210 ROYAL SOCIETY OF CANADA 



treating to the music, delightful to the savage ear, of the shrieks of 

 human agony of mothers and their children, husbands and their wives, 

 old age and infancy, writhing in the fierce embrace of the flames 1^ 

 The site of the hapless town may still be traced in the blackened em- 

 bers, preserved beneath the forest growth of over two centuries. 



The mission was wrecked. The Hurons were scattered. Their 

 towns were abandoned, burnt, or destroyed, and themselves fugitives 

 from a wrathful foe. "We are counted as sheep for the slaughter," 

 writes the pious Eagueneau. The Fathers resolved, to transfer the 

 mission to the Grand Manitoulin, where they might gather again their 

 scattered flock, free from the attacks of their enemies. They unhap- 

 pily changed their destination to Isle St. Joseph, now kno\vn as 

 Christian Island (probably from tradition of its Jesuit occupation),- 

 situated about twenty miles from the wrecked mission of Ste. Marie, 

 and two or three miles from the mainland. They set fire to the mission 

 buildings, and, with sinking hearts, saw in an hour the labours of ten 

 3'ears destroyed. 



On a rude raft, near sunset, on the 1-ith of June, they embarked, 

 about forty whites in all, with all their household goods and treasures, 

 and after several days reached Isle St. Joseph. They built a new 

 mi'ssion-fortress, the remains of which may still be seen. Here, by 

 winter, were assembled six or eight thousand wretched Hurons, de- 

 pendent upon the charity of the mission. , The Fathers had collected 

 five or six hundred bushels of acorns, which were served out to the 

 perishing Indians, and boiled with ashes to take away their bitter taste. 

 But the good priests found compensation in the thought that man shall 

 not live by bread alone; and they sought unweariedly to break unto the 

 multitude the bread of life. In their extemity the famishing creatures 

 were fain to eat the carrion remains oî dogs and foxes, and, more 

 horrible still, even the bodies of the dead, 



0, the long and dreary winter! 

 0, the cold and cruel winter! 

 0, the wasting of the famine! 

 0, the blasting of the fever! 

 Hungry was the air around them. 

 Hungry was the sky above them. 

 And the hungry stars in heaven^ 

 Like the eyes of wolves glared at them ! 



^ " Prenans plaisir à. leur départ, de se repaistre des cris espouuantables 

 que poussoient ces pauvres victimes au milieu de ces flammes, ou des enfans 

 grilloient à. costés de leurs mères, ou un mary voyoit sa femme rostir auprès 

 de soy." — Ragueneau, Relation des Hurons, 1649, p. 13. 



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