Father Davost, who had come down from Tadoussac for the assistance of our French, followed our Fathers three days later with the General, who wanted to meet these people at the trading post. They waited there some time for the Hurons, who did not come down in so great numbers this year as usual; because the Iroquois, having been informed that five hundred men of this nation were moving toward their country to make war upon them, themselves went on ahead to the number of fifteen hundred; and having surprised those who were to surprise them, they killed about two hundred of them, and took more than one hundred prisoners, Louis Amantacha being one of the number. They said his father was put to death, but the report is now that he escaped the hands of the enemy.

We were told that these triumphant Iroquois sent some Captains to the Hurons to negotiate for peace, retaining the most prominent ones in their possession after having cruelly massacred the others.

This loss caused the Hurons to come in small bands, only seven Canoes coming down at first. When Father Breboeuf heard of their arrival, he went to them, and did all he could to make them promise to receive him and his companions, and take them to their country; this they willingly granted.

Then an Algonquin Captain, called the Partridge, who lives in the town, made a speech recommending them not to take any Frenchmen on board.

These Hurons, who had to pass through the country of this Captain on their return, became cold, and at this point Sir du Plessis Bochart arrived. All this had occurred at a place called Three Rivers, 75 miles farther up the river than Quebec. As he was anxious to have our Fathers penetrate into these nations, he had the Algonquins assembled in Council, especially this Captain, to have him explain the reason of his opposition. He brought forth several arguments, which they answered for him at once; he dwelt, as I judge from Father Breboeuf's letters, upon the trouble that would occur in case some Frenchman should die among the Hurons. He was told that, as the Fathers would not be in his country, the peace between the French and his Compatriots would not be disturbed, whether their death were a natural or a violent one. So now the Algonquins were satisfied; but the Hurons began to excuse themselves on account of the small number of their men, who could not carry so many Frenchmen; also on account of their small Canoes and the presence of sickness among them. They would have been willing to take on board some Frenchmen who were well armed; but they did not want these long robes, who carried no guns.

Sir du Plessis Bochart became urgent, pressing our cause with all the power he had; they find a place for a few. A certain Indian, addressing the Father, said, "Arrange for me to trade my tobacco for wampum; and my Canoe being unloaded, I will take one Frenchman." The Father had none of this; but, when Sir du Plessis Bochart and Sir de l'Espinays heard of it, they bought his tobacco, and this made a place for six persons. When they came to embark, the Indians, who were sick, said they could not carry more than three: two young Frenchmen, and one Father. The Fathers promised that they would paddle; they made presents, and Sir du Plessis Bochart made some also and urged them as strongly as he could; they would not receive any more.

Father Breboeuf relies on God; this is the way he speaks of it in his letter: "Never did I see an embarkation about which there was so much quibbling and opposition. The Indian who had taken on board Petit Pre, one of our Frenchmen, gave him up in order to receive me, especially since Sir du Plessis Bochart insisted strongly that this should be done." And therefore Father Breboeuf, Father Daniel, and a young man named le Baron were accepted by these Indians, who carried them into their country in bark Canoes. There remained Father Davost and five of our Frenchmen. Do not ask if the Father was sad at therefore seeing his companions depart without him, almost without taking the necessaries of life, or their clothing. The desire to go into the country of the Cross made them leave their little baggage, so not to irritate their Indians, who were ill, contenting themselves merely with the Altar ornaments.

Their departure from Three Rivers was so hurried that they could not write to us; but when they reached the long Sault, some 60 miles from Quebec, they encountered some Hurons who were coming down the river, and sent us letters, in one of which Father Breboeuf, having recounted the difficulties of his embarkation, says:

"I ask you to express our warmest thanks to Sir du Plessis Bochart, to whom we are indebted for our embarkation. For -- besides the presents he made to the Indians, publicly and privately, and the wampum he traded -- he held as many councils as we desired, furnished us with provisions at our departure, and honored us with several Cannon salutes; and all with great care, and an appearance of special interest in us. We are going on by short stages, quite well, as far as we are concerned; but our Indians are all sick. We paddle all the time, and do this the more because our people are sick. All our Indians are much pleased with us. You will excuse this writing's order; we start so early in the morning, and lie down so late, and paddle so continually, that we hardly have time to devote to our prayers; I have been obliged to finish this by the light of the fire."

These are the words of the Father, who adds in another place that the people of the countries through which they pass are nearly all sick and are dying in great numbers. There has been a sort of Epidemic this year, which has even been communicated to the French; but no one has died of it; it is a sort of measles, and an oppression of the stomach.

Let us return to Three Rivers. Those who were awaiting some other occasion to embark were glad at the coming of three Canoes, in which Sir du Plessis Bochart had Father Davost and two of our Frenchmen embark, looking out for their interests with wonderful care, as the Father writes me. A short time after this, other Hurons came; and he placed in their Canoes both men and baggage, all that remained. So that three of our Fathers and six of our Frenchmen have gone up to the Hurons.

They have 750 miles to make over a route full of horrors, as it is described by the Hurons; on their way down, they hide meal every two days, to eat on their return, and these hiding-places are the only inns they have. If they fail to find them, or if someone robs them, for they are the worst kind of thieves, they must get along without eating. If they do find their provisions, they cannot feast sumptuously upon them. In the morning they mix a little of this meal with water, and each one eats about a bowlful of it; upon this they ply their paddles all day, and at nightfall they eat as they did at break of day. This is the kind of life that our Fathers must lead until they reach the country of these Indians. When they arrive, they will build themselves a bark house, and there they will live on wheat, and cornmeal, and, in certain seasons, on fish. As for meat, there being no hunting where they are, they will not eat it six times a year, unless they eat their dogs, as the people do, who raise these animals as they do sheep in France; their drink will be water. So these are the delicacies of the country for well people and sick, bread, wine, different kinds of meat, fruit, and a thousand refreshing foods found in France not yet having been introduced into these countries.

The money with which they will buy their food, wood, bark house, and other necessaries, is little beads or tubes of glass, knives, awls, blankets, kettles, hatchets, and similar things; this is the money they must carry with them. If peace is negotiated between the Hurons and Iroquois, I foresee a splendid opening for the Gospel.

In the 60 or 75 miles of country which the Hurons occupy, others estimate it at much less, there are more than thirty thousand people. The neutral nation is more populous, the Iroquois largely so, and the Algonquins have a country of great extent. I would like to have now only five or six of our Fathers in each of these nations; and yet I would not dare to ask for them, although for one that we desire ten would volunteer, ready to die in these countries. But I learn that all we have in France for this mission is little; how then shall we take the children, especially those of these populous nations, to maintain and instruct them?

On the third of August, Sir de Champlain, having returned from Three Rivers, where he had gone after the departure of our Fathers, told us that a French interpreter for the Algonquin nation had come from the Hurons and brought the news that Father Breboeuf was suffering; that his Indians were sick, and that he had to paddle continually, to relieve them; that Father Daniel had died of starvation, or was in great danger of dying, because the Indians who had taken him on board had left the usual route, where they had hidden their food, and had turned off into the woods, hoping to find a certain tribe who would give them something to eat; but, not having found these wandering people, they supposed that they all, Indians and French, were in danger of death, especially since there is no game there, and as most of these Indians are sick.

As to Father Davost, he is getting along well, but the Indians who are taking him have stolen part of his baggage; to be a Huron, and to be a Thief, is one and the same thing. If their gear is lost or stolen, they will have to endure a great deal in those countries, so far from all help.

On the fourth, Sir du Plessis Bochart came down from Three Rivers. As I went to greet him, he told me that he had brought us a little orphan Indian, making a present of him to us, to take the place of his father. As soon as we shall have the means for gathering in these poor children, we shall have a number of them who will afterward serve in the conversion of their Compatriots. He also told us that they were working in the place called Three Rivers; so our French now have three settlements upon the great Saint Lawrence River, one at Quebec, newly fortified; another 37 miles farther up the river, on the Island of Saint Croix, where Sir de Champlain has had fort Richelieu built; the third colony is being established at Three Rivers, 37 miles still higher up the river, that is, 75 miles from Quebec. Immediately after the departure of the vessels, Father Jacques Buteux and I will go there to live, to assist our French. As new settlements are usually dangerous, it has not seemed to me proper to expose Father Charles Lallemant or others there. Father Buteux goes there with me to study the language.

You will now see that the fear some people had that the foreigner would again come to ravage the country, and prevent the conversion of these poor Indians, is not well founded; since households have been established here, since forts and dwellings are being built in several places, and as the Cardinal favors this enterprise.

One word more. Give us persons capable of learning these languages. We intended to do this work this year, Father Lallemant, Father Buteux, and I; but this new settlement separates us. Who knows whether Father Daniel is still living, whether Father Davost will reach the Hurons? For, as his Indians have begun to rob him, they may play a still worse game upon him. Since the death of a poor unhappy Frenchman, murdered by the Hurons, it has been discovered that these Barbarians caused the drowning of Reverend Father Nicolas, Recollect, considered a worthy man. All this convinces us that we must retain here as many of our Fathers as we can; because if, for example, Father Breboeuf and I should happen to die, all the little we know of the Huron and Innu languages would be lost; and therefore they would always be beginning over again.

Paul Le Jeune.

From the little house of N. Dame des Anges, in New France, this 7th of August, 1634.

YEAR 1635
NEW FRANCE IN 1635. SENT TO THE REVEREND FATHER PROVINCIAL OF THE JESUITS IN THE PROVINCE OF FRANCE. BY FATHER PAUL LE JEUNE OF THE JESUITS, SUPERIOR OF THE RESIDENCE OF QUEBEC.

Reverend Father,

At last, New France is about to experience the blessings of the mother country; and will cause these countries to cease being what they have been for so many centuries, boundless forests, the abode of barbarism, and the land of unbelief. We begin to see some open country, through the clearings that have been made in different places. The families who come over every year are beginning to change the barbarism of the Indians into the courtesy natural to the French; and the slight progress we are making, through our stammerings, leads us to conjecture that the faith will banish unbelief from its Empire.

This enterprise is supported by persons of merit and rank, whose, integrity viewed by the eyes of all France, receives general approval and praise, even from the lips of our great King. The exclusion of those who, having drained off the wealth that can be gathered in this country, left it without settlers and without cultivation, not having, in all the years they enjoyed it, cleared a single acre of land; the great sums that the Company of New France are expending, either upon the country or upon their establishments; the disposition we see in many persons to favor this project, some by their means, others by their personal labors: all these considerations lead us to conclude that God is conducting this enterprise.

What surprises me is that many young Nuns wish to join us, -- overcoming the fear natural to their sex, to come and help the poor girls and poor women among these Indians. There are so many of these who write to us, and from so many Convents, and from various Orders in the Church, that you would say that each one is first to laugh at the hardships of the Sea, the riotous waves of the Ocean, and the barbarism of these countries. They have written me that the Superior of a well-ordered House, being asked to send some Sisters to establish a Convent of her Order in some town of France, answered that she had no Sisters except for New France, and for England, in case God restored the Catholic faith there. Another one, having recounted the great devotions that were performed in her House for the happy conversion of these Tribes, said that the Report of last year, capable of appalling the stoutest heart, not only has not disheartened these Sisters, but on the contrary has so inspired them that thirteen have with their own hands signed a vow to God, to cross over into New France, there to exercise the functions of their Order, if their Superiors allow them.

But I must give this advice to all these good Sisters, that they be careful not to depart until they have here a good House, well built and well endowed; otherwise, they would be a burden to our French, and could accomplish little for these Peoples. Men can extricate themselves much more easily from difficulties; but, as for the Nuns, they must have a good House, some cleared land, and a good income upon which to live, and relieve the poverty of the wives and daughters of the Indians. If the waste, the superabundance of some of the Ladies of France were employed in this holy work, what great blessings would it bring upon their families!

THE CONDITION AND EMPLOYMENT OF OUR JESUITS IN NEW FRANCE.

WE have six Residences in New France. The first, beginning with the first land encountered in coming into these countries, is called the Residence of Saint Anne; it is at Cape Breton. The second is the Residence of Saint Charles, at Miscou. The third, which we are going to occupy this Autumn, the Residence of Notre dame de Recouvrance, at Quebec, near the Fort. The fourth, the Residence of Notre dame des Anges, a mile from Quebec. The fifth, the Residence of the Conception, at the Three Rivers. The sixth, the Residence of Saint Joseph, Ihonatiria, among the Hurons. I hope that we shall soon have a seventh, in the same country, but in a Village other than Ihonatiria. As the Vessels which go to Cape Breton and to Miscou do not go up as far as Quebec, we have no communication with our Fathers who are in the Residences of Saint Anne and of Saint Charles, except by way of France; so neither letters nor other things should be sent to us to hold for them, but they should be given to those Vessels which go to these French settlements. I can say nothing of the things which take place in these Residences, on account of their remoteness and the little commerce we have with them.

All these Residences are maintained by the Company of New France, -- who have had Fortresses and dwellings for our French people built in different parts of the country, except the Residence of Notre dame des Anges, which is supported principally through the liberality of Sir de Gamache. This Residence has three great plans; the first, to build a College for the education of the children of the families, which are every day becoming more numerous. The second, to establish a Seminary for the little Indians, to rear them in the Christian faith. The third, to give powerful aid to the Mission of our Fathers among the Hurons and other stationary Tribes. As to the College, although it is not yet built, we shall begin this year to teach a few children. Everything has its beginning; the most learned once knew only the first elements of the Alphabet.

In regard to the Seminary, we are now having one built. For a while it will be in the Residence of Notre dame des Anges; but, if some pious person be found who wishes to endow it, and to support the poor little barbarians that they may be made children of Jesus Christ, it will have to be moved farther up the river, to a place where the Indians will not object to bring their children. I send a little boy to you; please return him to us in a couple of years; he will help to retain and teach his little compatriots; the one I did send you, and who has been returned to us, pleases us. The Indians are beginning to open their eyes and to recognize that children who are with us are well taught.

Finally, as to the Mission among the Hurons and other stationary Tribes, it is of the greatest importance for the service of our Lord. The Company of New France cherish and assist it. It is among those Tribes that we expect the greatest conversions; it is there that a great number of laborers must be sent, if the faith begins to illumine those souls, so many thousands of years plunged in darkness. If some fund cannot be found to maintain it, I would almost willingly give up the care both of a College and of a Seminary, to make it succeed. But some persons, who prefer to have their names written in the Book of life rather than upon this paper, positively forbid us to abandon in any way our plans.

Not to wander from the subject of our Residences, we exercise in these all the functions of Pastor, as there are no others here besides ourselves; we preach the word of God, we administer the Sacraments of Baptism, of the Altar and of Penance, of the Anointing of the Sick; we assist at the Sacrament of Marriage; at times we bury and lay out the dead; we visit the sick; we teach the Christian Doctrine to the children, and, as they are becoming more numerous through the arrival of families, we shall soon give them the elements of letters.

Besides this, some of us are making an arduous and thorough study of the language, an occupation which will some day be so much the more useful as it is now difficult. We also visit the Indians, and through our stammerings try to cast into their souls some little grain of Gospel seed.

In regard to our French people, they are occupied in fortifying, in building, in clearing and cultivating the land. This last winter, the land disease, or scurvy, appeared in the new settlement of Three Rivers, where Father Buteux and I had gone.

THE CONVERSION AND THE DEATH OF SOME INDIANS.

TWENTY-TWO Indians have been baptized this year. If we were acquainted with the languages, I believe the faith would be widely extended. We dare not yet trust baptism to any except those whom we see in danger of death, or to children who are assured to us; for, not yet being able to fully instruct these Indians, they would soon show a contempt for our holy Mysteries, if they had only a slight knowledge of them. If these people were as desirous of learning as are all civilized nations, some of us have a good enough knowledge of their language to teach them. But as they make living, and not knowledge, their profession, their greatest anxiety is about eating and drinking, and not about learning. When you speak to them of our truths, they listen to you patiently; but instead of asking you about the matter, they at once turn their thoughts to ways of finding something upon which to live, showing their stomachs always empty. Yet if we could make speeches as they do, and if we were present in their assemblies, I believe we could accomplish much there.

On the 3rd of November of the same year, Father Charles l'Allemant baptized a young Indian about twenty-five years old, called by the people of his nation Matchonon, surnamed by the French, Martin; at baptism he received the name of Joseph. This poor wretch met with a horrible death. While one day disputing with Father Brebeuf, he uttered this blasphemy: "You tell us that it is through the guidance of your God that we find something to eat; tell him that he may oppose, with all his power, my taking Beavers and Elks; and you will see that I shall not fail to take them, in spite of him." One of our Frenchmen, seized with great fervor, hearing this impiety, was ready to leap upon him, and would have beaten him soundly, had it not been for the presence of the Father. This poor, impious wretch has not, since this blasphemy, killed either Beaver or Elk. He went up beyond Three Rivers, where illness prostrated him. Father Brebeuf, when he was going up to the Hurons last year, encountered him, and seeing him in a pitiful state, asked him how much game he had killed since his blasphemy; the poor man was covered with confusion. The Father took pity on him, and said that he would write to me about this meeting; and that he trusted that, if he wished to ask God's forgiveness, he would be aided. After I had received the Father's letter, Father Buteux and I went to the new settlement of Three Rivers, to begin the Residence of the Conception. We found this blasphemer as naked as a worm, sick, lying upon the ground, his only possession being a wretched piece of bark -- a cabin of Indians who were encamped there having refused him shelter. His brother had brought him to a place near the French settlement, and had left him there.

We asked him if he did not see that it was the vengeance of God that he had not captured anything since his impious act.

"I have not been able," said he, "to capture anything, for I have been sick all the time."

"But do you not see that it is God who has punished you by this sickness?"

"Perhaps you say the truth," he answered me.

I tried to tell him that his brother had no pity on him, and he excused him readily, -- "What would you have him do; how will he drag me about in the forest where he is going to seek food?"

"But your people, have they no pity on you? Why do you not ask these Indians to take you into their cabin, or else to give you a small piece of bark, to make a little one for yourself?" He did not even dare ask them, they are so ashamed to beg from each other; but he told me in a low voice to ask them to do it; I did so immediately in his presence. At first, they gave me no answer; but finally a woman said that they were going elsewhere to camp, and they had not enough bark for themselves.

This unhappy man, seeing that the barque which brought us was returning to Quebec, asked me to have him carried there, for we could find no place for him; our house in this early stage was only some logs of wood, fitted to each other, plastered over the cracks with a little clay, and covered with grass; we had in all twelve feet square for the Chapel and for our living room, awaiting the completion of a frame building which was being constructed. So, realizing that it was impossible for us to help him, I asked them to take him in the barque, which they did, and carried him to Quebec, where the Indians deserted him. Father l'Allemant, seeing him abandoned, had him come to our house, the thing he desired; one of our Brothers dressed his sores every day and the Father instructed him, to prepare him for baptism. As they supposed that he was in danger of death, the Father baptized him, and they fed and nursed him all winter.

When I returned in the Spring from Three Rivers, I was glad to see him, hoping he would instruct me in the knowledge of his language, and that I could teach him more at leisure the truths of our belief. I had hardly arrived when his brother came along, and the sick man, overjoyed to see him, asked me to let him go with him to Three Rivers; I did all I could to dissuade him, foreseeing his certain ruin if he returned among the Indians, and promised all assistance if he would stay. "No," said he, "I want to go up the river to see my relatives."

As I know the character of these Indians, I told him that the Indians would soon throw him out of their cabins; that they would give him nothing to eat, and, at last becoming tired of him, they would kill him. He began to laugh, saying to me that they would not go so far as that. I threatened that, if he went away, we would not take him back again; but there was no way of stopping him. When he reached Three Rivers, Father Buteux tried to make him see the evil that might result from his having left us, but he merely laughed at him; the Father threatened him with the judgments of God; he answered that he could as well endure the fires in hell as he had borne the cold during the winter. At first the Indians kept him in their cabins; but, getting tired of him, they put him out, and there he lay, under the shelter of the Sky and a piece of bark; they gave him only a little fish, and that not often. So he almost began to fear what I had predicted for him, as he knew the customs of his nation. He said to Father Buteux, who was returning to Quebec to make a visit, "Your brother told me that, if I left your house, he would never take me back again. I would like to be there now; tell him that if he will receive me, he may write to some Frenchman, and I will go there at the first opportunity." When the Father arrived and reported this to me, we immediately went to the fort at Quebec, to seek some opportunity to send for him, wishing to save this poor wretch since he bore the mark of a Christian; but on our way, we met an Innu who told us that, immediately after the departure of Father Buteux, an Indian had given this wretched man a blow from an axe, during the night, which dashed his brains out of his head.

On the second day of February, the little Indian who was taken to France last year was baptized in the Convent of the sisters of Mercy, in the Hospital of Dieppe. She was placed as a boarder with these good sisters. Here is what the Mother Superior has written me about her: "Our little Canadian girl died on the day of the Purification of our Lady, of smallpox, which could not be cured, although all possible remedies were used; she was baptized half an hour before her death, and it was almost a miracle that we were not surprised, for she was strong for her age, and did not seem to be so near death as she was."

On the eighteenth of the same month of February, Father Buteux and I received among the number of Christians, a good Indian woman, who was solemnly baptized in our Chapel of the Conception at Three Rivers. She was called Ouetata Samakheou, and we gave her the name of Anne. When the Indians went away, they left her near our Settlement, sick and lying upon the hard ground; others arriving, we had her placed in their Cabin; and when these moved away, after a short stay, we had her placed in another, the only one remaining; as the people of this Cabin wished to follow the others, we asked them to leave a few rolls of their bark to make a miserable hut for this poor creature; but they turned a deaf ear. As we could not have this woman taken into the fort, where there were only men, and as we did not wish to see her die before our eyes, a victim to the cold, having nothing with which to make her a house, we asked our French people to intimidate these Indians. So some of them came, pistol in hand, and took some of the bark by force, telling them that this woman would soon either die or recover, and they would get back what they had loaned. They were angry; but still, as this violence was reasonable, one of them, to atone for their cruelty, returned from the woods where he had gone to camp, and put up a little cabin for her, where every day we carried her food and instructed her. Imagine how great is the necessity for a Hospital here.

I will relate the chastisement drawn down upon the wretched Sorcerer and his brother. This wicked man, to displease me, occasionally made attacks upon God. One day he said to the Indians in my presence, "I have today made a great deal of sport of the one whom the black robe tells us has made all things." I could not stand this blasphemy, and told him aloud that if he were in France, they would put him to death; also, that he could sneer at me as much as he pleased and I would endure it, but that he might better murder me than to expect me to tolerate him to mock my God when I was present; that he would not continue much longer with this impertinence, for God was powerful enough to burn and cast him into hell if he kept on with his blasphemies. He never again spoke in this way before me but, in my absence, he did not refrain from his scoffing and impious speeches. The year had not yet expired, when his cabin caught fire, I do not know how, and he was dreadfully scorched, roasted and burned, as it was told to me by the Indians.

They told me also that Mestigou, whom I had taken for my host, was drowned. I would much rather God had touched their hearts; I have been particularly grieved about my host, for he had good inclinations; but having sneered, together with some of the Indians, at the prayers I had made them say in the time of our great need, he was involved in the same vengeance. Falling ill of a disease which made him lose his reason, so that he ran here and there naked, like a madman, he found himself upon the shore of the great river, at low tide; and when the tide arose, he was smothered in the waters.

HOW IT IS A BENEFIT TO BOTH OLD AND NEW FRANCE, TO SEND COLONISTS HERE.

IT is to be feared that in the multiplication of our French in these countries, peace, happiness, and good feeling may not increase in the same ratio as do the Inhabitants of New France. It is easier to control a few men than whole multitudes; yet it would be an enterprise honorable and profitable to Old France, and useful to the New, to establish settlements here, and to send over colonists.

Shall the French, alone of all the Nations of the earth, be deprived of the honor of spreading over this New World? Shall France, much more populous than all the other Kingdoms, have Inhabitants only for itself? or, when her children leave her, shall they go and lose the name of Frenchmen among Foreigners?

Geographers, Historians, and experience itself show us that every year a great many people leave France who go to enroll themselves elsewhere. For, although the Soil of our country is fertile, the French women are still more so. At present, our French people do not go forth in bands, but separately, some going in one direction, some in another, to make their fortunes among Strangers. Would it not be better to empty Old France into New, by means of colonists which could be sent there, than to people Foreign countries?

Add to this that there is a multitude of workmen in France, who, for lack of employment or of owning a little land, pass their lives in poverty and wretched want. Many of them beg their bread from door to door; some of them resort to stealing and public banditry, others to larceny and secret frauds, each one trying to obtain for himself what many cannot possess. As New France is so immense, so many inhabitants can be sent here that those who remain in the Mother Country will have enough honest work left them to do, without launching into those vices which ruin Republics; this does not mean that ruined people, or those of evil lives, should be sent here, for that would be to build Babylons; but if the good were to make room for the bad, it would give the bad an opportunity to escape the idleness that corrupts them.

Besides, if these Countries are populated by our French, not only will this weaken the strength of the Foreigner, who holds in his ships, in his towns, and in his armies, a great many of our Countrymen as hostages, not only will it banish famine from the houses of a multitude of poor workmen, but it will also strengthen France; for those who will be born in New France, will be French, and in case of need can render good service to their King, a thing which cannot be expected from those who dwell among our neighbors and outside the dominion of their Prince.

Finally, if this country is populated by the French, it will be firmly attached to the Crown, and the Foreigner will come no more to trouble it. And they tell us that this year, the English have restored to Commander de Rasilly the settlement of Penobscot, that they took from the French in 1613.

There can be found here employment for all sorts of artisans. Why cannot the great forests of New France largely furnish the Ships for the Old? Who doubts that there are here mines of iron, copper, and other metals? Some have already been discovered, which will soon be worked; and so all those who work in wood and iron will find employment here. Grain will not fail here, more than in France. I do not pretend to recite all the advantages of the country, nor to show what can give occupation here to the intelligence and strength of our French people; it would be an honor and a great benefit to both old and New France to send over Emigrants and establish strong colonies in these lands.

They will tell me that the Company of New France have taken it upon themselves to do this; I answer that they are discharging their duty perfectly, although at great expense; but even if they should bring over three times as many people as they have promised, they would but slightly relieve Old France, and would people only a little village of the New France. Still, in time they will make some progress; and as soon as, through the clearing of the land, they can obtain from it what is necessary for life, thousands of useful things will be found in the country which will also be profitable to France. But it seems necessary that a great extent of forest should be converted into tillable land, before introducing many families, otherwise famine might consume them.

If I could see here a number of towns or villages, gathering enough of the fruits of the earth for their needs, our wandering Indians would soon range themselves under their protection; and being rendered settled by our example, especially if they were to be given some help, they could easily be instructed in the Faith. As to the stationary tribes farther back in the interior, we would go in great numbers to aid them; and would have much more authority, and less fear, if we felt that we had the support of these Towns or Villages. The more imposing the power of our French people is made in these Countries, the more easily they can make their belief received by these Indians, who are influenced even more through the senses, than through reason.

A COLLECTION OF VARIOUS MATTERS PREPARED IN THE FORM OF A JOURNAL.

On the twelfth of August of the preceding year, 1634, Sir du Plessis Bochart, Commandant of the fleet, weighed anchor and left the Roadstead of Quebec, to go to Tadoussac and from there to France, where he arrived about the middle of September, having been only a month in crossing the sea.

On the twenty-sixth of the same month of August, some Indians who were passing our House showed us some plums they had gathered in the woods not far from there; they were as large as the little apricots of France, their stone being flat like that of the apricot. This leads me to say that the cold of these Countries does not prevent fruit from growing. We shall know from experience, in a few years, for we have grafted some cuttings which have started very well.

On the third of September, we, Father Buteux and I, embarked to go and help our French in the New Settlement they are beginning at Three Rivers. We passed near the Island of Richelieu, called by the Indians Ka ouapassiniskakhi. Sir de Champlain has had a platform erected there, upon which they have placed some Cannon to command the whole River. From this Islet to a considerable distance above, the passage is dangerous to anyone who does not know the real channel. Once we touched bottom, another time we were stranded; and in a strong northeaster our barque grazed a rock, which filled with horror all those that saw it.

On the eighth, we arrived at Three Rivers. We found living there agreeable; the ground is sandy, the fish abundant in its season. An Indian will sometimes bring in his Canoe twelve or fifteen Sturgeon, the smallest of which is occasionally as long as the height of a man; besides these, there are also a number of other good fish. The French have named this place Three Rivers, because there emerges here a beautiful river which flows into the great Saint Lawrence River through three principal mouths, caused by several little Islands which are found at the entrance of this river, which the Indians call Metaberoutin. The whole country between Quebec and this new Settlement, which we will call the Residence of the Conception, is pleasant; it is intersected by brooks and streams, which empty at short distances from each other into the King of rivers, that is, into the great Saint Lawrence River, which is, even at this place, fully a mile or mile and a half wide, although it is 75 miles above Quebec.

On the twenty-seventh of the same month of September, an Elk appeared on the other bank of this great river; our Frenchmen gave notice of it to some Indians who were encamped near the Settlement, and some of them went to attack this great animal, which was standing in the water drinking. Approaching it from the land side, to drive it farther into the water, they flew after it in their little bark Canoes; and approaching it within range, one of them launched a javelin at it, which made it give a bound and start for the shore to save itself; it might easily have done this if it had been able to touch the shore; but seeing its enemies there, it rushed into the water where it was soon run through with javelins. When it was near its death, they drove it to the shore, and there in a moment they had cut it in pieces, to be able to carry it to their cabin. We saw this chase from our Settlement, which is on a natural elevation and commands a view of the great River. I carefully examined the head of this animal; its antlers had grown only as long as the horns of an ox, for it was still young; these antlers were covered with hair which was quite fine and almost equally thick throughout.

On the twenty-eighth, Father Buteux and I found a band of Indians who were having a feast near the graves of their deceased relatives; they gave them most of the banquet, which they threw into the fire; and when they were about to go away, a woman broke some twigs and branches from the trees, with which she covered these graves. I asked her why she did this, and she answered that she was sheltering the souls of her dead friends from the heat of the Sun, which has been great this Autumn. They reason about the souls of men and their necessities as they do about the body; according to their doctrine, they suppose that our souls have the same needs as our bodies. We told her repeatedly that the souls of reasonable beings descended into hell or went up into Heaven; but, without giving us any answer, she continued to follow the old custom of her ancestors. Those who do not appreciate the obligations they are under to God, for having been born in a place where he is known and worshiped, can see here at a glance what an advantage they have over a world of barbarians.

On the twenty-third day of October, fifteen or twenty Indians returned from the war, bringing a prisoner. As soon as they could notice our Settlement and their cabins, they collected their canoes and sailed slowly down the middle of the great river, uttering from their chests songs full of gladness; as soon as they were seen, there was a great outcry among the cabins, each one coming out to see these warriors, who made the poor prisoner stand up and dance in their fashion in the middle of a canoe. He sang, and they kept time with their paddles; he was bound with a cord which tied his arms behind his back, another was around his feet, and still another, a long one, around his body; they had torn out his finger-nails, so that he could not untie himself. Marvel at the cruelty of these people. An Indian, having saw Father Buteux and me mingling with the others, came up to us and said, full of joy and satisfaction, Tapoue kouetakiou nigamouau; "I shall eat some Iroquois." Finally this poor man came out of the canoe, and was taken into a cabin, the children, girls, and women striking him, some with sticks, others with stones, as he entered; you would have said he was insensible, as he passed along and received these blows without looking around; as soon as he entered, they made him dance to the music of their howls. After having made a few turns, striking the ground and agitating his body, which is all there is of their dancing, they made him sit down; and some of the Indians, addressing us, told us that this Iroquois was one of those who the year before had surprised and killed three of our Frenchmen; this was done to stifle in us the pity that we might have for him, and they even dared to ask some of our French if they did not want to eat their share of him, since they had killed our Countrymen. We replied that these cruelties displeased us, and that we were not cannibals. He did not die, however; for these Indians, weary of the war, spoke with this young prisoner, who was a strong man, tall and finely formed, about making peace; they have been negotiating about it for a long time, but at last it is concluded. I believe it will not last long; for the first impulse that seizes some hot-headed fellow, at the remembrance that one of his relations was killed by the Iroquois, will make him go and surprise one of them, and treacherously assassinate him; and therefore the war will begin again.

On the twenty-fourth of the same month, a great many Algonquins having arrived, I went through their cabins, looking for a little girl I had baptized and named Marguerite, the year before. Her mother readily recognized me, and told me that she was dead. When I came to ask news of the father of the child whom I had begun to instruct, an Indian told me that he was dead; at this answer, one of his daughters, about eighteen or twenty years old, uttered a loud cry and burst into tears; they made me a sign that I should not speak of death, its name seeming to them unbearable.

On the fifth of November, I went to see the remains of a good palisade, which formerly surrounded a Village in the place where our French have established their Abode. The Iroquois enemies of these Tribes have burned everything; there can still be seen the ends of the blackened stakes; there are some acres of cleared land, where they cultivated Indian corn. I hope our Indians will resume this industry, which will be as profitable to them for Heaven as for earth; for, if they stop their wanderings, there will be opportunities of instructing them.

On the seventh, we had described to us a kind of Indian dance that we had not yet seen. One of them begins while the others sing; the song finished, he goes and gives the bouquet, that is, he goes and gives a present to the one whom he wishes to dance after him; the other does the same thing when he finishes the dance; and if our French are with them, they bring the bouquet and the present to our men as well as to the others.

On the eighteenth of this month, all the Indians dispersed, some here and some there into the woods, to go during the winter to hunt the Elk, the Deer and the Caribou, upon which they live; so that we were without neighbors, our French alone remaining in our new Dwelling place.

On the thirtieth of December, the snow having been neither hard nor deep enough to slow the long legs of the Elk, a troop of these poor Indians came crying for pity at our Settlement; the famine, which was cruel last year, has treated them still worse this winter, at least in several places; we have heard a report that, near Gaspe, the Indians killed and ate a young boy whom the Spanish Basques left with them to learn their language. Those of Tadoussac, with whom I passed the winter a year ago, have eaten each other in some areas. Sir du Plessis Bochart, on his way to Quebec, told us that there were still some in the woods who do not dare appear before the others because they had wickedly surprised, massacred, and eaten their companions.

We have been witnesses to their famine at Three Rivers; they came in bands, disfigured and as fleshless as skeletons, liking, they said, as well to die near the French as in their own Forests; the misfortune for them was that, as this Settlement was only in its first stages, there was not yet a storehouse at Three Rivers; our French and we having brought from Quebec only the food necessary for the number of men who were residing there; we tried, however, to help them, each exercising charity according to his means, or according to his inclinations; not one of those who came to us died of hunger.

When Father Buteux and I entered a certain cabin, a woman told us that no one remained but she and her companion, of all those with whom they had wintered in the forest. Hunters had been found stiff in death upon the snow, killed by cold and starvation, among others, the one who had taken prisoner the Iroquois of whom I have spoken above. An Indian told me, during this famine, that his wife and sister-in-law contemplated killing their own brother; I asked him why, "We are afraid," he replied, "that he will kill us during our sleep, to eat us."

"We supply you," said I, "a part of our food every day to help you."

"That is true," he replied, "you give us life; but this man is half-mad; he does not eat, he has some evil plan; we wish to prevent him, will you be displeased at that?" I found myself a little troubled; I could not consent to his death, and yet I believed they had good cause for their fear. We advised him not to leave any hatchets or javelins in his cabin, except one which he needed to use, and he should place that under his head when he was sleeping; he agreed to this, and gave us his hatchets and javelins, to put them away in our little room. Three days later, this poor brother went to Quebec, where, having tried to kill some Frenchman, the Governor, seeing that he was mad, had him put in chains, to surrender him to the first Indians that might come along.

These comings and goings of famished Indians lasted almost all winter; we usually made a little feast of peas and boiled flour for all the new bands, and I have seen certain ones among them eat more than eight bowlfuls of this before leaving the place. While the banquet was being prepared, we talked to them about God, we represented to them their poverty; they all had the best intentions in the world to cultivate the land in the Spring, as some of them have done; but they did not remain constantly near their Indian corn, abandoning it to go fishing, some in one direction, some in another.

On the twenty-seventh of the same month of January, an Indian came to acquaint me with a secret well known among the Algonquins, but not among the Innu; neither is it known in this part of the country, but farther into the interior. He told me that, if one of our Frenchmen would accompany him, he would go and fish under the ice of a great pond, located a mile beyond the great River, opposite our Settlement. One of them did go there, and brought back some fish, which comforted our French people, for they can now, in the thickest ice, stretch their nets in this pond.

I have seen them fish in this way; now see how they do it. With great blows of the axe, they make a tolerably large hole in the ice of the pond; then, at intervals, they make other smaller ones, and by the use of poles they pass a cord from hole to hole under the ice; this cord, which is as long as the nets they wish to stretch, stops at the last hole, through which it is drawn, and they spread out in the water the whole net which is attached to it. This is the way they spread the nets the first time. When they wish to examine them, it is easily done, for they draw them out through the largest opening, to collect the fish from them; then it is only necessary to draw back the cord to re-spread the nets, the poles serving only to put the cord through the first time.

On the sixth of February, the great River was completely frozen over, so that one could walk over it in safety; it even froze opposite Quebec, which is extraordinary, as the tides there are strong. The severity of the winter makes itself especially felt during this month.

On the eighth of March occurred the death of the Indian woman named Anne, of whom I have spoken; as the anguish of death approached, she said at times to herself, nitapoueten, nitapoueten, "I believe, I believe;" nisadkihau, nisadkihau, "I love him, I love him;" ouaskoucki nioui itoutan, "I wish to go to Heaven." As an Indian had informed me that she did not belong to this region, I asked her a few days before her death about her native country: she told me that the people of her Nation were called ouperigoue ouaouakhi, that they dwelt farther back in the interior, below Tadoussac, and on the same side; that they could descend through the rivers from their country to the great Saint Lawrence River; that her Countrymen had no commerce with the Europeans; "that is why," she said, "they use hatchets made of stone;" that they have Deer and Beavers in abundance, but few Elk; that they speak the Innu language, and that they would come and trade with the French, except that the Tadoussac Innu try to kill them. I do not know whether these are the ones that we call Betsiamite Innu, some of whom have been cruelly massacred this year at Tadoussac. These deceitful Tadoussac Indians received them kindly, and, when they had them in their power, treacherously put them to death.

On the fifth day of April, an Innu Indian came to report to Father Buteux that our Fathers and our Frenchmen who accompanied them had been abandoned in the woods and tied to trees, by the Hurons who were taking them to their country, who, falling ill with a certain epidemic which last Autumn afflicted all these Nations, believed that this malady was caused by the French, and it was this which made them treat the French in this way; this Indian declared that he had heard the news from the lips of some Nipissings, neighbors of the Hurons. We had already learned the bad news about Father Antoine Daniel, who had been reported to us as almost dead; but most of these reports are found to be false. Father Daniel and all the others have endured incomparable sufferings in their voyage.

On the fourteenth of the same month, as the ice was completely broken up, I embarked in a canoe with one of our Frenchmen and an Algonquin, to go and see the beautiful lake or pond of which I have spoken above, and which I had seen all frozen over during the winter.

On the way, I saw a Muskrat hunt. Some of these animals are as large as rabbits; they have long tails. When they appear upon the water, the Indians follow them in their little canoes; these Rats, upon seeing themselves pursued, immediately dive into the water, their enemies hurrying quickly to the place where they expect them to come up again to take breath; they pursue them until they are tired out, so that they must remain above the water a little while, so not to suffocate; then they knock them down with their paddles, or kill them with arrows. When this animal has gained the land, it usually saves itself by hiding in its hole. It is called Muskrat because a part of its body smells of musk, if caught in the Spring; at other times, it has no odor.

On the twenty-first, I left Three Rivers to come to Quebec, to be there at the coming of the ships. We expected them early, but they came late, the bad weather having caused them to have a rough passage; we hoped to see them towards the end of May, and we had no news of them until the twenty-fifth of June, when a canoe arrived, sent from Tadoussac, which reported that a ship was at the Island of Bic, and that five or six more of them were coming, with the firm determination to attack all those they found in the River without Commissions.

On the fourth of July, a sailboat sent from Sir du Plessis Bochart, commandant of the fleet, gladdened all our French, assuring us of his coming, and that he was followed by eight strong ships, six for Tadoussac and two for Miscou, not including the one sent to Cape Breton and the coast of Acadia, to the French Commandant de Rasilly.

On the tenth, a barque which was ascending the river brought us Father Pijart. At the same time, two of our Frenchmen, coming down from the Hurons, presented to us the letters of our Fathers who are in that country; so we received cheering news from all sides. On the one hand, the Father stated that you were sending us 4 Of our Jesuit Fathers, and 2 of our Jesuit Brothers, as a reinforcement, and two other Fathers for the Residence of St. Charles.

On the twelfth, Sir de la Roche-Jacquelin, commandant of the ship called "Saint Jacques," cast anchor before Quebec. Our Jesuit Brother Pierre Feaute, having thanked him for his kindness, came to see us in our little House of Notre Dame des Anges. The next day our joy was increased by the arrival of Father Claude Quentin and of our Brother Pierre Tellier, who were brought in the ship of Captain de Nesle.

On the twentieth, the General conveyed to us Father Mercier, whom he had brought in his barque.

On the twenty-second of July, there was held an Assembly or Council between the French and the Hurons. Father Buteux, who had come down from the Residence of the Conception, and I participated. After public affairs, Sir de Champlain, our Governor, affectionately recommended our Fathers, and the French who accompanied them, to these Tribes; he told them, through an interpreter, that if they wished to strengthen their friendship with the French, they must worship the God that we worshiped; that this would be profitable to them, for God will bless them, and make them victorious over their enemies; that the French will go in good numbers to their Country; that they will marry their daughters when they become Christians; that they will teach all their people to make hatchets, knives, and other things which are necessary to them; and that for this purpose they must next year bring many of their little boys, whom we will lodge comfortably, and will feed, instruct and cherish as if they were our little Brothers. And that, as all the Captains could not come down there, they should hold a Council upon this matter in their Country, to which they should summon Echom, it what they call Father Brebeuf; and then, giving them a letter to bear to him, he added, "Here I inform the Father of all these points. He will be in your Assembly, and will give you a present that his Brothers send him; there you will show whether you love the French."

I suggested these thoughts to our governor, and he approved them; but he also amplified them with a thousand praises towards our Jesuits. The General also said a few words upon this subject, and did all he could to let these Peoples know the high estimation in which the great Captains of France hold these Fathers. To this speech, a chief replied that they would deliver this letter, and to hold a Council upon the Matters proposed. That, as to the rest, their whole Nation loved all the French; and yet, despite this, the French loved only one of their Villages, since all those who had come up to their Country selected that as their dwelling place. They were answered that they had had only a few of our Frenchmen; and that, if they embraced our belief, they would have some of them in all their villages.

At the conclusion of the Council, we went to see those who were to take on board Father le Mercier and Father Pijart, with their little baggage, to convey them into their Country; Father Brebeuf had designated certain ones to me in his letter, but several presented themselves. They gazed attentively at the Fathers, measured them with their eyes, asked if they were ill-natured, if they paddled well; then took them by the hands, and made signs to them that it would be necessary to handle the paddles well.

At last, on the twenty-third of the same month of July, our Indians embarked our two Fathers and a young French boy who has already passed a year in the country. I never saw persons more joyful than were these good Fathers; they had to go barefooted into the bark ships, for fear of spoiling them, and they did this happily. They were taken in three different canoes; the one that carried Father Pijart being the first ready, it went directly alongside the ship of Sir de la Roche-Jacquelin, to say to him his last goodbyes and to thank him once more for special courtesies received from him while crossing in his ship from France to Tadoussac. After having saluted him, Sir de la Roche-Jacquelin had some prunes thrown into his canoe for the Indians who were taking him, and had the cannon fired off three times in his honor. These poor Indians were thrilled with delight, placing their hands over their mouths as a sign of astonishment.

Father le Mercier came afterward in his canoe, to acknowledge the obligations he was under to the General, and to take leave of him. After the farewells, they also threw some prunes to his boatmen, the cannon of the ship and of the barque making these Indians understand that they must take good care of those whom our French Captains honored with so much affection.

On the first day of August, Father Buteux wrote me from Three Rivers that the Innu Indians had elected a new Captain, the one whom they had formerly called Capitanal having died the previous Autumn. This Capitanal was a man of good sense, and a great friend of the French. Assembling the Principal Men of his Nation at the time of his death, he assigned them to preserve this good understanding with his friends, telling them that, as a proof of the love he bore us, he would like, even after death, to live with us; and he immediately had himself carried from beyond the great river, where he was, to die near the new Settlement. He also asked to be borne to the grave by the hands of our French, for whom he designated a little present; he asked that he might be buried near his friends. All this was granted him; Sir de Champlain has had a little enclosure placed around his grave, to distinguish it. If we had then been at Three Rivers, I think that he would have died a Christian. I was sorry when this man died; for he had shown in open Council that his purpose was to have the people of his Nation settle near the fort of the Anguien river; he had spoken to me also about this in private. He was loved by his people and by the French; it was this Captain who delighted all his hearers by a Speech he made two years ago. If he still lived, he would favor what we are going to undertake this Spring, to be able to make them, little by little, a settled people.

Since these poor Indians have been for a long time accustomed to be idlers, it is hard for them to cultivate the soil unless they are assisted. Our plan now is to see if some family is not willing to give up these wanderings; if one be found, we will in the spring employ three men to plant Indian corn near the new Settlement at Three Rivers, with which these people are pleased. If this family settles there during the winter, we will maintain them with corn from our harvest and from theirs, for they will also work; if they do not stay with us, we will withdraw our assistance and let them go.

It would be a great blessing for their bodies, for their souls, and for the trade of these Gentlemen of the Company of New France, if those Tribes were stationary. If they are settled, and if they cultivate the land, they will not die of hunger, as often happens to them in their wanderings; we shall be able to instruct them easily, and Beavers will multiply. These animals are more prolific than our sheep in France; the females bearing as many as five or six every year; but, when the Indians find a lodge of them, they kill all, great and small, male and female. There is danger that they will finally exterminate the species in this Region, as has happened among the Hurons, who have not a single Beaver, going elsewhere to buy the skins they bring to the storehouse of these Gentlemen of the Company of New France. It will be so arranged that, in the course of time, each family of our Innu, if they become located, will take its own territory for hunting, without following in the tracks of its neighbors; besides, we will counsel them not to kill any but the males, and of those only such as are large. If they act upon this advice, they will have Beaver meat and skins in the greatest abundance.

As to the men whom we wish to employ for the assistance of the Indians, Sir de Champlain has promised us that he would let us have those who are at the settlement of Three Rivers; for, as they have not cleared any land there for us, we do not keep any workmen there, but merely two Fathers who care for the religious needs of our French. We will arrange for the wages and food of these workmen, according to the time we shall employ them in clearing and cultivating the land with our Indians; if I had the means of supporting a dozen, it would gain the Indians.

On the tenth of this month, Father Masse and Father Buteux wrote me, from the Residence of the Conception, that it was reported there that the Iroquois had destroyed seven canoes of the Weskarini Algonquin nation; if this be true, the peace of which I have spoken above is already broken, for our Innu allies of the Algonquins will take sides with them.

I have heard a report that a certain Indian named "the Frog" [la Grenouille], who acts as Captain here, has said that the Iroquois, with whom he had made a treaty of peace, have incited them to kill some of the Hurons, and to make war against them. Those best informed believe that this is a ruse of those who trade with these Tribes, and who are striving to divert the Hurons from their commerce with our French; which would happen if our Innu made war against them; and then the traders would attract them to their Settlements, and there would result a considerable injury to the Associated Company of New France.

On the seventeenth of the same month of August, Father de Quen arrived at Quebec in a sailboat which Captain Bontemps sent to give the news of his arrival at Tadoussac. As frightful icebergs have been seen this year upon the sea, one from 75 to 100 miles, others say 150 miles in extent, so large that a Pilot has assured me that he coasted along it for three days and three nights having a fair wind astern, and that in some places it had level plains, in others it rose into hills and high mountains: and since some Turkish vessels had been seen sailing out of the English Channel, and some damaged ships floating on the sea without masts and without sails, which are believed to have been captured by those infidels, who often abandon ships which they plunder, after having robbed them of all they contain. As all these reports were being circulated, we had all lost hope of seeing Captain Bontemps, the season for sailing to this country having passed. His unexpected arrival gave us all the more joy, for we would have been sorry if so brave a Captain and so fine a crew had been lost. Father de Quen told us the cause of their delay, God saving them from a shipwreck which seemed inevitable.

On the twenty-seventh of the same month, we saw, towards nine o'clock in the evening, a great eclipse of the Moon, which in my opinion did not appear in France until two or three hours after midnight.

But it is time to drop my pen, which will not be able, this year, to answer several letters that a barque going down to Tadoussac will bring us after the departure of the ships. It sometimes happens, either from forgetfulness or for some other reason, that they deliver the letters after the fleet has already set sail, so that we cannot send the answers the same year.

As to our Frenchmen and our Fathers who are in the country of the Hurons, answers to letters sent from France should not be expected until two years afterward; even if letters addressed to them are given to us here to hold for them, after the departure of the Hurons, who come down to Quebec only once a year, the answers will not be carried to France until the end of three years. I have given this information to excuse ourselves to persons who have done us the honor of writing to us, and who do not get their answers the same year, and sometimes do not get them at all, the letters or the replies being lost in so great a lapse of time and so long a journey.

At the Residence of Notre Dame des Anges, near Quebec, in New France, this 28th of August, 1635.

Paul Le Jeune.

THE HURONS IN 1635. SENT TO QUEBEC TO FATHER LE JEUNE, BY FATHER BREBEUF.

Reverend Father,

I send you an account of our journey into this Huron Country. When last year, 1634, we arrived at Three Rivers, where the trading post was, we found ourselves in several difficulties. For, there were only eleven Huron canoes to embark our ten additional persons who were intending to go into their Country. And, we were in doubt whether any others would descend this year, considering the great loss they had experienced in war with the Iroquois, named Senecas, last Spring, and the fear they had of a new invasion. This placed us much in doubt whether we ought to take advantage of the opportunity which was presented, or wait for a better one.

At last, we decided to try our fortune, judging that it was of vital importance to have a footing in the Country. This resolution was far easier than the execution of it, which perhaps would have been impossible without the care of Sir du Plessis Bochart, General of the fleet. For immediately after his arrival, which was on the fifth of July, 1634, he held a Council with the Nipissings, to whom he proposed sending some men with them, and of joining us to the Hurons. They made several objections, and one of the Chiefs of the Kichesipirini Algonquins, named "the Partridge" [la Perdrix], more than all the rest; still, arguments and presents won them over.

The next morning, the Assembly met again, by the command of Sir du Plessis Bochart, and both the Nipissings and the Hurons were present. The same plan was again presented to them; but out of respect for one another they all agreed not to embark any Frenchmen; and no arguments could move them. Our enterprise seemed again cut off by this action. But, at the close of the Assembly, one of the Attignenonghac Hurons, drawing me aside, asked me to visit him in his cabin. There he told me that he and his companion would embark three of us. I replied that we could not go unless five went, namely, we three, and two of our men.

Then the Arendaronons became eager to embark us; we found place for six, and so we decided to set out, and leave until some other time the two little boys we were to take. We began to distribute our baggage, and made presents to each one, to encourage them; and on the next day, the seventh of July, Sir du Plessis Bochart gave them still others, on the single consideration that they would embark us, and feasted all of them at a great feast of three large kettles. But the contagion which spread among all these Tribes last year, with great destruction, having suddenly seized several of our Indians, and filled the rest with fear, again threw us into confusion. Our six canoes being reduced to three, and our two Fathers and I being disembarked, I had to find new men, to unload our slender baggage, to decide who should embark and who should remain, to choose among our packages those we were to carry, and to give orders as to the rest, -- and all this in less than half an hour, when we would have needed entire days. I did everything I could; we doubled the presents, we reduced the amount of our baggage, and took only what is needed for Mass, and what was absolutely necessary for life. Sir du Plessis Bochart intervened his authority, Sir Olivier and Sir Coullart their ingenuity, and all the Frenchmen their affection.

Immediately I saw everything become quiet, and our Indians so satisfied that those who embarked Father Daniel had already placed him in their canoe, and it seemed as if they were going to take him without even receiving the usual pay. But the Father, seeing that they had not cloaks like the others, stepped out of the canoe, told me about it, and I had some given to them.

At last, after having briefly thanked Sir du Plessis Bochart, having entrusted to him the embarkation of the rest of our people if opportunity presented itself, and having bid him and all our Frenchmen goodbye, I embarked with Father Antoine Daniel and one of our men; the two others were coming with the Algonquins. Sir du Plessis Bochart honored our departure with several volleys, to recommend us still more to our Indians. It was the seventh of July. Father Ambroise Davost embarked eight days later, with two others of our people.

The rest followed eight days after, to take their part in the fatigues of a journey extremely wearisome, not only on account of its length and of the wretched food to be had, but also on account of the circuits that have to be made in coming from Quebec to this place by way of the Nipissings and the Weskarini Algonquin Nation; I believe that they amount to more than 750 miles. The way is shorter by the Lachine Rapids and Lake Ontario; but the fear of enemies, and the few conveniences to be met with, cause that route to be unfrequented. Of two usual difficulties, the chief is that of the rapids and portages.

You have already seen enough of the rapids near Quebec to know what they are. All the rivers of this Country are full of them, and notably the Saint Lawrence after that of the Prairies is passed. For from there onward it has no longer a smooth bed, but is broken up in several places, rolling and leaping in a frightful way, like an impetuous torrent; and even, in some places, it falls down suddenly from a height of several yards. I remembered the Waterfalls of the Nile, as they are described by our Historians. When these rapids or torrents are reached, it is necessary to land, and carry on the shoulder, through woods or over high and troublesome rocks, all the baggage and the canoes themselves. This is not done without much work; for there are portages of 3, 5, and 7 miles, and for each, several trips must be made, no matter how few packages one has. In some places, where the current is just as strong as in these rapids, although easier at first, the Indians get into the water, and haul and guide by hand their canoes with extreme difficulty and danger; for they sometimes get in up to the neck and are compelled to let go their hold, saving themselves as best they can from the rapidity of the water, which snatches from them and bears off their canoe. This happened to one of our Frenchmen who remained alone in the canoe, all the Indians having left it to the mercy of the torrent; but his skill and strength saved his life, and the canoe also, with all that was in it. I kept count of the number of portages, and found that we carried our canoes thirty-five times, and dragged them at least fifty. I sometimes took a hand in helping my Indians; but the bottom of the river is full of stones, so sharp that I could not walk long, being barefooted.

The second ordinary difficulty is with provisions. Frequently one has to fast, if he misses the caches that were made when descending; and even if they are found, one has a good appetite after indulging in them; for the usual food is only a little Indian corn coarsely broken between two stones, and sometimes taken whole in pure water; it is no great treat. Occasionally one has fish, but it is only a chance, unless one is passing some Tribe where they can be bought. Add to these difficulties that one must sleep on the bare earth, or on a hard rock, for lack of a space ten or twelve feet square on which to place a wretched hut; that one must endure continually the stench of tired-out Indians; and must walk in water, in mud, in the obscurity and entanglement of the forest, where the stings of an infinite number of mosquitoes and gnats are a serious annoyance.

I say nothing of the long and wearisome silence to which newcomers are reduced, who have, for the time, no person in their company who speaks their own tongue, and who do not understand that of the Indians. These difficulties, since they are the usual ones, were common to us as to all those who come into this Country. But on our journey, we all had to encounter difficulties which were unusual. The first was that we were compelled to paddle continually, just as much as the Indians; so that I had not the leisure to recite my prayer book except when I lay down to sleep, when I had more need of rest than of work. The other was that we had to carry our packages at the portages, which was as laborious for us as it was new, and still more for others than it was for me, who already knew a little what it is to be fatigued. At every portage I had to make at least four trips, the others had scarcely fewer. I had once before made the journey to the Hurons, but I did not then ply the paddles, nor carry burdens; nor did the other Jesuits who made the same journey. I was sometimes so weary that the body could do no more, but at the same time my soul experienced deep peace. All did not get off so cheaply.

Father Davost, among others, was badly treated. They stole from him much of his gear. They compelled him to throw away a little steel mill, and almost all our books, some linen, and a good part of the paper that we were taking, and of which we have great need. They deserted him at the Island, among the Algonquins, where he suffered in good earnest. When he reached the Hurons, he was so worn-out and dejected that for a long time he could not get over it.

Father Daniel was abandoned, and compelled to seek another canoe, as also was Pierre, one of our men. Little Martin was roughly treated, and at last was left behind with the Nipissings, where he remained so long that he was about two months on the road, and only arrived among the Hurons on the nineteenth of September. Baron was robbed by his Indians on the day he arrived in these regions; and he would have lost much more if he had not compelled them, through fear of his arms, to give him back a part of what they had taken. In short, all the Frenchmen suffered great hardships, incurred great expense, considering the few goods they had, and ran remarkable risks. And whoever will come up here must make up his mind to all this, and to something more, even to death itself, whose Image we see every moment before our eyes.

For myself, not knowing how to swim, I once had a narrow escape from drowning. As we were leaving the Nipissings, while descending a rapid, we would have gone over a precipice had not my Indians promptly and skillfully leaped into the water, to turn aside the canoe which the current was sweeping on. It is probable that the others might say as much, and more, considering the number of such incidents there are.

Three other difficulties gave trouble to me in particular. The first was the pleading of my men, at the start to hide somewhere a box that one of our Frenchmen had put into our canoe. The second was anxiety for those of our men we had left behind. The third, that the Algonquins, through whose territory we were passing, tried to intimidate us, saying that the Hurons would kill us as they had Etienne Brule, and desiring to keep us among them, with abundant demonstrations of good will. Since our arrival, I have learned that the Master of my canoe had proposed to land me somewhere with my little baggage, but that his proposal had been at once repelled, and so I saw no sign of anything of the kind. All that did not trouble me much; for having declared to them that I would myself carry the box about which the trouble arose, although they had received pay to carry it. I resigned myself as far as everything else was concerned, to the will of God, ready to die.

I do not know when they spoke of leaving me. My Indians exhibited so much affection for me, and said so much that is kind about us to others, that they excited the desire in all the Hurons we met to embark one of our people. This makes me doubt the truth of what has been said about the Master of my canoe.

Those who had embarked Father Daniel and Baron wished to leave them at the Island, but the Master of the canoe in which Father Daniel was, seeing him dissatisfied at that, caused him to embark at once, and carried him until they met the Captain of la Rochelle, who, knowing the Father from having wished to take him last year, willingly received him with his two packages into his canoe. It pleased him, and the Indians also; for the Father would have still had much trouble in a wretched canoe which had only three sick men in it, whose home was 30 miles away from ours; this Captain lived at a village where we had some intention of settling, and quite near the place where we are. Besides, his canoe was strong, and manned by six powerful Indians, quite healthy and good-natured. This happy exchange happened to him the morning of the day before the festival of saint Ignace, he having been shipwrecked twice the previous day.

As to Baron, had it not been for the Captain of the Kichesipirini Algonquins, who caused his baggage to be put back into the canoes, he would have remained there. Still, his people were not so barbarous as formerly were those who brought back one of our Frenchmen from the Hurons to Quebec. This young man, surnamed la Marche, would have died in the woods, if we had not had the care to send back in search of him more than 2 miles from the place where we missed him.

Sometimes a word, or a dream, or a fancy, or even the smallest sense of inconvenience, is enough to cause them to ill-treat, or set ashore, and I dare say to murder one, -- as happened last year to a poor Algonquin, who was abandoned in a rapid by his own nephew; and not a month ago, a poor young man, also an Algonquin, having fallen into the fire, was killed near our village by his own Tribesmen, for fear he might be an inconvenience in the canoe. What makes me believe they killed him is that it is the custom among them, that the Hurons said so, and that, the evening before, he ate heartily a good quantity of what we gave him. Besides, two Algonquins assured us that they had a mind to brain him with blows of an axe. You have seen or known of similar cases in your winter's stay among the Indians.

I attribute all these extraordinary difficulties to the sickness among our Indians. For we know how sickness alters the disposition and the inclinations even of the most sociable. Most of the Innu who were at Three Rivers when we embarked were sick, and many of them died; and also almost no one who returned by canoe from trading, was not afflicted with this contagion. It has been so universal among the Indians of our acquaintance that I do not know if one has escaped its attacks. All these poor people have been much inconvenienced by it, particularly during the Autumn, as much in their fishing as in their harvesting. Many crops are lying beneath the snow; a large number of persons are dead; there are still some who have not recovered.

This sickness began with violent fever, which was followed by a sort of measles or smallpox, different, however, from that common in France, accompanied in several cases by blindness for some days, or by dimness of sight, and terminated by diarrhea which has carried off many and is still bringing some to the grave. Neither on the journey here, nor while in this Country, has one of us been taken with this sickness, nor yielded to hunger, nor lost appetite.

I arrived among the Hurons on the fifth of August, the day of our Lady of the Snows, after being thirty days on the road in continual work, except one day of rest, which we took in the country of the Nipissings. All the others, except Robert le Coq and Dominique, took much longer; although usually the journey is only 20 days. I landed at the port of the village of Toanche or of Teandeouiata, where we had formerly lived; but it was with a little misfortune. My Indians, forgetting the kindness I had lavished upon them, after having landed me with some Church ornaments and some other gear, left me there quite alone, without any provisions and without shelter, and resumed their route toward their villages, some 17 miles away.

My trouble was that the location of the village of Toanche had changed since my departure, and that I did not know precisely where it was situated. The shore being no longer frequented, I could not easily ascertain my way; and if I had known it, I could not from weakness have carried all my little baggage at once; nor could I risk, in that place, doing this in two trips. That is why I requested my Indians to accompany me as far as the village, or at least to sleep on the shore for the night, to watch my clothes while I went to make inquiries. But their ears were deaf to my prayers and my remonstrances. The only consolation they gave me was to tell me that someone would find me there. I had to be patient; they went away, and I prostrated myself at once upon my knees.

Then, having considered that this shore was deserted, and that I might remain there a long time before anyone in the village would come to find me, I hid my packages in the woods; and taking with me what was most precious, I set out to find the village, which fortunately I came upon at about 2 miles, having seen, as I passed along, the place where we had lived, now turned into a fine field; and also the site of the old village, where, except one cabin, nothing remained but the ruins of the others. I saw likewise the spot where poor Etienne Brule was traitorously murdered, which made me think that perhaps some day they might treat us in the same manner. As soon as I was seen in the village, someone cried out, "There is Echom come again" (that is the name they give me); and at once everyone came out to welcome me, each calling me by name.

Without stopping, for night was approaching, I found a place to lodge; and having rested a short time, I quickly set out with a volunteer band of young people to bring my slender baggage. It was an hour after sunset when we returned to the village. I lodged with a man named Aouandoie, who is, or at least was, one of the richest of the Hurons. I did this on purpose, because another with smaller means might have been inconvenienced with the large number of Frenchmen whom I was expecting, and who had to be provided with food and shelter until we had all gathered together, and our cabin was ready. You can lodge where you please, for this Nation above all others is exceedingly hospitable towards all sorts of persons, even toward Strangers; and you may remain as long as you please, being always well treated according to the fashion of the country.

On going away, one acknowledges their hospitality by a ho, ho, ho, outoecti, or "many thanks!" at least among themselves; but from Frenchmen, they expect some recompense, always at one's discretion. It is quite true that not all are equally hospitable, there are some more and some less so.

My host is one of the best in this virtue; and perhaps it is on this account that God has crowned him with worldly blessings; for their village, named Teandeouihata, having been burned twice, each time his house alone escaped the fire. Some attribute this to chance; for myself, I attribute it to a nobler cause, and so I recall a fine trait which he displayed on the occasion of the first fire. For, jealousy having been kindled against him, and some wishing to destroy his cabin that the fire had spared, at once he caused a large cauldron to be hung, prepared a good feast, invited the whole village, and, having assembled them, delivered this speech:

"My brothers, I am deeply grieved at the misfortune that has happened; but what can we do about it? It is over. For myself, I do not know what I have done for Heaven, to be spared before all others. To testify to you my deep grief and my desire to share in the common misfortune, I have two bins of corn" (they held at least one hundred to one hundred and twenty bushels); "I give one of them freely to the whole village." This action calmed their jealousy, and put an end to their wicked plans which they were already forming against him. It was a wise action, this losing a part to save the rest.

I lodged with this man, and lived there with our two Fathers and one of our people, for the space of more than a month and a half, until we took possession of our new cabin. Yet these poor Indians lavished upon us all possible kindnesses, some influenced by their good natural disposition; others, by a few trifling gifts I made them, and the hope of some others. I distributed the rest of our people in another cabin, to avoid the annoyance and inconvenience of being all in one lodging.

That evening and the next day passed in the exchanges of visits and encouraging words from the whole village. On the following days, several from other villages came to see me; and all took away with them, in exchange for their visit, some trifling presents. This is a small thing in detail, but on the whole it exerts a great influence in these regions. Some said to me: "What, Echom, and so you have come back! That's right; we were wishing and asking for you" (adding their reasons), "and we were heartily glad when they told us that you were at Quebec, with the purpose of coming up here." Others said: "We are glad; the crops will no longer fail; during your absence we have had nothing but famine."

At our arrival, there were only two families in the whole village who had a store of corn; all the others were going to buy elsewhere, and this was the case in several other villages. Since our arrival, there has been a great abundance throughout the whole Country, although in the Spring it was necessary to sow three times by reason of frosts and worms.

Those of our village told me, "If you had not returned, the trade with the French was lost for us; for the Algonquins and even the Hurons of the other villages, threatened us with death if we went there, on account of the murder of Etienne Brule; but now we shall go to trade Without fear." I was occupied some two weeks in visiting the villages, and bringing together, at much expense and trouble, all our group, who landed here and there, and who, not knowing the language, could only have found us after much toil.

One of our men was able to come without any other address than these two words, Echom, Ihonatiria, which are my name and that of our village. Among all the French, I do not find any who had more trouble than Father Davost and Baron; the Father from the wicked treatment of his Indians, Baron from the length of the journey. He occupied forty days on the road; often he was alone with an Indian, paddling in a canoe large and heavily laden. He had to carry all his packages himself; he had narrow escapes three or four times in the torrents; and to crown his difficulties, much of his property was stolen. To come here, much strength and patience are needed; and he who thinks of coming here for any reason other than God, will have made a sad mistake.

Jean Nicolet, in the voyage that he made with us as far as the Island, suffered also all the hardships of even the most robust Indians. Being at last all gathered together, we decided to dwell here at Ihonatiria, and to build here our cabin, for the following reasons:

First, we judged that such was God's will, because the harvest of souls is more ripe here than in any other place.

Secondly, except this village, there was only la Rochelle at which we might have had any inclination to stop, and that had been our intention from last year. All the inhabitants there desired it much, saying that we would be in the center of the Nation, and adding other motives and reasons. Even on the road, I entertained this thought, and only laid it aside a long time after my arrival here; we left for a considerable space of time the baggage of Father Daniel at this village of la Rochelle, with the Captain who had received him into his canoe, intending to carry the rest there, and to live there. But, since they were intending this Spring to change the location of the place, as they have done, we did not wish to build a cabin for one winter.

Besides, for a beginning, we have thought it more suitable to keep in the shadow near a little village where the inhabitants are already disposed to associate with the French, than to put ourselves suddenly in a great one, where the people are not accustomed to our mode of doing things. To do otherwise would have been to expose new men, ignorant of the language, to a numerous youth, who by their mockery would have brought about some disturbance.

Besides, if we had gone elsewhere, the people of this village would have thought themselves still in disgrace with the French, and perhaps would have abandoned trade with them, especially since, during this last Winter, Le Borgne [the One-eyed] (Tessouat) of the Island spread the report that Sir de Champlain did not wish us to remain there, on account of the death of Etienne Brule, and that he was demanding four heads. It is probable that, if we had not been here, and if we had not remained, several, fearing to be arrested for their own faults or for those of others, would not have returned again to the trade.

Among the villages that wished to have us, the people of Wenrio have requested us most. This little village, quite near ours, used to be a part of the one in which we were formerly; but we have not judged it beneficial for us to stop there this time. We think it best that from this village and from ours, one village should be formed at some other place, both for their common interests and for our own special functions and ministrations. We made, not long ago, some presents to both of them at the same time, for this purpose. Our presents have great influence among them, still they have not yet decided the question.

Having decided to stay where we are, the question of building a cabin arose. The cabins of this country are neither museums nor palaces, nor anything like the buildings of our France, not even like the smallest cottages. They are somewhat better and more spacious than the hovels of the Innu. I cannot better express the fashion of the Huron dwellings than to compare them to bowers or garden arbors, some of which, in place of branches and vegetation, are covered with cedar bark, some others with large pieces of ash, elm, fir, or spruce bark; and although the cedar bark is best, they are almost as susceptible to fire as matches.

So arise many of the burnings of entire villages; and without going further than this year, we have seen, in less than ten days, two large ones entirely consumed, and another, that of Louis, partially burned. We have also once seen our own cabin on fire; but we extinguished it immediately. There are cabins or arbors of various sizes, some four yards in length, others of twenty, others of forty, of sixty, of eighty; the usual width is about eight yards, their height is about the same. There are no different stories; there is no cellar, no chamber, no attic. It has neither window nor chimney, only a miserable hole in the top of the cabin, left to permit the smoke to escape. This is the way they built ours for us.

The people of Wenrio and of our village were employed at this, by means of presents given them. It has cost us much exertion to secure its completion, not only on account of the epidemic, which affected almost all the Indians, but on account of the cooperation of these two villages; for although the work was not great, yet those of our village followed the example of those of Wenrio, who, in hopes of finally attracting us to their village, simply amused themselves without advancing the work; we were almost into October before we were under cover. As to the interior, we have suited ourselves; so that, even if it does not amount to much, the Indians never weary of coming to see it, and, seeing it, to admire it.

We have divided our cabin into three parts. The first compartment, nearest the door, serves as an antechamber, as a storm door, and as a storeroom for our provisions, in the fashion of the Indians.

The second part is that in which we live, and is our kitchen, our carpenter shop, our mill, or place for grinding the wheat, our Refectory, our parlor and our bedroom. On both sides, in the fashion of the Hurons, are two benches which they call Endicha, on which are boxes to hold our clothes and other little conveniences; but below, in the place where the Hurons keep their wood, we built some little bunks to sleep in, and to store away some of our clothing from the thievish hands of the Hurons. They sleep beside the fire, but still they and we have only the earth for bed-frame; for mattress and pillows, some bark or boughs covered with a rush mat; for sheets and coverings, our clothes and some skins do duty.

The third part of our cabin is divided into two parts by means of a bit of carpentry which gives it a fairly good appearance, and which is admired here for its novelty. In one part is our little Chapel, in which we celebrate every day Mass, and we retire there daily to pray. The almost continual noise they make usually hinders us, except in the morning and evening, when everybody has gone away, and compels us to go outside to say our prayers. In the other part, we put our utensils. The whole cabin is only twelve yards long, and about seven wide. That is how we are lodged, not so well that we may not have in this abode a good share of rain, snow, and cold. However, they never cease coming to visit us from admiration, especially since we have put on two doors, made by a carpenter, and since our mill and our clock have been set to work.

It is impossible to describe the astonishment of these good people, and how much they admire the intelligence of the French. But they have said all when they have said the French are "ondaki", that is, Demons; and we make profitable use of this word when we talk to them: "My brothers, you have seen that and admired it, and you think you are right, when you see something extraordinary, in saying ondaki, to declare that those who make so many marvels must be Demons. And what is there so wonderful as the beauty of the Sky and the Sun? The corn that you plant rots, and from its decay spring up such beautiful stalks and better ears. And yet you do not say, 'He who made so many beauties, and who every year displays before our eyes so many marvels, must be some beneficent oki, and some super-eminent intelligence,'".

No one has come who has not wished to turn the mill; still we have not used it, as we have learned by experience that our Sagamites are better when pounded in a wooden mortar, in the fashion of the Indians, than ground within the mill. I believe it is because the mill makes the flour too fine.

As to the clock, a thousand things are said of it. They all think it is some living thing, for they cannot imagine how it sounds by itself; and when it is going to strike, they look to see if we are all there and if someone has not hidden, to shake it. They think it hears, especially when, for a joke, one of our Frenchmen calls out at the last stroke of the hammer, "That's enough," and then it immediately becomes silent. They call it the Captain of the day. When it strikes, they say it is speaking; and they ask when they come to see us how many times the Captain has already spoken. They ask us about its food; they remain a whole hour, and sometimes several, to be able to hear it speak. They used to ask what it said. We told them two things that they have remembered; one, that when it sounded four o'clock in the afternoon, during winter, it was saying, "Go out, go away, that we may close the door," for immediately they arose, and went out. The other, that at midday it said, "yo eiouahaoua", that is, "Come, put on the kettle;" and this speech is better remembered than the other, for some of these spongers never fail to come at that hour, to get a share of our Sagamite.

They eat at all hours, when they have the means, but usually they have only two meals a day, in the morning and in the evening; consequently they are glad during the day to take a share with us.

They admire such things as the magnet, into which they looked to see if there was some paste; and a glass with eleven facets, which represented a single object as many times; a little phial in which a flea appears as large as a beetle; the prism, the joiner's tools; but above all the writing, for they could not conceive how, what one of us, being in the village, had said to them, and put down in writing, another, who was in a house far away, could say readily on seeing the writing. I believe they have made a hundred trials of it. All this serves to gain their affections, and to render them more docile when we introduce the admirable mysteries of our Faith; for the belief they have in our intelligence causes them to accept without reply what we say to them.

The Huron country is not large; its greatest extent can be traversed in three or four days. Its location is fine, most of it consisting of plains. It is surrounded and intersected by a number of beautiful lakes or rather seas, from where it comes that the one to the North and to the North-northwest is called "freshwater sea" (Lake Huron). We pass through it in coming from the Nipissings. The soil of this country is quite sandy, although not equally so. However, it produces a quantity of good Indian corn, and one may say that it is the granary of most of the Algonquins.

There are twenty Towns, which indicate about 30,000 people speaking the same tongue, which is not difficult to one who has a teacher. It has distinction of genders, number, tense, person, moods; and in short, it is complete and regular, contrary to the opinion of many. This language is common to some twelve other Nations, all settled and numerous; these are, the Konkhandeenhronons, Petuns, Neutrals, Senecas, Onondagas, Cayugas, Oneidas, Mohawks, Susquehannocks, Scahentoarrhonons, Eries, and Wenros. The Hurons are friends of all these people, except the Senecas, Onondagas, Cayugas, Oneidas, and Mohawks, all of whom we comprise under the name Iroquois. But the Hurons have already made peace with the Senecas, since they were defeated by them a year past in the Spring.

The deputies of the whole Country have gone to Seneca to confirm this peace, and it is said that the Onondagas, Cayugas, Oneidas, and Mohawks wish to become parties to it. But that is not certain; if it were, a noble door would be open to the Gospel. They wanted me to go to this Seneca, but I did not judge it wise to go yet into any other part, until we have better established here the foundation of the Gospel Law.

The Hurons say that a certain woman named Aataentsic is the one who made earth and men. They give her an assistant, one named Jouskeha, whom they declare to be her little son, with whom she governs the world. This Jouskeha has care of the living, and of the things that concern life, and consequently they say that he is good. Aataentsic has care of souls, and, because they believe that she makes men die, they say that she is wicked. And there are among them mysteries so hidden that only the old men, who can speak with credit and authority about them, are believed. A certain young man, who was talking to me about this, said boastingly, "Am I not learned?" Some told me that the house of these two Divinities is at the end of the world to the East. With them, the world does not pass beyond their Country of America. Others place their abode in the middle.

This God and Goddess live like themselves, but without famine; make feasts as they do, are lustful as they; they imagine them exactly like themselves. And still, though they make them human and corporeal, they seem still to attribute to them a certain immensity in all places. They say that this Aataentsic fell from the Sky, where there are inhabitants as on earth; and when she fell, she was with child. If you ask them who made the Sky and its inhabitants, they have no other reply than that they know nothing about it. And when we preach to them of one God, the headstrong Indians reply that this is good for our Country and not for theirs; that every Country has its own fashions. But having pointed out to them, by means of a little globe that we had brought, that there is only one world, they remain without reply.

I find in their marriage customs two things that please me; the first, that they have only one wife; the second, that they do not marry their relatives in a direct or collateral line, however distant they may be. There is, on the other hand, sufficient to censure, were it only the frequent changes the men make of their wives, and the women of their husbands.

They believe in the immortality of the soul, which they believe to be corporeal. The greatest part of their Religion consists in this point. They spare nothing, not even the most avaricious. We have seen several stripped, or almost so, of all their goods, because several of their friends were dead, to whose souls they had made presents. Besides, dogs, deer, fish, and other animals have, in their opinion, immortal and reasonable souls. In proof of this, the old men relate certain fables, which they represent as true; they make no mention either of punishment or reward, in the place to which souls go after death. And so they do not make any distinction between the good and the bad, the virtuous and the vicious; and they honor equally the interment of both, even as we have seen in the case of a young man who had poisoned himself from the grief he felt because his wife had been taken away from him. Their superstitions are infinite; their feasts, their medicines, their fishing, their hunting, their wars, -- almost their whole life turns upon this pivot; dreams have here great credit.

This whole country, and I believe it is the same elsewhere, is not lacking in wicked men, who, from motives of envy or vengeance, or from other cause, poison or bewitch, and put to death those whom they wish to injure. When such people are caught, they are put to death on the spot, without any form of trial, and there is no disturbance about it. As too their murders, they are avenged upon the whole Nation of the murderer; so that is the only class I know about that they put to death with impunity. I knew a girl that stole, who was at once killed without any inquiry, but it was by her own brother. If some traitor appears, who is planning the ruin of the Country, they attempt to get rid of him as soon as possible; but these accidents are rare.

They say that the Sorcerers ruin them; for if anyone has succeeded in an enterprise, if his trading or hunting is successful, immediately these wicked men bewitch him, or some member of his family, so that they have to spend it all in Doctors and Medicines. Therefore, to cure these and other diseases, there are a large number of Doctors whom they call Arendiouane. These persons are true Sorcerers, who have access to the Devil. Some only judge of the evil, and that in diverse ways, namely, by Pyromancy, by Hydromancy, Necromancy, by feasts, dances, and songs; the others attempt to cure the disease by blowing, by potions, and by other ridiculous tricks, which have neither any virtue nor natural effectiveness. But neither class do anything without generous presents and good pay.

There are here some fortune tellers, whom they call also Arendiouane, and who try to cause the rain to fall or to cease, and to predict future events. The Devil reveals to them some secrets, but with so much obscurity that one is unable to accuse them of falsehood; witness one of the village of Scanonaenrat who, a little while before the burning of the villages before mentioned, had seen in a dream three flames falling from the Sky on those villages. But the Devil had not declared to him the meaning of this enigma; for, having obtained from the village a white dog, to make a feast with it and to seek information by it, he remained as ignorant afterward as before.

Lastly, when I was in the house of Louis de Saint Foy, an old woman, a sorceress, or female fortune teller of that village, said she had seen those who had gone to the war, and that they were bringing back a prisoner. We shall see if she has spoken the truth. Her method is by pyromancy. She draws for you, in her hut, Lake Ontario; then on one side she makes as many fires as there are persons who have gone on the expedition, and on the other as many fires as they have enemies to fight. Then, if her spell succeeds, she says that the fires from this side have run over, and that means that the warriors have already crossed the lake. One fire extinguishing another marks an enemy defeated; but if it attracts it to itself without extinguishing it, that is a prisoner taken.

As regards morals, the Hurons are lascivious, although in two leading points less so than many Christians. You will see no kissing nor immodest caressing; and in marriage a man will remain two or three years apart from his wife, while she is nursing. They are gluttons, eating even to vomiting; that does not happen often, but only in some superstitious feasts; these, however, they do not attend willingly. Besides, they endure hunger much better than we, so well that after having fasted two or three entire days you will see them still paddling, carrying loads, singing, laughing, bantering, as if they had dined well. They are lazy, are liars, thieves, insistent beggars. Some consider them vindictive; but this vice is more noticeable elsewhere than here.

We see among them some rather noble moral virtues. You note, in the first place, a great love and union, which they are careful to cultivate by means of their marriages, of their presents, of their feasts, and of their frequent visits. On returning from their fishing, their hunting, and their trading, they exchange many gifts; if they have obtained something unusually good, even if they have bought it, or if it has been given to them, they make a feast to the whole village with it. Their hospitality towards all sorts of strangers is remarkable; they present to them in their feasts the best of what they have prepared, and I do not know if anything similar is to be found elsewhere. They never close the door upon a Stranger, and, once having received him into their houses, they share with him the best they have; they never send him away, and, when he goes away of his own choice, he repays them with a simple, "thank you."

We have seen this year whole villages prostrated, their food a little flavorless sagamite; and yet not a word of complaint. They receive the news of death with more constancy than those Christian Gentlemen and Ladies to whom one would not dare to mention it. Our Indians hear of it not only without despair, but without troubling themselves, without the slightest change of countenance.

All the French who are here have eagerly applied themselves to learning the language, reviving the ancient usage of writing on birch-bark, for lack of paper. Fathers Davost and Daniel have worked at it, beyond all; they know as many words as I, and perhaps more; but they have not yet had practice in forming and joining them together promptly, although Father Daniel already explains himself passably well. As for me, who give lessons to our French, I shall yet have to go a long time to the school of the Indians, so prolific is their language. That does not prevent me from understanding almost all they say, and from making them fairly understand my meaning, even in the explanation of our most inexpressible mysteries.

About December, the snow began to lie on the ground, and the Indians settled down in the village. During the whole Summer and Autumn, they are for the most part either in their rural cabins, taking care of their crops, or on the lake fishing, or trading; which makes it inconvenient to instruct them. Seeing them, therefore gathered together at the beginning of this year, we decided to preach publicly to all, and to acquaint them with the reason of our coming into their Country, which is not for their furs, but to declare to them the true God. We gave the Instruction or Catechism in our cabin, for we had no other suitable Church. This is often the most we can do; for their feasts, dances, and games so occupy them that we cannot get them together as we would like.

The usual method that we follow is this: We call together the people by the help of the Captain of the village, who assembles them all in our house as in Council, or perhaps by the sound of the bell. I use the surplice and the square cap, to give more majesty to my appearance. At the beginning, we chant on our knees the Lord's Prayer, translated into Huron verse. Father Daniel, as its author, chants a couplet alone, and then we all together chant it again; and those among the Hurons, principally the little ones, who already know it, take pleasure in chanting it with us, and the others in listening. That done, when everyone is seated, I rise and make the sign of the Cross for all; then, having summarized what I said the last time, I explain something new. After that, we question the young children and the girls, giving a little bead of glass or wampum to those who deserve it. The parents are glad to see their children answer well and carry off some little prize. On our part, to arouse their rivalry, we have each lesson retraced by our two little French boys, who question each other, which transports the Indians with admiration. Finally, the whole is concluded by the talk of the Old Men, who propound their difficulties, and sometimes make me listen to the statement of their belief.

Our Hurons are not so dull as one might think them; they seem to have rather good common sense, and I find them universally docile. Still, some of them are obstinate, and attached to their superstitions and evil customs. These are principally the old people; for beyond these, who are not numerous, the rest know nothing of their own belief. We have two or three of this number in our village. I am often in conflict with them; and then I show them they are wrong, and make them contradict themselves, so that they admit their ignorance, and the others ridicule them; still they will not yield, always falling back upon this, that their Country is not like ours, that they have another God, another Paradise, other customs.

They tell us how the woman, named Aataentsic, fell from Heaven into the waters with which the earth was covered; and that little by little, the earth became bare. I ask them who created the Heaven in which this woman could not stay, and they remain mute; as also when I press them to tell me who formed the earth, seeing that it was beneath the waters before the fall of this woman. One man asked me cunningly where God was before the creation of the world. The reply was more easy for me, following St. Augustine, than the question put to me was for them. Another good old man, having fallen sick, did not wish to hear of going to Heaven, saying he desired to go where his ancestors were. Some days afterward, he came to me and told me a pleasant story: "Rejoice," he said, "for I have returned from the country of souls, and I have found none there any longer; they have all gone to Heaven." There is nothing which does not serve for salvation when God pleases, not even dreams.

Two things have aided us in the little we have been able to do here; the first is the good health that God has granted us in the midst of sickness so general and so widespread. For our Hurons have thought that if they believed in God, they would not die in so large numbers.

The second is the worldly assistance we have rendered to the sick. Having brought for ourselves some few delicacies, we shared them, giving to one a few prunes and to another a few raisins, to others something else. The poor people came from great distances to get their share.

Our French servants having succeeded in hunting during the Autumn, we carried portions of game to all the sick. That chiefly won their hearts, as they were dying, having neither flesh nor fish to season their sagamite. All our French have borne themselves so virtuously during the whole year that they have drawn down the blessing of Heaven.

I shall say one word about Louis de Saint Foy, which I would prefer not to say except that it may help to make this Nation more correctly known; it is this: he is not as he ought to be, and as we had wished. Still, we still have good hope. He was taken prisoner last year by the Iroquois, in the common defeat, and carried away as a prisoner. It cost him a finger. This severe stroke ought to suffice to bring him back to duty.

His Father was not taken; he escaped by flight, but in fleeing he suffered in the woods, where he remained, according to his account, thirty days struggling against three powerful enemies, namely, cold, for it was Spring and he was naked and fireless; sickness, for his two legs were powerless and he has not yet recovered; and lastly, against hunger, in reference to which he relates a remarkable story, if it be true. He says that, having gone for ten or twelve days without eating, and praying to God, of whom he had heard his son speak, he saw what seemed a pot of grease, such as he had seen at Quebec, full of a savory liquor, and heard a voice that said to him, "Saranhes, be of good cheer; you will not die; take, drink what is in the pot and strengthen yourself," which he did, and was marvelously solaced by it. A little later, he found in a thicket a small bagful of corn, with which he barely sustained life until some Indians of the neutral Nation, having accidentally found him, brought him to their village.

From our little House of St. Joseph, in the village of Ihonatiria in the Huron country, this 27th of May, 1635.

Jean de Brebeuf

Reverend Father,

The Winter here has been short and moderate. The Country is such that it bears sufficient crops for the nourishment of its inhabitants. All this Spring has been extremely clear and dry; the crops are beginning to suffer for lack of rain.

Jean de Brebeuf

THE ISLAND OF CAPE BRETON AND ITS INHABITANTS. SENT BY FATHER JULIEN PERRAULT, OF THE JESUITS, TO HIS PROVINCIAL, IN FRANCE, IN THE YEARS 1634 AND 1635.

THE Island of Cape Breton is about 2250 miles away from our France by sea. It is 175 or 200 miles in circumference. The mountains here are high and numerous, at the foot of which are seen great bogs and frightful precipices. The land is covered with all sorts of trees, such as oak, beech, birch, pine, hemlock, and others.

Chibou which is the principal part of this Island, is a great Bay about 5 miles wide at its entrance, becoming narrower little by little, in the 15 or 17 miles which form its extent.

In the middle, on the left hand in ascending, on the summit of the shore that faces the Northwest, is built the fort of Saint Anne, at the entrance of the harbor, opposite a little Cove. The location of the place is so advantageous, according to the report of those who are acquainted with it, that with ten or twelve pieces of cannon, all the hostile ships that might present themselves could be sent to the bottom.

Those who have grown old upon the sea protest that they have never seen a more desirable Port, either in extent or for its ease of access. Three thousand ships could easily anchor there, and be sheltered from every wind, in a beautiful enclosure pleasant to look upon; for its form is circular, or nearly so. The tides here are mild and regular; there is always from 60 to 72 feet of water. Also, despite that the Island is in forty-six and a half degrees north latitude, the cold is extreme, the island lying in the midst of snow five or six months of the year.

The Indians are more comfortable here than in many other places. If the Winter supplies them with fewer Beavers upon the water, it gives them, by way of compensation, more Moose upon the land. In summer, they live very well on Marmots and Parrot fish, with Cormorants and other marine birds. They have also Canadian geese, Smelts, Mackerel, Codfish, and like supplies, according to the different seasons, in the forests or upon the coasts of the sea.

As to the people, there is nothing anomalous in their physical appearance; you see wellformed men, good-looking, of fine figures, strong and powerful. Their skin is naturally white, for the little children show it therefore; but the heat of the Sun, and the rubbing with Seal oil and Moose fat, make them swarthy, the more so as they grow older. Most of them go bareheaded, and they have long, black hair, with little or no beard, so that the women cannot be distinguished, except that they use a girdle and are less naked than the men; quite the reverse of what is practiced in many Christian lands, to the shame of Christianity. One sees here old men, of eighty and a hundred years, who have hardly a gray hair. As to their intelligence, if we may judge from their conduct and from their way of dealing with the French, they are not at a great disadvantage. You do not see in their gestures and bearing any foolishness or nonsense, but rather a certain gravity and natural modesty, which makes them agreeable. They are so clever that, to disguise their language, they add to every word a syllable, which only serves to confuse the minds of those by whom they do not wish to be understood.

What they do lack is the knowledge of God and of the state of the soul after death; it is wondrous that we have not yet been able to discover any trace of this knowledge in what we know of their language. Perhaps we shall discover something more, when we become better versed in it; for it is not credible that the light of nature should be altogether extinct in them in this regard, when it is not in other more barbarous Nations, or that they never talk among themselves of that of which they cannot be entirely ignorant.

They are diligent and attentive to the instructions we give them; I do not know whether it is through amenability, for they have a great deal of this naturally, or through an instinct from above.

The other encouragement we see here is in the honesty and decency that we see shining forth in them like two bright rays of light in the midst of darkness. We never think of distrusting our Indians, or of watching their hands and their feet, as with some others who attract everything to them and appropriate all they find at their convenience. Everything is free to them in all places, and yet nothing is in danger in their presence, even if they are alone in a cabin and where no one can see them. As to decency, they hold it in such high estimation, at least as far as external appearances are concerned, in their actions and words, that there is a probability that they will rise up on the last day and condemn many Christians.

We have never heard them use unseemly words, nor seen any actions too free, although we have lived on familiar terms with them inside and outside their cabins. Someone will readily reply that, if we were better versed in their language, we would notice it there. But is it not a great deal, that the little we know of it has not taught us anything of the kind? And is there not great reason to blush for many Christian Nations, among whom one does not have to serve a long apprenticeship to their Grammar, to find oneself embarrassed and confused together, if he has even a little regard for propriety? And if our ears are not yet sufficiently opened to give positive evidence of the unconcern or decency of their talk; are we blind, or are we incapable of recognizing a shameful gesture or action? And yet we have never seen anything of this kind, not even among married people. But what shall I say about noticing one day a young Indian kissing a woman, who I did not think was his wife; as that seemed something extraordinary among them, I immediately asked him if that was his wife, and he replied that she was; but it was with embarrassment on the part of the two who had been taken by surprise. Add to this modesty, the gravity which is natural to them, and you will judge that they will receive with open arms a Law which recommends nothing so much as this virtue, which makes men like to Angels; and that they will not have as much difficulty as many badly taught Christians have.

They have polygamy, and pay no attention to the permanence of Marriage.

YEAR 1636
NEW FRANCE, IN 1636. SENT TO THE REVEREND FATHER PROVINCIAL OF THE JESUITS IN THE PROVINCE OF FRANCE. BY FATHER PAUL LE JEUNE OF THE JESUITS, SUPERIOR OF THE RESIDENCE OF QUEBEC.

Reverend Father,

I shall begin by referring to the joy we felt on the arrival of the fleet. Some were doubtful whether we would see the Vessels this year, on account of the great preparations for war which were being made in old France.

Another anxiety kept us between fear and hope, arising from the change of Governor. Sir de Champlain having left us in the last year of his Administration, to go to Heaven, we were anxious as to what fervor his successor would have for this infant Church. But, when the Ships appeared, all these fears were dissipated; the number of the vessels showed us that the affairs of New France rank among the chief concerns of the Mother country, and that the interest of the Company of New France continues daily to increase; and the first acts of Sir Charles Charles de Montmagny, our Governor, have made us hope everything that can be expected from a spirit filled with piety.

THE INDIANS BAPTIZED THIS YEAR, AND SOME BURIALS.

On the seventh of January of this year 1636, the son of a great Sorcerer or trickster was made a Christian, his father consenting to it after having offered a great deal of opposition. However, as his son was on the verge of death, they asked Sir Nicolet to do all he could to save this soul. So they went to his bark house, and strongly urged this Indian to consent to the baptism of his little son; as he turned a deaf ear, a good old woman said: "What! Do you think the water the black Robes will throw upon the head of your child will make him die? do you not see that he is already dead, and that he can hardly breathe? If these people were asking your wampum or your Beavers, for the charitable acts which they exercise towards your son, you would have some excuse; but they ask nothing; you know how they care for the sick, let them go on; if this poor little one dies, they will bury him better than you could."

So the sick child was baptized; he died some time afterward. Father Buteux asked for him, to bury him in our way. "No, no," said the parents, "you can not have him naked; wait until we have adorned him, and then we will give him to you." They painted his face blue, black, and red; they dressed him in a little red Cloak, and lined it with two Bear skins and a robe of wild Cat skin, and over all placed a large white sheet which they had bought at the Store. They arranged the little body in all this paraphernalia, in the form of a package tied closely on all sides, and placed it in the hands of the Father, who gently kissed these sacred remains, to show the Indians how we esteemed a little baptized Angel. It was buried in our French Cemetery, with solemnity. This pleases these Indians, and often influences them to allow their children to be made Christians.

