1648.] A GATHERING OF THE PRIESTS. 369 



These missions were more laborious, though not 

 more perilous, than those among the Hurons. The 

 Algonquin hordes were never long at rest ; and, 

 summer and winter, the priest must follow them 

 by lake, forest, and stream : in summer plying the 

 paddle all day, or toiling through pathless thickets, 

 bending under the weight of a birch canoe or a load 

 of baggage, — at night, his bed the rugged earth, 

 or some bare rock, lashed by the restless waves of 

 Lake Huron ; while famine, the snow-storms, the 

 cold, the treacherous ice of the Great Lakes, smoke, 

 filth, and, not rarely, threats and persecution, were 

 the lot of his winter wanderings. It seemed an 

 earthly paradise, when, at long intervals, he found 

 a respite from his toils among his brother Jesuits 

 under the roof of Sainte Marie. 



Hither, while the Fathers are gathered from 

 their scattered stations at one of their periodical 

 meetings, — a little before the season of Lent, 

 1649,^ — let us, too, repair, and join them. We 

 enter at the eastern gate of the fortification, mid- 

 way in the wall between its northern and southern 

 bastions, and pass to the hall, where, at a rude 

 table, spread with ruder fare, all the household 

 are assembled, — laborers, domestics, soldiers, and 

 priests. 



was established at a later period. Modern writers have confounded it 

 with Sainte Marie of the Hurons. 



By the Relation of 1649 it appears that another mission had lately 

 been begun at the Grand Manitoulin Island, which the Jesuits also chris- 

 tened Isle Sainte Marie. 



i The date of this meeting is a supposition merely. It is adopted 

 with reference to events which preceded and followed. 



