54 THE HURON MISSION. [1634. 



and logs, tangled with roots and underbrush, damp 

 with perpetual shade, and redolent of decayed 

 leaves and mouldering wood.^ The Indians them- 

 selves were often spent with fatigue. Brebeuf, a 

 man of iron frame and a nature unconquerably res- 

 olute, doubted if his strength would sustam him to 

 the journey's end. He complains that he had no 

 moment to read his breviary, except by the moon- 

 light or the fire, when stretched out to sleep on a 

 bare rock by some savage cataract of the Ottawa, 

 or in a damp nook of the adjacent forest. 



All the Jesuits, as well as several of their coun- 

 trymen who accompanied them, suff"ered more or 

 less at the hands of their ill-humored conductors.^ 

 Davost's Indian robbed him of a part of his bag- 

 gage, threw a part into the river, including most of 

 the books and writing-materials of the three priests, 

 and then left him behind, among the Algonquins of 



1 " Adioustez a ces difBcultez, qu'il faut coucher sur la terre nue, ou 

 Bur quelque dure roche, faute de trouuer dix ou douze pieds de terre en 

 quarre pour placer vne chetiue cabane ; qu'il faut sentir incessarament la 

 puanteur des Sauuages recreus, niarclier dans les eaux, dans les fanges, 

 dans I'obscurite et Tembarras des forest, oii les piqueures d'vne multitude 

 infinie de mousquilles et cousins vous importunent fort." — Brebeuf, 

 Relation des Hurons, 1635, 25, 26. 



2 " En ce voyage, il nous a fallu tons commencer par ces experiences 

 a porter la Croix que Nostre Seigneur nous presente pour son honneur, et 

 pour le salut de ces pauures Barbares. Certes ie me suis trouue quel- 

 quesfois si las, que le corps n'en pouuoit plus. Mais d'ailleurs mon ame 

 ressentoit de tres-grands contentemens, considerant que ie soufFrois pour 

 Dieu : nul ne le S9ait, s'il ne I'experimente. Tons n'en ont pas este 

 quittes a si bon marche." — BrJbeuf, Relation des Hurons, 1635, 26. 



Three years afterwards, a paper was printed by the Jesuits of Paris, 

 called Instruction pour les Peres de nostre Compaijnie qui seront enuoiez aux 

 Hurons, and containing directions for their conduct on this route by the 

 Ottawa. It is highly characteristic, both of the missionaries and of the 

 Indians. Some of the points are, in substance, as follows.-*- You sliould 



