1633.] ALGONQUIN WINTER LIFE. 25 



ashore at low tide over the flats to the southern 

 bank of the St. Lawrence. As two other bands 

 had joined them, their number was increased to 

 forty-flve persons. Now, leaving the river behind, 

 they entered those savage highlands whence issue 

 the springs of the St. John, — a wilderness of 

 rugged mountain-ranges, clad in dense, continuous 

 forests, with no human tenant but this troop of 

 miserable rovers, and here and there some kindred 

 band, as miserable as they. Winter had set in, 

 and already dead Nature was sheeted in funereal 

 white. Lakes and ponds were frozen, rivulets 

 sealed up, torrents encased with stalactites of ice ; 

 the black rocks and the black trunks of the 

 pine-trees were beplastered with snow, and its 

 heavy masses crushed the dull green boughs into 

 the drifts beneath. The forest was silent as the 

 grave. 



Through this desolation the long file of Indians 

 made its way, all on snow-shoes, each man, woman, 

 and child bending under a heavy load, or drag- 

 ging a sledge, narrow, but of prodigious length. 

 They carried their whole wealth with them, on 

 their backs or on their sledges, — kettles, axes, 

 bales of meat, if such they had, and huge rolls 

 of birch-bark for covering their wigwams. The 

 Jesuit was loaded like the rest. The dogs alone 

 floundered through the drifts unburdened. There 

 was neither path nor level ground. Descending, 

 climbing, stooping beneath half-fallen trees, clam- 

 bering over piles of prostrate trunks, struggling 

 through matted cedar-swamps, threading chill ra- 



3 



