LAHONTAN. 307 



the Iroquois in 1684. Lahontan and the three companies of marines 

 accompanied De la Barre from Fort Frontenac to La Famine or Salmon 

 River on the opposite side of Lake Ontario, where the final interview 

 between the Governor and Grangula (La Grande Guenle), the 

 representative of the Five Nations, took place. '' All the world 

 blames our General," Lahontan writes, " for his bad success. It 

 is talked publicly that his only design was to cover the sending 

 of several canoes, to traffic with the savages in those lakes for 

 beaver skins. The people here," he says, " are very busy in 

 wafting over to Court a thousand calumnies against him ; both 

 the clergy and the gentry of the long robe write to his disad- 

 vantage. Thoiigh after all," Lahontan asserts, " the whole charge is 

 false, for the poor man could do no more than he did." The truth 

 being that the force under M. De la Barre's command was immensely 

 reduced in strength by a deadly fever which raged amongst them at 

 Fort Frontenac, while preparing to penetrate the Iroquois territory. 

 In returning to Montreal from this expedition, Lahontan and his 

 marines descended the rapids in flat-bottomed boats made of deal, 

 the first time such a thing had ever been done ; accomplishing the 

 distance from La Galette to Montreal in two days. The ascent 

 from Montreal to Fort Frontenac had occupied twenty days. 



The eighth letter is written from Montreal in June of the follow- 

 ing year (1685). In it Lahontan describes M. de Callieres' prepara- 

 tions for the fortification of the town. All the inhabitants of the 

 place and vicinity were ordered to cut down and bring in great 

 stakes, fifteen feet in length. " During the winter," he says, " these 

 orders were pursued with so much application that all things were 

 now ready for making the enclosure, in which five or six hundred 

 men are to be employed." Lahontan passed a portion of the winter 

 again in a hunting excursion with the Algonquins. The rest of it 

 was made unpleasant to him by the officioiisness of the gentlemen of 

 the Seminary, the " Seigneurs ecclesiastiques," as he speaks. On one 

 occasion, he says, M. le Cur6 came to his lodgings when he was out, 

 and observing among the books on the table a certain Romance he 

 cruelly mutilated it, by tearing out a number of leaves. Lahontan 

 was greatly enraged. " lis ne se contentent pas," he exclaims, 

 " d'fetudier les actions des gens : ils veulent encore fouiller dans leurs 

 pensees !" On the 30th of March he is sent with a small detachment 

 to Chambly; but in the following October he is at Boucherville. 