On the eighth of the same month of January, a young girl peculiarly loved by her parents, went to Heaven after having been washed in the blood of the Lamb. I will note in this place the follies her poor father committed, to be able to cure her. His brother-in-law came to tell him that he had dreamed his niece would recover, if they had her lie upon a sheepskin painted with various figures; a search was made for one immediately, one was found, and they painted on it a thousand grotesque figures, canoes, paddles, animals, and such things. The Fathers said that this remedy was useless; but they said they must try it. The patient rested upon these paintings, but received no real benefit.

Another Charlatan was of the opinion that, if they gave the sick girl a white sheet as pillow, upon which had been drawn pictures of men singing and dancing, the sickness would disappear. They began immediately to paint men upon a sheet, but they made nothing but monkeys, such good Painters are they; this remedy succeeded no better than the first. The poor girl lay down upon this sheet without resting, and without recovering.

The parents consulted a famous Sorceress, that is, a famous jester. This woman said she had learned that they would have to kill a dog and that the men should make a feast of it. Also, that they would have to make a beautiful robe of Deer skin, trim it with their red decorations made of Porcupine quills, and give it to the patient; and that she would therefore recover. While they were preparing this feast, an Indian dreamed that, for the recovery of this girl, they would have to prepare a banquet of twenty head of Elk. The girl's parents were placed in great anxiety, for, as there was little snow, they could not capture the Elk.

In this great difficulty, they consulted the Interpreters of dreams; it was decided that they must change the twenty head of Moose to twenty big loaves of bread, such as they buy from our French, and that this would have the same effect. They were not mistaken, as this bread and this dog feast did nothing but fill the stomachs of the Indians; and this is all the twenty Moose heads could have done.

They wished to bury with this girl two dogs, and several other things. As to the dogs, they were told that the French would not be pleased if such ugly beasts were placed among them. "Permit us, then," said they, "to bury them near your Cemetery; for the dead girl loved them, and it is our custom to give to the dead what they loved or possessed when they were living." We do all we can to oppose this superstition, which is every day becoming less general; still, one tolerates, in these first beginnings, many things which in time will disappear of themselves. If these poor ignorant people were refused the privilege of placing in the graves of their dead their few belongings, to go with them to the other life, they say, they would also refuse to allow us to approach their sick; and therefore many souls would be lost which we are gathering in little by little, until the days of the great harvest come. So they enveloped the dead body in several robes; they gave her her trinkets, her ornaments, a quantity of wampum, which is the diamonds and pearls of this country; and besides this they put in the grave two paddles, and two large bags filled with their wealth, and with different utensils or instruments which the girls and women use. We had made her a beautiful coffin, a thing which gives infinite pleasure to these Indians.

The Father asked a sick young Indian man about his disease. "It is," he replied, "a wicked Algonquin who has given me this disease which sticks in my body, because I was angry at him; and his fear that I would kill him persuaded him to bargain for my death with the Manitou."

"And how do you know that?"

"I have had the Manitou consulted, and he told me I should make haste and give presents to the Manitousiouekhi," -- these are their tricksters, "and that he would anticipate my enemy, taking his life, and that therefore I would be cured; but my misfortune is that I have nothing more, I have given my wampum and my Beavers; and because I cannot continue these presents, I must die." So the only use to which these tricksters put their art is to draw what they can from poor sick people; and when they have nothing more, they abandon them.

Father de Quen baptized a dying, emaciated Indian young man. He remained only five or six days upon earth after this, leaving his body to his poor mother, who enveloped it in many robes, and placed it upon a high scaffold, to bury it according to their ancient custom. The Father, hearing that they had elevated this body, went to the Cabins of the Indians, and asked his mother and relatives where they had put it. They uttered not a word. He went to see the Captain of this Nation, and asked him to restore to him the remains, saying that this young man was baptized, and that the Governor would be angry if they did not place him in the Cemetery of the French. "Wait," said he to the Father, "I will make them give you what you desire." He went immediately to see the relatives of the dead man, made them a fine speech, declaring the affection we bore to their Nation, the help we gave to their sick, and the honors we showed to their dead. At once the mother yielded to our desire, and this Captain urged the young men to go and get the body and place it in our hands. As the Father was urging them, one of them replied, "Do not be in such haste; perhaps his soul has not yet left his body, it may be still at the top of his head." And yet he had been dead for two days.

When Father Chastellain visited a sick Christian Indian one day, he found a trickster blowing upon him, crying, howling, striking his drum and making a thousand grimaces, according to their custom. He reproached both of them severely. The trickster looked at the Father, without saying a word, and withdrew. The poor patient, addressing him, said, "Nikanis (My good friend), why are you angry? This man came to treat me according to the custom of our Nation; if there is any harm in it, it must be stopped, for we do not do these things with bad intentions." Those who were present added, speaking to the Father, "You have no sense; you do what you can to cure this sick man, you cannot succeed; the other wishes to aid you, and you are angry because of that. Two persons are not too many to cure so bad a disease. Do your part, and let him do his."

However, these absurdities are more innocent than I thought in the beginning. The most simple believe that they are restored through these songs, without knowing how; others take them as one would take medicine; some think that these noises drive away the Manitou; and the Charlatans engage in these apish tricks for their own profit. Our patient allowed himself to be blown upon, to follow the custom of his Ancestors. He firmly promised me never again to rely on these remedies. But, do what they will, their relations procure these for them, against their own wish.

THE MISERABLE DEATH OF SOME INDIANS.

Capitanal's son, about eighteen years old, passed into the other world in a pitiable way. Falling sick, Father Buteux went to visit him, and asked his mother if she would not like to have him talk to her child; she replied that she would like it much, but at present there was some obstacle to it in the Cabin, and therefore he should return in a little while. This obstacle arose from two tricksters. Still, the Father wished to approach him; but these fine Physicians signaled to peremptorily dismiss him, which he did.

Scarcely had the Father gone out, when these fraudsters began to cry, howl, beat their drums, and make their usual uproar. When this is done, they approach the poor sick boy, make those who are too near him retire, and then exclaim to him, "Take courage, my child; we have found the cause of your sickness; only close your eyes, and let us do our work." The poor patient closes the lids as tightly as he can, while the tricksters, examining his body, draw from their bag a great butcher knife, and pretend to be opening his side and probing a wound; then they produce a little knife covered with blood, which they show to those present, exclaiming, "See the cause of the trouble; courage! the Manitou had placed this in your body; see you relieved, do you not feel well?"

"Yes," replied the patient, "I am much better." All those present were surprised, looking at this knife with wonder. Then my Charlatans, to cover up their game and their deceit, make a plaster of ashes mixed with water, and apply it to the side they pretend to have opened, expressly forbidding the mother and child to touch this balm, which must cure him of all disease if its value is recognized.

An Indian informs the Fathers of all these proceedings, and they hurry to the Cabin of the sick boy. Father Buteux urges the mother to tell him what they have done to her son. She discloses the secret; and the Father exposes the tricksters, for, having gently raised this fine plaster, he finds neither wound nor scar. "Do you not see," he said to this poor mother, "that these Manitosiouekhi are abusing you, making you believe that this knife has come out of your son's body, without leaving any trace of that?"

"That is just the wonder of it," she replied; "they have performed their operation so deftly that the body has been relieved and yet in no way injured. Can you deny that my son is better?"

In fact, either the invalid had some respite, or the imagination, which everywhere operates powerfully, made him believe he was better; he even seemed to be happier than usual. I believe the hope of a sure recovery, which these false Esculapii had inspired in him, had caused this deceptive joy. The next morning, she sent an Innu Captain to bear the news to the Fathers that her son had died during the night, without anyone having seen him expire; that she was disconsolate, and would give them the corpse of him whom they had desired living; and that, although he had wished to be buried near his father, she would leave to them the entire disposition of his body. The Fathers answered that, as he had died a Barbarian, he could not be buried as a Christian.

PECULIARITIES OF THESE REGIONS.

Let us begin with the feasts of the Indians. They have one for war. At this, they sing and dance in turn, according to age; if the younger ones begin, the old men pity them for exposing themselves to the ridicule of the others. Each has his own song, that another dare not sing in case he give offense. For this reason, they sometimes strike up a tune that belongs to their enemies, to aggravate them. An unusual exhibition of nakedness sometimes slips in, not through lewdness, but to console the Manitou, who, they say, is pleased with this. Father Buteux wrote me that a Christian Indian one day absented himself from the dance of the naked girls, "Because," said he, "God hates these indecent acts, and Father le Jeune would be angry with me if I went there." They have the usual food at these feasts, except that, in accordance with their dreams, they occasionally eat a dog, a dish as shameful in the eyes of our Innus as it is rare and delicious in those of the Hurons.

I have spoken before of a certain Tent they make, to which the tricksters summon and consult the Genii of the Air, or of light. Not only the men, but even the women, enter this fine Tent. At Three Rivers, a trickster having called the Manitou, or some other Genii, and not having succeeded in making him come, a woman entered and began to so shake the house and to sing and cry so loudly that she caused the devil to come, who told them more than they wanted. First, he said that the sick man for whom they were consulting him, would die; and that the cause of his sickness was that, having offered some insult to the daughter of an Algonquin, this girl had prayed her father to take vengeance upon him; and her father had done this so well by his sorceries that his wife, that is, the devil's wife, had cast herself into his body, and was gnawing it from the inside, and so it was all over with him.

Secondly, this Devil, or this Manitou, testified that if he had not responded to the preceding trickster, it was because this trickster was an Algonquin and of the same Nation as the one who had caused the sickness. In the third place, when he was asked if he saw any Iroquois leaving their own Country to come and surprise them, he answered, after this woman had invoked him by hissings and shakings and uproar, "hurry, hurry to go to war, I see the Iroquois Country filled with all sorts of arms, with bows and arrows, that they are preparing to come and attack you." This Demon, or rather this Devilish woman, for it was this shameless person who made them believe that it was the Manitou who spoke, added that he had eaten some Atikamekw, these are Tribes that live north of the River which is called Three Rivers, and that he would eat a great many more of them if he were not called elsewhere. But that Atchen (a sort of werewolf), would come in his place to devour them, if they made a village, as they had decided to do; that he would come to get them, even up to the French Fort; that he would slaughter the French themselves. Oh, wicked woman! As she was in the habit of running here and there; she was afraid of being restricted to one village; and consequently she wished to impart fear to her Nation, who no longer thought of anything but war. When Father Buteux took her to task for her maliciousness, she drew a knife, and threatened to kill him.

Here are some minor superstitions, which throw darkness over their minds. They are not pleased to hear one speak of death, or of sickness, or of any misfortune, whatever it may be, in case the Manitou, hearing this talk, may take occasion to afflict them, or make them die. I have said before that they have a great fear of death; for they cannot endure the word. Yet, when they are sick, they have not such a horror of it; especially when they suffer a great deal; then some even ask to be killed, either to be delivered from the torments they are enduring, or to relieve from trouble those who have to drag them about with them.

They sometimes wear on the bottom of their garments little ornaments made from Bears' claws, so they may more easily kill these animals, and not be hurt by them.

There are some among them who say that their chest throbs when someone is about to come. One of them, declaring that the Indians of the Island were near the River of the Iroquois (Richelieu River), where this year the council of war is to be held, gave no other reason than that his chest was throbbing. One of our Frenchmen, who has long associated with these Indians, has assured me that he has frequently found out by experience the truth of these pretended prophecies; and lately, said he, a certain Indian woman, feeling her breast throb, said to her mother and the others who were in the Cabin, "The French will soon come here," which was true; he was one of those who appeared. I do not know whether the devil thrusts himself into this; but I do know that, in examining these frauds a little closer, you will find that the first inventors of them are either dead or absent.

The young man who is with our Fathers at Three Rivers, having caught a certain fish which in some respects resembles a great lizard, as it has four feet and a rather long tail, some Indians who saw him came to tell our Fathers that it was wrong to catch this animal, which caused the winds, and that the barques would not arrive for a long time, on account of this; so it would be better to throw it immediately into the river, to appease the wind, which was contrary. These simple people do not understand that God draws the winds from his treasure-house, and not from the belly and chest of a beast. The young women and girls will not eat the heads of pike, for fear they will have no children.

There are those who carry about them some article prescribed by the Manitou, to live a long time. Concerning this custom, something amusing happened to one of our Fathers at Three Rivers. Seeing an Indian adorned with a handsome belt, he asked him if he was fond of it.

"Yes," he replied, "for the Manitou told me to wear it, to live long."

"And he who has made all," replied the Father, "says that it is of no use whatever, either for death or for life."

This Indian went away; but, upon thinking over what the Father had said to him, he returned and said to him, "Here, take my belt, give me something for it; I have concluded that your Manitou has more sense than ours, and consequently I do not mind parting with it." The Father began to laugh at seeing a man so easy-going.

Another one, seeing the solemn ceremonies performed on the eve of saint John, thought this feast was observed to drive away the Manitou; and said that we understood much better how to send him away and banish him from us than they did, and that was the reason why we lived longer. They make their uproars and beat their drums to drive away the devil, so that he will not kill the sick person. I fear that one of these days they will come and ask us to shoot off our cannons to cure them.

It sometimes happens that the Indians get angry in the winter at the severity of the cold, which prevents them from hunting, and give vent to their wrath in a ridiculous manner. All those who were born in the summer go out from their Cabins, armed with fire and blazing torches, which they throw at Kapipou noukhet, namely, at him who has made the winter, and by this means the cold is appeased. Those who were born in winter are not among the company; for, if they were to mingle with the others, the cold would increase instead of diminishing. I have not seen this ceremony, but have heard of it from the lips of an Indian.

An Indian, seeing a Frenchman eat the heart of a certain bird, said to him, "How! you who are a man, dare you eat that? If we people should eat it, our enemies would surprise us and would kill us; that is a woman's food."

Another one said the birds usually made their feasts during the shortest nights of the year; the Moose, in the longest; and the Beavers, in those of average length.

One of our people, visiting a sick Indian and finding him disconsolate, asked him what had happened to him. "Alas," said he, "I was beginning to get better; I went out of my Cabin, a girl in her period looked at me, and my disease attacked me as severely as ever." I have already said that these girls withdraw from the Cabin when they are subject to this infirmity, and that the Indians dread even to meet them. The Father consoled him, and made him understand that this glance was incapable of injuring him.

Here is the wondrous voyage of a Nipissing, which was told to me by an Innu. This man, having traveled a long distance, at last reached the Cabin or house of God, as he named one who gave him something to eat. He found him alone, but his daughter came in soon afterward. He has only this girl, and still it is not known how he came by her, for he has no wife. All kinds of animals surround him, he touches them, handles them as he wishes, and they do not fly from him; but he does them no harm, for, as he does not eat, he does not kill them. However, he asked this new guest what he would like to eat, and having learned that he would relish a Beaver, he caught one without any trouble, and had him eat it; then asked him when he intended going away. "In two nights," was the answer.

"Good," said he, "you will remain two nights with me." These two nights were two years; for what we call a year is only a day or a night, in the estimation of him who procures us food. And one is so contented with him that two winters, or two years, seem only like two nights. When he returned to his own country, he was astonished at the delay he had experienced.

I asked if a person could not go again to this place where the Indian had been. There is only one person, I was answered, who can go there, and even he not always, according to the report of him who has returned from there.

Once when Father Buteux entered a Cabin with Sir Nicolet, who understands the Algonquin tongue, an Algonquin, who acts the part of a know-it-all, invited them to sit down near him, which they did. The Algonquin told them that the Indians recognized two Manitous; but he recognized a third, who presided over war. That one of the three had made the land, at least that of his country; as to that of the French, he was not entirely certain. Having made the land, he produced the animals and all the other things of his country. The narrator gave him a great lake, or a Waterfall, for his home, as we give the sea to Neptune. This worthy Creator of the earth, drawing his bow one day upon a Beaver, to chase it far away, to people the country with them, missed it; and the arrow, lodging in a tree, had made it beautiful and smooth; and as for this not being true, "I have," said he, "known old men who have seen this tree." He told a thousand other foolish tales.

The Father had him asked where this God was before he created the earth.

"In his Canoe," he replied, "which was floating upon the waters."

"If he had a Canoe," was said to him, "there must have been trees, for it is made of the bark of trees; if there were trees, there was land; if there was land, how has he created it?"

"The land," he replied, "was there before, but it was flooded."

"And before the flood, who created this land?"

"I know nothing about it; you have more intelligence than I have, do not ask me anything more."

I will write down what I have recently learned about the Beaver. This animal is wonderful. He makes his Cabin upon the banks of a River or of a Pond; he has a sort of double story in this house, which is quite round and is built like a well-plastered oven. The first story is the lower part of the Cabin, into which water enters through its opening: but the Beaver places heavy pieces of wood across, upon which he scatters branches of fir and other kinds of trees, which he uses as a floor. The second story has a hole in the middle, through which he descends into the water at the bottom of his Cabin, in the lower story, from where he slips into the Pond through the door of his house. I have been told that he carries his winter store of wood, which forms his food, into this house; but an Indian has contradicted this. He says that he cuts a quantity of wood during the Autumn, and places it in the River or Pond on the shores of which he has made his house; and in order that this wood may not float away and get caught in the ice, when the surface of the water freezes, he sinks his stores to the bottom, by means of a certain heavier wood with which he loads it, and therefore makes it secure.

When winter comes, the surface of the water freezes, and the ice covers the opening or door of his house; but, as the water is not frozen below the surface, this animal is free to leave his little tower and swims about in the Pond or in the River under the ice. But here is something still more marvelous. When the Beavers sometimes find themselves too numerous in one place, and are not able to agree among themselves, some of them withdraw and go to seek a home elsewhere. Finding a suitable stream, they stop there; and if this brook is not deep enough, they bar it and make a dam. They cut large trees with their teeth, they throw the wood across the River in every way; then they plaster it with mud, so neatly on the side where they wish to retain the water that artisans would find it hard to do better. These dams are about six yards broad, and in length more or less, according to the width of the River or Brook they have dammed. Sir Olivier informed me that he crossed over one of these dams, which was more than 500 feet long. Sir Nicolet has seen another of almost a half mile, so strong and so well made that he was filled with astonishment. The waters that are checked by this dam become deep, and form a beautiful Pond in which the Beaver goes to swim. I am told even that when soil is lacking in the place where they do this great work, they go and get it elsewhere, bringing it upon their backs. I do not know what to believe of this.

As we have some Elks here among us, which our Governor is domesticating, I have noticed that this tall animal gets on its knees as easily as the Camel, either to drink, eat, or sleep. Nature, or rather its Author, has wisely provided for all; as the Elk is of high stature, he has given it this facility of bending its knees and of easily sustaining its body, which he has not granted to other animals that are smaller and of less height.

THE PRESENT STATE OF NEW FRANCE, ON THE GREAT SAINT LAWRENCE RIVER.

The great losses incurred by these Gentlemen of the Company of New France in the early infancy of their Company are like a most heavy night. They were never thought of except to be rebuffed; they were never looked upon except with aversion. The rightful possession of these lands was debated in France, while famine and the English, one after the other, divided and afflicted them. These immense Provinces could aspire to no higher fortune than to be made a storehouse for the skins of dead animals, than to fill Indian mouths, to support Elk, Beaver, and great quantities of Trees.

Although the greatest of Rivers opens to us a royal highroad by which we may visit one another, and exchange the good things that God has given to each country, yet our harbors are not yet sufficiently stocked with ships, nor our dwellings numerous enough for people to undertake this commerce. The Indians, who alone journey over these lands or sail in their little gondolas upon these Rivers, occasionally bring us news of these more distant settlements. For instance, lately a stout young fellow coming from Acadia informed us that Sir de Rasilly was considered a great Captain, not only among the French and English, but also in the estimation of all the Tribes of his Country. He is not mistaken. The integrity of this great man deserves to be honored, even in the midst of Barbarism. This preamble is long; let us enter our place of residence.

Four things make a Country desirable: good soil, strong and fortified areas, the character and number of inhabitants, and the government.

As to the excellence of the land which forms the banks of the great River, I shall speak subsequently. As to strongholds, I shall simply tell what there are. Sir de Champlain, before his death, fortified the place that the English had usurped and that they surrendered. Since his death, the work has been continued there, and the redoubt which he raised to command the length of the Quay has been repaired; the cannons which faced upon the river have been increased in number, the platform upon which they rest has been strengthened.

The Islet de Richelieu remains as it was, with its heavy ordnance. I spoke of it last year, and will say no more about it at present. Plans grow with time. Sir Charles Charles de Montmagny, our Governor, has traced the plan of a fortress which is to be regularly built. Some are working at the lime, others at the brick, others are hauling stone, and others leveling the ground.

They have drawn the plans of a city, so all building subsequently shall be done systematically. A place on the river has been visited which can prevent not only the passage of big Ships, but also of little barques and perhaps even of sailboats.

The settlement at Three Rivers has been increased. by two detached buildings, by a store, and by a platform provided with cannon. This is what has been done, but not all that ought to be done, for the preservation of the Country.

I say nothing about the houses of private persons, which have been built and are building every day, some here, some there, according to the inclination and convenience of each. Those who have not seen the Country in its poverty, perhaps do not admire these still quite small beginnings. The courage of these Gentlemen of the Company of New France is going much farther; they are thinking about a number of homes or settlements as far up as the great Lachine Rapids, which will be some day perhaps as many Cities. Indeed, they will even be able to secure the great river up as far as Lake Huron, which is a lake of more than 1250 miles in extent. But we must unite and rally our forces in some permanent and well-protected places, before spreading out so far.

As to the inhabitants of New France, they have multiplied far beyond our hopes. When we entered the Country, we found here only a single family, who were seeking a passage back to France to live there under the laws of the true Religion. And now we see a great number of honorable persons land here every year, who come to cast themselves into our great forests as if into the bosom of peace, to live here with more piety, more immunity, and more liberty. The din of Palaces, the great uproar of Lawyers and Litigants is heard here only at a 2500 miles' distance. Extortions, deceits, thefts, rapes, assassinations, treachery, hostility, black malice, are seen here only once a year, in the letters and Gazettes which people bring from Old France. Not that we have not our maladies, but they are easier to cure; and besides, no money is needed to pay for the attendance of the Physicians.

We have here two brave Knights, one as Governor, Sir Charles Charles de Montmagny, the other as his Lieutenant, Sir Marc Bras-De-Fer. We have also some worthy Gentlemen here, and a number of fine-looking and resolute soldiers. It is a pleasure to see them engage in their warlike exercises during the calmness of peace, to hear the noise of muskets and of cannon, our great forests and mountains responding to these reports by Echoes rolling as innocent thunders, which have neither bolts nor lightning. The Diane wakens us every morning; we see the sentinels resting upon their arms. The guardhouse is always well supplied; each squad has its days of sentry duty. Our fortress at Quebec is guarded in time of peace as is an important place in the midst of war. The remaining and greater part of the population is composed of different kinds of artisans, and of some respectable families, and has considerably increased this year. Our Indians themselves, who are not great admirers of the Universe, are astonished to see, they say, so many Captains and so many children of Captains.

Among the families that have come recently, those of Sir de Repentigny and Sir de la Poterie, gallant Gentlemen, hold the first rank. When we were told at Quebec that there were many persons at Tadoussac who were coming to increase our Colony, that nothing was seen down there but men, women and little children, we praised God; but when we were assured that there were, among others, six Damsels, and some children as beautiful as the day, that Sir de Repentigny and Sir de la Poterie were establishing a large household, and that they were in good health, imagine if joy did not take possession of our hearts.

It remains to speak of our government, Religious and Civil. There is no chance here for Tricksters. The quarrels which I have seen arise have appeared only soon to disappear. Everyone is his own Advocate, and the first person one meets judges as a final tribunal from which there is no appeal. If there is anything that is worth reporting to the Governor, he dispatches it in two words, or has it arranged and concluded by those who may have knowledge of the affair.

This is not saying that one cannot proceed judicially here, and that this has not been done occasionally; but as there are no great causes for dispute, so we can have no great trials, and consequently the whole system of government is mild and agreeable. Everywhere there are immoral spirits who consider the mildest laws as chains; but their discontent is a disease of the mind, and does not arise from the severity of the laws, which are in no way characterized by bitterness. Also, those laws enacted here are also observed. Here are some proofs of this.

On the twenty-ninth of December, 1635, there were placed upon a pillar in front of the Church certain notices and prohibitions, with certain penalties, against blasphemy, drunkenness, failing to attend the Mass and divine services on holy days. In accordance, an iron collar was fastened to the same pillar, and a wooden horse nearby for the delinquents; and here, on the sixth of January, a drunkard and blasphemer was placed; and on the twenty-second, one of our residents was condemned to 25 gold coins fine for having made some Indians drunk.

The first sacrifices of the Mass that we presented in this country were offered in a wretched little hut; afterward we used a room, then they had a Chapel built. They have tried to change it into a Church, enlarging it by half; and with all that, on feast-days the first two Masses which are said at Quebec are so frequented that this large Chapel, or this little Church, is full from one end to the other.

The establishment of a College is also of great service for the welfare of the country. Also, a number of respectable persons can assure us that they would never have crossed the Ocean to come to New France, if they had not known that there were persons there capable of directing their consciences, of procuring their salvation, and of instructing their children in virtue, and in the knowledge of Letters.

ANSWERS TO SOME PROPOSITIONS SUBMITTED TO ME FROM FRANCE.

SOME persons of standing have proposed to me, privately and from different places, certain difficulties in which they wish to be enlightened, to decide whether to cross over into these countries. It is reasonable to give them exact and satisfactory answers.

It is asked whether this country is beyond the incursions of the Spaniard; and then a survey is desired, to see the distance there is between New France and the lands Spain possesses in America.

I answer that there is no need of a survey to know this distance; besides, I could only indicate it on the maps already in circulation, having neither the time, nor the leisure, nor the means of visiting so many places to take the necessary altitudes; still, what I am going to say will fully satisfy the question. The Spaniard could only come to us by sea or by land. To come by land is impossibility itself, and he who has so little knowledge of the Country would make himself ridiculous by fearing his approach across so many hundreds of miles of woods, of forests, of rivers, of lakes, and of mountains. To come by water, he has a long voyage to make; for between him and us there is all of Florida, and perhaps several other countries beyond; all of Virginia, and all the other lands which belong to France, which are of vast extent. This is not all; after having found the mouth of our great river, he would have to go up about 500 miles, according to the sailors, who only allow about 43 miles to a degree. So if we follow the Geographers, who make it 62 miles, he would have to come over 750 miles up this great River to reach us; and when all this distance is covered, we are now in such a condition and in such numbers that we do not fear his forces. If Sir de Champlain had had food and gunpowder and other munitions of war, the English would never have entered the fort of Quebec. He had the right kind of courage, and the place was also easy enough to hold, although it was nothing compared to what has been added and is being added to it every day. As to provisions, they always send us enough for two years; and we shall soon be in a condition to support ourselves from our own labor.

The land being cleared and plowed, will it produce enough for the inhabitants?

I answer, yes; this is the opinion of those who understand the subject. Sir Giffard, who has been clearing the land for only two years, and still leaving a great many stumps, hopes to harvest enough this year, if his wheat yields in proportion to present indications, to maintain twenty persons. The last year's harvest was 21 barrels of wheat, 5 barrels of peas, 8 barrels of Indian corn; and all this was done by the labor of seven men, who were also engaged in building, in making hay, and in other work. His land is good; not all is like it.

Is there any hope of apple and other fruit trees producing fruit here?

I cannot answer positively, as I have had no visual proof of this. Sir Hebert planted some apple trees during his lifetime, which have borne some good fruit, as I have been assured; but the cattle spoiled these trees. We have grafted some wild trees this year, and the scions have united well. Time will show us what there is in it. One sees here pear, apple, plum, cherry, and other trees bearing wild fruit; if they can stand the severity of the winter, I do not see why they should die for being grafted with good shoots. In some places there are many wild vines loaded with grapes; some have made wine of them through curiosity; I tasted it, and it seemed to me good. Many are sure that the vine would succeed here; and when I urged against this the rigor of the cold, they replied that the vine-stock will be safe all Winter under the snow, and that in the Spring it should not be feared that the vines will freeze as they do in France, because they will not sprout so early. All this seems probable.

How long would it take twenty men to clear an acre of land? What would it cost apiece to maintain them for a year? And what provisions would it be necessary to furnish?

Twenty men will clear in one year 25 acres of land, so clean that the plow can pass through it; if they had an interest in the matter, perhaps they would do more. There are some places which are much easier than others. The usual task for each man is 1.25 acres a year, if he is not engaged in other work. As rations, each one is given two loaves of bread, of about six or seven pounds, a week, that is, 318 liters of flour a year; two pounds of lard, two ounces of butter, a little measure of oil and of vinegar; a little dried codfish, about a pound; a bowlful of peas, which is about a pint, and all this for one week. As to their drinks, they are given a pint of cider per day, or a quart of beer, and occasionally a drink of wine, as on great feast-days. In the winter they are given a drop of brandy in the morning, if one has any. What they can get from the Country, in hunting or fishing, is not included in this.

By following this memorandum, one can see what it costs to keep a man, and the provisions that must be supplied. I say nothing of the other edibles which it is well to bring, prunes, rice, raisins, and other things that can be used for the sick. Neither do I speak of the clothes, blankets, mattresses, and other such things that everyone can bring according to his condition and ability.

How is the great Saint Lawrence River formed? What kind of banks has it? How far up do the great Vessels go, and of what burden are those which go up as far as Quebec and Three Rivers? What is the condition of the fortifications that have been made for the safety of the Country?

Here are a great many questions which are difficult to answer without making long journeys. When you come up to Quebec and have the wind astern, you hardly notice the banks of the great River, which sometimes do not appear at all, either from their great distance, the River being wide, or from the fogs that obscure the view. To coast along these shores, you would have to make 1000 miles, and carry men and provisions for a long time. Yet I must give some answer. Upon entering these lands, you encounter a Gulf as large as a sea; farther up, this Gulf changes into a broad River, for you can scarcely see the banks while sailing in the middle of it. It keeps on narrowing, and yet it is fully 25 miles wide at more than 250 miles from its mouth. Opposite Quebec, where it becomes narrow, it is 1465 yards wide, this distance having been measured on the ice. 10 miles farther up, its bed widens out again, and opposite the settlement of the Three Rivers, which is 75 miles above Quebec, it is still 1500 or 2500 yards in width; a little higher it forms the great Lake of saint Peter, about 17 miles wide. This King of all Rivers is bordered sometimes by mountains, sometimes by a flat country, or by land but slightly elevated. I have often navigated it from Quebec up to the Three Rivers. Some of the banks are rocky, others sandy; upon others one finds clay, heavy soil, good for making brick.

The Country is beautiful and attractive, intersected by rivers, brooks, and torrents issuing from the ground. The Indians pointed out to me some places where the Iroquois once cultivated the land. This River from the Cape of Saint Lawrence, that is, from its mouth, up to Tadoussac flows partly toward the Northwest, a quarter from the West, partly toward the West, a quarter from the Southwest, according to Sir Champlain's maps; for I have not made these observations while sailing upon it, not supposing that that would be necessary for my purposes. As to the size of the Ships that can enter this River, I am persuaded that all those which can sail the Ocean with safety can safely come up as far as Tadoussac, and perhaps even to Quebec, and a little higher. However, they do not generally bring vessels up here except those of one hundred to two hundred tons. Beyond Quebec only barques are sent, which pass far above Three Rivers.

In regard to the quality of the soils, to describe those which are suitable for tillage, for planting, for pasture; whether it will be necessary to work them with teams of oxen, or horses; what grains will they bear?

If our great forests were leveled, I could easily answer these questions; but as they are still standing, and as one does not easily visit them, I have seen both good and bad land in the places I have frequented. There are fertile lands, in some places sand, in others meadows, and places fit to make meadows. I believe there are some quarters adapted to vines, to plants; but all these are not together, and yet this is what one would desire. In these beginnings, as all these experiments have not yet been made, I cannot indicate the peculiar quality of every soil with certainty. Three Rivers is like Anjou; it is a sandy country, and I believe the vine would flourish there. Quebec is diversified; there are low places where wheat might do well, upon the heights the vine and wheat might flourish. As to wheat, experience has given us faith.

Meadows can be made in a thousand places. There are some upon the borders of the great River, but these are injured by the tides. There is no need to bring over grains as seed; they will be found here in exchange for other grains, or something else.. March wheat sown in the spring succeeds better than wheat sown before winter. Not that I have not seen some fine wheat that was sown in October. But as we are not yet thoroughly acquainted with the weather and the nature of the soil and climate, it is safer to sow in the Spring than before the Winter. Common barley and hulled barley succeed to perfection, and rye does very well; I have seen all these grains grow here, as beautiful as they have in France. The peas are better and more tender than those they bring over in ships. Pot-herbs do very well, but the seeds must be brought over. The nearness of the forests, and so much rotten wood, of which the land is formed and nourished, engender, at times, insects which gnaw everything; as these animals die during the heat of Summer, everything comes to perfection, but sometimes later than is desirable to secure the grain and seed. We have here oxen and cows, which we use to cultivate the cleared land; this year some asses have been brought over, which will be of great service; horses could be used, but there is no hurry about bringing them.

Is building stone to be found there, also clay, sand?

All these are here in abundance in some places, in others not. For a distance of 5 miles round about Quebec lime is made; good building stone is quarried, which can be easily cut; excellent brick is made, and sand is found almost everywhere.

Notice what the country furnishes to sustain human life, the kinds of animals, etc.

Game among river birds is abundant in season, the Spring and Autumn; but as it has been so disturbed in the more inhabited areas, it is going farther and farther away. There are Islands which are full of Geese, Bustards, Ducks of various kinds, Teal and other Game; but, as we are occupied with more necessary affairs, we do not often engage in hunting these animals. There are Elks, Beavers, Porcupines, Hares, and some of the deer family, such as the common red Deer, and a kind of cow that appears to have some affinity with ours. This chase of the larger animals is mainly indulged in by the Indians, who, by the pursuit of them, have driven these animals from our settlements; some of the French, however, have killed Elks, but not many. The time will come when they can be domesticated, and we shall make good use of them, having them drag over the snow the wood -- and other things which we shall need; these Gentlemen are keeping three of these animals, two males and one female, and we shall see how they will succeed; if they become tame, it will be easy to provide for them, as they eat nothing but wood. In time, parks can be made, in which to keep Beavers; these would be treasure-houses, besides furnishing us with fresh meat at all times. For if one sees so many ewes, sheep, and lambs in France, although the Ewe generally bears but one lamb a year, imagine how much more Beavers will multiply, since the female bears several.

As to the fish, he is here in his empire. There are a great many Lakes, Ponds, and Rivers, filled with them. The great river is full of Sturgeon, Salmon, Shad, Pike, Flounders, goldfish, whitefish, Carp of different kinds, Eels, etc. Not that they can be caught everywhere in the same abundance, but there are places where the quantity of fish seems marvelous. While I am writing this, here comes a boy bringing twenty-five or thirty Flounders, caught in one night. There are some Lakes where one could live on fish, winter and summer. This last winter our French caught Pike there three or four feet long, Sturgeons of four or five feet, and other fish in abundance. It was an Indian who made me acquainted with this trade. It is now being enjoyed by our French at Three Rivers, where the fishing exceeds all ideas that we may have of it; but it is not that way everywhere. When we can do here as we do in France, where certain ones give themselves up solely to fishing, others to hunting, others to tilling the soil, others to building, we shall have as many comforts as we do in France; but we cannot yet hope for that, as there are not enough of us.

What kind of merchandise can we send from here to France, such as pelts; Codfish, dry and fresh; oil of the Whale, and of other big fish? What minerals can be found here, gummy woods which produce resin, Pines, Firs, Cedars, Oak planks, materials with which to build our Ships?

I answer that all these things are found in this country, but there are not yet enough people here to gather in its riches. We have Codfish at our door. They come from France to fish for it in our great river, at Gaspe, at l'Isle perce, at Bonaventure, at Miscou; and yet the Codfish that is eaten at Quebec generally comes from France, because there are not yet enough men here to go down to that fishery. I can say the same of the coal and gypsum, these are found here, but ships are needed to go and get them; these forces are lacking, for our chief care must be to provide for lodgings, fortifications, and the clearing of the land.

The Spanish Basques come up as far as Tadoussac, or farther, to kill Whales; effort will be made this year, I have been told, to take Porpoises, or white Whales, which pass in numberless shoals before Quebec. For a long time we have seen them swimming before our eyes, and yet more urgent affairs have so far delayed this enterprise. And yet, if it were necessary to go 25 or 50 miles from here to get them, they would be let alone. Everything will come in its turn. Some persons of good business ability, such as are needed in this country, assure me that they are sending to France Clapboards, Oak planks, and those made of other woods, for Ships, to the value of twenty thousand silver coins; and all this has not taken one year's work, for they have been engaged part of the time in clearing the land. I should like to have fifty such families here, but not all are so capable. If any profit can be made out of Firs, Cedars, Pines, Spruce, there are plenty of them here and in many places.

As to the mines, the land must first be cleared, because we must not expect from France the quantity of flour necessary for so many mouths, and for so many persons who will have to work at the furnaces. One man thinks he has found a gold mine, and another a silver mine; I am not prepared to say whether this is true or not.

Not only can Codfish of all kinds be found here, but also Salmon in some places; one can also salt Eels in abundance, which are good; we catch and make provisions of these long fish because they are found at Quebec; the Salmon and Codfish, being farther away, are out of our reach; but it will not be always so. As to the pelts of Beavers, Otters, Foxes, and other animals, this is something which should not be considered, for these Gentlemen of the Company of New France reserve this business for themselves. One can, however, make something from these, inside the Country, for they do not care through what hands their Beavers pass, provided they come to their storehouses. The inhabitants can barter the products of their own lands, but on condition that they will not have these sent over to France. This seems reasonable, for it is impossible to defray the heavy expenses of their shipments if they do not derive some benefits from these countries. I wish everyone would thoroughly comprehend this truth, that the power of this honorable Company is the support of the Country. If their resources are taken away, we shall all be undone; if we all contribute to their prosperity, we shall build up and strengthen our own.

In regard to this Trading, you called my attention to the rule of the seventh general Congregation of our Jesuits, which forbids all kinds of commerce and business, under any pretext. Some of our Fathers send me word that we must not even look at, or touch with the ends of our fingers, the skin of any of these animals, which are of great value here; what can be the cause of this advice? Surely, it cannot be that our Jesuits distrust those it sends to these regions. I have heard that, in France, some who do not know us, cry out that our hands are not clean from this trade.

Pelts are not only the best thing and the easiest to make use of in this country, but it is also the coin of the greatest value. And the best of it is that, after it has been used as a covering, it is found to be ready-made gold and silver. You know in France how much consideration is given the style of a gown. Here all there is to do is to cut it out of a Beaver skin, and the Indian woman immediately sews it to her little child with a Moose tendon, with admirable promptness. Whoever wishes to pay in this coin for the goods he buys here, saves the twenty-five percent that the market price gives them over that in France for the risk they run upon the sea. The day-laborers also would rather receive the wages for their work in this money than in any other. If what comes to us from France is dearer for having floated over the sea, what we have here is worth something for having been chased in the woods and over the snow, and for being the wealth of the Country; especially since those who are paid with this coin always find there their compensation.

It is for this reason that the Gentlemen of the Company of New France permit, to a reasonable extent, this practice to everyone, and do not care whether these skins are used for trade or for protection from the cold, provided that, in the end, they come back to their storehouse, and do not cross the seas except in their own Ships. Because of this, if occasionally a pelt gets into our hands, we do not hesitate to use it in the way of a purchase, any more than we would as a covering for the little Indians who cause us expense, or to make for ourselves shoes from the skins of Moose, so we may walk upon our snowshoes, for which the common ones are of no use whatever, because they are so hard. Such is here the custom of both the French and the Indians. We send also some old Elk skins to our Fathers who are among the Hurons, and some wampum when we have any; it is most of their money, and with it they pay for their frugal provisions of Indian corn and smoked fish, and also for the materials and making of their bark Palaces.

This is all the profit we derive here from pelts and other rare things of the Country, all the use that we make of them. If you deem it best to drop all this in order not to offend anyone, we are ready to give it up entirely. I say all, meaning as many of us as are here, and those who come after us will keep the same rule. But if you write us that all this is according to God, we shall go on, after having requested these same irritable people to believe that, if they make us give up this innocent practice, they must open their own coffers to assist us in these distant Countries.

However carefully we have been able to manage things, the last letters from our Father who handles our income over there, and who sends us our supplies, indicate that without a little miracle he experienced lately, he would not have been able to furnish us anything this year. How would it be if we had to buy the remainder here, and send to him the bill increased by a third or a fourth? Besides, if there is any charity in the world, no one should envy our little Seminary children because we cover them with clothes which originate among them, and which last longer and which protect them better from the cold than anything else.

Nor should we be blamed for using the money of the Country to save something for the benefit of these poor abandoned creatures; to give them covering and food while they are willing to be instructed and desirous of becoming Christians; and to have something with which to bury them, when they come to die. If France were reduced to such a condition that money was not in circulation, one would be obliged in commerce to use the articles and commodities themselves, trading one for the other; could anyone find it wrong that we should follow the way of others, and when some objects of value should become ours, we should make use of them according to circumstances? We have no greater attractions for these poor people than their hope of getting from us some material assistance, and they never cease asking us for it. To refuse them is to estrange them. If we always give to them without taking anything in return, we shall soon be at the end of our string; and yet, if we take away from them the liberty of asking, they will never become civilized. What remains then? To tell them to ask those who have more to give than we? That will hardly help.

SOME ADVICE TO THOSE WHO DESIRE TO CROSS OVER INTO NEW FRANCE.

ALL those who desire to come and increase this Colony are either people of means, or poor people; I will speak to both. Let us begin with the poor.

A poor man burdened with a wife and children should not come over here the first years with his family, if he is not hired by the Company of New France, or by someone else who will bring them here: otherwise, he will suffer, and will not make any headway. The Country is not yet in a condition to care for the poor who cannot work. But if there happen to be some worthy young men or able-bodied married men, who can handle the axe, the hoe, the spade, and the plow, such people, if willing to work, could become rich in a little while in this Country, to which they could finally bring their families. This is the way they should proceed.

Four or five of them would have to join together, and engage themselves to some family for five or six years on the following conditions: That they should be boarded during all this time without receiving any wages, but also that they should possess entirely and in their own right one-half of all the land they clear. And, as they will need something for their own support, the contract should provide that all they get every year, from the lands they have already cleared, should be shared by half; this half, with the little profits they can make in the Country, would be enough to keep them, and to pay after the first or second year for half the tools which they will use in clearing and in tilling the land.

If four men could clear seven acres of land a year, doing nothing else, winter or summer, in six years, forty-two acres would be cleared, of which twenty-one would belong to them. With these twenty-one acres they could support thirty-six persons, or even forty-eight, if the land is good. Is not this a way of becoming rich in a little while? And all the more so, as the land here will one day become profitable and will bear a great deal of grain. There is now brought from France so much flour, with its attendant risks upon the sea, that if someone had wheat here these risks and the encumbrance of the vessels would be removed, and he would derive much profit from it. There are so many strong peasants in France who have no bread to put in their mouths; is it possible they are so afraid of losing sight of the village steeple, as they say, that they would rather languish in their misery and poverty, than to place themselves some day at their ease among the inhabitants of New France? But to whom do I speak? To people who cannot know what I am writing, unless more capable ones tell it to them. These I ask to do so, in the name of God and of the King; for the interests of both are involved in peopling this Country.

As to people of wealth and rank, I would advise them before coming here to obtain from the Company of New France a place to build a house in the town which has been laid out, and also a few acres of land near the town, capable of sustaining their families. Also, a grant of some fine area which they will choose eventually. When this has been accomplished, they must bring over at least two Masons, two Carpenters, and some laborers; and if they desire more, some workmen to clear the land, provided with tools adapted to their trade. Above all, let them have some custom axes, sparing no money on them, for the winter is harder than bad steel. There must be a man of authority and discretion to take care of all these people, to direct them, and to take charge of the provisions which are sent over.

The more good flour that can be sent here the better, and the more security there will be. Sir de Repentigny has brought enough for two years, and in doing so has acted wisely. It would be a good thing to bring over in a bundle the parts of a gribane, or large boat, capable of sailing upon the tides; that is to say, it ought to be elevated at the sides, and perhaps flat, to draw less water. It must be strong and large, to carry wood, stone, lime, and other such things. It could be put together at Tadoussac. All these men having reached the Country, some of them will be occupied in clearing the land, according to the plan of the one who will direct them. When a building capable of accommodating them and their servants is finished, the whole family will come over, and will bring some cattle if they receive word that it is best to do so, for perhaps these can be found in New France; to have them on board prevents better things from being taken, and costs enormously, unless they are placed with those which are at Cap de Tourmente, by an understanding with the Gentlemen of the Company of New France who have some there.

If this order is followed, when the women and children reach here they will all be comforted at finding a dwelling ready for them, a garden for their refreshment, and people at their service who will have a knowledge of the Country. As I have been told that there are honorable families who wish to come to enjoy the delights of rest and peace in New France, the love I already feel for them, without having the honor of their acquaintance, causes me to give them this advice.

I will make two more suggestions. The first, that if they can have men who have interests at stake to clear the land, it will be much better. The men who work for wages mostly try to be like some of our neighbors, who, having scarcely passed the line of the Equator, all begin to call themselves Gentlemen, and no longer care to work.

In the second place, I ask those who shall come, to come with a desire to do good. I have more desire to see this country cleared, than populated. Useless mouths would be a burden here, during these first years.

JOURNAL OF THE THINGS THAT COULD NOT BE RELATED IN THE PRECEDING CHAPTERS.

ON the fifteenth of September, having embarked for our residence of the Conception, I was glad at seeing that the Nipissings, a tribe living near the Hurons, could understand my Innu jargon. Anyone who knows perfectly the language of the Quebec Indians can make himself understood, I conjecture, by all the Tribes from the great Isle of Newfoundland to the Hurons of the Northern region. The difference in these languages consists only in certain Idioms that one could easily learn if he frequented these Nations.

On the ninth of October, Father Buteux having entered the Cabin of an Innu Captain, where some Strangers had arrived, this Captain made him sit down beside him, and then, addressing his guests, openly told them many good things about us. "These people," said he, "have great knowledge; they are charitable, they are kind to us in our necessity; one of them has cured my daughter, who was going to die." Father Quentin had given her some ointments which had helped her. "Still," he added, "they never ask anything in return; but, on the contrary, they feed our sick people, while restoring them to health. And that you may know how intelligent they are, Take your Massinahigan," he said to the Father, that is, your Book or your Tablets, "and write what I shall say." He repeated to him the names of twelve or thirteen little Nations which are towards the North, and asked him to pronounce them aloud. The Father obeyed him. When these Strangers heard him name these Nations, they were astonished to see so many Tribes enclosed in a little piece of bark, it is what they call the leaves of his Tablets. Then the Father told them how God, through the medium of his book, had made us know about the blessings of Heaven. One of them asked if God had told him how deep the snow would be next winter.

On the first of December, the settlement at Three Rivers being on fire, a Captain of the Indians urged them so vigorously to come to our aid, and to save the bread and the peas, that the storehouse was saved. "For," said he, "we are lost, if that burns."

On the sixth of the same month, an Indian, seeing an Image of Our Lord in our House, told me that I had killed his brother with a portrait like that. I was quite astonished, and asked him how I had made use of this Image to kill a man. "Do you remember," said he, "that last winter you gave to Sakapouan, my brother-in-law, such an Image as that? He became sick soon after, and died." Then I remembered it. In fact, upon seeing the wretchedness of these People who were crying from hunger, after having had a large band of them eat with us, I spoke to them about relying on God.

I showed them the Image of his Son and placed it in the hands of this Sakapouan, explaining to them all how they must rely on him whom it represented; but if they ridiculed him, he would punish them. This wretch never had the courage to show this Image, nor to pray to him whom it represented, for fear of being mocked by his people. Perhaps as a punishment for this treachery, God afflicted him with a sickness which carried him off. So this was what my Indian was trying to tell me, accusing me of the death of this man in the presence of several others of his Nation. But, having explained to them how the thing happened, I began to reproach my accuser with having saved his life, which was true. He wished to deny it; but, when I had told all the circumstances of the affair, all the Indians said to him, "Hold your tongue, you have no sense; the Father tells the truth."

He was surprised when I told him that his brother-in-law and his own sister had decided to kill him in his sleep; and that, if I had not prevented them, he would no longer be in this world. This poor man, quite astounded, began to tell me that he had no brains, and that the threat he had made against me should have been directed against the Iroquois, and not against any Frenchman, and that I should not get angry with him. I have noticed that the Indians are like Demons in one respect, if you carry a high hand with them, they are cowards; if you yield to them, they are furious. I mean that it is dangerous to use too much severity or too much guile toward them, for either of these two extremes will one day arouse them against us, if we are not careful. You see some persons who dare not say a word to them, others drive them with a switch; severity will make them insolent and unbearable, guile will make them stubborn. Being kind to the Indians, helping them in their need, doing them no wrong or injury, exercising some kind of justice toward those individuals who are insolent, especially if their Captains cannot make them listen to reason, these are the means of holding these Indians a long time in the line of duty.

On the tenth of the same month of December, Father Buteux having entered a Cabin where they were having an eat-all feast of Bear fat, and taking his place with the others, without having noticed this, someone gave him a great dish full of this Nectar. surprised, he refused it, saying he had just dined. The distributor of the feast became angry, and said to him, "Why have you come here if you do not wish to take part in the feast? You must eat all that, otherwise our feast will be spoiled." To please him, the Father tasted a little of it. Just then, Father Quentin arrived, who also entered without noticing the feast; and see him doomed to eat his share. When they both declared that it would be impossible, they were accused of stupidity, and of having only a small heart, since they did not have a large stomach. "I have eaten more," said one of them, "than all the black robes together could eat." The Fathers answered, "Since you are so valiant a man, eat our share too." "Yes" said he; and he did it, on condition that we would give him something more to eat in our little House.

On the same day, an Indian came and brought me, of his own accord, a little girl to make me a present of her. That rejoiced us, for before now there has been great difficulty in obtaining girls. To free myself from the pleading of these Indians, I advised them to present her to some French Captain; it is therefore they call all those who have any authority. I hinted at Sir Gand, whom I asked to accept this child, and to give some present to this Indian, assuring him that we would be responsible for everything. He did not fail us, but appeared to be pleased, evincing an interest in this Indian, and making him a present of a blanket and a keg of sea biscuit, which were placed upon our accounts. He had her lodged at Sir Hebout's, and we immediately had her dressed like a French child, paying her board besides. It is true Sir Gand wished to give her a dress at his own expense, so glad was he to see this poor girl obtaining her own salvation, and that of many others also. We have observed and will observe the same plan in regard to those who have been given to us since, and who will be given to us subsequently; for, as these Indians are disposed to retract their promises, I send them to the French Captain, and tell them that he will be offended if they act like children, who change their minds every moment; this holds them to their duty.

On the eighteenth of the same month, Sir de Champlain being sick, Sir Gand went to the Cabins of the Indians to give orders about the trade that was being carried on in brandy and other drinks, which intoxicate and kill these Indians. They will finally murder some Frenchman in their drunkenness; and the Frenchmen, in defending themselves, will kill some Indians, and see the ruin of trade for a time. The prohibition against selling these drinks having been repeated among our French people, it was desired to give fair warning of it to the Indians. Sir Gand had it announced to them that if any of them became intoxicated, he would be asked, when he returned to his senses, who had given or sold him this drink; and that if he told the truth, no harm would be done to him, but that the Frenchman would have to pay the fine provided in the regulations. In case he should refuse to name the one from whom he had obtained this drink, he would be forbidden to enter the houses of the French; and if any Frenchman admitted him to his own house, both would be punished alike.

The Indians were glad of this procedure, saying that, if the French did not give them either wine or brandy, their wives and children would have something to eat, as they would make a good living from their pelts; but that, when it came to exchanging them for drinks, there were only the men and a few women who enjoyed them, and that to the detriment of their health and the loss of their lives. Finally, to urge us to enforce these regulations, they asked three times if Sir Gand spoke in earnest, or if he were only indulging in words, as had been done, they said, up to that time. They were assured that the French and they would be punished if they did not obey. The penalties provided by these ordinances having been executed soon afterward against some Frenchmen who had been forgetful of their duty, the Indians said that formerly we had talked, but at present we were acting.

I will notice two instances bearing on this point before proceeding further. The first is that one of the Indians who had been made drunk was meditating the murder of a young Frenchman; in fact, he would have killed him, if he could have surprised him. Having slept off the effects of his wine, he learned that the Frenchman who had given him this drink had been fined 100 silver coins.

The second is that Sir Gand, in his talk to the Indians, argued with them, saying that if death was so common among them, they must attribute it to these drinks, which they did not know how to use with moderation. "Why do you not write to your great King," said they, "to have him forbid them from bringing over these drinks that kill us?" And when they were answered that our Frenchmen needed them upon the sea, and in the intense cold of their country, "Arrange it so that they alone drink them." An attempt will be made to keep this business under control; but these Indians are troublesome to the last degree. Another one, breaking into the conversation, took up the defense of wine and brandy. "No," said he, "it is not these drinks that take away our lives, but your writings; for since you have described our country, our rivers, our lands, and our woods, we are all dying, which did not happen until you came here." We began to laugh upon hearing these new causes of their maladies. I told them that we described the whole world, that we described our own country, that of the Hurons, of the Iroquois, the whole earth; and yet they did not die elsewhere as they did in their country. It must be that their deaths arose from other causes. They agreed to this.

On the fifteenth of the same, there was a great Northeaster accompanied by a rainfall which lasted a long time, and by a cold severe enough to freeze this water as soon as it touched anything; so that when this rain fell upon the trees, from the summit to the roots it was converted into ice-crystals, which encased both the trunk and the branches, causing for a long time all our great forests to seem but a forest of crystal, for the ice which everywhere completely covered them was thicker than a coin. All the bushes and everything above the snow were surrounded on all sides and encased in ice. The Indians told me that this did not happen often.

"I have seen your Manitou, and I your Jesus," said two Indians who came to see one of our Fathers about this time. "Oh, what a good year he promised us! What Beavers, what Elks! Providing you give us a good lot of Tobacco to sacrifice to him."

"Go away, Frauds; that is neither what he asked in sacrifice, nor what you intend to give him. Believe in him, and serve him as you shall be taught, and you will be blessed," answered the Father. These are their tricks for obtaining what they lay claim to, or devices they have retained from some of our French, who formerly deceived them under these fine pretenses.

On the twelfth of February, one of our Fathers, speaking to the Indians about the justice of God, and how he would measure us by the same standard by which we measured our fellow-beings, an Indian of whom I have spoken above said to him afterward in private, "I believe what you have said about the justice of God, I have seen an example of it with my own eyes. We had gone hunting, one of my brothers and I; and as we had few provisions, my brother said to me that we should kill a poor orphan boy who accompanied us; and while saying this, he put a cord around his neck, and made me pull at one end while he pulled at the other. I obeyed him against my will. Be that as it may, having killed this young man, we separated to seek the trail of a Moose; and having found one, I followed it. I encountered the animal, and killed it; I carried the great beast to our Cabin, where I did not find my brother. As he did not return, and as it was growing late, my mother went to seek him; she found him sick, and wild-looking. The poor woman, much disturbed, asked him gently to return. 'No,' said he, 'I must die.' Finally, making a pretense of obeying her, he said to my mother that she should walk on ahead and he would follow slowly. When my poor mother had gone a little distance, this wretched man turned around and went away, so that we have never seen him nor heard of him since, although we have made diligent search for him. In that," said this Indian, "I recognized that he who has made all pays us in the same money that we use with each other."

On the fourth of May, as Sir Gand was going to make a visit to Three Rivers, I entered his barque, desiring to be present at an assembly of Indians which was to be held there. The wind being against us, fortunately for me a Canoe of Indians passed us which took me on board, and soon set me down where I wished to be. Sir Gand having at last arrived, the Indians came to see him, and held a council to implore him to persuade the Captains who were coming to give them assistance in their wars. The first one who spoke pleased us. He began with an exclamation: "What can I say? I have no longer any voice; do not listen to my words; listen to these poor widows and these poor orphans, who cry that they no longer have fathers or husbands. Do you alone, you Frenchmen, wish to exist in this country? Keep your hands folded, do not help us; and in a little while you will see but women and children. We are going to die with our Captains whom our enemies have slaughtered. No, I am wrong, you are too good to see us rush headlong to death without lending us a hand. A few of you can save all our lives, and make the whole country live again. Come, take courage; and when the Captains arrive, speak for us."

Sir Gand answered that he loved them, and would willingly speak in their behalf to the Captains; yet he feared that these Captains would no more lend their ears to his words, than the Indians had shown affection for the French:

"In the first place, you have not allied yourselves with our French people; your daughters have married with all the neighboring Nations, but not with ours. Your children live in the land of the Nipissings, of the Algonquins, of the Atikamekw, of the people of the Saguenay, and in all the other Nations. You have not offered them to the French for instruction. If you had done this from the time of our first arrival in the Country, you would all know by this time how to handle arms as we do, and your enemies would not exist in your presence; you would not die every day as you are doing. God would preserve you as well as he does us, as we would then be one and the same People.

"Secondly, we remember that the Iroquois have killed our people, and we will get satisfaction for it; but we will not be too hasty. You see that we are increasing every day; when our numbers shall be large enough, we will attack them, and will not give up the war until we have exterminated them. If you wish to come with us, you may come; but, as you do not know how to obey in war, we shall not count upon your assistance.

"In the third place, if the Captains ask me if you do not seek Foreigners in your trading, I do not know what I can answer them. Still, if you are partial to an alliance with us, I will petition them in your behalf. Not that we have need of your daughters or your children; we are as populous as the leaves of your trees. But we would like to see only one People in all this land."

They answered that all this was reasonable, and that Sir de Champlain had previously talked about this in private; that it must be spoken of in the presence of all the Nations.

On the second of July, the Captain of the Tadoussac Innu, being at Quebec with a squad of his people, who were going to war, desired to hold a council with the Governor and with the Commandant; with the French. The Captain of the Quebec Indians took part in it; the assembly was held at the storehouse of the Company of New France, where I also was present, by command of the Governor. All being seated, the French on one side and the Indians on the other, the Tadoussac Innu Captain began to make a speech. He was dressed in the French fashion, with a handsome coat under a scarlet cloak. Wishing to speak, he took off his hat and made a polite bow in the French way, then directing his words to the Captains, especially to Sir du Plessis Bochart, whom he called his younger brother, "You see," he said, "that I am a Frenchman; you know that my Nation regards me as one; it is believed that I have the good fortune to be loved by the Captains, and that I am their relation. As for me, you know that I have a French heart, I have always loved you; ought I to doubt that it is reciprocated? Tell me if I can count upon your friendship, as you can be assured of mine?" When this was said, he paused for an answer. Being assured that he had our love, he continued: "My countrymen urge me to show some evidence of the credit I have among you; they believe that you love me, but they would like to see it put into practice; what word shall I carry them, up there, where I am going to see them? You know it is the privilege of friends to aid in time of need those whom they love; the help that you will give us in our wars will be the true proof of your friendship; your refusal will cover my face with confusion." The above is nearly the speech of this Barbarian, who astonished our Governor.

The other Captain, beginning to speak, said: "When the weather is bad, we go into our houses, we put on our robes, we close our doors to defend ourselves from the injurious effects of the air. We are now in a time of troublesome war; we have not enough strength to place ourselves under cover from our enemies; we seek shelter from you, do not refuse it. Your friend implores you to do this; if you do not lend him your hand, you will see him disappear in the conflict against his enemies; you will seek him with your eyes and with your lips, demanding, 'Where is such a one, who loved us so much, and whom we loved?' Learning of his disaster, you will be sad, and your heart will say to you, 'If we had aided him, our eyes would have taken pleasure in looking at him and our heart in loving him; but we are in bitter grief.' It depends only upon you to avoid such anguish, and to give yourselves the pleasure of seeing him return from the combat full of life and glory." I add nothing to the speech of this Indian; he touched upon all these arguments and several others that he reasoned out gravely in his own language.

A gray-headed old man talked afterward, after the fashion of the aged. These simple people had had a bundle of Beaver skins thrown at the feet of our Captains, according to their custom of making presents when they wish to obtain something. It was, in reference to these that the old man began. "When we visit the Tribes which are our neighbors and allies, we give them presents, which speak while we keep silence. Those who receive these presents address themselves to their young men, saying: 'Courage, young men, show your generosity; see these fine robes, which await you upon your return from combat; remember those who have made these gifts; kill many of their enemies.' This is a good custom, you ought to observe it as well as we," said this simple old man.

From this, we took the text of our answer, saying that if they should fill the house with Beavers, we would not undertake the war for the sake of their presents; that we helped our friends, not in the hope of any reward, but for the sake Of their friendship. That we had not brought any men for them, not knowing that they were carrying on war; that those whom they saw with us did not all bear arms; and those that did bear them were not satisfied, because the Indians were not yet allied with the French by any marriage; and that it could easily be seen that they did not care to be one People with us, giving their children to their allied Nations, and not to the French.

The Captain of the Tadoussac Innu replied that the way to make a strong alliance was to show our courage and our good will. "For," said he, "when your young men return from the war after the massacre of our enemies, they will not have any trouble in obtaining our girls in marriage. As to children," said he, "one does not see anything but little Indians in the houses of the French; there are little boys there and little girls, what more do you want? I believe that one of these days you will be asking for our wives. You are continually asking us for our children, and you do not give yours; I do not know any family among us which keeps a Frenchman with it."

The Governor, upon hearing this answer, said to me, "I do not know what a Roman Senator could have answered that would have been more appropriate to the subject under discussion." I replied that, in France, our Indians were represented as far more obtuse than they are.

The Tadoussac Innu were answered that the deceased Sir de Champlain had helped them in war, and that even then they had not allied themselves with us; they were told that we desired their children only for instruction, and that we might be someday one People with them; that we were under no necessity to burden ourselves with them; that if we did not give ours to them, it was because they asked great recompense, although they had nothing for them to eat; but that we maintained and instructed theirs for nothing. This truth silenced them. As to whatever concerned the war, the answer was that we could not give to them either a large or a small number of French. As to giving them a large number, they could see that the thing could not be done, as the ships would not consent to be stripped of their men; as to giving them a few, our Frenchmen did not wish to go with them, "Because," say they, "the Indians cannot obey nor stand firm in war; at the first whim that takes them, they fly off like birds;" so that our Frenchmen also, being few in number, would have to take to flight, which would make them ashamed, for deserters are ridiculed among us. They were satisfied with these arguments, and therefore the council ended.

On the ninth of the same month of July, I entered a barque to go and meet the Hurons, who were not coming down as far as Quebec. We had to be at the rendezvous, to obtain passage for our Fathers who were going there, and to answer the letters of those who are there. We had not advanced far, when an adverse wind stopped us in the middle of the great River; and as I have already often found by experience that our Ships are not as safe nor as swift, if the wind is not fair, as the little bark Canoes of the Indians, I had suggested to some of those who were going up to Three Rivers to come alongside our Barque and take me aboard. This they did, and I took my place among them.

There were twelve Canoes and about thirty or forty people, mostly young men who were going to war; they surrounded me on all sides, and asked me to accompany them to the country of the Iroquois; I began to laugh, and to talk to them about other things. About three or four o'clock in the afternoon, as they were tired of paddling against a rather violent wind, they all landed; each one took his Boat and laid it down near the woods which we entered for the purpose of preparing our house, and of making a fire, or rather some smoke, to drive away the mosquitoes. Our inn was soon made, for they broke off a few ends from the branches of trees, and threw them upon the ground, and our palace was ready. I threw over these a wretched skin, to distinguish my chamber and my bed from the others. When we go into the country, French and Indians, Jesuits and others, we have no other beds than some wretched skins, no other tent than the sky, unless it rains; during the rain, we cover ourselves as best we can; the Indians have for this purpose light and convenient pieces of bark.

In the twilight, the more prominent ones among them confronted me, and began to talk about our ways of doing things. They said that when I prayed, they approved of it, as well as of what I told them; and therefore that I must also approve of their customs, and I must believe in their ways of doing things; that one of their number was going to pray in their way, soon, and that I should listen patiently. I saw at once that they were preparing a little tent, to consult the Manitou, or some Spirit; I asked them if they believed that the Manitou or Demons would come into this little tower, and if it was not the Sorcerer who was shaking this house or tent; they protested that it was not he. Then I made them an offer. "When this tent is shaking," I said to them, "allow me to enter it; and if, after I have seized the two hands of the trickster, you still see his tent shaking, I promise that I will give you a keg of peas as soon as we reach the Three Rivers."

"Give us a Cask of bread," said the young fellows.

"Very well; let the trickster enter."

But the older ones did not wish to accept this proposition; and, as it was already quite dark, the Captain cried out, "Go to sleep, young men, and note carefully what you dream; conceal nothing of what you shall see in your dreams." Then all go to sleep, and I throw myself upon my pallet and do as the others do.

About midnight, I heard three or four men singing and howling in the woods. I arose, but these singers soon afterward became silent. It was the Charlatan who was trying to have his consultation. I do not know whether he heard me; in any case, he went out from his tent, without accomplishing anything, saying that the Manitou would not come. The next morning, having discovered some Beaver tracks and having found some wood suitable for making shields, they wished to pass the day there; this annoyed me, for I desired to reach the Three Rivers. I asked them, I urged them; no change. They asked me if I was a child, that I should be cast down, saying that I would be still farther away if I had remained in the Barque; finally, having told them that I wished upon the following day to pray to the one who can do all things, and that I would pray for them that he would aid them in their combats, they allowed the one who took me in his Canoe to depart, and they embarked soon after. Bad weather caused us to remain at a standstill, 15 miles from Three Rivers. In the evening, before anyone went to sleep, the Captain cried out, "Keep your arms ready, O young men; let each one have his javelin, his hatchet, and his knife near him while asleep." They were beginning to fear ambushes from their enemies.

Toward midnight, there fell a heavy shower of rain upon those who were not under shelter; I rolled myself like a ball, under the skin which served me as mattress, and which I made serve as a covering; and beneath this, as happy as under a gilded roof, I received over a cask of water without getting wet. The next day, when the Dawn begins to appear, I waken my people; I urge them all I can, and, addressing myself to my host, I promise him that if we reach Three Rivers before noon, I will make him a fine present; but I also assure him that, if we arrive later, he will have only the half of it. "Do you not see," he replied, "that I cannot slip away from my company?" I had just asked assistance of a Canoe in which there was a young man who had epilepsy, and who was taken with it before my eyes, a little while before we reembarked; this alarmed me, for, if the attack had seized him in the middle of the river, it would have resulted in overturning both us and the Canoe, and we would have been lost; I did not wish, however, to change boats for the little distance that remained.

At last we arrived. Nearing the Three Rivers, our Canoes were brought together in a body, and our Fathers, seeing them come from afar, and thinking I might be in the crowd, came to meet me. I stepped on shore, then; and as we were saluting each other, embracing as a sign of affection, my crowd of Indians begin to utter a loud cry from the depths of their chests, all showing by this joyful cry that they approved these marks of affection, which we were giving each other. Father Buteux and Father Chastelain were the first two; I joined them, and we walked along the strand, while my Indians paddled slowly, in fine order, along the shores of the River, not advancing any more than we.

Later, encountering Father Quentin and Father Garnier, who had come at the first sound, and saluting them as we did the others, these poor Indians all redoubled their cries of joy, therefore giving us a second time evidence of their affection. The next day we made a feast for them, which, according to their custom, they readily accepted; this word "feast" is among them wonderfully agreeable; it is by this that one wins them.

On the fifteenth of the same month, the Commandant arrived at Three Rivers in his barque. On the same day there arrived seven Hurons in a Canoe, who brought us letters from Father Breboeuf which caused us great rejoicing, for we had been almost sure that the Hurons would not come down this year, on account of the great rumors of war which were heard in all the Nations through which they must pass.

On the eighteenth, the Commandant departed from the Three Rivers, to go up to the river of the Iroquois (Richelieu River), where he was awaited by the Indians to the number of two or three hundred, to talk about their wars; he told me that he went there also to reconcile them, as they had some dissensions among themselves; and one of the Innu Captains had come to throw himself under his protection. "There is no one left but you and Father le Jeune," said he, "who loves me; my Allies are banded against me; the Algonquins wish to kill me and to ruin the Country." He was suspected, but wrongly, of having received presents from the Iroquois, and of having betrayed la Grenouille ["the Frog"] and the others who had been massacred.

They had the same opinion of another, whom they wished also to slaughter.

Sir du Plessis Bochart settled all that, as we shall soon see.

On the twenty-first of the same month of July, Chastelain and Father Garnier embarked, the happiest men in the world, to go to the Hurons. This affair seemed so easy of accomplishment that we almost suspected something was wrong. The seven Hurons who arrived on the fifteenth of this month, when leaving their Country did not intend to come so far as the Frenchmen, but only to go up to the Island to see if their Nation would have a free passage; for it was rumored that these Kichesipirini Algonquins, the naughtiest of all these Tribes, were using threats. All was made right by the Hurons, who sent back two of their men to give notice that the river was free, and meanwhile they descended to Three Rivers. As one of these seven was Captain of the Village where our Fathers are, with the Hurons, and as he had last year taken Father le Mercier, and had shown a great deal of interest in us, he asked if none of our Fathers were going to his Country, saying that he would gladly take one of them, provided they would give him a Canoe, for there were seven in the one they had. They immediately found for him an Innu Canoe, much smaller than those of the Hurons; having seen it, he was satisfied. The affair being concluded, they gave presents to him and to those who were embarking with him; they were well pleased, and Father Chastelain still more so at seeing himself destined to depart with this Chief.

Those who were in the other Canoe, seeing there was still another Father to embark, came to tell us that it was not necessary to separate him from his Companion, and that they would be glad to have him with them in their little bark Ship. There was given to the two chiefs and governors of these two Canoes, each a blanket, to the others each a cloak, a keg of peas, some bread, and some prunes; this is for the maintenance of our Fathers, and of their Indians, who had not made any caches on their journey down, and all this is for twenty or thirty days, over roads that make one shudder to hear about.

On the last day of this month, the General returned to the Three Rivers, and here are the details of his voyage. Having found the Indians assembled at the River of the Iroquois (Richelieu River), he spoke to them of the quarrels that existed among them, and had some presents given to them to make them more easily swallow, as one may say, their grievances. He restored peace among them; and he told them that if they loved the French, they should love and listen to those whom the French cherish, and to whom they open their ears; that they must give them their children for instruction; he spoke of us, adding that the great Captain who had recently come to Quebec had been instructed in our schools, that he himself had been taught by us; and that if they wished us all to be but one People, they must begin there. To all this they answered, "ho! ho! ho!", according to their custom when they approve a speech.

When they parted, these Indians went off in search of some poor wretched Iroquois; for most of their wars consists in ambushes, lying in wait for each other as one would for a Wild Boar. Meanwhile the Commandant goes up higher, continuing as far as the River of the Prairies. Upon his return he described these places to us as an earthly Paradise. The land there, he says, is better, the trees more flourishing, the meadows abundant, the beauty of the Country ravishing; the fish enormous in quantity, in quality, and in size. There are riches, collected in one place; but the Mosquitoes are the little dragons that guard these beautiful golden apples, which cannot be had without difficulty, any more than the other gifts of the earth.

On the thirteenth day of August, there arrived a Canoe from the Country of the Hurons which had encountered Father Garnier and Father Chastelain at the Weskarini Algonquin Nation. The Fathers wrote me these few words upon the leaf of a tablet, for lack of paper: The bearers of this will tell you, better than we can, the name of the place where they met us, we are in good health, thank God; we are gliding along swiftly in our bark gondolas; we are flying to this so-desired Paradise with an increase of courage that God has given us. Kionche shows at least as good treatment to Father Garnier, as Aenons does to Father Chastelain; they have managed our provisions well, we have still a little bread. The rest I could not read.

On the tenth of the same month, the Captain of Tadoussac returned with his company from the war. He told us that they had found an abandoned Cabin where perhaps three hundred Iroquois had slept; that part of their troop were still pursuing them, many having turned their faces about, he being of this number, on account of some dispute which had arisen among them. The next day, the news came that the rest of the army was returning, and that some of the enemy had been put to death. Finally, on the thirteenth, a group of these warriors appeared in their Canoe; they bore in the form of Guidons the scalps of those whom they had killed, for it is their custom to tear the skin, with all the hair, from the head of him whom they slay. These scalps are great trophies.

One sees them with mustaches waving, each on the end of a long pole that they raise in the air, as if they were banners. The women ran hurriedly at the sight of these laurels, dropped their clothes, and leaped in to swim after these garlands. There was a struggle among them as to which should catch one to hang in their Cabins, as a token of the warriors' generosity. Someone came and told us of this barbarity; we went to the Cabins, and, as I was examining these scalps, the women who had captured them began to boast of it; but they were surprised when they heard the reproaches we heaped upon them for their vanity. To express the result of this war, some hundred Indians and more having disbanded, the rest followed up their purpose. They went off into the neighborhood of one of their enemy's settlements, and, encountering one or two poor wretches, they seized them, and promised to spare their lives if they revealed where their compatriots might be found. These showed them a river not far distant, where some men had gone, partly to fish and partly for the purpose of making stout snares of bark, suitable for catching Deer. There were also several women who were gathering the hemp of the country, that is, nettles, of which they make strong ropes. These Indians immediately run there, and throw themselves upon these poor people, like wolves upon their prey. Cries are heard from all sides; some flee, others defend themselves; the women scream, and try to escape; they take and kill in all twenty-eight persons, according to their story, as many men as women and children, there being more women than children.

They brought alive three men, a young woman, and a young girl. The Indians who live above Three Rivers had as their share two men and the girl, those here had one man and the young woman. They would have brought back more of them, but, as they were afraid of being pursued by their enemies, they killed on the way those who did not walk fast enough. They say that this young woman, seeing them kill those who could not keep up, was at the head of the whole troop, enduring the fatigue better than a man. They were several days without anything at all to eat, flying in breathless haste in rainy and disagreeable weather. No house of retreat was to be found where they could dry themselves; he who wets them, dries them, as the saying is.

This poor woman did not say a word, being apparently without fear in the midst of these Wolves. She had a modest face, but so bold an eye that I took her for a man. The Indians do not usually harm the women or the children, except in their sudden attacks. Indeed, many a young man will not hesitate to even marry a prisoner, if she is industrious; and then she will pass as a woman of his country.

As to the men, they do not receive the same treatment; it is cruelty itself which martyrs them. As soon as the one who had been brought to Three Rivers had set foot upon land, the women and children fell upon him, each one trying to see which could strike the hardest blows. Meanwhile the prisoner sings, and continues on his way without turning around to see who strikes him. A wretched cripple, seeing him entirely naked, took a heavy doubled rope, and lashed this poor body, upon the back, upon the stomach, and upon the chest, so that he staggered and was about to fall, his flesh becoming quite bruised. Others put fire in his mouth, others thrust firebrands at him from different directions, to roast him; then he was given a little respite, and was made to sing and dance; a woman came and bit into his finger, trying to tear it off, as a dog would do; not being successful, she finally took a knife and cut it off, then put it in his mouth, to make him swallow it; he tried to do so, but could not. Having restored it to this Tigress, she roasted it, to give it to some children to eat, who continued to suck it for some time. One of our soldiers coming along, asked them for it, but these children were reluctant to give it up; then he snatched it, and threw it into the river, in abhorrence of these cruelties. Another time, two young men took this poor wretch by his two arms, and bit into them as greedily as rabid Wolves, shaking him as an angry dog shakes a carcass to get a piece off.

As soon as I learned that these insane acts were being committed at our door and before the eyes of our French people, I went down to the Cabins, and reproached these tormentors severely, threatening that the French would no longer love them. The men did not answer me, holding down their heads, ashamed and confused. Some of the women told me that the Iroquois did still worse things to their fathers, husbands, and children, asking me if I loved such a wicked Nation. I replied that I did not love them, but that they could kill this wretch without treating him with such cruelty.

I told them that, if their enemies had no intelligence, they should not imitate them; that it was no sign of courage to beat and bite a man who was bound; that among themselves, the most valiant did not engage in these cruel acts; and turning toward those whom I considered the most humane, I said, "These are they who pursue the Iroquois, who kill them in the heat of combat, who capture them, who bind them, and who lead them away, while the cowards who remain at the Cabin fireside devour them like dogs." They began to laugh, and admitted that they would not willingly practice such butchery.

There was, however, a strange Captain called la Perdrix ["the Partridge"] who became angry after hearing me say this, asserting that, if the prisoner had belonged to him, he would have driven me out of his Cabin. I am quite sure he would not have done so; I would be careful not to speak to the Algonquins, especially to the Kichesipirini Algonquins, as I speak to our Innus. I said that when Sir de Champlain went to help them in their wars, and saw one of them treat roughly a woman prisoner, or a child, he tried to make them understand that such barbarity was foreign to the kindness natural to man. A Kichesipirini Algonquin, upon hearing this, said to him, "See what I shall do, now that you speak of it;" and he took by the foot a nursing child, and struck its head against a rock or a tree. They have some reason, or rather excuse, for treating their enemies in this way; for, when the Iroquois get hold of them, they are still more rabid. But if one never commences a thing, he will never finish it.

I pay no attention to those who think they have said all when they have told you that it is their custom, that you must let them go on, and that nothing will be gained. They are mistaken. We are not the only ones who can see at a glance that a great deal has been achieved within a certain time among a good part of these Indians; if it were only that we have gained the boldness to reprimand them when they commit these great wrongs, that is always some advantage. The first year we came here, if I had known the Language to perfection, I would not have dared to assume over them the ascendency which I can take now with my stammerings, for they would have soon imposed silence upon me. But when I daily see men crying with hunger at our doors, whom we are constantly favoring and who have no other support than our Frenchmen, in return for the help they receive from our hands, we can exact from them some courtesy.

When we reprimand them, we must never threaten them with any violence, for this would be to lose all; therefore I generally tell them that, if they are going to be stubborn about their customs, we will hold fast to ours; that if they do not care enough for us to give up some of their acts of cruelty for our sake, we will not do them any harm, but we will not cherish them to the extent of taking the morsel from our own mouths to assist them in their needs; that we will observe carefully those who perpetrate any public indecency, or who take part in these outrages and insane acts, so that we may close our doors against them and open them to those among them who are good. If only all our French people would do the same. Our neighboring Indians depend upon us; if we all should agree to exclude those who commit acts so at variance with reason and nature, we would soon see a change among them. Besides, they know I love them, and that is why they are not willing to offend me. Not that some of them do not still sneer and laugh at what we say to them; but this is nothing in comparison with the insults I formerly had to swallow. And I cannot say that one finds more internal resistance in a Christian enchained by the bad habits of his life than in an Indian, however barbarous he may be.

On the fourteenth of the same month of August, the Indians came in a body to see the Commandant, to present to him the young Iroquois woman. The one who had captured her, seeing that all were seated, arose and spoke in this fashion: "Listen, Frenchmen, I am going to chide you, for what else could be done by a great beast like me, who has the boldness to speak in the presence of Captains? If I were Captain, I would have the right to speak; I am only a dog, yet I must speak, and have a friendly quarrel with you. Our Fathers and our old Captains loved each other; they are dead now; we love each other, both French and Indians; we love each other; therefore it would have been fitting to see some of your young men with us in the war; but as that failed us, we have done as well as we could. Here is a young female prisoner whom we present to you, to take the place of one of the three Frenchmen who was killed quite near here. I still see the deep red blood that accuses the cruelty of our enemies and of yours; this present will conceal a part of it; it is a little thing, but it is all we have, the rest having been killed; if we had been helped, we would have done more, but we were deserted on all sides."

This was the substance of his speech, which was finished with the exclamation, ho, ho, ho, which all his companions drew from the pit of their stomachs. This done, they presented the unfortunate young woman, who appeared this time sad, and, lowering her eyes, seemed to me to shed some tears. She was asked, however, if she was not glad to be given to so gallant a Captain, who would be fond of her, and who would place her with his Sister. She showed that she was satisfied at this; but she was cheered afterward when they told her that the French were honorable, and that they would do her no harm; that in crossing over to France she would be accompanied by some girls of this country; she smiled gratefully at this news, which was agreeable to her. Two days later, I had an Indian tell her that if any person, among so many as she would encounter in the fleet which was going to France, tried to offer her any insults, she should inform the Captain, the commandant, or else one of my Brothers who was going across. She replied that she was now of their Nation; that she did not fear they would do her any harm; that if she were commanded to marry, she would obey; but that no one, except he to whom she had been given, should approach her. I asked the Company of New France, to whom she was to be presented, to lodge her with the Hospital Nuns who were coming over to New France, to learn in their house to know God and to nurse the sick, so that they could bring her with them, if she succeeded.

the Commandant made known that he would cherish this present for the sake of his friends, and not for the Country from which it had come, which he hated like death; that they could see clearly that if the French had followed them, they would have deserted them when the quarrels arose among themselves; and that, if we ever did go to war, we would go strong and powerful, and not return until we had destroyed entire villages. They received this answer with pleasure, asking that some of our young people should dance to the sound of a hurdy-gurdy that a little Frenchman held. This was granted them.

On the fifteenth of the same month, some Canoes which were going down to Quebec, -- for all this took place at Three Rivers, brought the prisoner, to put him to death there. This same day there arrived a Canoe of Hurons, which pleased the Commandant, as he had decided to depart in five days, if he had not received the news they brought, the season being unfavorable to navigation toward the end of Autumn. This Canoe was sent on ahead by Father Daniel, who having learned from our Fathers, whom he encountered on the way, that the Commandant would not return at the end of the season, sent to him, with a great deal of trouble, this Courier from about 375 miles above Three Rivers, to assure him that the Hurons were coming down. This is how he writes me:

"I am staying at the Island, waiting for the main part of the band, composed equally of Hurons and Nipissings. The Indians of this place have already sent back thirteen Canoes of Hurons, forbidding them to go to the French; but their Captain, called Taratouan, having learned that I was coming down, held firm until my arrival; for as he had departed before we did from the Huron country, so we reached the Island after he did. Then he told me that the inhabitants of this Island forbade them to pass; when I asked him the reason for this, he answered that he had heard nothing except that the body of a recently-deceased Captain -- it was Le Borgne [the One-eyed] (Tessouat) -- had been "cached;" [explained below], and that to go on ahead would be scattering fire to increase their grief and to irritate again the young men, who are angry and mutinous. I told him that he must pluck up courage, that I would speak to the Captain here. In fact, I did see him and he received me well. Their proposition was that they should take us Frenchmen on to you, but that the Hurons should turn back. I had resolved not to proceed, unless the Hurons did; I had already promised them this, and they were pleased over it. These difficulties show them that it is important for us to remain in their Country, which they know very well.

"I asked the Captain to consent to my sending a Canoe on ahead, to give notice of our coming; it is the one which brings you these letters. I met our Fathers on the third of August, three days journey above the Island; both wore their shoes in the Canoe and were not paddling, which made me think they were being well treated; this caused me to do something for their men which I had not yet wished to do for my own, which was to make them a present of an herb that they love and that we do not care for, namely, Tobacco, which is high-priced this year.

"Of the twelve children who promised to follow me with the consent of their parents, I have only three with me, one of whom is the grandson of a great Captain. I am hopeful about getting some larger ones, if you wish them; we shall see them together when I have the pleasure of meeting you; the little ones had some trouble in leaving their mothers to make a journey of 750 miles. I am writing to Sir du Plessis Bochart that there are few Canoes, but that they carry a great amount of merchandise. I entrust the bearers to you, that my promises, if there are means of doing so, may be fulfilled; this is of importance.

"From the Island, this seventh of August, by the glimmer of a piece of burning bark, which forms the candles and the torches of this Country."

This Island is in the great Saint Lawrence River, about 375 miles above the Three Rivers, and that the Indians who inhabit it are arrogant. The Hurons, and the French who are now staying in their country, wishing to come down here, pass first through the lands of the Nipissings, and then come alongside this Island, the inhabitants of which (the Kichesipirini Algonquins) every year cause them some trouble. These Kichesipirini Algonquins would prefer that the Hurons should not come to the French nor the French go to the Hurons, so that they themselves may carry on all the trade; for this reason, they have done all they could to block the way; but, as they fear the French, those who accompany the Hurons make the journey easier for them.

It is strange that although the Hurons may be ten against one Kichesipirini Algonquin, yet they will not pass by if a single inhabitant of the Island objects to it, so strictly do they guard the laws of the Country. This portal is usually opened by means of presents, sometimes greater and sometimes smaller, according to the emergency. They ought to be rich this year; for, a Captain of the Kichesipirini Algonquins having died this Spring, and their tears being not yet dried, no strange Nation can pass by there without making them some gift, to make them more easily swallow, as they say, the grief caused by the death of their Chief.

When he who has passed away has been raised from the dead, that is, when his name has been given to another, and presents have been offered to his relatives, then it is said that the body is "cached," or rather, that the dead is resuscitated; and then only the usual tribute is paid when one passes over the highways and boundaries of these Kichesipirini Algonquins.

For the better understanding of this Letter, I will explain what made Father Daniel conclude that Father Garnier and Father Chastelain were being well treated by their hosts, since they wore shoes, and were not paddling. When one goes with these Barbarians, he must be careful not to carry the least dirt or sand into their Canoes; for this reason, the Fathers go into them barefooted; whether it is cold or warm, they must do this, unless they encounter some good Indians who let them follow their own custom. Besides, he who would sail with them must know how to handle the paddle; and as it is hard work, especially at first, when one is not accustomed to it, we give to every Canoe in which any of our Fathers embark a large sheet which serves as sail, to relieve them from this work; but, although these Indians may be told that this sail is the Fathers' paddle, that they do not wield any others, they sometimes make them take one of wood, which has to be well worked, to satisfy them.

On the eighteenth of the same month, Sir Godefroy, a young man of light and agile body, beat one of the Hurons in a race, before the eyes of four or five Nations, upon a wager that an Innu had made for him; at which the Hurons were astonished, for they look upon us as turtles in comparison with all the Indians.

On the nineteenth of the same month of August, a part of the main body of the Hurons arrived. As soon as we saw their Canoes appear upon the great River, we descended from the Fort to receive Father Daniel and Father Davost, and a few of our French, whom we were expecting; the Commandant himself was there. Father Daniel was in this first company, Father Davost in the rear guard, which did not yet appear; and we even began to doubt whether the Kichesipirini Algonquins had not made them return. At the sight of Father Daniel, our hearts melted; his face was happy, but emaciated; he was barefooted, had a paddle in his hand, and was clad in a wretched cassock, his prayer book suspended to his neck, his shirt rotting on his back.

Our Hurons having arrived, they held their councils, and made some presents to cause our French to dry their tears, and more easily swallow the bitterness they experienced at the death of the late Sir de Champlain, also, to confirm the friendship formed long ago between them and us. Father Daniel was present at this council and tells me that the Commandant gave great satisfaction to these Indians by his answers. After these councils, they began to trade, or to sell their merchandise; and when this was done, they held another meeting with our French, and, as the first meetings were on their own account, this one was held for the business of the French. Having certain things to represent to them, I prayed the Commandant to hear what I had to say, which he was kind enough to do. I wished particularly to speak about obtaining their children, and beginning a Seminary, as a matter of the greatest importance to the salvation of these Nations, and to the success of the Company of New France; for their children will be as so many hostages to us for the safety of the French who are among them, and for the strengthening of our commercial relations.

So now we have begun a Huron Seminary. If you like you can have two more; another one for the Hurons and other neighboring Tribes in the same territory as the Hurons, where more than five hundred children could be educated if we had people and means enough. The third will be among the Innus; nothing more is wanting now but a place to lodge and maintain their children.

On the fifteenth of this month, the Iroquois prisoner was brought down to Quebec, to be put to death there by the Indians. Here are the details of his torture as told to me by Father de Quen.

As soon as this poor victim stepped ashore, the women seized him and led him to their Cabins; there he was made to dance. Meanwhile, a Fury appeared, armed with a whip of knotted cords, with which she rained blows upon him around his arms, with as much rage as she had strength; another struck him upon the chest, the stomach, and the belly, with a great stone; and a third gashed his shoulders with a knife and made the blood flow in streams. A little while afterward, an Indian, as dry and fleshless as a skeleton, having been sick for several months, regained his strength at the sight of this wretch, jumped upon his neck, caught him by the ear like a dog, greedily bit it off, and placed it in the prisoner's mouth; the prisoner took it without being disconcerted, chewed it a while, and, not being able to swallow it, spit it into the fire. After this, he was granted a little respite, and was fed with the best food there was in the Cabin. And, what seems incredible, this man seemed to be as pleased as if he had received news of his liberty.

Toward evening they dragged him, bound with ropes, from Cabin to Cabin, while an infuriated woman whipped him to the music of a song. It is said that they perpetrated another act of cruelty upon him which would make this paper blush. When the Governor was informed of all this, he told them that he was dissatisfied with these outrages, and that they should go somewhere else, not to wound the eyes of our French people by these acts of barbarity. This caused them to restrain their mad rage; they then crossed over the great river and strangled their victim, whom they roasted at the fire and then gave to the dogs, throwing the bones into the river.

The men or women who indulge most fiercely in these acts of cruelty are those whose fathers or husbands or nearest relatives have been treated with equal fury in the country of their enemies; it is the recollection of the death of their relatives that fills their hearts with this madness.

As I am writing this, on the twenty-eighth of August, Father Buteux sends me word of the departure of Father Jogues, and of the arrival of another band of Hurons from whom Sir Nicolet has obtained three young boys, upon the report made by their companions of the good treatment that the Commandant and all the other French people have shown them. This coming winter, we are going to dismiss a part of our men on account of the scarcity of food; for to refuse this Heavenly blessing by sending away part of our Indians, this we will never do, we would rather give them the half of ourselves.

At present there are twenty-six of us, twenty Priests and six of our lay Brothers; they stay in the following places, beginning with the most distant:

In the residence of saint Joseph, among the Hurons, Reverend Father Jean Brebeuf, Superior of that Mission; Father Francois Mercier, Father Pierre Pijart, Father Pierre Chastelain, Father Charles Garnier, and Father Isaac Jogues.

In the residence of the Conception, at Three Rivers, Father Jacques Buteux and Father Charles du Marche; they are building at that Residence, and we will send there another Father when they shall have a lodging for him.

In the Residence of Notre Dame de Recouvrance at Quebec, Father Jean de Quen and I. We are building here also, for the Seminary and the College. As soon as there shall be a place for them, I shall send for some Fathers; meanwhile Father de Quen will teach the French Pupils and I the Indian ones, and with all this we shall have to help our French people, who already form quite a little Parish, and to study the Innu language.

In the Residence of Notre Dame des Anges, Reverend Father Charles Lallemant, Superior of that House, Father Nicolas Adam, Father Enemond Masse, Father Anne Denoue, Father Antoine Daniel, Father Ambroise Davost; our Brothers Gilbert Burel, Pierre le Telier, Jean Liegeois, Pierre Feaute, Ambroise Cauvet and Louis Gobert.

In the Residence of Miscou, Father Claude Quentin, if he has succeeded in reaching there, and Father Charles Turgis.

In the Residence of St. Anne at Cape Breton, Father Daudemare and Father Andre Richard.

Paul Le Jeune.

I have jotted this Report down hastily, now in one place, now in another; sometimes upon the water, sometimes upon the land. I finally conclude it in the Residence of Notre Dame des Anges, near Quebec in New France, this 28th of August, 1636.

THE COUNTRY OF THE HURONS IN 1636. SENT TO QUEBEC TO REVEREND FATHER PAUL LE JEUNE, SUPERIOR OF THE MISSION OF THE JESUITS, IN NEW FRANCE.

Reverend Father,

We learn that the colony of Quebec is rapidly increasing, through the efforts of the Company of New France; and we hope the good example of our Frenchmen will bring together and encourage to work the idle and wandering Indians.

THE CONVERSION AND BAPTISM OF SOME HURONS; AND THE CONDITION OF CHRISTIANITY AMID THIS BARBARISM.

DURING the present year, Francois Sangwati, Captain of our village, was baptized and went to Heaven. He had a naturally good disposition.

The Indians seek Baptism almost entirely as an aid to health. We try to purify this intention, and to lead them to receive alike sickness and health, death and life; and teach them that Baptism principally imparts life to the soul, and not to the body. However, they have the opinion so deeply rooted that the baptized, especially the children, are no longer sickly that soon they will have spread it abroad and publicized it everywhere. The result is that they are now bringing us children to baptize from 5, 7, yes, even 17 miles away.

We hope to send you Fathers Antoine Daniel and Ambroise Davost with a band of little Hurons, to make a beginning for the Seminary, from which we can reasonably expect much fruit in the conversion of these Peoples. If there were Nuns at Quebec, I believe we might be able to send also girls for a Seminary. There are here a number of fine little girls, who, if they were well brought up, would not yield in any respect to our young French girls. It makes our hearts ache to see these innocent young girls so soon defile their purity of body and beauty of soul, for lack of a good example and good instruction.

OTHER REMARKABLE THINGS THAT HAPPENED DURING THIS YEAR.

FIRST, I notice the dryness of the past Summer, which has been general throughout these Regions, so far as I can learn from Quebec letters, and from Indians returning from distant trading expeditions; everything was so dry that at the least spark of fire, the forests and fields were at once in a blaze. Thus it happened that many Indians, going about the country and not being on their guard, had their Cabins and provisions burned, as did also two of our men.

