1636-37.] THE JESUITS ON THEIR ROUNDS. 95 



ing a house, saw a sick man crouched in a corner, 

 while near him sat three friends. Before each of 

 these was placed a huge portion of food, — enough, 

 the witness declares, for four, — and though all 

 were gorged to suffocation, with starting eyeballs 

 and distended veins, they still held staunchly to 

 then task, resolved at all costs to devour the whole, 

 in order to cure the patient, who meanwhile ceased 

 not, in feeble tones, to praise their exertions, and 

 implore them to persevere.^ 



Turning from these eccentricities of the "noble 

 savage " ^ to the zealots who were toiling, according 

 to theu' light, to snatch him from the clutch of Sa- 

 tan, we see the irrepressible Jesuits roaming from 

 town to town in restless quest of subjects for bap- 

 tism. In the case of adults, they thought some little 

 preparation essential ; but their efforts to this end, 

 even with the aid of St. Joseph, whom they con- 

 stantly invoked,^ were not always successful ; and, 



1 " En fin il leur fallut rendre gorge, ce qu'ils firent k diuerses reprises, 

 ne laissants pas pour cela de continuer a vuider leur plat." — Le Mercier, 

 Relation des Ilurons, 1637, 142. — This beastly superstition exists in some 

 tribes at the present day. A kindred superstition once fell under the 

 writer's notice, in the case of a wounded Indian, who begged of every one 

 lie met to drink a large bowl of water, in order that he, the Indian, might 

 be cured. 



2 In the midst of these absurdities we find recorded one of the best 

 traits of the Indian character. At Ihonatiria, a house occupied by a 

 family of orphan children was burned to the ground, leaving the inmates 

 destitute. The villagers united to aid them. Each contributed some- 

 thing, and they were soon better provided for than before. 



3 " C'est nostre refuge ordinaire en semblables necessitez, et d'ordi- 

 naire a lec tels succez, que nous auons sujet d'en benir Dieu a iamais, qui 

 nous fait cognoistre en cette barbarie le credit de ce S. Patriarche aupres 

 de son infinie misericorde." — Ibid., 153. — In the case of a woman at On- 

 nentisati, " Dieu nous inspira de luy vouer quelques Messes en I'honneur 

 de S. Joseph." The effect was prompt. In half an hour the woman was 



