142 THE NEUTRALS. [1640. 



that the pest has spared in this house. I heard 

 that they were sorcerers ; and now, when it is too 

 late, I believe it." ^ It is wonderful that the priests 

 escaped the tomahawk. Nowhere is the power of 

 courage, faith, and an unflinching purpose more 

 strikingly displayed than in the record of these 

 missions. 



In other Tobacco towns their reception was much 

 the same ; but at the largest, called by them St. 

 Peter and St. Paul, they fared worse. They 

 reached it on a winter afternoon. Every door 

 of its capacious bark houses was closed against 

 them ; and they heard the squaws within calling 

 on the young men to go out and split their heads, 

 while children screamed abuse at the black-robed 

 sorcerers. As night approached, they left the 

 town, when a band of young men followed them, 

 hatchet in hand, to put them to death. Darkness, 

 the forest, and the mountain favored them ; and, 

 eluding their pursuers, they escaped. Thus began 

 the mission of the Tobacco Nation. 



In the following November, a yet more distant 

 and perilous mission was begun. Brebeuf and 

 Chaumonot set out for the Neutral Nation. This 

 fierce people, as we have already seen, occupied 

 that part of Canada which lies immediately north 

 of Lake Erie, while a wing of their territory 

 extended across the Niagara into Western New 

 York.^ In their athletic proportions, the ferocity 



1 Lalemant, Relation des Hurons, 1640, 96. 



2 Introduction. — The river Niagara was at this time, 1640, well known 

 to the Jesuits, though none of them had visited it. Lalemant speaks of 

 it as the "famous river of this nation** (the Neutrals). The following 



