1633.] ALLUMETTE ISLAND. 45 



tioning, passive, and absolute, — repugnant to man- 

 hood, and adverse to the invigoratmg and expan- 

 sive spirit of modern civilization. Yet, full of 

 error and full of danger as was their system, they 

 embraced its serene and smiling falsehoods with 

 the sincerity of martyrs and the self-devotion of 

 saints. 



We have spoken already of the Hurons, of their 

 populous villages on the borders of the great 

 " Fresh Sea," their trade, their rude agriculture, 

 thek social life, their wild and incongruous su- 

 perstitions, and the sorcerers, diviners, and medi- 

 cine-men who lived on their credulity.^ Iroquois 

 hostility left open but one avenue to their country, 

 the long and circuitous route which, eighteen years 

 before, had been explored by Champlain,^ — up 

 the river Ottawa, across Lake Nipissing, down 

 French River, and along the shores of the great 

 Georgian Bay of Lake Huron, — a route as difficult 

 as it was tedious. Midway, on Allumette Island, 

 in the Ottaw^a, dwelt the Algonquin tribe visited by 

 Champlain in 1613, and who, amazed at the ap- 

 parition of the white stranger, thought that he had 

 fallen from the clouds.^ Like other tribes of this 

 region, they were keen traders, and would gladly 

 have secured for themselves the benefits of an 

 intermediate traffic between the Hurons and the 

 French, receiving the furs of the former in barter 

 at a low rate, and exchanging them with the latter 

 at thek full value. From their position, they 



1 See Introduction. 



2 " Pioneers of France." 864. 3 lud.^ 348. 



