1693.] STATE OF THE COLONY. 301 



the colony. The country about Montreal, and for 

 nearly a hundred miles below it, was easily accessi- 

 ble to the Iroquois by the routes of Lake Champ- 

 lain and the upper St. Lawrence ; while below 

 Three Rivers the settlements were tolerably safe 

 from their incursions, and were exposed to attack 

 solely from the English of New England, who 

 could molest them only by sailing up from the 

 Gulf in force. Hence the settlers remained on 

 their farms, and followed their usual occupations, 

 except when Frontenac drafted them for war- 

 parties. Above Three Rivers, their condition was 

 wholly different. A traveller passing through this 

 part of Canada would have found the houses empty. 

 Here and there he would have seen all the inhabi- 

 tants of a parish laboring in a field together, 

 watched by sentinels, and generally guarded by 

 a squad of regulars. When one field was tilled, 

 they passed to the next ; and this communal process 

 was repeated when the harvest was ripe. At night, 

 they took refuge in the fort ; that is to say, in a 

 cluster of log cabins, surrounded by a palisade. 

 Sometimes, when long exemption from attack had 

 emboldened them, they ventured back to their 

 farm-houses, an experiment always critical and 

 sometimes fatal. Thus the people of La Chesnaye, 

 forgetting a sharp lesson they had received a year 

 or two before, returned to their homes in fancied 

 security. One evening a bachelor of the parish 

 made a visit to a neighboring widow, bringing 

 with him his gun and a small dog. As he was 

 taking his leave, his hostess, whose husband had 



