3D 6 LAHONTAN. 



now under orders to be in readiness to embark for Montreal in fifteen 

 days. "Most of the inhabitants of Canada," he says, "are a free sort 

 of people that removed hither from France, and brought with them 

 but little money to set up withal. The rest are those who were sol- 

 diers about thirty or forty years ago, at which time the regiment of 

 Carignan was disbanded and they exchanged a military post for the 

 trade of agriculture. Neither the one nor the other paid anything 

 for the grounds they possess, no more than the officers of th e troops, 

 who marked out to themselves certain portions of wild and 

 woody lands; for this vast continent is nothing else than one con- 

 tinued forest. The governors-general allowed the officers three or 

 four leagues of ground in front with as much depth as they pleased; 

 and at the same time the officers gave the soldiers as much ground 

 as they pleased, upon the condition of the payment of a crown pear 

 arpent by way of fief." After describing the exceptional mode in 

 which, as he was informed, wives were provided for the rank and file 

 of the settlers, he continues: "In this country every man lives in a 

 good and well-furnished house; and most of the houses are of wood 

 and two storeys high. Their chimneys are veiy large, by reason of 

 the prodigious fires they make to guard themselves from the cold 

 "which is there beyond all measure from the month of December to 

 that of April." 



The third letter is dated Quebec, May, 15, 1684, and in it Lahon- 

 tan describes Quebec and the Island of Orleans. During the winter 

 he had been out on a hunting excursion with thirty or forty young 

 Algonquins, " well made, clever fellows," he says. "My design in 

 accompanying them," he explains, " was to learn their language, 

 which is highly esteemed in this country, for all the other nations 

 for a thousand leagues around (excepting the Iroquois and the 

 Hurons) understand it perfectly well. Nay, all their respective 

 tongues come as near to this as the Portuguese does to the Spanish. 

 I have already made myself master," he adds, " of some words with 

 a great deal of facility ; and they being mightily pleased in seeing 

 a stranger study their tongue, take all imaginable pains to instruct 

 me. 



Letters four, five, six, seven, and eight were all written a.t 

 Montreal. The first three are descriptive of the country, and of 

 the habits and customs of the people, native and immigrant. The 

 seventh gives an account of De la Barre's abortive expedition against 



