( ) 



in the evening we landed at Anfe de la Famine \ or the 

 Creek of Famine, fo called, becaufe M. de la Barre, 

 governor-general of New-France, had very near 

 loft his whole army there by hunger, and other dif- 

 tempers, when he was going upon an expedition 

 againft the Iroquois. 



It was high time we mould arrive, the wind was 

 Urong, and the waves ran fo high that no one durft 

 have croffed the Seine oppofite to the Louvre, in 

 fuch a fituation as we were then in. This place 

 is indeed very proper for deftroying an army which 

 fhould depend on hunting and fifhing for fubfut- 

 ence, befides that the air feems to be extremely 

 unwholfome. Nothing, however, can exceed the 

 beauty of the foreft, which covers all the banks of 

 this lake. The white and red oaks raife their heads 

 as high as the clouds, and there is . another tree 

 of a very large kind, the wood of which is hard 

 but brittle, and bears a great refemblance to that 

 of the plane-tree ; its leaves have five points, are 

 of a middle fize, of a very beautiful green in the 

 jnfide, but whitim without. It has got the name 

 of the cotton- tree, becaufe it bears a fhell nearly 

 of the thicknefs of an Indian Chefnut-tree, con- 

 taining a fort of cotton which, however feems to 

 be good for nothing. 



As I was walking on the banks of the lake I ob- 

 ferved that it fenfibly lofes ground on this fide, 

 the land being here much lower and more fandy 

 for the fpace of half a league, than it is beyond it. 

 1 Jikewife obferved that in this lake, and I am told 

 that the fame thing happens in all the reft there 

 is a fort of flux and reflux almoft inftantaneous, the 

 rocks near the banks being covered with water, 

 * and uncovered again feveraj times in the fpace of 



a 