To speak only of the Huron Country, the drought was great, for from Easter until the middle of June there was no rain at all, or little. Nothing was growing, everything was dying, so that we perceived a serious famine, and rightly; for, the soil of the Huron country and adjacent regions being sandy, if three days pass without its being watered with rain, everything begins to fade and hang its head. Filled with these fears, the whole Country was dreading a famine, especially since last Spring three villages had been burned which, but for this accident, might have served as granaries to the whole Country. All were crying for help, and imploring, according to their custom, the help of the Sorcerers, or Arendiwane, who are here held in reverence, because they promise, to turn aside the misfortunes with which Heaven threatens them. These deceivers played all the tricks that dreams and their own empty heads could suggest to them, to bring rain, but in vain.

There was one of these Sorcerers named Tehorenhaegnon, more famous than the others, who promised marvels, provided the whole Country give him a present of the value of ten hatchets, not to speak of a multitude of feasts; but these efforts were in vain, dreaming, feasting, dancing, were all to no purpose, there fell not a drop of water; so that he had to confess that he could not succeed, and he declared that the crops would not ripen; but unfortunately, or rather fortunately for us, he said that he was hindered from making it rain by a Cross which is before our door, and that the house of the French was a house of demons, or of ill-disposed people who had come into their Country to make them die. Some then, trying to outdo him, said perhaps we cherished resentment for the death of Etienne Brule and that we wished to draw down vengeance upon the whole Country for the death of a single person. Others added that the Algonquins had told them that the French came here only to cause their death, and that from them had come the contagion of last year. In consequence of these statements, we were told that we must take down our Cross; and that, if the crops should not mature, they might beat us to death as they do the Sorcerers and other harmful people here. Some said that they would pull down the Cross; and it even went so far that some young people, having made another and having placed it on the ridge of a Cabin, began to shoot at it as at a target with their bows and arrows.

We therefore assembled in our Cabin the men and women of our village, especially because they alone had not resorted to the Sorcerers, but had always asked us to make it rain. They believe that nothing is impossible for us. I told them that neither we nor any man could bring rain or fine weather; that he who made Heaven and earth alone was master of them; that the Cross we had planted had not hindered the rain, as it had often rained and thundered since we had erected it; but that perhaps God was angry because they had spoken ill of him and had relied on wicked Arendiwane, who either had no power, or perhaps had themselves caused the drought by their communication and pacts with the devil; that everything they did was only to get presents, and that, if they could do anything, they should make rain.

On the thirteenth of June, we could not finish the Procession on account of the rain, which followed abundantly and lasted, with several intervals, the space of a month, with a great improvement and growth of the fruits of the earth.

In 1628, when the English defeated the fleet of the Company of New France, the drought was great everywhere, but particularly so in our village and its neighborhood. I was astonished to see the air heavily laden with clouds elsewhere, and to hear the thunders roaring; while in our neighborhood, the Sky was clear, bright and hot. It seemed even that the clouds separated as they approached our region. That same tool of the devil, Tehorenhaegnon, having been requested to make rain, replied that he could not make it; and that the thunder, which they pretend is a bird, was afraid of the Cross that was in front of the Frenchmen's house, and that the red color with which it was painted was like a fire burning and flaming, which divided the clouds in two when they passed above it.

The Captains of the village, having heard these stories, sent for me and said, "My nephew, here is what so-and-so says; what do you answer to it? We are ruined, for the corn will not ripen. If at least we should die by the hands of our enemies who are ready to burst upon us, well and good; but if, having escaped from their fury, we are exposed to famine, that would be to go from bad to worse. We are of the opinion that you should take down that Cross, and hide it awhile in your Cabin, or even in the lake, so that the thunder and the clouds may not see it, and no longer fear it; and then after the harvest you may set it up again."

To this I answered, "As for me, I shall never take down nor hide the Cross. For yourselves, if you wish to take it down, consider the matter well; I shall not be able to hinder you, but take care that, in taking it down, you do not make God angry and increase your own misery. This Cross has been set up for more than a year, and you know how many times there has been rain here since. Only an ignorant person would say that the thunder is afraid; it is not an animal, it is a dry and burning exhalation which, being shut in, seeks to get out this way and that. And then what does the thunder fear? This red color of the Cross? Take away then, yourselves, all those red figures and paintings that are on your Cabins."

To this they did not know what to reply; they looked at each other and said, "We must not touch this Cross; and yet," added they, "Tehorenhaegnon says so."

A thought came to me. "Since," said I, "Tehorenhaegnon says that the thunder is afraid of this color of the Cross, if you like, we will paint it another color, white, or black, or any other; and if, immediately after, it begins to rain, you will be sure Tehorenhaegnon has told the truth; but if not, that he is a fraudster."

"Well said," they replied, "we will do that."

The Cross was therefore painted white, but one, two, three, four days passed without any more rain than before; and meanwhile all who saw the Cross became angry at the Sorcerer who had been the cause of disfiguring it. Then I went to see the Old Men. "Well, has it rained any more than before? Are you satisfied?"

"Yes," said they, "we see clearly enough that Tehorenhaegnon is only a deceiver; but now, tell us what to do, and we will obey you."

I told them that they should all come in a body, men and women, to worship the Cross to restore its honor; and as it was a matter of causing the crops to grow, they should each bring a dish of corn to make an offering to our Lord, and that what they gave should afterward be distributed to the poor of the village. The hour is appointed for the next day; they do not wait for it, they anticipate it. We surround the Cross, painted again in its first colors, upon which I had placed the body of our Lord crucified; we recite some prayers; and then I worshiped and kissed the Cross, to show them how they ought to do it. They imitated me one after the other, addressing our crucified Savior in prayers which natural Rhetoric and the urgent need of the time suggested to them. They did so well that, on the same day, God gave them rain, and in the end a plentiful harvest.

In concluding these two accounts, I shall say that these Peoples admire and esteem highly those persons who have anything that elevates them above the crowd. Such persons they call oki, the same name as they give to demons; consequently, if there were anyone here endowed with the gift of miracles, as were those who first announced the Gospel to the world, he would convert all these Indians without difficulty.

We have had this year two alarms, which resulted in nothing worse than the fear aroused by the fear of enemies. The first occurred last Summer and lasted the whole month of June. It is one of the most fitting times for such fear, since then the Country is stripped of the men, who have gone trading, some one way, some another. The other was this Winter, and turned out to be false; in both cases the alarm was quite often given unexpectedly, sometimes by day, sometimes by night; the women and children began packing up their baggage on the report of the criers, who are our spies here. Flight is to some extent tolerable in Summer, for one can escape to an Island or hide in the obscurity of some dense forest; but in Winter, when ice serves as a bridge to enable the enemy to search the Islands, and when the fall of the leaves has laid bare the forest recesses, you do not know where to hide; besides, the tracks on the snow are immediately discovered; and it is extremely cold in Winter to sleep long at the inn of the Moon. There are some villages tolerably well fortified, where one might remain and await siege and assault; those who can, withdraw there; the others take to flight, which is most commonly done; for the small number of men, the lack of arms, the multitude of enemies, cause them to dread the weakness of their forts. Only a few old people, who are not able to go away, quietly await death in their Cabins. That is our usual condition.

This Winter, we were on the point of fleeing; but where could we conceal our few belongings? For the Hurons are as fond of them as are the Iroquois. In other ways, however, these fears have not been useless, for we were able to win for ourselves the regard and esteem of the People, and to make ourselves useful to them, by giving them iron arrow-heads and by assisting them in their forts. In fact, we had four of our Frenchmen furnished with good muskets, who were ready to hurry to the first village where an attack should be made; and I had decided to accompany them, to assist them in spiritual matters.

The Hurons have remained friendly to us, on account of the promptness we showed in assisting them. We have told them also that they should make their forts square, and arrange their stakes in straight lines; and that, by means of four little towers at the four corners, four Frenchmen might easily with their muskets defend a whole village. They are delighted with this advice, and have already begun to practice it at la Rochelle, where they eagerly desire to have some of our Fathers.

Summer here is an inconvenient season for instructing the Indians. Their trading expeditions and the farms take everyone away, men, women, and children -- almost no one remains in the villages. I will tell you how we spent last Summer.

After our exercises, we made a confused memorandum of the words we had learned since our arrival, and then we outlined a Dictionary of the Huron language which will be profitable. In it will be seen the various meanings; one will easily recognize in it, when the words are grouped, their differences, which consist sometimes in only a single letter, or even in an accent. Finally we busied ourselves in revising, or rather in arranging, a Grammar. I fear we shall often have to make similar revisions; for every day we discover new secrets in this science, which for now hinders us from sending anything to be printed. We know now sufficient to understand and to be understood, but not yet to publish. It is an exceedingly laborious task to attempt to understand in all points a foreign tongue, abundant, and as different from our European languages as Heaven is from earth, and that without teacher or books. We all work at it diligently; it is one of our most common occupations. There is not one of us who does not already talk a jargon, and make himself understood, the newly-arrived Fathers as well as the others. I trust that Father Mercier will soon be master of it.

On the ninth of August, one of our men arrived from Quebec two months and twelve days after departing. How glad we were to hear of the state of all the French at Quebec and Three Rivers; a report had declared they were all dead of the plague. We were also glad to hear of the happy arrival of five ships of the Company of New France, commanded by the General du Plessis Bochart, which we had been informed were lost in the ice.

On the thirteenth of August, Father Mercier arrived, and Father Pijart on the seventeenth. All the Fathers have been well treated on the way. They have neither paddled, nor carried burdens, except their little supply of clothing: but, on the contrary, have been honored and have been themselves carried over troublesome and difficult places. Consequently let no one fear difficulties in coming up here, from having read my Report of last year. Beginnings are always hard, and then the causes of our troubles were extraordinary; and I believe that my sins, which required that I should suffer these things, fell also upon the others; but we have drunk the cup of bitterness to its dregs. Yet no one should lose courage, even if our labors were always equally hard; for our Lord has endured more for the salvation of souls. Our scanty baggage was also faithfully brought, and in fairly good condition. You would scarcely believe the good done last year by the distribution you made to our Hurons of peas, bread, and sagamite, and by the kindly attentions you showed them. That good treatment has won their hearts for you and for us also. We do not go anywhere without hearing that our Brothers at Quebec are courteous and liberal.

On the Eclipse of the Moon, of August twenty-seventh, our Indians expected a great defeat of their men, because it appeared over their enemies' Country, which is on their Southeast; for if it appears in the East, it is on their account that the Moon is sick, or has experienced some displeasure; they even invited us, perhaps in jest, to shoot at the Sky, to deliver it from danger, assuring us that it was their custom to discharge several arrows for this purpose. Indeed, they all cry out as loudly as they can on such occasions, and make imprecations against their enemies, saying, "May such and such a Nation perish." I was at that time in another village, where was living the famous Sorcerer of whom I have already spoken, Tehorenhaegnon; he made a feast, I was told, to turn aside the unluckiness of this Eclipse.

On the twentieth of September, the father of Louis de Saint Foy came to visit us in our Cabin, and told us of his desire that he and all his family should be baptized, urged, he said, among other motives, by the fact that, in their defeat by the Iroquois, God had extraordinarily preserved his life.

On the fourth of November, we set out to instruct this household, and to consider more exactly their disposition towards the Faith. On the way we baptized two sick persons whom. we believe to be now in Heaven.

We remained away seven days, during which we instructed the whole family in all the important points of the Christian Religion. Louis served us in this as interpreter, as he is well acquainted with our mysteries, and explains them with enthusiasm. They all approved and enjoyed the Christian truths; and far from judging any of the commandments of God difficult, they even found them easy. Abstinence, and the permanence of marriage, seemed to them the most serious obstacles in the progress of the Gospel; and indeed this will be a stumbling-block. However, they said that, in view of a life of eternal happiness, nothing ought to seem difficult. "And then," said Louis's father, "if you said that we must pass two, three, or more days without eating, we might find that a hardship; but there is none in all the rest." He said that the French who had been here had never spoken to them of God, but had been as much addicted as they to run after and dally with the women. He urged Father Pijart, who was with me, to learn the language quickly, so he could settle in their village, and be there the Superior of a church.

On this visit, I noticed two or three things. Louis's father, hearing that it was necessary to learn the sign of the Cross, the Lord's Prayer, the Hail Mary, and the Apostles' Creed, said that all that was a small matter, and that he would have little intelligence if he could not learn it; that, having gone to various Nations, he had sometimes been entrusted with more than twenty different kinds of business, and that on his return he had reported them all faithfully; and consequently he could soon learn and remember the little we asked. Yet this intelligent man had to work hard to learn the sign of the Cross. It is strange how prompt and wide awake men are in worldly affairs, and how dull they are in Spiritual things.

I took pleasure in hearing Louis explain our Mysteries to his relatives; he did it with grace, and showed that he had understood them and made them his own. Ah! how I wish I could speak Huron as well as he does, for in comparison with him I only stutter; and yet the way of saying a thing gives it an entirely different meaning. When I brought forward the burning of the five wicked cities, and the preservation of Lot and his family, to show how God chastises severely even in this life the wicked and vile, and how he saves the good, Louis drew the conclusion from it for his relatives that, if they served God faithfully, their Cabin would not be burned even if all the village were afire.

In explaining to Louis's relatives the commandment not to steal, and mentioning that in France thieves were put to death, his father asked Louis if, when he became Captain, he would also put them to death. Louis replied that in that case the Country would soon be depopulated, as it would be necessary to kill everyone, -- a Huron and a thief being almost the same.

On the twenty-eighth of March, Francois Marguerie, who had gone to winter with the Kichesipirini Algonquins, brought four of them to us. It was a great consolation to receive visits from Frenchmen at such a season and to hear news of Quebec and Three Rivers. We were also deeply astonished to see that a young man like him, only twenty to twenty-two years old, had the courage to follow the Indians over ice and snow, and through forests, forty successive days, and for the space of some 750 miles, carrying, dragging, and working as much as, and more than any of his band; for these Indians, having arrived at their halting place, made him get ready their meal, while they warmed themselves and rested.

The occasion of the coming of these Kichesipirini Algonquins to the country of the Hurons was the death of twenty-three persons whom the Iroquois had massacred, despite the peace. This deceit had excited a strong desire for vengeance. They had collected some twenty-three collars of wampum, to rouse the Hurons and the Algonquins to take up arms and lend them assistance, promising that our French would be of the group, against the common enemy; but neither the Hurons nor the Algonquins have been willing to listen to them, and have refused their presents. The Nipissings likewise have refused to listen to them, on account of the extortion practiced on them by the Kichesipirini Algonquins in going down to trade. As to the Hurons, they have covered their refusal with the fear they have of an army with which they were lately threatened. But the real cause was that the Nation of the Bear, which constitutes half of the Hurons, was irritated because the Kichesipirini Algonquins did not invite them as well as the others, offering them no presents, and forbidding that they should even be told of the matter. The Kichesipirini Algonquins, seeing themselves refused, have returned much discontented at the Hurons as well as at the Nipissings, and have threatened that they would let neither of them pass down to the French.

Le Borgne [the One-eyed] (Tessouat), of the Kichesipirini Algonquins, said to the Hurons, in our presence, to recommend the subject of his Embassy, that his body was hatchets; he meant that the preservation of his person and of his Nation was the preservation of the hatchets, the kettles, and all the trade of the French, for the Hurons. They even say, whether true or false, that he has boasted that he is master of the French, and that he would lead us back to Quebec and make us all recross the sea. I am telling what is said, and the boasts attributed to him, for we did not hear them; on the contrary, they went away, so far as we are concerned, with every appearance of contentment.

They had a long and friendly talk with us, with the object of making us entirely leave the Country of the Hurons, or at least the Nation of the Bear, the most wicked of all the tribes, since it had murdered Etienne Brule and good Father Nicolas, the Recollect, with his companion; and had some time before slain eight of their men. To me, in the way of flattery and praise, they said that, rather than risk my life among a Nation so deceitful, they would advise me to go down to Quebec, at least after having passed another year here to learn the language perfectly; and that I would be a great Captain, and the only one who could speak in their councils. Thus these brave counselors gave us advice, with many and long speeches, to show the friendship they had always had for the French.

We replied that we had not come into this Country to act as interpreters, nor in the hope of getting riches, nor in the hope of becoming great Captains; but that we had left behind our parents, our means, and all our possessions, and had crossed the sea to come to teach them the way of salvation, at the peril of our lives; that, for the rest, we were trying to comport ourselves so that other Nations would have more reason to love us than to do us harm. We told them that one day some of our Fathers might stay in their Country, to instruct them; and that they would have had them before this, had it not been for their wandering life.

They declared that they were well content, and accepted our reasons; to confirm it, we gave them a Canoe with some other little presents, with which they were satisfied, saying that they were already on their return to their own Country, and uttering a thousand thanks and many promises to treat our Fathers well when they should pass through their territory.

During Holy Week, Louis de Saint Foy came to visit us, and spent Easter with us to prepare himself to go to war, with his uncle, against the Iroquois. He has not yet returned; they try to make us believe that he has gone down to Quebec; but I have confidence in him.

On the fourteenth of April, the son of Chief Aenons, after having lost, at the game of straws, a Beaver robe and a collar of four hundred wampum beads, had such a fear of meeting his relatives that, not daring to enter the Cabin, he became desperate, and hanged himself from a tree. He had a melancholy disposition. The first of the Winter, he was on the point of putting an end to himself, but a little girl caught him in the act. When asked what had led him to this wicked resolution, "I do not know," said he, "but someone within me seems always to be saying, 'Hang yourself, hang yourself."' Gambling never leads to anything good; in fact, the Indians themselves remark that it is almost the sole cause of assaults and murders.

On the eighth of June, the Captain of the Amikwas, or Nation of the Beaver, which is three days journey from us, came to request one of our Frenchmen to spend the Summer with them, in a fort they had made from fear of the Winnebago, or stinking tribe, who have broken the treaty of peace, and have killed two of their men, of whom they made a feast.

On the thirteenth of the same month, we had news of a troop of Hurons who had gone to war, and who were encamped at the distance of a musket-shot from the last village, a day's journey from us; after having passed two nights in singing and eating, they were overtaken with so profound a sleep that the enemy, coming suddenly upon them, cleft open the heads of a dozen without resistance, the rest escaping by flight.

IMPORTANT ADVICE FOR THOSE WHO SHALL COME TO NEW FRANCE, AND ESPECIALLY TO THE COUNTRY OF THE HURONS.

I write this so no one may be deceived in regard to coming to New France. True, the two who came last, Fathers Mercier and Pijart, had no such trouble in their journey as those of us who came here the year before. They did not paddle, their men were not sick, as ours were; they had not to bear the heavy loads. Yet despite this, easy as may be a trip with the Indians, there is always enough to cast down a heart not well under subjection. The readiness of the Indians does not shorten the road, does not smooth down the rocks, does not remove the dangers. Be with whom you like, you must expect to be, at least, three or four weeks on the way, to have as companions persons you have never seen before; to be cramped in a bark Canoe in an uncomfortable position, not being free to turn yourself to one side or the other; in danger fifty times a day of being overturned or of being dashed upon the rocks. During the day, the Sun burns you; during the night, you run the risk of being a prey to Mosquitoes. You sometimes ascend five or six rapids in a day; and in the evening, the only refreshment is a little corn crushed between two stones and cooked in fine clear water; the only bed is the earth, sometimes only the rough, uneven rocks, and usually no roof but the stars; and all this in perpetual silence. If you are accidentally hurt, if you fall sick, do not expect from these Barbarians any assistance, for from where could they obtain it? And if the sickness is dangerous, and if you are remote from the villages, which are here scattered, I would not like to guarantee that they would not abandon you, if you could not make shift to follow them.

When you reach the Hurons, you will find hearts full of charity; we will receive you with open arms as an Angel of Paradise, we shall have all the inclination in the world to do you good; but we are so situated that we can do little. We shall receive you in a Hut, so mean that I have scarcely found in France one wretched enough to compare it with; that is how you will be lodged. Harassed and fatigued as you will be, we shall be able to give you nothing but a poor mat, or at most a skin, to serve you as a bed; and you will arrive at a season when miserable little insects that we call here Taouhac, and, in good French, fleas, will keep you awake almost all night, for in these countries they are much more troublesome than in France; the dust of the Cabin nourishes them, the Indians bring them to us. We get them in their houses; and this petty martyrdom, not to speak of Mosquitoes, Sandflies, and other like vermin, lasts usually three or four months of the Summer.

Instead of being a great teacher and great Theologian as in France, you must consider being here a humble student, and then, with what teachers!-- women, little children, and all the Indians, and exposed to their laughter. The Huron language will be your Aristotle; and clever man as you are, and speaking glibly among learned and capable persons, you must be, for a long time, mute among the Indians. You will have accomplished much if, at the end of a considerable time, you begin to stammer a little.

After having heard all that must be endured in wintering among the Innu Indians, that is almost the life we lead here among the Hurons. I say it without exaggeration, the five and six months of Winter are spent in almost continual discomforts, excessive cold, smoke, and the annoyance of the Indians; we have a Cabin built of simple bark, but so we'll jointed that we have to send someone outside to learn what kind of weather it is; the smoke is often so thick, so annoying, and so obstinate that, for five or six days at a time, if you are not entirely proof against it, it is all you can do to make out a few lines in your prayer book. Besides, from morning until evening our fireplace is almost always surrounded by Indians; they are usually there at mealtimes. If you happen to have anything more than usual, even ever so little, you must consider most of these Gentlemen as your guests; if you do not share with them, you will be considered stingy. As regards the food, it is not so bad, although we usually content ourselves with a little corn, or a morsel of dry smoked fish, or some fruits.

Add to all this, that our lives depend upon a single thread; and if, wherever we are in the world, we are to expect death every hour, and to be prepared for it, this is particularly the case here. For besides that your Cabin is only chaff, and that it might be burned at any moment, despite all your care to prevent accidents, the malice of the Indians gives special cause for almost perpetual fear; a malcontent may burn you down, or cleave your head open in some lonely spot. And then you are responsible for the sterility or fecundity of the earth, under penalty of your life; you are the cause of droughts; if you cannot make rain, they speak of nothing less than making away with you. I have only to mention, in addition, the danger there is from our enemies; on the thirteenth of this month of June, they killed twelve of our Hurons near the village of Contarrea, which is only a day's journey from us; a short time before, at 10 miles from our village, some Iroquois were discovered in the fields in ambush, only waiting to strike a blow at the expense of the life of some passer-by. This Nation is timid, they take no precautions against surprise, they are not careful to prepare arms or to enclose their villages with palisades; their usual recourse, especially when the enemy is powerful, is flight.

I pass over the small chance of seclusion there is among Barbarians, who scarcely ever leave you, who hardly know what it is to speak in a low tone. Especially I would not dare to speak of the danger there is of ruining oneself among their impurities, in the case of anyone whose heart is not sufficiently full of God to firmly resist this poison.

And now, as regards a place of abode, food, and beds, even though we have hardly more of those necessities than the Indians have, every one of us find everything almost as comfortable as life is in France. The sleep we get lying on our mats seems to us as sweet as if we were in a good bed; the food of the Country does not disgust us, although there is scarcely any seasoning; and despite the cold of a winter six months long, passed in the shelter of a bark Cabin open to the daylight, we have still to experience its evil effects; no one complains of his head or his stomach; we do not know what diarrhea, colds, or runny noses are. This leads me to say that delicate persons do not know, in France, how to protect themselves from the cold; those rooms so well carpeted, those doors so well fitted, and those windows closed with so much care, serve only to make its effects more keenly felt; it is an enemy from whom one wins almost more by holding out one's hands to him than by waging a cruel war upon him.

As to our food, we have obtained in eight days our provision of corn for a whole year, without making a single step beyond our Cabin. They have brought us dried fish in such quantities that we are compelled to refuse some of it, and to say that we have sufficient. We live on the shore of a great Lake, which affords as good fish as I have ever seen or eaten in France; true, we do not ordinarily procure them, and still less do we get meat, which is even more rarely seen here. Fruits even, according to the season, provided the year be somewhat favorable, are not lacking to us; strawberries, raspberries, and blackberries are to be found in almost incredible quantities. We gather plenty of grapes, which are fairly good; the squashes last sometimes four and five months, and are so abundant that they are to be had almost for nothing, and so good that, on being cooked in the ashes, they are eaten as apples are in France. Consequently, as regards provisions, the change from France is not great; the only grain of the Country is a sufficient nourishment, when one is somewhat accustomed to it. The Indians prepare it in more than twenty ways and yet employ only fire and water; the best sauce is what it carries with it.

THE LANGUAGE OF THE HURONS.

THIS is only to give some little foretaste of the language, and notice some of its peculiarities, in anticipation of a Grammar and a complete Dictionary.

They have a letter to which we have nothing to correspond -- we express it by Khi; the use of it is common to the Innus and to the Algonquins. They are not acquainted with B, F, L, M, P, X, Z; and I, E, V, are never consonants to them. Most of their words are composed of vowels. They lack all the labial letters. This is probably the reason why they all open their lips so awkwardly, and why we can scarcely understand them when they whistle or when they speak low. As they have hardly any Religion, or any learning or government, they have consequently no simple words suitable to express what is connected with these. So it is that we are at a loss in explaining to them many important matters, depending upon a knowledge of these things. Compound words are most in use with them, and have the same force as the adjective and substantive joined together, among us. Andatarase, fresh bread; Achitetsi, a foot long. The variety of these compound nouns is great, and that is the key to the secret of their Language. They have, like us, a diversity of genders; and like the Greeks, of number; besides a certain relative declension which always includes in itself the possessive pronoun, meus, tuus, suus, for example, Iatacan, my brother, aiatacan, my brothers; satacan, your brother; tsatacan, your brothers; atocan, his brother, atotacan, his brothers. As to cases, they have them all, or supply them by appropriate particles.

The astonishing thing is that all their words are universally conjugated, for example, Asse, it is fresh, asse, chen, it was fresh; gaon, old, agaon, he is old, agaonc, he was old, agaonha, he is growing old; and so with the rest. It is the same with that word iatacan, which means, my brother; oniatacan, we are brothers, oniatacan chen, we were brothers; that is copious. Here is one which is not so. A relative noun with them includes always the meaning of one of the three persons of the possessive pronoun, so that they can not say simply, Father, Son, Master, Valet, but have to say one of the three, my father, your father, his father. However, I have translated above in a Prayer one of their nouns by the word Father, for greater clearness. On this account, we find ourselves hindered from getting them to say properly in their Language, "In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the holy Ghost." Would you judge it fitting, while waiting a better expression, to substitute instead, "In the name of our Father, and of his Son, and of their holy Ghost?" It seems that the three Persons of the holy Trinity would be sufficiently expressed in this way, the third being the holy Spirit of the first and of the second; the second being Son of the first; and the first, our Father.

In connection with this name "Father", there is difficulty in teaching to say "Our Father, who art in Heaven," to those who have none on earth; to speak to them of the dead whom they loved, is to insult them. A woman, whose mother had died a short time before, almost lost her desire to be baptized because the command, "You will honor your Father and your Mother," had been inadvertently quoted to her.

As for the verbs, what is most remarkable in their language is: 1. That they have some to indicate animate things, and others to indicate things without life. 2. That they vary their tenses in as many ways as did the Greeks; their numbers also, besides that the first person, of both the dual number and the plural, is double; therefore to say "we set out, you and I," we must say kiarascwa, and to say "we set out, he and I," aiarascwa. Likewise in the plural, "we, several of us, set out," awarascwa, "we, together, set out," cwarascwa.

Besides all this, there is to be noticed a double conjugation, and I believe that this is common to the American languages. The one is simple and absolute, like our Latin and French conjugations. For example, the verb ahiaton, meaning "to write," is conjugated absolutely in this way: iehiaton, I write; chiehiatonc, you writest, ihakiatonc, he writes, awahiatonc, we write, scwahiatonc, you write, attihiatonc, they write.

The other method of conjugation may be called the reciprocal, as the action signified by the verb terminates always on some person or thing; so that, instead of saying, as we do, in three words, "I love myself," the Hurons say only iatenonhwe; "I love you," onnonhwe; "I love you both," inonhwe; "I love you" (several), wanonhwe, and so for the rest.

What I find most extraordinary is that there is a feminine conjugation, at least in the third person both of the singular and of the plural; for we have not discovered more of it, or little. Here is an example of it: ihaton, he says; iwaton, she says; ihonton, they say masculine; ionton, they say feminine. The principal distinction of this feminine conjugation from the masculine is the lack of the letter H, in which the masculine abounds, perhaps to have the women understand that there ought to be nothing rough in their words or in their manners, but that gentleness ought to be upon their tongues.

Here is something about their style. They use comparisons, time-words, and proverbs often. Here is one of the most remarkable, Tichiout etoatendi, "See," they say, "the fallen star," when they see someone who is fat and corpulent; for they believe that, once upon a time, a star fell from Heaven in the form of a fat Goose.

THE BELIEF, MANNERS, AND CUSTOMS OF THE HURONS. WHAT THE HURONS THINK OF THEIR ORIGIN.

To begin with the foundation of their belief, most boast of deriving their origin from Heaven, which they found on the following fable, which passes among them for a truth.

They recognize as head of their Nation a certain woman whom they call Aataentsic, who fell among them, they say, from Heaven. For they think the Heavens existed a long time before this wonder; but they cannot tell you when or how its great bodies were drawn from the abysses of nothing. They suppose, even, that above the arches of the Sky there was and still is a land like ours, with woods, lakes, rivers and fields, and Peoples who inhabit them. They do not agree as to how this so fortunate descent occurred. Some say that one day, as she was working in her field, she perceived a Bear; her dog began to pursue it and she herself afterward.

The Bear, seeing himself closely pressed, and seeking only to escape the teeth of the dog, fell by accident into a hole; the dog followed him. Aataentsic, having approached this precipice, finding that neither the Bear nor the dog were any longer to be seen, moved by despair, threw herself into it also. Still, her fall happened to be more favorable than she had supposed; for she fell down into the waters without being hurt, although she was with child, after which, the Waters having dried up little by little, the earth appeared and became habitable.

Others attribute this fall to another cause. They say that the husband of Aataentsic, being sick, dreamed that it was necessary to cut down a certain tree from which those who abode in Heaven obtained their food; and that, as soon as he ate of the fruit, he would be immediately healed. Aataentsic, knowing the desire of her husband, takes his axe and goes away with the resolution not to make two trips of it; but she had no sooner dealt the first blow than the tree at once split, almost under her feet, and fell to this earth; she was so astonished that, after having carried the news to her husband, she returned and threw herself after it. As she fell, the Turtle, happening to raise her head above water, perceived her; and not knowing what to decide upon, astonished as she was at this wonder, she called together the other aquatic animals to get their opinion. They immediately assembled; she points out to them what she saw, and asks them what they think it fitting to do. The greater part refer the matter to the Beaver, who, through courtesy, hands over the whole to the judgment of the Turtle, whose final opinion was that they should all promptly set to work, dive to the bottom of the water, bring up soil to her, and put it on her back. No sooner said than done, and the woman fell gently on this Island.

Later, as she was with child when she fell, she delivered a daughter, who almost immediately became pregnant. If you ask them how, you puzzle them much. In any event, they tell you, she was pregnant. Some throw the blame upon some strangers, who landed on this Island. But they say that, before Aataentsic fell from the Sky, there were no men on earth. Regardless, she brought forth two boys, Tawiscaron and Iouskeha, who, when they grew up, had some quarrel with each other. They came to blows, but with different weapons. Iouskeha had the horns of a Stag; Tawiscaron, who contented himself with some fruits of the wild rosebush, was persuaded that, as soon as he had struck his brother, he would fall dead at his feet. But it happened quite differently from what he had expected; and Iouskeha, on the contrary, struck him so rude a blow in the side that the blood came forth abundantly. This poor wretch immediately fled; and from his blood, with which the land was sprinkled, certain stones sprang up, like those we employ in France to fire a gun, -- which the Indians call even today Tawiscara, from the name of this unfortunate. His brother pursued him, and finished him. This is what most believe concerning the origin of these Nations.

They say that, in the beginning of the world, the land was quite covered with water, with the exception of a little Island on which was the sole hope of the human race, that is, a single man, whose sole companions were a Fox and a little animal like a Marten, which they call Tsouhendaia. The man, not knowing what to do, seeing himself cut off in so narrow a range of country, asked the Fox to plunge into the water, to see if there were any bottom to it; but he had no sooner wet his paws than he drew back, fearing that this experience would cost him his life. The man became indignant; "Tessandion, you have no sense," he said to him, and kicked him into the water, where he drank a little more than his fill. However he did not desist from his plan, and so encouraged the little animal that was now his sole companion that it finally resolved to plunge in; and as it did not imagine that the water was so shallow, it did this so violently as to dash itself against the bottom, and came back with its snout all covered with slime. The man, glad at this happy discovery, urges it to continue, and to bring up soil to increase the size of the Islet; which it did with so much diligence that the Islet lost its identity, and was changed into these vast fields that we see. If you again press them here, and ask them what they think of this man, who gave him life, who put him upon this little Island, how he could become the father of all these Nations, since he was alone and had no companion; you will gain nothing by asking all these questions, except that you will get this solution, which would not be bad, if their Religion were good, We do not know; we were told so; our Fathers never taught us any more about it. What would you say to that? All that we do is to bear witness to them that we feel compassion for their so gross ignorance; we take from there occasion, when we judge them capable of appreciating it, for explaining some of our Mysteries, and of showing them how fully they conform to reason. They listen willingly, and are well satisfied.

But to return to Aataentsic and Iouskeha; they believe that Iouskeha is the Sun and Aataentsic the Moon, and yet that their Home is situated at the ends of the earth, namely, toward our Ocean sea; for beyond that it is a lost country to them, and before they had any commerce with the French they had never dreamed that there was under Heaven a different land from their own, and, now that they are persuaded of this idea, many still believe that their country and ours are two pieces quite separate, and made by the hands of different workmen. They say, therefore, that four young men once undertook a journey to find out the truth about it; that they found Iouskeha quite alone in his Cabin, and that he received them kindly. After some compliments on both sides, in the fashion of the Country, he advised them to conceal themselves in some corner, otherwise he would not answer for their lives; that Aataentsic was sure to play them a bad trick, if they did not keep on their guard. This Fury arrives toward evening, and, as she assumes any form she sees fit, perceiving that there were new guests in the house she took the form of a beautiful young girl, handsomely adorned, with a beautiful necklace and bracelets of wampum, and asked her son where his guests were. He replied that he did not know what she meant. Then she went out of the Cabin, and Iouskeha took the opportunity to warn his guests, and therefore saved their lives. Although their Cabin is so distant, they are still both present at the feasts and dances which take place in the villages. Aataentsic is often badly abused there. Iouskeha throws the blame on a certain horned oki named Tehonrressandeen; but it is found at the end of the tale that it is he himself who, under that disguise, therefore insults his mother.

Besides, they esteem themselves obliged to this person; for, in the first place, without him we would not have so many fine rivers and so many beautiful lakes. In the beginning of the world, they say, the earth was dry and arid; all the waters were collected under the armpit of a large frog, so that Iouskeha could not have a drop except through its agency. One day, he decided to escape from this servitude; and to attain this, he made an incision under the armpit, from where the waters came forth in such abundance that they spread throughout the whole earth, and so the origin of rivers, lakes, and seas.

They believe also that without Iouskeha their kettles would not boil, as he learned from the Turtle the process of making fire. Were it not for him, they would not have such good hunting, and would not have so much ease in capturing animals in hunting, as they now have. For they believe that animals were not at liberty from the beginning of the world, but that they were shut up in a great cavern, where Iouskeha guarded them. Perhaps there may be in that some allusion to the fact that God brought all the animals to Adam. However, one day he decided to give them liberty so they might multiply and fill the forests, in such a way that he might easily dispose of them when it should seem good to him. This is what he did to accomplish his end. In the order in which they came from the cave, he wounded them all in the foot with an arrow. However, the Wolf escaped the shot; therefore, they say, they have great difficulty in catching him in hunting.

According to their story, it is Iouskeha who gives them the wheat they eat, it is he who makes it grow and brings it to maturity. If they see their fields verdant in the Spring, if they reap good and abundant harvests, and if their Cabins are crammed with ears of corn, they owe it to Iouskeha. I do not know what God has in store for us this year; but, to judge from the reports going round, we are threatened with a great scarcity. Iouskeha, it is reported, has been seen quite dejected, and thin as a skeleton, with a poor ear of corn in his hand. Some add that he was carrying a man's leg and was tearing it with sharp teeth. All this, they say, is an indubitable sign of a bad year. But the fun of it is, no one can be found in the Country who will say, "I have seen him, or I have spoken to a man that has seen him;" and yet everyone deems this an indubitable fact, and no man takes the trouble to make a more searching inquiry into the truth of it.

THE IDEAS OF THE HURONS REGARDING THE NATURE AND CONDITION OF THE SOUL, BOTH IN THIS LIFE AND AFTER DEATH.

IT is amusing to hear them speak of their souls; they give it different names according to its different conditions or different operations. In so far as it merely animates the body and gives it life, they call it khiondhecwi; in so far as it is possessed of reason, oki andaerandi, "like a demon, counterfeiting a demon;" in so far as it thinks and deliberates on anything, they call it endionrra; and gonennoncwal, in so far as it bears affection to any object; from where they often say ondayee ihaton onennoncwat, "That is what my heart says to me, that is what my appetite desires." Then if it is separated from the body, they call it esken, and even the bones of the dead, atisken, on the false opinion that the soul remains in some way attached to them for some time after death, at least that it is not far removed from them; they think of the soul as divisible, and you would have all the difficulty in the world to make them believe that our soul is entire in all parts of the body. They give to it even a head, arms, legs, a body; and to put them in great perplexity it is only necessary to ask them by what exit the soul departs at death, if it be corporeal, and has a body as large as what it animates; for to that they have no reply.

As to what is the state of the soul after death, they believe that it separates in such a way from the body that it does not abandon it immediately. When they bear it to the grave, it walks in front, and remains in the cemetery until the feast of the Dead; by night, it walks through the villages and enters the Cabins, where it takes its part in the feasts, and eats what is left at evening in the kettle; from where many do not willingly eat from it on the next day; there are even some of them who will not go to the feasts made for the souls, believing that they would certainly die if they should even taste of the provisions prepared for them; others, however, are not so scrupulous, and eat their fill.

At the feast of the Dead, which takes place about every twelve years, the souls leave the cemeteries, and in the opinion of some are changed into Turtledoves, which they pursue later in the woods, with bow and arrow, to broil and eat; still the most common belief is that after this ceremony, of which I shall speak below, they go away together, covered as they are with robes and collars which have been put into the grave for them, to a great Village, which is toward the setting Sun, except, however, the old people and the little children who have not as strong limbs as the others to make this voyage; these remain in the country, where they have their own particular Villages. Some assert that at times they hear the noise of the doors of their Cabins, and the voices of the children chasing the birds in the fields. They sow corn in its season, and use the fields the living have abandoned; if any Village takes fire, which often happens in this country, they take care to gather from the middle of this fire the roasted corn, and lay it by as a part of their provisions.

The souls which are stronger and more robust have their gathering place toward the West, where each Nation has its own Village; and if the soul of an Algonquin were bold enough to present itself at the Village of the Bear Nation's souls, it would not be well received.

The souls of those who died in war form a band by themselves; the others fear them, and do not permit their entry into their Village, any more than to the souls of those who have killed themselves. As to the souls of thieves, they are quite welcome, and, if they were banished from them, there would not be a soul left; for as I have said, Huron and thief are one and the same thing; and the wealthiest man in the Country will do all he can to try his hand at it, if he finds something in your house lying apart which he likes.

I asked one day one of our Indians where they thought the Village of souls was; he answered that it was toward the Petun nation, that is, toward the West, 20 miles from us, and that some persons had seen them as they were going; that the road they took was broad and well-beaten; that they passed near a rock called Ecaregniondi, which has often been found marked with the paint which they use to smear their faces.

Another told me that on the same road, before arriving at the Village, one comes to a Cabin where lives one named Oscotarach, or "Pierce-head," who draws the brains out of the heads of the dead, and keeps them. You must pass a river, and the only bridge you have is the trunk of a tree laid across, and slightly supported. The passage is guarded by a dog, which jumps at many souls, and makes them fall; they are at the same time carried away by the violence of the torrent, and stifled in the waters. "But," said I to him, "from where have you learned all this news of the other world?"

"It is," he told me, "persons brought back to life, who have reported it." Thus it is the devil who deceives them in their dreams; therefore he speaks by the mouth of some, who having been left as dead, recover health, and talk at random of the other life, according to the ideas that this wretched master gives them. According to them, the Village of souls is just like the Village of the living; they go hunting, fishing, and to the woods; axes, robes, and collars are as much esteemed as among the living. In a word, everything is the same; there is only this difference, that day and night they do nothing but groan and complain. They have Captains, who from time to time put an end to it and try to moderate their sighs and groans.

This false belief they have about souls is kept up among them by means of certain stories which the fathers tell their children, which are so poorly put together that I am perfectly astounded to see how men believe them and accept them as truth. Here are two of the most stupid ones, which I get from persons of intelligence among them.

An Indian, having lost one of his sisters, whom he loved above all the rest, and having wept after her death, decided to seek her, in whatever part of the world she might be; and he traveled twelve days toward the setting Sun, where he had learned the Village of souls was, without eating or drinking. At the end of this time, his sister appeared to him in the night, with a dish of meal cooked in water, after the fashion of the country, which she gave to him, and disappeared at the moment he wished to put his hand on her and stop her. He went on, and journeyed three whole months, hoping always to succeed in claiming her. During all this time, she never failed to show herself every day, and to render him the same service that she had at first, increasing in this way his desire, without giving it any other consolation than the little nourishment which she brought him.

The three months expired; he came to a river, which presented great difficulty to him at first, for it was rapid and did not appear fordable. There were some fallen trees thrown across it; but this bridge was so shaky that he did not dare to trust himself to it. What should he do? There was on the other side a piece of cleared land, which made him think there must be some inhabitants near. In fact, after looking in all directions, he perceived, on the outskirts of the wood, a little Cabin. He calls several times. A man appears and shuts himself up immediately in his Cabin; this gives him great joy, and he resolves to cross.

Having successfully accomplished this, he goes immediately to this Cabin, but finds the door closed; he calls, he beats on the door. He is told to wait, and first to pass in his arm, if he wishes to enter; the other one is astonished to see a living body. He opens to him, and asks him where he was going and what his purpose was, as this country was only for souls. "I know that well," says this Adventurer, "and that is why I came here to seek the soul of my sister."

"Oh indeed," replies the other one, "well and good; come, take courage, you will be presently in the Village of souls, where you will find what you desire. All the souls are now gathered in a Cabin, where they are dancing to heal Aataentsic, who is sick. Don't be afraid to enter; stay, here is a pumpkin, you can put into it the soul of your sister." He takes it, and bids goodbye to his host, glad of so fortunate a meeting. On his departure, he asks the host his name, "Be satisfied," says the other, "that I am he who keeps the brains of the dead."

So he goes away and reaches the Village of souls. He enters the Cabin of Aataentsic, where he finds that they are dancing for the sake of her health; but he cannot yet see the soul of his sister, for the souls were so startled at the sight of the man that they vanished in a moment, so that he remained all day the master of the Cabin. In the evening, as he was seated by the fire, they returned; but they showed themselves at first only at a distance.

Approaching slowly, they began again to dance; he recognized his sister amid the troop, he attempted even to seize her, but she fled from him. He withdrew some distance, and at last chose his time so well that she could not escape him. Still, he made certain of his prey only by securing her well; for he had to struggle against her all night, and in the contest she became so little that he put her without difficulty into his pumpkin. Having corked her in well, he immediately returns by way of the house of his host, who gives him his sister's brains in another pumpkin, and instructs him in all he must do to resuscitate her. "When you reach home," he says to him, "go to the cemetery, take the body of your sister, bear it to your Cabin, and make a feast. When all your guests are assembled, carry it on your shoulders, and take a walk through the Cabin holding the two pumpkins in your hands; you will no sooner have resumed your place than your sister will come to life again, provided you give orders that all keep their eyes lowered, and that no one shall look at what you are doing, else everything will go wrong."

Soon the man returns to his Village; he takes the body of his sister, makes a feast, carries out all the directions given him, and he already felt motion in the half-decayed corpse; but, when he was two or three steps from his place, one curious person raised his eyes; at that moment the soul escaped, and there remained to him only the corpse in his arms, which he was compelled to bear to the tomb from where he had taken it.

Here is another of their fables, of like substance. A young man of the highest standing among them being ill, after much requesting, finally answered that his dream showed a bow rolled in bark; that if anyone wanted to go with him as an escort, there was but one man on earth who had one of the sort. A company of resolute men put themselves on the road with him; but at the end of ten days there remained to him only six companions, the rest turning back on account of the hunger which pressed them. The six go with him many a day's journey, and in following the tracks of a little black beast, come upon the Cabin of their man, who warns them not to partake of what a woman who was to be present should offer them for the first time. Having obeyed him, and having overturned the dishes upon the ground, they perceived it was venomous reptiles she had presented to them.

Having refreshed themselves with the second course, it was a question of bending the rolled bow, which not one of them succeeded in doing, except the young man in whose behalf the journey had been undertaken. He received it as a gift from his host, who invited him to take a sweat with him, and, upon emerging from the sweatbox, metamorphosed one of his companions into a Pine tree. From there they advanced to the Village of souls, from where only three returned alive, and all frightened, to the house of their host; he encouraged them to return home with the help of a little meal, such as the souls eat, and which sustains the body wonderfully. He told them, besides, that they were going to pass through woods where Deer, Bears, and Moose were as common as the leaves on the trees; but that, being provided with so marvelous a bow, they had nothing to fear, that they would be successful in hunting. See them returned to their Village, with everyone around them rejoicing, and learning their different adventures.

THAT THE HURONS RECOGNIZE SOME DIVINITY; OF THEIR SUPERSTITIONS, AND THEIR FAITH IN DREAMS.

As these poor Indians, being men, have not been able altogether to deny God, and, being given to vice, could have only conceptions of him unworthy of his greatness, they have neither sought nor recognized him except on the surface of created things, in which they have hoped for happiness or dreaded some misfortune. They address themselves to the Earth, to Rivers, to Lakes, to dangerous Rocks, but above all, to the Sky; and believe that all these things are animate, and that some powerful Demon resides there. They are not contented with making simple vows, they often accompany them with a sort of sacrifice. I have remarked two kinds of these. Some are to render them favorable; others to appease them, when they have received in their opinion some disgrace, or believe they have incurred their anger or indignation.

Here are the ceremonies they employ in these sacrifices. They throw some Tobacco into the fire; and if it is, for example, to the Sky that they address themselves, they say, Aronkiate onne aonstaniwas taitenr, "O Sky, here is what I offer you in sacrifice; have pity on me, assist me." If it is to implore health, taenguiaens, "Heal me." They rely on the Sky in almost all their necessities, and respect the great bodies in it above all creatures, and notice in it something divine. They imagine in the Heavens an Oki, a Demon or power which rules the seasons of the year, which holds in check the winds and the waves of the sea; which can render favorable the course of their voyages, and assist them in every time of need. They even fear his anger, and invoke him as a witness to render their words unbreakable, when they make some promise of importance, or agree to some bargain or treaty of peace with an enemy. Here are the terms they use, Hakhrihote ekaronhiate, tout Icwakhier ekentate, "The Sky knows what we are doing today;" and they think that if, after this, they should violate their word or break their alliance, the Sky would certainly chastise them.

More than that, they do not think it right to mock the Sky. Here is a remarkable proof of it: A renowned Sorcerer of this Country threatens us this year with a great famine. The corn will grow, he says, and will shoot into ear; the children will even cause the ears to be roasted when they are green; but a white frost will occur, which will destroy the hopes of the Country. He does not base his statements on those pretended apparitions of Iouskeha; here is what leads him to speak in this way. "The people," he says, "are crying every day to the Sky, 'Aronhiate onne aonstaancwas'; and yet nothing is given to it. This irritates the Sky; it will take revenge; and when the corn shall begin to mature, it will vent upon it the effects of its wrath."

They believe that the Sky is angry when anyone is drowned or dies of cold; a sacrifice is needed to appease it, but what a sacrifice, or rather what a butchery! The flesh of the dead man is the victim who is to be sacrificed. A gathering of the neighboring villages takes place; many feasts are made, and no presents are spared, as it is a matter in which the whole Country is interested. The dead body is carried into the cemetery, and is stretched out on a mat. On one side is a ditch, and on the other a fire for a sacrifice. At the same time, some young men chosen by the relatives present themselves, and arrange themselves around the corpse, each with a knife in his hand; and the protector of the dead person having marked with a coal the parts which are to be cut, they vie with each other in cutting the body, tearing off the fleshiest parts.

At last they open the body and draw out its entrails, which they throw into the fire with all the pieces of flesh they had cut off, and throw into the ditch the carcass quite stripped of flesh. During this butchery, the women walk around them several times, and encourage the young men who cut up this body to render this good service to the whole Country, putting wampum beads into their mouths. Sometimes even the mother of the deceased, all bathed in tears, joins the group and sings in a pitiful tone, lamenting the death of her son. That done, they firmly believe they have appeased the Sky. If they fail in this ceremony, they look upon all the disastrous changes of the weather, and all the untoward accidents which happen to them afterward, as so many results of its anger.

Last year, at the beginning of November, an Indian was drowned when returning from fishing; he was interred on the seventeenth, without any ceremonies. On the same day snow fell in such abundance that it hid the earth all the winter; and our Indians cast the blame on their not having cut up the dead person as usual.

On the way by which the Hurons go to Quebec, there are some Rocks that they particularly revere, and to which they never fail, when they go down to trade, to offer Tobacco. They call one of them Hihihouray, meaning "a Rock where the Owl makes its nest." But the most celebrated is the one they call Tsanhohi Arasta, "the home of Tsanhohi," which is a species of bird of prey. They tell marvels of this Rock. According to their story, it was formerly a man who was, I do not know how, changed into stone. In any event, they distinguish still the head, the arms, and the body; but he must have been extraordinarily powerful, for this mass is so vast and so high that their arrows cannot reach it. Besides, they believe that in the hollow of this Rock there is a Demon, who is capable of making their journey successful; that is why they stop as they pass, and offer it Tobacco, which they simply put into one of the clefts, addressing to it this prayer, Oki ca ichikhon condayee aenwaen ondayee d'aonstaancwas, etc., "Demon who dwell in this place, here is some Tobacco which I present to you; help us, guard us from shipwreck, defend us from our enemies, and cause that after having made good trades we may return safe and sound to our Village."

They believe that fish are possessed of reason, as also the Deer and Moose; and that is why they do not throw to the Dogs either the bones of the latter when they are hunting, or the refuse of the fish when fishing; if they did, and the others should get wind of it, they would hide themselves, and not let themselves be taken. Every year they marry their nets or Seines to two little girls, who must be only from six to seven years of age, for fear they may have lost their virginity, which is a rare quality among them. The ceremony of these marriages takes place at a fine feast, where the Seine is placed between the two virgins; this is to render them fortunate in catching fish. Still, I am glad that virginity receives among them this kind of honor; it will help us some day to make them understand the value of it. Fish, they say, do not like the dead; and so they abstain from going fishing when one of their friends is dead. But lately, when they took up from the cemetery the bodies of their relatives and carried them into their Cabins, on the occasion of the feast of the dead, some brought into our Cabin their nets, alleging as a pretext the fear they had of fire, for it is usually in this season that fire often ruins entire Villages; that in our Cabin we were almost always moving about, and slept little; that we were at some distance from the Village, and consequently were in less danger in that respect. But all this was talk; the true reason was that they were afraid their nets would be profaned by the proximity of these dead bodies. That is something, but here is the foundation of most of their superstitions.

They have a faith in dreams which surpasses all belief; and if Christians were to put into execution all their divine inspirations with as much care as our Indians carry out their dreams, they would soon become great Saints. They look upon their dreams as ordinances and irrevocable decrees, the execution of which it is not permitted without crime to delay. An Indian of our Village dreamed this winter, in his first sleep, that he ought immediately to make a feast; and immediately, night as it was, he arose, and came and awakened us to borrow one of our kettles.

The dream is the oracle that all these poor Peoples listen to, the Prophet which predicts to them future events, the usual Physician in their sicknesses, the most absolute master they have. If a Captain speaks one way and a dream another, the Captain might shout his head off in vain, the dream is first obeyed. It is their Mercury in their journeys, their domestic Economy in their families. The dream often presides in their councils; trade, fishing, and hunting are undertaken usually under its sanction, and almost as if only to satisfy it. They hold nothing so precious that they would not readily deprive themselves of it for the sake of a dream. If they have been successful in hunting, if they bring back their Canoes laden with fish, all this is at the discretion of a dream. A dream will take away from them sometimes their whole year's provisions. It prescribes their feasts, their dances, their songs, their games; the dream does everything and is the principal God of the Hurons. Besides, let no one think I make here an exaggeration; the experience of five years, during which I have been studying the manners and practices of our Indians, compels me to speak in this way.

All dreams are not held in such credit; regard is had to the persons, and there are some who dream in vain; for these no one will stir a step. Likewise if it is a poor person, his dreams are held in little consideration. It must be a person in fairly good circumstances, and one whose dreams have been found several times true. And even those who have the gift of dreaming well do not all pay attention to their dreams indifferently; they recognize some of them as false and some as true, the true, they say, being quite rare. Yet in practice they act in another way, and carry out some so badly put together, and made up of so many parts having so little connection, that it would not be possible to say what are in their own judgment false, and what true; I fancy they themselves would find considerable difficulty in doing this; that is why, for fear of failing in this point, many carry out most of them. If there be any obscurity in their dreams, or if the things they have dreamed are either impossible or difficult to recover, or are out of season, there are found Artemidores who interpret them, and who cut and slice them as seems good to them.

When children are sick, the fathers or mothers dream for them; we saw an example of this in our Village this winter. One of our little Christians was sick; his mother dreamed that to make him well he must have a hundred cakes of Tobacco, and four Beavers, with which she would make a feast; but, because the Tobacco was rare, the hundred cakes were reduced to ten, and the Beavers which were out of season were changed to four large fish that passed for Beavers in the feast, and the tails of which were given to the principals as Beaver tails. But this little Angel flew away to heaven.

FEASTS, DANCES; THE GAMES OF DISH AND LACROSSE; WHAT THEY CALL ONONHAROIA.

Their dreams usually relate either to a feast, or to a song, or to a dance, or to a game, or, lastly, to a certain sort of mania that they call Ononharoia, or turning the brain upside down. If someone of some consideration falls sick, the Captain goes to inquire so often, on behalf of the Old Men, what he has dreamed that at last he draws from him what he desires for his health, and then they all put themselves to trouble to find it for him; if it does not exist, it must be found. From this mode of acting, and from the fact that they exercise hospitality among themselves gratuitously, taking nothing except from us, from whom they always expect something, I entertain the hope that they will one day become susceptible of Christian charity.

The ononhara is for the sake of mad persons, when someone says that they must go through the Cabins to tell what they have dreamed. Then, as soon as it is evening, a band of maniacs goes about among the Cabins and overturns everything; on the next day they return, crying in a loud voice, "We have dreamed," without saying what. Those of the Cabin guess what it is, and present it to the band, who refuse nothing until the right thing is guessed. You see them come out with Hatchets, Kettles, wampum, and like presents hung around their necks, after their fashion. When they have found what they sought, they thank him who has given it to them; and after having received further additions to this mysterious present, as some leather or a shoemaker's awl, if it were a shoe, they go away in a body to the woods, and there, outside the Village, cast out, they say, their madness; and the sick man begins to get better. Why not? He has what he was seeking for, or what the Devil pretended.

As regards feasts, it is an endless subject; the Devil keeps them so strongly attached to that, he knowing well that it is a means of rendering them still more brutish. They attribute their origin to a certain meeting of Wolves and of the Owl, in which that nocturnal creature predicted for them the coming of Ontarraoura, a beast allied to the Lion, by its tail. This Ontarraoura resuscitated, they say, some good Hunter, a firm friend of the Wolves, in the midst of a great feast. From this they conclude that feasts must be capable of healing the sick, since they even restore life to the dead. Is it not well reasoned for people who are slaves of the belly and of the table?

All their feasts may be reduced to four kinds. Athataion is the feast of farewells. Enditeuhwa, of thanksgiving and gratitude. Atouronta aochien is a feast for singing as well as for eating. Awataerohi is the fourth kind, and is made for deliverance from a sickness therefore named. The ceremonies here are almost like those of the Innus.

I blush to say that they engage in them often whole days and whole nights, for they must, at the last, empty the kettle. And if you cannot, in one day, swallow all that has been provided for you, if you cannot find anyone who will help you in consideration of a present, when the others have done their utmost, you will be left there in a little enclosure, where no one but yourself will enter for twenty-four whole hours. It is a matter of importance, this feasting, they cry, driving away those who present themselves when the game of teeth has begun, and when the distributor has filled for each his bowl, in which usually there is enough to keep one eating from morning until night. And, whoever soonest accomplishes this, it is for him to be served again and again, until the kettle be empty. There are several other traits of gluttony, which I omit out of respect for good taste.

But the most magnificent of these feasts are those they call "Atouronta aochien", that is, singing feasts. These feasts will often last twenty-four entire hours; sometimes there are thirty or forty kettles, and as many as thirty Deer will be eaten. This last winter one was made in the village of Andiatae, of twenty-five kettles, in which there were fifty great fish, larger than our largest Pike in France, and one hundred and twenty others of the size of our Salmon. Another took place at Contarrea, of thirty kettles, in which there were twenty Deer and four Bears. Also there is usually a large company, for eight or nine villages will often be invited, and even the whole Country. In this case, the master of the feast sends to each captain as many sticks as the number of persons he invites from each Village.

Sometimes they make these Feasts purely from display, and to become renowned; at other times, when they take a new name, principally when they raise from the dead, as they say, the name of some deceased Captain who has been held in esteem in the Country for his valor and his skill in the management of affairs, but above all when they are inclined to take arms and go to war. The largest Cabin of the Village is set aside for the reception of the company. They do not hesitate to inconvenience themselves for each other on these occasions. The matter is esteemed of such importance that, when a Village is built, they purposely put up one Cabin much larger than the others, sometimes making it as much as fifty or sixty yards in length.

When the company is assembled, they sometimes begin to sing before eating; sometimes, to have more courage, they eat first. If the feast is to last, as is often the case, the whole day, one portion of the kettles is emptied in the morning and the other is reserved for the evening.

During these songs and dances, some take occasion to knock down, as if in sport, their enemies. Their most usual cries are hen, hen, or heeeee, or else wiiiiiii. They attribute the origin of all these mysteries to a certain Giant of more than human size, whom one of their tribe wounded in the forehead when they dwelt on the shore of the sea, for not having given the complimentary answer, Kwai, which is the usual response to a salute. The monster cast among them the apple of discord, in punishment for his wound; and after having recommended to them war feasts, Ononharoia, and this refrain wiiiiiii, he buried himself in the earth, and disappeared. Might this indeed have been some infernal spirit?

They recognize a sort of war God; they imagine him as a little Dwarf. By what they say, he appears to many when they are on the point of going to war. He caresses some, and that is a sign, they say, that they will return victorious; others he strikes upon the forehead, and these can say that they will not go to war without losing their lives.

Let us return to the feasts. The Aoutaerohi is a remedy which is only for one particular kind of disease, which they call also Aoutaerohi, from the name of a little Demon as large as the fist, which they say is in the body of the sick man, especially in the part which pains him. They find out that they are sick of this disease, by means of a dream, or by the intervention of some Sorcerer. Having one day gone to visit a woman who thought herself sick of Aoutaerohi, when I assigned another cause for her sickness, and laughed at her Aoutaerohi, she began to say, addressing this Demon, Aoutaerohi hechrio Kihenkhon. Aoutaerohi, "Ah, I ask you that this one may know who you are, and that you will make him feel the ills that you make me suffer."

To drive away this Demon, they make feasts that they accompany with songs which few can sing. I might speak of as many different sorts of feasts as there are extravagances in their dreams, for it is usually dreams that decree feasts, and fix, even to the smallest details, the ceremonies that must be observed there. So come those feasts where they vomit, which cause horror to most of them; and yet whoever is invited must resign himself, and resolve to vomit, otherwise the feast will be spoiled.

Sometimes the sick man will dream that the guests must enter by a certain door of the Cabin, and not by the other, or that they must pass only on one side of the kettle, else he will not be healed.

There are as many as twelve kinds of dances that are remedies for sickness; how to know whether this or that is the proper remedy for such and such a disease, only a dream or else the Arendiwane, or Sorcerer, can determine.

Of three kinds of games especially in use among these Peoples, namely, the games of lacrosse, dish, and straw, the first two are, they say, most healing. There is a poor sick man, fevered of body and almost dying, and a miserable Sorcerer will order for him, as a cooling remedy, a game of lacrosse. Or the sick man himself, will have dreamed that he must die unless the whole country shall play lacrosse for his health; and no matter how little may be his credit, you will see then in a beautiful field, Village contending against Village, as to who will play lacrosse the better, and betting against one another Beaver robes and wampum collars, so as to excite greater interest. Sometimes, one of these tricksters will say that the whole Country is sick, and he asks a game of lacrosse to heal it; no more needs to be said, it is publicized immediately everywhere; and all the Captains of each Village give orders that all the young men do their duty in this respect, otherwise some great misfortune would befall the whole Country.

The game of dish is also in great renown in affairs of medicine, especially if the sick man has dreamed of it. This game is purely one of chance: they play it with six plum-stones, white on one side and black on the other, in a dish that they strike roughly against the ground, so that the plum-stones leap up and fall, sometimes on one side and sometimes on the other. The game consists in throwing all white or all black; they usually play Village against Village. All the people gather in a Cabin, and they arrange themselves on poles, arranged as high as the roof, along both sides. The sick man is brought in in a blanket, and that man of the Village who is to shake the dish (for there is only one on each side for the purpose), he walks behind, his head and face wrapped in his garment. They bet heavily on both sides. When the man of the opposite group takes the dish they cry at the top of their voice achinc, achinc, achinc, "three, three, three," or perhaps ioio, ioio, ioio, wishing him to throw only three white or three black. You might have seen this winter a great crowd returning from here to their Villages, having lost their moccasins at a time when there was nearly three feet of snow, -- apparently as cheerful as if they had won.

The most remarkable thing I notice with the game of dish is the preparation they bring to it. There are some who fast several days before playing: the evening before, they all meet together in a Cabin, and make a feast to find out what will be the result of the game. The one chosen to hold the dish takes the stones, and tosses them into a dish, and covers it, so as to prevent anyone from putting his hand into it. That done, they sing; the song over, the dish is uncovered, and the plum-stones are found all white or all black. On this point, I asked an Indian if those against whom they were to play did not do the same on their side, and if they might not find the plum-stones in the same condition. He said they did; "And yet," said I to him, "all cannot win;" to that he did not know what to answer. He informed me also of two remarkable things: in the first place, that they choose, to handle the dish, someone who had dreamed that he would win, or who had a charm; besides, those who have a charm do not conceal it, and carry it everywhere with them: we have, they tell me, one of these in our Village, who rubs the plum-stones with a certain ointment and hardly ever fails to win. Secondly, that in making the attempt, some of the plum-stones disappear, and are found later in the dish with the others.

Among all these fooleries, I dare not speak of the infamies and uncleanness which the Devil makes to slip into them, causing them to see in a dream that they can only be healed by wallowing in all sorts of filth.

WHETHER THERE ARE SORCERERS AMONG THE HURONS.

HERE ARE some conjectures. In the first place, these People are wise enough to seek and to acknowledge something above the senses; and since their lewdness and lust hinder them from finding God, it is easy for the Devil to thrust himself in and to offer them his services in their pressing necessities, causing them to pay him a homage, and having communication with certain more subtle minds, who extend his influence among these poor people.

2. You see nothing more common here than charms; children inherit them from their fathers, if they have been proved good; and they do not make any secret of them. We have an Indian in our Village, surnamed the Fisher, on account of his good fortune in fishing; this man attributes all his success to the ashes of a certain little bird that is called Ohguione, which, according to his statement, penetrates the trunks of trees without resistance. When he goes fishing, he mixes his ashes with a little water, and, having rubbed his nets with them, he feels confident that the fish will enter them in abundance; in fact, he has acquired fame from this.

3. There are among these People men who presume to command the rain and winds; others, to predict future events; others, to find things that are lost; and lastly, others to restore health to the sick, and that with remedies that have no relation to the sicknesses. That they have these gifts from God, nobody will dare to say; that all they do is deception or imagination, hardly accords with the reputation they have acquired, and the length of time they have followed this profession. How is it that, their tricks have not been discovered during so many years, and their business has acquired so much reputation, and been always so well rewarded, if they have -- never succeeded except by sheer imagination? No one dares to contradict them. They are continually at feasts, which take place at their command. There is, therefore, some foundation for the belief that the Devil occasionally gives them assistance, and reveals himself to them for some worldly profit, and for their eternal damnation.

Onditachiae is renowned among the Petun nation, like a Jupiter among the Heathens of former times, from having in hand the rains, the winds, and the thunder. This thunder is, by his account, a man like a Turkey-cock; the Sky is his Palace, and he retires there when it is serene; he comes down to earth to get his Supply of adders and serpents, and of all they call Oki, when the clouds are rumbling; the lightnings occur in proportion as he extends or folds his wings. If the uproar is a little louder, it is his little ones who accompany him, and help him to make a noise as best they can.

Raising the objection to him who told me the tale, "from where, then, came dryness?" he replied that it came from the caterpillars, over whom Ondiaachiae had no power.

And asking him "why the lightning struck trees?"

"It is there," said he, "that it lays in its supply."

"Why does it burn Cabins, why does it kill men?"

Chieske? "How do I know?" he said. That is their refrain when they are driven to the wall.

As regards predicting the future which is not remote, nor hard to know for that reason, I have been assured by Louis de Saint Foy that when they were going to war, one of their tricksters, as he came forth from the Sweat-box, predicted a meeting with the Iroquois at a certain spot. There is probability that the Devil was sentinel for him.

The most famous among these Sorcerers or Deceivers are the Arendiwane, who make it their business to tell a sick man the extent and nature of his sickness, after a feast or a Sweat, and leave him there. True, they prescribe for one a dog feast; for another, that a game of lacrosse or dish should be played; for another, sleep on such and such a skin, and other stupid and diabolical extravagances; another still, an emetic, to make the charm, if there be any, come forth. I saw, when at la Rochelle, a poor woman who threw up a coal as large as one's thumb, after some doses of water; and an Indian assured me that he had seen sand coming forth from all parts of the body of another, who had hectic fever, after his Arendiwane had shaken him as one would shake a sieve.

Formerly these offices of Arendiwane were more valued than they are at present; they have them now at many of the feasts. Time was when it was necessary to fast thirty entire days, in a Cabin apart, without anyone approaching it except a servant, who, to be worthy of carrying wood there, prepared himself for it by fasting. The honors and profits are always great. These poor people, having nothing dearer than this life, knowing nothing of a better, will give their all for the recovery of their health, and to anyone who pretends to help them. They sometimes close our mouths when we wish to undeceive them about this charlatanry, saying, "Do you cure us, then." If some wise and upright Physician would come here, he would perform noble cures for their souls, in relieving their bodies; and I am certain God would take pleasure in saying to him some day, as to Abraham, Ego ero merces tua magna nimis. The miracles of nature are great aids to those of grace, when it pleases the Author of both to employ them.

I relate a part of what has astounded this country for a whole month. An Indian named Ihongwaha dreamed one night that he could become "Arendiwane", that is, a master Sorcerer, provided he could fast thirty days without eating. The next day, when he awoke, he considered this accomplishment so advantageous that he decided to keep this fast strictly. Meanwhile, he was invited to a feast of Aoutaerohi. There are few who can sing to the satisfaction of this Demon; this one is one of the Masters. He allowed himself, at last, to be so carried away, and ate so heartily and sang with so much vehemence that he left the feast with his brain in a sling. See him then with the turtle in his hand, in the most trying season of winter, naked as when he was born, running about in the snow, and singing night and day. Next day -- it was the twenty-eighth of January -- he went to the village of Wenrio, where they made three or four feasts for his health; and he returned from there, as mad as when he went away. Some Indians said we were the cause of this; but the wiser ones remarked that he had mocked when, in explaining the Commandments of God, I had condemned the Aoutaerohi; and they attributed his madness to divine punishment.

On the night of the thirty-first, he dreamed that he must have a Canoe, eight Beavers, two Rays, 120 Gull's eggs, a Turtle, and a man who would adopt him as his son; what a fancy! and yet they must make for him a bandage of all that, to heal his brain. Indeed, he had no sooner recited his dream than the old people of the village met to talk it over. They set about finding what he had asked, with as much care and eagerness as if it had been a question of preserving the whole Country; the Captain's father adopted him as his son, and everything he had dreamed was given up to him, the same day; as for the Gull's eggs, they were changed into as many small loaves, which kept busy all the women of the village. The feast took place in the evening, and all without effect.

On the first of February, there was another feast; I would have liked several Christians to be present at this sight; I am certain they would have been ashamed of themselves, seeing how like these Peoples they act in their carnival follies; these dress and disguise themselves, not so richly, but almost as ridiculously as they do elsewhere. You would have seen some with a sack on the head, pierced only for the eyes; others were stuffed with straw around the middle, to imitate a pregnant woman. Several were naked as the hand, with bodies whitened, and faces as black as Devils, and feathers or horns on their heads; others were smeared with red, black, and white; each adorned himself as extravagantly as he could, to dance this Ballet, and contribute something to the health of the sick man. But I would not forget one notable circumstance. The reports of war were serious; the people were in continual alarms, they expected the Enemy every hour; all the youth had been invited to go to the village of Angwiens to work at a palisade of stakes that was only half-made. The Captain cried in vain, as loudly as he could, enonou eienti ecwarhakhion, "Young men, come." No one stirred, preferring to listen to the sick fool, and to carry out all his wishes.

Another day, he visited us and told us that he had become oki, that is, Demon. This was to rise above the title of Sorcerer, to which alone he aspired; still he was not free from his madness, he must yet dream to free himself from it. He dreamed, therefore, that there was only one certain kind of dance which would make him quite well. They call it akhrendoiaen, as those who take part in this dance give poison to one another. It had never been practiced among this Nation of the Bear. The season was disagreeable, the company large, and it could only create a great deal of disorder in a little Village; all these considerations did not stop them. So couriers are sent immediately in all directions; two weeks pass in assembling the company, which is composed of about eighty persons, including six women; they set off without delay. They think fasting renders their vision wonderfully piercing, and gives them eyes capable of seeing things absent and far removed. There is considerable ground for the belief that our madman had not yet fasted enough, for his sight deceived him thoroughly, and did not help increase his reputation as a Prophet. The troop had not set out when he declared it was 5 miles from the Village.

Having arrived within musket-range, they stopped and began to sing; those of the Village replied. From the evening of their arrival, they danced to get an understanding of the disease; the sick man was in the middle of the Cabin on a mat. The dance being ended, because he had fallen over backward and vomited, they declared him to belong entirely to the Brotherhood of lunatics; and came to the remedy which is usual for this disease. It is the dance they call Otakrendoiae; the Brotherhood they call Atirenda. Never did frenzied Bacchantes of bygone times do anything more furious in their wild parties. It is a question of killing one another here, they say, by charms which they throw at each other, and which are composed of Bears' claws, Wolves' teeth, Eagles' talons, certain stones, and Dogs' sinews. Having fallen under the charm and been wounded, blood pours from the mouth and nostrils, or it is simulated by a red powder they take by stealth; and there are ten thousand other absurdities that I willingly pass over.

The greatest evil is that these wretches, under pretext of charity, often avenge their injuries, and purposely give poison to their patients, instead of medicine. What is remarkable is their experience in healing fractures, in which many others in these regions are also skillful. The most extraordinary superstition is that their drugs and ointments take pleasure in silence and darkness. If they are recognized, or if their secret is discovered, success is not to be expected. The origin of all this folly comes from one named Oatarra, or from a little idol in the form of a doll, which he asked, for the sake of being cured, from a dozen Sorcerers who had come to see him; having put it into his Tobacco pouch, it began to stir there, and ordered the banquets and other ceremonies of the dance, they say. Certainly you have here many silly things, and I am much afraid there may be something darker and more occult in them.

THE HURONS, AND THEIR GOVERNMENT.

I do not claim here to put our Indians on a level with the Chinese, Japanese, and other Nations perfectly civilized, but only to put them above the condition of beasts, to which the opinion of some has reduced them, to give them rank among men, and to show that even among them there is some sort of Political, and Civil life.

They live assembled in Villages, with sometimes as many as fifty, sixty, and one hundred Cabins, that is, three hundred and four hundred households. They cultivate the fields, from which they obtain enough for their support during the year, and they maintain peace and friendship with one another. I certainly believe that there is not under heaven a Nation more praiseworthy in this respect than the Nation of the Bear. Leaving out some evil-minded persons, such as one meets almost everywhere, they have a gentleness almost incredible for Indians. They are not easily annoyed, and if they have received wrong from anyone they often conceal the resentment they feel; at least, one finds here few who make a public display of anger and vengeance. They maintain themselves in this perfect harmony by frequent visits, by help they give one another in sickness, by feasts and by alliances.

When they are not busy with their fields, hunting, fishing, or trading, they are less in their own Houses than in those of their friends; if they fall sick, or desire anything for their health, there is a rivalry as to who will show himself most obliging. If they have something better than usual they make a feast for their friends, and hardly ever eat it alone. In their marriages, there is this remarkable custom, they never marry anyone related in any degree whatever, either direct or collateral; but always make new alliances, which is helpful in maintaining friendship. Besides, by this so common habit of frequent visitation, as they are mostly fairly intelligent, they arouse and influence one another wonderfully; so that there are almost none of them incapable of conversing or reasoning very well, and in good terms, on matters within their knowledge.

The councils held almost every day in the Villages, and on almost all matters, improve their capacity for talking; and although it is the old men who have control there, and upon whose judgment depend the decisions made, yet everyone who wishes may be present, and has the right to express his opinion. Also, the propriety, the courtesy, and the civility which are the charm of ordinary human conversation, are to some extent observed among these Peoples; they call a polite person Aiendawasti. You do not observe among them any of those hand-kissings, compliments, and those vain offers of service which do not pass beyond the lips; but they render certain duties to one another, and preserve certain customs in their visits, dances, and feasts, in which if anyone failed, he would certainly be criticized on the spot; and if he often made such blunders, he would soon become a byword in the village, and would lose all his influence.

When they meet, the only salutation they give is to call the other by name, or say, "my friend, my comrade," -- "my uncle," if it is an old man. If an Indian finds himself in your Cabin when you are eating, and if you present to him your dish, having scarcely touched anything, he will content himself with tasting it, and will hand it back to you. But if you give him a dish for himself, he will not put his hand to it until he has shared it with his companions; and they content themselves usually with taking a spoonful of it. These are little things, but they show that these Peoples are not quite so rude and unpolished as one might suppose.

If laws are like the governing wheel regulating Communities, I am right in maintaining that they have laws. They punish murderers, thieves, traitors, and Sorcerers; and in regard to murderers, although they do not preserve the severity of their ancestors towards them, still the little disorder there is among them in this respect makes me conclude that their procedure is scarcely less effective than is the punishment of death elsewhere; for the relatives of the deceased pursue not only him who has committed the murder, but address themselves to the whole Village, which must give satisfaction for it, and furnish as many as sixty presents, the least of which must be of the value of a new Beaver robe. The Captain presents them in person, and makes a long speech at each present that he offers, so that entire days sometimes pass in this ceremony. There are two sorts of presents; some, like the first nine, which they call andaonhaan, are put into the hands of the relatives to make peace, and to take away from their hearts all bitterness and desire for vengeance that they might have against the person of the murderer. The others are put on a pole, which is raised above the head of the murderer, and are called Andaerraehaan, that is, "what is hung upon a pole." Each of these presents has its particular name.

Here are those of the first nine, which are the most important, and sometimes each one of them consists of a thousand wampum beads.

The Captain, speaking, and raising his voice at the name of the guilty person, and holding in his hand the first present as if the hatchet were still in the death wound, condayee onsahachoutawas, "There," says he, "is something by which he withdraws the hatchet from the wound, and makes it fall from the hands of him who would wish to avenge this injury."

At the second present, condayee oscotaweanon, "There is something with which he wipes away the blood from the wound in the head." By these two presents he signifies his regret for having killed him, and that he would be quite ready to restore him to life, if it were possible.

Yet, as if the blow had rebounded on their Native Land, and as if it had received the greater wounds, he adds the third present, saying, condayee onsahondechari, "This is to restore the Country;"

Condayee onsahondwaronti, etotonhwentsiai, "This is to put a stone upon the opening and the division of the ground that was made by this murder." Metaphor is largely in use among these Peoples; unless you accustom yourself to it, you will understand nothing in their councils, where they speak almost entirely in metaphors. They claim by this present to reunite all hearts and wills, and even entire Villages, which have become estranged. For it is not here as it is in France and elsewhere, where the public and a whole city do not generally support the quarrel of an individual. Here you cannot insult any of them without the whole Country resenting it, and taking up the quarrel against you, and even against an entire Village. So arise wars; and it is a more than sufficient reason for taking arms against some Village, if it refuse to make satisfaction by the presents decreed for him who may have killed one of your friends.

The fifth present is made to smooth the roads and to clear away the brushwood; condayee onsa hannonkiai, that is, so one may go in perfect security over the roads, and from Village to Village.

The four others are addressed immediately to the relatives, to console them in their distress and to wipe away their tears, condayee onsa hoheronti, "See," says he, "here is something for him to smoke," speaking of his father or his mother, or of the one who would avenge his death. They believe that there is nothing so suitable as Tobacco to appease the passions; that is why they never attend a council without a pipe, or calumet, in their mouths. The smoke, they say, gives them intelligence, and enables them to see clearly through the most intricate matters.

Following this present, they make another to restore completely the mind of the offended person, condayee onsa hondionroenkhra.

The eighth is to give a drink to the mother of the deceased, and to heal her as being seriously sick on account of the death of her son, condayee onsa aweannoncwa d'ocweton.

Finally, the ninth is to place and stretch a mat for her, on which she may rest herself and sleep during the time of her mourning, condayee onsa hohiendaen.

These are the principal presents, the others are an increase of consolation, and represent all the things that the dead man would use during life. One will be called his robe, another his belt, another his Canoe, another his paddle, his net, his bow, his arrows, and so on. After this, the relatives of the deceased regard themselves as perfectly satisfied.

Formerly, the parties did not come to terms so easily, and at so little expense; for, besides the public paying all these presents, the guilty person had to endure an indignity and punishment that some will perhaps consider almost as unendurable as death itself. The dead body was stretched upon a scaffold, and the murderer was compelled to remain lying under it and to receive upon himself all the putrid matter which exuded from the corpse; they put beside him a dish of food, which was soon filled with the filth and corrupt blood which little by little fell into it; and merely to get the dish pushed back ever so little would cost him a present of seven hundred wampum beads, which they called hassaendista; as for the murderer, he remained in this position as long as the relatives of the deceased pleased, and, even after all that, to escape it he had to give a rich present called akhiataendista. If, however, the relatives of the dead man avenged themselves for this injury by the death of him who gave the blow, all the punishment fell on them; it was their part also to make presents to those even who were the first murderers, without the first murderers being obliged to give any satisfaction, in order to show how detestable they regard vengeance; since the blackest crimes, such as murder, appear as nothing in comparison with it. Bloody wounds, also, are healed only by means of these presents, such as belts or hatchets, according as the wound is more or less serious.

They also punish Sorcerers severely, that is, those who use poisoning, and cause death by charms; and this punishment is authorized by the consent of the whole Country, so that whoever takes them in the act has full right to cleave their skulls and rid the world of them, without fear of being called to account, or obliged to give any satisfaction for it.

As to thieves, although the Country is full of them, they are not tolerated. If you find anyone possessed of anything that belongs to you, you can in good conscience take what is yours, and besides leave him as naked as your hand. If he is fishing, you can take from him his Canoe, his nets, his fish, his robe, all he has; on such an occasion, the strongest gains the day; such is the custom of the Country, and it certainly holds some to their duty.

Besides having some kind of law maintained among themselves, there is also a certain order established as regards foreign nations. First, concerning commerce; several families have their own private trades, and he is considered Master of one line of trade who was the first to discover it. The children share the rights of their parents in this respect, as do those who bear the same name; no one goes into it without permission, which is given only in consideration of presents; he associates with him as many or as few as he wishes. If he has a good supply of merchandise, it is to his advantage to divide it with few companions, for then he secures all that he desires, in the Country; it is in this that most of their riches consist. But if anyone should be bold enough to engage in a trade without permission from him who is Master, he may do a good business in secret and concealment; but, if he is surprised on the way, he will not be better treated than a thief, he will only carry back his body to his house, or else he must be well accompanied. If he returns with his baggage safe, there will be some complaint about it, but no further prosecution.

Even in wars, where confusion often reigns, they keep some order. They never undertake them without reason; and the commonest reason for their taking arms is when some Nation refuses to give satisfaction for the death of someone, and to furnish the presents required by the agreements made between them; they take this refusal as an act of hostility, and the whole country supports the quarrel; in particular, the relatives of the dead man consider themselves obliged in honor to resent it, and raise a force to attack them. I am not speaking of the leadership they display in their wars, and of their military discipline; that comes better from Sir de Champlain, who is personally acquainted with it, having held command among them. Besides, he has spoken of it fully, as of everything which concerns the manners of these barbarous Nations.

There are some who raise a band of resolute young braves for the purpose of avenging a private quarrel and the death of a friend, rather than for the honor and preservation of the Fatherland, and then, when they seize some of their enemies, they treat them with all the cruelty they can devise. Five or six days will sometimes pass in assuaging their wrath, and in burning them at a slow fire; and they are not satisfied with seeing their skins entirely roasted, they open the legs, the thighs, the arms, and the most fleshy parts, and thrust there glowing brands, or red-hot hatchets. Sometimes, in the midst of these torments, they compel them to sing; and those who have the courage do it, and hurl forth a thousand imprecations against those who torment them. On the day of their death, they must even outdo this, if they have strength; and sometimes the kettle in which they are to be boiled will be on the fire, while these poor wretches are still singing as loudly as they can. This inhumanity is altogether intolerable, and so many do not go willingly to these wicked feasts.

After having at last brained a victim, if he was a brave man, they tear out his heart, roast it on the coals, and distribute it in pieces to the young men; they think that this renders them courageous. Others make an incision in the upper part of their own necks and cause some of the victim's blood to run into it; they say that since they have mingled his blood with their own, they can never be surprised by the enemy, and have always knowledge of their approach, however secret it may be. They put him in the kettle, piece by piece. Although at other feasts the head, whether of a Bear, or a Dog, or a Deer, or a large fish, is the Captain's share, in this case the head is given to the lowest person in the company; indeed some taste of this part, or of all the rest of the body, only with great horror. There are some who eat it with pleasure; I have seen Indians in our Cabin speak with gusto of the flesh of an Iroquois, and praise its good qualities in the same terms as they would praise the flesh of a Deer or a Moose.

For the security of the Country, they surround the principal Villages with a strong palisade of stakes, to withstand a siege. They pay spies in the neutral Nations, and even among their enemies, by means of whom they are secretly warned of all their enemies' plots; they are so well advised and so circumspect on this point that if there be some People with whom they have not entirely broken, they give them the liberty of going and coming in the Country, but for greater assurance, they assign to them special Cabins, to which they must retire; if they found them elsewhere, they would do them grievous harm.

As regards the authority of commanding, all the affairs of the Huron are included under two heads: The first are affairs of State, whatever may concern either citizens or Strangers, the public or the individuals of the Village; as, for example, feasts, dances, games, lacrosse matches, and funeral ceremonies. The second are affairs of war. There are as many sorts of Captains as of affairs. In the large Villages, there will be sometimes several Captains, both of administration and of war, who divide among them the families of the Village as into so many Captaincies. Occasionally there are even Captains to whom these matters of government are referred on account of their intellectual superiority, popularity, wealth, or other qualities which render them influential in the Country. There are none who, by virtue of their election, are of higher rank than others. Those hold the first rank who have acquired it by intellectual preeminence, eloquence, free expenditure, courage, and wise conduct. Consequently, the affairs of the Village are referred principally to that one of the Chiefs who has these qualifications; and the same is true with regard to the affairs of the whole Country, in which the men of greatest ability are the leading Captains, and usually there is one who bears the burden of all; it is in his name that Treaties of Peace are made with foreign Peoples; the Country even bears his name, and now, for example, when one speaks of Anenkhiondic in the Councils of Foreigners, the Nation of the Bear is meant. Formerly only worthy men were Captains, and so they were called Enondecha, the same name by which they call the Country, Nation, district, as if a good Chief and the Country were one and the same thing. But today they do not pay so much attention to the selection of their Captains; and so they no longer give them that name, although they still call them atiwarontas, atiwanens, ondakhienhai, "big stones, the elders, the stay-at-homes." Still, those who hold the first rank are the most highly esteemed and intellectually preeminent. Their relatives are like so many Lieutenants and Councilors.

They reach this degree of honor, partly through succession, partly through election; their children do not usually succeed them, but properly their nephews and grandsons. And the nephews and grandsons do not even come to the succession of these petty Royalties, but only in so far as they have suitable qualifications, and accept the position, and are accepted by the whole Country. Some are found who refuse these honors, sometimes because they have not aptitude in speaking, or sufficient discretion or patience, sometimes because they like a quiet life; for these positions are servitudes more than anything else.

A Captain must always make it a point to be in the field; if a Council is held 12 or 15 miles away for the affairs of the Country, Winter or Summer, whatever the weather, he must go. If there is an Assembly in the Village, it is in the Captain's Cabin; if there is anything to be made public, he must do it; and then the small authority he usually has over his subjects is not a powerful attraction to make him accept this position.

These Captains do not govern their subjects by means of command and absolute power; they have no force at hand to compel them to their duty. Their government is only civil; they represent only what is to be done for the good of the village, or of the whole Country. That settled, he who will, takes action. There are, however, some who know how to secure obedience, especially when they have the affection of their subjects. Some are kept back from these positions by the memory of their ancestors who have badly served their Country. But, if they are received there, it is by force of presents which the Old Men accept in their Assembly and put into the Public coffers. Every year, about Spring, these resurrections of Captains take place, if some special cases do not delay or hurry the matter.

In proof of what I have just said of the intelligence of our Captains, here is a speech, made to me, this Spring, by a Captain named Aenons. He was trying to persuade us to transfer our Cabin to his Village. The Arendaronon Hurons have often invited us; the Attignenonghac Hurons, and the people of the Village of Ossossane, which we call la Rochelle, have pressed us still more; but, if we have regard to pleadings, this Chief will prevail. For more than six months, he has given us no rest; whatever Public affair he may relate to us, he never fails to draw expressly or tacitly this conclusion; but this Spring, he has employed all his Rhetoric to secure our promise. He made to me this speech, but I shall do him wrong to put it here, for I shall not give it the grace it had in the mouth of this Chief; no matter, you will see his ideas, which I have set down almost in their order. See how he began.

"Echon, I have sent for you to learn your final decision. I would not have given you the trouble to come here, had I not been afraid that I should not find at your house the opportunity of speaking to you. Your Cabin is always full of so many people visiting you that it is almost impossible to say anything to you in private; and then, now that we are on the point of assembling to deliberate regarding the establishment of a new Village, this interview might have aroused the suspicions of those who wish to keep you.

"The French have always been attached to me, and have loved me; I have always assisted them in every way I could, and they have not found in all this land a better friend than I. This has not been without incurring the envy of others throughout the Country, who have for a long time regarded me with an evil eye, and have done all they could to prejudice you against me. They have even accused me of the death of Etienne Brule, and immediately after he was killed, when the question of going down to Quebec was discussed, it was said loudly and distinctly that, if I went, I would lose my head. Despite all that, the following year (for that year I went elsewhere to trade) I was not hindered from embarking and going down, supported as I was by my innocence. Besides, if that misfortune had happened and the axe been raised over my head, I should have asked a little time to speak; and I believe I should have so fully cleared myself that I would have compelled him who ordered it either to do a manifest injustice, or to leave me my life. But I had no trouble about it, and those who expected to see me struck down were astonished when they saw the honor that was done me; so astonished were they that some said, since a murderer was so favorably dealt with, the true way to get oneself liked by the French was to cleave someone's head open.

"Echon, we thought that your Village ought to follow ours, and join itself to ours, now that we are on the point of establishing another one elsewhere, and it is not your fault, since the presents you made on this account, last year, were only too well calculated to bring them to this resolution. Still, as far as we can see, it is not necessary to say anything more regarding this, it is a matter quite aside; and lately when I was going to your house to learn your decision, I lost courage; you answered me so coldly that I had almost resolved not to speak to you any more about it.

"Yet the thing is of such importance, as well for your interests as for ours, that I have judged it fitting to speak my feelings about it once more. If you do not answer me clearly today, I shall never more open my lips to you about it. Five of our Villages meet tomorrow, to settle the plan we have of uniting and making only one of them. We have reason to take this resolution, since, if we are at peace this year, we are certain next Spring to have the enemy on our hands. We are only too well informed about them; in the position in which we are now, we should be in trouble, at least for our wives and our children, if necessity should compel us to take arms; but if we are in one good Village, well protected by stakes, our youth will have occasion to show their courage, and we will place our wives and children in safety. On this account, the whole Country turns its eyes upon you; we shall esteem ourselves quite beyond fear, if we have you with us; you have firearms, the mere noise of which is capable of inspiring dread in the enemy, and putting him to flight.

"Besides, these are also your own interests; see in what trouble you are at the least report of war; and then, if any harm is done to you, to whom will you rely on, living in that petty Hamlet where you are? You have no Captain there who will take you under his protection, and cause right to be done you; there is no one to keep the young men within bounds; if corn is lacking to you, who will give orders to provide you with it? for your Village is not capable of furnishing you with a sufficiency of it, and how much trouble it would be to go yourselves in search of it elsewhere. On the other hand, if you were with us, you would lack for nothing; as we shall have asked you to come with us, so we shall be compelled to support you; and in case they should be lax in furnishing you your provisions, I give you my word that I will use all my influence in representing to our people the obligations they are under to you, and I know there is not one of them who will not put himself immediately to work to serve you; in the same way, when the question arises of erecting your Cabin, I shall command all the young men to put their hands to the work, and you will see yourself immediately as well lodged as you can wish in this Country."

He stopped at this point, and told me that he had not yet finished; but he desired that, before proceeding further, I should communicate to one of our Fathers, who was with me, what he had just said. Then he continued in these words:

"Echon, I see well that you were going to say to me that you fear to be further distant from the Lake than you are now; but I give you my word that you will not be as far from it as you might think; and then, even if it were so, how could it inconvenience you? You do not go fishing; the whole Village will go for you. You will have difficulty in embarking your parcels for Quebec? Not at all; there will be nobody in the Village who will not consider himself happy to serve you in this matter. You will not be on the shore of the Lake to receive the parcels sent to you; but what does it matter, since they will be brought all the way to your house? And in case you desire to employ the people of la Rochelle, if they love you, as they must usually pass before the Village we intend to build, they will not give you the trouble to go and seek for them in their Village. Echon, this is what I had to say to you; I ask that I may learn now your final decision, so I may report it to the Council tomorrow."

That is the speech of this Captain; it seemed to me persuasive. In effect, I replied that he laid us under obligations by the affection he showed for us, which he had made apparent on several occasions, but above all on this one; that we were perfectly satisfied with the idea of transporting our Cabin to his Village; that we had intended doing this for a long time, and had only stayed at Ihonatiria as in a Village which was depending on him, and was keeping apart only for a time; but we could not yet resolve to pledge our word unless the Captains of the five Villages which were to meet would promise us, in the first place, in the name of all their subjects, that they would be content to receive the Faith, to believe all that we believe, and to live as we do. I then repeated to him a few of the principal mysteries of our Faith. He listened to me attentively, and promised to make a faithful report of our talk to the Council, -- adding that, so far as he was concerned, he was of a mind to be baptized, and that all in his Cabin were similarly inclined.

The Council took place some days after; this Captain was there. He was asked what was the final sentiment and decision of the French. He replied that we made some objection. They asked him what it was. "They do not wish," he said, "to go to a Village where they will not be certain of having to do with persons who will listen to them, and will do all they teach." To that they replied, "That is well, we are satisfied. He will teach us, and we will do all he desires." They believed the matter so fully concluded that they came to tell us afterward that they were coming for our Cabin to transport it there. But this will not occur this year; the feast of the Dead, they say, has come in the way of this arrangement. Meanwhile, this Chief who is so anxious to have us with him in this new Village, seeing that our Cabin was almost uninhabitable, and that our Village seemed about to be scattered, and fearing in case we should go elsewhere, came to offer us his Cabin at the risk of inconveniencing himself and his whole family. Still, we have judged it best to pass one more Winter where we are, as much to cultivate these new plants we have won for our Lord by means of Baptism, as because we hope the Captains of those Villages who intend to come together, and are now at variance with the rest of the Country, will be able between now and Spring to reunite, and therefore we can more readily take such action without fear of offending anyone, which would be difficult in the present condition of affairs.

This resolution taken, we had to think of repairing and enlarging our Cabin. I broached the matter to the Captain of our Village. He immediately assembled the Old Men, and communicated to them our plan. They were so pleased that they came to us to present their congratulations, for they were afraid from day to day that we were going to leave them.

To encourage them, I gave them a present of a dozen cakes of Tobacco, and some skins. They gave me back the skins, saying that it was their duty to give some to us, and that they were already under sufficient obligation to us, that we helped them every day, in an infinite variety of ways; that if any had need of a knife, or an awl, they had only to come to us, and we gave them to them at once. Besides, these pledges of good will were not mere words, they were followed by good results. They set to work so diligently and worked with so much fervor that they built a new Cabin for us in less than three days. Indeed, no one spared himself; the old people were foremost in the work. Some, forgetting their age, even climbed to the top of the Cabin; others went to seek and prepare plenty of bark to cover it, or worked at setting up the frame of that.

