228 ISAAC JOGUES. [1643. 



Togues's life was spared ; but he was forced to 

 witness the torture and butchery of the converts 

 and allies of the French. Existence became un- 

 endurable to him, and he longed to die. War- 

 parties were continually going out. Should they 

 be defeated and cut off, he would pay the forfeit 

 at the stake ; and if they came back, as they 

 usually did, with booty and prisoners, he was 

 doomed to see his countrymen and their Indian 

 friends mangled, burned, and devoured. 



Jogues had shown no disposition to escape, and 

 great liberty was therefore allowed him. He went 

 from town to town, giving absolution to the Chris- 

 tian captives, and converting and baptizing the 

 heathen. On one occasion, he baptized a woman 

 in the midst of the fire, under pretence of lifting 

 a cup of water to her parched lips. There was no 

 lack of objects for his zeal. A single war-party 

 returned from the Huron country with nearly a 

 hundred prisoners, who were distributed among the 

 Iroquois towns, and the greater part burned.^ Of 

 the children of the Mohawks and their neighbors, 

 he had baptized, before August, about seventy ; 

 insomuch that he began to regard his captivity 

 as a Providential interposition for the saving of 

 souls. 



At the end of July, he went with a party of 



1 The Dutch clergyman, Megapolensis, at this time living at Fort 

 Orange, bears the strongest testimony to the ferocity with which his 

 friends, the Mohawks, treated their prisoners. He mentions the same 

 modes of torture which Jogues describes, and is very explicit as to 

 cannibalism. "The common people," he says, "eat the arms, buttocks, 

 and trunk; but the chiefs eat the head and the heart." {Short Sketch of 

 the Mohawk Indians.) This feast was of a religious character. 



