412 THE HURON MISSION ABANDONED. [1650. 



cross to the main-land, to gather what sustenance 

 they could. The ice was still thick, but the 

 advancing season had softened it ; and, as a body 

 of them were crossing, it broke under their feet. 

 Some were drowned ; while others dragged them- 

 selves out, drenched and pierced with cold, to die 

 miserably on the frozen lake, before they could reach 

 a shelter. Other parties, more fortunate, gained 

 the shore safely, and began their fishing, divided 

 into companies of from eight or ten to a hundred 

 persons. But the Iroquois were in wait for them. A 

 large band of warriors had already made their way, 

 through ice and snow, from their towns in Central 

 New York. They surprised the Huron fishermen, 

 surrounded them, and cut them in pieces without 

 resistance, — tracking out the various parties of 

 their victims, and hunting down fugitives with such 

 persistency and skill, that, of all who had gone 

 over to the main, the Jesuits knew of but one who 

 escaped.^ 



"My pen," writes Ragueneau, " has no ink black 



I "Le iour de I'Annonciation, vingt-cinquiesme de Mars, vne armee 

 d'lroqiiois ayans marche prez de deux cents lieues de pais, a trauers les 

 glaces et les neges, trauersans les montagnes et les forests pleines d'hor- 

 reur, surprirent au commencement de la nuit le camp de nos Chrestiens, 

 et en firent vne cruelle boucherie. II sembloit que le Ciel conduisit 

 toLites leurs demarches et qu'ils eurent "vn Ange pour guide : car ils 

 diuiserent leurs troupes auec tant de bon-heur, qu'ils trouuerent en moins 

 de deux iours, toutes les bandes de nos Chrestiens qui estoient dispersees 

 (;a et la, esloignees les vnes des autres de six, sept et huit heues, cent per- 

 sonnes en vn lieu, en vn autre cinquante ; et mesme il y auoit quelques 

 families solitaires, qui s'estoient escartees en des lieux moins connus et 

 hors de tout chemin. Chose estrange ! de tout ce monde dissipe, vn seul 

 homme s'eschappa, qui vint nous en apporter les nouueUes." — Kague- 

 neau, Relation des Hurons, 1650, 23, 24. 