The fervor of the Captain prevented four of us from saying Mass on the last day; for, as soon as it was daylight, he set himself at work; and from the top ridge of the Cabin, where he was, he shouted as loudly as he could, and invited all the youth who were not already awake to come and get to work.

THE ORDER THE HURONS OBSERVE IN THEIR COUNCILS.

I SHALL speak here of the general Councils or Assemblies, the special ones being ordered in almost the same way, although with less display. These General Assemblies are the States-General of the Country, and consequently they take place only so often as necessity requires. The place of these is usually the Village of the principal Captain of the whole Country. The Council Chamber is sometimes the Cabin of this Captain, adorned with mats, or strewn with Fir branches, with several fires, according to the season of the year. Formerly, each one brought his bundle of sticks to put on the fire; this is now no longer the custom, the women of the Cabin take this responsibility; they make the fires, but do not warm themselves there, going outside to give place to the Councilors. Sometimes the assembly takes place in the midst of the Village, if it is Summer; and sometimes also in the obscurity of the forest, apart, when affairs demand secrecy. The time is oftener night than day, whole nights often being passed in council.

The Head of the Council is the Captain who calls it. Matters are decided by a plurality of votes, in which the authority of the Captains draws over many to their views; in fact, the usual way of coming to a decision is to say to the Old Men, "Do you give advice, you are the Masters." The usual wages of these Gentlemen are assigned according to the strength of their arms, to their fervor and good management. If they clear the ground better than the others, hunt better, fish better, if they are successful in trading, they are also richer than the others; but if not, they are the most needy, as experience has shown in the cases of some.

The incidental advantages are, in the first place, the best portions of the feasts, to which they are sure to be invited. 2. When anyone gives a present, they get most of it. 3. When someone, be he Citizen or Stranger, wishes to obtain something from the Country, the custom is to grease the palms of the principal Captains, at whose beck and call all the rest move. The regret that some private individuals have for such irregularities, and the envy of the other Captains who have not been called upon to share the booty, discourage the practice more than they like; they denounce one another, and the mere suspicion of these secret presents stirs up sometimes great debates and divisions, not so much through desire of the public good as from regret at not having a share in them; and this jealousy sometimes hinders good measures. But let us come to the order they keep in their Councils.

In the first place, the Captain, having already consulted in private with the other Captains and Old Men of his Village, and having concluded that the affair warrants a public assembly, sends invitations to the Council, to as many persons of each Village as he desires. The Messengers are young men who volunteer or sometimes an Old Man, so the summons may be more effective, as they do not always put faith in young people. These Messengers address their errand to the principal Captain of the Village, or, in his absence, to the one who is nearest him in authority, stating the day on which they are to assemble. These summons are requests, not commands, and accordingly some excuse themselves entirely, others delay setting out; these assemblies are sometimes tedious, for they do not like to set out in bad weather, and certainly they have enough difficulty in sometimes coming 25 or 30 miles on foot, and this in Winter and over the snow.

All having arrived, they take their seats each in his own quarter of the Cabin, those of the same Village or of the same Nation near one another, to consult together. If someone is absent, the question is raised whether, despite this, the assembly would be legitimate; and sometimes, from the absence of one or two persons, the whole gathering is dissolved, and adjourns until another time. But if all are gathered, or if, despite, they think it their duty to go on, the Council is opened. It is not always the Leaders of the Council who do this; difficulty in speaking, unwillingness, or even their dignity dispenses them from it.

After salutations, and thanks rendered, I do not know to whom, that everyone has arrived without accident, all are urged to deliberate maturely. Then the affair to be discussed is brought forward, and the Councilors are asked to give their advice.

At this point, the Deputies of each Village, or those of one Nation, consult in a low tone as to what they will reply. Then, when they have consulted well together, they give their opinions in order, and decide according to the multiple opinions; there are some things worthy of remark: The first is in the manner of speaking, which, on account of its unlikeness to common speech, has a different name and is called acwentonch; it is common to all Indians; they raise and quaver the voice, like the tones of a Preacher in olden times, but slowly, decidedly, distinctly, even repeating the same reason several times.

The second remarkable thing is that the persons giving their opinions summarize the proposition and all the considerations brought forward, before giving their advice. I once heard it said by some Interpreter that these Nations had a private language in their Councils; but I have learned by experience that this is not so. They have some private terms, as there are in all kinds of arts and sciences. Their speeches are at first difficult to understand, on account of an infinity of Metaphors, of various circumlocutions, and other rhetorical methods: for example, speaking of the Nation of the Bear they will say, "the Bear has said, has done so and so; the Bear is cunning, is bad; the hands of the Bear are dangerous." When they speak of him who conducts the feast of the Dead, they say "he who eats souls;" when they speak of a Nation, they often name only the principal Captain, therefore, speaking of the Innus, they will say, "Atsirond says:" this is the name of one of their Captains. It is in these places they dignify their style of language, and try to speak well. Almost all their minds are naturally of good quality; they reason clearly, and do not stumble in their speeches; and so they make a point of mocking those who trip; some seem to be born orators.

3. After someone has given his opinion the Head of the Council repeats, or causes to be repeated, what he has said; consequently, matters must be clearly understood, so often are they repeated. This was fortunate for me, at the Council of which I have spoken to you, where I gave them a present to encourage them to take the road to Heaven; for one of the Captains felicitously repeated all that I had said, and spoke upon it and amplified it better than I had done, and in better terms; for owing to our limited knowledge of the Language, we say not what we wish, but what we can.

4. Each one ends his advice in these terms, Coxdayauendi Ierhayde cha nonhwicwahachen: that is, "That is my thought on the subject under Discussion," then the whole Assembly responds with a strong respiration drawn from the pit of the stomach, Haau. I have noticed that when anyone has spoken to their liking, this Haau is given forth with much more effort.

The fifth remarkable thing is their great prudence and moderation of speech; I would not say they always use this self-restraint, for sometimes they sting each other, but yet you always remark a singular gentleness and discretion. I have scarcely ever been present at their Councils; but, every time I have been invited, I have come out from them astonished at this feature.

One day, I saw a debate for precedence between two war Captains: An Old Man, who supported the side of one, said that he was on the edge of the grave, and that perhaps on the next day his body would be placed in the Cemetery; but yet he would say what he believed to be justice, not for any interest he had in the matter, but from love of truth: which he did with enthusiasm, though seasoned with discretion. Then another Old Man, beginning to speak, replied to him and said, properly: "Do not speak now of those things, this is no time for them; see the enemy, who is going to attack us; the question is one of arming ourselves and fortifying with one mind our palisades, and not of disputing about rank."

I was particularly astonished at the wise conduct of another Council, at which I was present, which was steeped in a condescending humor and fine words, despite the importance of the questions discussed. This Council was one of the most important that the Hurons have: that is, concerning their feast of the Dead: they have nothing more sacred. The question was a delicate one, for the matter discussed was whether the whole Country should put their dead in the same grave, according to their custom; and yet there were some discontented Villages who wished to remain apart, with the regret of the whole Country. Yet the thing passed over with all the gentleness and peace imaginable: at every turn, the Masters of the Feast, who had assembled the Council, urged gentleness, saying that it was a Council of peace. They call these Councils, Endionraondaone, as if one should say, "A Council even and easy, like the level and reaped fields."

Whatever the speakers say, the Leaders of the Council always say only this, "That is very well." The mutinous persons excused their division, saying that no evil could arise to the Country; that in the past there had been similar divisions, which had not ruined it. The others softened matters, saying that if one of their friends went astray from the true road, they must not immediately abandon him; that brothers sometimes had quarrels with each other. It was a matter for great astonishment to see in these embittered hearts such moderation of words.

THE CEREMONIES THEY OBSERVE IN THEIR BURIALS AND MOURNING.

OUR Indians are not savages as regards the duties that Nature itself forces us to render to the dead. You might say that all their exertions, their labors, and their trading, concern almost entirely the amassing of something with which to honor the Dead. They have nothing sufficiently precious for this purpose; they lavish robes, axes, and wampum in such quantities that, to see them on such occasions, you would judge that they place no value upon them; and yet these are the whole riches of the Country. You will see them often, in the depth of winter, almost entirely naked, while they have handsome and valuable robes in store that they keep in reserve for the Dead; for this is their point of honor.

It is on such occasions they wish above all to appear magnificent. But I am speaking here only of their private funerals. These simple people are not like so many Christians, who cannot endure that anyone should speak to them about death, and who in a mortal sickness put a whole house to trouble to find means of breaking the news to the sick man without hurrying his death. Here, when anyone's health is despaired of, not only do they make no difficulty in telling him that his life is near its close, but they even prepare in his presence all that is needed for his burial; they often show him the robe, the socks, the shoes, and the belt which he is to wear. Frequently they are prepared for burial before they have expired; they make their farewell feast to their friends, at which they sometimes sing without showing any dread of death, which they regard with little concern, considering it only as the passage to a life differing little from this. As soon as the sick man has drawn his last breath, they place him in the position in which he is to be in the grave; they do not stretch him at length as we do, but place him in a crouching posture, almost the same that a child has in its mother's womb.

Thus far, they restrain their tears. After having performed these deities, the whole Cabin begins to resound with cries, groans, and wails; the children cry Aistan, if it be their father; and the mother, Aien, Aien, "My son, my son." Anyone who did not see them, quite bathed in their tears, would judge, to hear them, that these are only ceremonial tears; they make their voices tremble all with one accord, and in a mournful tone, until some person of authority makes them stop. As soon as they cease, the Captain goes promptly through the Cabins, making known that such and such a one is dead. On the arrival of friends, they begin again to weep and complain. Frequently, someone of importance begins to speak, and consoles the mother and the children, at times launching into praises of the deceased, lauding his patience, his good-nature, his liberality, his magnificence, and, if he were a warrior, the greatness of his courage; at times he will say, "What would you have? there was no longer any remedy, he must die, we are all subject to death, and then he dragged on too long," etc. On such occasions, they are never lacking in speech. I have sometimes been surprised to see them dwelling a long time on this subject, and bringing forward, with much discretion, every consideration that might give consolation to the relatives of the deceased.

Word of the death is also sent to the friends who live in the other Villages; and as each family has someone who takes care of its Dead, these come as soon as possible to take charge of everything, and determine the day of the funeral. Usually they inter the Dead on the third day; as soon as it is light, the Captain gives orders that throughout the whole Village a feast be made for the dead. No one spares what he has of the best. They do this for three reasons: First, to console one another, for they exchange dishes, and hardly anyone eats any of the feast he has prepared himself; secondly, on account of those of other Villages, who often come in great numbers. Thirdly, and principally, to serve the soul of the deceased, which they believe takes pleasure in the feast, and in eating its share.

All the kettles being emptied, or at least distributed, the Captain announces throughout the Village that the body is about to be borne to the Cemetery. The whole Village assembles in the Cabin; the weeping is renewed; and those who have charge of the ceremonies get ready a litter on which the corpse is placed on a mat and enveloped in a Beaver robe, and then four lift and carry it away; the whole Village follows in silence to the Cemetery. A Tomb is there, made of bark and supported on four stakes, eight to ten feet high.

However, before the corpse is put into it, and before they arrange the bark, the Captain makes known the presents that have been given by the friends. In this Country, as well as elsewhere, the most agreeable consolations for the loss of friends are always accompanied by presents, such as kettles, axes, Beaver robes, and wampum collars. If the deceased was a person of importance in the Country, not only the friends and neighbors, but even the Captains of other Villages, will come in person and bring their presents. All the presents do not follow the dead man into the grave; sometimes a wampum collar is put around his neck, and near by a comb, a gourd full of oil, and two or three little loaves of bread; and that is all. A large share goes to the relatives, to dry their tears; the other share goes to those who have directed the funeral ceremonies, as a reward for their trouble. Some robes, also, are frequently laid aside, or some hatchets, as a gift for the Youth. The Chief puts into the hand of one of the youth a stick about a foot long, offering a prize to the one who will take it away from him. They throw themselves upon him in a body, and remain sometimes a whole hour struggling. This over, each one returns quietly to his Cabin. Usually, during this whole ceremony, the mother or the wife will be at the foot of the grave calling to the deceased with singing, or more frequently complaining in a mournful voice.

All these ceremonies do not always take place; as for those killed in war, they inter them, and the relatives make presents to their patrons, if they had any, which is rather common in this Country, to encourage them to raise a force of soldiers, and avenge the death of the deceased. As to the drowned, they are interred also, after the most fleshy parts of the body have been taken off, piece by piece. Double the presents are given on such an occasion, and people from the whole Country often gather there, and contribute of their property; and this is done, they say, to appease the Sky, or the Lake.

There are even special ceremonies for little children who die less than a month or two old; they do not put them like the others into bark tombs set up on posts, but inter them on the road, so, they say, if some woman passes that way, they may secretly enter her womb, and that she may give them life again, and bring them forth.

The funeral ceremonies over, the mourning does not cease, the wife continues it the whole year for the husband, and the husband for the wife; but the great mourning properly lasts only ten days. During this time they remain lying on mats and enveloped in furs, their faces against the ground, without speaking or answering anything except Cway, to those who come to visit them. They do not warm themselves even in Winter, they eat cold food, they do not go to the feasts, they go out only at night for their necessities; they cause a handful of hair to be cut from the back of the head; they say this is done only when the grief is profound, the husband practicing this ceremony generally on the death of his wife, or the wife on the death of her husband. This is what there is of their great mourning.

The lesser mourning lasts all the year. When they go visiting, they do not make any salutation, not even saying Cway, nor do they grease their hair; the women do it, however, when their mothers command them, as their mothers have at their disposal their hair, and even their persons; it is their privilege to send the daughters to feasts, for without the command many would not go. What I find remarkable is that, during the whole year, neither the husband nor the wife remarries; if they did, they would be talked about throughout the Country.

The graves are not permanent; as their Villages are stationary only during a few years, while the supplies of the forest last, the bodies only remain in the Cemeteries until the feast of the Dead, which usually takes place every twelve years. Within this time, they continue to honor the dead frequently; from time to time, they make a feast for their souls throughout the whole Village, as they did on the day of the funeral, and revive their names as often as they can. For this purpose, they make presents to the Captains, to give to whoever takes the name of the deceased; and if he was held in consideration and esteem in the Country while alive, the one who resuscitates him, after a magnificent feast to the whole Country, that he may make himself known under this name, enlists the resolute young men and goes away on a war expedition, to perform some daring exploit that shall make it evident to the whole Country that he has inherited not only the name, but also the virtues and courage of the deceased.

THE SOLEMN FEAST OF THE DEAD.

THE feast of the Dead is the most renowned ceremony among the Hurons; they give it the name of feast because, as I shall now fully relate, when the bodies are taken from their Cemeteries, each Captain makes a feast for the souls in his Village, the most considerable and most magnificent having been that of the Master of the Feast, who is for that reason called par excellence, the Master of the feast.

This Feast abounds in ceremonies, but you might say that the principal ceremony is that of the kettle; this overshadows all the rest, and the feast of the Dead is hardly mentioned, even in the most important Councils, except under the name of "the kettle." They appropriate to it all the terms of cookery, so that, in speaking of hurrying or of putting off the feast of the Dead, they will speak of scattering or of stirring up the fire beneath the kettle; and so, one who should say "the kettle is overturned," would mean that there would be no feast of the Dead.

Usually there is only a single feast in each Nation; all the bodies are put into a common pit. I say usually, for this year, which has happened to be the feast of the Dead, the kettle has been divided; and five Villages of the part where we are have acted by themselves, and have put their dead into a private pit. He who was Captain of the preceding feast, and who is regarded as the Chief of this place, has given as an excuse that his kettle and his feast had been spoiled, and that he had to make another; but this was only a pretext. The principal cause of this separation is that the notables of this Village have been complaining this long time that the others take everything upon themselves; that they do not become acquainted as they would like with the affairs of the Country; that they are not called to the most secret and important Councils, and to a share of the presents. This division has been followed by distrust on both sides.

Twelve years or so having elapsed, the Old Men and Notables of the Country assemble, to deliberate in a definite way on the time at which the feast shall be held to the satisfaction of the whole Country and of the foreign Nations that may be invited to it. The decision having been made, as all the bodies are to be transported to the Village where is the common grave, each family sees to its dead, but with a care and affection that cannot be described: if they have dead relatives in any part of the Country, they spare no trouble to go for them; they take them from the Cemeteries, bear them on their shoulders, and cover them with the finest robes they have. In each Village they choose a fair day, and proceed to the Cemetery, where those called Aiheonde, who take care of the graves, draw the bodies from the tombs in the presence of the relatives, who renew their tears and feel afresh the grief they had on the day of the funeral. I was present at the spectacle, and willingly invited to it all our servants; for I do not think one could see in the world a more vivid picture or more perfect representation of what man is. In France, our Cemeteries preach powerfully, and that all those bones piled up one upon another without discrimination, those of the poor with those of the rich, those of the mean with those of the great, are so many voices continually proclaiming to us the thought of death, the vanity of the things of this world, and contempt for the present life: but what our Indians do touches us still more, and makes us see more sensibly our wretched state. For, after having opened the graves, they display before you all these Corpses, on the spot, and they leave them therefore exposed long enough for the spectators to learn at their leisure, and once for all, what they will be some day.

The flesh of some is quite gone, and there is only parchment on their bones; in other cases, the bodies look as if they had been dried and smoked, and show scarcely any signs of putrefaction; and in still other cases they are still swarming with worms. When the friends have gazed upon the bodies to their satisfaction, they cover them with handsome Beaver robes quite new: finally, after some time they strip them of their flesh, taking off skin and flesh, which they throw into the fire along with the robes and mats in which the bodies were wrapped. As regards the bodies of those recently dead, they leave these in the state in which they are, and content themselves by simply covering them with new robes. Of the recently dead, they handled only one Old Man, who died this Autumn on his return from fishing: this swollen corpse had only begun to decay during the last month, on the occasion of the first heat of Spring; the worms were swarming all over it, and the corruption that oozed out of it gave forth an almost intolerable stench; and yet they had the courage to take away the robe in which it was enveloped, cleaned it as well as they could, taking the matter off by handfuls, and put the body into a fresh mat and robe, and all this without showing any horror at the corruption. After that, who will be afraid of the stench of a Hospital; and who will not take a peculiar pleasure in seeing himself at the feet of a sick man all covered with wounds?

As they had to remove the flesh from all these corpses, they found in the bodies of two a kind of charm, one, that I saw myself, was a Turtle's egg with a leather strap; and the other, which our Fathers handled, was a little Turtle the size of a nut. These excited the belief that they had been bewitched, and that there were Sorcerers in our Village, from where came the resolution to some to leave at once; indeed, two or three days later one of the richest men, fearing that some harm would come to him, transported his Cabin to a place 5 miles from us, to the Village of Arontaen.

The bones having been well cleaned, they put them partly into bags, partly into fur robes, loaded them on their shoulders, and covered these packages with another beautiful hanging robe. As for the whole bodies, they put them on a species of litter, and carried them with all the others, each into his Cabin, where each family made a feast to its dead.

Returning from this feast with a Captain who is intelligent, and who will some day be influential in the affairs Of the Country, I asked him why they called the bones of the dead Atisken. He gave me the best explanation he could, and I gathered from his conversation that many think we have two souls, both of them being divisible and material, and yet both reasonable; the one separates itself from the body at death, yet remains in the Cemetery until the feast of the Dead, after which it either changes into a Turtledove, or, according to the most common belief, it goes away at once to the village of souls. The other is bound to the body, and informs the corpse; it remains in the ditch of the dead after the feast, and never leaves it, unless someone bears it again as a child. He pointed out to me, as a proof of this metamorphosis, the perfect resemblance some have to persons deceased. It shows why they call the bones of the dead, Atisken, "the souls."

A day or two before setting out for the feast, they carried all these souls into one of the largest Cabins of the Village, where one portion was hung to the poles of the Cabin, and the other portion spread out through it; the Captain entertained them, and made them a magnificent feast in the name of a deceased Captain, whose name he bore. I was at this feast of souls, and noticed at it four peculiar things. First, the presents which the relatives made for the feast, and which consisted of robes, wampum collars, and kettles, were strung on poles along the Cabin, on both sides. Secondly, the Captain sang the song of the deceased Captain, in accordance with the desire the deceased Captain had expressed, before his death, to have it sung on this occasion. Thirdly, all the guests had the liberty of sharing with one another whatever good things they had, and even of taking these home with them, contrary to the usual custom of feasts. Fourthly, at the end of the feast, by way of compliment to him who had entertained them, they imitated the cry of souls, and went out of the Cabin crying haee, hae.

The master of the feast, and even Anenkhiondic, chief Captain of the whole Country, sent several pressing invitations to us. You might have said that the feast would not have been a success without us. I sent two of our Fathers, several days beforehand, to see the preparations and to learn with certainty the day of the feast. Anenkhiondic gave them a hearty welcome, and on their departure guided them himself a half mile from there, where the pit was, and showed them, with great demonstrations of regard, all the preparations for the feast.

The feast was to take place on the Saturday of Pentecost; but some affairs that intervened, and the uncertainty of the weather, caused it to be postponed until Monday. The seven or eight days before the feast were spent in assembling the souls, as well as the Strangers who had been invited; meanwhile, from morning until night, the living were continually making presents to the youth, in consideration of the dead. On one side, the women were shooting with the bow for a prize, a Porcupine girdle, or a collar or string of wampum beads; elsewhere in the Village, the young men were shooting at a stick to see who could hit it. The prize for this victory was an axe, some knives, or even a Beaver robe.

From day to day the souls arrived. It is interesting to see these processions, sometimes of two or three hundred persons; each one brings his souls, that is, his bones, done up in parcels on his back, under a handsome robe, in the way I have described. Some had arranged their parcels in the form of a man, ornamented with wampum collars, and elegant bands of long red fur. On setting out from the Village, the whole band cried out haee, hae, and repeated this cry of the souls on the way. This cry they say relieves them; otherwise the burden of souls would weigh heavily on their backs, and cause them a backache all the rest of their lives. They go short journeys; our Village was three days in going 10 miles to reach Ossossane, which we call la Rochelle, where the ceremonies were to take place. As soon as they arrive near a Village, they cry again haee, hae. The whole Village comes to meet them; plenty of gifts are given on such an occasion. Each has his rendezvous in one of the Cabins, all know where they are to lodge their souls, so it is done without confusion. At the same time, the Captains hold a Council, to discuss how long the band shall stay in the Village.

All the souls of eight or nine Villages had reached la Rochelle by the Saturday of Pentecost; but the fear of bad weather compelled them to postpone the ceremony until Monday. We were lodged a half mile away, at the old Village, in a Cabin where there were fully a hundred souls hung upon the poles, some of which smelled a little stronger than perfume.

On Monday, about noon, they came to inform us that we should be ready, for they were going to begin the ceremony; they took down the packages of souls; and the relatives again unfolded them to say their last goodbyes; the tears flowed afresh. I admired the tenderness of one woman toward her father and children; she is the daughter of a Chief who died at an advanced age, and was once influential in the Country; she combed his hair and handled his bones, one after the other, with as much affection as if she would have desired to restore life to him; she put beside him his "Atsatonewai", that is, his package of Council sticks, which are all the books and papers of the Country. As for her little children, she put on their arms bracelets of wampum and glass beads, and bathed their bones with her tears; they could scarcely tear her away from these, but they insisted, and it was necessary to depart immediately. The one who bore the body of this old Captain walked at the head; the men followed, and then the women, walking in this order until they reached the pit.

Let me describe the arrangement of this place. It was about the size of the place Royale at Paris. There was in the middle of it a great pit, about ten feet deep and ten yards wide. All around it was a scaffold, a sort of staging, very well made, nine to twenty yards in width, and from nine to ten feet high; above this staging there were a number of poles laid across, and well arranged, with cross-poles to which these packages of souls were hung and bound. The whole bodies, as they were to be put in the bottom of the pit, had been the preceding day placed under the scaffold, stretched upon bark or mats fastened to stakes about the height of a man, on the borders of the pit.

The whole company arrived with their corpses about an hour after Midday, and divided themselves into different groups, according to their families and Villages, and laid on the ground their parcels of souls, almost as they do earthen pots at the Village Fairs. They unfolded also their parcels of robes, and all the presents they had brought, and hung them upon poles, which were from 1100 or 1300 yards in extent; so there were as many as twelve hundred presents which remained therefore on exhibition two full hours, to give Strangers time to see the wealth and magnificence of the Country. I did not find the company as numerous as I had expected; if there were two thousand persons, that was about all. About three o'clock, each one put away his various articles, and folded up his robes.

Meanwhile, each Captain by command gave the signal; and all, at once, loaded with their packages of souls, running as if to the assault of a town, ascended the Stage by means of ladders hung all round it, and hung them to the cross poles, each Village having its own department. That done, all the ladders were taken away; but a few Chiefs remained there and spent the rest of the afternoon, until seven o'clock, in announcing the presents which were made in the name of the dead to certain specified persons.

"This," said they, "is what such and such a dead man gives to such and such a relative." About five or six o'clock, they lined the bottom and sides of the pit with fine large new robes, each of ten Beaver skins, in such a way that they extended more than a foot out of it. As they were preparing the robes which were to be employed for this purpose, some went down to the bottom and brought up handfuls of sand. I asked what this ceremony meant, and learned that they have a belief that this sand renders them successful at play. Of those twelve hundred presents that had been displayed, forty-eight robes served to line the bottom and sides of the pit; and each, entire body, besides the robe in which it had been enveloped, had another one, and sometimes even two more, to cover it. That was all; so that I do not think each body had its own robe, one with another, which is surely the least it can have in its burial; for what winding sheets and shrouds are in France, Beaver robes are here. But what becomes then of the remainder? I will explain, in a moment.

At seven o'clock, they let down the whole bodies into the pit. We had the greatest difficulty in getting near; nothing has ever better pictured for me the confusion there is among the damned. On all sides you could have seen them letting down half-decayed bodies; and on all sides was heard a horrible din of confused voices of persons who spoke and did not listen; ten or twelve were in the pit and were arranging the bodies all around it, one after another. They put in the middle of the pit three large kettles, which could only be of use for souls; one had a hole through it, another had no handle, and the third was of scarcely more value. I saw few wampum collars; they Put many on the bodies. This is all that was done on this day.

All the people passed the night on the spot; they lighted many fires, and slung their kettles. We withdrew for the night to the old Village, with the resolve to return the next morning, at daybreak, when they were to throw the bones into the pit; but we could hardly arrive in time, although we made great haste, on account of an accident that happened. One of the souls, which was not securely tied, or was perhaps too heavy for the cord that fastened it, fell of itself into the pit; the noise awakened the company, who immediately ran and mounted in a crowd upon the scaffold, and emptied indiscriminately each package into the pit, keeping, however, the robes in which they were enveloped. We had only just set out from the Village, but the noise was so great that it seemed almost as if we were there. As we drew near, we saw nothing less than a picture of Hell. The large space was full of fires and flames, and the air resounded in all directions with the confused voices of these Indians; the noise ceased, however, and they began to sing, but in voices so sorrowful and mournful that it represented to us the horrible sadness into which these unhappy souls are forever plunged.

There were five or six in the pit, arranging the bones with poles. The pit was full, within about two feet; they turned back over the bones the robes which bordered the edge of the pit, and covered the remaining space with mats and bark. Then they heaped the pit with sand, poles, and wooden stakes, which they threw in without order. Some women brought to it some dishes of corn; and that day, and the following days, several Cabins of the Village provided nets quite full of it, which were thrown upon the pit.

We have fifteen or twenty Christians interred with these Infidels; we said for their souls a De profundis, with a strong hope that, if divine goodness does not stop the course of its blessings upon these Peoples, this feast will cease, or will only be for Christians, and will take place with ceremonies as sacred as the ones we saw are foolish and useless; they are even now beginning to be a burden to them, on account of the excesses and superfluous expenses connected with them.

The whole morning was passed in giving presents; and most of the robes in which the souls had been wrapped were cut into pieces, and thrown from the height of the Stage into the midst of the crowd, for anyone who could get them; it was amusing when two or three got hold of a Beaver skin, since, as none of them would give way, it had to be cut into so many pieces, and therefore they found themselves almost empty-handed, for the fragment was scarcely worth the picking up. In this connection, I admired the ingenuity of one Indian, he did not put himself to any trouble to run after these flying pieces, but, as there had been nothing so valuable in this Country, this year, as Tobacco, he kept some pieces of it in his hands which he immediately offered to those who were disputing over a skin, and therefore settled the matter to his own advantage.

Before going away from the place, we learned that, during the night, when they had made presents to outside Nations on behalf of the master of the feast, our names had been mentioned. And indeed, as we were going away, Anenkhiondic came to present to us a new robe of ten Beaver skins, in return for the wampum collar that I had given them as a present in open Council, to open for them the way to heaven. They had felt themselves under such obligations for this gift that they desired to show some gratitude for it in so great an assembly. I did not accept it, however, telling him that, as we had only made this present to lead them to embrace our faith, they could not render us greater service than by listening to us willingly, and believing in him who made all things. He asked me then what I desired he should do with the robe; I replied that he might dispose of it as seemed good to him, and he remained perfectly satisfied.

As to the rest of the twelve hundred presents, forty-eight robes were used in adorning the pit. Each whole body had its robe, and some had two or three. Twenty were given to the master of the feast, to thank the Nations which had taken part there. The dead distributed a number of them, by the hands of the Captains, to their living friends; some served only for show, and were taken away by those who had exhibited them. The Old Men and the notables of the Country, who had the administration and management of the feast, took possession secretly of a considerable quantity; and the rest was cut in pieces and ostentatiously thrown into the midst of the crowd. However, it is only the rich who lose nothing, or little, in this feast. The middle classes and the poor bring and leave there whatever they have most valuable, and suffer much, so not to appear less liberal than the others in this celebration. Everyone makes it a point of honor. We narrowly escaped not being present at the feast.

During this Winter the Captain Aenons came to us to make an overture on behalf of the Old Men of the whole Country. At that time, the kettle was not yet divided. They asked, therefore, if we would be satisfied to raise the bodies of our two Frenchmen who died in this part of the Country, Guillaume Chaudron, and Etienne Brule, who was killed four years ago, so their bones might be put in the common grave with their dead. We answered, first of all, that that could not be, that it was forbidden to us; that, as they had been baptized and were in heaven, we respected their bones too much to permit them being mingled with the bones of those who had not been baptized; and that it was not our custom to raise the bodies. We added that as they were interred in the woods and as they desired it so much, we would raise their bones if they would grant us permission to put them into a private grave, along with the bones of all those we had baptized in the Country.

This Chief found our proposition reasonable, and the Elders of the Country were pleased with it. Later, the kettle was divided, and five Villages of the part where we are, resolved to have their feast by themselves.

In the Spring, a general Assembly of the Notables of the whole Country took place, to consider everything connected with this feast, to attempt to heal this schism, and to reunite the kettle. The disaffected ones were there, and I was invited also. The same proposition was made to me; I replied that we would be quite satisfied provided the conditions we had asked should be fulfilled. They referred to the division of the kettle, and asked me, since there were two kettles, that is, two pits, with which did I desire our private grave to be. To this I answered, so not to offend anyone, that I referred the matter to their judgment; that they were good and wise, and could talk over the affair among themselves. The Master of the feast of la Rochelle then said, condescendingly, that so far as he was concerned, he claimed nothing; that he was perfectly satisfied that the other, who is the Chief at this place, should have on his side the bodies of our two Frenchmen. The other replied that he laid no claim to him who had been buried at la Rochelle; but, as for the body of Etienne Brule it belonged to him, since he had embarked him and brought him into the Country; and therefore the bodies were divided, one on one side, one on the other. Then someone said, in an undertone, that he was quite right in asking the body of Etienne Brule -- that it was reasonable that they should render honor to his bones, since they had killed him. This was not said so discreetly as not to be heard by the Captain; he disguised his feelings, however, for the time being. After the Council, when we had left, he took notice of the reproach, and had high words with the Captain of la Rochelle; and finally ceased to lay any claim to the body of Brule, in order not to irritate and reopen this wound, from which those of this part have not yet purged themselves.

We would have had much difficulty in deciding to make a private Grave, and in transporting to consecrated Ground a dead man that had lived so scandalous a life in the Country, and had given to the Indians so bad an impression of the morals of the French. At first, some felt annoyed that we did not join in the feast, and were offended, saying to us that our action prevented them from boasting, as they had hoped, to strange Tribes that they were relations of the French; and they were afraid they would say that the friendship was only in appearance, since we had not allowed the bones of our Frenchmen to mingle with theirs. Afterward, however, when they had heard all our reasons, they thought we had acted prudently, and that it was the true way to maintain friendship with both parties.

I made mention last year of twelve Nations, all being settled and populous and who understand the tongue of our Hurons; and our Hurons make, in twenty Villages, about thirty thousand people. If the remainder is in proportion, there are more than three hundred thousand of the Huron tongue alone. God gives us influence among them, causes us to be held in estimation, makes us so much loved that we do not know to whom to listen, so eager is everyone to have us.

From the Residence of St. Joseph in the Huron Country, at the Village called Ihonatiria, this 16th of July, 1636.

Jean De Brebeuf.

LETTER OF FATHER JEAN DE BREBEUF TO THE REVEREND FATHER MUTIUS VITELLESCHI, GENERAL OF THE JESUITS, AT ROME. 1636

Reverend Father,

The Hurons live in towns, not wandering about after the manner of wild animals, or even like many other Indians. They have in all twenty towns, some of which are enclosed by strong wooden walls. They change their abode sometimes -- certainly when there is no longer sufficient wood for their fires, or when the land, long tilled, produces scanty crops. For they cultivate the fields, from which they gather Indian corn, the grain which some call Turkish, abundance of excellent pumpkins, and also tobacco. All this region abounds in game and fish; and so the Hurons have at hand the means of supplying food, if not luxurious, yet adequate and healthful; and they sell to others. They are not so uncivilized as not to be endowed with excellent sense and judgment; and this is true of almost all of them. As for the mysteries of our faith, although these are entirely new to their ears, they yet do not deny them, or mock or scorn them; nay, rather they wonder, praise, and approve, though without keeping them long before their minds. They all have but one answer -- "Such is not our custom; your world is different from ours; the God who created yours," they say, "did not create ours."

Only three fathers of our Jesuits were here last year, but this year there are five. We have enjoyed great peace with all men, and health so complete that it is almost a miracle to the Indians, and convinces them that the God whom we worship is the best -- especially since hardly one of the Indians escaped last year the infection of a certain plague, by which many were destroyed. Two of the Fathers who are here, Father Antoine Daniel and Father Ambroise Davost, are to go back to Quebec and take with them some picked young men of the Hurons, to make the beginning of a seminary. We expect 2 or 3 other Fathers in their place, and request still others for the following year, for now there is need of laborers -- not to reap, but to sow, or rather to learn the language, so the word of God may be sown. For, if they are not versed in the language, they cannot sow, much less reap. I have tolerable skill in that language, but the others who are here are proficient. Among the other jewels with which the laborer in this mission ought to shine, gentleness and patience must hold the first rank; and never will this field produce fruit except through mildness and patience; for one should never expect to force it by violent and arbitrary action.

All, surely, who are here are zealously striving towards perfection; I alone, as it seems to me, am feeble, to my own great disadvantage.

From the residence of St. Joseph, among the Hurons, Canadian peoples, at the village of Ihonatiria.

J. De Brebeuf.

YEAR 1637
LETTER OF FATHER JEAN DE BREBEUF TO THE REVEREND FATHER MUTIUS VITELLESCHI, GENERAL OF THE JESUITS, AT ROME. 1637.

Reverend Father,

Two things occurred this year, which somewhat checked the progress of the gospel. The first was a disease, of unknown origin, which eight months ago spread through several villages, and caused the death of many. Of us who labor here, six priests, and the four lay brothers then with us, we saw seven confined to their beds at the same time, and near to death. The same divine goodness has restored us all to our former health and strength, in which we still continue. But our Hurons sought remedies for their diseases, sufficient for this present life, with so distressful anxiety that they scarcely lent ear to us who admonished them concerning the life eternal. No one would have refused, if we had promised health. But many, on account of their desire for this life, wretchedly lost both.

The second obstacle arose from the tales spread among the people, by followers of the devil, that our Frenchmen, and we in particular, were the cause of this disease, and that our sole purpose in coming to their country was to cause their destruction. All this not only estranged several villages from us for a time, but also caused a determination on the part of some to remove us from their midst, as being dangerous to the common good. Those false reports have all finally ceased. We are gladly heard, we have baptized more than two hundred this year, and there is hardly a village that has not invited us to go to it. Besides, the result of this disease and of these reports has been to make us better known to this people; and at last it is understood, from our actions and from our truths of religion, that we have not come here to buy skins or carry on any trade, but solely to teach them and win them to Christ, and to procure for them their souls' health, and finally everlasting and immortal life.

We are now building a new house in this village, which we call La Rochelle, the Indians call it Ossossane, a populous town, where the disease was especially severe, where we have always been kindly welcomed and heard, and where they long for us. This house will be called the Residence of the Immaculate Conception. We plan, even this year, to send two of our number to that Huron nation that is called Attignenonghac, to establish there these men, and later a residence, if a prospect of some success shall appear. I believe those at Quebec report about the seminary of the Hurons begun there, in which five young men have spent the past winter. We shall now send others there, and look for aid from that quarter in binding the Huron people closely to us and to Christ. And so the faith gathers its harvest, but in toil, vigils, sorrows, and patience. Long must be the time of clearing, long the time of sowing; and afterward comes the reaping. Although now, in the beginning, we sow the seed with tears and sighs, yet some day "venientes veniemus cum exultatione portantes manipulos nostros."

The Fathers with whom I am associated are Father Francois Mercier, Father Pierre Pijart, Father Pierre Chastellain, Father Charles Garnier, and Father Isaac Jogues. These are in every way extraordinary workers. So persistent and studious are they all that in only one or two years they have gained a wonderful proficiency in a language still rude and not reduced to grammatical rules; however, in this regard Father Charles Garnier ranks first, I think.

Jean De Brebeuf

From the residence of St. Joseph, among the Hurons, in the village of Ihonatiria. May 20, 1637.

Since the time of writing the above, the new residence of the Conception has been finished; and we began to live there on June 9th. It is wonderful with what good will and applause of the whole village we were received. Later, on the day sacred to the holy Trinity, we purified by baptism, and that with solemn ceremony, a man aged fifty years; he is well instructed and long proved. He is of great repute, influence, and esteem -- the first adult man baptized in health; and through his example, some have already come and requested that we should baptize them.

Also at the Residence of St. Joseph, June 16, 1637.

NEW FRANCE IN 1637. SENT TO THE REVEREND FATHER PROVINCIAL OF THE JESUITS IN THE PROVINCE OF FRANCE. BY FATHER PAUL LE JEUNE OF THE JESUITS, SUPERIOR OF THE RESIDENCE OF QUEBEC. ROUEN, JEAN LE BOULLENGER, NEAR THE COLLEGE OF THE JESUIT FATHERS.

THE GOOD CONDUCT OF OUR FRENCH.

I do not believe there is any land which produces heads of wheat after having received only thistle seeds. Yet this miracle happens quite often in New France.

Every year the ships bring us many people who come to increase our Colony; this number, like coin, is of mingled gold and base alloy; it is composed of choice and well-selected souls, and of others base and degraded.

The Festival of Saint Joseph, Protector of New France, is one of the great solemnities of this country. On the eve of this day, the Flag was hoisted, and the cannon fired. The Governor had an exhibition of fireworks, as artistically devised as almost any I have seen in France; on one side a skin was stretched, upon which appeared, in illuminated letters, the name of saint Joseph; above this sacred name burned a number of lighted candles from which sprang eighteen or twenty little serpents, which performed wonders. Behind this first contrivance had been placed fourteen large rockets, which were sent up, one after the other, to the astonishment of the French and still more of the Indians, who had never before seen anything of the kind. They wondered at the rain of gold, or of fire, and at the stars which descended from far above, the fire of the rockets shooting straight upward, then curving around, and all the time high in the air.

Nearby, they had built a little castle, very well proportioned, and adorned with diverse colors; it was flanked by four small towers filled with lighted candles, which showed all this little battery in full view. Around this piece of mechanism there were sixteen large rods enveloped in fuses. At its four corners were seen four spinning wheels, and another larger one above the castle, which revolved around a cross of fire, lighted by a number of burning candles, which made it look as if covered with diamonds. Besides this, there had been placed around this fortress, at equal distances, four large cylinders, from where could be seen springing forth thirteen dozen serpents, darting out six at a time, and at regular intervals; and four dozen rockets, which were to ascend twelve at a time.

Sir Bourdon had constructed this contrivance, and Sir de Beaulieu had manufactured the fireworks. Towards evening the Governor, and Sir Marc Bras-De-Fer, and all our Gentlemen emerged from the fort and came near the Church, to the place selected for these fireworks. All the inhabitants of New France, in the vicinity of Quebec, were present at this rejoicing. The shades of night had covered the sky and the earth, when Sir de Beaulieu presented a lighted brand to the Governor, who set on fire the device, having it explained to the Indians, especially to the Hurons, that the French were more powerful than Demons, that they commanded the fire; and that, if they wished to burn the villages of their enemies, they could soon do it.

We have spoken of God in his house in the Latin, French, Innu, and Huron tongues.

The ships had left us two persons of the Protestants. They have come over to the truth of the Catholic Church.

I have here a request to make, of all those who wish to express an opinion of the condition of our colony, to close their eyes while the ships are at anchor in our ports, and to open them at their departure, to the agreeable sight of our countrymen. They wish to make merry, and they fall into excesses; their good habits grow drowsy, and vice begins to try to raise its head; there is a greater indulgence in drink and feasting during that time than in all the rest of the year. Those who have just arrived and who have read in the Reports that everything is done here in an orderly way, seeing some immorality, readily condemn us, and perhaps insert in the letters they write to France the sentence of our condemnation.

When the fleet has departed, how those who have taken too much liberty recognize their shortcomings! Then those who thought that lawlessness reigned in our Colony, joyfully praise its piety, provided they are not terrified and do not cry out that all is lost when they see, now and then, the misdeeds of a few individuals. For although I praise our French people of New France, I do not deny that we have some who are weak and diseased. I know there are loose fellows who scandalize the Indians through their brutish language. These Indians say to me quite often, "You say one must not steal, and yet your French have taken from us such and such things; you say drunkards will go into the fires of hell, then such and such a one will be damned, for he is always drunk." But these are the faults of few persons, and of those of no consequence. All those who hold an honorable position here do not fall into these excesses, which are covered and hidden by the night, for they would not dare to show themselves openly.

THE INDIANS WHO HAVE RECEIVED BAPTISM.

OUR Indians are always savage, they resemble the migratory birds of their own country. In one season turtledoves are sometimes found in such abundance that the end of their army cannot be seen when they are flying in a body; at other times in the same season they appear only in small flocks. It is the same with many other birds, with fish, and with land animals, they vary according to the year. Our Indians are like them in this inconstancy. Sometimes they come in a body, sometimes singly.

Last year we baptized about one hundred Indians; this year, we have baptized more than three hundred in all, including those among the Hurons, at Quebec, and at the Three Rivers.

On the 5th of November, we baptized an adult Indian, about forty-five years old, named in his own language Chibanagouch. Sir Olivier was his godfather also, and gave him the name Paul. He was loved by those of his nation, not only because he was one of the principal persons among them, but because he was a good warrior and a bold man. He fell sick while on his return from Acadia; and as I saw him wasting away every day, I approached him several times to speak to him about God, but in vain; his heart, filled with pride, could not make room for the truth; he hated his enemies with rage and fury. Having seen an Iroquois, who had been brought to Quebec, enter his cabin, he raised himself, sick as he was, threw himself upon this poor man as a Mad dog falls upon some other animal, and savagely bit off his ear.

On the 5th of January, two little Indian girls were solemnly baptized in the Church of the great convent of the Carmelites of Paris. The fleet which returned last year from our ports took five Indians from this country, a young Iroquois woman, a little boy, and three little Innu girls. This young Iroquois woman lives in the house of Madame de Combalet, who sometimes takes the trouble herself to instruct her in the faith of Jesus Christ; if virtue should so take possession of her heart that she should be fitted to return with the Nuns, she would be of great service to them; for she would teach the little Indian girls to plant Indian corn. But it would be desirable for her to be put in a place where she can devote herself to gardening, otherwise, having too long tasted the sweet rest of a great house, she would afterward shun labor. As to the little boy, I am assured that he is in a good place; I hope that, after he has been well brought up, he will some day be sent to aid his countrymen.

On the 28th of February, Sir Gand was sponsor to an Indian woman and named her Anne in baptism. As I expressed some surprise at the long resistance she had made to us, a young Indian told me that I should not be astonished at it, that many of their nation had this idea, that baptism is injurious to life, but that it is a good thing with which to protect oneself from the fires with which we threaten them. So this is why some do not consent to be baptized until they have lost all hope of being able to recover their health. This poor woman, after she became a Christian, survived a few days.

On the 7th day of March, we buried her body in the Christian way. Her parents, having wrapped up some little package of bark with her body, wanted to exhume her the next day. I opposed this, and strongly urged the Indian who brought me this message to tell me what it was. Finally he told me it was a little of her hair that they had cut and wrapped in some bark; and that this little package had been placed with the body by mistake, that it must be taken out, to be given to the nearest relative of the dead girl. I ridiculed their superstitions; and when he told me that this man would get angry, I told him laughingly to cut a little hair from his own head, or to take a little Moose hair, to give to this relative, that it would be just as useful as what he asked; he began to laugh, and went away.

On the 25th of the same month, Father de Quen baptized a tall young man, lying ill, who consoled us while we were instructing him. He died soon after his baptism; as his mother refused to give his body to be buried in our cemetery, Father l'Allemant, who was then at Quebec, wrote me that it would be proper for me to go there, to get these holy remains from the hands of this woman. I asked Father de Quen to go, since I was prevented. He tried to find out why this woman was loath to give up the body of her son. She gave three reasons for it: first, that the cemetery at Quebec was damp; second, that we would not permit them to put bark in the grave; and the third reason, which was the most important, was that we had baptized her son with water from the river, and that we baptized the others with water we had brought from our house; that the river water would have no effect, and that her son would not go to the place I had said he would. She was obstinate about it, and retained this poor body three days without burying it.

Finally, having still more confidence in us than she had in the people of her own nation, she brought it to us at Notre Dame des Anges, being assured that we would not take away any of the bundles that she gave it to take into the other world. Necessity had compelled us to baptize this poor boy without ceremony, but we buried him with the chant of the Church, which was a great consolation to the Indians who were present at the funeral. When I told them that the soul had no use for all this baggage which they were throwing into the grave, they replied, "We believe so, too; but we remove from our sight what would cause our grief, recalling to us the dead."

Our Innus are so accustomed to their wanderings, their camp is so light and temporary that if they saw one trying to place them under any restraint, however reasonable it might be, they would quickly pitch their tents and pavilions out of the reach of our cannons, before they could be primed and aimed at them. So the only way we can make them stationary is by kind offices.

Every year, towards spring, they talk much of settling down; but when they see the difficulties attendant upon clearing the land, cutting down so many trees, removing so many logs, and pulling up so many roots, they lose heart. This year, I have been present in some of their councils; they urged me to aid them with men; they also asked our Governor to do this, saying their country was being stripped of Elk and other animals, and that consequently, if the land could not furnish them food, they would be utterly lost. In reply to this, they were told that the country was not yet in such condition that we could take away our Frenchmen for them, since we had not enough cleared land for so many; in other respects, we are doing all we can to aid them.

The small number of laborers, and the large number of Frenchmen who are here, prevent us from giving this help to the Indians. It is pitiful how the lack of the worldly so effectually delays the spiritual. They have so many vain thoughts in France, there is so great a superfluity of clothes, of banquets, of buildings, so many losses in gambling; the amount which these excesses will consume, would be of good service here.

THE INSTRUCTION OF AN INDIAN CAPTAIN.

THE Indian of whom I propose to speak is called in his own language Makheabichtichiou; he is strong and hardy, a good warrior, and has a ready tongue. It is for this reason that, although he is not the Captain of his Tribe, yet, as it divides into squads he is generally taken as the chief of his band. From this he derives his title of "Captain," since he often performs the service of one. It was he who last year gave the young Iroquois woman whom the General took to France. Having come to Encamp near Quebec, he attempted to get into the good graces of our Governor, and therefore into those of all our French people.

When he slept sometimes in our little house, he told us that he had never had a strong belief in most of their fancies. "At the death of my children," (said he) "I did not put much in their graves, and I hardly expected that our sorcerers could cure them in their sicknesses. I saw that our feasts were ruining us, but I did as the others did, to follow the customs of the country. But I am going to cast away all these old observances. You forbid me the eat-all feast; I will take part in it no more. You forbid me to believe in dreams; I will believe in them no more. You forbid me to sweat, to secure good hunting and fishing; I will sweat no more for those purposes, but only for my health." He made a great many other similar remarks to us, before going to sleep. He said his prayers as we recommended him to do, but he shouted them in a loud voice, as they are accustomed to do when they address their desires to him who has made the light, or to someone else that they call their great Father. "He who has made all," said he, "help me; I wish to believe in you; teach me your ways of doing, for I wish to follow them. The wicked Manitou tries to deceive me, defend me from his snares." In the morning, when he awoke, he did the same thing, always crying out in a loud voice, so that he could be heard from afar.

This man, if he were deeply touched, would be a power among his own people; but, as he is so irritable and arrogant, we do not urge him much, especially since he has several wives whom he has promised to give up, but does not give up. He alleges certain excuses for this. I remember that, being one day in the presence of the Governor, he said to him: "Nikanis (My good friend), I do wish to embrace your belief, but you give me two commandments which conflict with each other; on the one hand you forbid me to kill, and on the other you prohibit me from having several wives; these commandments do not agree. Of the three wives I have married, I love only one, whom I wish to keep with me; I send the other two away, but they return in spite of me, so that I must either endure them or kill them; I hope, however, that in a little while they will return to their own country." I can believe that he keeps only one of them as his wife, and that he loves her much, hating the other two; but we must avoid scandal, and give these Indians the impression that Christians can have only one wife. Still, as it is their custom, it will be difficult to do away with it.

I am well aware that some of our French people, on seeing this Indian intractable, after so many promises made in private and in public, were ready to say that all this man had done was only to gain credit with the French, to marry a young woman whom he could not have had otherwise. That is a mistake, for I thoroughly understand the whole affair, and unwittingly helped to bring it about. I intended to have him retain one of the two older ones that he had; but this young woman loved him, yet did not dare to marry him through fear that a Sorcerer, who wished to make her his second wife, would kill her by his charms. Our Indian, on some other occasion, had declared to me that he feared the tricks of this man, and I told him that he should not fear, that his faith would serve as a shield against all charms. To demonstrate the truth of this, I provoked the Sorcerer, attacking him so severely that he either feared the punishments of God, or else thought I was a greater sorcerer than he was; he made peace with this Chief in our house, imagining that I would kill him with charms more potent than his own if he persevered in his ill-will toward a man that I loved. As soon as they were reconciled, this young woman, freed from her fears, married him against my wishes.

WHAT HAS BEEN DONE FOR THE INSTRUCTION OF OTHER INDIANS.

God has given us as Governor a man after his own heart. He is full of love for our French, and is not lacking in affection for our Indians. He is wonderfully adroit in using for the benefit of Religion all the presents, all the feasts, all the help and all the benevolent acts which have to be done for these Indians, to get along in peace with them. So that what is usually secured through unobjectionable policy is done by him with Christian and truly praiseworthy prudence, giving, as the saying is, two blows with one stone; for by means of the same favors and the same kind acts which he uses to attach them to the French, he also attracts them to the faith.

Therefore, pursuant to this policy, the Indians at the beginning of Winter having withdrawn, some here, some there, into their great forests to seek their food, a little band of Algonquins who had remained near the fort, were, after having been there a few days, called together by him on the 15th of December, that a feast might be made for them. They were all there, men, women, and children, leaving only a few of their number to guard their cabins. After they had eaten heartily, the banquet was closed, and all the women and children were sent away.

The old men made a few speeches in acknowledgment of the love the Governor bore them, who then taking occasion to speak, told them that he did love them, but that he was surprised that, living as they did face to face with the French for so long a time, they had not yet accepted their belief, assuring them that the God who preserves the French would preserve the Indians also if they believed in him. He asked them if what was taught them was bad, pressing them strongly on this point. They replied that certainly what they had heard was good, but that he must blame the dullness of their minds, and the lack of persons who understood their language well, to give them instruction.

I had requested Sir Olivier to make a speech, and we had prepared some arguments to urge upon them; but they know how to ward off and edge away from suggestions which are not agreeable to them. Perceiving this, and raising my voice, I began in the presence of our French and of the Indians to speak publicly in their language for the first time. I had refrained from doing so until then, not so much through fear of embarrassment to myself, as of degrading our mysteries in exposing them to their laughter through my stammerings. I said to them that we had not, up to that time, preached the faith to them in their public assemblies, but had only invited them to do as we did, not having the power to declare to them the beauties of our belief; that now we could do this, since we had made progress in the knowledge of their language; and that if they wished to respond to our great Captain's love for them, they would sometimes assemble in our house during the winter to hear about God; that Sir Olivier would be there to explain to me what they should say, and that I would answer with my own lips, as they understood me very well; that our Governor invited them to do this. I told them that God himself could not love them when he saw that they did not wish to acknowledge him; and addressing myself to a Captain, I said to him, "If your son did not love you, would you not be angry? You tell me that you do not know him; come and see us and we will teach you about him."

But let us come to the conferences we have had with them. They came, then, to see me several times; when there were only Algonquins, I requested Sir Olivier to be present; for, as I have often said, I hardly understand them, although they understand me very well, just as I do not understand a genuine Gascon French or a Provencal French, although he might understand my French quite well. The first ones who came after this feast were the most prominent among them; they proposed three or four questions before entering upon a discussion of our Religion.

First, they asked why so many of them died, saying that since the coming of the French their nation was going to destruction, that before they had seen Europeans only the old people died, but that now more young than old died.

Secondly, one of them said that they had heard his grandfather say that the more French there should be here, the fewer would be the Indians; and that, especially when they should bring over women, the Indians would die in great numbers. He said also that black robes would come over to instruct them, and that likewise would make them die, "As" said he, "most of those who have been baptized have died."

In the third place, he told how a certain Spanish Basque, coming in the early days to this country, was unwilling to come near the Indians; he repulsed them, and spat upon the ground, telling them to be gone, that they had a bad smell; "Yet he wrote our names upon apiece of paper," said he, "and perhaps by this means he has bewitched us and caused us to die."

In the fourth place, another one said that the bad Manitou revealed to him in a dream that only those would receive our doctrine who become settled; that the others would ridicule it. These are their objections to us, which they often repeat.

The wandering Indians cannot multiply rapidly; they lead such a wretched life that only the most robust can endure their hardships. But I would have considerable trouble to assign a natural cause for their dying so much more frequently than they did in the past. It is attributed to the beverages of brandy and wine, which they love with an utterly unrestrained passion, not for the relish they experience in drinking them, but for the pleasure they find in becoming drunk. They imagine in their drunkenness that they are listened to with attention, that they are great orators, that they are valiant and formidable, that they are looked up to as Chiefs, so this folly suits them; there is scarcely an Indian, small or great, even among the girls and women, who does not enjoy this intoxication, and who does not take these beverages when they can be had, purely for the sake of being drunk. As they drink without eating, and in great excess, I can easily believe that the maladies which are daily tending to exterminate them, may in part arise from that. Efforts are being made to remedy this, but it is difficult to prevent our Frenchmen from cooperating in this immoral conduct, which may finally extinguish the whole nation of the Innus, who usually take refuge in the neighborhood of our French settlements. According to what some of them have told me, they have derived this habit from the English.

As the devil perhaps foresees their ruin, he makes them attribute the cause of their mortality, not to their excesses, but to the law of God and to the multitude of French. In the third place, an Indian told how a certain Spanish Basque, coming in the early days to this country, was unwilling to come near the Indians; he spat upon the ground, telling them to be gone, that they had a bad smell; "Yet he wrote our names upon a piece of paper," said he, "and perhaps by this means he has bewitched us and caused us to die." In the fourth place, another one said that the Manitou revealed in a dream that only those who become settled would receive our doctrine; that the others would ridicule it. These are their objections to us, which they very often repeat.

Let us see how the objections they proposed were answered. To the first, Sir Olivier replied that, even before the French came there, they had been attacked by certain epidemics which carried off many of their people, and that it was not as they said. "When I was young," he continued, "I learned that the first who landed in your country found few people there, and that they were informed that the previous winter had killed an enormous number of them." I told them also that if they would consider all wandering peoples, they would find them in small numbers in comparison with those who were settled; and that the nations of the North, where the Nipissings went to barter, were almost entirely exterminated by the famine of the past winter. "You cannot," I said, "attribute their death to the French, since the French do not have communication with those tribes." They replied that the Nipissings carried them diverse wares from France, and their death might arise from that. I replied that certain tribes living far inland, below Tadoussac, had no commerce with the Europeans, using only stone hatchets, according to what a woman of that country had told me; and that, despite, they died in as great numbers as the other wandering nations.

The best answer was that we feared God, that we believed in him, and therefore he preserved us, from where it arose that we were a numerous people; that also this great Lord forbade us to kill, except in war, and so we had no intention of killing them, who were our allies and our friends. "As for you people," added Sir Olivier, "as soon as you are numerous, you become arrogant and unbearable; you make war upon your neighbors without cause, you murder one another; he who measures and weighs all things, seeing that, does not allow you to multiply." They confessed that this was true. Their excessive drinking was represented to them; but, as they cannot restrain themselves, they answered that our great King ought to prohibit the importation here of intoxicating drinks. They were answered that it is not necessary to throw knives and hatchets into the river, although children and stupid people sometimes hurt themselves with them.

On the second point, they were told that, far from the increase of the French making them die, the more of them there were, the more provisions there would be in the country, and consequently the more help they would receive; that they were well aware that the French had not yet slain a single Indian, and that God prohibited them from it.

On the third point, we testified that we had never heard of this Spanish Basque Captain; that probably, not being accustomed to seeing Indians, he could hardly endure the odor from them; that, as for writing, those people are not bewitched who are mentioned in writing, for in that case all the nations of the earth would be bewitched, for we speak of them in our books; that they should not judge us by their standard, for among them sorcerers are not punished, but in our country we kill them; and consequently, if this Spanish Basque had been a sorcerer, his people would have killed him.

In the fourth place, we tried to show them that dreams were only dreams, deceit and falsehood; "for, if you dream that no one will be converted, we will dream that you all will be converted; which of the two will tell the truth?" They began to laugh.

During some of the winter months, when they were at leisure, they came to see us quite often, telling me to instruct them. At other times we went and invited them, imitating their way of doing it; we passed, Father de Quen and I, near their cabins and I cried out, "O men, come to our house; we will speak of him who has made all; I will teach you his doctrine." They replied, "ho, ho, ho," and came. Note that, after having nourished their souls, we usually gave them food for their bodies, to win them. In fact, some came to eat, others through curiosity and for the novelty, and others came through good will.

Having spoken to them fully of Hell and of Paradise, of punishment and of reward, one of them said to me, "Half of your speech is good, the rest is worth nothing. Do not speak to us of those fires, for that disgusts us; speak to us of the blessings of Heaven, of living a long time here below, of living at our ease, of the pleasure we will experience after our death, for it is how men are won." I replied that, if I believed them in danger of falling into some great misfortune, I would be wicked if I did not warn them of it; this argument satisfied them.

Others proposed certain questions, namely, "if, after the resurrection, our bodies would be like those we have now? if people will marry? if they will have children? if they will have houses like ours? if they will dress as we do? if men will have beards? if animals will live again?" To all this we answered according to the principles of our belief. The only question I found myself unable to answer satisfactorily was the one as to whether or not men would have beards, for they consider that a great deformity. I got out of it the best I could, saying that men, whether they have or have not beards, would not cease to be men; and that God assured us that all those who obeyed him would be beautiful, and more shining than the Sun.

When I told them that we had a book which contained the words and teachings of God, they were anxious to know how we could have gotten this book, some of them believing that it had been let down from the Sky at the end of a rope, and that we had found it therefore suspended in the air.

If these Indians would only display some curiosity to know about things, this would be the gate to true knowledge. But they are as cold as marble, and are so imbued with this indifference that you would say they are surprised at nothing. This quality would be of use if they were Christians, for their minds would be less subject to errors; but at present, I would rather have them show a little more activity and a little more fire.

What a difference there is between a Frenchman and an Indian! If a Frenchman returns from hunting, he is hardly in the house before it is already known whether or not he has captured anything; even if he has not, he cannot wait until the table is set for the meal, having the appetite of a hunter; if he returns from some journey, although he may be quite tired out, they do not wait until he has rest before having him tell all the news he knows.

Our Indians are far removed from this animation. Here is what I have often seen among them. An Indian, returning from hunting, will sometimes throw outside the cabin what he has brought back with him; having entered he does not say a word, neither does anyone address him. He sits down near the fire and undresses; his wife takes his leggings and shoes, wrings them out if they are wet, and puts them to dry; he throws a robe over his shoulders and warms himself, this all taking place in silence; if his wife has saved him anything to eat, she presents it to him on a bark plate without saying a word; he takes it and eats in silence. After having eaten, he smokes; and when he has finished smoking, he begins to talk. If no one has looked outside to see what he has brought back, he informs them that there are some Beavers or some Porcupines. This indifference astonished me at first; but they told me rightly that one should not weary a man who has more need of rest than of words. If anyone comes from some other quarter, having entered the cabin, he makes himself comfortable in the way I have just described. Knowing that he brings news, people come to see him and sit down near him; yet no one says a word to him, for as he came for the purpose of talking, it is for him to begin.

After resting a while, he speaks without being questioned, or interrupted in any way. After he has told his news, the old men question him, and engage in conversation with him. I have seen two Indians arrive at our house, who came from the area where a young Indian who was with us had relatives; they were at leisure for a long time, and yet this young man never asked them how they were, nor what was going on in the place from where they came. I asked him the cause of this so great silence: "It was for them to speak," he said, "for, as they are old, I did not not dare question them." Oh, how little curiosity have these people! I should have attributed this conduct to stupidity, were it not that when a young fellow like himself came along, he talked very well with him.

When some of our French notice this indifference, they almost imagine that all the evidences these poor people give of wishing to receive our faith are only feigned, since they are without enthusiasm; but if they appear cold in things that are so natural to them, I am not surprised that they observe the same custom in regard to things so far removed from their comprehension.

Let us tell now what benefit has resulted from these conferences. In the first place, these discussions have given them a high opinion of our faith.

In the second place, I no longer find these Indians so intractable. The dread of punishment is beginning to gain such an ascendancy over their minds that, although they do not so soon amend, yet they are, little by little, giving up their evil customs. Here is an example of this. Some Indians had arrived from Tadoussac on their way to war; Father de Quen and I visited them in their cabin, and, after some conversation, they told us that we should go to see the preparations for a great feast which were being made in a place that they named to us. But they advised us not to remain there long, "Because," said they, "as it is a war feast, the women will serve there entirely naked." Then we went to the cabin they had indicated to us, and, in conversation with the master of the feast, we asked him if he would observe this wicked ceremony. At first, he insisted upon observing it. But, recalling to his memory what we had told him during the winter about such nonsense, and representing to him the anger and justice of him who has made all, he said, "Go away; I promise you it shall not be done." In fact, neither in their feasts, nor at their departure, did they observe this filthy custom.

In the third place, when we went into their cabins this spring, they asked us to teach them, which we did even more willingly since they showed themselves attentive. The man whom we had persuaded to give up that so brutish custom, said to me, "Tell us of our war, and pray God to assist us; teach us how we must behave." We told them that they must offer this prayer: "You who have made all, help us; you command us to love one another, we would love the Iroquois, our enemies, but they are wicked; so act that they may become good, or else aid us to kill them. We have no intention to kill them except for this reason, that they are wicked, and that they have violated the peace we made with them."

I have learned that when they were nearing the enemy's country, they assumed an intolerable arrogance, indulging in a thousand boasts, and promising themselves wonders. God humiliated them, for their Captains and some others were put to death.

THE INSTRUCTION OF THE LITTLE INDIANS.

WE DIVIDED our time during this winter, so that we gave some days to the little Indians as well as to the adults. Even as we expect more fruit from these young plants than from the old trees, almost entirely rotten, we have taken more special care of them. We only invited them once to come and see us. They came so often that we had to tell them that we would go to them, or send someone.

When they entered the Chapel, I had the boys placed on one side, and the girls on the other. Near the little Indian boys I seated some little French boys, and some little French girls near the young Indian girls, so these poor barbarous children, who have no education whatever, could learn to join hands, kneel down, make the sign of the Cross, stand up properly when they are questioned, answer modestly, and make an obeisance, when they see our little French boys and girls do so. I had imagined that it would be difficult to tame and instruct the little girls; it is easier to retain them than the little boys, for they are fond of our little French girls and take pride in imitating them. In this way, the explanation of our catechism was conducted, at the end of which we had them warm themselves, and quite often we prepared a little feast for them, at the beginning and end of which they prayed to God in the way Christians do.

This was especially done on workdays. Sometimes on holidays we conducted these exercises in public. Father de Quen is accustomed to teach the catechism to our French after evening prayers, children and adults taking part there. To encourage our little Indians, we had them come sometimes and the Father yielded his place to me; I spoke to them in the Indian tongue, in the presence of all our French people, who took great pleasure in seeing these poor little barbarians answer the questions which I put to them, as readily as if they had been instructed since they were at the breast. The trouble is that our Chapel is too small for both French and Indians together, so we cannot often have this exercise in public.

Desiring one day to have some of their parents see them answer in public before our French, I requested Makheabichtichiou to bring four of the principal parents to attend evening prayers, and after evening prayers to hear their children answer; instead of four, ten or twelve of them came. All the little Indians sat on the small benches, while the older ones arranged themselves wherever they could find places. During the service, they all behaved modestly. After evening prayers, I had our little missionaries pray; I had them sing, and questioned them concerning our faith. They answered me boldly, in the presence of our Governor and of all our French people, and of their Indian relatives, a great throng, who filled the entire Church. And then I explained their answers, in French, to the others, so that they could know how satisfactorily they replied to the questions put to them.

In place of the little agnus Dei and other images that one gives to the French, I made them presents of knives, iron arrow-points, rings, awls, and needles, which they received politely, kissing their hands and making an obeisance in the French fashion. Our French took great pleasure in these exercises, but much more did the Indians, when they saw the honor that was shown to their children. There was one who had three girls, who answered well and who all three received some prize; I noticed the father's face beaming with the joy that filled his heart, although these Indians can passably well cover and disguise their feelings. This good man said afterward to his children, as they have told me, "My children, listen to the Father, what he says is true; you are young; you can remember it better than we who are old."

Our French people were so pleased with these primary instructions that they came sometimes to see them, on days when the children were by themselves. Sir de Repentigny, Sir de la poterie, and a number of others came occasionally, and Sir Gand quite often, which encouraged these little ones to do well; our Governor so thoroughly approved this instruction that, after having abundantly provided me with the little presents I gave them, he told me several times that he would be displeased if he knew that I had dispensed with anything which was in his power to furnish, to keep up this so pious work.

When the spring came, our flock scattered, many of them withdrawing to a place near the Residence of the conception at the Three Rivers.

SOME DISPUTES OR DIFFICULTIES WE HAVE HAD WITH THE INDIANS.

As soon as we had commenced speaking in public, and Makheabichtichiou had shown a partiality for our belief, an Innu Captain, jealous of our love for Makheabichtichiou, began secretly to deride our faith and those who proclaimed it. He said that our belief was fatal to them, that believing and dying were one and the same thing for them; and privately assured his own people that he would be sorry if they let themselves be instructed. He asserted that his grandfather had told him that black robes would come there, who would be the cause of their death. As his malice was recognized, and as he is not a man of influence, all this did not make much impression upon the minds of the Indians. Seeing himself weak in this direction, he changed his tactics.

He spread a report that I had said that Makheabichtichiou's people and his intended to kill them both; that someone had told me that he wished to kill me, because he had dreamed that he would kill me; and that I did not like him on that account. Being informed of his underhanded dealings, I spoke to him when he came to see me together with several Indians. I told him that he injured himself by circulating these bad reports; and that, as the French and the Indians knew that I loved them, he had gained nothing by his lies, unless it was the reputation of being a wicked man.

This same barbarian, seeing how much the children loved to come to us to be instructed, had tried to divert them from it by a wicked slander. He gave out that he had told me that the Indians were trying to poison me, and I answered that I would prevent them. On the same day that this rumor was spread among the cabins, Father de Quen and I, knowing nothing of it, went to get the children. We were surprised to find that only three of them followed us, but attributed that to their play, in which we saw them much engrossed.

After having instructed and sent away these three little ones, Makheabichtichiou came to us and said to me, "Nikanis (My good friend), do you know what they are saying among our cabins?"

"No," I replied.

"Did you take away the children with you today?"

"No indeed, only three followed us."

"Do you know the reason?"

"No."

"Here it is: it is whispered that someone warned you that the Indians intend to poison you, and that you said you would anticipate them, so the parents have forbidden their children to come to you."

I began to laugh when I heard this misrepresentation, and said to him, "Nikanis (My good friend), no one has told me that you wanted to kill me, and if they should, I would not believe it; and if I did believe it, I would not avenge myself for it. You know that we do not carry arms, that we try to settle any differences which may arise, both among the French and the Indians."

He answered, "There are bad ones among us; I ask you not to readily believe in false reports. They will report many bad things to you about me; if you give them credit, you will hate me and no longer teach me. I say still more; as you are beginning to understand our language, do not report to your Captain and to the French what annoying remarks you may hear in our cabins, for that would produce discord between the two nations. You have intelligence enough, you Frenchmen, to know what ought to be said, and what ought to be left unsaid." This poor man has good sense.

When he left us, he went to cry aloud among their cabins, according to their custom when they wish to make some public announcement; he cried in a loud voice, walking around their houses: "Do not believe the false reports that have been spread among us, do not fear that the Father will do us harm; is it not he who teaches us that we must not kill, and that he who has made all takes vengeance on murderers? Children, do not fail to visit him tomorrow, so you may be instructed; what he says is good, listen to him." These poor children came the next day in good numbers, as usual. But we were quite astonished, after learning this news, that those three children, already nearly grown, had followed us the day before, despite the prohibition of their parents, and the threat that they would be killed.

As for this great sower of slanders, he has so little influence that he does not frighten us much. Even his own son does not have much respect for him, according to what Sir Olivier told me; he even went so far as to say to him one day, "I cannot live with you, for although you have no sense, you wish to act the Captain; this is why they make fun of you, and I am humiliated by it. If you wish me to live with you, give up this vain idea of being a Captain, since you have neither the ability to make speeches nor to be a leader." In fact, I have heard several of his band make fun of him.

We had another dispute with a sorcerer named Pigarouich. He was in the same district as Makheabichtichiou, and, as he had a deadly hatred for him; when he saw that he was on good terms with the French, he was jealous of him; and what aroused him still more was that he heard that we ridiculed his sorceries, and that we assured Makheabichtichiou that his enemy could not harm him if he trusted in God. Having come one day with the men, to confer about the points of our belief, and the vanity of theirs, Makheabichtichiou, speaking first, said boldly that what I had told them was good, and that he intended to give up their customs and adopt ours.

The sorcerer, then beginning to speak and addressing me, said, "Father le Jeune, I will speak in my turn. Know that whatever there may be in your belief, there are five things that I will not give up: the love for women, the belief in our dreams, the eat-all feasts, the desire to kill the Iroquois, the belief in sorcerers, and making feasts for them even to bursting. Those are the things," said he, "that we will never abandon." Sir Olivier explained all this to me, for the language and the accent of this Indian are altogether Algonquin. Having heard this horse-and-mule speech, I answered it in this way:

"As to women, you are permitted to keep one with you; having only one body, you have need of only one woman; and as you would not like to have other men touch yours, so it is not permitted you to touch theirs." He replied that he would do it if he could. I replied that, if this lust existed among them, they could not be sure of their own children, "You think sometimes that you are caressing your son, but you are mistaken, you caress the son of another. For if you be as bad as you say, the others pay you in the same coin, and therefore there is the same confusion among you that there is among dogs." He was embarrassed, and the others laughed at him.

As for dreams, I asked him if he would kill his Father, in case he dreamed that he was to do it. "The devil meddles with your imaginations in the night; and if you obey him, he will make you the most wicked people in the world."

In regard to the eat-all feasts, I told him that the demons were glad to have them burst, so as to kill them all the sooner; that God, on the contrary, wishing them to live a long time, prohibited these excesses which ruined their health. The others considered this a good answer.

"As for the Iroquois, since you are at war with them, kill them all, if you can.

"As regards the sorcerers, since you will see every day that they cannot cure any sickness with their drums and other nonsense, if you have any sense you will give up all that."

In conclusion, I declared to them that there were two lives, one short, and the other long, and that the long one would be happy or miserable, that he could now choose the one which pleased him more. He replied that the only life he cared for was the life of this world. Sir Olivier said to him, "And as for me, I care for the other. If someone presented you two robes, an old one which could not last more than three days, and a fine new one which might last several years, which of the two would you take? Doubtless you would take that one which would last."

Another time, this sorcerer informed us that in a few days he should consult Ka-Khichigou Khetikhi, those who make the light. In my reports, I have called those whom they invoke in their little tents Khichikouai, which I interpreted "genii of light," for it seemed to me I had heard them called so; but this sorcerer and his people call them by the name I have just mentioned, or by another one almost like it, which means "those who make the light."

Having told me that he intended to consult these demons, I replied to him that he was deceiving his people in making them think that these fine "makers of the light" were moving his tent, when it was he. He asked me if I would bet with him that his tent would move, although neither he nor anyone else should touch it. "I will lie down flat upon the floor of my tent," said he, "I will stretch my arms and my legs outside, and yet you will see it shake violently." I accepted the wager, and put up three times as much as he suggested. The Indians enjoyed this dispute much, some saying to me, "You will lose," the others declaring, "No, he will win, for he is a greater sorcerer than Pigarouich." I told them that I did not wish to derive any gain from this wager, that I gave them the share the sorcerer would lose; this excited them much, and they placed themselves all on one side. Then addressing myself to the sorcerer, I said to him, "Be careful what you do; for, if it is you who move your tent, I will instantly cut all the cords which hold it in place and I will show you to be a fraudster. If it be some spirit or the wind, as you say, know that it is the devil. The Devil fears us, and, if it is he, I shall speak to him severely, and shall force him to confess his impotence against those who believe in God; and I shall make him confess that he is deceiving you. When he sees himself ridiculed, if he gets into a fury, and if he kills you, do not lay the blame upon us."

In fact, I intended to employ a sort of exorcism, and I feared that God would permit the Demon to do harm to these infidels and skeptics, and they would believe that it had been done at our instigation. When the poor man heard this, he was afraid, though he preserved a bold front; but changing the subject, he said to me, "will you bet that I cannot put a stick of wampum in your hand, which you will see and touch and close in your hand, then, upon opening it, you will no longer find it there?"

"Done," said I, "I will accept the bet, for it is you who must take away this stick, and you will be sly if you deceive me; if it be the Devil, he is afraid of those who believe in God. He will not touch me, but perhaps he will give you a close dusting."

My poor sorcerer, shrugging his shoulders, would have been glad to withdraw from the game, but I urged him strongly, and, addressing myself to his people, said, "You see how he deludes you; he would not dare to take up the bet; do you urge him, so that you may discover his frauds and his deceits." When he perceived this, he appointed an hour for the next day. I immediately informed Sir Olivier of it, and requested him to be there with Father de Quen and me, and some Frenchmen, whom we would take along as witnesses of the affair. The next day, I waited for them to come and summon us, as we had arranged; but, on the contrary, they came to tell us that the sorcerer had gone off at daybreak to hunt hares, which is here the sport only of young boys. His people said among themselves that he was afraid, that he had no courage; some of them were astonished, and wondered at our belief; others said the French were greater sorcerers than they were. They name such people Manitouisiouckhi, meaning, "those who are acquainted with the Manitou, with him who is superior to men," applying the name Manitou now to God and now to the devil.

Some days having elapsed, this sorcerer tried to come and see me privately; he tried to win me by gentle means. While he was with us, several Indians entered, and I wished to remind them of what had occurred; he pulled my gown, and asked me in a whisper to drop that subject. I obeyed him on this particular, but I dumbfounded him and his companions: I took a sheet of paper, and made them hold it by the four corners; then, having placed upon it some needles, I slowly passed my hand over it, holding between my fingers a little magnetic stone. The needles, attracted by this magnet, went and came, advanced and retreated, according to the movement of my hand. They were astonished at seeing these needles run and turn about, without anyone touching them.

Seeing their amazement, I told the sorcerer that he should do the same; he answered by staring at me, without saying a word. I explained to them that this was a natural phenomenon, that I did not call upon the devil to do it, and that it was a wicked thing to use his help; that in France they put Sorcerers and Magicians to death, when they could be discovered. "As for you, Pigarouich," said I to the Sorcerer, "if you will take my advice, you will never consult the Demons, they are liars. They tell you it is they who make the light; but it is God who makes the light by creating the Sun. After these Demons shall have caused you to do much harm to others, they will kill you and drag you into the flames." He answered that he would come and see us. He did come, and proposed to us some questions which I am going to explain.

SOME INTERVIEWS WITH THIS SORCERER.

THIS MAN, having seen that we are holding our Town against him; that we often defied him to exercise his charms upon us; that we even ridiculed the Manitou, whom they fear as they do death, began to consider us greater Sorcerers than himself. He came to see me secretly, and asked me diverse questions ridiculous in the extreme.

Being alone with me in our house, he said, "I am going to tell you what I do; if you do not approve of it, I will give it up, for I wish to believe in him who has made all. I give feasts at which all must be eaten, I sing loudly during these feasts; I believe in my dreams; I interpret them, and also the dreams of others; I sing and beat my Drum, to be lucky in hunting and to cure sickness; I consult those who have made the Light; I kill men by my sorceries and with my contrivances; I take robes and other gifts for curing the sick; I order that these should also be given to the sick themselves. Tell me, what do you find bad in all that?" I refuted all these points by good arguments, the best I could conjure up.

Another time, he told me that during their epidemic three or four years ago, he, being almost in the agony of death, like the others, had seen in a dream a House made like ours, in which were some Images like those he saw in our house; and that after this dream he recovered; and since then, whenever he has been sick, if he could have the same dream, he quickly recovered his health. "Now then," he said to me, "is that not a good thing?" I took pains to show him the vanity of their dreams.

He told me another day that to become a sorcerer, that is, to have communication with the Manitou, and to be lucky in dreams, he had fasted five days and five nights, without drinking or eating, isolated in a little cabin in the midst of the woods.

As I had reprimanded him for his lusts, he proposed certain questions of Conscience to me. "You say," he said, "that God prohibits multiple wives; well then, to satisfy him, I will only have one with me; but will there be any harm in going to seek others, whom I shall not take as wives?"

I answered, "do you wish someone to come and seek your wife or your daughter?"

"No," said he.

"Well, you see plainly it is an evil deed to solicit the wives and daughters of others."

"That is true," said he, "but if the women seek me, shall I do wrong to yield to their desire?"

"If your wife or your daughter were to seek some man with whom to prostitute herself, would she be doing right?"

"No, that is not doing right."

"Then the women who seek you, are they doing wrong?"

"Certainly, they have no sense," he replied.

"If they do wrong to ask you for an unlawful thing, you also do wrong to grant it to them."

"You are right," said he, "I grant what you say."

He asked me if Makheabichtichiou did wish to believe in God. I told him that he said he did. "Besides," I added, "I have been told that you wish to kill him by your charms; be careful, for now that he is trying to believe in him who has made all, he is under his protection; and the Devil, not being able to do him any harm, may discharge his wrath upon you. As to Makheabichtichiou, I have advised him not to wish you any harm, but to pray God to make you wise and give up your sorceries; for our God forbids us to hate anyone, he himself taking revenge for us upon our enemies." This simple man, frightened, immediately made peace with Makheabichtichiou, each promising the other in my presence to love and treat the other as a brother.

THE SORCERERS, AND WHETHER THEY HAVE COMMUNICATION WITH THE DEVIL.

THE Innu Indians give the name Manitou to all Nature superior to man, good or bad. This is why, when we speak of God, they sometimes call him the good Manitou; and when we speak of the Devil, they call him the bad Manitou. All those who have any special acquaintance with the Manitou, be he good or bad, are called among them "Manitouisiouekhi." And as these persons know only the bad Manitou, that is, the Devil, we call them Sorcerers.

Not that the Devil communicates with them as obviously as he does with the Sorcerers and Magicians of Europe; but we have no other name to give them, since they even do some of the acts of genuine sorcerers, such as to kill one another by charms, or wishes, and imprecations, by the approval of the Manitou, by poisons which they concoct. And this is so common among them, at least in their own opinion, that I hardly ever see any of them die who does not think he has been bewitched. This is why they have no other Physicians than the Sorcerers, whom they employ to break the spells by which they think they are held. In fact, they nearly all die of consumption, becoming so thin that they are nothing but skin and bone when they are borne to the grave. So it arises that these sorcerers are feared, and that one would not dare offend them, because they can, the people believe, kill men by their arts. They are also sought after, as they can, it is said, remove disease which has been inflicted by them. It is a pitiable sight to see how the Devil makes sport of these people, who are astonished when they see how easily we challenge and defy their Sorcerers. They attribute it to a better acquaintance with the Manitou.

They believe that there are men among them who have no communication with the Devil. These are tricksters who perform the same apish tricks as the Sorcerers, to get a few presents from others. One day, when we were protesting against the malice of the Sorcerers, one of the Indians present, who was regarded as such, exclaimed, "As for me, I know nothing about these tricks; my father beat his drum near the sick; I have seen him do it, and I do as he did; this is all the craftiness I understand." These poor Indians, perishing every day, say that there is no longer any real Manitousiou among them, that is, no genuine Sorcerer.

It is the service of the Sorcerer to interpret dreams, to explain the singing of birds, or encounters with them. They say that when one dreams of seeing a great deal of Moose meat, it is a sign of life; but if one dreams of a Bear, it is a sign of death. These Charlatans sing and beat their drums to cure the sick, to kill their enemies in war, and to capture animals in the hunt. Pigarouich, the Sorcerer of whom I have spoken above, sang to us once the song he uses when he intends to go hunting. He uttered only these words, Iagoua mou itoutaoui ne e-e, which he repeated several times in different tones, grave and heavy, although pleasant enough to the ear. We asked him why he sang this to capture animals. "I learned," said he, "this song in a dream; and that is why I have preserved and used it since." He requested us to teach him what must be sung to cure the sick, and to have a good chase, promising us to observe it exactly.

Here is one of the methods employed by the wicked ones to kill their countrymen. Someone has told me that they had formerly tried to use these deviltries against the French, but that they could not make them sick. A Sorcerer, wishing to kill someone, enters his Tent and summons the Genii of the light, or those who make the light, they call them, and we call them Devils. When they arrive, he sends them after the soul of him, or of those, whom they wish to kill. If these persons belong to another Nation, they change their name, in case their relatives, getting wind of the affair, take vengeance on the sorcerer. The Genii bring these poor souls in the form of stones, or in some other shape. Then the sorcerer strikes them with blows of javelins or hatchets, so hard that the blood runs down from them, so copiously that the javelin or the hatchet remains all stained and red with it. When this is done, the one whose soul had been struck falls sick, and languishes to death. When one Indian hates another, he employs a sorcerer to kill him in this way; but they say that if the sick man happens to dream who it is that has bewitched him, he will get well and the sorcerer will die. These Genii, or makers of Light, persuade them to believe that the Genii love their Nation, but that the wicked Manitou prevents them from procuring for it the blessings they would desire.

They imagine that he who longs for, or desires the death of another, especially if he be a sorcerer, will often have his wish gratified; but also the sorcerer who has had this wish dies after the others. It is strange to see how these people agree so well outwardly, and how they hate each other within. They do not often get angry and fight with one another, but in the depths of their hearts, they intend a great deal of harm. I do not understand how this can be consistent with the kindness and assistance that they offer one another.

One of these Sorcerers or tricksters told me that occasionally the devil speaks to some Indian, who hears only his voice, without seeing anyone. He will say to him, for example, "You will find a stone upon the snow, or in such a place, or in the heart, or the shoulder, or some other part of an Elk, or of another animal; take this stone, and you will be lucky in hunting." He assured me that he had found one of these stones in the heart of an Elk, and that he had given it to a Frenchman. "So I shall kill nothing more," said he.

He also said that the Devil made himself known through dreams. A Moose will present itself to a man in his sleep, and will say to him, "Come to me." The Indian, upon awaking, goes in search of the Moose he has seen. Having found it, if he hurls or launches his javelin upon it, the beast falls dead. Opening it, he occasionally finds some hair or a stone in its body, which he takes and keeps with great care, that he may be fortunate in finding and killing many animals.

Besides, he added that the Demons taught them to make ointments from toads and snakes, to cause the death of those whom they hate. If he tells the truth, they have communication with the Devil. I believe that from this superstition or notion has sprung a custom the Indians observe, of having a little bag so especially for their own use that no one else would dare look inside of it; they would be offended because of that, perhaps even so much as to kill the other. They are unwilling that anyone should see this stone, or similar object, if they have one; and one of them said to me one day, "In this way you will know whether an Indian believes in God, if, having one of these stones, he gives it to you."

Makheabichtichiou has told me that once, when he was still a young lad and was hunting all alone in the woods, he saw coming toward him a Genie of light; he was dressed and adorned like an Iroquois, and was borne through the air. "I halted," said he, "filled with fear. He stopped also, at a little distance from me, and all the earth around him seemed to tremble. He told me that I should not fear; that I would not die so soon, but that it would not be the same with my people. At last I saw him rise into the air, and disappear before my eyes. I returned to the Cabin, thoroughly frightened, and told my countrymen what I had seen; they took it as a bad sign, and said that one of them would be killed by their enemies. Immediately after this, someone came to tell them that one of their fasters, being separated from the others, had been surprised and murdered by the Iroquois." If fear, which makes the imagination see what is not there, did not trouble this man's fancy, then doubtless the Devil appeared to him. I have been told by an Indian that they think the eyes of the Genii of Light are in an oblique line, one above and the other below.

Do these Sorcerers have communication with the Devil? If what I am about to tell is true, there is no doubt that the Demons sometimes manifest themselves to them. I had believed until now that the devil deluded them, filling their understandings with error and their wills with malice, and I persuaded myself that he did not reveal himself visibly, and that all the things their Sorcerers did were only Deceptions they contrived, to derive some profit. I am now beginning to doubt, even to incline to the other side, for the following reasons:

When they intended to consult the Genii of Light, they prepared Tents by driving stakes into the ground, binding and fastening them with a hoop, then covering them with robes or blankets. When the sorcerer has entered there, and has sung and invoked these Genii or Demons, the Tent begins to shake. I imagined that the Sorcerer shook it; but Makheabichtichiou, speaking to me frankly, and the Sorcerer Pigarouich, revealing to me with great sincerity all his knaveries, protested to me that it was not the Sorcerer who moved this structure, but a strong wind which suddenly and violently rushed in. And, as proof of this, they told me that the Tent is sometimes so firm that a man can hardly move it, "Yet you will see it, if you are present there, shake and bend from one side to the other, with such violence and for so long a time that you will be compelled to confess that there is no human strength that could cause this movement." While passing the winter with the Indians, I saw them perform this deviltry; I saw strong young men sweat in erecting this Tent; I saw it shake, not with the violence they say it does, but forcibly enough, and for so long a time that I was surprised that a man had strength enough to endure such exertion. Still, as I did not try this round tower to see if it was firmly fixed, I imagined that it was the trickster who shook it.

Also, those whom I have just named, and others, have stoutly asserted to me that the top of this Tent, seven feet high, is sometimes bent even to the ground, so powerfully is it agitated. Also, that the arms and legs of the Sorcerer, who was stretched upon the ground, were sometimes seen to emerge at the bottom of the Tent, while the top was shaking violently. They say that the Demon or the wind which enters this little house rushes in with such force, and so disturbs the sorcerer, making him think he is going to fall into an abyss, the earth appearing to open under him, that he emerges in terror from his Tent, which goes on shaking for some time after he has left it.

Aniskaouaskousit, a young Indian, has assured us that Etouet, the Captain at Tadoussac, having gone last Autumn into his Apitouagan, this is the name they give the Tent, his loincloth was thrown out of it at the top, and his body was lifted up, so that those who looked inside no longer saw him; finally, he was heard to fall down, uttering a plaintive cry like a man who feels the shock of a fall. Having emerged from these enchantments, he said that he did not know where he had been or what had taken place.

The same one told me, freely, for he was our servant and we were instructing him in the Faith, that once during the winter, when he and another young man were on a frozen Lake, they saw a sorcerer enter into a state of frenzy. He was lifted up, and without anyone knowing how, for he suddenly disappeared from before their eyes. Towards evening, his robe was found, but not his body; a few days later, he returned utterly worn out, and could not tell where he had been, or what he had done. Sometimes, during their great famines, some of them disappear never to return; they have assured me that this did happen, and that it was a bad sign for them, for then the Manitou finished them.

Also, this same young Indian said that he had seen with his own eyes the Sorcerer Karigouan, with whom I passed a winter, draw a stone from his bag, put it upon a shield and burn it; he assured me that the stone had not been heated.

Finally, Makheabichtichiou has informed me that the Algonquins, who are higher up on the great river, divine by Pyromancy. But, as it is not different from that of the Iroquois, I will not explain it further. All these arguments show that it is probable that the Devil sometimes has visible communication with these poor Indians, who have need of great assistance, both worldly and spiritual, to draw them out of the slavery which oppresses them. Father Pijart, who recently arrived from the Hurons, has brought me a stone that Father Breboeuf sent me, which was used by a Sorcerer in this way. This man, wishing to cure a sick person, placed the stone in the fire, and left it there a long time, until it was red-hot. Meanwhile, he entered in a frenzy, drew this burning stone out of the fire, took it between his teeth, ran like a madman through the Cabin, and cast the still glowing stone away without having received any injury. Father Pijart was an eyewitness of this act; and as the stone is quite large, he wished to see if it had not burned his lips or tongue; he found it had not. This made him believe that it could not have been done without the agency of some Demon. I send to you this same stone, which is still marked with the Sorcerer's teeth. As it had been in the fire, it was calcined and made softer; therefore, in pressing it with the teeth, he made the two notches which appear.

THEIR CUSTOMS AND THEIR BELIEF.

Among the superstitions used to cure the sick, they sometimes persuade a man, a woman, or a child to remain near them, imagining that this helps them to recover their health. They are so compliant in this respect that, if a sick person asks someone to stay near him in this way, he is so readily obeyed that one who should refuse him would be considered ungrateful, although it is a tiresome duty; for he must remain there idle, without other occupation than to sit beside the patient.

They have their patients take emetics; dysentery is cured by drinking the juice of leaves or branches of the Cedar, which have been boiled. Father Buteux said he saw a child recover soon after having taken this medicine.

They throw the Bear's gall into the fire to see if it will crackle, conjecturing from this noise whether they will capture others.

Father Buteux asked an Indian why they fixed their javelins point upward. He replied that, as the thunder had intelligence, it would, upon seeing these naked javelins, turn aside, and would be careful not to come near their cabins. When the Father asked another one from where came that great clap of thunder, "It is," he said, "the Manitou who wishes to vomit up a great serpent he has swallowed; and at every effort of his stomach he makes this great uproar that we hear." In fact, they have often told me that flashes of lightning were nothing but serpents falling upon the ground, which they discover from the trees struck by lightning. "For," say they, "here is seen the shape of those creatures, stamped in sinuous and crooked lines around the tree. Large serpents have even been found under these trees," they say.

When the Indians have been defeated in war, one of their number is sent on ahead as a Herald, who cries out in a loud voice as soon as he perceives the Cabins, uttering the names of those who have been captured or killed. The daughters and wives, hearing their relatives named, spread their hair over their faces, burst into tears, and paint themselves black.

When they return from war, they hang to a tree, at the spot where they begin to turn back to retire into their own country, as many little sticks as there were soldiers, perhaps to let their enemies know, if they pass by those places, how many men there were, and how far they went, to intimidate them. I know no other reason for it.

In their wars, while fighting, they shout every time one of their enemies is struck. I am inclined to think this is to cheer themselves and increase their own courage.

They believe the earth is entirely flat, and that its ends are cut off perpendicularly; that souls go away to the end which is at the setting Sun, and that they build their Cabins upon the edge of the great precipice which the earth forms, at the base of which there is only water. These souls pass the time in dancing; but sometimes, when they are sporting on the edge of this precipice, someone falls into the abyss, and is immediately changed into a fish. There are trees along these shores, but they are so slippery that souls can grasp them only with great difficulty. They imagine that the souls eat and drink. I may also add that they fancy that they marry, and that the children who die here are children in that end of the world, and grow up just as they would have done in the country where they were born. This belief, so full of nonsense, gives us good opportunities to convince them of error. First, we tell them that, if the earth were entirely flat, it would soon be flooded by the tide of the Ocean. Besides, we show them that it would be day at the same time all over the world. But as it is now, when it is Noon here it is night in France, during the Winter. We assure them that our ships sail to the rising and the setting Sun, and that the land of souls has never been encountered. They are astonished when one speaks to them of the other side of the earth, and laugh at the idea, just as others, of better understanding than these, scoffed at it in former times.

