1638.] JESUIT DAILY LIFE. 129 



Missionaries seem to have been a novelty at this 

 place ; for, while the Father breakfasted, a crowd, 

 chiefly of children, gathered about him, and stared 

 at him in silence. One examined the texture of 

 his cassock ; another put on his hat ; a third took 

 the shoes from his feet, and tried them on her own. 

 Du Peron requited his entertainers with a few trin- 

 kets, and begged, by signs, a guide to Ossossane. 

 An Indian accordingly set out with him, and con- 

 ducted him to the mission-house, which he reached 

 at six o'clock in the evening. 



Here he found a warm welcome, and little other 

 refreshment. In respect to the commodities of 

 life, the Jesuits were but a step in advance of the 

 Indians. Their house, though well ventilated by 

 numberless crevices in its bark walls, always smelt 

 of smoke, and, when the wind was in certain quar- 

 ters, was filled with it to suffocation. At their 

 meals, the Fathers sat on logs around the fire, over 

 which their kettle was slung in the Indian fashion. 

 E^ch had his wooden platter, which, from the 

 difficulty of transportation, was valued, in the Hu- 

 ron country, at the price of a robe of beaver-skin, 

 or a hundred francs.^ Their food consisted of sag- 

 amite, or " mush," made of pounded Indian-corn, 

 boiled with scraps of smoked fish. Chaumonot 

 compares it to the paste used for papering the walls 

 of houses. The repast was occasionally varied by 

 a pumpkin or squash baked in the ashes, or, in the 



1 " Nos plats, quoyque de bois, nous coutent plus cher que les votres ; 

 lis sont de la valeur d'une robe de castor, c'est a dire cent francs." — Let- 

 tre du P. Du Peron a son Frere, 27 Avril, 1639. — The Father's appraise 

 ment seems a little questionable. 



