288 PEACE. [1645. 



"With this," he said, " I give you back this pris- 

 oner. I did not say to him, ' Nephew, take a canoe 

 and go home to Quebec' I should have been with- 

 out sense, had I done so. I should have been 

 troubled in my heart, lest some evil might befall 

 him. The prisoner whom you sent back to us 

 suffered every kind of danger and hardship on the 

 way." Here he proceeded to represent the difficul- 

 ties of the journey in pantomime, "so natural," says 

 Father Vimont, "that no actor in France could 

 equal it." He counterfeited the lonely traveller 

 toiling up some rocky portage track, with a load of 

 baggage on his head, now stopping as if half spent, 

 and now tripping against a stone. Next he was 

 in his canoe, vainly trying to urge it against the 

 swift current, lookmg around in despau* on the 

 foaming rapids, then recovering courage, and pad- 

 dling desperately for his life. " What did you 

 mean," demanded the orator, resuming his ha- 

 rangue, " by sending a man alone among these 

 dangers ? I have not done so. ' Come, nephew,' 

 T said to the prisoner there before you," — pointing 

 to Couture, — "'follow me : I will see you home at 

 the risk of my life.'" And to confirm his words, he 

 hung another belt on the line. 



The third belt was to declare that the nation of 

 the speaker had sent presents to the other nations 

 to recall their war-parties, in view of the approach- 

 ing peace. The fourth was an assurance that the 

 memory of the slain Iroquois no longer stirred the 

 living to vengeance. " I passed near the place 

 where Piskaret and the Algonquins slew our war- 