We often tell them that, if souls ate, they would grow old and die; how is it that they believe them to be immortal? Besides, if they married and had children, as they do not die, the whole earth would soon be filled with souls; we would run across them everywhere; for, since the time they came into this land of the Setting Sun, they would have multiplied infinitely. They comprehend these arguments well, and others that we urge upon them.

Here is an admirable reason for the Eclipse of the Sun. They say there is a certain being, either a man or some other creature, who has a great love for men. He is angry at a wicked woman, and at times even conceives the desire to kill her. But he is withheld, for in doing so, he would kill the day and would bring upon the earth an eternal night. This wicked creature is the wife of the Manitou, she who makes the Indians die. The Sun is her heart, and so he who should slay her would kill the Sun forever. Sometimes this man, getting angry at her, threatens her with death; her heart trembles and grows feeble; and it is at such a time, they say, that we see the Sun eclipsed. They vary so in their belief that one can have no certainty about it.

They believe, according to what Makheabichtichiou told me, that all the people in the world will die, except two, a man and a woman; that all the animals will die also, except two of each kind; and that the world will be populated again from the few that are to remain.

I have heard them tell a number of fables, at least I imagine the most intelligent among them regard these tales as fables. I will consider only one, which seems to me ridiculous. They relate that, a man and a woman being in the woods, a Bear came, which threw itself upon the man, and strangled and ate him. A hare of formidable size threw itself upon the woman and devoured her. However, it did not touch the child that she still bore in her womb, which she was about to deliver. A woman, going past that place shortly after this carnage, was astonished to see this child living. She took him, raised him as her son, but called him her little brother, giving him the name Tchakabech.

This child did not grow in stature, always remaining like a child in swaddling clothes; but he attained a strength so formidable that he used the trees as arrows for his bow. It would take too long to recount all the adventures of this man-child.

He killed the Bear which had devoured his father, and found, in its stomach, his hair still preserved. He also killed the great Hare which had eaten his mother, whom he recognized from the bunch of hair that he found in its belly. This great Hare was some Genie of Light, for they call one of these Genii, who they say is a great talker, by the name of Michtabouchiou, meaning "great Hare."

This Tchakabech, wishing to go to the Sky, climbed a tree. When he had almost reached the top, he blew against this tree, which grew tall and large at the breath of this little Dwarf; the more he climbed, the more he blew, and the taller and larger became the tree, so that he reached the Sky, where he found the loveliest country in the world; everything was delightful there, the land excellent, and the trees beautiful. After having thoroughly viewed everything, he came to bring the news of all this to his sister, so he could persuade her to mount to the Sky and remain there forever. Then he came down this tree, building Cabins at intervals in its branches, where he would have his sister lodge while ascending. His sister at first would not consent; but he represented to her so strongly the beauty of that land that she decided to overcome the difficulties of the way. She took with her one of her little nephews, and went up this tree, Tchakabech going behind to catch them if they should fall. At every halt they found their Cabin ready, which was a great comfort to them.

Finally, they reached the Sky; and so no one might follow them, this child broke off the end of the tree just low enough so that no one could reach the Sky from there. After they had thoroughly admired the country, Tchakabech went to spread the nets, or as others call them, the snares, hoping to trap some animal. In the night, when he arose to go and look at his nets, he saw them all on fire, and did not dare go near them. He returns to his sister and says to her, "My sister, I do not know what there is in my nets; I saw only a great fire, which I did not dare approach." His sister, suspecting what it was, said to him, "Ah! my brother, what a misfortune! you have surely taken the Sun in the net; go quickly and unloose it; perhaps, walking in the night, it fell in there unwittingly." Tchakabech, astonished, goes back; and after having looked carefully, finds that he has captured the Sun in his net; he tries to free it, but he dares not go near. By chance, he encounters a little mouse; he takes it, blows upon it, and makes it become so large that he uses it to extend his nets, and to let out the Sun, which, finding itself free, continues its usual course. While it was caught in these toils, there was no day here below on the earth; how long this lasted, or what became of the child, they do not and cannot say.

THE SEMINARY FOR THE HURONS.

You having written to us that we should try to begin a Seminary, as God was disposing some good souls to endow it; I wrote to Reverend Father de Breboeuf to send us some little Hurons. Our Fathers who are in that country immediately set about finding some; from a great number of children, they chose twelve fine lads, and appointed Father Antoine Daniel to care for these children. The final arrangements were made throughout the country; the Father embarked to come down here, hoping his Pupils would take their places, each in the Canoe of his parents or friends. For to come all together in one vessel would have been impossible, as they have no other boats or sailboats than their bark canoes, which are small. But when it came to separating the children from their mothers, the extraordinary tenderness which the Indian women have for their children stopped all proceedings, and nearly smothered our project in its birth. One worthy youth, named Satouta, clung to the Father, promising to remain with him and even to go to France, if it were desired. This youth alone was faithful, persevering in the midst of the greatest trials in his determination to be instructed and to remain with us.

When the Father reached the Three Rivers, where we had long been expecting him with the twelve little Hurons, we were surprised when we saw him with a single lad, already nearly grown. We did not lose courage on account of this first difficulty: all the French attempt to get some young Hurons who had come down with their relatives. The Commandant kindly uses his influence to this end. Sir Nicolet and the other Interpreters do what they can; they address now one Indian, now another; presents are made, Father Daniel implores the children to remain, and their parents to give them permission to do so. Some were influenced in this way; but if they were with us in the morning, in the evening they were gone. Finally, as these tribes are accustomed to hold a council with our French before returning to their own country, the Commandant had Satouta sit near him, he being the only one who had been persevering in his purpose, honored him before all the Chief Men of his Nation, attributed to him the feast he made for them, and sent some presents to his friends. All this showed the Hurons that we loved their Nation, but it did not make them immediately decide to let us have their children.

The Assembly over, we were almost losing hope of being able to begin the Seminary that year; when all at once our Lord moved one of these Indians, and caused him to hold a council with the chief Hurons, in which he spoke so eloquently in favor of the Seminary, and of the benefit they might expect from the alliance with the French, that the Captains urged two young men to bear Satouta Company, and remain with us. Here we are now with three young men instead of twelve little Seminarists, as we expected. As time was pressing us, the Commandant gave us passage with these three lads to go down to Quebec.

Scarcely had we departed, when another band of Hurons, arriving at the Three Rivers, and learning what had happened, gave us three more, whom Sir Nicolet brought to Quebec. A little while afterward, other Hurons, arriving unexpectedly at this same place, Three Rivers, offered some of their children also, saying that nothing else was talked about along the great river but the decision the Hurons had made to stay with the French, that it would be discussed a great deal in the country, and would be the subject of great rejoicing. Since there was no one who could hold a Council with them, the Interpreters having gone down to Quebec, nothing more was done. It was a fortunate that no more of them were sent, for we would have lacked food and other necessaries to maintain them.

See our Seminary begun under great difficulties. These young men are groomed, are dressed in the French way, are furnished with linen and other necessary articles. They are lodged in a place selected for this purpose, with the Father who is to have the care of them. All seems to be going along peacefully. Meanwhile, a Huron Captain, having heard at the Three Rivers about the Seminary, came down to Quebec to see these young men, and encourage them to do well, especially one of his nephews who was among them.

This good old man (for he is fully sixty years old) having seen what order was observed at the Seminary, and the treatment received by those of his Nation, exclaimed, "Oh, how they will talk about all this in our country! My children, how fortunate you are to be made so comfortable! Among us, we do not know what it is to have food so well prepared as this that they give you; come, have courage, be peaceable and obedient; observe carefully all you shall see that is good among the French, to make use of it afterward in our country; you can aspire to the highest positions there, for now you will be held in great esteem."

Great expenses are incurred, to win these Nations. When the Indians give you their children, they give them as naked as the hand, that is, as soon as you get them you must have them dressed, and give their robes back to their parents. They must be well lodged and well fed; and yet these Indians imagine that you are under great obligations to them. Generally, presents must be made to their parents, and, if they dwell near you, you must help them to live, part of the time. It is a custom among them that, if a man sees one of his friends without children, he gives him one of his own, to console him; the friend gives a present to the parents or friends of the child. This custom will entail great expenses upon us.

The young men were contented, cheerful, obedient; it seemed to us that nearly all the tempests had passed over, and that, after the rains, fine weather was appearing upon our horizon. But the death by disease of two of these young men was a great distress to us, since they had caused strong hopes that some day they would effectively aid their Nation; but a circumstance which occurred just before their death caused in us all serious fear. Tsiko (the first one who died) jesting with one of our hot-headed Frenchmen, the Frenchman became angry and began to quarrel with the Huron; they went so far in this as to strike each other several times with their fists, not dangerous blows, as can easily be imagined. Still, the Huron, falling ill soon after, accused the Frenchman, complaining of the blows he had received on his head. He was examined, and no traces of them, or dangerous indications, were found. In fact, he died not from this slight boxing-bout, but from overeating. Still, as he had told his comrades what had happened with the Frenchman, we were in great dread as to the outcome of this affair; for if once the Hurons had gotten the idea that their children died through some act of violence, they would have killed as many Frenchmen as might have been sent to their country.

The same thing occurred at the death of Satouta. This poor boy caressing a Frenchman, and passing his hand over his face, the other took it as an affront, thinking he was trying to pull his nose; he pushed him angrily away, and some say he struck him; so the Huron picked up some stones to defend himself, and the Frenchman seized his sword. I declare that he did not give him any blow capable of hurting him much; yet, as this poor Huron fell sick and died soon after, we were seized by a new fear, as an Algonquin, who knew Satouta's parents, was present during all this ill-played tragedy.

These two events were capable of completely ruining us, but our Lord provided a remedy for it. I was at Three Rivers, with the Governor, when I received this fatal news; it was thought best to suppress it, for fear of strengthening the Indians in a mischievous notion. The true cause of their death lay in the change of air and of occupation, and especially of diet. The sagamite, or thin Cornmeal broth, that these people eat is not solid or substantial, like the bread and meat of the French. These young men, enjoying the food which was given to them, were always eating, so that too great indulgence killed them. To remove this danger, we fed the others partly in the Huron way and partly in the French, and this kept them in good health. Besides, when the Indians are sick, they do not know what it is to take care of themselves; if they are warm, they go into a cool place, or have cold water thrown on them, without considering that the symptoms of a crisis or a good sweat might cure them.

THE ORDER OBSERVED IN THE SEMINARY, AND SOME DETAILS RELATING TO THE SEMINARISTS.

THERE is nothing so difficult as to control the tribes of America. All these Indians have the law of wild asses; they are born, live, and die in a liberty without restraint; they do not know what is meant by bridle or bit. With them, to conquer one's passions is considered a great joke, while to give free rein to the senses is a lofty Philosophy. I believe that the consciousness of being 750 miles away from their own country makes these young men more pliable. As they took pride, at the start, in living after the French manner, the Father told them that we regulate all our actions, that we do not act according to mere whims, but do what is reasonable and what we have planned beforehand.

When the Father was explaining to them some circumstance of the passion of our Lord, and speaking to them of the eclipse of the Sun, and of the trembling of the earth which was felt at that time, they replied that there was talk in their own country of a great earthquake which had happened in former times; but they did not know either the time or the cause of that disturbance. "There is still talk" (said they) "of a remarkable darkening of the Sun, which was supposed to have happened because the great turtle which upholds the earth, in changing its position, brought its shell before the Sun, and therefore deprived the world of sight."

God has troubled us in the death of their companions, but he has also consoled us by the docility of those who remain. They pride themselves on living in the French way; and if one of them commits some act of rudeness, they call him "Huron," and ask him how long it is since he came from that country. They make neat courtesies and humbly salute our Frenchmen, touching their hats when they meet them.

On the eve of the Conception of the holy Virgin, they all decided to clear some land and sow it, and afterward to make a house or cabin like those in their own country. At first, we regarded this as an idea of young men, who change their opinions at every turn. But the results surpassed our expectations; they began, little by little, to strip the trees of their branches, and, when Spring came, they had cleared so large a plot of ground that they astonished us by their great diligence in this work. A misfortune happened to them in one particular; the Indian corn they had planted, being too old and dry, or having been planted too deep, did not grow well. Their house proved a greater success; they finished it neatly, although it is not used for anything, for they had put it up as a storehouse for their grain, little of which came up.

Seeing themselves provided with food, tools, and clothes, and besides cherished by the French, they had decided to do their utmost to get their parents' permission to remain not only the next year with us, but even to live here all the rest of their days -- with the desire of attracting some of their compatriots, and also of getting some girls of their country to come down, so they might have them instructed, and marry them according to the Christian and Catholic religion. If this plan were to succeed, it would be a great and important event for the glory of our Lord, and even for the good of the Directors and Associates who are Lords of these countries.

First, in a few years there would be here a village of Christian Hurons, who would help in no slight degree to bring their compatriots to the faith, through commerce with each other; and our wandering Innus would, little by little, become stationary through their example and through alliance with them.

Secondly, the Directors and Associates would have hostages here to assure the lives of our French in the country of the Hurons, and to maintain the commerce they have with all the more distant peoples and nations. I say still more, that if the wandering tribes saw some settled Hurons in our neighborhood, they would be diverted from making war upon us, if they had such a purpose; because they know that these Indians, being near us and under our protection, would not leave us, and having a knowledge of the woods, and running as well as the rest of the Indians, they would dread these more than the French themselves. Thus we would guard the village of the Hurons with our arms, and they in their hunting expeditions would give chase to or at least would discover their enemies.

As the ships arrived late, the passage having been long and troublesome this year, our food gave out, and we were in great straits as to what we should do with these poor children. I asked the advice of Sir Charles Charles de Montmagny, our Governor, in this matter. I honor his courage; he replied that, as we had had so much trouble in getting these young men, he did not think we would have the heart to send them back, since they were behaving so well.

THE CONDITION OF THE SEMINARY AT THE COMING OF THE HURONS, THEIR COUNTRYMEN.

There is no black malice of which we are not accused. Here are the causes of it.

As the contagion caused a great many Hurons to die, these people imagined that the French were the cause of their death. A certain Algonquin reported to them last year that the late Sir de Champlain had said to an Innu Captain, shortly before dying, that he would take away with him the whole country of the Hurons. It is customary for Indian Captains to wish that others may bear them company at their departure, going so far that sometimes they send someone to kill another Captain to go with them into the other world. These ignorant people readily imagine that we share their detestable ideas, so they suspect Sir de Champlain of procuring their death at his own departure.

Some others attributed the cause of their epidemic to our vengeance, saying that we only went up to their country to sacrifice every one of their bodies to the soul of a certain Etienne Brule, whom they had wickedly assassinated. All things appear yellow to the yellow eyes of the jaundiced; people who are being consumed by the fierce flame of a vengeance aroused against those who have done them harm, believe that all of us are heated and burned by the same fire.

They reasoned upon their sickness in still another way. They said that our French had bewitched a cloak or a robe, and had buried it at Three Rivers, but in such a place that they suspected, and rightly, that the Hurons, as they were great thieves, would take it away, which they did. Having then carried it to their own country, they bore there at the same time the disease and contagion.

These nations persuade themselves that they die almost entirely through charms; and therefore, measuring us by the same standard, they think we are greater sorcerers than themselves. Upon the strength of these reports, as far removed from the truth as they are adapted to the minds of the Indians and in harmony with their customs, these Indians have made attempts upon the lives of our Fathers, even going so far as to talk in open council of slaying them; but God raised up for us as a protector, a Barbarian against Barbarians, a Captain named Taratouan, whose nephew we have in the Seminary. On hearing this talk, he drew out a long string of wampum, and threw it down in the midst of the assembly, saying, "There is something to close your mouths and stop your talking." It is a custom of the country to act ordinarily only through presents, so this blow was averted. I do not know whether this was known to our Fathers among the Hurons, but the nephew of this brave Captain told it to us at Three Rivers. I will soon speak of his deplorable capture.

Another time, in the village where our Fathers lived, they talked about sending them back down here, or of killing them. Their Captain, named Aenon, began to speak, and spoke in such a way that they came and asked the Fathers not to write any of these evil thoughts to us, in case they should be badly treated in the places where our French are. This Captain is one of those who are supposed to have killed the wretched Brule.

Despite the rage of the demons, the Seminary survives. I have seen it within two finger-lengths of ruin; then, all at once, what seemed to overthrow it, propped it up; and if sickness and war had not afflicted the Hurons on the way, we would have been perhaps obliged to send back their children, for our backs are not strong enough to feed and maintain all those whom we could have. But let us consider the rather strange accidents that have happened to this poor Seminary.

Of the six young Hurons who composed it, one of them, of a somewhat peevish disposition, left his companions and returned to his country, but he did us more good than we had hoped, for he told wonderful things about the good treatment he had received from us, which comforted the Hurons. Death did us a great deal more harm, for it took from us the two best minds of the Seminary. As these Indians are full of suspicion, we were afraid that they would imagine that these poor young men had lost their lives through our fault, considering the circumstances which attended their deaths; and so we feared that they would take some vengeance on our Fathers -- or rather, what seemed to us more probable, we feared they would persuade themselves that our houses were fatal to them, and that therefore they would no longer consent to give us their children.

The report of these two deaths was brought to the Hurons by some Algonquins; and when the Father of Tsiko, one of the two fine young men that died, heard this news, he not only did not indulge in the anger of a barbarian, but spoke like a man of great prudence and wisdom. "Ah, well," said he to our Fathers who are up there, "they say my son is dead; if the younger is dead, I will give you his elder brother. I would not be cast down if all my children were to die in your hands, for I know that you are careful of them." When these words were reported to me, my eyes were affected by them as soon as my ears.

The parents of Satouta, seeing that the epidemic was slaughtering the Hurons in their own country, were not surprised to hear the report of the death of their son.

There remained three Seminarists -- one called Teouatirhon, another Ariethoua, and the third Aiacidace. We had sent them to Three Rivers, at the beginning of Summer, to see their relatives, who were expected at the coming of the Hurons. When a band of them arrived, Father Buteux sent one of them, named Andehoua, to bring me from Quebec. Meanwhile, there arrived an uncle of Teouatirhon, a War Captain, and a rather inconsiderate man. He told his nephew that when he was at the Island, an Algonquin had told him that the Hurons had killed two Frenchmen.

At this news, this poor young man and his companion prepared for flight; for they were told by this Captain that they would be made to atone for the death of the Frenchmen. At first, they tried to get permission to depart; but, as they had been given publicly, it was not desirable to receive them secretly -- at least this was the case with the younger one named Aiandace, whose parents had not yet come down. As for Teouatirhon, since his relative asked for him, he was allowed to go.

It would take too long if I should try to explain all the details of this affair. Since the secrets of the Indians are public talk, the report which was being circulated about the death of two Frenchmen became known, and this Huron Captain was detained; he promised to remain a few days, but when night came, he wanted to take flight with his nephew and with the other Seminarist, who threw himself down from a bastion of the fort to escape. Our French people, their weapons in their hands, rushed forward and took this Captain prisoner, seeing he had violated his parole, and was trying to take away our Hurons. At this point, the Governor arrived at Three Rivers. I was with him, bringing our third Seminarist. Scarcely had we landed when some Huron canoes appeared, which dispelled these false rumors and assured us that the French were all well in their country, and that we would soon see some of them coming down.

Affairs assume quite another aspect, the Seminary, that we thought dissolved, is established; the Captain is covered with confusion; each is glad to have learned the truth. Still, as our Seminarist, Teouatirhon, persevered in his desire to return and visit his parents, especially his mother, who is quite old, to do what he could to make her comfortable in the general malady; we gave him leave to do so -- and more willingly since he promised us to go and see Father de Brebeuf, to continue the good instruction he had begun to receive in the Seminary. And the more to compel him to keep this good resolution, Father Paul Ragueneau, whom I was sending to the Hurons, went with him in the same canoe. As they departed, both happy, they encountered on the way Taratouan, a brave Captain who was going down to the French. He, upon seeing our Teouatirhon, his nephew, chided him, saying, "My nephew, are you therefore leaving the French, who have treated you so well?" This poor boy had nothing to say, except to assert that he was ready to return from where he had come. "Come, then," responded his uncle, "embark in one of the canoes which are following me, for I wish myself to take you back." He obeyed, without a word; took leave of Father Ragueneau, who continued on his way with the other Hurons who were conducting him, and placed himself in company with Taratouan, to return to us.

As they were coming slowly into the great lake of St. Pierre, which is not far from our settlement, they fell into an ambush of the Iroquois, their enemies and ours. Taratouan, as he was in the lead, was the first one surrounded. These half-demons emerge, as it were from their hell, and fall with loud cries upon this brave man, who finds himself captured before he is aware of the enemy. As soon as the news was brought to us that Taratouan and Teouatirhon, our Seminarist, were prisoners, we all thought that Father Ragueneau was of the band; but a few Hurons who had escaped this danger told us how Teouatirhon had left him to come down here with his uncle.

At first we supposed Teouatirhon would go to ruin in his country, despite all his good resolutions, for the temptations there are too persistent. Then, having heard that he had fallen into the hands of the Iroquois, we thought he would be burned and eaten by those devouring wolves. While these thoughts were afflicting our hearts, and an alarming report was smiting our ears, that the enemy formed a body of five hundred men, there appears upon the river an Iroquois canoe, in which is seen a single man, armed only with a long pole. No one knew what to think of it. The day before, another one had been seen, hovering before our eyes as if to challenge us, knowing well that we were only a few persons in our fort. So when this canoe was seen approaching, guided by a single man, certain ones said it was some fugitive prisoner; others imagined that it was an Iroquois who came to divert our attention, while the main body of their men would come and surprise us from within the woods.

Some of the Indians went forward to reconnoiter; having perceived that it was a canoe, neither of the Hurons nor of the Innus, but of the Iroquois, they fled as rapidly as they could, crying, "Iroquois, Iroquois, Iroquois! the enemy, the enemy!" The Cannoneer, seeing this man within cannon-range, wished to fire, but the Governor stopped him. We were all upon a platform, watching this poor boy, who, having landed, turned toward us. Then we saw plainly that it was some poor Huron escaped from the claws of those tigers. "If only," we said, "this were our poor Seminarist Teouatirhon." Scarcely had we uttered the words when our Governor exclaimed, "It is he indeed; I know him by his walk and his figure." It was he, coming to throw himself again into our arms as into a port of safety. He was as naked as one's hand, except for a ragged loincloth which covered what the eyes cannot see without shame.

When he reached us, he told how, having seen his uncle Taratouan attacked by a strong force, he and his companions had striven to escape by strong thrusts of the paddles. "We were pursued," said he, "by several Iroquois canoes; but, having a little start of them, we were the first to land on the Southern shore; and abandoning our canoe and all our baggage, even our robes, so as to be less encumbered, we rushed into the woods, each taking a different direction. The enemy followed us on the run; night concealed us and gave us our lives; for when these robbers lost sight of us, they also lost hope of capturing us. Having remained in hiding one day, I stealthily crossed over towards the great river in the direction of the Three Rivers. As I approached its banks, I perceived an Iroquois canoe; I stood there horrified, imagining that I had again fallen into the clutches of those ferocious beasts. I listened, to hear some noise. At last, perceiving that all was silent, I approached noiselessly; I looked all around, and, seeing no one, I took a pole and sprang into the canoe, to escape to the place I had abandoned."

We received him gladly, as a poor wandering sheep. This adventure of this poor young Huron was considered so remarkable that some, seeing that he had escaped, believed that he had become a spy, and that the Iroquois had saved his life that he might come and betray us, or rather the people of his nation. But the poor boy made the contrary apparent by wishing to go posthaste to Quebec, to get some rest and to have a wound attended to that he had received in his flight, for the nettles and thickets had lacerated his flesh while running through the woods.

When Father Daniel expressed to him his regret for the loss of his uncle Taratouan, who had not yet been instructed, he replied that he had imparted to him the chief articles of our belief as it had been taught to him at the Seminary. Besides, some days later, a fugitive Huron said that he had lain concealed in the rushes, motionless, from where he heard these butchers tormenting his poor captive comrades. "I heard," said he, "Taratouan singing as loudly and as happily as if he were among his friends. As I was lying naked in the mud, hidden only by the rushes, and in a cramped position, this poor Captain gave me so much courage, by his steadfastness and by the firmness of his voice, that more than three times I was tempted to rise and become his companion in his torments."

As I write this, we are expecting three other seminarists from Ossossane, and five or six from various other places, all of whom have given their word to our Fathers. Indeed, even the Chief of Khiondaesahan, seeing that the boys from various places were preparing to come and live with the French, told Father Pierre Pijart that he wished to participate in this movement, and that he would send us boys from his village. An old proverb says that "misfortune is good for something;" the Epidemic and the mortality itself -- and perhaps even the report of war, which will prevent these people from coming down and from bringing their children to the Seminary -- will be a benefit to us. For a greater number would inconvenience us; the expenses that must be incurred in clothing and feeding these boys are greater than one would imagine. They come as naked as worms, they return well clothed; they must be provided with a house, good furniture, mattresses and blankets, good clothes, quantities of cloth and linen, a great deal of food, and persons to instruct and wait on them, even if it be only to help them get firewood during the Winter.

Also, presents must be made to their parents and friends. Thus it is that Barbarous people are won, at the start. Before all these costly comforts have traveled thousands of miles to find us, there are many useless expenses and a great deal of waste.

Father Brebeuf sent me some instructions, which I have all our Fathers read whom I send to the Hurons. I thought it would be wise to place them here, so that those who should be appointed to this mission might see the trials with which they will have to contend. I know that the greater these trials are made, the more enthusiasm we see in our Fathers, who even go so far as to wish for them too eagerly.

INSTRUCTIONS FOR OUR JESUITS WHO SHALL BE SENT TO THE HURONS.

THE Fathers and Jesuits who come to the Mission of the Hurons ought to exercise careful foresight in regard to all the hardships, annoyances, and perils that must be encountered in making this journey, to be prepared early for all emergencies that may arise.

You must have sincere affection for the Indians, looking upon them as our brothers, with whom we are to pass the rest of our lives.

To placate the Indians, you must be careful never to make them wait for you in embarking.

You must provide yourself with a tinder box or with a burning mirror, or with both, to furnish them fire in the daytime to light their pipes, and in the evening when they have to encamp; these little services win their hearts.

You should try to eat their sagamite or salmagundi in the way they prepare it, although it may be dirty, half-cooked, and tasteless. As to the other numerous things which may be unpleasant, they must be endured, without saying anything or appearing to notice them. It is good at first to take everything they offer, although you may not be able to eat it all; for, when one becomes somewhat accustomed to it, there is not too much.

You must try and eat at daybreak unless you can take your meal with you in the canoe; for the day is long, if you have to pass it without eating. The Indians eat only at Sunrise and Sunset, when they are on their journeys.

You must be prompt in embarking and disembarking; and tuck up your gowns so that they will not get wet, and so that you will not carry either water or sand into the canoe. To be properly dressed, you must have your feet and legs bare; while crossing the rapids, you can wear your shoes, and, in the long portages, even your leggings. You must so conduct yourself as not to be at all troublesome to even one of these Indians.

It is not good to ask many questions, nor should you yield to your desire to learn the language and to make observations on the way; this may be carried too far. You must relieve those in your canoe of this annoyance, especially since you cannot profit much by it during the work. Silence is a good equipment at such a time.

You must bear with their imperfections without saying a word, yes, even without seeming to notice them. Even if it be necessary to criticise anything, it must be done modestly, and with words and signs which indicate love and not aversion. In short, you must try to be, and to appear, always cheerful.

Each one should be provided with half a gross of awls, two or three dozen little knives called jambettes [pocket-knives], a hundred fishhooks, with some beads of plain and colored glass, with which to buy fish or other articles when the tribes meet each other, so as to feast the Indians; and it would be well to say to them in the beginning, "Here is something with which to buy fish." Each one will try, at the portages, to carry some little thing, according to his strength; however little one carries, it pleases the Indians, if it be only a kettle.

You must not be ceremonious with the Indians, but accept the comforts they offer you, such as a good place in the cabin. The greatest conveniences are attended with great inconvenience, and these ceremonies offend them.

Be careful not to annoy anyone in the canoe with your hat; it would be better to take your nightcap. There is no impropriety among the Indians.

Do not undertake anything unless you desire to continue it; for example, do not begin to paddle unless you are inclined to continue paddling. Take from the start the place in the canoe that you wish to keep; do not lend them your garments, unless you are willing to surrender them during the whole journey. It is easier to refuse at first than to ask them back, to change, or to desist afterward.

Finally, understand that the Indians will retain the same opinion of you in their own country that they will have formed on the way; and one who has passed for an irritable and troublesome person will have considerable difficulty afterward in removing this opinion. You have to do not only with those of your own canoe, but also (if it must be so stated) with all those of the country; you meet some today and others tomorrow, who inquire, from those who brought you, what sort of man you are. It is almost incredible, how they observe and remember even the slightest fault. When you meet Indians on the way, as you cannot yet greet them with kind words, at least show them a cheerful face, and therefore prove that you endure gaily the fatigues of the voyage. You will therefore have put to good use the hardships of the way, and have already advanced considerably in gaining the affection of the Indians.

This is a lesson which is easy enough to learn, but difficult to put into practice; for, leaving a highly civilized community, you fall into the hands of barbarous people who care little for your Philosophy or your Theology. All the fine qualities which might make you loved and respected in France are like pearls trampled under the feet of swine, or rather of mules, which utterly despise you when they see that you are not as good pack animals as they are. If you could go naked, and carry the load of a horse upon your back, as they do, then you would be wise according to their doctrine, and would be recognized as a great man, otherwise not.

A JOURNAL CONTAINING DIVERSE THINGS WHICH COULD NOT BE PLACED IN THE PRECEDING CHAPTERS.

We will begin with the 29th of August of last year. On that day the Commandant weighed anchor in the port of Quebec. I have written that he took with him three little Indian girls. As I was afraid that they might object to going on board, I intended to resort to strategy to persuade them to enter the barque; but no such device was needed. They were more inclined to see France than to remain in their own country, so much so that, as only two of them were to go, the third, who is baptized, began to weep so hard when she saw her companions leaving her that she had to be sent with them.

On the 4th of September Father Buteux sent us word that Father Davost had arrived from the Hurons a few days before, and that there had also come down from that country some bands of Indians, who, in a council or assembly that they held at the Conception, at Three Rivers, said that Sir de Champlain had promised them the year before that the French and Hurons would no longer be other than one people. So they asked for some of our Fathers and of our Frenchmen, to take them back to their country. "We have," said they, "spoken of this matter with Echon" (the name they have given Father Brebeuf). "Our countrymen approve this communication. We will give you some Hurons and you shall give us some Frenchmen." To all this, nothing else could be said in reply except that they had arrived late, that the French had left to return to France, and that even the interpreter had departed for Quebec.

At the same time I received two letters, one from Father Garnier, the other from Father Chastelain, who went farther up into these countries. This is the way Father Chastelain speaks: "In the many discomforts that we experienced, I have not felt the least illness. Before now, I had never remained one hour seated upon the ground without injuring my health. Here I have passed the coldest nights without other mattress than a little heap of the branches of trees, in a matchless repose. I say nothing of the Sun and of the food."

Father Garnier wrote in these terms. "We have been, since yesterday, here among the Nipissings, so happy and in so good health that I am quite ashamed of it. I did not paddle, I only carried my own baggage, except that during three days I have carried, at the portages, a little package that someone offered me, because one of our Indians fell ill. We arrived at the Island on the eve of St. Ignace; our peas having given out, we bought some Indian corn. This corn lasted us until we reached here, our Indians having none stored in any place, at least they found only one cache of it. Up to the present, we have found not much fish. We are expecting Father Davost here today. From lake Nipissing, this 8th of August."

On the 13th of the same month our Governor, wishing to see the residence of the Conception at Three Rivers, and the country above there, took me with him. We reached Three Rivers on the 16th, and on the 18th we crossed lake St. Pierre. The great Saint Lawrence River grows narrower opposite Quebec, broadening again farther up; but 2 or 4 miles above Three Rivers it enlarges so much that it forms a pond or lake, so wide that a good eye looking from the middle can scarcely see the farther shores. In the upper part of this great lake, which abounds in fish, a number of pleasant Islands are found.

In going, we followed the Southern shore, and in returning, the Northern. We visited the river of the Iroquois (Richelieu River) (so called, because it comes from their country); Sir Charles Charles de Montmagny gave the large Island which lies at the mouth of this river the name "saint Ignace." Lake saint Pierre begins to close at this place, as the river grows narrower -- yet it is still fully a half mile in width, as far as Lachine Rapids, or as the river des Prairies; here it forms another lake by the meeting of Three Rivers, whose waters being united form another little sea dotted with Islands. The land in this region is high; so these Three Rivers make three rapids, as we call them here, that is, encountering a sloping and uneven bottom or bed, they flow with great force and rapidity. Barques can approach these rapids, but they cannot pass over them, not even sailboats.

Of all the Islands we saw there, there were only two or three worthy of notice, the rest being small, and are flooded in the Spring. This is the way these Islands are divided: the great Saint Lawrence River bathes the lands of one of our Gentlemen on the South; passing to the North, it makes two Islands, one 3 miles long, but narrow; the other the great Island called Montreal. This Island appears to be divided in the midst by a double mountain which seems to cross it. In the vicinity of these mountains is the Lachine Rapids, in the Saint Lawrence River. The Kichesipirini Algonquins, in earlier times, cleared the land, and had a settlement near this mountain; but they abandoned it, as they were too often molested by their enemies. They still call this place "the Island where there was a village." On the Northern shore of the Island of Montreal flows the Riviere des Prairies, which is bordered by another Island, large and beautiful, called the Island of Montmagny. Beyond this Island is the River St. Jean, which touches the mainland on its North side.

At or near the middle of this Island, there are two rapids or waterfalls, corresponding to the Lachine Rapids, one being in the Riviere des Prairies, the other in the River St. Jean. I will mention the origin of the names of these rivers. The River St. Jean takes its name from Sir Jean Nicolet, interpreter and clerk of the store at Three Rivers, who often passed through all these regions. The Riviere des Prairies was so called because a certain man named des Prairies, steering a barque, and arriving at this junction or meeting place of these Three Rivers, lost his way among the Islands which are found there, and entered this river which has ever since borne his name, instead of ascending the Saint Lawrence River, where he was expected. As for the great river, I do not know for what reason the name "Saint Lawrence" was given to it, perhaps because it was discovered on that day.

We disembarked at these three islands and found them fine and agreeable. I celebrated the first Sacrifice of the Mass which had ever been offered, as I was told, on the island of Montmagny, which is to the North of the Island of Montreal. After having viewed the beauties of the country, we set sail for Three Rivers.

On the 4th of October we left Three Rivers. We were hardly 10 or 12 miles away from there, when we perceived an Elk moving along the edge of the woods. We were sailing gently down the middle of the great river, in the beauty of a golden day. When the Governor saw this large animal, he immediately had the sails lowered, and all the men keep silence; while two or three of our Frenchmen went away quietly in a little canoe to force the great beast towards the water, or to kill it with shots from the musket if it turned into the woods. Hearing the noise, it leaped into the water. Immediately Sir had a sailboat manned, which was vigorously rowed there. The poor beast did not know which way to turn; it saw the muskets on land, and on the water a sailboat hurrying towards it. It was finally killed and brought upon our deck. If all journeys which are made in New France were to pass off as pleasantly as this one, they would prove too attractive, and perhaps the body would gain more than the soul. Small game, the flesh of Elk, and at times of Beaver, and fish, did not fail us. We returned to Quebec on the 7th day of October.

On the 17th of the same month, the Governor, wishing to go to Beaupre, otherwise cap de tourmente, to get some knowledge of the country, said to me that as one of the Fathers of our Jesuits ought to go there to administer the Sacraments of the Church to our French people who live in that quarter, he considered it fitting that I should go. I obeyed him willingly. At the same time, Father Masse and Father du Marche embarked to go to the Three Rivers. The weather, however, was so rough and stormy that their barque put into port; and the winds kept us for 13 days in a place where we had expected to remain only three or four at the most. It is with good reason that the country around Cap de tourmente has been named Beaupre; for the meadows there are beautiful and large, and level. It is an area well suited for maintaining herds of cattle.

On the 5th of December, the weather having already become cold, the River St. Charles, upon which is situated the house of Notre Dame des Anges, froze over, and made a bridge which did not break until the middle of April.

The Indians already know so well that we cherish and care for the sick that they believe all they have to do to alleviate any of their ills is to obtain something from us. You will see them coming to ask us for prunes, because they have a sore foot or hand.

On the 10th of January, Makheabichtichiou asked me many questions about the phenomena of nature, such as, "from where arose the Eclipse of the moon?" When I told him that it was caused by the interposition of the earth between it and the Sun, he replied that he could hardly believe that, "Because," said he, "if this darkening of the moon were caused by the passage of the earth between it and the Sun, since this passage often occurs, one would see the moon often Eclipsed, which does not happen." I told him that, the Sky being so large as it is, and the earth being so small, this interposition did not happen as frequently as he imagined; upon seeing it represented by moving a candle around a ball, he was satisfied. He asked me how it was that the Sky appeared to be sometimes red, sometimes another color. I replied that the light, passing into the vapors or clouds, caused this diversity of color according to the different qualities of the clouds, and then I showed him a prism. "You do not see," I said to him, "any color in this glass; place it before your eyes, and you will see it full of beautiful colors which will come from the light." Having held it up to his eyes and seeing a great variety of colors, he exclaimed, "You are Manitous, you Frenchmen; you know the Sky and the earth."

On the 26th of February, the Indians, who were encamped only a half mile from us, drew near Quebec. One of their sorcerers had seen seven fires in his sleep, which were so many Iroquois cabins; they were already this side of Three Rivers, in his opinion. Fear had taken so powerful a hold upon them that they encamped within a stone's throw of our house, asking me why we did not keep arms with us, to resist in case their enemies should appear. They saw Frenchmen encamped on all sides, and yet continued panic-stricken and terrified. These are the devil's doings, who disquiets them by bringing before their minds the horrible torments which their enemies make them suffer when they capture them.

On the first day of March, toward evening, a troop of little Indians, boys and girls, came rushing into our house to spend the night there; these poor children trembled from fear of their enemies, the Iroquois. We told them that we would receive the boys, but that girls did not sleep in our houses; these poor little Indian girls were loathe to depart, so we finally decided to ask Sir Gand to receive them, which he did willingly, having them sleep near a good fire. They did the same thing at other times; and we always took the boys, and the girls withdrew to Sir Gand's room.

On the 9th of April, an Indian admired by his people as a great eater, meeting Father de Quen and me among the cabins, tried to boast of the prowess of his jaws. "At one feast," he said to us, "I have eaten a quantity of Bear's grease four yards long and more than four finger-lengths wide."

He imagined that we would admire him; but he was astonished when we answered that he was boasting of having become a wolf; it is the boast of a wolf, and not of a man, we told him, to eat a great deal. "If you had said that you had skillfully fashioned a canoe, a wolf would not dispute with you this praise; but, if you glory in eating, you are less than a wolf or a dog." All the others began to laugh, and my poor man was embarrassed.

On the 17th of April, two Indians being on the other side of the great river, and wishing to cross over to Quebec, were so entirely surrounded by blocks of ice, which the tides cause to drift up and down sometimes in great masses, that their canoe was shattered, and they sank to the bottom and were drowned. Towards the end of May, one of these two bodies was found floating upon the river. The same day that these poor wretches perished, Sir Nicolet and some of our Frenchmen, who were coming down from the Three Rivers, came near experiencing the same disaster. They found the great river still frozen or clogged by ice in front of them, and behind them it appeared in so great quantities that they were compelled to leave their canoe and leap upon the ice. They found some of it firm enough to save themselves upon, but with a great deal of hardship and effort.

On the 24th, as a Captain from Tadoussac was passing through Quebec on his way to war. I said to him, "Nikanis (My good friend), I have not a good opinion of your war; I fear some misfortune will happen to you."

"Why so?" he asked.

"You are taking with you a wicked man, a sorcerer, who has mocked him who made all. I fell into conversation with him yesterday, and he blasphemed, saying that God could not prevent the success of your war; this is enough to ruin you."

This poor man answered, "He has no sense, I shall tell him that he is doing wrong."

"That is not enough," I replied; "if he were French, he would be put to death."

This did not make much Impression upon his mind, and he went off with some Algonquins to find some poor wretch alone; but God chastised them. Seeing an Iroquois, they pursued him so far that they penetrated into the enemy's country. That region was all on fire, and the smoke hid from view those who were, according to their custom, setting the fires with which the fields were smoking. At the noise made by this Iroquois who fled, the others rushed forward and, seeing their enemies, seized their weapons, surrounded part of these poor wretches, and killed them with their arrows; they captured some, who will be made to suffer extraordinary cruelties. The others saved themselves by flight. One of them, having returned, told me that, in escaping, he had been five days without eating or sleeping, that he was as naked as a worm, and that he was paddling night and day.

Another, not being able to retrace his steps, as the Iroquois closed the way, advanced farther into their country; night coming on, he stole quietly back past their village, where he heard their cries and shouts of joy while they were burning his companions; this so increased his terror that he leaped into a river, swam across it, and fled as fast as he could. To be lighter, he had thrown away his robe, so he was entirely naked.

At the end of nine days, he reached the Three Rivers, where he told his people that he had eaten nothing during all that time, and that at night he only took a little sleep upon a pile of last year's dry leaves, with which he covered himself, having no other clothes. He took a piece of bark which he shaped in the form of a canoe, and floated upon it, with more fear of his enemies than of shipwreck. Finding himself in the great lake of Champlain, and the wind preventing his progress, he landed and continued his way through the thickets and brambles of the woods, so that his legs were covered with blood, and lacerated as if they had been gashed with knives. I saw him afterward at Quebec, where he told all this to me.

I have learned that the Captain of Tadoussac bore himself bravely; for, when he saw that they were unequal in number and strength to the enemy, he said to his people, "Retreat and save your lives, while I bear the brunt of the fight, dying for you." He was immediately obeyed by the most cowardly; having received an arrow in his thigh, he fell to the ground; but getting upon his knees, he defended himself a long time with his javelin; yet at last he had to lose his life.

Father Buteux adds some details: "I send you no account," he says, "of the death of the warriors; those who are coming to see you will describe how the affair took place. It is pitiful to see them in their cabins; they did not return in a body, as they did last year, but the canoes came down one after the other, all in confusion. One of them came ahead of the others to announce the disaster, who cried out in a mournful voice, much like those who commend the departed in France, mentioning by name all those who were dead, or captured by the enemy. They had killed some animals on the way, and their canoes were filled with meat; but they were so dejected that this food remained there without being removed by anyone. Having entered their cabins, they remained in a mournful silence; then one of them, beginning to speak, described the whole Catastrophe. They said that the Iroquois were only four days' journey from Three Rivers, and that a troop of one hundred and fifty of them had come this Winter to within about two days' journey of the French settlement; they had learned this from the little sticks which they fasten to a tree to make known to those who shall pass that way how many of them there were.

On the 27th, a Captain of the Innus came with Makeabictichiou to see me, requesting that I go with them to see the Governor, to speak with him about their affairs; I accompanied them. Makeabictichiou opened the conversation, saying that they had learned from their dead Captain that, in an assembly which had been held by their nation with the French some years before, Sir de Champlain had promised to help them enclose a village at Three Rivers, to clear the land, and to build some houses; that they had often thought about it, and that they had resolved, at least a part of them, to locate there, and to live in peace with the French. "We have," said he, "two powerful enemies who are destroying us, one is ignorance of God, which is killing our souls; the other is the Iroquois, who are slaughtering our bodies; they force us to be wanderers. We are like seeds which are sown in diverse places, or rather like grains of dust scattered by the wind, some are buried in one place, some in another. The country is failing us; there is now scarcely any more game in the neighborhood of the French. Unless we reap something from the earth, we are going to ruin. Consider, you people," said he, "whether you wish to help us, according to the promise made to us by the late Sir de Champlain."

Then the Governor asked Sir Olivier and Sir Nicolet, who were present, if it were true that Sir de Champlain had made this promise. They answered that Sir de Champlain had told them that, as soon as the settlement at Three Rivers was founded, they would be assisted. As I was present at that assembly, I asked the Governor to let me answer the Indians; this being granted to me, I told them that they were forgetting part of what had been decided at that meeting. They replied that they had not the use of the pen, as we had, to preserve upon paper the remembrance of what was discussed among them. Then I told them that the help which they mentioned had been promised to them, provided they would become settled, and would give their children to be instructed and reared in the Christian faith.

When the Governor heard this, he assured them that he was ready to accept these conditions on his side, provided they would carry out those which concerned them. They expressed their satisfaction with this, but said they would have been glad to have had their children instructed at Three Rivers. They were told that a house would be built there; but that, meanwhile, they should leave the children at Quebec, and that as soon as the Seminary was ready at Three Rivers, they would be sent there.

Makheabichtichiou said that he would readily grant what we desired, but they must find out the feeling of the others upon this subject, and that they would speak of it among them. "As for me," he said, "I again declare publicly that I wish to believe in God; some of my countrymen often tell me that Father le Jeune is trying to ruin us, that he is beginning to command among us, that he already dictates the number of wives we are to have. To all this, I reply that I am well pleased with his information, that we are being ruined, that no more harm could happen to us than is happening every day, for we are dying every moment. Since I have been preaching among them that a man should have only one wife, I have not been well received by the women; for, since they are more numerous than the men, if a man can only marry one of them, the others will have to suffer. Therefore this doctrine is not according to their liking."

When this Captain and Makheabichtichiou returned to their cabins, they explained all that had taken place in the presence of the Governor. The old men all decided that they ought to begin to clear the land and take the help of the French, yet they must wait until Tchimiouiriniou, one of their Chiefs, arrived. When they declared that they must place their children among us, there were different opinions about it, some were satisfied to do so, others were not. Some of the Algonquins said that those who united with us died. Then an old Innu spoke in these terms: "Before the black robes came to this country, many of the French died; but since these came they do not die, and, on the contrary, we die; it must be that they know something which preserves their nation." Another drew a good conclusion; "If, since they have been with the French, the French die no more, then if they had our children, they would prevent them also from dying, for we see that they love children." One of them decided to bring us two of his boys. If we could have furnished them with men to help them, and had had food to nourish their children, we might have made them pliant to our wishes. But as we were short of food and men, we did not urge them.

On the 3rd of the same month, some Indians who came to see us said they had been told that a European of Acadia had asserted that word would be sent to the French who are in this country, that they should bewitch all the rivers and the waters of these regions, to kill off all the original Indians. "In fact," said they, "we already perceive that the waters taste bitter." They asked me if the ships brought such a message, to prevent this misfortune, and to warn them of it. These poor people do not know to what to attribute the mortality among them. The devil worries and frightens them, every year causing evil reports to be circulated among them. I told them that if a Frenchman used sorcery, he would be put to death; and that they ought to do the same with their sorcerers. One of them replied aptly, "You Frenchmen, you obey one chief; if he had some wicked man killed, the rest of the French, his relatives, would not dare to talk about it; but if we killed a man of our nation, however wicked he were, both his parents and his friends would kill us, and therefore we would all be destroyed." If someone could stop the wanderings of the Indians, and give authority to one of them to rule the others, we would see them converted and civilized in a short time.

On the 18th of the same month, I received a letter from the Three Rivers, dated the 16th, which spoke of the Indians in these words: "Last Thursday a panic spread among our Indians, caused by their fear of the coming of the Iroquois. They asked that their wives and children might be taken into the fort, to be in a place of safety. They were told that the next morning some stakes would be loaned them, with which to enclose a sort of village under the shelter of the fort. The Sun had scarcely risen when they came, small and great, to carry off these stakes; they worked with so much enthusiasm, some carrying these heavy pieces of wood, others making ready the place where they were to be set in, and others putting them up, that in less than four hours they found themselves barricaded.

On the 27th of the same, Father Buteux sent me the following information: "As the Indians were gathering here, we judged it fitting to give them a feast, to gain still more their affection. We invited about twenty of them, half of whom were of the nation of the Atikamekw. Seeing them all seated, I said to them that as the French were entertaining them, they must, therefore, pray to God before eating, as the French did. Then Makheabichtichiou, who was one of the guests, began to speak, and explained to them the meaning of the 'blessing,' and asked my permission to say it before anyone should eat. I said it in Latin, and he in the Indian tongue.

While they were eating, as I was trying to explain to them some of the points of our belief, 'Let me speak,' said the Indian. Then he told about the creation of the world, and the Flood, and several other articles of our faith, with so much fluency that I was completely carried away, and envious of his ability to say so much. Oh, what a difference between a man who talks and a child who only stutters! I think that, if we knew the language perfectly, we might obtain much from these people. While I cannot judge the intentions of this man, he spoke well, and he understood what he said; I do not know whether he approved of it.

These Indians have doubled their palisade, by erecting a second one, a foot and a half from the first, intending to fill in this space with branches and mud. It looks as if they were trying to fortify themselves in earnest. They have made a regulation that no one shall throw any filth within their fort. This morning, all the women went to the River to wash their kettles, and their plates or dishes of bark. Only two families have begun to clear the land, those of Etinechkaouat and Nenaskoumat. Nenaskoumat has already more than half an acre planted; he declares that he will make a great field next year, if he can get some help; he has several children, and fine-looking ones; if they have the same determination as good appearance, they will succeed. I have promised him every assistance, in proportion to our limited means; and I have given them both some shelled Indian corn, which they have planted.

On the 25th, as we were instructing some sick Indians, one of them told us that we did wrong to find fault with their customs. Then he told us that last Winter, a little child being sick, one of their tricksters entered his tent and summoned the soul of this poor little one; he had some trouble in catching it, but at last he took it in his hand, placed it upon the child's head, and by force of blowing made it reenter the body, and therefore the child began to revive. I told him this trickster ought to call into his tent the souls of the many sick people seen among them, and put them back in their bodies so that they could recover; but he replied that souls could not be caught at will.

On the 27th, I was informed of a battle between the Indians of the Iroquet Algonquins nation and the Iroquois. Meeting each other in their canoes, they fought a fierce battle upon the water. As the Algonquin canoes are lighter than those of the Iroquois, and as besides they exceeded them in numbers, they carried off the victory, bringing back with them thirteen prisoners alive, whom they caused to suffer horrible tortures. They sent one of these prisoners to Three Rivers. Oh God! what cruelty was not exercised upon this poor wretch, by the wives of those who a little while before had been killed in the country of the Iroquois. Father Buteux has written me the whole tragic story, describing the barbarity of these tigers. Their fury seemed to me so horrible that I have not been able to set it down on paper; what saddens me is that they give vent to this madness in the presence and in the sight of our French people. I hope that in the future they will keep away from our settlements, if they wish to indulge in this mania. Our Governor had sent word to Three Rivers that they should be prevented from it, or that they should be sent away from the neighborhood of the French, but the letters arrived too late.

On the last day of June, a sailboat arrived in which was Father Paul Ragueneau, who brought us news of the ships, which we had already expected for several days. As they sometimes reach Tadoussac in May, we begin to doubt their coming, if no news is heard of them by the end of June. Although we have worked hard this year at clearing the land, and although the crops are fine, as the country is not yet rich enough to furnish food for all the people who come over every year, the failure of the ships would cause suffering.

On the first day of July, a Captain of the Weskarini Algonquin nation, brought me letters stating that this Captain was coming down to Quebec to see the Captain of the French. "He is considered," said this Indian, "a grand person in our country; they say he is a great friend of the Sun, and that he gives letters which prevent one from dying, at least soon. I am going to ask him for some of them," said he. I made Sir Charles Charles de Montmagny, our Governor, laugh heartily when I communicated the contents of this letter to him. In fact, this poor Barbarian did come to see him, and asked him why they were becoming visibly depopulated, and we, on the contrary, lived so long. "It Must be," said he, "that you know some secret for preserving your people, and that you have an intimate acquaintance with the Manitou." The Governor, having conversed with him, and having given him answers suitable to his understanding, sent him to us with some of his own people as an escort, telling him that if they did what I should teach them, they would learn the secret of preserving their nation, and of diminishing the number of deaths

Sir Olivier brought them to me, and explained the object of their visit. Then I made them a little speech on the greatness of God, -- saying that he forbade murder, theft, and lewdness. One of them began to speak, and said in Algonquin all that I had said in Innu. "These people here," said he to his countrymen, "have not two ways of talking, they have but one single doctrine; they are consistent in what they teach us. I am convinced that there is something in what they say. They forbid us to kill; if the Europeans who are with the Iroquois taught them as these men teach us, we should live in safety."

On the 5th of the same month, the barque that had been sent to Tadoussac, to meet the ships, brought us some new settlers.

On the 9th, an Innu Captain came to see me, and asked me to go with him to see the Governor, as he wished to speak to him. Father Lallemant was there. The subject of his speech was that, the Abenakis having come to Quebec, he had forbidden them to go up to Three Rivers, and they had paid no attention to his command. "If the Governor," said he, "will lend me aid, I will close all the rivers through which they can return to their country." As our Indians occasionally go to the land of the Abenakis, they also wish to visit them at Quebec and further up. But it is not for the good of the Associates; for those Indians come to carry off the Beavers of these countries, to take them elsewhere. So the Governor summoned the Captain of the Innus and the Abenakis to notify them that he was displeased that these peddlers should come trading in the footsteps of the French, even threatening the Innus that he would prohibit the store from selling them any provisions until the Abenakis should go away. This Innu Captain declared that he did not wish these strangers to go up to Three Rivers, but preferred to have them return to their own country. Those people then reembarked, pretending to turn homewards; but they went straight to the Three Rivers, to exchange their wampum for the Beavers of the Algonquins and other nations, who go ashore in that neighborhood.

the Governor, upon hearing this, sent a messenger to Three Rivers as soon as possible, to break up this arrangement. He wrote to Sir de Chasteau-fort, who brought together the leaders of the Innus and the Abenakis, who were twelve in number. He asked why they had disobeyed the command of the Governor. They replied that they had not come for any trade in pelts, but to help their allies in their wars. However, as they found themselves hard pressed, they decided to withdraw. Sir de Chasteau-fort had their cabins and all their gear examined; he found no Beavers, but three muskets, which he took away from them; they finally tied up their baggage and went away. An Innu Captain had presented himself to go and block their passage, according to the way of these nations.

These Indians have a remarkable custom. When other nations arrive in their country, they would not dare pass without permission from the Captain of the place; if they did, their canoes would be broken to pieces. This permission to pass on is asked for with presents in hand; if these presents are not accepted by the Chief, not being minded to let them pass, he tells them he has stopped the way, and that they can go no further. At these words they have to turn back, or run the risks of war.

On the 2nd, a canoe appeared, bringing us Father Pierre Pijart from the Hurons. The poor father was all wasted away, having suffered from fatigue and sickness on the journey. He was barefooted, and wore upon his head a hat and upon his body a cassock not worth two doubles; yet the house could not furnish him a change of clothing. The Governor received him with singular kindness, and took him to the fort. The Father, speaking of his voyage, told us that the epidemic prevailed in every direction, and that he had almost died, since the disease attacked him as well as the others.

Having met a Frenchman at the Island, the Father had received from him something which relieved him. "Oh, how much good he did me!" he exclaimed. We all thought that this Frenchman must have shared with him some refreshing beverage. We asked him in what way this good young man had so obliged him.

"He had with him a key," said he, "which he made red-hot, and dipped in some water to remove the crudity, and then gave it to me to drink; this did me a great deal of good, for I was exhausted."

"Is that," we demanded, "all the great help he gave you?"

"What else could he have done?" he asked. We began to laugh, seeing that the great relief that a person can give to a poor sick man in these chance encounters consists of a little water impregnated with iron.

On the 6th of the same month of August, two canoes of Hurons took their departure; about ten o'clock in the evening one of them returned crying from afar, "ouai! ouai! ouai!" The Indians lent ear to this cry, which the Hurons generally utter when they are bringing bad news. In the midst of this silence these good people cry out that they have encountered the Iroquois, and that the canoe which had accompanied them had been captured. All the Indians are in a state of alarm, and all the women try to crowd into the fort. Some of the bolder men are commissioned to go and discover the enemy; they return at break of day and fill all the cabins with terror. They report that they heard a great many voices, like those of thieves rejoicing over booty; that they even heard some gunshots, and that they imagine there are fully two hundred men in ambush at the entrance to lake St. Pierre. All are in a state of suspense; the women get into their canoes at four o'clock in the morning, and flee with their children, some to Quebec, some to Three Rivers, some to other places; the men present themselves at the fort to be admitted there.

Our French did not know what to think of this panic, for these Indians are often alarmed without cause. They assured us that the Iroquois would come and lay siege to us in our redoubt; but all this made no impression upon our minds, and most of the French gave no credit to the report of the Indians.

Finally an Iroquois canoe appears in the middle of the great river, now turning its bow, now its side, and continues to hover around, as if wishing to brave us as well as the Indians; we knew by this that there were many of them. The Innus and the Hurons are admitted into the fort, or rather into our redoubt, to reassure them. These poor people take courage; each one seizes some weapon, this one a sword, that one a shield, another a hatchet, a fourth a knife, a fifth a pole. They crowd together, all howling like madmen, the Captains yelling rather than lecturing. Armed in their fashion, and some of them adorned with feathers, they begin to dance, shouting from their chests songs Of war. As these Indians do things only by whims, and as they are governed by passion rather than reason, one side excites the other to combat by songs and violent demonstrations; in which they err, for they are half worn-out and fatigued when they must come to blows.

our Governor proceeded in quite another fashion, for he put his people in order noiselessly and had them armed by squads, rather to keep in check the Indians inside, although he had placed them in an enclosure where they could not harm us, than to protect himself against the Iroquois. As this swaggering canoe appeared from time to time, to attract some French or Indians into their ambushes, as we conjectured, the Governor, seeing that a little wind was rising, orders a barque to weigh anchor and spread its sails, to go and reconnoiter. This command was executed almost as soon as given; the barque turns toward the place where the Iroquois were, the canoe disappears; the barque advances and discovers the enemy, who were moving about, part upon the river, part upon the edge of the woods. Sir Nicolet, who was guiding the barque, reported that there were about five hundred men well armed; he wished to approach them, but, fearing he would run aground, he could not get within musket-range of them. As he saw some crawling into the reeds, he fired a shot from the brass cannon so skillfully that the other Indians were seen to pick up the bodies of the wounded or dying, as far as they could judge. They perceived also in a canoe, some men, whose heads only were visible. They thought that these were the poor Hurons captured the day before, whom they were holding as prisoners.

You may imagine that we kept up a careful watch; we blessed God for having led the Governor to Three Rivers at this time. He put everything in so good order, among both the French and the Indians. The Indians, awaiting the attack, uttered loud yells or shouts, to notify the enemy that they were on their guard, and that they did not fear them. But the Governor sent word to them to keep still; and had their Captain warned that they should all remain where they had been placed, and in case three, four, or five of his people should be called for, so they could be stationed elsewhere, he should send them, designating them by name, for fear of confusion.

There were six of our Jesuits in our redoubt. I sent Father Pierre Pijart, who had come from the Hurons, in a barque to assist our French in case they were attacked, as I was told the Indians had once attacked a Dutch barque, and had sunk it to the bottom. I appointed Father Buteux to guard the Innus, and take charge of any who were wounded, and Father Daniel to the Hurons. Father Claude Pijart was to be with the Surgeon to assist our French people; Father du Marche at the Chapel, to guard it. As for me, I had decided to be in all these places, to see how things were going on, and to help those who were so badly wounded on the outposts that they could not be easily brought to the Surgeon. Either because these barbarians were afraid of our firearms, especially since they saw that they were discovered, or because they chose to go on and meet some Hurons, in which there would be less danger for them and greater hopes of booty, they were satisfied to look at us from a distance without coming to blows.

Meanwhile, a Huron, who was in the canoe which was captured, having escaped, came to assure us that these Indians were on the watch at the entrance to the great lake Saint Pierre, where they would surely capture all those of the upper nations who should come down to the French. This poor man said that he and his companions, seeing themselves surrounded on all sides, abandoned their canoe and rushed into the woods, but they were soon closely pursued. His companions were soon captured; he, being fleet-footed, left far behind five stout Iroquois who were pursuing him. Finally, as the thorns and nettles lacerated his legs and thighs, for he was entirely naked, he took refuge in a hollow tree which he fortunately encountered. His enemies came close to this tree, searching and ferreting all around it, so close that in trampling down some thistles they touched his foot; he meanwhile pointed his javelin at them, to kill at least one if he were discovered.

As soon as he had arrived, the Governor dispatched a canoe to Quebec for reinforcements, to be able to pursue these Indians and to save the lives of the Hurons and other tribes whom we were daily expecting. Toward nightfall, a canoe of Hurons appeared, who brought us sad news. "There were ten of our canoes in company," said they; "when we were at the Islands of the great River, Taratouan, a brave Captain of the Hurons, followed the Northern shore, taking with him nine canoes; the rest of us kept along the Southern shore. When we reached the opening of the lake, near the French, we were swiftly pursued by the enemy, which makes us think that Taratouan and his band are captured, for the body of the Iroquois are encamped on the North shore, by which he passed."

Towards midnight another canoe arrived, bringing five Hurons, who assured us that the lake was swarming with the enemy, and that they held all the avenues to the French. "There were two of our canoes," said they; "having reached the entrance of the lake; towards the Islands, we saw two other canoes. The canoe that accompanied us wished to go and reconnoiter them; and they, covering their evil plan, pretended to be continuing on their way, until, seeing our companions far distant from us, they rushed upon them. As they captured them, we escaped in the darkness. Approaching the other entrance, we heard a horrible noise; someone cries, "Who goes there? Of what nation are you?" Immediately taking flight in another direction, we were about to rush into another danger. For, as we were already on the river, quite near the French settlement, we intended to pitch our camp and obtain some rest after our toilsome efforts to escape. Approaching the shore, we discovered an ambush; and trying to turn back, two canoes at once dashed after us so eagerly that they pursued us almost to your settlement."

the Governor realized that he could not drive these rovers away from us, as we had so few men, and as it was not right to leave our redoubt or palisade without defense.

On the 9th of the same month of August, towards nightfall, a great fire appeared on the other bank of the River. Some Hurons and Innus went to find out what it meant. They found the two Indians, who had escaped, and were asking by the light of this fire that we should send for them. It is indeed remarkable how these Indians, entirely naked and having neither tinder box, knife, nor hatchet, find the means of making fire.

On the eleventh of the same month, two sailboats, well equipped for war, arrived from Quebec. Sir Marc Bras-De-Fer, having received the letters of our Governor, immediately armed these two sailboats in great haste, sent to the ships for men, selected some from families, and sent us four other well equipped sailboats, and afterward a good barque, commanded by Captain Raymbaut. The winds interfering with our plans, the Governor did not wait for all this help. Having seen the first two sailboats in good order, one commanded by Captain Fournier, the other by Sir Des-Dames, he entered his barque, and I with him. We set sail as promptly as possible; the night favored us with a good wind to cross lake saint Pierre, where we heard no noise, as these Indians had withdrawn to the Richelieu River.

A Southwester stopped us among the Islands of the lake; but during the night, the weather became quite calm, and we ascended to the river, where we expected to find these Indians. It was already broad daylight when we approached it. At the mouth we perceived a quantity of smoke, which led us to think that the enemy was not far off. Then everyone exerted himself to row with energy, and prepared to rush upon them. But, when we reached the place from where this smoke came, we found the birds had flown from there. One day sooner, and we would have had a battle, for we all thought they had departed only the day before. We could not make any further efforts; to follow them would have been labor lost, for their canoes are much lighter than our sailboats and barques. Finding ourselves resting at the moment when we expected to fight, and in peace when on the verge of war, we went ashore.

Looking over the places these robbers had just left, we found upon the banks of the river a plank which had served as the crossbar of a cross, which the Commandant du Plessis Bochart had erected the year before. These Indians had torn it down and upon this plank had painted the heads of thirty Hurons, whom they had captured. We studied it carefully. They had also fastened this picture to a branchless tree, so that passersby could readily see it; the different lines indicated the quality and age of the prisoners, as some Indians who were there explained to us. They had pictured two heads much larger than the others, to represent two Captains whom they had in their clutches, one of whom is the brave Taratouan. We saw also the heads Of two children, and of two other young lads who were being taken to the Seminary. They had made stripes in the form of plumes on the heads of the bravest ones. All these heads were scrawled in red, except one, which was painted in black, a sign that this last one had been killed, and that all the others were victims destined for the fire. Some Indians found the body of the one who had been slain, floating in the lake. We knew by these grotesque figures (for the Indians are not acquainted with the art of painting), the havoc wrought by these infidels, who were going away triumphant, bearing a quantity of skins that those poor Hurons were bringing to the storehouse of these Gentlemen of the Company of New France. What still more added to our sorrow was that these rovers had not seen us. I feel certain that if they had experienced the anger of those who followed them, they would not be likely to return soon. We had to go back the way we came.

As we were going down towards the Three Rivers, we met in the lake the four sailboats which were coming to reinforce us. Sir Coullart was of the group, as also Sir Giffard and Sir Pinguet, and others who deserve praise for having embarked so promptly to come and cope with the enemy, and to defend the goods and lands of the Associates. When we reached the residence of the Conception at Three Rivers, we found other Hurons who had escaped from the hands of their enemies. They arrived, one after the other, all worn out, hungrier than hunters, and with no other covering than their own skins.

On the 23rd of the same month of August, the father of that dearly beloved girl who was baptized last year on the 8th of January, came to me and asked me why I had made him leave the Chapel that morning, since he had gone in there to pray to God, desiring to believe in him. I answered that he could not be present at certain prayers we offered in the morning (it was Mass that I was about to offer), but that, if he were baptized, he should be present there, as the French were. Then he made me a long speech:

"Have you not heard," said he, "of my daughter, whom your brothers baptized in the Winter, who died in your faith, and was buried in the place where they bury the French? Have you not been told how my wife also believed in God before her death? It is I who persuaded them to embrace what you teach. I wish to take for myself the advice I gave them; I wish to die a Christian, and to be buried with your people. Believe me, Nikanis (My good friend), my heart has always said that your doctrine was good, I like to hear it. While you are here, teach me. You are always so busy that one cannot talk to you; I will come to see you, I will listen to you attentively; I am old, it is time I was thinking of myself."

The simple man said this to me in a voice that touched my heart. I sometimes drink a bitter cup, as I pass among the cabins at the time when the ships are anchored here; for everyone asks me, with reason, why I do not teach them any more? why I do not come to see them? I put them off from day to day, and meanwhile three long months pass before I am free. As to this good old man, when I was urging him to talk in favor of our Religion in the cabins, he answered me that he was afraid the young people would misconstrue his meaning, that he feared in case, if he instructed them, his use of the language or of certain words might convey a different meaning to them, and that some misfortune might therefore happen. As for me who could speak well, he said, nothing would pass my lips that was not entirely proper. It is one of the fears of these Indians that they will not speak or pronounce well what has been taught them, placing the whole force of the doctrine in the words.

But I explained to him that God looked at the heart and not at the lips; and if the mouth should make a mistake, nothing serious could happen from it, provided the heart was right. He was satisfied with this answer. I told him I had written to a great Captain in France (it is what we call people of influence, for they have no other title of rank except that of "Captain.") "I have written", I said, "to a great Captain that all your misfortunes come from your being an unsettled and wandering people; that you would become settled if you could be aided in clearing the land and making dwellings. As this Captain is good, he will give you the workmen whom he has here, to help you; then your people will not be buried, some here, some there, nor will so many of you die as now, for you will not have to suffer so much."

"Oh how good that will be!" (said he) "do you wish me to speak of this in our cabins? For I am old, they listen to me, and all the Captains are my young men." I told him I would be glad to have him do so.

As we were on the point of returning to Quebec, hopeless of seeing any more Hurons this year, an Innu Indian said to Sir Olivier, "Do not hurry to go away; the breast of one of our fortune tellers has throbbed. Tomorrow you will have news; some Hurons will surely come." Sir Olivier came to report this Prophecy to the Governor, with whom I was at the time. We heard it with amusement, and yet we were certainly astonished the next day, at seeing these four canoes, which had not been expected, arrive. This reminds me that, when we were at Quebec, two Indians, seeing that we questioned the coming of the ships, told us not to doubt that they would come; "You will have news of them tomorrow without fail, for our people's breasts have been throbbing strongly." This proved to be true, for the next day a sailboat brought us news of them. All this makes me conjecture that the devil enters into them and causes this throbbing, to more firmly bind them to himself, diverting them with these fine prophecies, which often enough prove false, God therefore disposing to show that they originate with the author of lies.

On the 28th, as I was visiting the cabins, I saw a sick child. I asked its mother if my brother had not yet baptized it; I had to laugh at the answer this simple woman gave, "Yes," said she, "he baptized her, but hardly any; baptize her more." In instructing these simple people on the virtue of the sacred waters of baptism, some imagine that the more there is poured out, the more effective is this Sacrament.

On the 29th, the Governor concluded to return to Quebec to dismiss the fleet, as these last four canoes assured us that the French whom we were awaiting in the rear guard of the Hurons, having arrived at the Weskarini Algonquin nation, had had to turn back due to the sickness in their band. He had me enter his barque with him; I was rather depressed, seeing that, through the non-arrival of the Hurons, who could have carried the little baggage we were sending to our Fathers, most of it remained at Three Rivers. And what made the trouble worse was that we had sent new men up there, and, as the old ones who had completed their term could not come down, our Fathers will find themselves burdened with a greater number of persons, and will not have means for their support, either for clothes, or to buy the food of the country. As to their food, God will cause these Indians to aid them, since we have not been able to send the commodities that serve them as money.

In truth, enough canoes came down; but, as they were full of sick people, they did not wish to burden themselves with the clothes or packages of other people; and those who did take any, made us pay double and triple freight. This is enough for this year; besides, we are about to land at Quebec. I am writing from the Saint Marie, a barque which is now conveying us upon the great river.

Paul Le Jeune.

On board the Saint Marie, opposite Cap-Rouge, in New France, this last of August, 1637.

LAST LETTER OF FATHER PAUL LE JEUNE, TO THE REVEREND FATHER PROVINCIAL. 1637.

Reverend Father,

The Governor had gone up to meet the Hurons, to communicate with those tribes who every year come to visit our French. As the return of the Fleet was urging his departure, after having stayed a long time at Three Rivers, he finally, on the 29th of August, went down to Quebec, having lost all hope of seeing any more Hurons this year. I was with him in his barque all the time, by his orders; we arrived at night, on the 31st of the same month. The day after our arrival, a canoe appeared which came to bring us the news that about one hundred and fifty Hurons had come down, and that it would be well for the Governor to go up and see them, as these tribes wished to speak with him. Our Fathers wrote me that it was necessary that I also should return, for the affairs of our Huron Mission, and for the Seminary.

The Governor, being busy in finishing his dispatches for the fleet, and in sending it away, could not leave Quebec. He sent in his place Sir Marc Bras-De-Fer, his Lieutenant, an honorable Gentleman. I wished to embark in one of the canoes of the Indians, but he made me take a place near him in his sailboat. We sailed during the night as well as the day, fighting against contrary winds, until the night of the fifth of September, when we landed at Three Rivers. The Hurons immediately ran to us at the sound of the oars of the two sailboats which conveyed us. The thunder of the cannon resounding from the fort at our disembarkment, I saw some throw themselves upon the ground in amazement.

When we went to see Sir de Chasteau-fort; we found him ill, so that on the following day I carried him Communion. After this, I opened the letters of our Fathers who are with the Hurons, and learned that the contagion continued in that country, that slanders were multiplying, that the demons were making open war against us. These tribes believe that we poison and bewitch them, carrying this so far that some of them no longer use the kettles of the French. They say that we have infected the waters, and that the mists which issue from there kill them; that our houses are fatal to them; that we have with us a dead body, which serves us as black magic; that, to kill their children, some Frenchmen penetrated the depths of the woods, taking with them the picture of a little child which we had pricked with the points of awls, and that there lay the exact cause of their death. They go even farther, they attack our Savior, Jesus Christ; for they announce that there is something, I do not know what, in the little Tabernacle of our Chapel, which causes them to die miserably.

They believe that there is a famous sorcerer among us, and that, if he were killed, they would recover health. What astonishes me still more is that some young Frenchmen, whom they have with them, seeing themselves involved in the same dangers, will not leave, wishing to run the same risks as our Fathers.

Despite all these reports, and all these misrepresentations, we have been offered more Seminarists than we could accept; in fact, we have refused several, not having anything with which to feed and maintain them. We are satisfied with six in these early stages. This last band of Hurons brought us a good number.

When the Huron tribes come down to see the French, they are accustomed to hold councils or assemblies. At first, it is they who speak and treat of their own affairs; towards the end, the French call them together, and recommend to them the subjects they wish to be discussed. Having at their arrival asked to speak to the Captain of the French, Sir Marc Bras-De-Fer, in the absence of the Governor, acted for him. We were seated on the benches, and the Hurons on the ground, as is their habit. Each one having taken his place, and all being in silence, two Huron Captains showed their presents.

One of the two Captains, wishing to make a speech, asked first what Sir Marc Bras-De-Fer's name was; then he addressed him, saying: "L'Isle" (it is therefore these people call everything, by its name, without other ceremony), "you and your people are oki," -- that is, "you are Demons, or extraordinary beings, and more than common men." "Although our country is ruined, although disease and war are laying all waste, you attract us to you, making us surmount all sorts of difficulties to come and see you." Then, showing us their presents, "These tell little; but then we are in small numbers, for they are all dying in our villages and along the way; this does not prevent us from coming to confirm the peace and friendship which exists between us."

Sir Marc Bras-De-Fer replied that he was glad to see them; that our great Captain, the Governor, had come up there to speak with them, that he had waited a long time; that he had sent a barque to meet them, to protect them against the Iroquois; that, for lack of supplies, the barque had come back, then had gone up a second time, but finally, seeing that the season was passing, it had to return. He said that this great Captain, having learned that five hundred Iroquois held lake St. Pierre, capturing the Hurons as they passed through, had sent to Quebec for aid; that he had been sent a barque and four sailboats, full of brave warriors, and that he himself had tried to pursue their enemies; that he was sorry he could not come up to Three Rivers again, that there were a large number of ships and a great many Frenchmen, both at Quebec and at Tadoussac; these he was occupied in dismissing, but that he had delegated him in his place, and that he would gladly come and see them next year.

"As for myself," Marc Bras-De-Fer continued, "I am glad to see you, but sorry about your sickness. I will thank you for your presents, which are acceptable to me; but I have one suggestion which I wish to urge upon you strongly. It is, not to believe these false rumors, like the one that appeared that Sir de Champlain had wished to ruin the whole country by his death."

They said that the Kichesipirini Algonquins had circulated these false rumors. Then Sir Marc Bras-De-Fer summoned one named Oumastikoueian, who is allied to those Kichesipirini Algonquins, and had him asked why the Algonquins sowed discord between the French and the Hurons, saying that Sir de Champlain had wished to ruin the country and drag it down to death with him, and that a Captain of the Innu Indians himself had borne witness to this ill-will. "Where is this Captain?" he was asked. "Speak, now; make him come in, let him tell us if Sir de Champlain ever made such a speech."

This poor Oumastikoueian began to exclaim against the Hurons, saying that it was they who spread a report that the French had bewitched a cloak, to cause their death. We asked the Hurons if they had invented these lies; those of one village accused the inhabitants of another of originating these reports. Each denied these slanders, saying there was no need to speak of it further, and that the cause of their death was being attributed to certain wampum collars which the Innus had collected to invite them to go to war. They were urged not to listen to these deceits.

This council or assembly having ended, these Indians went to the store to exchange their pelts for hatchets, knives, blankets, and other wares that the Directors and Associates send them.

Having finished their trades (to use the word which is current here), the last council takes place. Sir Marc Bras-De-Fer had me sit near him. The presents of the French were exposed in the middle of the place, and the leaders and principal men of this nation were seated in a circle before us. Sir Marc Bras-De-Fer said to me, "My father, let us begin with the concerns of Christianity, for that is the most important question." In fact, it is always necessary to begin with this subject; for when the speech is begun by the announcement of the presents, those who have no interest in the faith rise and go away unceremoniously afterward, as soon as one begins to speak of our belief. But as long as the presents attract their attention, neither their minds nor their bodies are withdrawn far from the speeches which are made to them. It is the custom of these people to speak through presents, and through feasts; while the pot is boiling, you will find the Indians as attentive as you wish. The feast distributed, the Indians close their ears and open their mouths. They do not keep so many senses occupied all at once.

Sir Marc Bras-De-Fer began to speak, and told them that he was pleased with the presents they had made him; that he honored the steadfastness of their friendship, since neither the capture of their countrymen by their enemies, nor the malady which afflicted them on all sides, had prevented them from coming to visit us; that this communication was the bond of the peace which for a long time had existed between the two nations, French and Huron. He said that we were sometimes afflicted in our country with the same scourges of disease by which they are attacked; that then we asked our Jesuit Fathers what must be done to stop these maladies; that, if they wished to do the same, they would find it to their advantage; and if at that moment they would listen to me, I would tell them what they ought to do. They answered that they would be glad to hear me.

I drew forth a beautiful picture of Jesus Christ. Then beginning to speak, I told them that we were not the masters of life and death; that he whose image they saw was Son of the Almighty, that he is good, that he loved men, that the demons who do so much harm were only his slaves. I said that when we offended this great Captain, son of God, either by stealing, or refusing to believe in and obey him, that he permitted the devils to afflict us; but that asking pardon for our offenses and promising to be faithful to him, he cured us of our ills and bound the hands of the evil spirits, so that they could no longer injure us. That, if they wished to do the same, I would give this beautiful picture to Pierre Tsiouendaentaha, our Huron Neophyte, to take into their country, so they could ask this great Captain to have pity on them.

They replied that Echon -- their name for Father Brebeuf -- told them the same thing that I had just said; that they would talk over this matter with their old men, and that they would all together do what we had recommended. Then our new Christian took the Picture and began to preach. It is a long time since any preaching has touched me so deeply, although I only heard it through the mouth of Sir Nicolet, who cheerfully lends his tongue to the Religion of Jesus Christ. The eyes can hardly refrain from tears when the ears hear these words coming from the mouth of a barbarian, who perhaps has eaten more than twenty times of human flesh, and is now sounding the praises of God.

This subject concluded, Sir Marc Bras-De-Fer broached another, urging these people to bring down some Huron families to live near the French, assuring them that they would be assisted, that we would give them clothing, and would help them to clear the land and to build a good house. He pointed out to them the reasons which might influence them to embrace this scheme, which they will not carry out soon; for the women will not readily undertake a journey of from 500 to 750 miles, to come and live with foreigners. One must not cease to strike and strike again upon the same spot; perseverance will prevail; and if ever this is accomplished, it will be an inestimable benefit to Christianity.

It is then that, if Seminaries are built, they will be filled with little Huron girls. But we made no mention of the Seminary for boys, because we were afraid they would urge us to take more of them than we could accommodate. Only Sir Marc Bras-De-Fer took with him a pretty little boy, whom they had given us, caressing him in their presence, as an evidence that the Captains cherished those who were confided to us. We asked heaven and earth to get these children; everything seemed to point to the overthrow of the Seminary, we were momentarily expecting nothing less than its ruin; and yet now we have to be silent for fear of being urged to take some of them. The business relating to Christianity being concluded, we came to the presents.

Sir Marc Bras-De-Fer had these people told that he presented them a barrel of hatchets and of iron arrow-heads. Part of this was to waft their canoes gently homewards, part to draw them to us next year. The Indians are accustomed to use such metaphors. Then he had them bring another present consisting of a fine kettle, some hatchets, and some iron arrowheads, which he offered to the inhabitants of Ossosane, because they had received our Fathers and our French in their village, having built them a fine cabin. It is rare prudence in these Gentlemen of the Company of New France to attribute to Religion what has been given almost entirely through policy. It costs nothing to offer with a holy intention, what must be given for another reason, to retain the friendship of these peoples. It is one of the fine expedients of Sir Charles Charles de Montmagny and of Sir Marc Bras-De-Fer, his Lieutenant.

The conclusion of the council was that, as we had caused these good people to wait, and as they were short of food, Sir Marc Bras-De-Fer had them given several barrels of peas to supply them on the way. The Captains, one after the other, expressed their thanks profusely. One said, "L'Isle, you do what ought to be done; it is how brothers aid each other in their needs." The other asserted that all their country would be filled with the renown of the Captain of the French, and of his liberality. There was one of them who exclaimed, "L'Isle, I thank you, I thank the black robes, I thank the Interpreter who speaks to us, I thank all the young men who are your retinue; all our country thanks you." And then all the others, as a sign of their approval, shouted their "ho, ho, ho, ho," and then each one departed. Observe the promptness of these nations in their business. We arrived Saturday night, and, the Tuesday after, all this was decided and finished.

Sir Marc Bras-De-Fer effectively commended, in these councils, all our French and our Fathers who are in those far distant lands, warning these people to listen to them well, and not to undo their own country. He said that all the French Captains esteemed us highly, that it was we who instructed people of the highest rank; and that they themselves knew well we did not go into their country for worldly interests.

Meanwhile, this contagion or Epidemic, which slaughters so many Hurons, has not been communicated to the French at Three Rivers, although they have had negotiations and communication with these people. I will relate a rather amusing thing that Father Paul Ragueneau wrote me on his voyage. As he had to observe a perpetual silence with these poor Indians, not understanding their language, his conversation was usually addressed to Heaven. As he was sometimes speaking to the God of Heaven, and uttering from his heart some spontaneous prayers, these simple people were anxious to know to whom he was addressing his speech; they set themselves to watch, some on one side, some on another, to discover who it was, and when they perceived nothing, they redoubled their watchfulness, changing their positions, and looking now here, now there, in amazement.

I will tell now what I have learned recently of the death of Father Charles Turgis. It is about three years since he was sent with Father du Marche to the islands of Miscou, chiefly to minister to the French who were going there to establish a residence, and incidentally to do what they could with the Indians they happened to meet. They lived there together about a year in fairly good health, at the end of which -- the affairs of this residence having made Father du Marche board a ship that was going to Quebec, -- Father Turgis remained alone. Afterward, having been invited by other ships to withdraw from there, as there was little probability of the return of his companion, or the coming of someone in his place (I had in fact sent one from Quebec, but he could not land at Miscou on account of the contrary winds which prevailed at that time), and as there was good reason to dread some misfortune from sickness or poverty, or some inroad of the Indians, he yet answered that he could not die in a more favorable place than there; besides, charity compelled him not to leave those who, through his departure, would be bereft of all spiritual aid.

It seems that this act made Heaven jealous to possess so courageous a soul, for the disease known as scurvy, common in these new settlements, spread among these new residents; the Father was attacked by it, and was finally stricken down on the second day of March, dying, after many others, on the fourth of May. He is the first one of our Jesuits to die from disease in these lands.

Paul Le Jeune.

From Quebec, this 11th of September, 1637.

LE JEUNE'S REPORT, 1637. THE LAND OF THE HURONS, IN 1637. SENT TO QUEBEC TO THE REVEREND FATHER PAUL LE JEUNE, SUPERIOR OF THE MISSIONS OF THE JESUITS, IN NEW FRANCE. EVENTS FROM JULY TO SEPTEMBER, ARRANGED IN THE FORM OF A JOURNAL.

I will begin with the date of the embarkation for the trading at Quebec, which was the 22nd of July, 1636. We had been waiting a long time for this day. This delay, and the rumors of war which had caused many to exchange the paddle for bow and arrows, gave us some reason to fear that they might content themselves with their old kettles for this year.

Accordingly, Father Antoine Daniel and two of our servants embarked, in a fleet of eight or ten canoes. The day was beautiful, the lake calm; but I cannot deny that this separation was somewhat painful to us at first, for we judged that from now on, we would need a new settlement in the heart of the country, and the Father seemed to us to be altogether necessary for this purpose, as he was the only one we had who could, after the Reverend Father jean de Breboeuf, our Superior, readily navigate the intricacies of the language. But we decided that to begin a Seminary for Huron Youth was a thing so advantageous that we passed over that consideration.

On the 27th, Father Ambroise Davost embarked. It seemed necessary that, in case God should dispose of Father Daniel, someone should be upon the spot to take his place; and as you often have to deal with our Indians at Three Rivers, he being acquainted with the language, will be able to render you good service.

Father Pierre Pijart and I took over from Father Antoine Daniel in the instruction of the little children of our Village. The Father Superior assigned to each of us a certain number of cabins, which we began to visit every day until the epidemic was at its height, when we deemed it proper to desist, for reasons which I shall mention. We derived considerable advantage from this little exercise, by improving ourselves in the language. Besides teaching the children, we explained some of our mysteries to the fathers and mothers; these talks, however, were not long; one must learn to put one foot before the other, before he can walk.

We were glad to see that we were understood, and that an Indian occasionally took up the conversation and repeated what we had said. Just after the embarkation, we did little more than to take possession of our parish; the quiet, and the calmness of the weather, inviting us to make our retreat, the more so as at this season visits among the villages would be almost useless, the women being occupied all day in their fields, and the men in trading.

On the 6th of August, an event occurred which requires a few lines here, the circumstances of that being remarkable. A young Huron was wickedly assassinated by his own brother. This is not the first time that rage and vengeance have caused the claims of natural love to be overlooked, but I do not know whether such a thing ever occurred before under a pretext so black and detestable.

This wretch, who was no less thievish than cruel, having one day chosen his time, robbed his father-in-law, and carried his booty to his mother's house in another village. Still, he could not conceal his game so well that suspicion did not rest upon him, with the result that, according to the custom of the country, this father-in-law, using to good advantage his right of reprisal, went and pillaged his cabin, taking all he had and hardly leaving the residents enough with which to cover themselves. Then there were exasperated persons, but especially the one who had dealt the first blow. He planned a second one, to take his revenge for the suspicion with which he had been charged, and to oblige his father-in-law, apparently through the processes of justice, if there can be any among these Indians, to restore to him and to pay him double what he claimed had been unjustly carried away.

He allows himself to be so blinded by passion that, to satisfy it, he resolves to have the blood of his brother, and to shed it with his own hands. To execute his plan, he takes him off by a solitary path towards the Village of Onnentisati, where his father-in-law resided, under the pretext of going to pick mulberries. He especially chooses this place, that, as people knew of their quarrel, the murder would be more readily accused of the father-in-law, or at least the Village would be charged with it; and therefore this particular person, or the public, would be bound to give satisfaction both to him and to the other relatives of the dead man, through the presents given by the custom of the country; for you already know that among these tribes this crime never goes unpunished; if the guilty person cannot be found, the Village near which the deed has been committed is responsible for it. In fact, the thing was done as it had been planned; and the crime was no sooner made public than the author of it had the insolence to appear and assert that his father-in-law was the murderer; that the ill-will he had for his family was well known; that, not satisfied with having robbed them, he had tried to do them still more harm by taking the life of a person who was closely related to them. They assumed so high a tone, he and his relatives, that they closed the mouths of several whose eyes were wide enough open to see the falseness of these slanders. They followed up the affair so eagerly that, despite the arguments the accused brought forward for their defense, the village of Onnentisati was condemned to give satisfaction. True, the fine was moderate, because the dead person and his relatives were obscure people and of little account.

Meanwhile, a girl of the same Village presents herself and reports that she saw this murder with her own eyes; that the murderer was not of their Village, that it was a blow from the hand of him who was making so great trouble about it, and that the blood of this poor wretch cried for vengeance against no one but his own brother. She told the circumstances of the deed. "I was returning" (said she) "from my field, when I heard a noise like that of persons engaged in some quarrel; I quietly drew near, and hid myself in the brushwood nearby, where I could hear and see, without being seen, all that was taking place. I saw Sendetsi" (the name of this Barbarian) "and his brother distinctly; and while I was watching their behavior, and listening to hear what they were saying, I was entirely dumbfounded when Sendetsi seized him by the throat with one hand, and with the other struck a blow with his hatchet upon his head. This poor wretch cried out several times, 'Brother, have pity on me; brother, have pity on me;' but these words fell upon pitiless ears. This cowardly act was no sooner accomplished than I slipped away secretly and fled, fearing the same thing might happen to me. If that wretch had seen me, he would not have been so foolish as to leave a witness of his crime, especially a girl whom he could have killed without resistance."

The Old Men and the more prominent ones of the Village found the story so plausible that they tried to use her testimony against Sendetsi and by this means acquit him who was accused, and for whom they were under penalty. But it was in vain, for this black and cunning man told them, without changing countenance, that this was false testimony; that if they would persist in discharging his father-in-law, he was satisfied, but that he would from now on hold this girl responsible, that he had good reason to believe that she herself was guilty of this crime, it being improbable that one brother would ever make an attempt upon the life of another. These words, uttered with a brazen face and incredible boldness, struck all those present dumb, and the relatives were immediately set free, according to agreement.

On the 8th, we received a package of letters from you through the medium of an Indian, uncle of Louis de Saint Foy. This news, received before the time, brought us a special consolation. We were happy to hear news of the fleet, that it was composed of eight fine ships under the command of Sir du Plessis Bochart. Our Fathers who have come to see us this year, and above all Father Pierre Chastellain and Father Charles Garnier, who had the honor to come over in his ship, have enjoyed a favor which cannot be highly enough appreciated, in celebrating the Mass almost the whole length of the passage, to the great satisfaction of the ship's company. We learned also through the same medium the number and names of the Fathers whom God was sending us. But our joy was dimmed by the assurances you gave us of the death of the late Sir de Champlain, I say assurances, for rumors of it had been current for a long time, and had even reached us; but there were so many different versions, even as regarding which person, that we had some reason to persuade ourselves that what we feared had not happened.

Towards the evening of the 12th, Father Pierre Chastellain arrived. We were at first surprised at the news of his coming, for it was only three weeks since our Indians had departed for Quebec; therefore the journey was an extraordinary one. The Father Superior and Father Pijart went to meet him; as for me, I was still in the retreat. I prepared what we had, to receive him; but what a feast it was!-- a handful of small dried fish, with a little flour; I sent for some fresh ears of corn that we had roasted for him after the manner of the country. But in his heart, according to his story, he never partook of better food.

Father Charles Garnier did not arrive until a day later, although, up to the last two or three days' journey, he and Father Chastellain had always traveled together. They had had the good fortune to encamp together during the whole length of the journey. From the time of their departure from Three Rivers, they were in the hands of good Indians, who treated them kindly. All this, added to the happy meeting they had with Father Antoine Daniel, and four or five days later with Father Ambroise Davost in the country of the Nipissings, went far toward mitigating a great part of the fatigues of this voyage. We, also, received them in good health, and as strong and vigorous as if we had not budged from Paris. We learned from them that Sir Charles Charles de Montmagny had taken the place of the late Sir de Champlain.

On the 24th, an Indian who was passing our house informed us that Soranhes, father of Louis de Saint Foy, was sick. He did this so coldly that we did not concern ourselves further about it; but as the Father Superior had a journey to make in that direction, he departed the next day, intending to go and visit him at the same time; but he learned on the way that he was dead. We were all the more grieved, as some persons told us that he had not died a natural death, but that the grief he felt for the loss of his son had so plunged him into despair that he himself had shortened his days. This is the way they say it occurred: One day, when he found himself alone in his cabin with one of his little daughters, he sent her to get a certain root that they call Ondachienroa, which is a quick poison. This child went for it innocently, supposing that her father intended to make some medicine, as he had shown some slight illness. She brought him some, but not enough to suit him, and she returned for it the second time. He ate his fill of it; a high fever attacked him, and carried him off in a little while. But his relatives do not admit that he died in this way. Some time afterward his little girl died; we received news of her death, for which we felt a special regret, as she was a bright child, and wonderfully docile.

We hoped to derive great advantages from the baptism of a sick woman were she to live or to die. When the Father Superior went to see her and found her quite sick, he had no sooner made overtures of Baptism to her, than she replied that she would be glad to receive it, and that if she should lose her speech, she would continue to wish for it in her heart. "For," said she, "if it be true that our souls go to Heaven after baptism, I wish to be baptized and go to find my brother," an Indian who was baptized and died two years ago. This good disposition, together with the bad condition of her health, persuaded the Father Superior to instruct her fully. Father Pierre Chastellain baptized her, and named her Marie. She died a few days later. The cause of her death, according to her parents, was the loss of a red hat. In fact, we were urgently requested to give her another one, as if this hat could have restored her to health; and even after her death her father was anxious to see her borne to the tomb with a red hat on her head. Here is his reason: "How," said he, "do you expect the French to recognize her in Heaven, if she does not wear their uniform?"

This woman, at the beginning of her sickness, imagined that she had seen a black man enter who had touched her body, and that she had at the same time found herself all on fire; and that this specter, before disappearing, had begun to dance with the rest of the troop. When she told this, all those present concluded that it was the Demon Aoutaerohi who caused her sickness. Many feasts were made for her recovery; and one day when she was sick they made a feast of a dog, because of which, according to their story, she felt wonderfully well, and also, because she began to open her eyes while the dog was still half alive on the coals, they thought that this medicine was operating, and that she already felt some effects from it.

A medicine man was invited to try to cure her. He took a sweat, to get a knowledge of her disease; he threw some tobacco into the fire, and perceived, he said, five men; then he expressed the opinion that she was bewitched, that she had five charms in her body, that the most dangerous, and the one which was to cause her death, was in the navel. They had to ask another one to get them out, for these Gentlemen content themselves with designating the evil. This one had to be asked. He usually makes three demands when he comes to treat a sick person. The dogs must not howl, for his cures are only made in silence; he only applies his remedies in a place apart, and he will often make you carry a poor patient into the woods; and the Sky must be clear. Still he did not insist upon all these ceremonies on this occasion, for the patient was not carried out of the cabin, perhaps because the Sky was cloudy and it rained a part of the day. That same day I accompanied the Reverend Father Superior to this place; the charlatan was still in the cabin; we found the father, the mother, and nearly all the family at the door. This Sorcerer gave her a potion which, he said, must go directly down to the navel, where the seat of her disease was. But it went up, they say, to her ears, which immediately became swollen; and shortly afterward she died. When he was asked why his remedy had not taken effect, it was found that he had not been given all that he demanded, above all, a pipe of red stone and a pouch for his tobacco. This is the way these tricksters delude these poor people.

