398 THE SANCTUARY. [1649. 



on its tripod of poles, while around lay groups 

 of famished wretches, with dark, haggard visages 

 and uncombed hair, in every posture of despond- 

 ency and woe. They had not been wholly idle; 

 for they had made some rough clearings, and 

 planted a little corn. The arrival of the Jesuits 

 gave them new hope ; and, weakened as they 

 were with famine, they set themselves to the task 

 of hewing and burning down the forest, making 

 bark houses, and planting palisades. The priests, 

 on their part, chose a favorable spot, and began 

 to clear the ground and mark out the lines of a fort. 

 Their men — the greater part serving without pay 

 — labored with admirable sphit, and before win- 

 ter had built a square, bastioned fort of solid 

 masonry, with a deep ditch, and walls about twelve 

 feet high. Within were a small chapel, houses for 

 lodging, and a well, which, with the ruins of the 

 walls, may still be seen on the south-eastern shore 

 of the island, a hundred feet from the water.^ 

 Detached redoubts were also built near at hand, 

 where French musketeers could aid in defending 

 the adjacent Huron village.^ Though the island 

 was called St. Joseph, the fort, like that on the 

 Wye, received the name of Sainte Marie. Jesuit 



1 The measurement between the angles of the two southern bastions 

 is 123 feet, and that of the curtain wall connecting these bastions is 78 

 feet. Some curious relics have been found in the fort, — among others, 

 a steel mill for making wafers for the Host. It was found in 1848, in a 

 remarkable state of preservation, and is now in an English museum, 

 having been bought on the spot by an amateur. As at Sainte Marie on 

 the Wye, the remains are in perfect conformity with the narratives and 

 letters of the priests. 



2 Compare Martin, Introduction to Bressani, Relation Abr€g€e, 38. 