Since the last letters you received from us, God has given us the grace to baptize two hundred, both adults and little children, most of whom were not baptized until they were in danger of death.

THE EXCESSIVE CRUELTY OF MEN UPON A PRISONER OF WAR FROM THE IROQUOIS NATION.

ON the 2nd of September, we learned that an Iroquois prisoner had been brought to the village of Onnentisati, and that they were preparing to put him to death. This Indian was one of eight captured by them at Lake Ontario, where there were 25 or 30 of them fishing; the rest had saved themselves by flight. Not one, they say, would have escaped if our Hurons had not rushed on so hastily. They brought back only seven, being content to carry off the head of the eighth one. They were no sooner beyond the reach of the enemy than, according to their custom, the whole troop assembled and held a council, in which it was decided that six should be given to the Attignenonghac and the Arendaronons, and the seventh to this place where we are. They disposed of them therefore because their band was composed of these three nations.

When the prisoners had arrived in the country, the Old Men (to whom the young men on their return from war leave the disposition of their spoils) held another assembly, to take counsel among themselves as to the town where each individual prisoner should be burned and put to death, and the persons to whom they should be given; for it is customary, when some notable person has lost one of his relatives in war, to give him a present of some captive taken from the enemy, to dry his tears and partly relieve his grief. The one who had been destined for this place was brought by the Captain Enditsacone to the village of Onnentisati, where the war chiefs held a Council and decided that this prisoner should be given to Saouandaouascouay, who is one of the chief men of the country, in consideration of one of his nephews who had been captured by the Iroquois. This decision being made, he was taken to Arontaen, a village about 5 miles away from us. At first, we were horrified at the thought of being present at this spectacle; but, having well considered all, we judged it wise to be there, to win this soul for God. Accordingly, we departed, the Father Superior, Father Garnier, and I together. We reached Arontaen a little while before the prisoner, and saw this poor wretch coming in the distance, singing in the midst Of 30 or 40 Indians who were escorting him. He was dressed in a beautiful beaver robe and wore a string of wampum beads around his neck, and another in the form of a crown around his head. A great crowd was present at his arrival.

He was made to sit down at the entrance to the village, and there was a struggle as to who should make him sing. Up to the hour of his torment, we saw only acts of humanity exercised towards him; but he had already been quite roughly handled since his capture. One of his hands was badly bruised by a stone; and one finger was, not cut off, but violently wrenched away. The thumb and forefinger of the other hand had been nearly taken off by a blow from the hatchet, and the only plaster he had was some leaves bound with bark. The joints of his arms were badly burned, and in one of them there was a deep cut. We approached to look at him more closely; he raised his eyes and regarded us attentively. The Father Superior was invited to make him sing; but he explained that it was not what had brought him there, that he had come only to teach him what he ought to do that he might go to Heaven. He approached him, and told him that we all felt a great deal of compassion for him. Meanwhile, they brought him food from all sides, -- some bringing sagamite, some squashes and fruits, and treated him only as a brother and a friend. From time to time, he was commanded to sing, which he did with so much vigor and strength of voice that, considering his age, for he seemed to be more than 50 years old, we wondered how he could be equal to it, -- especially since he had done hardly anything else day and night since his capture, and especially since his arrival in their country.

Meanwhile, a Captain, raising his voice to the same tone used by those who make some proclamation in the public places in France, addressed to him these words: "My nephew, you have good reason to sing, for no one is doing you any harm; see yourself now among your relatives and friends." What a compliment! All those who surrounded him, with their affected kindness and their fine words, were so many butchers who showed him a smiling face only to treat him afterward with more cruelty.

In all the places through which he had passed, he had been given something with which to make a feast; they did not fail in this act of courtesy, for a dog was immediately put into the kettle, and, before it was half cooked, he was brought into the cabin where the people were to gather for the banquet. He had someone tell the Father Superior to follow him, and that he was glad to see him. Doubtless it had touched his heart to find (among barbarians whom cruelty alone rendered affable and humane) persons who had some real feeling for his misery. So we entered and placed ourselves near him; the Father Superior told him to be of good cheer, that he would be miserable during the little of life that remained to him, but that, if he would listen to him, he would assure him of an eternal happiness in Heaven after his death. All those who were beside him conspired with us, it seemed, in the purpose to instruct him; among others, a young man, who, though without any obligation to do so, performed the service of interpreter, and repeated to him what the Father Superior had explained.

This prisoner did not properly belong to the enemy's country, as he was a native of Seneca. Yet, since a few years before, the Seneca had made peace with the Hurons, this man, not having accepted this treaty, had married among the Onondaga, to be free to carry arms against the Hurons. See how God has led this poor Indian into the ways of Salvation; perhaps if he had remained at Seneca, he might have continued until death in ignorance of his Creator.

And so the feast was being prepared. As soon as the dog was cooked, they took out a large piece of it, which he was made to eat, for they had to put it into his mouth, as he was unable to use his hands; he shared it with those who were near him. To see the treatment they gave him, you might have thought he was the brother and relative of all those who were talking to him. His poor hands caused him great pain, and hurt so severely that he asked to go out of the cabin, to take a little air. His request was immediately granted. His hands were unwrapped, and they brought him some water to refresh them. They were half putrefied, and all swarming with worms, a stench arising from them that was almost unbearable. He asked them to take away these worms, which were gnawing him even to the marrow, and which made him feel, he said, the same pain as if someone had touched him with fire. All was done that could be done to relieve him, but in vain; for they would appear, and disappear within, as soon as one undertook the task of drawing them out. Meanwhile he did not cease singing at intervals, and they continued to give him something to eat, such as fruits or squashes.

Seeing that the hour of the feast was drawing near, we withdrew into the cabin where we had taken lodgings, for we did not think it best to remain in the cabin of the prisoner, not expecting to find an opportunity to speak further with him until the next day. But God brought him to us, and we were happy when we were told that he was coming to lodge with us, and still more so afterward, when (at a time when there was every reason to fear that the confusion and the insolence of the young men, gathered from all the surrounding towns, would interfere with our plans) the Father Superior was there when there was a good opportunity to speak to him, and had all the leisure necessary to prepare him for baptism. A good band of Indians who were present, not only did not interrupt him, but even listened to him with close attention.

The Father Superior found him so willing that he did not consider it advisable to postpone any longer his baptism. He was named Joseph. This being accomplished, we withdrew from his presence to take a little rest. It was almost impossible for me to close my eyes; and I noticed that during a good part of the night, the Old Men of the village, and some Captains who were guarding him, conversed with him about the affairs of his country and about his capture, but with evidences of good will. In the morning, the Father Superior again found means to speak a good word to him, to dispose him to bear his torments patiently. Then he had to leave us to go to Tondakhra, which is 2 miles from Arontaen. He took the road, well escorted, and singing as usual.

On the same day, we went to Tondakhra, where we unwittingly took lodgings in the cabin that had been assigned to the prisoner. In the evening, he made a feast at which he sang and danced, according to the manner of the country, during a good part of the night. The Father instructed him more minutely on all that pertains to the duty of a Christian. There was present a good company, and all showed that they took pleasure in this conversation. This gave the Father the opportunity, in discussing the sixth Commandment, to explain to them how highly God esteemed chastity, and that, on this account, we had bound ourselves by a vow to cultivate this virtue until death. They were astonished to learn that among the Christians there were so many persons of both sexes who voluntarily deprived themselves during their entire lifetime of sensual pleasures, in which these find all their happiness. They even asked many questions. Someone asked why men were ashamed to be seen naked among themselves, and, above all, why we could not endure to have them go without loincloths. The Father replied that it was due to the sin of the first man. Another one asked him how we knew there was a Hell, and from where we obtained all that we told about the condition of the damned. The Father replied to this that we had indubitable proofs of it, that we possessed it through divine revelation; that the Holy Ghost himself had dictated these truths to certain persons, and to our Ancestors, who had left them to us in writing, and that we still carefully preserved the books containing them.

The next morning, which was the 4th of September, the prisoner again confirmed his wish to die a Christian, and his desire to go to Heaven, and he even promised the Father that he would remember to say, in his torments, "Jesus taitenr", that is, "Jesus, have pity on me." They were still waiting for the Captain Saouandaouascouay, who had gone trading, to fix upon the day and the place of his torment, for this captive was entirely at his disposal. He arrived a little later, and, at their first interview, our Joseph, instead of being disquieted from fear of his approaching death, and of such a death, said to him in our presence that the Father had baptized him, "haiatachondi;" he used this expression as showing that he was glad because of that. The Father consoled him further, saying that the torments he was about to suffer would be of short duration, but that the joys which awaited him in Heaven would have no limit.

Saouandaouascouay looked at him pleasantly and treated him with incredible gentleness. This is a summary of the talk he had with him: "My nephew, you must know that when I first received news that you were at my disposal, I was wonderfully pleased, fancying that he whom I lost in war had been, as it were, brought back to life, and was returning to his country. At the same time, I decided to give you your life; I was already thinking of preparing you a place in my cabin, and thought that you would pass the rest of your days pleasantly with me. But now that I see you in this condition, your fingers gone and your hands half rotten, I change my mind, and I am sure that you yourself would now regret to live any longer. I shall do you a greater kindness to tell you that you must prepare to die. It is the Ataronchronon Hurons who have treated you so ill, and who also cause your death. Come then, my nephew, be of good courage; prepare yourself for this evening, and do not allow yourself to be cast down through fear of the tortures." Then Joseph asked him, with a firm and confident manner, what would be the nature of his torment. To this Saouandaouascouay replied that he would die by fire. "That is well," said Joseph, "that is well."

While this Captain was conversing with him, a woman, the sister of the deceased, brought him some food, showing remarkable concern for him. You would almost have said that he was her own son, and I do not know that this creature did not represent to her him whom she had lost. Her countenance was sad, and her eyes seemed all bathed in tears. This Captain often put his own pipe in the prisoner's mouth, wiped with his own hands the sweat that rolled down his face, and cooled him with a feather fan.

About noon, he made his "Astataion", that is, his farewell feast, according to the custom of those who are about to die. No special invitations were given, everyone being free to come; the people were there in crowds. Before the feast began, he walked through the middle of the cabin and said in a loud and confident voice, "My brothers, I am going to die; amuse yourselves boldly around me, I fear neither tortures nor death." He immediately began to sing and dance through the whole length of the cabin; some of the others sang also and danced in their turn. Then food was given to those who had plates, and those who had none watched the others eat. We were of the latter, since we were not there to eat. The feast over, he was taken back to Arontaen, to die there. We followed him, to render him all the service we could.

Upon our arrival, as soon as he saw the Father Superior, he invited him to sit down near him, and asked him when he would prepare him for Heaven, thinking that he must be baptized once more; and as the Father did not quite understand what he was trying to say, having replied to him that it was not yet time for that, "Enonske," said he, "do it as soon as possible." He asked him if he would go to Heaven. The Father answered that he should not doubt it, since he was baptized. He repeated to him again that the tortures he was about to suffer would soon be over, and that without baptism, he would have been tormented forever in eternal flames.

Those who were present there had different thoughts. Some looked at us, and were astonished to see us so strongly attached to him, following him everywhere, losing no occasion to speak to him, and to give him some word of consolation. Others, it seemed, thought only of doing him some good. Many were shocked by his condition, and contemplated the extremity of his misery. Among others, a woman, thinking, it is to be supposed, that this poor victim would be happy and would be spared a great deal of his suffering if he could kill himself, and prevent the insolence and cruelty of the young men, asked the Father if there would be any harm in this act. The Father instructed them fully upon this point, and showed them that God alone was the master of our lives, and it was for him only to dispose of them; that those who poisoned themselves or made away with themselves by violence, committed a grievous sin; and that Saouandanoncoua -- speaking of our Joseph -- would lose the fruit of his baptism, and would never go to Heaven, if he hurried by a single moment the hour of his death.

Meanwhile the Sun, which was fast declining, admonished us to go to the place where this cruel Tragedy was to be enacted. It was in the cabin of one Atsan, who is the great war Captain; therefore it is called "Otinontsiskiaj ondaon," meaning, "the house of cut-off heads." It is there all the Councils of war are held; as to the house where the affairs of the country, and those which relate only to the observance of order, are transacted, it is called "Endionrra ondaon", that is, "house of the Council." We took a place where we could be near the victim, and say an encouraging word to him when the opportunity occurred.

Towards 8 o'clock in the evening, eleven fires were lighted along the cabin, about ten feet distant from each other. The people gathered immediately, the old men taking places above, upon a sort of platform, which extends, on both sides, the entire length of the cabins. The young men were below, but were so crowded that they were almost piled upon one another, so that there was hardly a passage along the fires. Cries of joy resounded on all sides; each provided himself, one with a firebrand, another with a piece of bark, to burn the victim. Before he was brought in, the Captain Aenons encouraged all to do their duty, representing to them the importance of this act, which was viewed, he said, by the Sun and by the God of war. He ordered that at first they should burn only his legs, so that he might hold out until daybreak; also, for that night, they were not to go and amuse themselves in the woods.

He had hardly finished when the victim entered. Imagine the terror that seized him at the sight of these preparations. The cries redoubled at his arrival; he is made to sit down upon a mat, his hands are bound, then he rises and makes a tour of the cabin, singing and dancing; no one burns him this time. He had no sooner returned to his place than the war Captain took his robe and said, "Oteiondi" -- speaking of a Captain -- "will plunder him of the robe which I hold;" and added, "the Ataronchronon Hurons will cut off his head, which will be given to Ondessone, with one arm and the liver to make a feast." After this, each one armed himself with a brand, or a piece of burning bark, and he began to walk, or rather to run, around the fires; each one struggled to burn him as he passed. Meanwhile, he shrieked like a lost soul; the whole crowd imitated his cries, or rather smothered them with horrible shouts.

One must be there to see a living picture of Hell. The whole cabin appeared as if on fire; and across the flames and the dense smoke that issued, these barbarians -- crowding one upon the other, howling at the top of their voices, with firebrands in their hands, their eyes flashing with rage and fury -- seemed like so many Demons who would give no respite to this poor wretch. They often stopped him at the other end of the cabin, some of them taking his hands and breaking the bones of that by sheer force; others pierced his ears with sticks which they left in them; others bound his wrists with cords, which they tied roughly, pulling at each end of the cord with all their might. When he made the round and paused to take a little breath, he was made to rest upon hot ashes and burning coals.

It is with horror that I describe all this. I do not know what would have become of us had it not been for the consolation we had of considering him no longer as a common Indian, but as a child of the Church. As for me, I was reduced to such a degree that I could hardly nerve myself to look up to see what was going on. On the seventh round of the cabin, his strength failed him. After he had rested a short time upon the embers, they tried to make him rise as usual, but he did not stir; and one of these butchers having applied a brand to his loins, he was seized with a fainting fit, and would never have risen again if the young men had been permitted to have their way, for they had already begun to stir up the fire about him, as if to burn him. But the Captains prevented them from going any further, and ordered them to cease tormenting him, saying it was important that he should see the daylight.

They had him lifted upon a mat, most of the fires were extinguished, and many of the people went away. There was a little respite for our sufferer, and some consolation for us. How we wished that this swoon might last all night; to moderate this cruelty in any other way was impossible for us. While he was in this condition, their only thought was to make him return to his senses, giving him many drinks composed of pure water only. At the end of an hour, he began to revive a little, and to open his eyes; he was immediately commanded to sing. He did this at first in a broken and dying voice; but finally he sang so loud that he could be heard outside the cabin. The youth assemble again; they talk to him, they make him sit up, they begin to act worse than before. For me to describe in detail all he endured during the rest of the night, would be almost impossible; we suffered enough in forcing ourselves to see a part of it. Of the rest, we judged from their talk; and the smoke issuing from his roasted flesh revealed to us something of which we could not have borne the sight.

One thing, in my opinion, increased his consciousness of suffering: that anger and rage did not appear upon the faces of those who were tormenting him, but rather gentleness and humanity, their words expressing only teasing, or tokens of friendship and good will. There was no strife as to who should burn him, each one took his turn; therefore they gave themselves leisure to meditate some new device to make him feel the fire more keenly. They hardly burned him anywhere except in the legs, but these they reduced to a wretched state, the flesh being all in shreds. Some applied burning brands to them and did not withdraw them until he uttered loud cries; and as soon as he ceased shrieking, they again began to burn him, repeating it seven or eight times, often reviving the fire, which they held close against the flesh, by blowing on it. Others bound cords around him and then set them on fire, therefore burning him slowly and causing him the keenest agony. There were some who made him put his feet on red-hot hatchets, and then pressed down on them. You could have heard the flesh hiss, and have seen the smoke which issued rise even to the roof of the cabin. They struck him with clubs upon the head, and passed small sticks through his ears; they broke the rest of his fingers; they stirred up the fire all around his feet. No one spared himself, and each one strove to surpass his companion in cruelty.

But what was most calculated in all this to plunge him into despair, was their teasing, and the compliments they paid him when they approached to burn him. This one said to him, "Here, uncle, I must burn you," and afterward this uncle found himself changed into a canoe. "Come," said he, "let me caulk and pitch my canoe, it is a beautiful new canoe which I lately traded for; I must stop all the water holes well," and meanwhile he was passing the brand all along his legs. Another one asked him, "Come, uncle, where do you prefer I should burn you?" and this poor sufferer had to indicate some particular place. At this, another one came along and said, "I do not know anything about burning; it is a trade that I never practiced," and meanwhile his actions were more cruel than those of the others.

In the midst of this heat, there were some who tried to make him believe that he was cold. "Ah, it is not right," said one, "that my uncle should be cold; I must warm you." Another one added, "As my uncle has kindly deigned to come and die among the Hurons, I must give him a present; I must give him a hatchet," and with that he jeeringly applied to his feet a red-hot hatchet. Another one made him a pair of socks from old rags, which he set on fire; and after having made him utter loud cries, he asked him, "And now, uncle, have you had enough?" And when he replied, "onna chouatan, onna", that is, "Yes, nephew, it is enough, it is enough," these barbarians replied, "No, it is not enough," and continued to burn him at intervals, demanding of him, every time, if it was enough.

From time to time, they gave him something to eat, and poured water into his mouth, to make him endure until morning. There were green ears of corn roasting at the fire, and near them red-hot hatchets; sometimes, almost at the same moment that they were giving him the corn to eat, they were putting the hatchets upon his feet. If he refused to eat, "Indeed," said they, "do you think you are master here?" and some added, "I believe you were the only Captain in your country. But let us see, were you not cruel to prisoners; did you not enjoy burning them? You did not think you were to be treated in the same way, but perhaps you thought you had killed all the Hurons?"

See in part how passed the night, which was a most distressing one to our new Christian, and amazingly harrowing to us. One thing that pleased us was to see the patience with which he bore all this pain. In the midst of their taunts and jeers, not one abusive or impatient word escaped his lips.

The Father Superior had 3 or 4 excellent opportunities to preach to these Indians. For when someone asked him if we felt compassion for the prisoner, he affirmed that we did, and that we longed that he might be soon delivered from his sufferings and go to Heaven. This gave him occasion to speak of the joys of Paradise and the grievous afflictions of Hell, and to show them that if they were cruel to this poor wretch, the Devils were still more so to the condemned. He told them that what they made him endure was only a rough picture of the torments suffered by lost souls in Hell, whether they considered the multitude of them, or their magnitude and the length of their duration; that our having baptized Saouandanoncoua was only to deliver him from those punishments, and to enable him to go to Heaven after his death.

"How now?" retorted some of them, "he is one of our enemies; and it matters not if he go to Hell and if he be forever burned." The Father replied that God was God of the Iroquois as well as of the Hurons, and of all men who are upon the earth; that he despised no one, even if he be ugly or poor; that what won the heart of God was not the beauty of the body, the graces of the mind, or the abundance of wealth, but an exact observance of his holy Law; that the fires of Hell were burning only for sinners, whatever their nation might be; that at the moment of death and at the departure of the soul from the body, he who was found with a mortal sin, was condemned forever, whether he be Iroquois or Huron; as to them, it was all they could do to burn and torment this captive to death; until then he was at their disposal, but after death, he fell into the hands of him who alone had the power to send him to Hell or to Paradise.

"But do you think," said another, "that for what you say here, and for what you do for this man, the Iroquois will treat you better if they come sometime to ravage our country?"

"That is not what concerns me," replied the Father, "all I think of now is to do what I ought; we have come here only to teach you the way to Heaven; as to the rest, we leave that entirely to God."

"Why are you sorry," added someone, "that we tormented him?"

"I do not disapprove of your killing him, but of your treating him in that way."

"What then! how do you French people do? Do you not kill men?"

"Yes, indeed; we kill them, but not with this cruelty."

"What! do you never burn any?"

"Not often," said the Father, "and even then fire is only for enormous crimes, and there is only one person to whom this kind of execution belongs by right; and besides, they are not made to linger so long, often they are first strangled, and generally they are thrown at once into the fire, where they are immediately smothered and consumed."

They asked the Father Superior many other questions, such as, "where was God?" and other similar ones, which gave him occasion to converse with them about the mysteries of our faith. These discussions were favorable to our Joseph; for, besides giving him good thoughts and tending to confirm him in the faith, while this conversation lasted no one thought of burning him. All listened attentively, except some young men, who said once or twice, "Come, we must interrupt him, there is too much talk," and they immediately began to torment the sufferer.

The victim himself also entertained the company for a while, on the state of affairs in his country and the death of some Hurons who had been taken in war. He did this as easily, and with a countenance as composed, as anyone there would have shown. This gave him at least a reduction of his sufferings; he said they were doing him a great favor by asking him many questions, and that this in some measure diverted him from his troubles.

As soon as day began to dawn, they lighted fires outside the village. The victim was led there. The Father Superior went to his side, to console him, and to confirm him in the willingness he had all the time shown to die a Christian. He recalled to his mind a shameful act he had been made to commit during his tortures, in which there was little probability of sin, at least not a grave sin; still, he had him ask God's pardon for it; and after having instructed him briefly upon the remission of sins, he gave him conditional absolution, and left him with the hope of soon going to Heaven.

Meanwhile, two of them took hold of him and made him mount a scaffold 6 or 7 feet high; 3 or 4 of these Indians followed him. They tied him to a tree which passed across it, but in such a way that he was free to turn around. There they began to burn him more cruelly than ever, leaving no part of his body to which the fire was not applied at intervals. When one of these butchers began to burn him and to crowd him closely, in trying to escape that butcher, he fell into the hands of another who gave him no better a reception. From time to time, they were supplied with new brands, which they thrust, all aflame, down his throat, even forcing them into his buttocks. They burned his eyes; they applied red hot hatchets to his shoulders; they hung some around his neck, which they turned now upon his back, now upon his breast, according to the position he took to avoid the weight of this burden. If he attempted to sit or crouch down, someone thrust a brand from under the scaffolding which soon caused him to arise.

They so harassed him upon all sides that they finally put him out of breath; they poured water into his mouth to strengthen his heart, and the Captains called out to him that he should take a little breath. But he remained still, his mouth open, and almost motionless. Therefore, fearing that he would die otherwise than by the knife, one cut off a foot, another a hand, and almost at the same time a third severed the head from the shoulders, throwing it into the crowd, where someone caught it to carry it to the Captain Ondessone, for whom it had been reserved, to make a feast there. As for the trunk, it remained at Arontaen, where a feast was made of it the same day.

We returned home. On the way, we encountered an Indian who was carrying upon a skewer one of his half-roasted hands. We would have desired to prevent this act of lawlessness; but it is not yet in our power, we are not the masters here; it is not a trifling matter to have a whole country opposed to one, a barbarous country, such as this is.

THE MALADY WITH WHICH OUR LITTLE HOUSEHOLD HAS BEEN AFFLICTED; AND THE FORTUNATE OUTCOME OF THAT.

BEFORE going any farther in that month of September, the season and the beauty of the grain which was then beginning to ripen, the prophecy of that Sorcerer turned out to be false; he had threatened the country with famine, and had predicted that a white frost would ruin all the harvests. The year has been favorable in every way. If the native grapes were as good as they are beautiful, they would have been useful to us; we gathered enough of them to use in saying the Mass until Christmas. This will help fill the little kegs that are sent us, which seldom arrive here without considerable leakage.

On the 11th, Father Isaac Jogues arrived, with the little boy who had afforded him excellent opportunities for exercising charity along the way. This child had been sick since the seventh day, and had entirely lost his appetite, which so weakened him that at the end of a few days he had not strength enough to get out of the canoe, much less to walk the length of the rapids. The Indians at first spared him this trouble, carrying him two or three times, but they soon became weary of this; the Father's charity led him to encumber himself with the child. This burden seemed to him light, and he would have willingly carried him to the Hurons. But the same charity which had made him undertake what was almost beyond his strength, made him give it up, after having carried him over four or five rather long portages, fearing that he might lose him and be lost with him. He then arranged with an Indian to exchange him for a package of hatchets, which were heavier. There are some passages where a fall would not be less than fatal and the Indians are more sure-footed than we.

With all this, the boy had difficulty in reaching the Nipissings, where he began to feel better. A little nourishment does one good in such cases, and fresh fish usually abounds there at this season. However, he was still rather ill when we received him, and was three weeks or a month in recovering.

As for Father Jogues, God brought him to us in good health, but it was only for a few days. Miscou had almost kept him on the way; and the Fathers Pierre Chastellain and Charles Garnier, who had first arrived, had already directed so many requests to Heaven for the Huron Mission, that when he arrived afterward, the conclusion had been almost reached that he would remain at Quebec. But you had regard to the request we had made you, to send us three or four of our Fathers.

On the 17th, he fell sick, and although at first it was apparently only a slight illness, yet at the end of some days, the fever appeared each day, and in a somewhat violent form. The Father Superior gave me the care of Father Jogues. I held this office from the year before, but without having had any practice, as God had preserved us all in good health. Yet, before long, I was not alone in this charge; for our cabin was soon changed into an infirmary, or rather into a hospital, there being as many nurses as there were well persons, and these were few for the number of patients. On the same day, Mathurin, one of our servants, arrived, after a great deal of trouble. Five days later, he became our third invalid; it was a relapse which prevented him for a whole month from rendering us any service. He had been somewhat badly treated on the journey. A fever is a hard load to carry over the rapids. It was fortunate for him that he fell in with rather good-natured Indians, who, as soon as they perceived his illness, did not urge him to paddle.

They even set him on shore many times; and when they were encamped, they gave him the best treatment that they could. He had hard work to drag himself as far as the Nipissings, where he was left; his Indians made him understand by signs, as well as they could, that they considered him too weak to go farther, that there were still four or five rapids to pass, where he might have to remain. That answered very well, but they made a mistake in leaving him four of our packages, a great hindrance to a sick man. He found there more aid than he could have hoped for in an unknown and barbarous country. Two of them took him and carried him into a cabin, where he remained three days, during which he did not lack for fish; but it was unsuitable for him, therefore he could eat none of it. When Oraouandindo (an Indian who was inclined to accommodate the French in their journeys) perceived this, he went through the cabins seeking some meat for him, and brought back for him a duck. At the end of three days, the fever having left him, he fortunately found a canoe of Hurons who took him and his packages on board, and brought him here comfortably.

On the 23rd, Dominique fell sick. You will hear only sickness mentioned from now on. We were almost without servants, for Francois Petit-pre, who alone remained, was usually occupied night and day in hunting; it was from this that we expected all our aid. During the first days, when we had no game, we had almost nothing to give to our invalids but some broth of wild purslane stewed in water, with a dash of native fruit juice. We had one hen; but she did not every day give us an egg, and what is one egg for so many sick people? It was amusing to see us waiting for that egg; and then afterward we had to consider to whom we should give it, and to see who most needed it.

One of our Indians was raising a Canadian goose in his cabin; we had helped him on numberless occasions; we asked to buy it from him, but we could only obtain it by offering good securities. A deer skin is precious in this country, yet he was hardly satisfied with it. But what would we not have given, in these circumstances? Had it not been for that, we were upon the point of killing one of our dogs; here they are not averse to them as in France, and we would not have hesitated to make broth of it for our invalids.

Father Chastellain was harassed by a burning fever, which possessed him until the 7th of October. The Father Superior twice bled him successfully, and once Dominique, who sank so low that we gave him the Anointing of the Sick, his disease was a purple fever. As for Father Garnier, his fever was not so violent, and we did not consider it otherwise dangerous, except that it caused him great weakness. The Father Superior tried twice to bleed him, but the blood would not flow.

In the midst of all this, they certainly endured a great deal, and we felt much compassion for them, for the relief that we could give them was little. If a bed of feathers often seems hard to a sick person, I leave you to imagine if they could rest easily upon a bed which was nothing but a mat of rushes spread over some bark, and at most a blanket or a piece of skin thrown over it. In addition to this, one of the most annoying things, and one which it was almost impossible to remedy, was the continual noise, both within and without the cabin. For you could not prevent the visits and the pleadings of the Indians, who do not know what it is to speak low, and therefore often thought it strange that we gave them a little word of caution on this point. As I said one day to an Indian, "My friend, speak a little lower."

"You have no sense," he said to me; "there is a bird," speaking of our rooster, "that talks louder than I do, and you say nothing to him."

The Indians wondered at the order we observed in caring for our sick, and the diet that we made them observe. It was a curious thing to them, for they had never yet seen French people ill. Tonnerauanont, one of the famous Sorcerers of the country, having heard that we were sick, came to see us. To hear him talk, he was a person of merit and influence, although in appearance he was a insignificant object. He was a little hunchback, extremely misshapen, a piece of a robe over his shoulders, that is, some old beaver skins, greasy and patched. This is one of the Oracles of the whole country, who has this Winter made entire villages bend to his decrees. He had come to blow upon some sick people of our village. He said first to the Father Superior that he had almost returned without coming to see us, not doubting that we had remedies that would cure us; but that he visited us only to please Tsiouendaentaha, an Indian who prides himself upon his love and esteem for us, and is one of the most adroit and prudent persons that we know. He added that he did it all even more willingly as he looked upon us as the relatives of his dead brother, who had been baptized the year before.

To make our mouths water, and to sell his Antidote at a better price, "I am not" (said he) "of the common run of men; I am, as it were, a Demon; therefore I have never been sick. In the three or four times that the country has been afflicted with a contagion, I did not trouble myself at all about it; I never feared the disease, for I have remedies to preserve me. Therefore, if you will give me something, I undertake in a few days to set all your invalids upon their feet." The Father Superior, to get all the amusement he could out of it, asked him what he wanted. "You will give me," said he, "ten glass beads, and one extra for each patient." The Father answered that, as for the number, he should not trouble himself about it, that it was a matter of no consequence; also, that he would be always beginning over again, seeing that the number of patients continued to increase from day to day, so that he firmly believed that we would satisfy him. Then he told us that he would show us the roots that must be used; but that, to expedite matters, he would, if we desired it, go to work himself, that he would pray, and have a special sweat, -- perform all his usual charlatanries, and that in three days our sick people would be cured. He made a plausible speech.

The Father instructed him then; he told the sorcerer that we could not approve this sort of remedy, that the prayer he offered helped nothing, and was only a compact with the devil, considering that he had no knowledge of the true God, to whom alone it is permitted to address prayers; that as far as natural remedies were concerned, we would willingly employ them, and that he would oblige us by teaching us some of them. He did not insist further upon his sweat, and named to us two roots, effective, he said, against fevers, and instructed us in the method of using them. But we hardly took the trouble to observe their effects; we are not accustomed to these remedies, and besides, two or three days later, we saw all our patients nearly out of danger.

Let me acquaint you with the genealogy of this person, according to the version of it that he himself has given. You will hear of his death at the proper time. Here is what he said about it, as it was reported to us by one Tonkhratacouan.

"I am a Demon; I formerly lived under the ground in the house of the Demons, when the fancy seized me to become a man; and this is how it happened. Having heard one day, from this subterranean abode, the voices and cries of some children who were guarding the crops, and chasing the animals and birds away, I decided to go out. I was no sooner upon the earth than I encountered a woman; I craftily entered her womb, and there assumed a little body. I had with me a she-devil, who did the same thing. As soon as we were about the size of an ear of corn, this woman wished to be delivered of her fruit, knowing that she had not conceived by human means, and fearing that this oki might bring her some misfortune. So she found means of hurrying her time. Meanwhile, being ashamed to see myself followed by a girl, and fearing that she might afterward be taken for my wife, I beat her so hard that I left her for dead; in fact, she came dead into the world. This woman, being delivered, took us both, wrapped us in a beaver skin, carried us into the woods, placed us in the hollow of a tree, and abandoned us. We remained there until, an Indian passing by, I began to weep and cry out, so he might hear me. He did perceive me; he carried the news to the village; my mother came, she took me again, bore me to her cabin, and brought me up such as you see me."

This charlatan also told about himself that when he was young, as he was ill-shapen, the children made war upon him and ridiculed him, and that he had caused several of them to die; that he had finally decided to endure it from now on, in case he might ruin the country if he should kill all.

Of the eight months during which this contagion lasted, we could not have fallen ill at a more favorable time than in the Autumn, which is the only season of game, it being quite scarce during the rest of the year. We had only Francois Petit-pre who could assist us in this difficulty; and God preserved him in good health all the time, despite the continual hardships of hunting, besides the usual night watches in the house when he was there.

Perhaps we would be dead now if we had not been sick. It was often said, during the evil reports that were current about us throughout the country, that if we had not been afflicted as well as the others, they would not have doubted that we were the cause of the disease. You know how they treat poisoners here; and we have lately seen an example of it, the danger going so far as to enable us to say that we might not have come out of it cheaply.

THE HELP WE HAVE GIVEN TO THE SICK OF OUR VILLAGE, AND THE PROVIDENCE OF GOD IN THE CONVERSION OF SOME AND THE ABANDONMENT OF OTHERS.

FROM about the 15th of October, when our patients were entirely out of danger, and began again to take the usual food of the country, our principal occupation up to the 17th of November was to assist the sick of our village. Fortunately the hunting season was not yet over, and our men had the charity to take for them part of the same trouble they had taken for us.

We visited them twice a day, morning and evening, and carried them soup and meat, according to the condition of the patients. We ate during our own sickness a few of the raisins and prunes, and some little remedies that you had sent us, using them only in cases of necessity, so that we still had a good amount of them, which we have made last. Everything was given by count, two or three prunes, or 5 or 6 raisins to one patient; this was restoring life to him. Our medicines produced effects which dazzled the whole country, and yet imagine what sort of medicines they were! A little bag of senna served over 50 persons; they asked us for it on every side; and sometimes the joke of it was that if the patient found himself troubled by a retention of urine, our medicine acted only as a specific for that ailment. Simon Baron rendered us good service at this time; for, having learned before at Chibou to handle the lancet, he exercised it here throughout the winter. Our Indians desired to be bled, as they had seen the good effects of it in the recovery of several persons who had been almost given up.

On the 29th of September, from which time the disease began to spread, two old men came to see the Father Superior about calling an assembly to offer public prayers to drive away the contagion, and to send it elsewhere, as they expressed it. The Father granted their request, but it could not be carried out at once, as most of them were away fishing.

It is a thing worthy of compassion to see how some take the talks that we give them about heaven. Once, an Indian told the Father Superior that they were not pleased when we asked the sick "where they wished to go after death, to heaven or to hell?"

"That is not right;" said he, "we people do not ask such questions, for we always hope that they will not die, and that they will recover their health."

Another one said, "I have no desire to go to heaven; I have no acquaintances there, and the French who are there would not care to give me anything to eat." Mostly, they think of nothing but their stomachs, and of means for prolonging this miserable life.

Meanwhile, the Devil was playing his pranks, and speaking through the mouth of the Sorcerer Tonnerauanont, was turning aside these peoples from praying. Some time before, this little hunchback had declared that the whole country was sick; and he had prescribed a remedy, namely, a game of lacrosse, for its recovery. This order had been publicized throughout all the villages, the Captains had set about having it executed, and the young people had not spared their arms; but in vain. The disease did not cease to spread, and to gain ground all the time; and on the 15th of October we counted in our little village thirteen or 14 sick people. Nor did our Sorcerer engage at this time to undertake the cure of the whole country; yet he ventured one word as rash as it was presuming, for the village of Onnentisati, from where he came. He was not satisfied to give some hope that no one there would be sick, he gave assurances of that that he made indubitable, by founding them upon the power he claimed to have over the contagion in his character of Demon; he was immediately given something with which to make a feast. This boast spread everywhere, and was accepted as truth; all the people of Onnentisati were already considered fortunate and out of danger.

It was not long before we had something with which to close the mouths of those who boasted to us of their prowess, and this Village was hardly more spared than the others. There were a great many sick there, several of whom died. On the same day, we baptized in our village an Indian named Onendouerha, and his wife, both of whom were ill. Some days before, they had asked for Baptism with a great deal of fervor, and thoroughly satisfied the Father Superior when it became necessary to instruct them. Yet they both are still in good health. It is a source of grief to us that, as we have not yet any wholly converted Villages, we afterward get from these new Christians, whom we have baptized only in the last hour, nothing but fine words, the torrent of old customs and common superstitions bearing them away.

On the 4th of November, an Indian whom we had baptized some days before asked us to baptize his wife, who was sick. She at first declared herself satisfied with this; but when the Father Superior told her that, having been baptized, she must count upon never separating from her husband, she then remained mute; and afterward, when Baptism was urged upon her, she answered in his presence, teouastato, meaning, "I do not wish it," -- although her husband had already told the Father that he was satisfied never to leave her. We could obtain nothing more from her; she is still living. There you have a fine marriage.

OSSOSANE AFFLICTED WITH A CONTAGIOUS DISEASE. VARIOUS JOURNEYS THAT WE MADE THERE IN THE MOST DISAGREEABLE WINTER WEATHER. CONTINUATION OF THE SAME SICKNESS IN OUR VILLAGE, AND THE ASSISTANCE WE RENDERED TO THE NEIGHBORING PLACES ATTACKED BY THE SAME DISEASE.

WE had hoped that, as generally happens in France and elsewhere, the first frosts would slow the progress of this contagious malady. But just the opposite happened, and the depth of the Winter was also the severest period of the disease, so that from the 10th or the 12th of November we saw ourselves almost surrounded by it on every side. They relied on their Sorcerers only, and spared no gifts to obtain from them some imaginary remedies.

At that time, injurious rumors about us had been scattered through the country; this little Sorcerer had already boasted loudly that he had seen the malady come from the direction of the great Lake. They talked of nothing but an imaginary cloak, poisoned, it was said, by the French; and Captain Aenons had already brought a report from a Kichesipirini Algonquin that the late Sir de Champlain had died with the determination to ruin the whole country. Besides, after having so diligently aided the sick of our Village for the space of a month, and having taken the morsels from our own mouths to give to them, there yet were found some who said that what we carried to them made them die; and others, who saw us daily skimming the grease from the soup that we were preparing for them, which they themselves consider injurious to the sick, added that there was no cause for them to be under great obligations to us; that if we did give something to the sick, it was only what we would have thrown away, that we always reserved the best of it for ourselves, and that this pot, which was at our fire night and day, was only to accumulate a great deal of grease. And about this time, having gone to instruct the little children as usual, an Indian gave me a piece of fish, with this compliment, "Look now, how people ought to do when they concern themselves to give; you people, you are misers, when you give meat, it is so little that there is hardly enough of it to taste." And yet his cabin was one of those which had the most reason to be satisfied with our liberality.

On the 27th, God having given us a piece of deer, we made a feast of it for our Indians, so we might have an opportunity to testify to them our sympathy in their affliction. And, after the manner of the country, we gave them a present Of 400 wampum beads, a couple of hatchets, and a Moose skin. The Father Superior also urged them to believe in God. They approved the proposition, and promised to hold a council among themselves concerning it.

About this time, another old man of our village was sorely troubled; people talked only of going to break his head. For a long time he had been suspected of being a Sorcerer and a poisoner, and quite recently one Oaca had testified that he believed this Indian was making him die; and some of them said they had seen him at night roaming around the Cabins, and casting flames from his mouth. A girl, seeing seven or eight of her relatives carried off in a few days, had actually had the boldness to go to his Cabin with the determination to accuse him of being the cause of their death; and as he was not there, she talked to his wife so freely, and with so much passion, that the son, happening to come in, laid down his robe, and, taking a hatchet, went off in a rage to the cabin where these evil suspicions had originated. Sitting down in the middle of the room, he addressed one Tioncharon, and said to him with a confident manner: "If you think it is we who make you die, take now this hatchet and split open my head; I will not stir." Tioncharon replied to him, "We will not kill you now at your word, but the first time we take you in the act." The matter remained therefore for that time, but they were always regarded with a great deal of ill will. These peoples are extremely suspicious, especially when life is involved; a thousand instances of people whom they believe to have died through witchcraft or poison, maintain them in this distrust.

On the same day that this incident occurred, the Father Superior having gone to visit a sick man, they showed him a sort of charm he had just been made to throw up by means of an emetic; it consisted of some hairs, a tobacco seed, a green leaf, and a little cedar twig. But as ill luck would have it, in their opinion, one of these little charms was broken, the other part having remained in his body, and that had caused his death. You hear nothing else talked about in this country, there being hardly any sick people who do not think they have been poisoned. Only recently, when the Father Superior was passing through the village of Andiatae, he was shown a grasshopper's leg twined about with a few hairs, which a sick person had just vomited. If Sorcerers are as common in the country as they are often upon the lips of the Indians, we can truthfully say that we are preeminently in the midst of a wicked nation; and yet, in the opinion of many of them, we are past masters in this art, and have an understanding with the devils. While they were talking only about breaking our heads, we continued to assist our sick people.

On the 29th, all the chief men of our village assembled in our cabin, firmly resolved to do all that we considered proper to incline God to provide some relief in this public calamity. The Father Superior had already told them that the only means of turning away this scourge of heaven, was to believe in God and keep his Commandments. The Father made them all prostrate themselves upon their knees before an image of our Lord; and he repeated aloud a firm resolution to believe in God and to serve him faithfully, and then a promise to build in the Spring a little chapel in his honor, in case it should please him to show them mercy, and to deliver them from this contagious malady.

We did not have all the gratification we had hoped for in this act, as not all those who had been invited were present; and the one who passed as Captain, although he carried only the title of that, had gone out before the Ceremony began, and was amusing himself in playing and laughing with some persons from his Cabin. Also, most of them have been punished by a miserable death. They had to add horrible blasphemies and most wicked plans upon the lives of those who they had only too much reason to believe were here in their country merely to do them a kindness.

There were those present, however, who gave us some consolation; above all, one named Tsiouendaentaha; although the Father Superior spoke distinctly, as they sometimes found it hard to follow him, and to repeat what he had said, this one served them as instructor, and, besides not losing a single word of the Father's, he repeated them so faithfully and in a voice so clear that it was easy to believe he spoke from his heart; and several, following his example, tried to show that there was no hypocrisy in what they did. But events give us only too much reason to doubt them. As for this Indian, God has preserved him from the malady, with all those of his cabin, which is one of the most populous of our village, having there three well-equipped households, and a great number of little children. The matter is all the more remarkable, as, except for another little cabin which has also afforded us a great deal of satisfaction, there is not one which has not had several sick people, and most of them a considerable number of deaths.

We have passed the winter in good health, although most of the time we have been among the sick and the dead, and although we have seen many fall sick and die merely through the communication that they had with one another. The Indians were astonished at it, and are still astonished every day, saying in reference to us, "Those people are not men, they are demons." Our poor village continued to be afflicted until spring, and is almost entirely ruined. We are not surprised at this, for most of them showed that their belief consisted only in fine words, and that in their hearts they have no other God than the belly, and the God who will promise to restore them to health in their illnesses.

Most of the Indians regarded us only as persons from whom they expected some consolation, and likewise something to relieve them in their sickness; a few raisins were acceptable, and we were careful not to forget these. The few of them that we have are only for the Indians, and you would not believe how readily they take these little sweets. They have often given us admission to the sick; and if they fell into a stupor, a little sugar or some good preserved fruit in a spoonful of warm water enabled us to make them regain consciousness. Some little innocents were baptized in their last moments, unknown to, and against the wishes of their relatives, under the pretext of wishing to give them some of these sweets.

Meanwhile, while we were at Ossosane, the Father Superior and our Fathers did not remain with folded arms at Ihonatiria. The sick gave them practice enough on the one hand, and, on the other, the inhabitants of Wenrio, (a village 2 miles away from us) seeing themselves attacked by the malady, showed some desire to rely on God. The Father Superior went to see them, to sound them in this matter.

The Captain had the council assemble, and invited the father there, where at the outset he asked him what they had to do that God might have compassion on them. The Father Superior answered that the principal thing was to believe in him, and to keep his commandments, touching especially upon some of their customs and superstitions which they must renounce if they planned to serve him.

He proposed to them that they should from now on give up their belief in their dreams; 2nd, that their marriages should be binding and for life, and that they should observe conjugal chastity; 3rd, he told them that God forbade vomiting feasts; 4th, those shameless assemblies of men and women (I would blush to speak more clearly); 5th, eating human flesh; 6th, those feasts they call Aoutaerohi, which they make, they say, to appease a certain little demon to whom they give this name.

The Father was listened to with close attention; but these conditions astonished them, and Onaconchiaronk, whom we call the old Captain, beginning to speak, said, "My nephew, we have been deceived; we thought God was to be satisfied with a Chapel, but according to what I see, he asks a great deal more." And the Captain Aenons, going still farther, said, "Echon, I believe that your proposition is impossible. The people of Ihonatiria said last year that they believed, to get tobacco; but that did not please me. I consider that what you propose will prove to be a stumbling-block. Besides, we have our own ways of doing things, and you yours, as well as other nations. When you speak to us about acknowledging as our master him whom you say has made Heaven and earth, I imagine you are talking of overthrowing the country. Your ancestors assembled in earlier times, and held a council, where they decided to take as their God him whom you honor, and decreed all the ceremonies that you observe; as for us, we have learned others from our own Fathers."

As for our ways of doing things, the Father said that it was quite true they were altogether different from theirs; that there were as many different customs as there were different peoples upon the earth; that the manner of living, of dressing, and of building houses was entirely different in France from what it was here, and in other countries of the world, and that this was not what we found wrong. But, as to what concerned God, all nations ought to have the same sentiments; that the reality of a God was one, and so clear that it was only necessary to open the eyes to see it written in large characters upon the faces of all creatures. The Father made them a fine and rather long speech upon this subject, from which he drew this conclusion, that it was not enough to build a Chapel, but that the chief thing was to keep God's commandments and give up their superstitions. Onaconchiaronk admitted that the father was right, and did his utmost in urging the whole company to overcome all these difficulties. But, as each one hung his head and turned a deaf ear, the matter was deferred until the next day.

On the morning of the 6th, they again assembled; and Onaconchiaronk declared that he had passed almost the whole night without sleep, thinking of the points the father had proposed; he considered them reasonable, but he saw clearly that the young people would find great difficulties there; however, he concluded that it was better to take a little trouble, and live, than to die miserably like those who had been already carried off by the disease. He spoke in so excellent fashion, and urged them so strongly, that no one dared to contradict him, and all agreed to what the father had required, adding that they also bound themselves to build a beautiful Chapel in the spring. This decision made, the Father returned to Ihonatiria, happy to have left them in this favorable state of mind. He already contemplated going to instruct them from time to time; but they immediately resumed their old customs. Those of our village were the first to begin, and, the day after they had assembled in our cabin, they donned their masks and danced, to drive away the disease. With all that, they did not hesitate to tell us that they were the best Christians in the world, and were ready to be baptized.

On the 19th, the Father Superior again sent Father Charles Garnier and me to Ossossane, with a commission to stop on the way at Anonatea, to again see Isonnaat; but he was already dead. We went to lodge with one Chiateandaoua, having learned that he was sick; we had some trouble getting in, as there was a feast there. It is a crime, on these occasions, to set one's foot in a cabin; still, we went in, towards the close. There were only two or three persons remaining, to each of whom the sick man had given food enough for four. They worked at it a long time, encouraging one another. Finally they had to vomit, doing so at intervals, and not ceasing on this account to continue emptying their plates. Meanwhile, Chiateandaoua thanked them, assuring them that they were doing well, and that he was under great obligations to them. You would have said, to hear him and to see their actions, that his recovery depended upon this gluttonous excess.

On the 21st, we baptized a woman who checked us at two points: First, having spoken to her of Paradise, and having made her understand that without baptism it was not possible ever to go there, and that those who died without baptism went to hell, she said to me that she did not wish to go elsewhere than where her dead relatives were; still, she soon changed her mind when she heard about the wretched condition of the damned, and that they received no consolation from one another. I explained to her the rest of our mysteries, as far as the Commandments of God; there she stopped me again, and, when I was urging her to be sorry for having offended God, and telling her that, without doing so, her sins would not be pardoned, she answered me that she could not do it; that she had not offended God, and that she did not know what sin was. Those who were present, and who had been willing to have her baptized, almost spoiled the whole affair by saying that indeed she had always lived correctly; and she herself was dwelling largely upon her own praises, protesting that she did not know what immorality was. I told her that she should not think she was without sin, and that all men were subject to sin. However, as she persisted in declaring her own innocence, I told her that, if that were so, I could not baptize her; and that, even if I should baptize her, baptism would do her no good. I added that I was not asking her to give me an enumeration of all her sins, but merely that she should testify to me her deep regret for having committed them.

We considered this point for a good quarter of an hour; from time to time she asked me for baptism, but I answered her that it was not possible for me to baptize her as long as she used this language to me; that I had no other desire, that this was what brought me here, but that she herself bound my hands and prevented me from doing her this favor. I threatened her with hell, and spoke to her about it more in detail than I had done at first, telling her that hell was full of people who had not recognized themselves as sinners. Finally, she confessed to me that she had sinned, that she was sorry for it, and that she would sin no more. We baptized her and she died a few days afterward.

On this same day, the sorcerer Tonnerauanont, who was beginning to play his pranks in this village, and had attempted to cure the sick, came towards evening to have a sweat in our cabin, to get some knowledge of this disease. They crossed four or five poles in a ring, making a sort of little arbor, which they surrounded with the bark of a tree. They crowded within this, twelve or thirteen of them, almost upon one another. In the middle there were five or six large red-hot stones. As soon as they had entered, they covered themselves, as usual, with robes and skins to retain the heat. The little sorcerer began to sing, and the others sang after him; there was an Indian outside, who was there merely to serve him with whatever he might desire. After much singing, he asked for some tobacco which he threw upon these red-hot stones, while addressing the devil in these words, Io sechongnac. The others urged him to do his best; these wild parties lasted a good half hour, after which they began to eat.

I drew near to listen to what was said; his conversation was only a series of boasts and extravagances; he did not declare the source of the evil, for he has often since admitted that he knew nothing about it, but he made great pretensions of remedying it, if they would execute his orders. He boasted falsely of having already cured many in our village and elsewhere; that he was beyond any fear of taking the disease; to hear him talk, he had little more than to command, and all the sick would immediately be upon their feet. He demanded some gifts with which to make a feast, and ordered some dances. The whole company listened to him with unparalleled signs of approval; and our host, who was one of the chief men, said to him, "Courage, my nephew, assist us."

These words sank deep into my heart; it was no time since they had publicly renounced the devil, and all those who were in league with him; and see how they immediately place all their confidence in the false promises of a charlatan and a fraudster. I could not refrain from also speaking, but what could I say? To be short of words with which to explain oneself upon so important an occasion is a matter for keen regret. This is all the lecture I gave them: "You are wrong to do what you are doing, you show plainly that you do not believe what Echon has taught you; that man" (speaking of the sorcerer) "has not the power that you think; it is only he who has made heaven and earth who is the master of our lives. I do not condemn natural remedies, but these sweats, these dances, and these feasts are worth nothing, and are altogether useless, as far as health is concerned."

They listened to me patiently, and made no answer, either because they did not attach much importance to this reprimand, or because they were embarrassed, not doubting that I would report to the Father what I had seen, and he would speak to them of it in forcible terms, when he had opportunity. In any event, we gained at least this, that every evening, when all were asleep, our host offered a prayer aloud in the name of the whole family, using these words: "Listen, you who have made heaven and earth; take all this cabin under your protection; you are the master of our lives." It is a pity he did not say this from his heart.

The rumors were continually increasing, and we were spoken of in bad terms, especially in four or five villages around here; as for Ossossane, we have always been welcome there. On this same twenty-third, one Entaraha said to the Father Superior that the wampum collar they had accepted the year before, at a general council held on the occasion of the feast of the dead, was now the cause of their death, and that this was the belief of all the people, as the Father had told them that this present was not for the dead, and that it was not his intention that they should place it in their grave, but that he desired to open to the living the way to heaven, and to encourage them to surmount all difficulties which prevented them from taking that route.

On the 27th, the Father Superior returned to Ossossane with Father Isaac Jogues and Simon Baron. He passed through Anonatea, where he visited the Nipissings to assure them of the sympathy we felt for them in their affliction, for they already counted as many as 30 or 40 dead. The Father proposed baptism to some of them, but without effect; our Holy mysteries in the Huron language are like night to them, and they are still more attached to their superstition than are our Indians.

He learned there what they thought of the disease. It was brought upon them, they said, as well as upon the Hurons, by Andesson, Captain of the Kichesipirini Algonquins, in revenge, because they had not consented to join their forces with the Kichesipirini Algonquins to make war upon the Iroquois. But, in passing through Onnentisati, he heard a different piece of news, which was that Tonnerauanont, who was at Ossossane and was selling his antidote there, accused us of being the cause of this epidemic, adding that this was the sentiment of those of our village, who even said that, when they were getting better, we gave them I do not know what, that made them die. Still, he denied all this afterward when speaking to the father, claiming to have merely said that in the Autumn he had seen the sickness come from the direction of the lake, in the form of a powerful demon; that, however, he did not know the cause of it. The father scolded him, and he answered in the usual fashion of the Indians, "You have your ways of doing and we have ours, Oniondechanonkhron," that is to say, "our countries are different."

Simon Baron again bled a great many upon this trip; and the Father Superior, having given a little medicine to the Captain Endahiach, one of his relatives had a sweat to make it operate, during which he spoke to a certain demon. This same Captain, one day when he felt sick, asked what kind of weather it was; he was told that it was snowing. "I shall not die then, today," he said, "for I am not to depart from this life except in fine weather."

Tonnerauanont did not succeed in his cures any more than in his prophecies. He had predicted that no more than five of them would die, and that the sickness would cease at the end of 9 days; and yet before the Father's departure there were ten dead, and since then more than 50; and on the 4th of January, when the Father went away, there were nearly as many sick people as usual, and yet it was the 13th day after this fine Prophecy. Therefore he lost a great deal of his credit, and his whole practice was reduced to a single cabin, in which he himself was sick. He was troubled by all sorts of misfortunes. Some days before, he had fallen so hard upon the ice at the entrance to a cabin that he had broken his leg, and this wound caused his death at the end of three weeks.

The Father Superior returned then to Ihonatiria on the 4th of January. In his absence we had seen some effects of the righteous vengeance of God upon the family of one Taretande. This Indian was Captain of our village, and had cast fire and flame at us in open feast. He had said that we were the cause of the malady, and that if any of those of his cabin should die, he would split the head of the first Frenchman whom he should find. He was not the only one who had spoken to our disadvantage. Not one of the company, at least of the more influential ones, had spared us; and one Achioantaete, who makes a show of loving us, had gone so far as to say that, if he were the "Aondechio", that is, the master of the country, it would soon be all over with us, and we would already have been put in a condition in which we could do no more harm. Then the Captain Aenons began to speak, and told them that they were speaking of a dangerous matter, namely, of the destruction and ruin of the country; that if they should remain two years without going down to Quebec to trade, they would find themselves reduced to such extremities that they might consider themselves fortunate to join with the Algonquins and to embark in their canoes.

Relating this to the Father Superior, Aenons added that we should have no fear; and that if we would settle down in his village, we should always be welcome there. Taretande was not satisfied with having spoken so badly of us; he and Sononkhiaconc, his brother, came to have a quarrel with us in our cabin, and to reproach us with being sorcerers, saying that it was we who caused their death. They added that they had decided to get rid of us, and that it had been decided at least to reembark every one of us in the spring, and send us back to Quebec. The matter went farther than our village, and the chief men of five or six villages in this vicinity have since admitted to us that they were on the point of doing an evil act. These reports were so common that even the children spoke of us as persons who were soon to have their heads split.

One Sunday, when they heard us, towards evening, chanting, they believed that we were weeping in expectation of the hour when they were to come and cut all our throats, or burn us in our cabin. Yet we are all still alive and well, thank God.

The scourge soon fell upon that wretched family that had said the most against us. This chastisement had been for a long time due them on account of the contempt they had always shown for our holy mysteries. Frequently, during the past year, we went to instruct the little ones, only to meet with much repugnance, and finally we had to desist altogether. Taretande and his brothers were not usually present at the Catechisms, except to get a piece of tobacco, or to laugh among themselves afterward at what they had heard there. Besides, they had often admitted to us that they took us for liars, and did not believe what we taught; and that what we said was not probable, that there was no likelihood that they and we had the same God, and that we had all descended from the same father. "Indeed," said Sononkhiaconc one day, "who would have brought us to this country, how would we have crossed so many seas in little bark canoes? The least wind would have engulfed us, or we would at least have died of hunger at the end Of 4 or 5 days. Also, if that were so, we would know how to make knives and clothes as well as you people."

You already know that there is nothing capable of arousing to anger a Huron who has lost his father or mother, except to say to him, "Your father is dead; your mother is dead;" the mere word "father "or "mother" puts them into a passion. From December, we were forced for this reason to desist from going through the cabins to instruct the little children, and to assemble them at our house every Sunday, seeing that only recently a great many of their relations had died; and then those who remained alive have been so busily occupied all the Winter searching for remedies for the health of the sick, we decided that this exercise might rather injure than advance the affairs of Christianity.

On the 7th of January, the Father Superior sent us back to Ossossane, Father Garnier and me, where we remained until the 15th. We baptized twelve sick people, four little children, and the rest adults. The next day we visited a great many of the cabins of the village. We saw the little sorcerer, who was humiliated with his broken leg, seeing himself nailed to a mat; if he was motionless, he made enough commotion among the others, by making them dance and sing night and day for his recovery. He was somewhat embarrassed at finding himself in this condition, but his talk was characterized by ostentation and pride. We had hardly entered the cabin where he was, before he told us that we should not consider his illness as the common disease of the others, that a fall had caused him to be confined to his bed for several days. I showed him some ointments that we had, telling him that these were what we were accustomed to use in similar cases; but he disdained the offer that we made him of our little services.

While this demon incarnate was in the cabin, we could gain almost nothing from the sick people; we tried to propose baptism to a young man of whom people had a bad opinion. He answered us impertinently; and one of his relatives, breaking into the conversation, began to abuse us, reproaching us with all the rumors that were current about us through the country; and the sorcerer commanded us peremptorily to leave.

Meanwhile, another sorcerer, almost blind, named Sondacouane, brought himself into much repute in the village of Onnentisati, and deluded the surrounding villages with his fancies. On the ninth of this month, when the Father Superior went to Wenrio with Father Chastellain, he learned some details about him.

This blind man, having dreamed that it was necessary for him to fast six days, decided to fast seven; and with this in view, he had an apartment partitioned off in one end of the cabin, where he retired alone, contenting himself with drinking, from time to time, a little tepid water, in order to warm his stomach. At the end of a few days the demons began to appear to him, merely passing around the fireplace without doing anything else, until the sixth day, when they spoke to him and said, "Tsondacouane, we come here to associate you with us; we are demons, it is we who have ruined the country through the contagion." And then one of them named all the others by name; "That one," said he, "is called 'Atechiategnon'," that is, 'he who changes and disguises himself', and is the demon of Tandehouaronnon" (a mountain near the village of Onnentisati).

After having told him the names of the five or six who were there, he said to him, "But you must know that the most evil of all is he of Ondichaouan" (a large Island which we can see from here); "this demon is like a fire. It is he who feeds upon the corpses of those who are drowned in the great lake, and excites storms and tempests, in the darkness of which he engulfs canoes. But now we wish to take pity upon the country, and to associate you with us, to stop the epidemic which prevails." Tsondacouane having replied to this that he was well content to do so, they taught him some remedies which he should use for the cure of the sick.

They recommended to him strongly the feasts of Aoutaerohi, adding that they feared nothing so much as those. It was said also that they pretended to try to carry him away, but that he resisted them so well that they left him to make a feast of a dog, threatening to come and get him the next day, if he failed to do this. These demons having disappeared, Tsondacouane told the whole affair to the Captain, Enditsaconc; Enditsaconc having reported the matter in open council, a dog was immediately found, with which he made a feast on the same day. All the people having assembled, this sorcerer began to cry out that the devils were coming to carry him away, but that he did not fear them, only that all should sing a certain song.

At the end of the feast, he encountered those demons, who said to him, "Tsondacouane, you are now safe; we can do nothing more to you; you are associated with us, you must live now as we do; and we must reveal to you our food, which is nothing more than clear soup with strawberries." There was probability of their finding strawberries in January! But our Indians keep dried ones, and they vied with one another in eating them, so not to be sick. Also, they ordered that those who would be delivered entirely from this disease should hang at their doorways large masks, and above their cabins figures of men similar to those scarecrows that in France are placed in the orchards, to frighten away the birds. This was soon executed, and in less than 48 hours all the cabins of Onnentisati and the places around were almost covered with images, a certain man having 4 or 6 of these straw archers hung to the poles of his fireside; these were their idols and their guardian gods. It was in these grotesque figures that they put all their trust, relying upon the assertion of a wretched blind man that the devils were afraid of these, and they had given this order for the good of the country.

Besides, this sorcerer, although half blind, saw into his affairs a little more clearly than the other, the little hunchback, who had promised that in eight days Ossossane would be without sick people; this one only promised complete recovery at the end of the January Moon. Yet he said that if the people of the village of Arente, and the sorcerers or Nipissings, did not make him a present of a net, it was all over for them. I do not know what they did, or whether they granted his request; but certainly the poor Nipissings were badly treated, as many as seventy of them having died. As for them, they said that one of the causes of this so great mortality was that they had no kettle large enough to make a feast.

On the 16th, the chief men of our village assembled, and had the Father Superior invited to the council. Here the Captain Aenons made a long speech, to ask us in the name of every one of them, to think no more of what had passed, and not to reveal the evil plans that they had had upon our lives. The Father gave them a satisfactory answer to this, and scolded them gently for having failed in fidelity to God. To this, Aenons answered only Onanonharaton, "What will you have? our brains are disordered." And, a little while before, an old man had said to him, "My nephew, we do not know what we are about; there is nothing we would not do to preserve our lives; and if it be necessary to dance night and day to drive away the disease, all decrepit as I am, I will begin first, to save the lives of my children." They heard that another sorcerer, named Tehorenhaegnon, of the village of Andiatae, was promising wonders, provided they made him some present. They had a dog killed immediately, which was brought to him with elaborate ceremonies, but without effect.

On the 17th, the epidemic, continuing to rage at Ossossane, obliged the Father Superior to continue also the help that we had rendered to the sick up to that time. He took with him Father Isaac Jogues and Mathurin, who also performed some successful bleedings. The Father, in passing through Wenrio, found a number of sick persons there; but not one of them would hear about baptism.

The next day, the 28th, he arrived at Ossossane, where he found the demons let loose, and a poor people in deeper affliction than ever, giving their attention to the follies of a certain Tehorenhaegnon, who boasted of having a secret remedy for this kind of malady, which he had learned from the demons themselves, after a fast of 12 or 13 days in a little cabin, which he had made for this purpose on the shore of the lake. Accordingly, the inhabitants of Ossossane, hearing of what he could do, and seeing that presents were offered to him on all sides to gain his good will, and to get from him some relief, sent to him some of their chief men to ask him humbly to have pity upon their misery, and to proceed to their village to see the sick and to give them some remedies.

Tehorenhaegnon indicated a willingness to comply with their request; and not deigning to go there in person, sent one of his associates, named Saossarinon, to whom he communicated all his power, in proof of which he gave him his bow and arrows, which would represent his person. As soon as be had arrived, one of the Captains proclaimed in a loud voice, throughout the village, that all the sick should take courage, that Tehorenhaegnon promised to drive the disease away soon; that, not being able to come in person, Saossarinon had been sent by him, with power to give them all manner of satisfaction; that he decreed that for three consecutive days three feasts should be made, promising that all those who should be present there, and should observe all the ceremonies, should be protected from disease. Towards evening, the people assembled in the cabin of our host, which is one of the largest in the village. Our Fathers stayed there, to see all that might happen. The company was composed only of men, the women were to have their turn afterward; there were some present from all the families. Before beginning the ceremony, one of the Captains climbed to the top of the cabin and cried aloud in this manner: "Come now, see us here assembled. Listen, you demons whom Tehorenhaegnon invokes, see us about to make a feast and have a dance in your honor. Come, let the contagion cease and leave this town; but, if you still have a desire to eat human flesh, go to the country of our enemies; we now associate ourselves with you, to carry the sickness to them and to ruin them." This speech ended, they begin to sing.

Meanwhile, Saossarinon goes to visit the sick and makes the round of all the cabins. But the feast did not take place until daybreak; the entire night was passed in a continual uproar; now they sang, and at the same time beat violently, keeping time, upon pieces of bark; now they arose and began to dance; each one strove to do well, as if supposing that his life depended upon it. The substitute of Tehorenhaegnon, after having seen the sick, was to have put in an appearance at this cabin, but he found so much practice that daylight overtook him in his progress. Meanwhile, he was awaited with great impatience; and as they were singing, one after another, there was one of them who began in these words, "Come, great Arendiouane, come, see the day beginning to dawn." Not to keep them waiting longer, he passed by some of the remaining cabins. At his arrival a profound silence prevailed; a Captain marched before him holding in one hand the bow of Tehorenhaegnon as a sign of the power possessed by this substitute, and in the other a kettle filled with a mysterious water with which he sprinkled the sick. As for him, he carried a Turkey's wing, with which he fanned them gravely and at a distance, after having given them something to drink. He performed the same ceremonies for the sick of this cabin; then, having inspired the whole company with courage and strong hope, he withdrew. The feast took place, and afterward the men left the place to the women, who also came singing and dancing in their turn; as for a feast, they had none.

On this 20th, Saossarinon himself made the second feast. There the aid of the demons was invoked in the same words as upon the preceding day, and, after having eaten, someone said that the Physician had already cured twelve of them. This news caused great rejoicing among the company; the Captain Andahiach thanked him and his master Tehorenhaegnon, with all the Captains of the village of Andiatae, declaring that the whole village would be under obligation to them, and asked them to continue their favors. The 3rd feast did not take place for lack of fish.

On the 21st, Saossarinon returned to Andiatae, at his departure taking into partnership with himself and Tehorenhaegnon, one Khioutenstia and one Iandatassa, to whom he taught the secrets of his art and communicated his power, as a token of which he left them each a Turkey's wing, adding that from now on their dreams would prove true. He also commissioned them to send, after a few days, someone to report to them the success of their remedies. 4 or 5 days afterward, all the cabins were visited to ascertain with certainty the number of those who were cured and of the sick, to inform Tehorenhaegnon of that. According to their count, they found 25 cured and 25 sick; someone went immediately to Andiatae to bear report of that to this person, who sent Saossarinon the next day to strive to cure the rest, but it was to his own confusion. He would not take the trouble to go and visit the sick, but gave orders that they should drag themselves, or that they should be carried to him, in the cabin of one Oonchiarre, where there were already a great many sick people. But this plan resulted badly for him, and this second time no good effects were seen from his remedies, for some would not go there because they felt too weak. The same night, a woman of the cabin died, and the next morning another one, who had been carried there. The Father Superior did so well that those gentlemen, the substitutes of Tehorenhaegnon, had to throw aside their Turkey wings and renounce their office.

On the 25th, Tonnerauanont, the little sorcerer, died in the village of Onnentisati; he was still at Ossossane on the 23rd, but, finding himself extremely ill, and seeing that there was no more help for him, he had himself carried to Onnentisati, asserting that he wished to die in the place of his birth. He also ordered that they should put him in the ground, in order that, as he was a demon, he might return to the place from where he had come. During his sickness he complained, according to report, of a certain she-devil whom he called his sister, as she had been incarnated, at the same time as he, in the womb of his mother. It was she, according to his story, who was the cause of his death, and who had broken his leg, as, against her will, he had tried to treat other patients than those of the cabin of Tondaiondi.

On the 30th, our great lake was entirely covered with ice. It had been frozen for a long time, up to certain Islands; but beyond these the almost continual winds had always broken the ice. It does not freeze everywhere except in calm weather. It is a convenience to these peoples; for, as soon as the ice is strong enough, they take corn to the Algonquins, and bring back quantities of fish. We have had a long Winter this year; it began on the 10th or 12th of October, and has encroached upon the Spring; there is little appearance of a favorable year. Here we are at the 30th of May, and the corn has hardly begun to grow, and this only in some places; many have not yet planted seed, and others complain that their seed is rotting in the ground; we have had almost continual rain for 15 days.

On the 1st of February, we departed to go to Ossossane, Father Pierre Pijart and I; we remained there until the 13th, and baptized five persons. We found a great change in the cabin of one Tondaiondi; while the little sorcerer Tonnerauanont was there, we had always been badly received, especially upon the subject of baptism. We had been loaded with insults there; and but recently the Father Superior had done his best to win a poor sick woman. But, besides that she had listened coldly. Her father said that they did not attach much importance to what we taught them, that they had, as well as we, a certain place where the souls of their dead relatives went, Ahahabreti onaskenonteta. "We have," said he, "a certain road that our souls take after death." Since the death of this little sorcerer, God had (it seems) changed their hearts. We had scarcely any hope of finding this patient still alive, whom her relatives had abandoned after the departure of the Father Superior. In fact, we found that her leggings and moccasins had already been put on, according to the custom of the country, and her mind was so far gone that we judged her incapable of baptism.

On the 4th, God sent us something with which to benefit our sick and to rejoice our host, who was short of fish. Robert, whom we had taken with us, killed two Canadian geese. Fortunately, there were only 4 or 5 persons sick, so that we could easily oblige them without causing the others to complain; and game is so rare among the Indians that, although there were 20 or 25 in our cabin, and although our host had sent some to his friends, still they considered that they had fared very well, and the whole cabin resounded with "ho, ho, ho." Among others, an old woman, the wife of our host, addressing herself to our hunter, thanked him in these words, "ho, ho, ho, Echiongnix et sagon achitec," "Ah, my nephew, I thank you; be of good heart for the next day."

In fact, he killed 4 or 5 more of them, so that we had something with which to make soup for two sick people in our cabin, and carried some to certain others who were most in need of it. But our host did not approve of this, and we contented ourselves afterward with carrying them some pieces of Canadian goose, entirely raw, teaching them to make soup. At this time, we had an amusing encounter; upon carrying some broth to a sick woman, we found the Physician there. He is one of the most dignified and serious Indians that I have seen. He took the broth, looked at it, and then drew out a certain powder that he had in his bag; he put some of it in his mouth, spit it out upon the broth, and then, choosing the best of it, made the patient eat it.

On the 5th, we baptized an old woman in the house of our host. She felt a great deal of pain. The Captain Andahiach, her brother, asked us to give her some remedy for the pain in her head, of which she complained, telling us that the Father Superior and Simon Baron had given one to some of them, who had been benefited. I could not imagine what this might be, unless he spoke of some ointments which had been used for certain swellings of the cheeks that had broken out on the outside. I showed him a little box in which there were several kinds of these, and it proved that they were exactly what he wanted. I told him that I did not think these were good for this woman's trouble; still, as he persisted, and urged me to give her some of them, I asked him which color he wished, for I had 5 or 6 different kinds; having shown me the red, the white, and the green, I made her a large plaster of these, which I applied to her forehead. How powerful is the imagination, here as well as in France! The next day, she found herself relieved, and Andahiach asked me not to share this remedy with the others, and to reserve it for their cabin alone. I replied to him that he should not trouble himself, and that as long as we had any, they would not lack it. If I had consented to follow her advice, I would also have made her a plaster to cover her stomach, where all her pain was. She died, however, two or three days afterward.

On the same 5th day of February, the council assembled at the house of the Captain Andahiach, where the sorcerer Tsondacouane, of the village of Onnentisati, presided, for Tehorenhachnen and his substitutes were no longer in good standing. This latter one spoke with authority and as a Prophet, saying that, if they did not do what he should order, the sickness would last until July; but if they obeyed him, he gave his word that in ten days the town should be entirely secured against it.

He ordered, first, that they should from now on put the dead in the ground, and that in the spring they should take them out to place them in bark tombs raised upon four posts, as usual. Secondly, that they should give them no more mats, at least no new ones. Thirdly, that they should give him a present of 5 cakes of tobacco. His request was immediately granted, one of the sons-in-law of our host furnishing this contribution. They reassembled towards evening outside the village. I was twice invited to this council. One of the Captains warned the children in a loud voice not to make any noise; a great fire was lighted, and the sorcerer -- after having represented to those present the importance of the affair threw there the 5 cakes of tobacco that had been given him, while addressing his prayer to the Sun, to the Demons, and to the disease, conjuring them to leave their country, and to go as soon as possible to the country of the Iroquois.

Towards evening, the Captain Andahiach went through the cabins to announce a new order of the sorcerer Tsondacouane. This person was at Onnentisati, and was not to return until the next day. He was carrying on his preparations, that is, certain sweatings and feasts, to invoke the assistance of the demons, and to render his remedies more effective. This prescription consisted in taking the bark of the ash, the spruce, the hemlock, and the wild cherry, boiling them together well in a great kettle, and washing the whole body with it. He added that his remedies were not for women who were in their period, and that care should be taken not to go out of their cabins barefooted, in the evening.

On the 10th, they performed a dance for the recovery of a patient. He had dreamed about it two days before, and since then they had been making their preparations. All the dancers were disguised as hunchbacks, with wooden masks which were altogether ridiculous, and each had a stick in his hand. An excellent medicine, indeed! At the end of the dance, at the command of the sorcerer Tsondacouane, all these masks were hung on the end of poles, and placed over every cabin, with the straw men at the doors, to frighten the malady and to inspire with terror the demons who made them die.

On this same day, the sorcerer, who had come the day before, returned, and demanded 8 cakes of tobacco and three fish of different species, namely, an Atsihiendo, a fish they decoy from the edge of the water, and an eel. Of the cakes of tobacco, he carried away 4, and the other 4 served to make a Sacrifice to the devils. We told them our opinion of this, at the time, but without effect.

On the eleventh, the Captain Andahiach made a round of all the cabins, and in a loud voice urged the women to take courage and not to allow themselves to be cast down with sorrow on account of the death of their relatives; and that, when the young men should come to bring them some hemp to Spin, they should willingly render them this little service; that it was their intention to make shields to go to war in the Spring against the Iroquois, and to place them in security and in a position to be able to work peaceably in their fields. However, these shields are not proof against muskets and it is fortunate if the arrow does not indent them.

On the 12th, early in the morning, our host addressed his prayer to the demons, throwing some tobacco in the fire for the preservation of his family. Towards evening, they publicly made a 3rd sacrifice Of 4 cakes of tobacco, which was followed by a din and clatter which arose from all the cabins and lasted a good quarter of an hour. They beat so hard upon the pieces of bark that it was not possible to hear oneself. Their purpose was, according to what they told us afterward, to frighten the disease and put it to flight; and so -- nothing be wanting to this ceremony, as those wooden masks and straw men had been hung over the cabins merely to terrify the disease and the demons, our host implored them to keep a good watch; and to render them more favorable, he threw a piece of tobacco into the fire, in their honor. What extremes for reasonable men!

All this made us resolve the next day to think seriously about our return, seeing that among all these lawless acts, our Holy mysteries could not be treated with the respect and reverence they deserved; and that we were often forced to overlook many things, as much because we were powerless to prevent them, as that we were not yet capable of properly expressing our sentiments in regard to them. We made this decision all the more readily because there were at that time few sick people.

We departed, therefore, on the 13th, and reached home late at night, after considerable trouble, for the paths were only about half a foot wide where the snow would support you, and if you turned ever so little to the right or to the left you were in it half-way up your thighs.

On the 20th, we learned from Aenons a new opinion concerning the malady, -- that a report was current that it had come from the Mohawk, who had brought it from the Susquehannock, a nation in the direction of Virginia. These tribes, it is said, had been infected by Aataentsic, whom they believe to be the mother of him who made the earth; that she had passed through all the cabins of two villages, and that at the second they had asked her, "Why is it that you make us die?" and that she had made this answer, "Because my grandson, Iouskeha, is angry at men, they do nothing but make war and kill one another; he has now resolved, as a punishment for this inhumanity, to make them all die."

From about the 20th of February up to Passion week, our chief occupation was the study of the language. Within a short time, the Father Superior has discovered excellent methods of distinguishing the conjugations of the verbs, in which the whole secret of the language lies; for the greater part of the words are conjugated.

On the 7th, a young man was found quite dead, stretched out upon the snow, within musket-range of our cabin. The Father Superior and Francois Petitpre, going that morning to Wenrio, had heard his voice, as of a dying person, and decided to go and seek him if he had called once more; but as his strength failed him, and as some of the Indians said it was a soul complaining, and others that it was a dog, they had continued on their way. Our Indians spoke lengthily upon the death of this poor young man, several attributing the cause of his death to a theft he had committed among the Algonquins, in which they happened to catch him. What made them talk in this way was not the knowledge they possess that God punishes theft, -- that was something for which they cared little; but they based their opinion upon the word of the sorcerer Tsondacouane, who had said some time before that whoever stole the Algonquins' lines, or the baits from their hooks, would be immediately attacked by the disease.

On the 17th, I again accompanied the Father Superior to Iahenhouton, where resides the chief of the council of this place. The object of this journey was to make them 3 propositions: 1st, whether they had decided to believe what we taught, and to embrace the faith; 2nd, whether it would be acceptable to them that some of our Frenchmen should marry in their country as soon as possible; 3rd, whether there was any probability of a reunion between them and the people of Ossosane and some of the surrounding villages.

As regards the first proposition, we did not gain all the satisfaction possible; this Captain is not one of the most intelligent men in the world, at least outside the little perplexities of their affairs; as for the second and third, they approved of them heartily, and assured us that they were under a great obligation to us for this close alliance that we wished to make with them, and for our great interest in the welfare of the country. They confessed to us the evil plans they had had this winter upon our lives, having learned from a reliable source, as they thought, that the uncle of the late Etienne Brule, in revenge for the death of his nephew, for which no satisfaction had been obtained, had undertaken the ruin of the whole country, and had caused this contagious disease.

The Father declared that he desired to have these matters proposed in a general assembly. The chief of the council replied that they would confer about it among themselves and give us their opinion afterward; however, concerning the marriages, it was not necessary to go through so many ceremonies, that those Frenchmen who had decided to marry were free to take wives where it seemed good to them; that those who had married in the past had not demanded a general council for that purpose, but that they had taken them in whatever way they had desired.

The Father replied to this that it was true that the Frenchmen who had until now married in the country had not made such a stir about it, but also that their intentions were far removed from ours, that their purpose had been to become barbarians, and to render themselves exactly like them. He said that we, on the contrary, aimed by this alliance to make them like us, to give them the knowledge of the true God, and that the marriages of which we were speaking were to be stable and perpetual; and he laid before them all the other advantages they would derive. These brutish minds gave little attention to the spiritual considerations; the worldly were more to their taste, and of these they wished to have definite assurances.

Some days later, this Captain came to see us in the absence of the Father Superior, assuring us that they had conferred among themselves touching the three propositions that had been made; that the old men were favorable to them, and that he had come to be enlightened concerning certain doubts they had about marriage. And first, he told us, they would be glad to know what a husband would give to his wife; that among the Hurons, the custom was to give a great deal, that is, a beaver robe, and perhaps a wampum collar. 2nd, whether the wife would have everything at her disposal. 3rd, if the husband should desire to return to France, whether he would take his wife with him; and in case she remained, what he would leave her on his departure. 4th, if the wife failed in her duty and the husband drove her away, what she could take away with her -- and the same if, of her own free will, the fancy seized her to return to her relatives. All these questions show that they had thought over the matter.

As regards the reunion of this whole nation of the Bear, it is a matter still undecided. The Father Superior has made several journeys with this in view, in the hope they had given us of a general council; he had even given them his word that, if it were only a question of a present, we were resolved to spare nothing. And recently, being at Ossossane, where some of the old men regarded the matter as already accomplished, he had sent word to us to send him twelve hundred wampum beads to present to the two parties which were to assemble at Andiatae. In fact, the majority of the Captains of the villages there started to go there; but the one who was the author and chief of this division having refused to be present, the matter has remained hanging on the hook. Still, it is not yet regarded as hopeless.

On the twenty-ninth, we assembled the chief men of our village, to know, first, if they had decided to pass the Winter here again; secondly, if the intention they bad had of reuniting with the people of Wenrio was altogether relinquished; formerly this was all one village. They were not yet inclined for this year to change the place of their residence; and that next year it would not be their fault if they did not meet in the same village with the people of Wenrio. In any case, we are resolved for our part to establish other residences elsewhere.

On the 31st, on their way back from Teanaustaye, the Fathers slept at Ekhiondaltsaan, a tolerably fine and populous village. Our host asked the Father Superior a question that none of our Indians had ever proposed to us; he asked him what was the use of a vase full of water at the entrance to our Chapel at Quebec. The Father told him that, among other uses, this water served to drive away the devils; they asked if this water would serve the same purpose for them. The Father Superior said "yes," provided they would believe in God; and he took occasion to instruct them upon the belief in one God, and upon the end of man. They ordered the withdrawal of all the youth, who had collected in a crowd to see the Fathers, and assembled the chief men of the village to confer together upon this subject. All decided that they must have some holy water; but, finding some obstacles in what the Father said, that God forbids us to rely on Arendioouane or sorcerers in our sicknesses, they proposed to assemble again the next morning, before our departure. But the Father made them understand that God did not forbid the use of natural remedies which the Arendioouane might prescribe; they were entirely satisfied, and concluded it was not necessary to assemble the next day, but only to come and get some holy water as soon as possible. We are waiting for them yet; it is quite probable that they do not concern themselves much further about it, now that they are no longer in fear of the disease, their village having been preserved.

On the 5th, a son-in-law of our host returned from Bear hunting; but what they had captured did not recompense them for the loss they had sustained. He described the death of a dog, which he believed had been devoured by a Bear, so pathetically that you would almost have believed that he was relating the death of one of the brave Captains of the country. He praised his courage in pursuing the Bear, and in opposing him; he added that, having lost sight of him, and having a long time followed his tracks as far as a little river, he had at last stopped, and had said, sticking his hatchet into the ground, "Ouatit" (this was the name of the dog) "are you dead? There is my hatchet that I risk with you." The owner of the dog listened to this speech with so heavy a heart that he would have deceived those who might not know the cause of his grief. "Ah!" (said he,) "I dearly loved Ouatit; I had decided to keep him with me all his life; there was no dream that could have influenced me to make a feast of him, I would not have given him for anything in the world; and yet it would be some consolation to me now if they had brought me a little Bear, which could take his place and carry his name."

On the 15th, we learned that a young man had poisoned himself at Ossossane; and in reference to this some Indians told us that one of the principal reasons why they showed so much indulgence towards their children, was that when the children saw themselves treated by their parents with some severity, they usually resorted to extreme measures and hanged themselves, or ate of a certain root that they call Andachienrra, which is a quick poison.

On the 19th, the Nipissings, seeing the ice broken and the lake open, embarked to return to their own country, and carried away in seven canoes seventy bodies of those who had died while they wintered among the Hurons. We used this opportunity to send news to you, especially since an Indian named Outaete intended going direct to Quebec.

On the 20th, a woman was put to death as a sorceress at Ossossane. Among these barbarians, less than half-proof suffices to have one's head split. The affair occurred therefore: The one who thought he had been bewitched by her sent for her under the pretext of inviting her to a feast; she had no sooner arrived than her sentence was pronounced, without other form of trial. This poor wretch, seeing there was no appeal, named him who was to give her the hatchet stroke; at the same time she was dragged outside the cabin, her face and part of her body were burned with pieces of lighted bark, and finally the one she had taken for godfather split her head. The next day, her body was burned and reduced to ashes, in the middle of the village. Some say that she confessed the deed, and even that she named some of her accomplices; others affirm that she spoke only in a general way, saying that they had all agreed not to expose one another, in case anyone were taken in the act. Aondaenchrio, one of the Captains, seeing that she was captured, was of the opinion that she should be promptly killed, saying that the old men were too lenient, and that, if she were kept until morning, her life would probably be spared.

On the 21st, it was reported to us that an Indian, lately come from Seneca, had warned our Hurons to remain boldly upon the watch, that the enemy was raising an army, either to pounce upon the country while they were away trading, or to await them at the passage when they were going down to Quebec. Every year at this season, similar rumors are sure to circulate, which are the less credible that they are so common, and all the more to be feared since our Indians give themselves little concern because of that. The old men and those most influential in the country are often the authors of these false alarms, to keep always in the villages a good part of the young men and of those capable of bearing arms, and to prevent them from going away, all at the same time, to do their trading.

On the 3rd, Father Pierre Pijart baptized at Anonatea an infant two months old, in manifest danger of death, without its parents being aware that he did so; not having succeeded in obtaining their permission, he employed the following device: Our sugar does wonders here; he made a feint of wishing to give it a little sugared water to drink, and at the same time dipped his finger in the water; and seeing that its father showed some distrust, and urgently requested him not to baptize the child, he put the spoon into the hands of a woman who was standing by, and said to her, "Give it to him yourself." She drew near and found that the child was asleep; and at the same time the Father, under pretext of seeing if it slept, applied his wet finger to its face and baptized it; at the end of forty-eight hours, it went to heaven.

On this same 3rd of May, towards eleven o'clock in the evening, a cabin of our village, only about a musket-shot distant from ours, caught fire. There were within only four or five poor children, seven or eight of their relatives having died from the contagion during the winter. They ran out entirely naked, and even then had considerable trouble to save themselves. The fire spread so rapidly that in less than no time the cabin was all in flames. We ran to help them, but it was only to look on and show that we had compassion for them. The wind, a Northwester, proved favorable both to the rest of the cabins of the Indians, and to ours; otherwise an entire village is soon dispatched and reduced to ashes, the cedar bark, with which the greater number of the cabins are covered, taking fire almost as easily as saltpeter.

On the 4th, the old men assembled, to agree together upon some contribution to assist these poor orphans. Each cabin bound itself to furnish three sacks of corn, for they had not been able to save a single grain. Everyone aided them with whatever he could, one giving them a plate, another a chest, some even giving them Beaver robes. We also assisted them liberally, and there was hardly any of our servants who did not also show them some act of kindness; so that these poor children found themselves richer, at least in robes and clothing, than they had been before.

On the 10th, Father Pijart departed to go in search of some young children to take to Quebec. If all those from whom he has some promise resolve to remain there, the seminary will not be badly supplied for a beginning. If we may believe the reports that have been current here since winter, two of those of last year are dead; but perhaps these are only rumors. If only those which have been circulated about the death of Louis de Saint Foy had as little certainty; and that, on the contrary, what is now being said of him were as true as we consider the other ones without foundation. His mother, who could not listen to these rumors before, now thinks she has infallible proofs that he is among the Mohawks; she has even been told the name of the one who has adopted him for his son. If this be true, we have some hope that God will restore him to us in some way, whatever it may be.

On the 19th, we had a real winter day; nearly half a foot of snow fell and the following night it froze hard. Sondacouane lost a little of his repute on this occasion. Two or 3 days before, they had tired themselves to death playing lacrosse in all the villages around here, because this sorcerer had affirmed that the weather depended only upon a game of lacrosse; and now our Indians openly declared that he is only a charlatan and a fraudster.

Our poor Indians are not yet free from sickness; the great heat which prevails here at this season is not likely to dissipate this malaria. There are two villages which are especially afflicted, Andiatae and Onnentisati, where reside the two greatest sorcerers of the country, namely, Sondacouane, and Tehorenhaegnon. During the winter they had already lost a great deal of their credit with the sick of other villages; and now they are more than ever discomfited, seeing that their sweats, feasts, potions, and ordinances are of no help with their countrymen. Within a short time, Sondacouane has taken it into his head to forbid to the sick the "French snow," -- therefore they call sugar, and has persuaded some that it is a species of poison. It is easy to see that he is the chief author of this prohibition. The devil knows well enough how much these little sweets have already aided us in wresting from his hands so many souls that he held captive.

They are still saying that we are the cause of the malady. These reports are partly founded upon the fact that it is in this season much more fatal than it was during the severe cold of the winter, and consequently the greater part of those we baptize, die. Besides this, recently a certain Algonquin captain has told our Hurons that they were mistaken in thinking that the devils caused them to die, that they should blame only the French for this; and that he had seen a French woman who was infecting the whole country with her breath. Our Indians imagine that it is the sister of the late Etienne Brule, who is avenging her brother's death. This Sorcerer added that we meddle with sorcery; that for this purpose, we employ the images of our saints; that, when we show them, certain tainted influences issue which steal down into the chests of those who look at them, and therefore they should not be astonished if they afterward find themselves attacked by the disease. The prominent and chief men of the country show us quite plainly that they do not share this belief, but still intimate that they fear some reckless fellow will commit some foul deed that will cause them to blush.

THE RESIDENCE OF THE CONCEPTION OF NOTRE DAME, AT THE HAMLET OF OSSOSANE.

AT last, see our desires accomplished! They are working to build our cabin at Ossosane; and we expect that you will send us some workmen to build there a chapel.

On the 17th of May, the Father Superior broached the subject of our decision to the Captain, to have the work begun as soon as possible. The Captain summoned the Council to assemble, where the proposition was received with much satisfaction. They bound themselves to make us a Cabin of about 24 yards, asking us, if they did not make it larger, to consider that the malady had carried off a part of the young men, and that the rest were nearly all gone trading or fishing; and giving us their word to make it as long and as wide as we should wish, the following year. The Council over, each one took his hatchet, and they all went away in a crowd to prepare the site.

On the 21st, Father Pierre Pijart departed with two of our servants, to set the laborers to work. There he had exercise of all kinds; the sick gave him occasion to exercise charity, and those who were working upon our cabin an excellent opportunity to practice patience. He wrote me about it, on the fourth of June:

"I find myself here in the midst of extraordinary confusion, on one hand, I have to keep them at work upon our cabin; and on the other, I have the Sick to Visit; the workers only do a part of what they attempt, and I encounter near the sick more sorcerers and Arendioouane than occasions to speak to them of God.

"Since I have been here, I have baptized three sick persons, a little child, our host and his daughter. As regards the latter, if they do not recover, it will not be from having spared the native remedies. This good man has always been ready to dance, sing, and perform the Aoutaerohi for the others; and on this occasion they have rendered him like service. They have often told things to us that were almost incredible, concerning these feasts that they call Aoutaerohi. Here is what I have seen of them with my own eyes:

"On the 24th of May, one of these feasts was made for his health and that of his daughter. They danced and howled like demons a good part of the night, but what astonished us the most was that a certain man named Oscouta took in his mouth a great red-hot coal, and carried it to the patients, who were at some distance from him, making many grimaces, and growling in their ears like a bear; still, the performance did not result as he desired. The coal was not hard enough, and broke within his mouth, which prevented the operation of the remedy. So it was decreed that they should begin again the next day, and that they should use red-hot stones instead of coals.

"The next day, they prepared for a second Aoutaerohi feast. A number of stones were brought; and to make them red-hot, a fire was prepared hot enough to burn down the cabin. I had had some intention of retiring elsewhere for the night when this witches' sabbath was to take place; but I judged it wise to be present there to see if all I had heard about it were true. 24 persons were chosen to sing and to perform all the ceremonies; but what songs, and what tones of voice! I believe that if the demons and the damned were to sing in hell, it would be after this fashion; I never heard anything more mournful and more frightful.

"I was waiting all the time to see what they would do with those stones that they were heating and making red-hot with so much care. They separated the brands, drew the stones from the midst of the fire, and, holding their hands behind their backs, took these between their teeth, carried them to the patients and remained some time without loosing their hold, blowing upon them and growling in their ears. I am keeping one of the stones expressly to show you. You will be astonished that a man can have so wide a mouth; the stone is about the size of a goose egg. Yet I saw an Indian put it in his mouth so that there was more of it inside than out; he carried it some distance, and, after that, it was still so hot that when he threw it to the ground, sparks of fire came from it.

"After the first Aoutaerohi feast, one of our Frenchmen had the curiosity to see if all this was done without anyone being burned. He spoke to this Oscouta who had filled his mouth with live coals; he had him open his mouth and found it unhurt and whole, without any appearance of having been burned; and not only those persons, but even the sick people were not burned. They let their bodies be rubbed with glowing cinders, without showing any evidences of pain, and without their skin appearing in the least affected. This feast ended, they did not reach the end of their sufferings; on the contrary, there was more appearance of danger. Therefore two other sorcerers were summoned, who played a thousand apish tricks around these poor patients.

"Towards evening of the 26th, they prepared a sweat, which was followed by a feast. I never saw anything like it in my life; 20 men entered, and almost piled upon one another. Even the sick man dragged himself there, though with considerable difficulty, and was one of the troop; he also sang for quite a long time, and in the midst of the heat of this sweat he asked for water with which to refresh himself, a part of which he drank, and the rest he threw over his body. An excellent remedy for a sick man on the verge of death!

"So the next day I found him in a fine condition; it was a fine condition for him, since God then gave him the grace to conceive the importance of the concerns of his salvation. When I told him that Baptism was not a remedy for the health of the body, 'We know that well,' replied both he, and an old man who was present when I was instructing him, 'we know that well enough.' The daughter soon followed the example of her father, who himself urged her to ask for Baptism. The father died on the day of Pentecost; as for the daughter, she seems to be a little better. I was under great obligation to this good old man for having brought me into this country; and I rejoice now that God employed me to lead him to heaven."

On the same day that I received this letter, the Father Superior and Father Chastellain returned from Ossosane, where they had gone the day before to console the relatives of our host with a present. They also took this occasion to assure themselves of the reports which were current in these areas, that on account of the death of this Indian, the work of building our cabin had been altogether abandoned, to be no more resumed.

In going there, they passed through Arente, where they found the people's minds somewhat embittered against Baptism, on account of the death of a young child, baptized in its last moments two days before. When they entered a cabin to see a little girl, five years old, who was in similar danger, and who had before shown, by her tears and sobs, the aversion she had for Baptism, they were asked to speak of it no more. Still, the condition of this little patient made them decide that it was better to disregard the refusal of the relatives, who were present there in great numbers. So Father Pierre Chastellain requested the Father Superior to talk a little about the fever and the disease, so he might have an opportunity to act the physician, and to feel the child's pulse; meanwhile, he wet a handkerchief as secretly as he could in a pail of water which stood there, and made a feint to wipe her face; then approaching, with one hand he felt the pulse, and with the other, under pretext of seeing if her head were unusually hot, he baptized her without any of those present perceiving it.

Having arrived at Ossosane, they learned that the reports that had been circulated were false, and that only the absence of the Captain had caused the interruption of the work on the cabin. The Fathers had an opportunity of learning from the lips of the Captain himself what there was in it. He assured them of quite opposite sentiments, and even gave them to understand that the chiefs and head men of the frontier villages of the country, with whom they had just held a Council, had indicated to him great satisfaction because we were coming nearer to them, seeing that they would subsequently find it easier to come and visit us, and adding that they would build us a fine cabin. The Father Superior gave his presents to the relatives of our deceased host, thanks being returned to him afterward in open feast.

THE HAPPY CONVERSION OF TSIOUENDAENTAHA, THE FIRST ADULT INDIAN BAPTIZED, WHILE IN HEALTH, IN THE COUNTRY OF THE HURONS.

AT the time when Baptism is denounced in two or three villages around here on account of the death of some of those baptized, when the Sorcerers (whose words are received as oracles) are prohibiting the sick from using a few sweetmeats which give us access to them, when some old men who pride themselves on being our friends are trying to persuade us to return to France, and when the cry is raised on all sides that our presence is unendurable, and that our heads must be split, Tsiouendaentaha, an Indian about fifty years old, a man of intelligence and one of the most influential persons in the country, after having given the subject mature consideration for three years, and having been carefully instructed, requested baptism a few months ago.

After having attended some of the Catechisms, Tsiouendaentaha fell sick, though not seriously, and for two or three consecutive days, the game of "dish" was played in his cabin, probably by order of the doctor, or because of some dream. This is one of the excellent remedies they have. At the end of seven or eight days, when he had entirely recovered his health, it seemed that he was rather ashamed to show himself. Still, having encountered the Father Superior, he told him he had something to communicate to him, and that he would like to come and pass the night with us.

He had no sooner entered than he told us that he had sinned. See us glad to see him at least recognize his fault; and at once we supposed that he was about to accuse himself of having violated what the Father had taught them. But when he came to explain himself, it was found that his sin was that someone had stolen his cap; it is probable that the motive of this confession was his hope that, for a penance, he would be given another one. The Father addressed him, saying that the thief had sinned, and not he; and that, as for him, if he had sinned, it was in having the dish game played for his recovery. To this he did not lack an answer, asserting that what he had done was not done because he believed that it would restore his health, but merely to divert himself.

At the beginning of Spring, the malady having ceased in our village, the Father Superior assembled the principal ones of those who had escaped, to make known to them that they were not obliged to fulfill the promise they had made to build a little chapel, because, having spoken to sorcerers and even to demons, and having put all their confidence in their usual superstitions, God had judged them unworthy. When he was complaining because there were so few of them who believed what we taught, "As for me," said Tsiouendaentaha, "I believe all that you people believe. But, Echon, you should not be astonished if some do not believe, and even ridicule what you teach; you know that all men did not believe in the son of God while he lived upon the earth, that many despised his doctrine, persecuted him, and put him to death."

We sounded him upon his willingness to renounce all his superstitions and to live like a Christian the rest of his life; in this matter he always showed a great deal of courage, saying that, as far as the superstitions were concerned, he did not regret giving them up, since they were only sins; and that, as for women, his day had passed, and that would not give him trouble.

When the Father Superior explained to him how we could offend God in our thoughts, he said: "As for me, I do not know what it is to have bad thoughts; our usual thoughts are, 'That is where I shall go,' and 'Now that we are going to trade, they would do me a great favor when I go down to Quebec, by giving me a fine large kettle for a robe that I have."' God will allow him some day to see more clearly into his own heart.

Our Chapel was remarkably well decorated; it occupied half of our cabin, so we did not make any fire there that day. We had arranged a portico, entwined with leaves mingled with tinsel; in fact, we had displayed everything beautiful that you have sent us. But the rarest piece was our convert, so the eyes of all those present were fixed upon him. True, they had seen many little children baptized in our cabin; but that a man of his age, and in good health, should present himself to receive baptism, this was something they had not seen before. At the beginning of the ceremony, he appeared rather bashful, and trembled all over; and when the Father Superior questioned him, he was confused, and said to him in a low tone, "Echon, I do not know what to answer." However, when it was only a question of "yes" or "no," he spoke so loudly and so distinctly as to remove all one's reasons to doubt the sincerity of his heart. It is a great consolation for us to have such a Christian as he is, to make a public profession of our faith at a time when its mysteries are looked upon with suspicion, and those who preach them are regarded as so many poisoners and sorcerers.

It is not only in this country that we have this reputation, for these false reports have been carried even to strange nations, who consider us as the masters of life and death. Not long ago, an Algonquin tribe that we call "men of the raised Hair" sent a special embassy to us with presents, to ask us to spare them in this general calamity. We explained to them that we could not receive these offerings, that it was not to us they should address themselves; that there was only one Lord of life and of death, and that it was to him they should rely on; that this was the only remedy we had used in our sickness, and we found it effective. They returned satisfied, with the determination to follow our advice. Still, God has permitted them to be afflicted like the others, so that in their village they count as many as seventy dead.

However, after having investigated everything that they imagined might be the cause of their misfortune, they at last fixed upon something which only God could reveal to them. Some remembered that they had once robbed the deceased Etienne Brule of a collar Of 2400 wampum beads. They accused themselves before the old men, who at this news immediately assembled; and having well considered the whole matter, they decided that they had found the source of their malady, and the only means of remedying it was to make restitution as soon as possible; and they decided to come in person to see the French, and to satisfy them for the wrong done to them. This decision was no sooner made than they started on the journey. We were astonished at the cause of this second embassy, which these old men made known in terms worthy of compassion. They spread out upon a mat the two thousand four hundred wampum beads, which they had collected by a contribution made by the survivors in their village. They implored us to receive this collar in satisfaction for the theft committed against a Frenchman, to have pity on them, and to preserve the few whom the disease had spared up to that time.

The Father Superior replied that it was well-advised on their part to wish to make this restitution, but that we could not accept this collar, since it had not been stolen from us, and he from whom it had been taken was dead, and there was no one in the country who could receive it in his name. More than this, he said that it was too dangerous a thing for us, especially at this time, to receive presents from strange nations; that the people of this country, who would soon get wind of this affair, would not consider it as a simple restitution, but rather as some secret understanding to their disadvantage; and so they should content themselves with having attempted to restore what they considered did not belong to them, that in doing so they had sufficiently discharged their obligations, and that our acceptance of it would be altogether useless to them, and might be extremely injurious to us, if from that time they began to recover; that if, on the contrary, the sickness continued, they would be certain to regard us as fraudsters for not having fulfilled their expectations. They were satisfied with these arguments, and returned with their wampum and even with a little present.

But this thing is never ended; they had no sooner departed than others came, who caused us to search for new means to satisfy their imagination. On the day of the baptism of Pierre Tsiouendaentaha, we had exhibited an image of the judgment, where the damned are depicted, some with serpents and dragons tearing out their entrails, and most with some kind of instrument of their punishment. Many obtained some benefit from this spectacle; but some persuaded themselves that this multitude of men, desperate, and heaped one upon the other, were all those we had caused to die during this Winter; that these flames represented the heats of this pestilential fever, and these dragons and serpents, the venomous beasts that we made use of to poison them. This was said in open feast at Wenrio, according to the report of Captain Enditsacone. Another one afterward asked us if it were true that we were raising the malady in our house as if it were a domestic animal, saying that this was quite a common opinion in the country. And recently, when I was returning from Ossossane, a woman who was coming from her field caught a grasshopper and brought it to me, asking me to teach her some contrivance for killing these little creatures that eat the corn, adding that she had been told that we were masters in this art.

From the Residence of St. Joseph at Ihonatiria, in the country of the Hurons, this 21st of June, day of the blessed Gonzague, 1637.

Francois Joseph le Mercier.

YEAR 1638
NEW FRANCE IN 1638. SENT TO THE REVEREND FATHER PROVINCIAL OF THE JESUITS IN THE PROVINCE OF FRANCE. BY FATHER PAUL LE JEUNE OF THE JESUITS, SUPERIOR OF THE RESIDENCE OF QUEBEC. THE MEANS WE EMPLOY TO SPREAD THE FAITH AMONG THE INDIANS.

SUPERSTITION, error, barbarism, and consequently, sin, are in their empire here. We employ four great contrivances to overthrow them. First, we make expeditions to go and attack the enemy upon their own ground, with their own weapons, that is, by a knowledge of the Innu, Algonquin, and Huron tongues. When the doors shall be opened to us in nations still more remote, we will enter there.

Many did not expect anything from the older Indians, all hope being placed only in the young; but experience teaches us that there is no wood so dry that God cannot make it green again. We begin to see in the Huron country, and among the Innu and Algonquins, a few families publicly professing the Faith.

Secondly, as these peoples are attacked by serious diseases, we are obtaining for them the construction of a hospital. The men are now hard at work on it. Duchess d'Aiguillon, who laid the foundations of this great work, can after this year enjoy the fruits of her liberality.

In the third place, we are attempting to begin Huron, Algonquin, and Innu Seminaries. We have them now at Quebec, all three kinds.

In the fourth place, we are trying to fix the wandering Indians. Golden chains are needed for this purpose. A person of great virtue has begun to lay this snare for them, having hired some men to aid these poor Indians to build, and to cultivate the land.

SOME BAPTIZED INDIANS.

A YOUNG Indian man, finding himself sick, urgently asked for Baptism. After his Baptism, he was dragged to a thousand places; he was not killed, but was made to endure great suffering. He was sometimes left all alone in a corner of the woods, with a little food placed near him. I have never seen a man endure so much; for this man had nothing more than the skin adhering to his bones, and a wretched piece of bark which served him as bed, blanket, and house. He sometimes cried out, "I hate my body, I do not fear death;" then, pinching his skin, all black and frightful to look upon, "It is not this rottenness that I love; it is Heaven, where my soul is going." The Indians, wishing to get rid of him, spread a report that he had become a man wolf, and that he would eat all those who came near him. When we had learned all this fine news, we had him brought to us, and aided him so effectually that this carcass again became a body, this corpse was resuscitated; and this poor mute tongue was so loosened that it is a pleasure now to hear him bless God.

SOME WANDERING INDIANS WHO HAVE BECOME SETTLED.

One of the most efficient means we can use to bring them to Jesus Christ is to organize them into a sort of Village, to help them clear and cultivate the land, and to build homes for themselves. When we were continually seeking some help to accomplish this enterprise, a virtuous person of your France informed me of a plan he had for these countries. He hired for this purpose some artisans and laborers, to begin a building and to clear some lands. We located his workmen in a beautiful place, at present called the Residence of St. Joseph, a good 2 miles above Quebec, upon the great river. Sir Gand had taken this place for himself, but he willingly gave it to so good an object. We sent word to this good lord that he would make a great sacrifice to God if he would apply the work of his men to aiding the Indians. We must wait a year for an answer.

Meanwhile, after asking an Indian for his children, to place them in the Seminary, he answered us: "It is too little to give you my children; take the father and mother, and the whole family, and lodge us near your dwelling, so we can believe in him who has made all." We asked him if he was speaking sincerely. "I am speaking to you frankly," said he, "according to the thoughts of my heart." This made us offer him the house that was being built at the residence of St. Joseph, on condition, however, that if he to whom we had written were not satisfied with this, he should go out of it. This good Indian, named by his own people Negabamat, told us that he would come to see us to talk over this matter, and that he would bring with him one of his friends, of the same mind. He associated with himself a certain Nenaskoumat, our Francois Xavier. They both came to see us one evening, and said to us that important affairs would far better be transacted in the silence of the night than in the noise of the day; and that we should give them shelter, so they might negotiate with us regarding the matter which we had mentioned to them.

The Sun having set, Negabamat made me the following speech: "Father le Jeune, you are already old, and therefore it is no longer permitted to you to lie. Come now, take courage, and boldly speak the truth. Is it not true that you have promised me to lodge us in this house they are building, and to help us, me and another family, to clear the land? Here is Nenaskoumat, with whom I am associated; he is a peaceable man, you know him well. We come to see if you are firm in your promises; all the Indians to whom we have spoken of this plan admire it, but they do not believe you will ever put it into execution; take care what you do. If you are going to lie, lie soon, before getting us into a house only to make us leave it. We have some influence among those of our nation; if they saw us deceived by you people, they would ridicule us, and this would anger us." This speech, so simple, made us smile. I replied to them that this house did not belong to us, and that the men who were building it were not hired by us; but that I had written to France to him who had undertaken this enterprise, to use it for the good of their nation, and that, as they were the first to present themselves to be helped, they would also be the first to receive assistance if we had a favorable answer.

Then they asked us a thousand questions. "This great man to whom you have written, is he not as good as the rest of you?"

"Much better," we replied.

"That is well," they replied, "for since you wish to benefit us, and as you have already done so, if this Captain is better than you, he will do still more for us. But is he old?"

"He is" we answered.

"Will he not die soon?"

"We know nothing about that."

"Does he often pray?"

"Very often."

"It is done," said they, "we shall be aided; for if he prays frequently to God, God will love him; if God loves him, he will preserve him; and if he lives a long time, he will help us, since he is good.

"There is still another point of importance," said they, continuing their talk; "as we are already getting old, if we happen to die, will you not drive our children from this house? Will you not refuse them the help that you will have given us?" Having explained to them how, among us, the property of the parents belongs to the children after their death, they cried out, "Ho, Ho, what good things you tell us, if you are not lying; but why should you lie, being no longer a child?"

See these men, the happiest in the world. They go to see the house that is being built, they cannot look at it enough; they ask to lodge there in the Spring as soon as it shall be completed and furnished. "Meanwhile," said Negabamat, "we will go and do our hunting during the winter." Nenaskoumat, said to us in an undertone, "I will come and pass the winter near you, to be instructed."

So they are separated, the one crossing the great river to go in search of Beavers, the other coming to encamp near Quebec. They both fall sick at the same time. Who would not have thought that all this project would be overthrown? Nenaskoumat found the life of the soul in the sickness of the body; he was made a Christian, and named Francois Xavier. As for Negabamat, we could not give him any help, as he was too far away from us.

God restored to us our two converts in good health. When Spring came, my people presented themselves at the house which was awaiting them; they were received with open arms. Their hearts were filled with joy, the other Indians with astonishment, and we with consolation, at seeing the first foundations of a village laid, and after that of a Church. These two families are composed of about twenty persons. They have already been several months together in one rather small room; and still I have yet to notice the least quarrel or the least dispute among them.

The other Indians of the neighborhood came to Encamp around this house, asking the same favor, but they see clearly that they cannot be assisted so soon; our houses are not built in two hours, as their Cabins are.

The report of this assistance that we intended to give the Indians spread immediately in all the surrounding nations; it has touched them so deeply that, if we had the power to give them the same help, they would all be subdued in a short time. And notice a great blessing in this matter; not one of them hopes to be lodged and assisted who does not resolve to be an honest man, and to become a Christian, so much so that it is the same thing in an Indian to wish to become settled, and to wish to believe in God.

In these public rejoicings, one point kept our two converts in suspense, their continual uncertainty whether that kind man who had this house built at his expense, would send us good paper, as they termed it, that is, would look favorably upon their plan; they longed for the coming of the ships. Having at last had news of them, they came to see us, and asked us if the paper that had come from France was good. They had great fear that a written word would cause them to leave their home, to which they were attached. We answered them that the Fathers who were bringing this paper were on the way, between Tadoussac and Quebec, in a barque which was conveying them here. As they saw that the wind might delay them, they asked me for a written message, so they might go and bring them in their canoe; I gave it to them at once, and they embarked still more quickly. They went like the wind, came alongside the barque, took the two Fathers out of it, and brought them to us.

Our joy was doubled when we saw our Fathers in good health, and that we learned the wishes of this man, who granted this help to the poor Indians with a heart so full of love that we stood amazed at it. As soon as I opened my lips to mention it to our two settlers, they performed a thousand acts of thanksgiving, and told me a hundred times that I was not a liar, that this kind man was a Captain; that they fully recognized that I was now of their nation, and that they were going to tell everywhere that they were also of ours; and that I should write a good paper to France to tell this good Captain that they would never contradict their promises to serve Jesus Christ all their lives.

In going from there, they proclaimed everywhere that we were truthful; and that we wished to revive their nation, which was rapidly dying out. It is wonderful what potent effects the charity of this good man has upon these Indians. They are crowding around us now, but we cannot supply the needs of all, -- the difficulty of building in this country, on account of the length of the Winter and the expenses that must be incurred, being extreme. If they ever see a hospital constructed, and their sick well cared for, that will be another wonder which will delight them all.

THE PRESENT CONDITION OF THE INDIANS, TOUCHING THE FAITH.

TO give some idea of the state of mind of our Indians, I will tell you what occurred at the disembarking of the four Fathers whom you sent us as reinforcements, all of whom arrived in good health. Upon stepping ashore, they were deeply moved when we took them at various times to the residence of St. Joseph, where reside those two families of whom I have spoken, and where also a considerable number of our Indians have withdrawn. The newly-arrived Fathers, being in the Chapel, and witnessing the fervor of our Indians, said to us:

"We now see that what is necessary to convert these poor peoples is to aid them to settle down and live together."

The Sorcerers and tricksters have lost so much of their credit that they no longer blow upon any sick person, nor beat their drums, except perhaps at night, or in isolated places, but no longer in our presence. No more eat-all feasts are seen, no more consultations of demons: all these things are banished from our sight.

THE SEMINARY FOR THE HURONS.

The young Huron Indians who had before passed a year with us at the Seminary of Notre-Dame des Anges had said so many favorable things about it to their countrymen, who had come down the following year to trade, that they inspired many with a desire to present themselves for admission to it. But it was impossible to satisfy all; we contented ourselves with six, one of whom was soon enticed away by one of his relatives, who took him back to their country; so only five were left, the two from the year before, and three new ones. But, as the two seniors measured the happiness of their life in this place more by their spiritual success and profit, than by the charms it had for corrupt nature; and these newcomers, on the contrary, aimed at nothing but the gratification of their senses, the results in the two cases were altogether different. For these new guests, giving themselves up, according to their custom, to thieving, gluttony, gaming, idleness, lying, and similar irregularities, could not endure the paternal admonitions given them to change their mode of life, and above all the tacit reproofs conveyed by the example of their companions, who showed as much restraint as they did lawlessness and immoderation. It was then that the evil spirit seized his opportunity, and finally caused them to decide to run away.

For this they needed a canoe-load of provisions, and the means of obtaining them on the way. They accomplished so much through their thefts, their deceits, and their secrets that they found themselves well equipped; and one fine morning they stole away, taking with them everything they could, and nothing has been heard of them since.

See our Seminary again reduced to a small scale, and to two residents. On the one hand, as the Indians of the country were suffering unusually from sickness, we had the means to assist them more than we would have had, and of saving the bodies and souls of many who were reduced to extreme necessity. On the other hand, the old Seminarists, being alone, experienced no change in their good dispositions through the bad example and evil talk of the others. Observe what their instructor writes about them:

"Armand Jean, who was baptized first, has a good mind and vigorous judgment. He is inclined to conquer his somewhat hasty disposition, but has not been able to succeed.

"One day, in speaking with his companion upon the permanence of marriage, when he observed the great difficulties in regard to this among the people of his nation, he showed himself much concerned because of that. 'For we shall either marry, or we shall not,' said he. 'If we take a wife, at the first whim that seizes her, she will at once leave us; and then we are reduced to a wretched life, seeing that it is the women in our country who sow, plant, and cultivate the land, and prepare food for their husbands. To refrain from marriage among the Hurons is something which requires a chastity our country has never known. What shall we do then? As for me,' said this worthy young man, 'I will never take a Huron woman, if I do not see in her extraordinary constancy. I will try to find a French woman. If I am refused, I am resolved to live and die in chastity.'

CONTINUATION OF THE SEMINARY.

AFTER the departure of the fleet last year, the news we received from the Hurons continued going from bad to worse; so that we expected nothing but a general massacre of our Fathers and our French people in that country. Finally, when spring came, Sir Charles de Montmagny, our Governor, decided to send there some of his men to ascertain the condition of affairs. But as they feared that a small number of Frenchmen might be massacred by the Hurons, in case they had declared war against us, our Seminarists presented themselves to render this service. They were Promptly equipped, together with a courageous young Frenchman; and to preserve these two young Neophytes, we sent with them the Father who had instructed them at the Seminary, to bring them back to us, in case all our Fathers and our Frenchmen should be put to death in a general conspiracy of the whole country. But, if this murder were only the work of individuals, they had orders to assure the innocent ones of the friendship of the French. See them embarked with some Algonquins, who went like the wind in spite of the current of the river, which is enormously swollen and rapid in the Spring, on account of the vast quantity of melted snow that flows into the great rivers.

The canoes being separated, the one which carried the Father was the last; when they had gone to within one day's journey of the island, they had to walk, and the poor Father almost died on the way; therefore he wrote me about it:

"We departed early in the morning, without eating or drinking; we journeyed with long strides over a bad road, and in extreme heat; I was burdened with my little baggage; I supposed my people would stop about Noon to eat something, but they left me behind, continuing to advance. My weakness increasing with the heat of the day, I stopped there, almost fainting, and threw myself upon the ground, able to do no more. Then having taken a little rest, I found three or four gooseberries, which did not help me much, for, attempting to resume my way, I was compelled to lie down again, as my head ached severely and I felt a great weakness throughout my body.

I remained an hour or two in this condition, when my people, having noticed that I delayed too long, came to look for me. I asked them for a little food, but they answered that they had nothing; they took my little baggage, and urged me to take heart; we found a brook that refreshed me, and gave me strength enough to get to the island towards evening, where I found my Seminarists and our Frenchman in great anxiety, for they had been expecting me for two days. I met some Hurons, relatives of our Armand, with whom I retired to rest.

At last we learned that our Fathers and our Frenchmen were Prospering among the Hurons, and that they would recount to us on our arrival the dangers that they had incurred during the winter. After having refreshed ourselves for some time at this island, we embarked with the Hurons, leaving the Algonquins in their own country.

Continuing our journey, we arrived at the Huron country on the 9th of July, having departed from the Riviere des Prairies on the 11th of June, the feast of St. Barnabas."

If God gives us many of them, we shall be overwhelmed; for, instead of one Seminary, see three of them started in a short time, one for the Algonquins, another for the Innu, and the third for the Hurons. Seven little children, both Innu and Algonquins, have been given to me, and they must be provided for; 4 or 5 others have been presented to me to put in the Seminary, and they have promised to bring me more in the Spring. I do not know how to meet all this. Besides these, two children have been given to Sir Gand, one of whom ascended to Heaven after his Baptism; the other one he is having brought up with great and loving care. Sir Olivier also has two little Indian girls, and a little boy. He is a Clerk here in the Store of the Company of New France.

A COLLECTION OF VARIOUS MATTERS.

ON St. Barnabas's day, we had an earthquake in some places; and it was so perceptible that the Indians were surprised to see their bark plates collide with each other, and the water spill out of their kettles. This drew from them a loud cry of astonishment.

This is a fine way to end a lawsuit: an Indian having absented himself from home, for I do not know what reason, his wife, being wooed in his absence, married another. A few months after this second wedding, the first husband returned and wished to have her back again; the other one not consenting to give her up, a lawsuit results; the father of the woman decides the contention without appeal. He takes a stick, carries it a short distance away, and sticks it in the ground; then, addressing the litigants, he says, "He who shall first bring back that stick shall have my daughter," and tells them to run. The woman was assigned to him who had the better legs, and the suit was so entirely settled that it was never again spoken of except as a joke. The bond, so strong, which holds man and wife under the same yoke, will be hard to fasten upon the Indians. The Company of New France have made some beginning towards correcting this evil; they have this year given three acres of cleared land to two young Indian girls who would marry Christians.

A worthy Lady, of whose name I have not been informed, has made a present of a good sum of money, also to provide for the marriage of some baptized Indian girl. All this has already been therefore employed. This is the best means to render the marriages of the Indians permanent and indissoluble. For a husband will not so readily leave a wife who brings him a respectable dowry; and a woman, having her possessions near our French settlements, will not readily leave them, any more than her husband. Add to this that having given their word at our Altar, the fear of the law will hold them to their duty. The good that is being done and procured for these poor Neophytes gives a powerful influence over them to those who govern them, and strong authority to the Christian faith in making them render obedience to its laws. Here is an example of this:

Here is a rather unpleasant piece of news: Father Jerome Lalemant, having left us to go to the Hurons, encountered on the way four cabins of the Kichesipirini Algonquins. The Hurons who were conveying them, having gone ashore, entered one of these cabins, and the Father withdrew to one side to pray. But they soon called him, and motioned him to take his place near a certain evil-looking Indian. This man, perceiving the Father, fell into a rage, and complained that a Frenchman who had passed that way a few days before had bled one of his sick people, and death had followed. "Then, becoming angry and enraged, he showed me a cord and a hatchet" (says the Father, who wrote to me all about this tragic comedy), "making me a sign that I must die. Finally, he arranged this cord with a running knot; and with a furious and violent gesture he seized my head with both his hands to compel me to pass it into this noose. I stopped him with my hand, explaining to him my innocence as best I could.

He ridiculed all this, became still more enraged, and raising his hatchet, gave me to understand that if I did not perish by the one I would by the other. Seeing that the collar of my gown prevented him from strangling me, he tried to unhook it. During this struggle, our Hurons smoked without uttering a word; two of our Frenchmen who were outside the cabin hurried to arm themselves, but I stopped them for fear of a greater misfortune, advising them rather to negotiate with the Hurons, who had taken us under their protection and safe guidance. Finally, this barbarian made our Hurons leave his cabin; and holding me by one foot, kept me a prisoner, with the intention of dispatching me. From time to time, the Hurons came and looked into the cabin to see what was going on, saying that they would remain there all night to consider what was to be done, holding themselves responsible for my person, in case he consented to release me; this caused the Indian to let me go. I returned to read my prayer book; and our Hurons went into council, where they decided to make presents to this madman, sending for him to come into their cabin, to give him hatchets and a javelin-blade. The oldest of our Hurons, raising these hatchets one after the other, said with each one, 'This is to free the Frenchmen who are with us.'

This barbarian, having looked at all these hatchets, said, 'The idea of killing the Frenchmen is beginning to go out of my mind; but that I may be satisfied, and that it may go out altogether, I must have a kettle besides.' There being none forthcoming, he asked for a shirt instead; one was given to him, and he declared that he was perfectly satisfied; then, causing a bark dish full of water to be brought to him, he washed his face and eyes, and, swallowing the rest, 'This,' said he, 'is to wash away my tears; this is to swallow all the bitterness of my anger; I am no longer angry.' Then he went away, taking with him his presents. Having returned to his cabin, he sent the flesh of a Beaver to our people as an evidence of reconciliation. Our Hurons urged me strongly to relate this story to the Governor. The anger they felt at what had taken place so irritated one of them that he almost killed this barbarian, the next morning, with a blow of his hatchet. It is impossible to write any more, as the Mosquitoes or gnats are attacking me by the thousands, not allowing me to write a single syllable without pain. So for this time you must pardon me if I write badly, and excuse me to our Governor, whose charity, while I have had the honor of being with him, I cannot describe to you."

Father Le Moyne, whom we are also sending to the Hurons, met with another adventure, just as dangerous. His people having wasted the food that had been given them, and having even sold some of it to the Algonquins, put on shore the Father, and two Frenchmen who were with him. Other Frenchmen, who were going down from the Hurons, were present on this fortunate occasion; and when they chided these Indians for not having kept their provisions, they replied that they were courageous, that they could easily pass a week without eating. These Frenchmen made them give the Father a little corn and Indian meal to live upon, in the great desert where he had been abandoned, while waiting until one of the canoes that was going down should take him on its way back. The poor Father wrote me about his misfortune:

"I do not know whether it is my sins that close to me the gate of the country I have so desired; but anyway here I am, stripped and abandoned, on a point of sand beyond the Weskarini Algonquin nation, with no other house than the great world. Only three days ago, the canoe that carried our little baggage overturned in the water, and our packages were carried away by the current; we fished up one of them with a great deal of trouble, but the other was lost."

I have already told how the Father who was taking back the Huron Seminarists also lost his baggage, traveling over the same route. If the Indians laugh at their own losses, we should not weep over ours.

Father du Perron, who is also going up there, will perhaps be more successful than his three predecessors. His cheerfulness at his departure, and the honor shown by our Governor to him as well as to the others, put the Indians into so good a humor that it promised us good results. The one who took him said to us, in, embarking, "I am Captain; no harm can happen to the Father in my presence." They promised us that they would take up, on the way, Father Le Moyne and the Frenchmen who were with him.

Paul le Jeune.

From Three Rivers, at the Residence of la Conception, this 25th of August, 1638.

LE JEUNE'S REPORT, 1638. THE COUNTRY OF THE HURONS IN THE YEARS 1637 AND 1638. SENT TO QUEBEC TO THE REVEREND FATHER PAUL LE JEUNE, SUPERIOR OF THE MISSIONS OF THE JESUITS IN NEW FRANCE.

Reverend Father,

After the departure of the canoes for the trading at Quebec, the malady, which had before now attacked only a few villages, becoming everywhere prevalent, all these Nations declared themselves openly in general assemblies held for this purpose. We appeared there in person; we heard there the depositions made against us from the lips of the chiefs of the country. Our Friends did not conceal from us their opinion of the dangers in which we stood; they even asked us for confidential letters, so that afterward they could go down to Quebec in security and carry there the news of our death.

THE PERSECUTIONS THAT WE SUFFERED IN 1637.

I SAID a word, last year, about our new Residence in the village which is almost the heart of the country. Our cabin was not yet half finished when it attracted these peoples from all directions to come and see us; the crowd there was so great that it was a more than sufficient occupation to keep watch upon their hands, in addition to the great number of sick persons who continually needed our visits.

Our Fathers had built a sort of Altar, where they had placed some pictures, in order to secure opportunity to explain to them what was the principal motive that brought us here and had attracted us to their village. The whole Cabin resounded with expressions of admiration at the sight of these extraordinary objects; above all, they could not weary of gazing at two pictures -- one of Our Lord, and the other of Our Lady. We had some difficulty in making them believe that these were only flat paintings, especially since these pictures were of life size, for the small figures make little impression upon their minds. We had to leave them exposed all day, to satisfy all the people.

This first viewing cost us dear; for, without speaking of the annoyance that inquisitive persons have since caused us, that is, all the people who arrive from other villages, if we derived some advantage for speaking to them of our Holy mysteries, some of them spread the previous slanders, namely that we were causing the death of these peoples by our Images.

In a few days, the country was completely imbued with this opinion, that we were the authors of this universal contagion. It is probable that those who invented these slanders did not believe them; yet they spoke in so definite terms that the majority no longer doubted them. The women and children looked upon us as persons who brought them misfortune. God willed that for the space of three or four months, while these persecutions were at their height, we should be deprived of nearly all human consolation. The people of our village seemed to spare us more than the others, yet these evil reports were so persistent and were such a common subject of conversation in their assemblies that suspicion began to take hold upon them, and the most prominent ones, who had loved us and had been accustomed to speak in our favor, became entirely mute, and when they were compelled to speak, they relied on excuses, and justified themselves as well as they could for having built us a cabin.

On the 26th of June, the niece of Pierre, our first Christian, died, despite the vows and prayers we had offered for her recovery. This was the first blow to this family, which was followed some time afterward by the death of his wife; and after his return from the trade the malady carried off one of his daughters, and his brother-in-law. Several slanderous tongues, which were already of themselves fruitful enough in deceits and slanders, thought they had a new opportunity to throw the cat at our legs, alleging as their motive that affliction had not fallen upon this cabin until after the solemn Baptism of Pierre. In fact, they had passed the winter comfortably, the majority of the other cabins having been badly treated by the disease.

This idea so deeply entered the minds of some of them that one entire village, according to the report made to us, decided no longer to use French kettles, imagining that everything which came in any way from us was capable of communicating the disease to them.

There came another piece of news from the Petun nation (for these reports continued to increase, even in the surrounding Nations). It was asserted that an Indian, stricken with this pestilential disease, had vomited up in some blood a leaden pellet, from which they concluded that a Frenchman had bewitched him. We were forced every day to answer the bearers of similar news; and there were few of them capable of understanding the arguments we brought forward to show them how disinclined we were to these evil thoughts. Their usual answer was that "this was being constantly said everywhere; and that, besides, all the inhabitants of the Island where these peoples live had their brains upset, that the death of so many of their relatives had unsettled their minds; and so one should not be surprised if, like madmen, they should lay the blame on whatever was at hand." However, we never ceased making our usual trips, until at the worst, when we saw that our holy Mysteries were not received with the respect that they merited, and we judged that these visits might be prejudicial to the progress of the Gospel.

The mortality prevailed everywhere, but especially in the village of Angoutenc, which was only 2 miles from us. We made two visits there, but without effect; we returned there on the 3rd of July. We found a considerable number of sick people, but they wrapped themselves in their robes and covered their faces, for fear of speaking to us; others, upon seeing us, hurried to close the doors of their cabins; we already had our feet upon the threshold of two others, when we were driven away, the reason given being that there were sick persons there. All things considered, we judged that this hostile aspect arose only from the fact that they were not yet well informed as to our purpose in these visits, for they are not accustomed to visit one another in this way during their illnesses, unless they are close relatives; so it was a great novelty to them to see persons who sought out only the sick, and the most wretched and most abandoned.

We returned there on the 8th of the same month, not so much in behalf of the sick as to see some old men and those who had the management of affairs, so we might try to make them understand our purpose. We fortunately encountered a Captain of great intelligence. He listened to us willingly, giving us his word that he would communicate with the Old Men, saying that, as for himself, he already assured us that he would always look upon us kindly. We went immediately to see those who were most ill, but we were no better received than on the former visit. A certain war Captain no sooner saw us at the door of his cabin than he threatened to split our heads if we went any further.

Towards afternoon, Ondesson, one of the first war captains of the whole country, came to see us with another notable of Angoutenc. In regard to our visits, they admitted to us that many were afraid of us, and that to remove these fears it would be desirable to hold a council then, where we should be present in person. We desired nothing else.

Besides, one of the head men of our village came and drew us aside, "My nephews" (he said to us), "I have something important to tell you. It is that Antoine" (he was speaking of Father Daniel) "let slip an inconsiderate word which is giving people a great deal to talk about. Last Summer, a young man, who was asked to remain in Quebec, was about to set foot in the canoe, when he said to him, 'What are you going to do? you are going to your death; the disease is about to ruin your country, believe me; pass the winter with us, if you would escape this danger.' That is what I have just learned at Onnentisati, where you people are spoken of in bad terms; they are altogether certain that you are the cause of our misfortunes." To all our arguments he had nothing else to answer except that such things were being told, which always left a deep impression upon their minds.

Having returned to Angoutenc for the council, we found all the Captains there (for there are several of them in the same village, according to the diversity of affairs), who gave us a sufficiently kind reception. The most influential one invited the others to the assembly, crying in a loud voice through the village. The Old Men, the women, the young people, and the children hurried there at our request. The council was opened by our presenting to them a cake of Tobacco in a dish, in the manner of the country; one of the Captains broke it, to distribute it to the more prominent members of the company.

They never speak of business, nor come to any conclusion, except with the pipe in the mouth; this smoke, which mounts to their brains, gives them, they say, enlightenment amid the difficulties that present themselves. When this was over, the President raised his voice to a tone nearly like that used by our public criers in frequented streets in France, giving them to understand that his Nephews, the French, were about to speak, that they should listen to them attentively, and that they should not be annoyed by the length of their speeches, that the matter was one of importance, and deserved to be well understood.

We explained to them what had brought us into their country, and especially what our purpose was in visiting their sick. They listened to us with fair attention, but when we were about to conclude someone came to invite these Gentlemen to a feast; and as the time was short, we had to break off, for there is no affair so important that they would not leave it for a feast. When we had finished, they looked at one another, by way of deference, to see who would speak. Finally, he who presided took the floor, hurriedly repeated the chief points of our speech, and dwelt particularly upon the assertion that we loved them, and that it was only through affection that we went to visit them, with the intention of living and dying in their country. One of the older ones added that it would be well to have this word resound throughout the earth; that we were placing them under great obligations by consoling them in their tears; that our persons were dear to them; that the young men should be careful not to strike a blow for which the whole country might groan. All finally concluded with expressions of the utmost good will, inviting us to visit them from then on. Such is the character of this country; as for words, there are as many of them as you desire. Still, we judged that we had, for the time, every reason for satisfaction.

Afterward, in our visits, we encountered a sick old man. "My Nephews" (he said to us at first), "be welcome." He soon reversed the compliment when he learned what brought us there, for he said, the angry blood mounting to his face, "It is you people who are making me die; since you set foot in this house, six days ago, I have eaten nothing; and I have seen you in a dream as persons who are bringing us misfortune; it is you who are making me die." Among these peoples, nothing more need be said for a man to have his head split. In fact, despite the fine promises that I have mentioned, we noticed afterward so much coldness on all sides, and so great distrust of us, that we judged it wise to desist entirely from our visits. Upon the advice that Our Father Superior sent us, we remained for some time at anchor, during the tempest. He wrote to us also that, at the close of the feast which had interrupted our council, they had again assembled, and had decided to kill some Frenchman, whoever he might be.

They still continued, however, to console us by their visits. The Chiefs came to us, one after another, to be informed of our proceedings. Even that last one who had so rudely driven us from his cabin did not hesitate to tell us in our house that he believed us to be the authors of their sickness. Another complained to us that one of his relatives had expired immediately after our visit.

If we were engaged in a struggle in this settlement of la Conception, our other Fathers were also, at that of St. Joseph, for that area became colder and colder towards us, on account of the slanders that certain evil minds were forging from day to day. There were other rumors. Four barques, it was said, belonging to those who are not our relatives (they meant the English) ascended, in spite of all the French, as far as the Riviere des Prairies, and those who commanded them maintained that the black robes were the cause of all the sickness. It was in vain that we disagreed with them, forcibly arguing how incredible the thing seemed; they persevered in their own notions.

Our first Christian informed us of another report, similar to that of which we wrote last year, which certainly has had great popularity -- namely that we had brought a corpse from France, and that there was something in our tabernacle that made them die. These poor people lay the blame on a charm which they seek everywhere.

This report was not yet smothered, when another one arose. Our crime was, they said, that we had established ourselves in the heart of the country that we might more easily procure its total ruin; to accomplish this, we had killed a little child in the woods by stabbing it with a needle, which had caused the death of a great many children. We were rebuffed on all sides, so that, one day, when we strove to gain the good will of one of their sick people, who is among the most influential persons here, both he and his relatives began to abuse us. They took offense at our slightest act, some of them complaining that we kept our door closed in the morning, possibly, they said, for some sorcery; others suspected us of some sinister plan when in the early evening we sang our Litanies. They all agreed upon this point -- that to put an end to their miseries they must do away with us as soon as possible, or else send us back to France. There was nothing, even to a weather vane that we had had placed on the top of a fir tree, which did not give them something to talk about. "For where are your wits?" said one of the chief men, "What does that piece of cloth mean that I see placed so high up there?" But this complaint terminated pleasantly, when, after having learned that we placed it there to see from what quarter the wind blew, he reproached us for not having used a larger piece, so it might be seen from a greater distance.

Our clock was no longer visible, for they believed it to be the Demon of death, and our pictures told them nothing more than what was happening to their sick people. Merely seeing us walking about, they thought we were engaged in some witchcraft.

Here is the news that frightened us the most: there was a report that Our Father Superior had been murdered. It was first brought to us by a terrified Indian, and two Captains of note told its details to others of our Fathers, even naming to them the murderer. From then on, everyone deserted us, and we were regarded only with dread. This reported assassination spread throughout the Country, when the Father, to console us, hurried to come and relieve us from our anxiety. He went, at the outset, to visit our Captain, who welcomed him as a man risen from the grave. The Old Men of the village came to welcome him, one after another. We could not impart the news of the Father's safety to the settlement of saint Joseph until a week afterward, for lack of a messenger; the letters that they wrote us show plainly that the rumor passed for the truth among those of their village.

GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF THE WHOLE COUNTRY, WHERE OUR DEATH IS UNDER DELIBERATION.

An occasion was created for a general assembly, so we might inform the Chiefs of the country of our purposes among them. It was a question of some war that was to be taken into mature consideration, the Old Men of each village having previously come to a mutual agreement upon it in their special councils. Being invited to this assembly, we gave them a present of three or four hundred wampum beads, (these are the gold coins of the country) to give them some proof of how much we shared in the public interests. We were well aware that they were to speak of us in this general assembly. The Father Superior attempted to clear us, in private, with various persons, from the slanders that had been loaded upon us; but they were already so bitter that the Captains most favorable to us told him plainly that the greatest favor we could hope for was to be driven from the country and sent back to Quebec.

Finally, the opening of the great assembly took place towards evening on the 4th of August, where, after the usual compliments, they discussed for that time only the subject of peace with their allies, upon which they consulted nearly all night, with a prudence that can hardly be imagined. It was well that, toward the end of the council, Our Father Superior, taking occasion to reply, now to one, now to another of these Councilors upon unimportant questions about the Sky, the Sun, and the Stars, fell imperceptibly upon the points of our faith, and powerfully affected these minds by the contemplation of the eternal fires.

The other assembly opened about eight o'clock in the evening. This council was composed of three Nations, namely, of that one called the Bear, our first hosts, who comprise, in all, fourteen villages, large and small; they occupied one side of the cabin, and we were placed in the middle of the same side. Opposite were the two other Nations, each numbering four populous villages. It was here that they were to deal with the affair of the black robes, who were everywhere believed to be the cause of all the misfortunes of the country. They all yielded the dignity of President to a certain old blind man, one of the most commendable of our village, and the oldest of the company, respected among his people for the reputation he had acquired as a man of intelligence and executive ability. Here is an account of it, nearly as all occurred.

The foremost of the Captains puts in the mouth of Ontitarac (the blind President) the terms he should use in opening the council. Then this old man, in a trembling, yet tolerably strong voice, saluted these Nations, and each of the Chiefs in particular, rejoicing with them that they had auspiciously assembled to deliberate upon a matter which was the most important in the country. Then he urged all those present to proceed seriously upon this occasion, when their preservation was at stake; for it was a question of discovering the authors of the common malady, and of remedying the evil. "Speak frankly," said he, "and let no one conceal what he knows to be the truth."

Then the Master of the solemn feast of the Dead, who is the chief of council for the whole country, began to speak, and exaggerated the deplorable condition of his nation. He concluded his speech by accusing us with being persons who for a long time had had some knowledge of it. He spoke so indistinctly that we lost many of his words; therefore, after Our Father Superior had represented that, since the matter concerned us, it was fitting that we should correctly understand all that was said, so we might be able to answer it, we went farther up, and took our places next to those who had the most bloody weapons to produce against us.

I have never seen anything more mournful than this assembly. In the beginning, they looked at one another like corpses, or rather like men who already feel the terrors of death; they spoke only in sighs, each one undertaking the enumeration of the dead and sick of his family. All that was only to incite them to vomit more bitterly upon us the venom which they concealed within. There was no one present who openly undertook our defense, and certain ones thought they were doing us a great favor by remaining altogether silent. They were all like so many accusers who keenly urged on the Decree for our condemnation, doing all they could by their words and their repetitions to take the Father unawares in some of his utterances. Two old men especially attacked us, for the others did nothing but eagerly repeat over and over what these had said. One of them spoke in these terms:

"My Brothers, you know that I hardly ever speak except in our war councils, and that I concern myself only with affairs of arms; but I must speak here, since all the other Captains are dead. Before I follow them to the grave, I must free my mind; and perhaps it will be for the good of the country, which is going to ruin. Every day it is worse than before; this cruel malady has now overrun all the cabins of our village, and has made such ravages in our own family that we are reduced to two persons, and I do not yet know whether we shall escape the fury of this Demon. I have seen maladies in the country before, but never have I seen anything like this; two or three Moons sufficed for us to see the end of those, and in a few years, our families being restored, we almost lost the memory of them. But now we already count a Year since we began to be afflicted, and we see no probability of soon seeing the end of our misery. What has caused us the most uneasiness is that we cannot at all understand this disease, and that we have not yet been able to discover its origin. I will tell you what I have learned about it; but first you must know that I am speaking without passion, and that I intend to tell only the plain truth. I neither hate nor love the French; I have never had anything to do with them, and we see each other for the first time today. I do not intend to do them any wrong; I shall only report faithfully the speech of one of our nation recently returned from the trade at Quebec."

It would take too long to report here the chief points of his accusation, which consisted of pretended sorceries of which we supposedly had knowledge. Besides, he embellished it all with so many fine words, and argued it so passionately, that the whole company received these falsehoods as truths. Note that this man, to give more color to his stories, was reluctant to accept the testimony of those who he knew were in disrepute on account of their falsehoods; but if he rejected one of these, he mentioned fifty others who were ready, he stated, to confirm his statements.

Our Father Superior let this Captain discharge his rage; then, having asked a hearing, he closed his mouth with arguments for which he had no answer. The confusion of this accuser did not prevent another old man from taking us to task, with as much cunning as the objections he offered were far from the truth. After all this, the Councilors pleadingly urged the Father to produce a piece of bewitched cloth that he was supposedly keeping for the ruin of the country, assuring him that his life would be spared, if he would admit that it was at our house. The Father persisting in denying this.

"That does not matter," said the President; "only let fall the word, my Nephew; do not fear, it will do you no harm."

Finally, the Father, finding himself urged so obstinately, said to them, "If you do not believe me, go to our house and let every part of it be searched; and if you are afraid of being imposed upon, as we have different kinds of clothes and goods, throw them all into the lake."

"There! that is just the way guilty people and sorcerers talk," replied he.

"How do you wish me to talk then?" asked the Father.

"But if you will only tell us what makes us die," said another.

"That is what I do not know, and what I cannot tell you; but, since you urge me so strongly, I must speak. I have often told you that we know nothing about this disease, and I do not think you could discover its origin. But I am going to reveal to you some infallible truths." After having spoken to them boldly of God, he came to the subject of the contagion, the causes of which he had some trouble in explaining on account of the interruptions of these Indians.

The worst of it was that the President entirely broke up his speech; "For," said he, "we desire to discover the authors of our sickness," and as if the Father had not yet said anything, he began to urge him more than ever to show this bewitched article; but seeing that nothing was gained in that direction, some of them fell asleep, others, growing weary, departed without reaching any conclusion. One old man, upon leaving, saluted the Father therefore, "If they split your head for you, we will not say a word." The principal men remained, although it was already after midnight. They postponed the conclusion of the whole matter to the return of the Hurons who had gone down to Quebec. This was an act of providence in our behalf, considering the good news they were to bring back from the French.

Some, having listened more attentively to the Father's talk, asked him to instruct them as to what means they should employ to appease God. The Father was still attempting to give them a satisfactory answer to this, when suddenly the Captain of our village (who until then had kept silent, for reasons of state) cried out, "Hey! what kind of people are these! they are always saying the same thing, they are sure to make us the same speech a hundred times. They are forever talking about their "Oki", that is, the great Spirit they worship, of what he has commanded, of what he forbids, of Hell, and of Paradise." Such was the outcome of this wretched council.

The war Captain who seemed to be the most incensed at us, finding himself disappointed in his expectations, did not hesitate to say that he was sorry he had not kept the Jesuit who arrived last, and put him to torture, "to draw from him," he said, "the whole truth that his brothers conceal from us. I would have ruined him, and caught him in some of his words." But what could he have gained from a man who could not yet understand what was demanded of him?

Despite all this, one of these Gentlemen, our judges, was glad to come and pass the rest of the night at our house, where we gave him the same accommodations as ourselves; and most of them came to ask us, some for one thing, some for another. But there is nothing so common among the Indians as ingratitude. Throughout the country, people had held a bad opinion of this assembly, and many were expecting to hear news of our death; some circulated a report that one of Chiefs of the council had raised his hatchet against the Father.

The evil reports increased yet more after this council. A certain man of the nation of the Arendaronon Hurons, it was reported, having a little while before returned to life, stated that he had encountered in the other world two women, who said they were from England, and who warned him that he should not yet go into the land of Souls; but that, having returned to life, he had to burn his robe to cure the disease; that the black robes who lived with them had evil plans, having resolved not to return to France until they had killed everyone in the country.

Lately, some Indian, I do not know who, almost strangled a young French boy near our cabin, but, seeing me hurry at hearing the noise, the cruel wretch escaped by running. Some other young hot-heads have been hatching evil plans against us.

SPECIAL ASSISTANCE OF GOD TO US IN OUR PERSECUTION.

ALTHOUGH this Council decided nothing hostile to us, yet it caused great changes in their ideas, so that those who had until now listened rather indifferently to the reports that were current about us, began to entertain great mistrust of our ways of doing things. A short time afterward, one of the Uncles of Louis de Saint Foy came to see us, and, having drawn us aside, informed us that several of the Captains who had been present at the council, and had spoken against us, had fallen sick; that he came in their behalf, to know our opinions on the subject and what they should do to recover their health. This was a fine opportunity for us to instruct him. He added that the Old Men no longer had any influence, but that the young men managed everything. "Witness," said he, "the two sorcerers they put to death not long ago." We saw clearly what he was aiming at.

On the 3rd of October, our cabin caught fire. We had reason to think it probable that this was a blow from some evil-minded person, as for a long time they had threatened to burn us all when we least expected it.

About this time, our bark fleet, I mean the Hurons who had gone down to the French, arrived. They all were the most contented men in the world. They pleased us when they told us how so many persons are employing themselves for the salvation of these poor abandoned peoples. We saw admirable results from the reception given them at the council that you held at Three Rivers. They no longer believe, they say, that we caused their death, since they neither saw nor heard anything down there which did not mainly alienate them from their sinister suspicions.

It is fortunate that you told them, in regard to their sickness, not only the substance of the things that we told them here, but also in the same order that we told them, so that they recognized clearly that truth is the same everywhere. It was the holy Ghost that inspired you to speak with so much profit of our holy Images, which many of them had previously taken for so many Demons. That image of the Savior which you raised on high, so they might all see it, made them believe that an object which so many people publicly honored could not be used for any black and secret magic.

However, affliction and despair had so troubled the minds of these Indians that if those who returned from Three Rivers had spoken of us in terms less favorable, we would have been a prey to their fury. But you had so thoroughly satisfied them that they closed the mouths of those who did not love us, causing the public persecution to cease for some time; I say public, for a few individuals never failed to give us annoyance; and one of the relatives of Captain Aenons, who had died at Three Rivers, almost dealt a fatal blow at the person of one of Our Jesuits who had made the voyage in his canoe. Here is a summary of what this good Father wrote us about the matter: "Some Indians," said he, "came to our house with rather evil intentions, it seemed to me; the youngest of them holding his bow bent, made pretense of discharging it at me, saying to his companions, 'It is that man.' Meanwhile, another one, to make me more conspicuous, called me by my name, assuring him that it was I; at the same time one of the crowd, looking at our Images, showed them to the others contemptuously; and then a low, dull noise was heard among them, as if they were inciting one another to some wicked action. I do not know what deterred him from discharging that fortunate arrow at me."

We had considerable difficulty in getting rid of certain Indians who came expressly from the Tobacco Nation, and who, after having seen and admired our Chapel, offered us a beaver robe, "so" (said these poor people) "we should make the sickness cease that was causing so great ravages in their country." This was a fortunate opportunity to speak to them of our Faith.

A little while afterward, one of our Friends came to us, all out of breath, and said, "My Nephews, you are dead men; the Attignenonghac Hurons are coming to split your heads, while the people of the village are away fishing; I have learned it from the Captain." We thought it wise, however, not to ignore this information, seeing that there was some probability of truth. We prepared our servants to be ready; they prepared themselves reverently, but with the determination not to die with their arms folded, unwilling to let themselves be murdered without making some defense. As for ourselves, we were resolved calmly to await death before the Altar.

I immediately departed from our Residence of la Conception to inform our Father Superior, who was at the Residence of saint Joseph, of all that was taking place. Upon the evening of my departure, one of our best friends came hurriedly to seek the Fathers whom I had just left, so they should appear before those who could not endure that we should live. He spoke to us in these terms: "Come quickly, and answer to the council; you are dead men!"

They found all the Old Men assembled with the Captain who had treated us so badly in the other councils. At first, this man spoke to them sharply on the subject of the contagion, the cause of which he attributed to the black robes, saying that when Echon came up to the country again, fully four years ago, he had said that this visit would be only for five years, and the appointed time had almost expired; that this wicked man had already profited too much by their ruin, and that therefore a general council was demanded, to hear him then, and to end the matter. Our Fathers, without showing any astonishment, told them that it was well, and they should hold another council when they pleased; that, for their own part, they would willingly be present because of that. If they had changed countenance, or wavered in their answers, their case would have been settled upon the spot, as these Indians have since informed us. In fact, we have learned that it had been decided to put us all to death.

Our Father Superior hurried to appear in person in this new assembly, having been informed by some of our best Friends that it would go ill with both him and us in this multitude of enemies. At his arrival, he went to greet the prominent men of the village, who merely bowed their heads, indicating by this gesture that it was all over with us. The only Captain of our friends to whom we could have had recourse was absent from the village. Accordingly, the Father chose this occasion to draw up a form of testament that he could leave in the hands of some faithful Christians, in accordance with the offer they had made him to carry it at the proper time to Quebec. Here are its terms:

Reverend Father,

We are upon the point of shedding our blood and of sacrificing our lives. All our Fathers await the outcome of this affair with great calmness. If any survive, I have given orders as to all they are to do. I have deemed it advisable for our Fathers and our servants to withdraw to the houses of those whom they regard as their best friends; I have assigned them to carry to the house of Pierre, our first Christian, all that belongs to the Sacristy; above all, to be especially careful to put our Dictionary, and all that we have of the language, in a place of safety.

In the Residence of la Conception at Ossossane, this 28th of October.

Jean de Brebeuf.

As it was important that this people should know the interest we felt in their welfare, and the little value we placed upon this miserable life, the Father thought it well to invite them to his Atsataion, that is, his Farewell feast, such as they are accustomed to give when they are nearing death. Our cabin overflowed with people. It was a good occasion to speak to them of the other life. The mournful silence of these good people saddened us more than our own danger.

Meanwhile, one, two, and three days slipped away, to the astonishment of our entire village, without any more threats of death from those Gentlemen in their assembly. I do not know whether the devil had stirred up these Indians against us; but we had not yet finished our novena before all these storms were allayed, so that they even wondered at it among themselves.

THE HURONS BAPTIZED THIS YEAR, 1638.

We have baptized more than one hundred persons, both adults and little children, forty-four of whom are now in Heaven; at least we are quite sure of twenty-two little innocent Souls that death took from the cradle. The greatest of our difficulties was to find those who were sick, so distasteful to them was this search. "You care for only the sick and the dead," they said to us; and we made the rounds of the cabins incessantly, for often someone was taken sick and carried away in less than two days. The most usual of our occupations was that of Physician, with the object of discrediting their sorcerers, with their imaginary treatments; although for all medicine we had nothing to give them save a little piece of lemon peel, or French squash, as they call it, or a few raisins in a little warm water, with a pinch of sugar.

Finding that we had exhausted the small quantity of preserved fruit we had had for three or four years, we had to wet and squeeze out in a little water the paper which had been used as a wrapper for it; this water tasted more of paper and ink than of sugar, and yet it is incredible how much these poor people liked it. God bless those charitable hearts who two years ago sent us some ointments; what was intended only for the body has served to heal many abandoned souls.

OUR OCCUPATIONS DURING THE ENTIRE WINTER, WHEN THESE TRIBES ARE MORE SETTLED.

THERE have been seven of Our Jesuits this year among these Peoples, in two Residences, the Reverend Father Jean de Brebeuf, our Superior, Fathers Charles Garnier, Paul Ragueneau, and myself, in this new residence in the village of Ossossane, under the title of the immaculate Conception: Fathers Pierre Pijart, Pierre Chastellain, and Isaac Jogues, in saint Joseph at Ihonatiria.

The little time remaining to us, after the help we render to the sick here, has been spent in sounding some good minds that we consider the most capable of giving authority to the doctrine that we preach. Among others, Joseph's family has occupied a good part of our attention. The esteem in which he holds us inspired in him a strong desire to learn to read and write as he saw us do; he immediately found most willing teachers. He passed a good part of the winter in this study, with a patience and diligence worthy of his courage, with such purity of motive that he recently asked us if there would be any sin in wishing to know how to write, so that he could set down in writing not only what concerned the progress of his soul, but also the affairs of the country. This labor has not been in vain; as for the writing, it will be easy for him, but the reading will cost him a little more effort. The difficulty we had in explaining to him the secret has somewhat delayed him; still, we hope that in a short time, he will succeed. You will be comforted by receiving one of his letters; I give you my word, at the outset, that it is all written by his own hand. In exchange for this, we have profited, for, in serving him as Instructors in reading, we have made for ourselves a good Instructor in the language. When we ask him the initial or final letters of the words, which are sometimes hardly distinguishable, he utters them for us distinctly; so he will be of great service to us in the conjugations. He has even dictated to us several excellent speeches upon our Holy Mysteries, in a logical sequence; he speaks so distinctly that you do not lose a syllable.

On the 8th of December, our Indians having returned from their fishing, we decided to teach them publicly. Since feasts serve as the great bells of the country, we made one of these, to which we invited the Chiefs of each cabin. The company numbered about one hundred and fifty persons. They approved our plan, and, to hear them, they were bound to come to our house at the least intimation. But their fishing having been successful, they were so occupied in continual feasting night and day that we could not call them together before the 9th of January. On that day, the foremost Captain, seconding our plan, made a feast at his house, at the end of which he detained the company. My Nephews," said this good old man to them, "remain here; we are going to hold a council; I am going to invite to it the principal men who are not here." No sooner were all assembled than this good man raised his voice and said, "It is Echon who assembles here this Council; now although I do not know his purpose, I judge that the matter about which he is to negotiate with us is important; so let all listen attentively."

The outcome of this first council was that each one drew the conclusions that his own inclinations furnished. One old man, a man of intelligence and respected on account of his age and prudence, declared that he wished that we would oftener call them together therefore. However, if we had trouble in assembling this first one, the second cost us no less. We had to wait two weeks in obedience to the dream of a rich old man, for whose health this village was having daily feasts.

At last, the Father gained over the most influential one of all the Old Men, and strongly interested him in our plan, which was that he had something new to tell them about Hell; and that these are not fables, as the majority of them had imagined. Accordingly, on the 1st of February, see a larger audience than before, all disposed to lend ear to our Preacher. He took as the subject of his speech this thought, that if, to escape the hands of the Iroquois, their enemies, they spared no ingenuity, with how much more reason should they keep upon their guard not to fall some day into the hands of a cruel enemy, who will torment them forever. It is my great regret that I cannot here reproduce the simplicity of the language, which the Father possesses perfectly; I considered this speech capable of conquering the hardest heart.

Since the successful issue of this council, the curiosity to see our Images and to hear our songs attract these peoples to our cabin on Sundays and Feast days, where we appear in our surplices to offer public prayers.

Some young men have placed themselves on our side, ever since Winter, and their instruction has occupied much of our time. However, we shall not hurry their baptism, because this would render it almost impossible for them to find wives, since there are no good young Christian girls here. Until we have a village that is entirely devoted to God, the marriages of our new Christians will occasion us difficulty.

BRIEF JOURNAL OF THE THINGS WHICH COULD NOT BE ENTERED IN THE PRECEDING CHAPTERS.

YOU have heard of the risk that the Father ran who reached here the first of September, and how he almost fell into the hands of the Iroquois. Passing to the Nipissings, he found this poor Nation sorely afflicted by the disease; and among the more influential Arendiwane (master sorcerers), one who complained to the others that the profession of Sorcerer was no longer of any use, since the Manitou was mocking them, causing them as well as the others to die.

Not one of our servants who has come up here this year has failed to gain some soul to God on the way. It will be a great blessing for this mission to always have servants who cooperate with us, for they can do a great deal for the conversion of these peoples. You cannot believe how much benefit has resulted from the good example of those whom we have had during the last 4 years. Our Indians speak of them with admiration; and when they see persons who do not wear our costume, practicing so exactly what we teach, they place a higher value upon our faith; this may some day be a motive for them to embrace it.

We gathered our little harvest and our wine for the Altar, in September. The harvest was about a half bushel of good wheat, which was large for the little that we had sowed; and a small keg of wine, which kept during the entire winter, and is still passably good. Three Priests have been using it for nearly six months.

We are now about to build our new Chapel. It will be 30 feet long, sixteen wide, and 24 high. It will not be one of the largest, but one of the prettiest which has yet appeared in New France.

An eclipse of the Moon, which happened on the morning of the last day of December, and lasted until Sunrise, which was 4 minutes after 7 o'clock, gave us great repute here, securing approval of what we believe. "For" (we said to them) "you have seen how the Moon was eclipsed on the same day and at the same moment that we predicted. Yet we would not have been willing to die, to prove this truth to you, as we are ready to do to prove to you that God will burn you eternally if you do not believe in him."

I cannot report here without blushing the fine eulogies that certain Captains pass upon us in their war councils, where they are accustomed to summon us. We hope for good results from these. Already the chiefs of the country wish to have us in their villages, already recognizing the wrong they did us by persecuting us with so little reason. They have retracted publicly what they had invented against Father Antoine Daniel, and this honorable reparation was acceptable to the whole assembly.

We are finally going to move the residence of saint Joseph, which is still at Ihonatiria, to another village, larger and finer. It is the capital of a nation which is closely allied to that of the Bear, our best friends.

From the Residence of la Conception in the country of the Hurons, at the village of Ossosane, this 9th of June, 1638.

Francois Joseph le Mercier.

YEAR 1639
LETTER OF FATHER FRANCOIS DU PERON OF THE JESUITS, TO FATHER JOSEPH IMBERT DU PERON, HIS BROTHER, RELIGIOUS OF THE JESUITS. AT THE VILLAGE OF LA CONCEPTION DE NOTRE DAME, THIS 27TH OF APRIL, 1639

Reverend Father,

I went to the Huron country. Accordingly, I shall only send you news of the Hurons; for as for the Innu and Algonquins, we receive news of them only through the printed Report sent to us from France from year to year. You can answer my letters; as for myself, I must leave one year between two letters, because the Hurons go down from here to Three Rivers at the same time that the ships arrive there from France. This letter will be shared by my two brothers and the Fathers of my acquaintance.

I left Three Rivers on the 4th of September, and reached the Huron country on the day of saint Michel, at twelve o'clock at night. The journey is one Of 750 miles by water, through many long and dangerous rapids, some 5 or 7 miles in length; consequently no others except Indians can undertake the journey. They have bark canoes which merely skim over the water, and one man can carry one of them upon his shoulders. I fortunately embarked with a Huron captain, who showed me every courtesy along the way. Father Lallemant, our superior, and Father Le Moyne, who departed before I did, did not fare so well. Father Lallemant was almost strangled by one of the Kichesipirini Algonquins (this is an Algonquin nation that is encountered upon the way), who tried several times to put a bowstring around his neck, "to avenge," he said, "the death of one of his little children," who had been bled by one of our men who had gone up a day or two before the Father. I encountered this same Indian near the island, who, when he first saw me, said he must do the same to me, and for a long time tried to persuade our Hurons that they should not bring Frenchmen into their country, that it was we who made them all die; my captain pacified him as well as he could.

As for Father Le Moyne, he had to part from his Indians, as he had no more provisions. Accordingly, they left him on the bank of the river with one of our men, whose hunting, which was successful, furnished him with food for two weeks. Then he embarked in one of the canoes of our band. The master of this canoe, two days later, wished to leave him upon a rock, and I had to give him my blanket to satisfy him.

Our food on the way was only a little Indian corn, crushed between two stones and boiled in water; our lodging, under the open sky. Still, I was always very well, thank God. Along the way we passed three wandering Algonquin tribes; 1st, the Weskarini Algonquin nation; 2nd, the people of the Kichesipirini Algonquins; 3rd, the Nipissings; for the rest, forests and bare rocks, rapids, and precipices; I am surprised that the Indians dare to undertake such a journey. As for the Huron country, it is tolerably level, with many prairies, many lakes, many villages; of the two where we are, one contains 80 cabins, the other 40. In each cabin there are five fireplaces, and two families at each. Their cabins are made of large sheets of bark in the shape of an arbor, long, wide, and high in proportion; some of them are 70 feet long. Their land produces nothing but Indian corn, beans, and squashes. These are the delicacies of the country, which has nothing in common with our France, as to things to be enjoyed, except the four elements. But one sees here birds, fish, and forest animals, almost the same kinds as in France. The land, as they do not fertilize it, produces for only ten or twelve years at most; and when the ten years have expired, they have to remove their village to another place. If they fertilized it, it would yield as well as that of France.

So much for farming, which is the occupation and employment of the Huron women; that of the men is fishing, hunting, trading with the French and other neighboring tribes, such as the Petun nation, the Neutral nation, the Ojibwes, that of the "raised hair" (Ottawas), that of the "stinking people" (Winnebagos), etc. They are robust, and all are much taller than the French. Their only covering is a beaver skin, which they wear upon their shoulders in the form of a mantle; shoes and leggings in winter, a tobacco pouch behind the back, a pipe in the hand; around their necks and arms bead necklaces and bracelets of wampum; they also suspend these from their ears, and around their locks of hair. They grease their hair and faces; they also streak their faces with black and red paint. Their recreations are the games of straw, of dish, and of lacrosse, in which they will lose to the value of two or three hundred gold coins.

The nature of the Indian is patient, liberal, hospitable; but persistent, visionary, childish, thievish, lying, deceitful, sinful, proud, lazy; they have among them many fools, or rather lunatics and insane people.

Their language is a regular one, full of constructions like the Greek, differing from the Greek in that the changes of mode and person come at the beginning, the terminations being nearly always the same; an accent changes the meaning of a word. It is not as barbarous as is imagined; the nouns are conjugated as well as the verbs; as to syntax, I cannot see that it is different from that of the French language, especially since they do not know what case is; they have little particles of elegance; they do not use the following letters, b, f, l, m, p, q, x, y; they make much use of the letters h, and k, these are the two letters which they find difficult to pronounce.

They nearly all show more intelligence in their business, speeches, courtesies, communication, tricks, and subtleties, than do the shrewdest citizens and merchants in France. They regulate the seasons of the year by the wild beasts, the fish, the birds, and the vegetation; they count the years, days, and months by the moon. They have no government at all; such power as the captains have is little more than that of criers and trumpets; they make their announcements in loud voices in the public places. The tone they use in their speeches is precisely the tone of the prisoners in the petit Chastelet at Paris. The young people are impudent to the last degree, one being as much the grand master as the other. Marriages are free. They have only one method of justice for injuries, which is that the whole village must make amends by presents.

The Indian corn sometimes yields one hundred grains for one. The famine this year is rather serious; but it is worse in the Neutral nation, where the children are sold like slaves to procure corn.

There are ten of Our Jesuits here in two Residences, one at la Conception de Notre Dame, the other at saint Joseph; these are distant from each other 12 or 15 miles. Messis quidem multa; operarii autem pauci; we hope for reinforcements the coming year. We expect soon to establish a third Residence in the Petun nation, without detriment to the traveling missions. We have with us twelve Frenchmen, who are hired by us; as to others of these, there are none. We are lodged and fed in the manner of the Indians; we have no land of our own, except a little borrowed field, where French grain is raised just to make the host for Mass; we leave the rest to divine Providence, which sends us more corn than if we had broad lands; one person will bring us three ears of corn, another six, someone else a squash; one will give us some fish, another some bread baked under the ashes. In this manner, we live happily and contentedly. As their presents, we give them little glass beads, rings, awls, small pocket knives, and colored beads; this is all our money. As for the delicacies of France, we have none of them here; the usual sauce with the food is pure water, juice of corn or of squashes. The fresh food that comes from France does not go farther up than Three Rivers; all they can send is some church ornaments, some wine for the mass (only four or five drops of it is put into the chalice), and some clothes, some prunes, and raisins for the sick of the village; it all runs great risks on the way. We lost this year two of our packages. Our plates, although of wood, cost us more than yours; for they are valued at one beaver robe, which is 200 silver coins.

Here is a sort of little journal I have kept since my arrival: Having safely landed on Huron soil, after a voyage of twenty-six days in a canoe, or, rather cradle, made of the bark of a tree called birch, on the 29th of September, at one o'clock in the morning, I started so as to arrive at one of our Residences in time to celebrate Mass that day. But the rain, and the exhaustion from the day before, when we remained upon the water from one o'clock in the morning until twelve and after at night, without being able to take any rest; and also the expectation of being able to say Mass having compelled me not to eat anything at my landing, the rain, and my exhaustion, as well as the distance of 12 or 15 miles, and my ignorance of the way, compelled me to stop at the first village, and take some little nourishment. Accordingly, I entered the cabin of a captain of the village; the salutation they offered me was "chay" in their language, this is the usual greeting, and means "good day." Then they immediately spread a mat upon the ground for me to rest upon, and afterward brought four ears of corn which they roasted and presented to me, as well as two squashes cooked under the ashes, and a dish of sagamite; this food was delicious to me. The little children and others ran wonderingly into the cabin, to see me.

My ignorance of the language rendered me mute; and their custom, which is to say not a word except chay, to one who arrives, made them silent also; they merely surveyed me from head to foot, and all wished to try on my shoes and my hat, each one putting the hat on his head and the shoes on his feet. After having expressed my thanks by giving a knife, an awl, and a needle to my host for the good reception and treatment he had shown me, I asked him to give me an Indian to carry my bag and guide me to one of our Residences; he did so, and I reached the house of our Fathers at six o'clock in the evening. They received me with every evidence of kindness and good will, although their entertainment was no better than that of the Indians, for the comforts of life with us are the same as those of the Indians, a porridge made of the meal of Indian corn and water, morning and evening, and for a drink a flagon of water. Sometimes the Indians put in pieces of cinders, to season the sagamite, at other times a handful of little waterflies, which are like the gnats of Provence; they esteem these highly, and make feasts of them. The more prudent keep some fish after the fishing season, to break into the sagamite during the year; about half of a large carp is put in for fourteen persons, and the more tainted the fish is, the better. As for drinks, they do not know what they are, the sagamite serving as meat and drink; when not on their journeys, they will go six months without drinking.

The pleading of the Indians, who are continually about us in our cabin, and who sometimes break down a door, throw stones at our cabin, and wound our people, this pleading does not prevent our observance of our hours, as well regulated as in one of our colleges in France. At four o'clock the rising-bell rings; then follows the prayer, at the end of which the masses begin and continue until eight o'clock; during this period each one keeps silent, reads his spiritual book, and says his lesser hours. At eight o'clock, the door is left open to the Indians, until four in the evening; it is permitted to talk with the Indians at this time, as much to instruct them as to learn their language. In this time, also, our Fathers visit the cabins of the town, to baptize the sick and to instruct the well; as for me, my employment is the study of the language, watching the cabin, helping the Christians and Christian trainees pray, and keeping school for their children from noon until two o'clock, when the bell rings for examination of conscience. Then follows the dinner, during which is read some chapter from the Bible; and at supper Reverend Father du Barry's Philagie of Jesus is read; grace is said in Huron, on account of the Indians who are present. We dine around the fire, seated on a log, with our plates on the ground.

At noon, I open the school for the children who happen to be there up to two o'clock; sometimes I only have one, two, or three pupils. At four o'clock in the evening, the Indians who are not Christians are sent away, and we quietly say, all together, our matins and lauds, at the end of which we hold mutual consultation for three-quarters of an hour about the advancement of and the hindrances to the faith in these countries; afterward we confer together about the language until supper, which is at half-past six; at eight o'clock, the litanies, examination of conscience, and then we retire to sleep. One does not have undisturbed rest here, as in France; all our Fathers and servants, except one or two, I being of the number, rise four or five times every night; the food here causes this, as also the manner of sleeping, which is flat on the ground, upon a mat, and entirely dressed. Since I left France, I have not taken off my gown, except to change my linen.

On the 13th of November, the Reverend Father superior left here with one of our Fathers, to begin the traveling missions. The devil seemed to try to oppose their plan; the snow fell so abundantly as to cover all the paths. Our Fathers, having arrived at the mission called St. Michel at 4 o'clock in the evening, and having baptized two little sick children, started on their way to advise with our Fathers of St. Joseph, distant from there about 2 miles. They went astray, so that they did not reach St. Joseph until four o'clock the next morning, after having suffered a great deal in their wanderings. A little while afterward, several children, who had also lost their way in the night, were found dead in the snow.

A seminarist, having gone to war, had an encounter with the enemy, thirteen of whom were taken, who were distributed in different villages to be cruelly put to death. On his part, he captured two, and when one of them was about to be put to death, he urged him to believe in God and to consent to be baptized; as he no longer remembered the form of baptism, he repeated the Lord's Prayer while baptizing him.

A little while before my arrival, they had baptized seventeen in different villages. On the 4th or 5th of December, besides the above-mentioned prisoners, four others had the same blessing of baptism; three of these were burned at the village of St. Michel. Our Fathers had considerable trouble in baptizing them, the Hurons trying to prevent this from being done, saying that baptism made them happier in death.

They exercise unparalleled cruelties upon these captives; they cut off their fingers, they have them walk seven times over various glowing fires, which are lighted in the largest cabin of the village, where all the inhabitants are gathered to torment them; everyone torments the prisoner as he chooses; while he is walking over the fires, each one has a firebrand in his hand to apply to some part of his body. They use everything they can think of to torture him; they heat hatchets, arrows, and pothooks until they are red, which they apply to the victim; in all these torments they urge him to have courage, and the victim is obliged continually to sing. The night having been passed in these cruelties, they took him outside the village, to a platform, where they bound him to a stake, and there burned him alive by inches with their lighted torches; if he fell into a swoon, he was restored to consciousness by a drink. Sometimes they ferociously bit off pieces of his ears and made him eat them. When the fire suffocated him, they put him in large kettles to cook, and then ate him.

On the 12th of December, Sunday of the celebration of the Conception, I had the good fortune to say the first mass in the first chapel built among the Hurons, in honor of the Immaculate Conception of Our Lady. The chapel is neatly built of timberwork, almost similar, in style and size, to our chapel of St. Julien.

On the 20th of December, at about nine o'clock in the evening, we had an eclipse of the moon; it was total, and lasted about two or three hours. You had it in France at two o'clock in the morning of the 21st of December. It is by these eclipses that we know that the sun rises here about four hours later than it does in France; our latitude is about 45 degrees and a half.

On the 2nd of March, and other days following the carnival, the devil was unchained here as well as in France. There was only deviltry and masquerading throughout the Huron country; two or three of our Christians were corrupted, and many others, who were inclined to baptism, have become cold. I will content myself with touching incidentally upon the deviltries of these peoples. You will be able to judge from what follows that it is no little task for us to keep in order in the midst of a perverse nation.

 * All their actions are dictated to them directly by the devil, who speaks to them, now in the form of a crow or some similar bird, now in the form of a flame or a ghost, and all this in dreams, to which they show great deference, so great that, if they are asked to express their sentiments upon any subject, they say, "Wait until we have consulted the dream." For better results, they fast beforehand. They consider the dream as the master of their lives, it is the God of the country; it is this which dictates to them their feasts, their hunting, their fishing, their war, their trade with the French, their remedies, their dances, their games, their songs; to see them in these actions, you would think they were lost souls. They have only one harmless game, it is the game of lacrosse; they play it in memory of some excellent lacrosse-player who is dead.

 * To cure a sick person, they summon the sorcerer, who, without acquainting himself with the disease of the patient, sings, and shakes his tortoise shell; he gazes into the water and sometimes into the fire, to discover the nature of the disease. Having learned it, he says that the soul of the patient desires, for his recovery, to be given a present of such or such a thing, of a canoe, for example, of a new robe, a wampum collar, a fire-feast, a dance, etc., and the whole village immediately sets to work to carry out to the letter all the sorcerer may have ordered. At other times, to cure the sick, the old men of the village go to see the sick man, and ask him what his soul desires. He answers according to his dream, which will sometimes be extravagant and abominable. He will ask as many as twenty-five important presents, which are immediately furnished him by the village; if they failed in a single one, they would consider this the cause of the patient's death. Therefore, since we cry out against these deviltries and refuse to contribute anything of ours to them, the devil is sure to make the patient dream for something that we alone possess, or to make the sorcerer specify it. As I was writing this, on the 13th of April, about noon, an Indian, excited, came from a neighboring village, and asked us to give him a piece of red cloth, because the sorcerer had said that one of his sons, who was sick, desired for his recovery this bit of cloth. It was not given to him; but one of our Fathers immediately went to the place and baptized the little patient. These continual refusals cause them often to threaten to split our heads, attributing to us the cause of their diseases, saying that, since they believe, they have sickness among them. Each family has certain maladies, and consequently certain abominable remedies. Each also has its distinct coat-of-arms, one having a deer, another a serpent, another a crow, another the thunder, which they consider a bird; and like objects.

 * Nearly all the Indians have charms, to which they speak and make feasts, to obtain from them what they desire.

 * The devil has his religious; those who serve him must be deprived of all their possessions, they must abstain from women, they must obey perfectly all that the devil suggests to them. The sorcerer of this village came to see us on the 26th of March, and told us all these things.

 * Pregnant women among them cause, they say, many misfortunes; for they cause the husband not to take anything in the hunt; if one of them enters a cabin where there is a sick person, he grows worse; if she looks at the animal that is being pursued, it can no longer be captured; if people eat with her, those who eat therefore fall sick. A pregnant woman, by her presence and the application of a certain root, extracts an arrow from a man's body. Also, they rejoice more in the birth of a daughter than of a son, for the sake of the multiplication of the country's inhabitants. The women here are mistresses and servants.

 * They believe that souls enter other bodies after death.

On the 19th of March, Ash Wednesday, we gave ashes to the Indians who presented themselves. There are some who observed Lent as regards the abstinence from meat, and who, being present at feasts of venison, refused to taste it. Not that we require them to do so for now; they abstain of their own will, knowing that in France, Lent is observed in this way. It is at this lenten time that the hunters return from hunting, and, as game is rare and difficult to get, they are exceedingly greedy for meat. They will go 500 or 750 miles into the woods to find game, such as bears, deer, or cows; of the little that they bring back, they make a feast. As a token of great affection, a father will give his son a bone to gnaw which has been given him at the feast. The majority of them, not only during Lent, but all through the year, I mean those who are rarely at feasts, have only two meals a day, one at nine o'clock in the morning, the other at five in the evening. If the Lent of the Indians is continual, ours is no less so; Easter and Good Friday are often the same to us as far as food is concerned. True, the Indians will sometimes bring us, in trade, a quarter of a bear or deer, at most once during the entire year; rarely our Frenchmen will kill some Canadian geese or cranes, of which a feast is made for the Indians; some is given to the sick, and occasionally some are put in our sagamite.

On the 24th of April, two of our Fathers left here on their traveling missions through the country. On the 28th of April, I began the exercises, with the same object. At the end of this preparation, since the present letter, dated the 4th of May, I departed to go on a traveling mission. While on these missions, we are prevented from celebrating Mass (remember to make it up for us). On Saturday we return to the nearest Residence, to celebrate there Mass the next day, after which we return to our mission. Since Easter, we have baptized about twenty persons.

On the 27th of May, we returned to the Residence of la Conception, to be present at the coming of twelve prisoners, and to prepare them for baptism. What I have told you before about the cruelties that our Indians exercise upon prisoners is nothing, as I knew of them only through the report of the Fathers who were present. I was present at the preliminary tortures of these prisoners; the rage of the demons against the damned cannot be better represented than by what these peoples exercise upon these poor captives. Imagine at their arrival the whole village, or rather the whole country, going to meet them at 400 yards from the village, and to welcome them, but in a strange way; everyone is armed -- one with a club, another with a handful of thorns, another with a knife and a firebrand; they form in lines on both sides, and mercilessly strike the prisoners until they have reached the platform prepared for the exhibition of their cruelty. They walk one after the other, each one having behind him an Indian, who holds his arms bound by a cord; their feet are bound also, so that they can only walk slowly; they are naked, and each has a collar of wampum around his head to designate him as a victim. When they arrived at the stage, they were made to dance and sing, one after the other; and all the time they were singing, various persons cut them -- one cut off one finger, another three; another crushed their fingers with a blow from his club; others gashed them to the bone with knives in the fleshy part of the leg and the arm, most of them in both arms and both legs. When this was over, they were taken to a cabin to rest, so that they could afterward be tormented more cruelly by fire during the night. The next morning, one was driven upon the platform, so they could finish burning him with firebrands. They renewed all the tortures of the preceding night, and, when he finally succumbed, they cut off his head. I was present at these cruelties; they are far more horrible than one can imagine. Of those twelve, we have already baptized nine here; three remain, who are going to other villages. I leave presently, with one of our Fathers, to go to them and try to baptize them.

I have just returned. Of the three prisoners who remained to be baptized, we have baptized two, the third refusing baptism. Among the twelve prisoners there was one Judas. The number of those baptized this year (1639) reaches fully 300 people; in this village of la Conception, there have been baptized in sickness, both children and others, one hundred and twenty-two persons, a part of whom have gone to heaven. Besides the sick, fifty persons in health were solemnly baptized. In the village of St. Joseph, one hundred and twenty-six, of whom fifty were baptized; in the traveling mission of St. Michel, twenty, six or seven of whom were baptized with the ceremonies of the Church. I speak only of this country of the Hurons.

Francois Du Peron,

surnamed in Huron 'Anonchiara'

LETTER FROM FATHER SIMON LE MOYNE, TO THE PASTOR OF ST. MARTIN, AT BEAUVAIS. 1639

Sir And Dearest Cousin,

Marvelous! that this scrap of paper should reach you after shooting so many Rapids, and encountering, as it must, so many dangers. Is it not because my spirit had opened the way for it to you not once, but a thousand times and more? Oh, if you could see me here in this end of the world, blessing the water, singing at the aspersion, and saying Mass for the Parishioners of our district, for, after eight or nine months, we count in this barbaric region two or three Churches or Gatherings of Neophytes. But what consolation it is to see here every day in our cabins how our good Jesus is worshiped by a People to whom he is only partially known. I say every day; for, although they do not come to hear the mass, except at the solemn feasts and on Sundays, yet they come to our bark chapel every morning, and often every evening, to offer their prayers. Do you know how? We have translated into their language the sign of the cross, a suitable Act of contrition, of 12 or 13 lines, the Lord's Prayer, the Hail Mary, and several prayers of that sort, which these faithful Neophytes -- most of them adults and aged men -- recite after me, on all sides, with much feeling. God must have made good their defects of understanding, since they so discreetly feign not to notice our blunders in the pronunciation of their language.

Simon le moyne, of the Jesuits.

From our Residence of la conception, among the Hurons, this 25th of May, 1639.

Quebec, August 7, 1639.

Reverend Father,

I arrived in New France, on the first of August, with Fathers Vimont and Poncet and one of our lay Brothers, after a voyage of three months, which was difficult on account of the fogs which surrounded us for three weeks, with the danger of being wrecked against the enormous masses of ice that float upon these seas. The ship of the commandant of the fleet was about to strike against one of these blocks of ice, on the day of the Holy Trinity; when one of the sailors, walking upon the bridge, perceived, in spite of the thickness of the fog, the glitter of the ice, which was no more than four yards away, and cried, "Mercy, mercy! we are all lost!" But the wind suddenly changed direction and caused us to avoid, as if by a miracle, this imminent danger.

Four of us will go into the Huron country, Fathers Pijart, le Mercier, Poncet, and myself. Those who return from among these Indians assure us of their disposition to receive the faith.

Joseph Marie Chaumonot.

Quebec, the 7th of August, 1639.

NEW FRANCE IN 1639. SENT TO THE REVEREND FATHER PROVINCIAL OF THE JESUITS IN THE PROVINCE OF FRANCE. BY FATHER PAUL LE JEUNE, OF THE JESUITS, SUPERIOR OF THE RESIDENCE OF QUEBEC. A COUNCIL HELD BY THE INDIANS.

Reverend Father,

The Governor gave a feast to about one hundred Indians. We took with us the six who were clad in the royal robes, and had them eat in our house. After dinner, they attended evening prayers, wearing the same liberal gifts from the King. Some had nothing savage about them but their tanned color; their demeanor and gait were full of dignity and real grace. After evening prayers, we thought of sending them away; but one of them told me that the chief men of the Indians were assembled in our Hall, and were waiting for me to hold a council. I went there to listen to them, and, seeing that they were beginning to make speeches, I sent word to Reverend Father Vimont of what was happening. He brought with him the Governor and Madame de la Pelterie.

All being seated, a Captain addressed me as follows: "Be wise, Father le Jeune, keep quiet; do not let your mind wander, so you may not lose a word of what I am about to say."

"Ho, ho," I replied, following their custom.

"It is not I who speak," said he, "it is all those whom you see sitting there, who have assigned me to tell you that we all desire to believe in God, and that we all wish to be helped to till the soil, so as to dwell near you. You led us to hope that many people would come out to you, and now you have but few. Well, tell our Captain to write to our King and tell him this: 'All the Indians thank you; they wonder that you should think of them; they say to you: "Take courage; help us, since we love you. We wish to settle down but we cannot build houses like yours unless you help us."' Tell your brother who has come in your place to write also; write yourself, so that it may be known that we speak the truth."

Such is the style of these Indians. This one having finished his speech, another addressed me as follows: "Father le Jeune, I am not of this country. There is my home, in those Mountains to the South. I had not come to Quebec for a long time. These men whom you see came to visit me in my country, and told me that you were causing houses to be built for the Indians, and that you did help them to till the soil. They asked me if I would not come to see you, to dwell near you with the others. I have come; I have seen that you have commenced but that you have not done much for so many people as we are. Well, take courage, you say good things; do not lie. I am going away again to the coldness of our Mountains, for this Winter. In the Spring, while there will still be snow on the ground, I shall come and see if you do tell the truth, and if you have men to help us to till the soil; so that we may no longer be like the beasts who seek their food in the woods."

Madame de la Pelterie exclaimed: "how many souls could be saved in this country with what is spent for a single meal in Paris, or for a single ballet that lasts but two or three hours! I have brought only a few laborers with me but I will do what I can to help these good people. My Father," she said to me, "assure them that if I could help them with my own arms, I would cheerfully do so. I will try to plant something for them." These good Indians, hearing what she had said, began to laugh, saying that the corn planted by arms so weak would be too late. The conclusion reached was that an effort would be made to help them in the Spring.

I pleased them wonderfully when I told them that the Captain, who had commenced the Residence of Saint Joseph, had provided the means to always keep six workmen for them; and that, even after his death the workmen would not cease to work. They could not understand how this could be done, nor why these workmen could not at once take the money he left for them, nor how a dead man could make living men work; for they do not know what it is to have rents and revenues.

I was glad to speak of the great things to be seen in France in the presence of an Indian just returned from there. "Reproach me now with falsehood," I said to them; "ask your Countryman if what I told you of the greatness of our King and of the beauty of our country be not true? And do not any more call in question what I shall subsequently tell you." This good Indian told marvels, but according to his own range of understanding. Although he had admired many things, among others, the great multitude of people in Paris; the great number of restaurants; the colossal Saint Christophle of Notre Dame, which, at first sight, caused him much terror; the Coaches, which he called "rolling cabins drawn by Moose," -- he admitted that nothing had so interested him as the King, when he saw him on the first day of the year, walking with his guards. He attentively observed all the soldiers, marching in good order; the Swiss produced a great impression on his eyes, and the sound of their drum on his head. When he went away from there, he did not speak for the remainder of the day -- so the Father who accompanied him told me -- doing nothing but reflecting upon what he had seen. He told all this to his people, who listened to him with eagerness. The King's piety was of powerful assistance to us in doing honor to our faith; for this good Canadian admitted that the first time he saw the King was in the house of prayer, where he prayed to Jesus as he is prayed to here. He also stated publicly that the King had asked him if he had been baptized. This has helped us and will again help us to make these poor peoples understand the esteem in which that great Prince holds the doctrine that we teach them. In fact, as soon as this Indian had seen the King, he said to the Father who conducted him: "Let us go away. I have seen all, since I have seen the King."

Our Indians, especially the Christians, seeing that his Majesty had sent them clothes in the French fashion, decided to send a little dress, such as is worn by Indians, to the Prince. When they handed it to me, they had the wit to say: "It is not a present that we make him, for his riches are far greater than ours; but it is a metawagan -- a small toy to amuse his little Son, who may perhaps take pleasure in seeing how our children are dressed." We send this little dress to you. However, as smallpox prevails among our Indians, I do not know whether it is advisable to present it, for fear that it may carry even the slightest contagion with it. It is true that I had it in my possession before the disease broke out among those who gave it to me; but, when so sacred a person is concerned, a danger even 2500 miles away is to be dreaded.

THE NUNS RECENTLY ARRIVED IN NEW FRANCE, AND OF THEIR OCCUPATION.

IT was in this Year that Duchess d'Aiguillon built and endowed a house in honor of God in this new world, while God is preparing another dwelling for her in Heaven. It is a remarkable fact that, -- at the moment when God touched the heart of Duchess d'Aiguillon in Paris, and inspired her with the idea of building a Hospital of God for our Indians who were dying in the forests, and while she was thinking of the Hospital Nuns of Dieppe for carrying out her project, -- he raised up, in another part of France, a modest and virtuous Lady, and inspired her to undertake the Seminary for the little daughters of the Indians, and to confide its management to the Ursulines. And he so arranged affairs that, without the one knowing anything of the other's plan, all was accomplished at the same time, so that these good Nuns might cross the Ocean together, and that the Indians might benefit by this double and equally necessary service.

When we were informed that a barque was about to arrive at Quebec, bearing a College of Jesuits, an establishment of Hospital Nuns, and a Convent of Ursulines, the news seemed at first almost a dream; but at last, descending towards the great river, we found that it was a reality. The Governor received them with all possible honor.

On the following day, they were taken to the Residence of Sillery, where the Indians dwell. When they saw these poor people assembled in the Chapel, offering their prayers, and singing the articles of our creed, the tears fell from their eyes. On going from there, they visited the settled families and the neighboring cabins. Madame de la Pelterie, who led the group, could not meet a little Indian girl without embracing and kissing her, with marks of affection so sweet that these poor Indians stood astonished and uplifted, -- all the more so that they are cold in their greetings. All these good women did the same, -- without noticing whether or not these little Indian children were dirty, and without asking whether this were the custom of the country, -- the law of love and charity overcoming all human considerations. The newly-arrived Fathers were set to work; they were called upon to baptize some Indians. Madame de la Pelterie is already the godmother of several. She could not contain herself; she wished to be everywhere, whenever the Indians were in question.

Into the Hospital went the three Hospital Nuns sent by the Archbishop of Rouen, who could not better oblige her than in obliging the poor Indians, by giving for their aid one of the most precious treasures of his Diocese. For these good women, besides being strict in discipline and in regular observance, are, beyond a doubt, excellent in the care and treatment of the sick, both in worldly and in spiritual matters. The three Ursulines withdrew to a private house, after having mutually embraced the other nuns. Soon afterward, we had six Indian girls given to Madame de la Pelterie or to the Ursulines; and some French girls began going to them for instruction; so that they already perform the duties of their order. But if ever they have a house with sufficient accommodation, and the means to feed the Indian children, they will perhaps have so many of these as to weary them. God grant that the heavy expenses may not thwart their plans.

As for the Hospital, the Nuns were not yet lodged, and their baggage had not yet arrived, when sick people were brought to them. We had to lend our straw beds and mattresses that they might perform this first act of charity. Oh, how often I have wished that Duchess d'Aiguillon might see, even for three days, what she has started in these countries! The nuns whom she has sent us could not contain themselves for gladness.

Du Pont

Paris, the 10th of April, 1639."

Here is part of a Letter from Father de Quen, which shows the good done at the Hospital:

THE Company of New France, to persuade the Indians to settle, have granted the same favor in their store to the settled Christians as to the French. They have also ordered that some cleared land be given to the young girls who marry; they have set apart every year a sum of money to make presents to the Christian Hurons who come to supply themselves with goods at their stores.

Another has helped the seminary for little boys: and, this year, a person, giving a donation of a hundred gold coins, spends this sum in purchasing cloth and food. A worthy and pious person has given a hundred gold coins for the wedding of a young Indian girl sought in marriage by a young Frenchman of good character.

THE FAVORABLE DISPOSITIONS OF THE INDIANS TOWARDS THE FAITH.

Although the Indians declare that they wish to be instructed, they are not all animated by the same spirit, nor are they all equally willing. As they have been afflicted for several years with serious diseases and as nearly all imagine that their deaths are due solely to witchcraft, two headstrong fellows among them -- seeing that everyone listened attentively to our explanation of our belief -- opposed us, publicly declaring that the prayers caused death among them. One of these used threats against the Fathers who called upon the Indians to receive instruction in the Chapel. "Since we pray," said they, "we see by experience that death carries us off everywhere." Others added that the French were vindictive to the last degree, and that we had received orders from France to take revenge -- through a general mortality among all the people of the country -- for some Frenchmen who were killed by the Indians several years ago.

A certain sorcerer, or rather charlatan, a man of some standing among them, sought to prove by our doctrine that we caused their death. "The French teach," said he, "that the first woman who ever lived brought death into the world; what they say is true, -- the women of their land are capable of such wickedness, and that is why they bring them into these countries -- to make us all lose our lives. If the few they have already brought here have killed so many, those whom they expect will destroy all that remain." The war that suddenly occurred when these rumors seemed quieted, and the defeat of the Algonquins, have diverted their minds from the good thoughts that God had given to them; still, as not one of those who were baptized was taken or killed in the fight, this blessing has confirmed many of them in their good intentions.

One of the Weskarini Algonquin Nation, -- having been present at the prayers, and heard the singing of the Litanies of the attributes of God -- impressed these so fully on his mind that he asked for them in writing. When this was granted to him, he highly valued the paper containing them. It came to pass that, this good man, in returning to his own country, was wrecked; all his goods were lost, but he and his people saved their lives. What caused him the most sorrow, as he told us afterward, was the loss of his paper, -- so much that, although he was far distant from him who had given it to him, he decided to retrace his steps, to ask him for another one. But he was astonished when he saw the paper, quite sound and whole, under the ribs of his canoe, recovered from the danger. He marveled at this, and told it to his people as a miracle. Having returned to his own country, he assembled his neighbors every day in a large cabin, hung this paper to a pole, and all stood around it, singing what they knew of these Litanies, all crying out to God: "Chawerindamawinan, have pity on us." God took pleasure in their request, for the disease that afflicted them entirely disappeared. When this poor man came back to see our Fathers, he brought the paper with him; and as he had to spend the winter in the woods to procure his supply of Elk meat, he asked for another, which he regarded with the same veneration. As he did not yet know by heart the prayers to be offered to God, he offered him the paper, saying with all his people: "If we knew what is in this paper, we would all say it to you; but since we are ignorant, be content with our hearts and have pity on us, you who are our great Captain."

Even the Sorcerer, -- who, at the beginning, exclaimed against the coming of the French women, -- when his little girl became ill, did not rely on his art, but to Baptism, which he obtained for his child; and bodily health having returned, this charlatan extolled us and our doctrine. But he acted like the bells that call the faithful to the Church, and never enter it themselves.

I mentioned above the evil reports and the war that delayed the course of the Gospel. Our Governor went up to Three Rivers with a barque and some sailboats, well armed, and removed these obstacles. For, although contrary winds and the precipitation of the Indians robbed him of the opportunity of defeating their enemies against whom he was proceeding -- still, seeing the goodwill which a man of such merit had for them, they met and held several councils among themselves, at which they decided to embrace the Christian faith and to dwell near the French. In fact, they built good and long cabins quite close to our settlement at Three Rivers, giving us a fine opportunity of teaching them.

Everything was proceeding happily and they were diligent in attending the prayers in the Chapel, -- given to the women in the morning, and to the men in the evening, -- when famine compelled them to seek their food on the rivers and in the woods. The delay in the arrival of the ships was the cause of this misfortune. It was a sore grief for us to see a large number of well-disposed persons depart from our vicinity, through inability to provide for their bodily needs. Finally, when the ships made their appearance after having been long expected, these poor scattered sheep again gradually gathered around us.

As I was about to close this Chapter, one of the Fathers of our Jesuits who is at the Three Rivers, wrote me the following:

"THE persecution against us is again commencing; the smallpox, or some other similar disease unknown to me, having broken out among the Indians, the Devil makes them say that we are the cause of this contagion. They openly assert that Father le Jeune is certainly the author of the death of Mantwetehimat, who would not obey him; they also say that he caused the death of this man's wife. There are a good many cabins here, and some are afflicted. Kwikwiribabougouch presses me to baptize him before he leaves here; the dread of dying in the woods makes him desire Baptism. All the Indians who are here say that all is over with them, and that not one of them will see the Spring."

This is a diverse Letter. On the one hand, we are accused of causing death; and on the other, we are asked for the Sacrament of life.

It happened, almost at the same time, that a Sorcerer or trickster was breathing on a sick person, at about ten o'clock at night, because he dared not do it in the daytime. I heard of it and, hurrying there with one of our Fathers, I upbraided him and made him cease, threatening him in God's name. Before day broke, this miserable man was attacked by the contagion or smallpox, which rendered him horrible to look at. This astonished the Indians, and led some of them to think that we wished their death, and that God granted our wish. In vain I told them that God would punish us if we wished evil to anyone. "Even if you killed one of us," they said, "God would say nothing to you, for you pray to him morning and evening, and at all hours; and we do not know how to pray to him; that is why he will leave us to die."

THE CHRISTIANS OR BAPTIZED INDIANS

WE have two kinds of Christians in these countries: some have been baptized when ill, after rather slight instruction but sufficient to allow their receiving that Sacrament in that condition; the others have been baptized in full health, after having been well instructed in the principal and most necessary articles of our creed. Altogether, they number four hundred and fifty, including the Hurons, who constitute by far the majority. There are two or three of them who have married Indian women who are not Christians, because they were unable to find any baptized women willing to marry them. We deal leniently with them, allowing them to come to prayers, but we do not yet admit them to the Sacraments.

I have heard that some shameless women, who had approached some men at night and solicited them to do evil in secret, received for answer only these words: "I believe in God, I pray to him every day; he forbids such actions, -- I cannot commit them." I have heard that some young widowed Indian women and some girls, solicited and urged to abandon themselves to Indians who gave them assistance and helped them to live, replied that they were baptized and never committed such offenses.

There is a most evil custom among the Indians. Those who seek a girl or a woman in marriage go to her to court at night. There is much wrong in these visits, but not always, for the Indian women of these parts are sufficiently reserved, fearing that they may not find a husband if they make themselves common. To eradicate so mischievous a usage, we counsel the young Christian girls to give no answer to those who seek them at such times. Some have followed this advice, spurning those who came to visit them and even coming to ask us to forbid such visits to them, thinking that the young men would obey us better than them. Others only said these few words to them: "Go and see the Fathers; be instructed and baptized; then I will speak to you, -- not at night, but in the daytime."

Three young Algonquins from the Island, having come down to Quebec, and wishing to court according to their custom, spoke to Christian girls. They were astonished when these girls told them to ask us about the matter, and that they would decide nothing without our advice. These good people finally came to us and asked us if we governed the Indian girls. At first, we did not know what they meant; but, having at last comprehended it, we told them that these visits were of no help, and that they could not expect to marry any Christian girl unless they themselves were baptized. If all had the reserve of those I have just mentioned, it would be a great consolation; but unfortunately some of them, when far away from our settlements, marry at the request of their relatives, and all these marriages are broken off as easily as they were contracted.

The Iroquois having made their appearance near Three Rivers, the Indians were gathered from all sides. Having met together, they made several war feasts, at which they must sing, dance, and yell, -- all this through superstition, to obtain advantage over their enemies. As they dance, one after another, they give each a signal, selecting him whom they wish to have dance after them. One of these dancers gave the bouquet to Francois Xavier, one of our new Christians, who refused it, renouncing these superstitious dances. It was tendered to Ignace Amiskwape, who did the same. It was presented to some other Christians who all imitated the courage of these brave Athletes, deriding the follies of their Countrymen who placed their hopes in these ridiculous actions.

The Indians love their children above all things. They are like the Monkeys, -- they choke them by embracing them too closely. They have, however, a great fear of what others may say about them, and are afraid to give their children, in case they be blamed by their Countrymen. Seeing a good Christian woman at the point of death, I asked her for one of her little girls, to have her brought up by the Reverend Ursuline Mothers, of whose arrival we had received news from Tadoussac. The good woman said to me: "I am well pleased at this; I know that you take great care of poor orphans; but question her Uncle a little, whether he will agree to it." By good fortune, this Uncle was a Christian. I asked him whether he would be satisfied if we had the little girl brought up by these good Nuns. He replied that she was the child of his own brother, and that he could not give her up without being blamed by his relatives. I then answered that I was glad that she should be with him, and that he should have her reared in the Faith; but I only feared that God would require from him an account of the child because his wife did not take proper care of her; and that I transferred to him my responsibility. The good man was astonished and gave her to me at once, to be handed over to the good Mothers on their arrival.

THE FIRST FAMILIES THAT BECAME SETTLED.

HE who has begun to give assistance to our Indians to enable them to house themselves and to till the soil has laid the foundations of a Christian village. The first two Families who served as foundation stones for this new Church, have not only persevered in their intentions but have also attracted others, who begin to imitate them. Sir Gand, a charitable man, seeing what a good effect we are producing on their souls, has increased our help by several men, whom he engaged for this year and for the next.

Some Kichesipirini Algonquins, on their return from the country of the Abenakis, brought here a contagious epidemic of smallpox. This disease, which kills off these poor people everywhere, has come down as far as Sillery, the Residence of Saint Joseph, where we are collecting the Indians. After having taken some of them from us, after having snatched from us a true Apostle for these countries, it attacked the Heads of these first two settled Families, with such fury that we do not yet know the result. Francois Xavier, formerly Nenaskoumat, was the first seized; he was at once carried to the Hospital, so he might be promptly aided there. Hardly had he entered it, when Noel Negabamat felt himself attacked by the same disease. As I was preparing to take him to Quebec in a canoe, to lodge him with the other sick, I received a letter saying that Francois Xavier was asking for me, and that I must hurry, if I wished to see him for the last time. At the same moment, four Families of Indians arrived at Sillery, with the intention of becoming settled and of increasing the population of our incipient Village.

I had to play a strange part; for, professing to render the Indians stationary, I had to send away those who presented themselves. "Go, my dear friends," I said to them; "withdraw, for otherwise the disease may slay you; the affection that I feel for you leads me to give you this advice; however, do not go far away, so that we may have news of you." They promised to obey me in every particular, and then they reembarked and went away, naming to me the place where they would retire. This done, I went to tell all the other Families settled near us that it would be advisable for them to go away for a while.

THE BAPTISM OF A YOUNG ALGONQUIN MAN.

This young man of whom we speak, when he saw last Autumn that we delayed his Baptism, decided to go away with a company of his people into the depths of their great Forests, to seek for provisions. He had not gone far when his heart was chilled with fear, which caused him to retrace his steps. "I cannot leave you any more," he said to us, "until I am baptized."

We put him off until all Saints' Day. While waiting, as he came to see us frequently, and as we sometimes had him eat in our house, he once made this speech to us: "My countrymen would imagine that I visit you for the sake of obtaining worldly benefits, and it may be that even you have this idea; but I ask nothing from you, and all I expect from you is the instruction of my soul."

Seeing him thinly clad in the piercing cold, I asked him if he had no other robe than that he wore. "Your brother," he replied, "gave me one a long time ago; but I do not wear it, for two reasons. First, I fear that my body, if I cover it warmly, will be always urging me to procure for it the same good things; and if I cannot cover it by my own skill, it will gradually lead me to frequent your society for its own special benefit, rather than for the salvation of my soul. This has made me resolve not to make use of your presents. Secondly, if I show myself desirous of your gifts, I shall be continually asked by a woman who has little sense, who will urge me to get from you all that she will think your goodness can grant me. So I have made a resolution to disregard my body, so I may better reflect upon the welfare of my soul."

The Kichesipirini Algonquins, who are his fellow-countrymen, having come down in great numbers to Three Rivers, he began to instruct them with so much fervor that his people looked upon him with suspicion, -- so much that some suspected him of allying himself with us to make them die. They spied out all his actions, and watched where he went, approaching him only with fear, as if he were a Necromancer. They no longer invited him to the feasts, -- as if he were a wicked man, whom they mistrusted. It is a dishonor, when one is among them, to be excluded from these banquets; but he gave himself little concern because of that. I recognized the love or the aversion that people had for our belief, by the pleasant or evil looks they cast upon him.

The Indians are liberal to one another; but they give their presents to their relatives or their friends, or to those from whom they expect reciprocal favors. Our Neophyte, when he is successful in hunting or fishing, shares, first of all, with the sick and needy poor.

THERE are two kinds of Captains among the Indians, -- those by right of birth, and those by election. These peoples are not so barbarous that they do not show respect to the descendants of their Chiefs, -- so that, if the son of a Captain has some talent for leadership, if he has natural eloquence, he will hold his father's place without opposition. The one of whom we speak is Captain by descent. He is a man of good sense, and courageous; but as he is not a ready speaker, he does not share in the glory of the Captains. These Indians often place more value upon a great talker than upon a man of good sense.

THE CONVERSION AND BAPTISM OF A SORCERER.

I HAVE often said that the name "sorcerer" is given here to certain tricksters or charlatans who engage in singing, blowing upon the sick, consulting Devils, and killing men by their charms. I am inclined to think that there are some among them who have communication with the Demons; but the majority of them are only fraudsters, practicing their enchantments to obtain presents from the poor sick, to render themselves popular, or to make themselves feared. The one of whom I am about to speak was in the last category; he was dreaded by his people, and looked upon as a wicked man. I have often spoken of him, for we had some disputes with him in the presence of his Compatriots; but as his art was founded upon falsehood, and as we were supported by truth, we cudgeled him so roughly that he surrendered. He came to see us privately, to be instructed; we believe that in the beginning he did not so much desire to have us for friends, as he feared to have us for enemies. But God touched him inwardly, and disposed him to a goodness that surpasses our understanding. When he left us to go to war, he assured us that he would rely on God.

As many events happened during the two years in which he sought for his Baptism, I will concisely report a part of them. See what he told us:

"When we left you to go to war, I told my comrades, towards evening, that we must offer the prayers that had been taught us; they laughed at me, and this was the reason why I only prayed to God in my heart. When we reached the country of our enemies, having advanced too far, we found ourselves instantly surrounded on all sides; then I made the sign of the Cross, and said to God, 'you are all powerful; help me, -- you can do it.' The combat suddenly grew fierce; the arrows flew through the air as the hail falls to the ground, -- they flashed around me like lightning, without touching me; I saw my comrades fall at my feet, -- some killed, others wounded, -- but I received no injury. At last, finding an opening through the enemy, I escaped with some of my people, and being pursued, we went like the wind. Those who accompanied me often told me that they could go no farther; for myself, I often lifted up my heart to God, and it seemed as if he so fortified me that I never felt any weakness. Having reached the place where we had left our canoes, we had nothing at all to eat. I made the sign of the Cross and hurried to an Island, to do some hunting; I had not gone far when I encountered a wild cow, which I drove into the water, where we killed it.

"After we were somewhat refreshed, we continued on our way. Arrived at the great river, we went down to the Islands of the Lake, where we found some Indians suffering from hunger; our people told them that, when I had offered a prayer to God, he had given us something to eat. They strongly urged me to pray to him for them; seeing their need and ours, for we had already consumed what remained of the flesh of the wild cow, I said these words to him: 'These people belong to you, for you have made all men; they are hungry, and so are we; give us something to eat, if you will; you can do all. If you have kind thoughts toward us, we shall find something; if not, we shall find nothing. But it matters not, -- if you should not give me anything, I would not abandon my belief in you.' My prayer finished, I went hunting, and found nothing; I thought to myself, 'He does not wish to give me anything, -- but it does not matter; it is he who is the Master.' As I was reentering my canoe, I saw something floating upon the river; I thought at first it was a piece of wood, but seeing it cross the current, I pursued it. I found that it was a deer which was passing from one Island to another; we soon put it to death, to the astonishment of my people, who made a meal of it with me.

"Upon going from there, I retreated towards the Algonquins, where the contagion was already beginning. As I had frequented your house, they often asked me what your belief was. When I explained to them what you had taught me about the other life, they mocked me, showing surprise that I was so stupid as to believe things so opposed to reason." This is what this Neophyte told us.

Leaving the Algonquin country, he went to Three Rivers and presented himself to our Fathers to be instructed. They refused him, at first, as a sorcerer whom they considered too much attached to his foolish ideas, but his perseverance prevailed; he was privately instructed, and God publicly tried him; his wife, his children, and his brother died of the disease; he procured Baptism for them all, without being unsettled. A Captain had someone ask him to blow upon a sick man, offering him a large wampum collar. He sent back the present, and said boldly in public that his sorcerer's art was the art of a deceiver, and that he would follow it no more.

As he found himself molested by his people at Three Rivers, he went down to Quebec, where at first he did wonders; but finally the women, who corrupted the heart of Solomon, almost ruined him. He tried to marry one to whom another laid claim; he gave himself up to gambling; he so displeased us that we drove him out of the house where we had been lodging him, and made him give up the French clothes he had been wearing.

One day, as we were protesting against their habits, he said to us, "Listen to me in your turn, -- I wish to speak. If you had no more knowledge of the Scriptures than we, if your ancestors had left to you only eating and fighting, as they have to us, perhaps you would be no better people than we are." Another time, when one of our Fathers who had taught him passed near him without speaking to him, as if slighting him for having lost fervor, he stopped him short, and said in a loud voice, "What do you think Pigarouich is?" (This was his name before his baptism.) "He is a great tree, strongly rooted in the ground; do you think to throw it down all at once? Strike, strike heavy blows of the axe, and continue a long time, and at last you will overthrow it. It desires to fall, but it cannot, -- its roots, that is, its bad habits, hold it down, in spite of itself. Do not lose courage, you will succeed."

Seeing him one day thoughtful and downcast, we asked him what was the matter. "My heart is sad," he replied, "for God does not love us, since he gives us commandments that we cannot keep; there are many sins that I do not fear, but there are some that make me afraid. I do not fear drunkenness, nor eat-all feasts, nor the consultation of Demons, nor our songs, nor pride, nor theft, nor murder; but I do fear women. God commands us to marry but one wife, and if she leaves us, not to take another; see me, then, obliged to remain single, for our women have no sense. To live among us without a wife is to live without help, without home, and to be always wandering." We asked him if he did not think he had enough strength not to leave his wife if he married a Christian.

"Yes," he replied, "for I have no desire to abandon her."

"Well, then," we replied, "if God is powerful enough to give you perseverance in marriage with only one woman, why could he not give the same strength to a woman if she is a Christian?"

"You are right," he replied, "I will not lose courage; and even if I were to remain single all the rest of my days, life is not long."

THE SEMINARY FOR THE INDIANS.

THIS year we have had Innu, Algonquins, and Hurons in our Seminaries. The Seminarists are here under different conditions, and at different ages. Some were given to us permanently, and these we have reared with certain families, on account of their youth; others lived with us, to be instructed in the Faith and in the Christian virtues; some have only thirsted for liberty, others have been fully instructed and have received baptism.

Let us come to our young Innus and Algonquins. These young lads, most of them between twelve and fifteen years of age, have taught us two admirable truths, -- one is that if animals are capable of discipline, the young Indian children are much more so; the other, that education alone is lacking in these poor children, whose minds are as good as those of our Europeans, as will be seen by what I am about to say.

A little wild donkey is not born into greater freedom than is a little Canadian; yet, when these children find themselves in a seminary, they proceed amiably to perform the little tasks that are exacted from them. They are found ready for their lessons at the proper hours; they love one another. But also it is necessary to give them freedom for recreation, and, as they are not led by fear, one must seize the occasion to subdue them by love; to this they are susceptible, humbly asking leave of their teacher when they wish to go a short distance from the house.

Two or three of them, having gone to see those Hurons of whom I have spoken, were offered I do not know what kind of soup or sagamite, in which there were small pieces of meat. As it was a day upon which they were not permitted to eat meat; and as it is great impoliteness among them, and a sign of pride or hostility, to refuse what is offered, they took the soup, and quietly removed the little morsels of meat that were in it. Still, after they departed from there, their souls were attacked by doubts; so that evening they asked the Father who had charge of the Innu and Algonquin Seminary if they had not offended God in having eaten this soup. "As for me," said one, "I did not eat any meat;" the other said he had swallowed a little piece unwittingly. They showed that their hearts were not satisfied with this action, and they determined no more to associate with those who could do them harm.

In regard to the excellence of their minds, I get proof of it from the questions they asked their teacher; here are some that he has communicated to me in a letter. These children are wide-awake, and that they indicate a great deal of intelligence, but I would not have believed that they could reason so well, especially in the matter of our belief.

Let us hear their questions. "You tell us that baptism is necessary to go to Heaven; if there were a man so good that he had never offended God, and if he died without Baptism, would he go to Hell, never having given any offense to God? If he goes to Hell, God does not love all good people, since he throws that one into the fire.

"You teach us that God existed before the creation of heaven and earth; if he did, where did he live, since there was neither heaven nor earth? You say also that the Angels were created in the beginning of the world, and that those who disobeyed were cast into Hell; elsewhere, you put Hell in the depths of the earth; these statements cannot agree very well, for if the Angels sinned before the creation of the earth, they could not be thrown into Hell, or Hell is not where you place it.

"Besides, you declare that those who go to Hell do not come out of it, and yet you relate Stories of the damned who have appeared in the world; how is that to be understood?" Those who read this may believe what they please, but these questions were asked by young Indian Seminarists between twelve and fifteen years old.

One of the prettiest and cleverest children of the same Seminary was attacked by a slow fever which has not yet left him; we see clearly that it will lead him to the grave as well as his companion. Some time afterward, the most accomplished one of all was taken from this world by a sort of pneumonia, and that in less than ten days. These casualties made us resolve to keep with us only the five or six younger boys, who also have been attacked by runny noses and colds, -- so difficult is it to make these poor Seminarists exist out of the homes or cabins of their relatives.

THE BELIEF IN SUPERSTITIONS, AND OF SOME CUSTOMS OF THE INDIANS.

First, as to what concerns the Indians' belief. Some of them imagine a Paradise abounding in blueberries; these are little blue fruits, the berries of which are as large as the largest grapes. I have not seen any of them in France. They have a tolerably good flavor, and for this reason the souls like them much. Others say that the souls do nothing but dance after their departure from this life: there are some who admit the transmigration of souls, as Pythagoras did; and the majority of them imagine that the soul is insensible after it has left the body: as a general thing, all believe that it is immortal.

They distinguish several souls in one and the same body. An old man told us that some Indians had as many as two or three souls; that his own had left him more than two years before to go away with his dead relatives, -- that he no longer had any but the soul of his own body, which would go down into the grave with him. One learns from this that they imagine the body has a soul of its own, which some call the soul of their Nation; and that, in addition to this, others come, which leave it sooner or later, according to their fancy. In fact, I have heard some of them assert that they have no souls; they hear people talk about these attendant forms, and sometimes persuade themselves that they possess them, -- the Devil employing their imagination and their passions, or their melancholy, to bring about some results that appear to them extraordinary. They imagine that this arises from the diversity of their souls. If they cease to dream, or to be urged on by some unusual passion, or by some Demon, they say that their soul has left them; if the Devil arouses their fancy, their soul has returned.

They represent the soul to themselves as a shadow which has feet and hands, a body, a head, and teeth; they also believe that it eats. They have found meat nibbled by the souls; they have heard them whistle like those little crickets that one hears sometimes in the country. There are some who have thoughts still more debasing than all these, regarding the soul; for they say that the Devil feeds upon their brains, and puts in place of them withered leaves of trees; so these poor souls are foolish and reckless, having no brains.

There are superstitions in old France as well as in the new. A French woman being sick here, another woman told her that she would recover if she would hang a bunch of keys around her neck; there is something that comes from your France, here is something from ours.

Some sick Indians, wishing to ascertain from where proceeded their diseases, put some well-dried bones of a Beaver under a blanket; then one of the crowd, crawling under, set fire to these bones with some glowing coals; meanwhile, his comrades sang and howled after their fashion. At last, when these bones were reduced to ashes, the one who had concealed himself came out, raised the blanket, threw the ashes and the fire to the wind, crying out that they should be on the watch to see from where came the sickness. The Father who saw this act of superstition performed asked repeatedly how one could find out through this nonsense from where came their sickness, but they would not teach him this secret.

The same Father, seeing some Algonquins busily engaged in striking upon their cabins with sticks, asked them what they were doing. They replied that they were trying to drive away the soul of a dead woman which was prowling around there. There are some so simple as to stretch nets around their cabins, so that the souls of those who pass away at the houses of their neighbors may be caught there, if they wish to enter their dwellings. Others burn some ill-smelling thing to turn away the souls by this odor, -- they even put something with a bad odor upon their heads, so that the souls may not come near them. A trickster one day brandished his javelin in the air, imagining that he would frighten a soul which had recently left its own body. They fear that these souls will enter their cabins, or will stay there; for, if they did, they would take someone away with them into their country. A certain man, seeing a rocket in the air, and not knowing from where it came, -- not being able to believe that the French could throw fire so high, -- asserted that he had seen a soul wandering in the light; it is what they call the air. The women hang to the necks of their little children a small piece of the navel that is attached to them when they are born; if they were to lose it, their children would all be dolts and lacking in sense, they think.

This year we have seen a solemn game or challenge between two nations, who had a fierce contest over the recovery of a poor patient. The players and the bettors went into his cabin at the sound of the drum and of the tortoise shell, which they accompanied with cries and shouts, in their fashion. Those who bet or wagered were seated on either side, watching their players, each favoring his own side with many gestures and many cries, according to their enthusiasm and their interest. The result was that the soul of the two nations lost a quantity of wampum, and other things which had been staked; but, as for the sick man, he experienced no other relief than that of having his head well broken by all this great uproar.

After these fine Physicians had left, he sent for one of our Fathers, who had begun to instruct him; he asked him for Baptism. The Father intended to chide and repulse him, upon seeing this foolish superstition; but the poor patient said to him, "It was not I who called them; my mother dreamed that I would recover if a solemn game were played; this is why she has caused me all this difficulty without my having anything to say about it."

For the rest, the belief and superstitions of the Indians are not deeply rooted in their minds; for, as all these idle fancies are only founded upon lies, they fall and suddenly disappear, or are dissipated by the rays of the truths that are proposed to them. The only quite obstinate ones I have seen were a few old men, whose brains, dried up in their old maxims, had no longer any fluid in which to receive the impression of our doctrine. If occasionally some of them fall back into their foolish practices, it is more through force of habit than through any profound belief they have in their own superstitions, especially since they started being instructed.

As for what relates to their customs, that is a longer story. The passion for gambling is strong in our France, as well as in yours. I have seen an Indian woman who, having lost all she had, staked herself, -- not her honor, but her services, -- that is, she would have been as a slave or servant of the winner, if she had lost. They say that it sometimes happens that when men or women stake themselves, he who wins them keeps them one or two years, and employs them in fishing, hunting, or in minor household duties; then he gives them their liberty. The Indians cannot exercise severity, nor harshly exact a service from their Countrymen.

A Huron, having played away all his wealth, staked his hair, and having lost it, the winner cut it off close to the scalp. I have been told that there are some who gamble even to the little finger of the hand, and who, having lost it, give it to be cut off, without showing any sign of pain. I would readily believe that an Indian of one Nation could easily cut off the finger of an Indian of another; but I cannot persuade myself that he exercises this cruelty towards any man of his own country, -- they respect or fear one another too much. As for strangers, they have a great contempt for them. The Indians, although passionately fond of gambling, show themselves superior to our Europeans. They hardly ever indicate either joy in winning or sadness in losing, playing with most remarkable external tranquility, -- as honorably as possible, never cheating one another.

The Indians have a custom of resuscitating or bringing to life again their departed friends, especially if they were men of influence among them. They transfer the name of the dead to some other man, and the dead is raised to life, and the grief of the relatives is all past. The name is given in a great assembly or feast; a present is added, which is made on the part of the relatives or friends of him who has been brought back to life; and he who accepts the name and the present binds himself to take charge of the family of the deceased, so that his wards call him their father. This custom seems commendable for the good of poor orphans.

They observe the same ceremonies when some brave man has been slain by their enemies. If he had a wampum Collar, or something else of value, his friends offer it to some good warrior, or give him some presents from their own means. If this man accepts them, together with the name of the dead man, which they publicly give him, he binds himself to go to the war, to take with him such men as he can, and to kill some of the enemy, in place of the deceased who lives again in his person.

The Indians often change their names. A name is given to them at their birth, -- they change it in manhood, and take another in their old age; indeed, if anyone is sick, and does not recover from this sickness, he will sometimes give up his old name, as if it brought him ill-luck, to take another of better omen.

If an Indian remarries within three years after the death of his wife, he is not kindly regarded by the relatives of the dead woman; they regard that as a sort of contempt, -- this man making it apparent that he did not love their relative, since he allied himself so soon with another. And if a woman, after the decease of her husband, takes another before this length of time, without the permission of the dead man's relatives, they not only bear her ill-will, but they plunder her husband if they meet him, and this custom has so passed for law that we have seen it practiced before our eyes, -- in such a way that the one who had therefore married saw his wampum Collars, and all he had, taken without saying anything except that it was he who had injured himself by having infringed upon their custom.

When a girl or woman accepts someone who is wooing her, she has her hair cut after the fashion in which girls in France wear it, hanging over the forehead, which is ungraceful, in both the old and the New France, St. Paul prohibiting the women from making a show of their hair. The women here wear their hair fastened on the back of their heads in bunches, which they ornament with wampum when they have it. If after marriage, they leave their husbands without cause, or if, having promised and having accepted presents, they do not keep their word, their intended husbands sometimes cut off this hair, -- this makes them despicable, and prevents them from finding another husband. This custom is followed more closely among the Algonquins than among the Innu.

The Indians do not readily marry with their relatives. I do not yet know the degrees in which they can marry without the reproach of their Compatriots, but it seems to me they are much more cautious than we are in certain cases. For example, if a father has two children, they are called brother and sister, as among us; but their children will also be called brothers and sisters, and the descendants of these will bear the same title of brothers and sisters, and will never intermarry, if they follow the good customs of their nation; but if they infringe upon them, nothing more is said to them than that they have no sense. An Indian has no scruples against marrying two sisters at once; or, if he has already married one, he can take the other during the lifetime of his first wife, -- for if he waited until after her death, he must consider her as his niece, and could not marry her without reproach.

They bury their dead in such a way that the head of the departed one faces the West, so the soul may know the place where it is to go. They believe that it goes to the place where the Sun sets, -- this being the country of souls, according to them.

They are prone to believe unusual things. An Indian of the Kichesipirini Algonquins told us not long ago that the report was current throughout all the upper countries, even among the Nipissings, that one of our Fathers down here had lived five lives, -- that his hair had fallen four times, and that he was growing gray for the fifth time; and then he asked how many more times the Father would return to manhood before dying.

A COLLECTION OF VARIOUS MATTERS

A Captain of the Algonquins of the Island, -- a man of intelligence, and eloquent for an Indian, -- having had some quarrel with another Algonquin, received a hatchet blow upon his head that almost cost him his life, -- and he would have lost it, had not an Indian, by turning away the arm of the aggressor, lessened the violence of the blow. This man, seeing himself all covered with his own blood, did not trouble himself about it, but coolly sat down in the cabin of him who had struck him, -- showing no emotion, either of fear or of revenge. The man who had given the blow sat down not far away, appearing in no way concerned. One of our Fathers, being informed of this dispute, ran immediately to the cabin, entered, and found all its people in silence, as calm and as cold as marble. He would not have believed that there was any quarrel between people apparently so calm and peaceable, if he had not seen the blood trickling from the head of this poor wretch. He asked the Captain who had given him this wound; no answer. The aggressor began to speak, and said, "It was I who did it, because he made me angry." This said, he relapsed into silence. The Father tried to reconcile them.

Finally, as this Captain went out, he made the following speech to his people: "My nephews, do not take any revenge for the injury that has been done me; it is enough that the earth trembled at the blow that was given me, -- do not overturn it by your wrath." Some time afterward, this man, having recovered, and seeing that the French were trying to get some satisfaction from the Indian who last year had put the rope around the neck of Father Jerome Lallemant, -- this man, raising his voice, said: "I am astonished that those who boast of praying to God, and who say that it is necessary to pardon offenses, wish to obtain revenge for an injury that was done them a long time ago. It is well enough known who I am, -- it is well known that it is I who hold the earth firmly in my arms; and yet not long ago, when I received a blow that almost cleft my head in twain, I was not agitated, I conceived no desire for revenge; why will you not imitate this example? See," said this man, "how men of intelligence behave."

The Iroquois, having carried away a poor old woman more than seventy years old, tore out her toe-nails and finger-nails, and applied burning torches to several parts of her body; they took her away with other prisoners to their country. When they came to pass a rapid or waterfall where everyone went on shore, this poor woman, without seeming to take any notice, picked up a shell that she found on the strand, and held it tight, not uttering a word. That night, when all were asleep, she quietly cut her cords with this shell, and fled stealthily into the woods. She succeeded so well that her enemies could not find her again; and she reached Three Rivers on the sixth day after having left the Iroquois, having traveled -- partly on foot, and partly by water, in a wretched Iroquois canoe that she found -- during all that time, and this without eating. It is astonishing that a woman nearly eighty years old could traverse so many thickets, -- almost entirely naked, her feet throbbing with pain, her toes without nails, her sides all burned, attacked by armies of thousands of mosquitoes, with which these countries are infested, -- and endure these hardships for five or six days without taking any food.

Another woman, not quite as old as this one, seriously endangered her life in the defeat of her people. When she saw that the Iroquois were fighting with them, she ran into the depths of a great clump of firs, where she heard the cries and the blows of the combatants; and in case her footsteps or tracks should appear, she concealed herself in some muddy and stagnant water that she found there. As she was not far from the Iroquois Fort, she dared not leave this gloomy abode. At last, the enemy having departed, she emerged from it, two days after the fight, to go to our French settlement. She had not gone far when she heard a loud cry; thinking that it was still the Iroquois, she ran back into her den, where she passed another whole day. The next day, thinking that all was at peace, she left these cold and muddy waters: but, as she approached the French, she heard some loud cannon-shots. This poor creature imagined that the Iroquois were attacking the Fort, and that they were having a fierce fight. She again plunged into the mud, and passed there the two following days. Her misery compelling her to emerge, she returned cautiously, trying to discover by stealth whether the enemy were visible.

She was astonished, when, upon approaching our dwelling, she saw her people encamped in safety. She confronted them, and told her misfortune; and they explained to her how the cries she had heard were those of the people of her own Nation, and not of the Iroquois; and that the cannon she had heard was discharged in honor of the coming of our Governor to Three Rivers. This wandering would have been enough to kill a strong and healthy man; and this woman experienced no other harm from it than what she endured in her gloomy solitude.

The Hospital is burdened with so many sick people that they have to lodge some of them outside in bark cabins. The Indians are sorely afflicted; they are dying in such numbers, in the countries farther up, that the dogs eat the corpses that cannot be buried. The Hospital Nuns perform their duties with so much fervor, in these pressing needs, that they have impaired their own health. Those of our Fathers who visit and assist these poor infected people are in no better condition; this contagion alone will slip in among our French; some young women born in this country have been attacked by it.

Paul Le Jeune.

At Sillery, otherwise the Residence of Saint Joseph, in New France, this 4th of September, 1639.

THE OCCUPATIONS OF THE FATHERS OF THE JESUITS, WHO ARE IN THE HURON LAND, A COUNTRY OF NEW FRANCE. FROM JUNE, 1638, TO JUNE, 1639. ADDRESSED TO THE REVEREND FATHER PAUL LE JEUNE, SUPERIOR OF THE MISSIONS OF THE JESUITS, IN NEW FRANCE. FROM THE RESIDENCE OF LA CONCEPTION IN DE NOTRE DAME, IN THE VILLAGE OF OSSOSSANE, AMONG THE HURONS, THIS 7TH OF JUNE, 1639. JEROME LALEMANT.

THE LOCATION OF THE COUNTRY, AND THE NAME HURON.

The term "country of the Hurons" means a certain small portion of land in North America, which is no longer than 50 or 60 miles from East to West, -- its width from North to South in many places being slight, and nowhere exceeding 17 or 20 miles. Its latitude, in the central part of the country, is found to be forty-five and a half degrees; if some in the past have made it a little less, to make these two statements agree, it must be said that those who put it at about forty-four and a half, took it in some of the more Southerly neighboring nations.

As for the longitude, it has been impossible to establish it according to the Rules of Geography, as they have not been applied similarly in France, and here, to the exact observation of eclipses. The results of the observations made last year are now awaited; and meanwhile we suppose ourselves to be about 3250 miles from France, -- measuring from France to us in a straight line towards the West, under the same parallel of latitude, -- and from Quebec, the principal settlement of our French people in New France, 500 miles, -- although people generally travel more than three hundred to arrive here from that place, on account of the detours that must be made, to avoid an encounter with the enemies of these tribes.

In this small extent of country -- situated to the East-Southeast of a great lake, called by some "freshwater Sea" (Lake Huron) -- are to be found four Nations, -- all of whom, having a community of language, of enemies, and of other interests, are hardly distinguishable except by their different ancestors, whose names and memories they cherish tenderly. They increase or diminish their numbers, however, by the adoption of other families, who join themselves now to some, now to others, and who also sometimes withdraw to form a band and a nation by themselves.

The general name, and what is common to these four Nations, in the language of the country is Huron; the individual names are Attignawantan, Attignenonghac, Arendaronon, and Ataronchronon. The first two are the two most important, having received the others into their country and adopted them, -- the one fifty years ago, and the other thirty. These first two speak with certainty of the settlements of their Ancestors, and of the different sites of their villages, for more than two hundred years back; for, as may have been remarked in previous Reports, they have to change their locations at least every ten years. These two nations term each other "brother" and "sister," in the councils and assemblies. They are the most populous, through having adopted more families; and as these adopted families always retain the names and memories of their founders, they are still distinct little Nations in those where they have been adopted, -- preserving the general name, and community of some minor special interests, together with a dependence upon their two special Captains, one of war and the other of council, to whom the public affairs of their community are reported.

But let us come to the name "Huron," applied originally to these principal nations of whom we have just spoken.

It is about forty years since these peoples decided to seek some safe route by which to come themselves, and trade with the French, of whom they had some knowledge, -- particularly through the reports of some of their number, who, going to engage in war against their enemies, had occasionally been at the place where the French were trading with the other Indians of these countries. Arriving at the French settlement, some Sailor or Soldier seeing for the first time this species of Indians, some of whom wore their hair in ridges, -- a ridge of hair one or two fingers wide appearing upon the middle of their heads, and on either side the same amount being shaved off, then another ridge of hair; others having one side of the head shaved clean, and the other side adorned with hair hanging to their shoulders, -- this fashion of wearing the hair making their heads look to him like those of boars [hures], led him to call these Indians "Hurons" and this is the name that has clung to them ever since. Others attribute it to some other, though similar, origin; but what we have just related seems the most authentic.

In the old Authors nothing is to be found about the name of these peoples, -- for, as for this French name, they have only had it since the beginning of this century. As for their names in their own language, -- since their abode is far inland, it being more than twenty days' journey from their country to the regions nearest the Sea, -- their proper names, as well as their persons and their country, have been unknown in the past, -- especially since they are of so little importance, on account of the extent of their territory, and because of the fashion of living all in common, followed by the Indians of this Northern part of America. As these Indians continued to come every year to trade, our people soon became acquainted with them, and then decided to send some Frenchmen to winter in their country, and obtain more thorough information about these tribes and their language. Over the years, the name Huron extended farther, and was applied also to the neighboring tribes who had a common language with the above-mentioned nations, although they had separate interests.

But this name extends much farther, for as there are two kinds of Indians in this third of the new world comprised under the name of New France, -- namely, the Wandering and the Settled, -- and as our Jesuits have undertaken the conversion of both, there are two principal missions, -- one for the Wandering and nomadic Indians, whom we are trying at the same time to communalize and to make Christians; the other for the more Settled tribes. The first comprehends all the country from the opening of the Saint Lawrence River into the Ocean Sea, up to us, which is a space of more than 750 or 1000 miles from East to West, without speaking of its breadth, especially on the North. And the second, which bears the name of "Mission to the Hurons," includes all the other peoples who dwell, especially towards the West and South, as far as the land may extend, -- and beyond, if Islands are discovered there.

THE GENERAL OCCUPATION OF OUR JESUITS IN THESE AREAS.

UPON my arrival here, on the 26th of August of last year, 1638, I found seven Priests of our Jesuits distributed in two houses or Residences, established in the two most important Villages of the two principal Nations of the four which compose the real Hurons.

I made the eighth; and about a month afterward there arrived Father Simon le Moyne and Father Francois du Peron, who increased the number to ten. Six have remained, most of the time, in the Residence of la Conception in the Village of Ossosane, -- Father Francois le Mercier, surnamed among the Indians Chauose; Father Antoine Daniel, surnamed Anwennen; Father Pierre Chastelain, surnamed Arioo; Father Charles Garnier, surnamed Ouracha; Father Francois du Perron, surnamed Anonchiara; and I, to whom they have given the name Achiendase. And four are in the Residence of St. Joseph, in the village of Teanaustaye, -- Father Jean de Brebeuf, surnamed Echon; Father Isaac Jogues, surnamed Ondessone; Father Paul Ragueneau, surnamed Aondechete; and Father Simon le Moyne, surnamed Wane.

The reason for these surnames arises from the fact that the Indians, not being ordinarily able to pronounce either our names or our surnames, -- as they do not have in their language several consonants that are found there, -- get as near to them as they can; but, if they cannot succeed, they seek instead words used in their own country, which they can readily pronounce, and which have some connection either with our names or with their meaning. But as it sometimes happens that they make rather unsuitable guesses, the change of names, that they have given during the voyage, is made when they reach home.

From four o'clock until eight in the morning, the time is passed in Masses and other special devotions. About eight o'clock the door of the House is opened to the Indians; in the past, this was not closed again until four o'clock in the evening, to save themselves the annoyance that was perceived; in the daytime, the Indians did not seem able to understand a refusal to enter the cabins that are in their country, which are not usually closed then to anyone. However, -- the pleading of these Indians becoming unbearable, and almost profitless, since we have found the secret of their language, -- we have taken the liberty of no longer admitting any except those by whom we hope to profit.

Those of our Fathers who remain upon guard take turns in staying in the cabin, and especially the one who keeps the little school for children, Christians, and Christian trainees; the others go to the Village to make the rounds and visits in their quarters, the Village being divided into as many districts as there are persons familiar with the language and consequently capable of working. But on account of the few laborers there are now for this purpose, some of us are assigned with forty cabins, -- in several of which there are four or five fires, that is, eight or ten families.

In a place where there is no Chapel, and where our cabin is too small, we teach as well as we can outdoors; and when the weather and season do not permit it, it is done indoors, -- but then we admit only the men, reserving the women and children for the next day. The people having assembled, after the invocation of the Holy Ghost we say or chant a Prayer suitable to this service, in the Huron language. After this we begin the instruction, which is sometimes interrupted by the approval or objections of the Indians; at the end of this, we have them say a few prayers.

We are not satisfied just with working in the Villages where we have residences; but feeling ourselves a little stronger than the past, in workers familiar with the language, we have undertaken Missions in the Villages of the country, -- especially during the Winter, which is the only time suitable for this. The Hurons take up their abode in their cabins at this season only; at all other times, they are either at war, or engaged in trading, hunting, or fishing.

The freedom of the children in these countries is so great, and they prove so incapable of discipline that, far from being able to hope for the conversion of the country through the instruction of the children, we must even despair of their instruction without the conversion of the parents. And consequently, the first matter to which we should attend is the stability of the marriages of our Christians. To attain this, some charitable gifts would be wonderfully useful, by means of which we could remove the difficulties that are encountered in bringing about, contrary to the immemorial custom of the country, the stability of marriages. Some thirty persons giving an average of a dozen gold coins each, would insure fifty stable marriages here, which would form a world entirely new, -- and still more if only there were some endowment for it.

Meanwhile, the Seminary at Quebec may serve as a place to receive the children of our Christians who shall prove to be of good dispositions; it will serve for adults who shall desire to be instructed at leisure and more quietly, and for this purpose may wish to be absent from their country for a time. Indeed, if those who return from the seminary are not promptly bound in marriage, the torrent of bad customs is so strong that some miracle would be needed to enable them to resist it. The age of certain Seminarists will give weight and authority to their words, and to the report of the good they will have seen among the Christian people of Quebec.

We have also thought of setting apart some for the study of new languages. We were considering three other languages, of Peoples that are nearest to us, -- that of the Algonquins, scattered on all sides, both to the South and to the North of our great Lake; that of the neutral Nation, which is a main gateway for the Southern tribes; that of the Nation of the Winnebagos, which is one of the most important openings for the Western tribes, and somewhat more for the Northern. But we have not yet found ourselves strong enough to keep our acquisitions, and at the same time to dream of so many new conquests; so we have judged it wiser to defer the execution of this plan, and to content ourselves with entering a nation of the Neutral language through the arrival in this country of the Wenros, 15 who have taken refuge here, and who formed one of the Nations allied with the neutral Nation.

We have given up the idea of applying ourselves to the Algonquin language since our Fathers at Quebec and Three Rivers are studying it diligently. We hope to get some brave worker from there, who will come here to break the ice and give us entrance among these tribes who are around us, who are familiar with no other language but the Algonquin.

THE GENERAL STATE OF CHRISTIANITY IN THESE COUNTRIES.

We had to settle at first in a little corner of the country, where we devoted ourselves to the study and practice of the language, and began to reduce it to rules; in this it was necessary to be at once both teacher and pupil to oneself, with incredible difficulty. Therefore, at the end of three years we went to Ossosane, one of the principal villages of the whole country; the next year, to Teanaustaye, the most important village of all, leaving and entirely abandoning the first residence, for lack of inhabitants there -- nearly all being scattered or dead from illness.

If you go to visit them in their cabins, -- and you must go there oftener than once a day, if you would perform your duty as you ought, -- you will find there a miniature picture of Hell, -- seeing nothing but fire and smoke, and on every side naked bodies, black and half roasted, mingled pell-mell with the dogs, which are held as dear as the children of the house, and share the beds, plates, and food of their masters. Everything is in a cloud of dust, and, if you go within, you will not reach the end of the cabin before you are completely befouled with soot, filth, and dirt.

Their words are often only blasphemies against God, and insults against us, accompanied with incredible evidences of ingratitude, -- hurling at us the reproach that it is our visits and our remedies which cause them to sicken and die, and that our stay here is the sole cause of all their troubles. If you wish to instruct them, it will sometimes be necessary to wait whole hours before finding opportunity to say to them at the right time one profitable word; and after all your pains and your visits, a dream, which is the God of the country, will undo more in one night than you will have accomplished in thirty days; and you may as your sole reward, get a stroke from the hatchet or arrow. If they come to your cabin, do not imagine that you can easily refuse them admittance, or, when they are within, manage them in your own way. They sit down where they please, and do not go away at your pleasure. They must enter everywhere, and see everything, and if you try to prevent them, there are quarrels and reproaches and insults. And, in all this, one must act submissively; a blow from the hatchet is soon given by these Indians, and the bark set on fire; as to seeking justice for the crime, there is none in the country, and the most one could expect would be a few presents.

Add to the above that your way of lodging, sleeping, and eating being similar to that of the Indians, nature finds few alleviations amid all these hardships. A little Indian corn boiled in water, and for the better food of the country a little fish, rank with internal rottenness, or some powdered dried fish as the only seasoning, -- this is the usual food and drink of the country; as something extra, a little bread made of their corn, baked under the cinders, without any leaven, in which they sometimes mix some beans or wild fruits; this is one of the great dainties of the country. Fresh fish and game are articles so rare that they are not worth mentioning, it being all the trouble imaginable to secure these for the sick. A mat upon the ground, or upon a piece of bark, is your bed; the fire, your candle; the holes through which the smoke passes, your windows, which are never closed; bent poles, covered with bark, your walls and your roof, through which the wind enters from all sides. All remains as with the Indians, except the clothing, to which we must yet begin to reduce ourselves.

I say nothing of the severity of the seasons; of the inconveniences of the roads, which can be traveled only on foot or upon someone's back; of continual dangers from the Enemies of the country, who are daily at your gates, filling all with a terror renewed every hour by some massacre, or some prisoner whom they have carried away, and by their determination to come and consume the whole country.

THE RESIDENCE OF LA CONCEPTION AT THE VILLAGE OF OSSOSSANE, AND ESPECIALLY THE NEW CHURCH OF THAT VILLAGE.

THE number of children baptized in sickness at this Residence is 52, of whom twenty-seven have flown away to Heaven; that of elderly persons who were baptized at death, or at the crisis of their illness, is seventy-four, of whom twenty-two died; that of Christian trainees, baptized while in good health, forty-nine.

The Wenros formed in the past one of the associate Nations of the Neutral Nation, and were located on its boundaries, toward the Iroquois, the common Enemies of all these Peoples. As long as this Nation of Wenro was on good terms with the people of the Neutral Nation, it was sufficiently strong to withstand its Enemies, and maintain itself against their raids and invasions; but the people of the Neutral Nation having, through I do not know what dissatisfaction, withdrawn and severed their relations with them, these have remained a prey to their Enemies; and they could not have remained much longer without being entirely exterminated, if they had not decided to retreat and take refuge in the protection and alliance of some other Nation. All things considered, they decided that they could not do better than to choose that of our Hurons. Accordingly, they appointed the most intelligent among them to come and make such proposal, which was done in the councils and assemblies, both special and general, of the whole Country; here it was concluded to receive them, their arrival serving for the defense and preservation of the country.

Because of this resolution, they took the time to go and assist them in their journey, both to relieve them in carrying their household goods and children, -- as they have in all these countries no other conveyance on land than the heads or shoulders of men and women, -- and also to defend them from their common enemies and act as escort for them. Despite the help that could be given them, the fatigue and inconveniences of such a voyage -- of more than 200 miles, made by over six hundred persons, of whom the majority were women and little children -- were so great that many died on the way, and nearly all were sick when they arrived, or immediately afterward.

This Village was the first one in the country, and as soon as the news of their approach had been brought, everyone went out to meet them; the Captains were present, and urged their people with so much compassion to take courage and help these poor strangers. They were immediately distributed through the principal Villages of the country; most of them, however, remained in this Village, as one of the most spacious and suitable of all. But, wherever they were received, the best places in the cabins were given to them, the granaries or chests of corn were opened and they were given liberty to dispose of them as if they were their own.

The main body of them arrived in this village at the same time that I came here with some servants whom we had brought from France, who were skillful in bleeding and in the use of remedies; and nothing ever happened more opportunely. For, with this help, we immediately hurried to the sick, who were in danger of death, so we might provide for their salvation. From that time, these sick people gave us so much to do that they almost wholly engrossed the attention of our workers.

On Sunday mornings, these poor people arrive at our house to hear Mass and sometimes they have to traverse a considerable distance which lies between their Village and our dwelling, -- naked, mostly, as the hand, except a single skin that they wear upon their backs in the form of a mantle, and in the rigor of winter some skins around their feet and legs. One rejoices to see them get upon their knees, which to them is a posture altogether strange and extraordinary, and offer their prayers aloud, and receive communion together with our French people.

In winter, we are careful to have fireplaces full of burning coals in several parts of the Chapel, to provide against the discomforts that might arise from the cold and their nakedness. This so pleases them that some often remain, of their own free will, whole hours after the service, to converse about our mysteries, and to become better instructed.

I place among the causes for the advancement of this work, the speeches and behavior of Joseph Chihwatenhwa, the good Neophyte. He conducted himself everywhere to the full satisfaction of his compatriots, who were never tired of hearing him. "You are disheartened, my Brothers" (he sometimes said to them), "because the matters of your salvation that the French propose to you are new things, and customs of their own which overthrow ours. You tell them that every country has its own ways of doing things; that, as you do not urge them to adopt ours, so you are surprised at their urging us to adopt theirs. I ask you, when at first you saw their hatchets and kettles, after having discovered that they were better than our stone hatchets and our wooden and earthen vessels, did you reject their hatchets and kettles, because they were new things in your country, and because it was the custom of France to use them and not yours? Now if they urge us to believe what they believe, we are under great obligations to them; for indeed, if what they say is true, we are the most miserable people in the world if we do not do as they tell us."

THE RESIDENCE OF ST. JOSEPH AT THE VILLAGE OF TEANAUSTAYE; AND ESPECIALLY THE BIRTH AND ESTABLISHMENT OF THE NEW CHURCH OF THAT VILLAGE.

HAVING decided to abandon the dwelling at Ihonatiria, on account of its lack of inhabitants, -- the majority of them having been carried off or scattered by the disease, we were not long in deciding to what place it would be wise to go, the village of Teanaustaye being the most important in the whole country. But what a prospect for commencing this undertaking! For that village had been one of the principal shops in which were forged the blackest slanders and most harmful plots against us, -- to such an extent that the Captains had publicly urged the young men to come and massacre us at this village of Ossosane, where we then were.

Father Jean de Brebeuf went to this Village, spoke to individuals and then to the Council, and did so well that he won them both over, -- so that in a little while they decided to receive us in their village and give us a cabin there. This was accomplished, and the first Mass was said there on the 25th of June. This cabin is so poor and so mean that the wind enters on every side.

Children baptized, in danger of death, number 49, of whom eighteen have flown away to Heaven. Adults baptized, in sickness after having been instructed, number forty-four, of whom twenty-six have taken the same road to Heaven. Of those who survived, some have professed to be under obligations to baptism; but, to our great regret, not all those who are under this obligation feel such gratitude as they should. Adult Christian trainees, baptized in full health with their children, number twenty-eight.

For a long time, the Hurons had no more good fortune or advantage over their enemies, until last year. Having gone to war, together with some Algonquins, their neighbors, they captured at one stroke about eighty of their enemies, whom they brought home alive. Besides this victory, the most notable of all, they had others of less importance, which in all gave them more than a hundred prisoners.

All those who were assigned to the Villages where we have residences, or which are near these, were instructed and baptized. In many instances, we had only the exact time necessary for their instruction and baptism; others, after having been baptized, were so comforted that they could not refrain from putting into song the cause of their consolation, -- that from then on, at least, they were sure of going to Heaven. Others nobly refused to imitate foul and immodest actions to which their captors tried to incite them. Others afterward displayed so much courage in their torments that our Indians resolved no longer to allow us to baptize these poor unfortunates, considering it a misfortune to their country when those whom they torment shriek not at all, or little. Indeed, this has given us so much trouble since then that there has not been one of these for whose baptism we have not had to give battle to those who are their Masters and Guardians; and sometimes it has been necessary to atone for this violence by some present.

Among those who showed most courage was one Ononelwaia, in baptism named Pierre, who was one of the prisoners at that principal defeat of which we have just spoken, a Captain of the Oneidas, a nation of the Iroquois. This man, being fastened to a stake upon a platform, not far from his companion fastened to another, -- where our Indians, tormented them by the application of flames, firebrands, and glowing irons, in ways cruel beyond all power of description, and beyond all imagination of those who have not seen it, -- Pierre, seeing this companion of his lose patience in the midst of these torments, comforted and encouraged him by representing the blessedness they had found in their misfortune, and what was prepared for them after this life.

This brave spirit was more tormented than ever by our Indians after the death of his companion; for, his companion having died sooner than they expected, they all wreaked the rest of their fury upon him who remained. Accordingly, the first thing they did to him afterward was that one of them cut with a knife around his scalp, which he stripped off to carry away the hair, and, according to their custom, to preserve it as precious.

After such treatment, one would hardly believe that there could remain any sensation of life in a body so worn out with tortures. But he suddenly rises, and, seeing upon the scaffold only the corpse of his dear companion, he takes in his hands, which were all in shreds, a firebrand, so he might not die as a captive, and that he might defend the brief liberty he had recovered a little while before death. The rage and the cries of his enemies redouble at this sight; they rush towards him with pieces of red-hot iron in their hands. His courage gives him strength; he puts himself on the defensive; he hurls his firebrands upon those who come nearest him; he throws down the ladders, to cut off their way, and uses the fire and flame to repel their attack vigorously. The blood that streamed down from his head over his entire body would have rent with pity a heart which had any remnant of humanity; but the fury of our Indians found there its satisfaction.

Some throw upon him coals and burning cinders; others underneath the scaffold find open places for their firebrands. He sees on all sides almost as many butchers as spectators; when he escapes one fire, he encounters another. While defending himself for a long time, a false step causes him to fall backward to the ground. At the same time, his enemies pounce upon him, burn him again, then throw him upon the fire.

This invincible spirit, rising again from the midst of the flames, -- all covered with cinders that were imbued in his blood, two flaming firebrands in his hands, -- turns towards the mass of his enemies, to inspire them with fear once more before he dies. Not one is so hardy as to touch him; he makes a way for himself, and walks towards the Village, as if to set it on fire.

He advances about 80 yards, when someone throws a club which fells him to the ground; before he can rise again, they are upon him; they cut off his feet and hands, and, having seized the rest of this mangled body, they turn it round and round over nine different fires, which he almost entirely extinguished with his blood. Finally they thrust him under an overturned tree-trunk, all on fire, so that, at the same time, there may be no part of his body which is not cruelly burned. It was then that nature made one last effort that could never have been expected. Having neither feet nor hands, he rolled over in the flames, and, having fallen outside of them, he moved more than 25 feet, upon his elbows and knees, in the direction of his enemies, who fled from him, dreading the approach of a man to whom nothing remained but courage, of which they could not deprive him except by wresting away his life. This they finally did, one of them cutting off his head with a knife. Even his enemies loudly exclaimed that there was something more than human within him. Several Indians have reported with wonder that, shortly before he received the last blow which caused his death, he raised his eyes to Heaven and cried out joyfully, "Let us go, let us go," as if he were answering a voice that invited him.

The following was learned from some of the other prisoners, his companions in misfortune and misery: Some Adventurers from the band of our Hurons and Algonquins having, in that most important defeat, gone on ahead of their troop of three hundred men to discover if there were any of the enemy in ambush, found themselves rather nearer than they thought. They were not, however, so taken by surprise that the majority of them could not retreat to the main body; only one of them was caught by the enemy, who, finding that they were discovered, decided to return with this one trophy, although they were a hundred in number. But the captive gave them to understand that those who were coming against them were not so numerous that they could not easily overpower them. He told them this in such a manner that they believed him, and decided to make a fort, and there await the entire body of their enemies. But they were utterly astounded, when our Indians approached, to see the multitude of these, and to find themselves so surrounded that they hardly had a chance to flee. However, there being still a certain place through which they could escape, they began -- after having vented their wrath upon their captive, whom they immediately tore to pieces -- to consider what was to be done.

The majority advising flight, Ononkwaia, or Pierre, casting his eyes on the Sky and seeing the unclouded Sun, said, "This resolution would be passable if the Sky were covered and if the Sun were not a spectator of this cowardice; but as it is, we must fight as stoutly as we can, and then each one shall decide what he ought to do." No sooner said than done. But our Hurons and Algonquins played their parts so well that, having killed upon the spot only 17 or 18, they took alive all the rest, except four or five who escaped them; and all these, having been brought to this country, were distributed through all the villages, where they were made to endure sufferings which it is not possible to describe.

I cannot omit here one detail of the cruelties that were practiced upon the first captive tormented after my arrival in this country, who had been brought here as a prisoner of war. It was the first day of December. This poor wretch on the night of his tortures (for it is essential to employ there at least one whole night) was commanded to put his hands to the ground, and they pierced them, one after the other, with a heated iron, and did not cease raising and lowering them, and sliding them along the iron, until its glow was quenched. Someone else did the same thing to his feet. Nothing more was wanting, except to open his side, shortly before expiring, to tear out his heart.

Our Indians, -- who know the displeasure that we feel at these cruelties, and particularly at their inhumanity in eating the bodies of these poor victims after their death, -- found means, to annoy us, of throwing one of the hands of this poor dead man into our cabin, as if giving us our share of the feast. We were surprised to see at our feet this pierced hand; and considering that it was the hand of a Christian, we buried it in our Chapel.

One could make a Romance of the adventures of this poor captive. He was of the Mohawk Nation, which forms one of the five Nations of the Iroquois, the one farthest from our Hurons. He left his own country to come to the Iroquois nations nearer to us, intending to trade some wampum that he had brought for some beavers. But, when he arrived, instead of doing this for which he had come, he began to gamble and lost all he had brought with him. Ashamed to return home without any other achievement, he decided to remain there for some time; and a little while afterward, seeing some people from that place who were undertaking a raid into our region, he became one of the group; but, their plans having resulted unsuccessfully, he was one of the captives, and was brought to this village, where he came to the end we have just described.

THE MISSIONS.

Of the ten Fathers of our Jesuits who are here, there were seven at the end of last year who understood the language of our Indians, and spoke it well enough to converse profitably among them; and three others, newcomers, who, two or three months after their arrival, -- by the help and assistance of the others, who fortunately have succeeded in reducing this language to rules, -- found themselves qualified to conduct a little school where they might teach the children to pray. We considered that, -- as three of the seniors, with one new man, would be sufficient for the work in each Residence, -- one senior, with one new man, could be employed to go and scour the country, and help to execute the plans of God.

The Village upon which we cast our eyes was Scanonaenrat, both because it is one of the most important of the country, -- itself alone forming one entire nation of the four that compose the Hurons, -- and because it is distant only 3 miles from the Residence of saint Joseph. The Indians of that village passed, in the common talk of the inhabitants of these regions, for the Demons of the country. But this character that was given them, far from turning us back, rather incited us to give to this village the name "saint Michel," in honor of the Angels.

On the day when the two Fathers set out, expecting to reach their destination about four o'clock in the evening, at that same hour they went so far astray in the woods that they did not arrive until four o'clock the next morning, having walked twelve hours, throughout the night, -- each burdened, for most of the way, with a bundle, from the heaviest part of which they were finally obliged to free themselves, and to hide it near a brook, so they might be able to more easily find it when it should be possible for them to search it out. In any case, they reached home safe and sound towards four o'clock in the morning, and their bundle, that had been left near a brook and contained a good part of the Chapel, was fortunately recovered the same day.

They came across a cabin in the village of saint Michel, the most convenient that could be found for the use that was to be made of it. There was only a single fireplace or family, which was precisely the condition necessary to relieve them from care in regard to food; there was a little compartment suitable for erecting a Chapel, where Mass was said daily, as long as they stayed there, which was for the space of thirty days.

At the outset, they spoke in the assembly of the Captains, who were ten or twelve in number, to whom they declared their intention to give to them and to the entire village the knowledge of the one and only God. To make them understand this better, the Fathers usually wore each a Crucifix suspended from his neck. The council accepted the statement of this purpose, with formalities and compliments which exceed what one usually imagines of the Indians. From the next day, one of our Fathers began, for lack of a bell, to go throughout the village, making an announcement, according to the custom of the country for general assemblies, -- and they soon saw the cabin entirely filled. There was too much novelty to expect anything less; but the confusion forced them, on the following days, to exclude the children and to appoint the time after the assembly for them to come to the little school.

This so general concourse, however, did not continue long. Soon was seen the separation of the good seed from the bad. The good seed continued to come, and listened willingly; the bad seed, after having satisfied their curiosity, were no longer to be seen there, -- or, if they did come, it was only to make mischief and perpetrate insolent acts. It was this that obliged us to change our tactics, and to devote ourselves entirely to visiting the cabins, -- where, after we had more carefully surveyed the soil where the seed might have taken root, we could form special gatherings of those whom we recognized as having some pious inclinations towards the Christianity that had been proclaimed to them.

Experience has shown us that this is the method that must be adopted, at least with these Indians among whom we live. When one first approaches them, it is wise, even necessary, to have as much public preaching as possible; then if, while continuing the work, disorder and insolence occur, we content ourselves with visits in the cabins, and with the aforementioned special meetings, -- only now and then renewing our public utterance.

It was thought also that special assemblies of Captains and the elders of the village might be highly profitable. Judging rightly that this could not be hoped for except through some worldly attraction, the Father felt obliged to throw, each time, some cakes of tobacco into the midst of the assembly, which were immediately cut into pieces, and distributed by the principal Captains, or by their order. This succeeded as it was intended. It was in these assemblies that the Christian of la Conception, Joseph Chiwatenhwa, was sometimes present, where he did wonders in explaining our mysteries.

A poor Iroquois prisoner, who was taken there while the Fathers were there for the first time, was baptized. This poor unfortunate having held out 24 hours after his baptism, it was learned that during his last and fatal night, he had made an effort to choke himself. This compelled them to go and visit him a little while before the final cruelties were exercised upon him, to make him acknowledge his fault, to lead him to accuse himself of that, and ask pardon for it. Having done this, he was granted absolution; and two hours later he was boiling in a kettle, of which the housemates of the Fathers' cabin were invited to come and take their share.

That is the principal Mission of this year. It was the intention to form at least one or two other similar ones during the remainder of the winter, which is the only time when one can hold the Indians, who, in all other seasons, are engaged in war or in trade. But having found more trouble and anxiety in rearing the spiritual children of these three new Churches than it had been to give them the life of grace, and much more to do in strengthening than in establishing these Works, it has been necessary to devote ourselves most closely to them. We have not omitted to make some shorter visits to various places, which have had some good results.

The day of the feast of St. Francois Xavier, news was brought of the arrival of a prisoner of war, an Iroquois, to that village, who had been brought there from the frontier villages of the country, so he might be given to some relative of those who had been formerly captured by the Enemies. The same Father who had been there two days before was appointed, with another, to go promptly to the execution of this poor wretch, and to labor for the welfare of his Soul. They arrived at the cabin where this poor prisoner was. He was a young man of 22 years, as graceful and well-made an Indian as one could meet, seeming to have nothing of the savage about him except the wretched condition in which he was. Both of his hands were all covered with blood, because, as a jest and for diversion, two of his fingers had been cut off, in anticipation of the treatment that his captors expected to give him the next night.

This poor young man, at the first words our Fathers said to him, appeared so depressed by the pain he was suffering, and by his misfortune, that they doubted whether they could look for much satisfaction from him. They took out a picture of Our Lord; at this sight, the young man's interest was aroused; he listened to what was said to him, and he gave all the satisfaction necessary for their purpose; he was, therefore, baptized. It was decided to take him back to the place from where he had come, to consider again what should be done with him. But, having once reached that place, he did not leave it again, and passed through the cruelties common to the Indians of these countries.

Among others baptized by the Fathers were eleven prisoners of war, out of twelve that were brought into the country toward the end of May of this present year. Of the 12, two were assigned to this village from where I am writing, and abandoned, as usual, by those who were their masters, to the customary cruelties of the country. Both were of the baptized; one of them, especially, showed a constancy in his torments beyond not only anything that one had ever seen, but perhaps beyond what one could have imagined.

During the first two hours of the night, while he was tormented in every way, -- with burning brands, glowing hatchets, and other iron tools, red-hot, that were applied to every part of his body, -- he did not tremble or flinch any more than if he had been of marble. He never complained or cried out, or even sighed, as an indication of his suffering, -- which threw into a fury those who tormented him, who count it a great misfortune when they encounter such steadfastness. They strove in vain, -- they sooner became weary of tormenting him than he of suffering; he himself stood still, and offered himself to those who most desired to torment him; and while they did this, he conversed as coolly with all those who chose to question him as if it were someone else that was being tortured. And, when he was not talking, he never ceased to sing, often repeating in his song, "Aronhiac Eskenonteta," "I am going away to Heaven, then." Finally, when morning came, our Indians quickly put him to death, seeing that the prolongation of his tortures was that of their own confusion, and that their exertions were only thrown away, without obtaining, or giving to the public, any pleasure, which consists above all in hearing these poor victims shriek.

I do not know whether the misfortune our Indians perceive, as foretold by the courage of their prisoners, will happen, but they have every reason to fear it. These 12 prisoners are the first fruits of the war that they have undertaken again this year against a powerful Tribe, named Seneca, the nearest of all their enemies, with whom they were at peace for several years. They see clearly that this can only bring them misfortune; but some of their young men having last year recommenced hostilities by killing some member of that Nation, the resentment of those of their relatives who were formerly badly treated by those tribes have caused a determination throughout the country to resume war against them, rather than to make amends for the fault.

VARIOUS OBSTACLES AND DIFFICULTIES ENCOUNTERED IN CONNECTION WITH THE BIRTH OF THESE NEW CHURCHES; AND OF THOSE THAT STILL APPEAR DAILY IN THEIR ESTABLISHMENT.

CONSIDERING this country of the Hurons, and other neighboring peoples, it has always seemed to me one of the principal fortresses of the Demons.

When I arrived here toward the end of August, I found the minds of the Indians quite tranquil, and in a condition of regret for what had taken place, being astonished at their own blindness in holding such evil passions toward persons like us, who had only done them good. But after their return from trading, no sooner had we redoubled our batteries of Sermons, than tongues were more than ever loosened. All their complaints and clamors were renewed, -- that since we were in the country, one saw no longer anything but misfortune and misery, and no more old men were seen; that the whole country was going to decay and ruin; that, after having caused the death of all those in the quarter where we had first settled, we went through all the other villages to create the same havoc; that, if the cause of all these evils were not suppressed, they would soon see their entire nation annihilated.

These speeches were not made only in private and secretly, but also in public and even in our cabins, and in the meetings of our Christian trainees. It happened sometimes that at the same time that a Father was going through the village to ring the bell, or to make the announcement for assembling the people, at this time some evil-minded Captain would come out from his cabin and proclaim against this, -- warning the people to beware of going there; that we were sorcerers, who had no other purpose than to ruin them; that they ought rather to think of getting rid of us than to believe and do what we said.

The insolence of such persons of authority increases the boldness of the children and common people, from whom one has to suffer. Snowballs, clubs, cornstalks, and other rubbish, for lack of stones (which are not always to be found in this country when they are wanted), have been seen flying over the Fathers' heads, even during the Catechisms, and through the holes of the cabin which serve as window and chimney, -- to say nothing of many other indignities that occur every day, living among a barbarous people, against whom we have no defense.

Some of the more prudent among the Captains and old men, seeing clearly that this is contrary to the rights of the alliance that they profess with the French, sometimes make excuses for it, and try to bring about some order; but it is all done so coldly, and with so little authority, that it often augments more than it remedies the evil.

All these fancies of these poor Indians, that we are the ruin of their country, increase whenever some new misfortune happens to them, -- be it sickness, or famine, which is now prevalent in some parts of the country, especially in the village of the Residence of la Conception, -- accusing us of all their afflictions, as if we were the cause of that, or, being able to furnish some remedy for them, we would not do so.

Because we predict to them the Eclipses of the Moon and Sun, they imagine that we are the masters of these, that we know all future events, and that it is we who order them. And with this idea, they address themselves to us to know if their crops will succeed; where their enemies are, and in what force they are coming, -- being unable to persuade themselves that we are not wiser in all things than their sorcerers, who profess to discover such secrets. And what confirms them still more in their notion is that, -- it being the custom of the country in public necessities to rely on the most famous Sorcerers, and these not hesitating to promise wonders, provided they are given presents, -- we cannot, at such times, keep silent, especially since we have Christians who are found to be engaged and involved in such matters; we speak, therefore, and say what we ought. But immediately, according to them, we are convicted of that of which they accuse us, -- of intending the destruction and the ruin of the world, since we will not deliver them from their troubles, nor permit them to provide themselves with the usual remedies employed in their country from all time against their misfortunes, especially when, in their belief, it is we who are the cause of these. And consequently, there are threats of nothing less than blows with the hatchet, and every kind of murder.

These speeches are made oftener than once a day, in times of special afflictions, particularly in their sicknesses. For -- as there are no other Doctors than Sorcerers or Magicians, and as most of their remedies consists of dances, feasts, ceremonies, and accompanying details altogether diabolical -- we cannot refrain from telling them that all that helps nothing, and that they are, in the end, risking their own ruin and that of the whole country. This throws them into despair; for, on the one hand, they cannot resolve to abandon these remedies without giving up there the hope of living; on the other, they see persons who threaten them with the anger and the Justice of God, if they continue to use them. It is probable that this despair will some day prompt them to act worse than they have yet done in the past.

The Demons have dispatched some strangers to these countries at the outer confines of the earth. These are barbarians of the countries near the Ocean, dealing with certain European Islanders who have settled on the seacoast towards the South, and are persons that have always seemed hostile to the Roman Church and to those of our robe. These outlying barbarians, finding themselves in these areas through I do not know what chance, have stated that these Europeans, having learned that we were here, told them that we were associated to destroy the world, -- that there were some like us in their own country in Europe, but concealed there without daring to show themselves; and that, as soon as any of them were caught, they were put to death.

All these incidents have so confirmed these poor people in their ideas that, at the first disputes we have with them on account of their insolent acts, we immediately stumble upon these reproaches, and are requested not to make them linger, but to dispatch them promptly, as we have the others. There have been near relatives, such as nephews, who at the death of their uncles did all they could to make them say that it was we who made them die, to have an excuse to vent their resentment upon us.

It is interesting to reflect upon what takes place during the course of a week. One day, you see them all killing themselves to say that they believe, and that they wish to be baptized; another day, everything is overthrown and hopeless. The climax of it is that the most intelligent among these poor Indians, not being able to comprehend the motive that has caused us to leave France and come so far, with so much difficulty and labor, and not seeing us claim any profit from our residence among them, conclude that we must, therefore, desire their ruin, since we can only aim at some object of great importance. It is useless to tell them that this is to announce to them the blessings of the other life; they have no conception of these, realizing no other good things than those they see with their eyes.

If a poor Indian becomes a Christian, he is immediately criticized by all those of his acquaintance, who lament and deplore him as if he were already lost, and it were all over with him. Some assure him, if it be winter time, that in the Spring (if he is still living) all his hair will fall off; others, that he need no longer count upon going hunting, trading, or to war, except with the certainty that from then on he will be unlucky in everything; they inspire in the women the fear that they will bear no more children. They are all threatened, or rather assured, that what they fear the most in the world will surely happen to them. It is represented that from then on, they will be defrauded of feasts, and consequently of the sole delight of the country; that they must renounce all the rights and communication of friendship with their relatives and compatriots. And if they be Captains who have charge of making the announcements and managing ceremonials, they are told that they may count upon seeing themselves robbed of their influence and authority.

And in this, see what has most hindered and most disquieted the majority of these poor Neophytes. For most of their dances, feasts, Physicians, and medicines, ceremonies, and customs, being either diabolical, or filled with so many senseless ceremonies that it is almost impossible to judge them as being free from communication with the devil, we must hold all these under suspicion, and to raise doubts against them. When there happens what happens every day, that one of the family, for example, falls ill, -- see the poor Christian trainee or Neophyte immediately troubled by all his relatives to go to summon the Physician, that is, the visitor or Sorcerer, and to put into execution the usual remedies of the country, which are the decrees of the Sorcerer, who acts only as dependent upon the knowledge that the devil gives him of the nature of the disease, and of the remedies that must be employed there; he orders things that are nothing but abominations or deviltries. What shall a poor Neophyte do in such emergencies? If he take part in them, he publicly renounces his profession; if he do not, he incurs the hatred and desertion of his people.

We have not either the power of constraint or the chains of benefits, to the extent that would be necessary to render these people entirely ours. All our power lies at the end of our tongues, in the exhibition and production of our books and Writings, the effects of which they never cease to wonder at. This is the only thing that helps us with these peoples, in lieu of all other ground for credibility, -- causing them to see through this means that those who have preceded us, and who have existed from the beginning of the world, have been able to impart to us a knowledge of what we are preaching to them, while they can have no proof that what their fathers have taught them was not invented by them, or by others who wished to make them believe it.

I have said nothing here of the difficulty these Indians have in abstaining from work on Sundays, -- these tribes living only from hand to mouth, and finding it hard to do otherwise. Neither have I spoken of the trouble they have in observing Lent, -- which always comes in the season when they return from hunting, and consequently is the only time of the year when they have a little meat, -- any more than of many other difficulties which are encountered in the establishment of these new Churches, one of the most important of which is the instability of their marriages.

THE REIGN OF SATAN IN THESE COUNTRIES; AND THE VARIOUS SUPERSTITIONS INTRODUCED AND ESTABLISHED THERE, AS THE FIRST PRINCIPLES AND FUNDAMENTAL LAWS OF THE CONDITION AND PRESERVATION OF THESE PEOPLES.

What I intend to do is to survey briefly some special incidents that have occurred this winter, only in this village of the Residence of la Conception.

An old man of this village, named Taorhenche, had, for two years, an ulcer on his arm, which continued to increase from the wrist, where it commenced, towards the shoulder, and began to enter the body. In the past, he had not forgotten any ceremony -- or, to express it better, any superstition -- of all those which are practiced in the country, for the recovery of his health. This last winter, a little before his death, he told the Captains that he desired something as a consolation, and that one last effort should be made for his recovery. The Council is assembled, and some persons are appointed to go and learn his desires; these turn upon five or six points, -- a number of dogs of a certain shape and color, with which to make a three days' feast; a quantity of flour for the same purpose; some dances, and like performances; but principally upon the ceremony of the "andacwander," a mating of men with girls, which is made at the end of the feast. He specified that there should be 12 girls, and a thirteenth for himself.

The answer being brought to the council, he was furnished immediately with what could be given at once, and this from the voluntary contributions of individuals who were present there and heard the matter mentioned, -- these peoples glorying, on such occasions, in despoiling themselves of the most precious things they have. Afterward, the Captains went through the streets and public places, and through the cabins, announcing in a loud voice the desires of the sick man, and urging people to satisfy them promptly. They are not content to go on this errand once, -- they repeat it three or four times, using such terms and accents that one would think that the welfare of the whole country was at stake.

Meanwhile, they take care to note the names of the girls and men who present themselves to carry out the principal desire of the sick man; and in the assembly of the feast these are named aloud, after which follow the congratulations of all those present, and the best pieces, which are carried to the men and women appointed to appear at the end of the feast; then ensue the thanks of the sick man for the health that has been restored to him, professing himself entirely cured by this remedy.

This wretched play continued for two days; on the third, it was not enacted, although it should have been, according to the first plan and intention of the patient. They tried to make us believe that it was we who were the cause of this, for having shown the displeasure that we felt. In any case, the whole ceremony took place without the sick man feeling any better, and soon afterward he died. In his last feast before death, he said that he died willingly, and that he had only one regret, -- that of seeing himself deprived of the delicious morsels with which he had all his life been honored in the feasts.

This wretch, a little while before he died, fell into a swoon; coming out of it, he said, according to what was told us, that he came from the other world, where he had seen nothing of what the French told; but, rather, that he had met there several of his own family and relatives, who had most kindly welcomed him, -- assuring him that his coming had been devoutly awaited for a long time, and that they were ready to have many fine dances and feasts on his account. In fact, he so convinced himself of the truth of this that, to be present there in the same dress and magnificence in which he had seen the others, he had his whole face painted red, had brought and placed over him the finest articles he had, was given his plate and spoon; and therefore he died.

This barbarian passed, in the common opinion of the Indians, as one of the most respectable and virtuous men of the whole country; if you asked them upon what grounds, they said, "Because he was a peaceable man, who did no harm to anyone, and who delighted in merrymaking and in giving feasts."

In connection with this unhappy man, who had several times employed the remedies of which we have just spoken, and who had certain special dances and songs in all these ceremonies which were performed in his behalf, -- we learned that there is hardly any family in these countries, the heads of which do not have some dances, feasts, and other ceremonies suitable for the cure of their diseases and the success of their business; but that all these have been taught by the Demons, either in the manner that we shall presently describe, or by appearing to them in dreams, -- now in the form of a raven, or some other bird, now in the form of a serpent, as happened to him of whom we have just spoken, or of some other animal, which speaks to them and reveals the secret of their good fortune, either in the recovery of their health when they fall sick, or in the successful issue of their business. And this secret is called "Ondinonc," that is, "a desire inspired by the Demon." And if you ask, from him who desires in this manner, what is the cause of the desire, he makes no answer except, "ondays ihatonc oki haendaerandic," "the thing in the form in which my familiar Demon appeared to me, gave me this advice."

These Ondinoncs are always accompanied by feasts or dances; the ceremonies of these and even the songs that are sung there are mostly dictated by the Demon, who utters all with cautions and threats that all will be lost if they fail to carry out the least detail. The result is that when the Captains go about proclaiming the desires of the sick, and when they say that it is the Ondinonc of a certain person, each one immediately applies himself with all his might to give satisfaction to that one to whom it belongs. This seems entirely confirmed by the formula observed by the Captains when they take to the person the things that he desired, at the time of the first assembly. "Listen, such a man or woman," they cry, "and you, voice of Demon" (meaning the one who has inspired him), "see what such a man or woman gives;" and, therefore saying, they throw the presents upon the patient.

This is the formula used in a ceremony which took place while I was writing the above, in behalf of a sick woman, who, according to one of her desires, had performed for her, by fifty persons, a special dance lasting three hours. Three days were spent in preparing for this dance; and on the day it took place, the Captains made more than five public announcements, -- now to warn them that they should begin to wash their bodies, now that they should grease them, now that they should adorn themselves with one ornament, and again with another. You would have said there was a fire in the village, and that everything was about to be consumed. The final announcement was made to urge all the people to be there, and to enter before the arrival of those who were to dance, before whom came a Captain who, bearing the rest of the desires of the patient, made his announcement in the form that we have just mentioned; there followed, a little distance behind, the company of dancers, men and women, at whose head marched two masters of ceremonies, singing, and holding the Tortoise, on which they did not cease to play. This Tortoise is not a real Tortoise, but only the shell and skin so arranged as to make a sort of drum; having thrown certain pebbles into this, they make from it an instrument like that which children in France use to play with. There is a mysterious something, I do not know what, in this semblance of a Tortoise, to which these peoples attribute their origin. We shall know in time what there is to it.

These masters of ceremony now place themselves at the head of the patient, who is in the middle of the cabin, and now move apart, one remaining at her head, the other going to her feet. All the others who dance form a sort of flock, and incessantly wheel round and round the patient as long as the masters of the ceremony sing and play on the tortoise. It did not seem as if there could be more earnest attention than each one gave to playing well his part; yet the sick woman only complained that they had not observed all the forms, and that she would not recover; and she grew worse.

Five or six days later, she had herself carried to another village, where dances were again and again performed for her, with as little success, and the same discontent on her part. Having returned here, people began to prescribe similar remedies for her, and among others many Fire feasts. Finally, in the midst of one of these ceremonies, this poor unhappy woman miserably expired.

She was the daughter of an Indian who is reputed to be one of the richest and most important persons that there is in the country, in the number of charms, called Ascwandics, or familiar demons, -- and who, on account of the affection he had for them, ordered that this daughter of his should bear the name Ascwandic. This barbarian was requested to lend these charms for a celebration of the game of Dish. His daughter went to this game, and, relying upon her father's treasures, she began to bet like the others. As she was displaying these charms, she was suddenly overtaken by the illness which caused the people to dance so much, and of which she finally died. All these misfortunes are attributed only to the defects and omissions in the forms and details of the ceremonies.

It is the common complaint of the Captains that everything is going to destruction through their failure to observe the forms and customs of their ancestors. When a prisoner is burned, if the young men are turbulent because of that, some old man begins to exclaim and storm because they are risking the ruin of the country, saying that this is a matter of importance and that they do not behave seriously enough in it. If they resuscitate a Captain, -- or, to speak more correctly, his name, -- when they come to sing the song of the dead, if two women do not come in to pitch the tone, all is lost, and they expect to see only broken heads under a Captain who assumes the name.

It is the strangest servitude that can be imagined; and never did galley slave so fear to fail in his duty as these peoples dread to fall short in the least detail of all their wretched ceremonies -- for there would follow from this omission, not only the privation of what they were expecting, but even physical punishment, which the devil for this reason exercises upon these poor wretches. The more thoughtful among them freely admit their misery, and say that the demons alone are the real masters of the country, -- that it is they who regulate and decree everything, whether in dreams or otherwise; that they see this plainly, but that there is no remedy for it; that they have always lived in this way, and that there is no prospect or means of living differently, -- were any detail omitted all would be lost.

The Captains and old men say that if they made this change, they would soon see their villages abandoned, and that each one would infallibly retire where he could see the customs of the country observed, and where he could find the usual remedies for their diseases. This idea is the pretext that some of the older men and Captains assume for not yet yielding to the admonitions of the Holy Ghost.

Besides the Ondinoncs or Desires, dictated by the demon who appears under some borrowed form, there are other secrets and desires, less important, that come from certain dreams of which they believe their demons to be the authors, which they dare not refuse to obey, at least fearing to expose themselves to the risk of some great misfortune. Those most eminent in judgment and experience among our Christians have told us that hardly any dance or feast in the country is given that does not come from this same theory of the demon.

If it sometimes happens that the children wish to enjoy themselves, and dance some of the dances they have seen danced at their ceremonies, they are immediately chided and scolded roughly for it, as would happen in France if people were seen profaning some holy thing.

What is to be said on this subject to our poor Christians, when they ask if they may be present at the feasts, which are the only extraordinary meals of the country, all the best fish and meat being usually eaten at such feasts? There they usually exact, from those who attend, presents and ceremonies that one can hardly exonerate from being homage rendered to this demon, especially since many of these feasts seem to be sacrifices, -- above all, when it is a question of killing a dog and eating it, with such details and ceremonies that it does not seem as if one could come to any other conclusion.

A woman, born in this village, but married in another nearby, named Angoutenc, going out one night from her cabin with one of her little daughters in her arms, at a time when they were celebrating in the village a feast like that I have just described, saw in an instant, she said, the Moon stoop down from above, immediately appearing to her like a beautiful tall woman, holding in her arms a little girl like her own.

"I am," quoth this specter to her, "the immortal lord general of these countries; I order that in all quarters of my domain, those who dwell there shall offer you presents which must be the product of their own country, -- from the Khionontaterons or Petun nation, some tobacco; from the Attawandarons or neutral Nation, some robes of black squirrel; from the Nipissings, or Sorcerers, a belt and leggings, with their porcupine ornaments; from the Algonquins or Islanders, a deer skin." Thus it continued to name to her certain other nations, each one of which it ordered to give her some present, and named the French who dwelt in this country.

"The feast which is now being solemnized in the town" (adds this Demon) "is acceptable to me, and I desire that many like it be held in all the other areas and villages of the country. Besides," it informs her, "I love you and, on that account, I wish that you should from now on be like me; and as I am wholly of fire, I desire that you be also at least the color of fire;" and then it ordains for her a red cap, a red plume, a belt, leggings, shoes, and the rest of her clothes with red ornaments; this is the garb in which she appeared at the ceremony that afterward was solemnized for her benefit.

This poor creature returned to her cabin, and no sooner had she reached it than see her prostrated with a giddiness in the head and a contraction of the muscles, which made them conclude that she was sick of a disease of which the remedy is a ceremony, which is called, in the language of our Indians, Ononhwaroia, or turning round the head, -- a name taken from the first symptom of this disease, or rather, this superstition. The sick woman was confirmed in this belief by seeing in her dreams only goings and comings and outcries through her cabin; this made her resolve to demand in public that they should celebrate this feast for her.

Her devotion -- or rather the purpose of the devil to spite us, and to thwart the affairs of Christianity -- prompted her to address herself to this village where we are, Ossosane, or residence of la Conception, of which she was a native. They came in her behalf, to make the proposition to its Captains, who immediately summoned the council. There it was declared that this affair was one of those most important to the welfare of the country, and that they must avoid any failure to give every satisfaction to the sick woman.

The next morning, the matter was proclaimed throughout the village, and people were vigorously urged to go promptly to bring the sick woman, and to prepare themselves for the feast. They ran there, rather than walked, so that towards noon she arrived, -- or, rather, she was carried upon their shoulders in some kind of basket, with an escort of twenty-five or thirty persons who were killing themselves with singing.

A little while before she arrived, the general council was assembled, to which we were invited. Three of our Fathers went to it without knowing the subject for discussion. At the outset, we were informed that they desired to see us at this council to get our advice upon the proposition that such a sick woman had made, and to know what we thought of it. The substance of the response was that they could not do a worse thing for the country, that they were continuing to render homage to evil spirits; and that only misfortune could happen to them if they continued to serve so bad a master.

The principal Captain, who secretly directed the whole affair, -- an adroit and crafty man -- instead of speaking in reference to what we had said, addressed the entire assembly, and began to exclaim, "Courage, young men; courage, women; courage, my brothers; let us render to our country this service, according to the customs of our ancestors!" Now followed a great speech in the same strain and tone; then, in a somewhat lower voice, he said to those who were around him, "This is the advice I gave to my nephews, the French, last Autumn. 'You will see this Winter,' I said to them, 'many things that will displease you, -- the Ononhwaroia, the Outaerohig and similar ceremonies; do not say a word; pretend not to see what shall take place; with time, it may change.' We were formerly told at Three Rivers and Quebec that, provided we believed in four years, it was enough."

As he continued the speech, the deputies entered on the part of the patient, who came to announce her arrival to the council, and to say for her that they should send her two men and two girls arrayed in robes and collars of such and such a fashion, with certain fish and presents in their hands, -- and this, to learn from her own lips her desires and what was necessary for her recovery. No sooner proposed, than executed.

Two men, therefore, and two girls went, loaded with all that the sick woman had desired, and immediately returned, as naked as the hand, except their loincloths; all they had carried having been left with the sick woman; and assigned demands which would begin the recovery of her health, what had been carried to her being accepted only as a compliment, and a token of their pleasure at her arrival. Accordingly, the deputies announced twenty-two presents that she desired they should give her, which were those the devil had specified to her in an apparition. One was six dogs of a certain form and color; another was fifty cakes of tobacco; another, a large canoe; and so on, -- also was named a blue blanket, but with this condition, that it must belong to a Frenchman.

The report having been made by the deputies, the Captains began to urge everyone to satisfy promptly the desires of the sick woman, constantly representing the importance of such a matter. They became so excited over it that, before our Fathers went out of the assembly, fifteen of these presents had already been furnished. Meanwhile, our Fathers were repeatedly urged not to spare what depended upon them. Our Fathers answered that they were making sport of us, and that, if it were for this purpose that we had been called to the council, the sick woman might as well return, if, without our contribution rendered to the devil, she could not recover.

Despite this, a half-hour after our Fathers had returned to the cabin, a Captain came there to tell us that everything was furnished except the blanket they were expecting from us. This second demand received no answer except that, if they would go no further in this ceremony, and if they would send the sick woman back to the place from where she came, we would willingly make to the public a present of a blanket, or of some other article of greater value. Such was the first ceremony of the feast.

The second act of this feast was that -- all the presents being furnished and carried to the patient, with the customary forms -- towards evening public notice was given, warning all the cabins and all the families to keep their fires lighted, and the places on both sides of them ready for the first visit which the sick woman was to make there, in the evening. The Sun having set, upon hearing the voices of the Captains, who redoubled their cries, all stirred up their fires, and maintained them with great care, -- the patient having caused that these should be made as large and bright as possible, and that this would help much for her relief.

The hour having come when she was to set out, her muscles relaxed, and the freedom to walk, even better than before, was restored to her; but it seems more certain that this did not occur until after she had passed through several fires, which usually results therefore. In any case, two Indians remained beside her all the time during her promenade, each one holding up one of her hands; and therefore supported, she walked between the two, and went through all the cabins of the village.

In the cabins of the Indians, which are in length and form like garden arbors, the fires are in the middle of their breadth, and there are several fires along its length, according to the number of families and the size of the cabin, usually two or three paces apart. It was through the middle of the cabins, and consequently through the middle of the fires, that the sick woman marched, her feet and legs bare, -- that is, through two or three hundred fires, -- without doing herself any harm, even complaining all the time how little heat she felt, which did not relieve her of the cold she felt in her feet and legs. Those who held up her hands passed on either side of the fires; and having led her through all the cabins, they took her back to the place from where she had departed, namely, to the cabin where she was sheltered; and therefore ended the second Act.

The third act of this feast followed, which, according to customs, consists in a general mania of all the people of the village, who, -- except a few Old Men, -- run wherever the sick woman has passed, adorned or daubed in their fashion, vying with one another in the frightful contortions of their faces, -- making everywhere such a din, and indulging in such extravagances, that to explain them, I do not know if I should compare them either to the most extravagant of our maskers that one has ever heard of, or to the bacchantes of the ancients, or rather to the furies of Hell. They enter everywhere, and have during the time of the feast, in all the evenings and nights of the three days that it lasts, liberty to do anything, and no one dares say a word to them. If they find kettles over the fire, they overturn them; they break the earthen pots, knock down the dogs, throw fire and ashes everywhere, so thoroughly that often the cabins and entire villages burn down. But the point being that, the more noise and uproar one makes, the more relief the sick person will experience; they have no concern for anything, and each one kills himself to do worse than his companion.

Our cabins that are in the villages are not exempt from the results of such a feast. The door of the cabin of the Residence of saint Joseph was broken down three times in a like ceremony. As for this residence here, that of la Conception, we have been more quiet during such storms, because we are about a musket-shot from the village. This is the third act; let us come to the fourth.

The next day's Sun having risen, everyone prepares to go again through all the cabins where the sick woman has passed, and particularly to that one in which she is harbored. This is for the purpose of proposing at each fire each person's own and special desire or "Ondinonc," -- according as he is able to get information and enlightenment by dreams, -- not openly, however, but through Riddles. For example, someone will say, "W
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