“ We feel, indeed, how great a burden it is to attend to all these household duties, in going for wood and water, in cooking, in washing and mending our clothes, in repairing our cabin, and in giving the necessary time and attention to other material cares. Thus our days and nights wretchedly slip away; but the hope consoles and sustains us that God, who raises up those who are cast down, will some time in his mercy not despise our unworthiness. ”

“ Even before his conversion he never cared to have more than one living wife, which is wonderful, as the great sagamores of this country maintain a numerous seraglio, no more through licentiousness than through ambition, glory and necessity; for ambition, to the end that they may have many children, wherein lies their power; for fame and necessity, since they have no other artisans, agents, servants, purveyors or slaves than the women; they bear all the burdens and toil of life. ”

“ For in truth I love these honest people with all my heart.
Mais, départans un peu de pensée d'avec eux, comme nous fismes lors de presence, continuons nostre route et voyage. Au retour de cette rivière Sainct Jean, nostre voyage s'addressoit jusques aux Armouchiquoys. Deux causes principales esmouvoyent à cela M. de Biancourt: la premiere, pour avoir nouvelle des Angloys, et sçavoir si on pourroit avoir raison d'eux; la seconde affin de troquer du bled armouchiquoys, pour nous ayder à passer nostre hyver, et ne point mourir de faim, en cas que nous ne receussions aucun secours de France. ”

“ Though, certainly, when we consider our lack of resources, the trying nature of the country, and the manners of the natives, the difficulties incident to our undertaking and those incident to the establishing of a colony, the thousand perils and impediments interposed by the sea or by our fellow men, our enterprise seems but a dream and a Platonic idea. ”

“ Now, that the judgments of God may be feared as much as his mercies are loved, I shall here record the death of a Frenchman, in which God has shown his justice as much as he has given us evidence of his mercy, in the death of Membertou. ”

“ When we brought the ship to the coast of this region, Champlain70 met us,—a man renowned not only for his valor in other respects, but also for his voyages in this sea for seven years past; whom, to our utter amazement, we have seen battling against masses of ice, equal in size to great hills upon land, with the greatest courage, and with remarkable activity and skill, sailing forth bravely amid all these dangers. ”

“ Of course, no more welcome news than this could come to half-naked men, whose stock of provisions was exhausted,—men who, in addition to this poverty, were incited by an inborn love of robbery, and an expectation of greater booty than could have been obtained from the plunder of our ship, to willingly employ violence, even against natural justice and the law of nations. ”

“ I say language and reason, because it is evident that where words, the messengers and dispensers of thought and speech, remain totally rude, poor and confused, it is impossible that the mind and reason be greatly refined, rich, and disciplined. However, these poor weaklings and children consider themselves [50] superior to all other men, and they would not for the world give up their childishness and wretchedness. ”

“ To obtain the necessaries of life they endure cold and hunger in an extraordinary manner. During eight or ten days, if the necessity is imposed on them, they will follow the chase in fasting, and they hunt with the greatest ardor when the snow is deepest and the cold most severe. And yet these same Savages, the offspring, so to speak, of Boreas and the ice, when once they have returned with their booty and installed themselves in their tents, become indolent and unwilling to perform any labor whatever, imposing this entirely upon the women. ”

“ To always eat fish (unless it is good and firm) or shellfish alone, without bread, is dangerous, and causes dysentery, as we have observed above in regard to certain Savages who died of it. We can prove this also by Sieur de Monts' men, who died, to the number of twenty, the first year they wintered at Kebec, both on account of their change of dwelling, and because they ate too many eels and other fish. Furthermore, game is not always to be found in abundance in a place where people are obliged to live on it, and where there is a permanent settlement. ”

“ Furthermore, rude and untutored as they are, all their conceptions are limited to sensible and material things; there is nothing abstract, internal, spiritual, or distinct. Good, strong, red, black, large, hard, they will repeat to you in their jargon; goodness, strength, redness, blackness—they do not know what they are. And as to all the virtues you may enumerate to them, wisdom, fidelity, justice, mercy, gratitude, piety, and others, these are not found among them at all except as expressed in the words happy, tender love, good heart. ”

“ We have begun to know and to be known, we have taken possession of these regions in the name of the Church of God, establishing here the royal throne of our Savior and King, Jesus Christ, his holy altar; the Savages have seen us pray, celebrate the mass, and preach; through our conversations, pictures, and crosses, our way of living, and other similar things, they have received the first faint ideas and germs of our holy faith, which will some day take root and grow abundantly, please God, if it is followed by a longer and better cultivation. ”

“ One tribe hardly ever has intercourse with another, either distant or near, except such as may arise in the prosecution of offensive or defensive warfare. Even the members of the same tribe, united by a common location and the vicinity of their dwellings, are seldom accustomed to meet together, except to take measures concerning war against a common enemy. Of foreign nations, the French are almost the only people whom they admit to their harbors, for the sake of disposing of their Beaver skins and other peltries, in exchange for necessary clothing and utensils. ”

“ In other respects there is almost no change from the religion of the Gentiles to Christianity. They keep up the same manners and traditions and mode of life, the same dances and rites and songs and sorcery ”

“ But these men, too fond of their private interests, considered as an injury to themselves the solicitude of others in regard to their own affairs; but because their affairs at home were embarrassed, and they knew no more convenient source of provisions for Port Royal than Madame de Guercheville, for the sake of our Fathers, they silently smothered their vexation, in order not to lose these supplies. ”

“ Nevertheless there is something strange and incredible in the perseverance of both Sieur de Monts and Sieur de Poutrincourt; the former having continued to send expeditions over there for ten years; and the latter, in spite of the difficulties enumerated above, having recently sent over another one, awaiting here the return of spring, to go again to see his people. May God grant to both the means of doing something which may succeed to the glory of his name, and to the welfare of the poor people whom we call Savages. ”

“ Father Biard, La Motte, the Lieutenant of La Saussaye, and Simon the Interpreter, had gone together to examine the site selected for the settlement of St. Sauveur. While returning thence, they heard at a distance a lamentable wail, and, when they asked of their Savage companion the cause of this mournful outcry, the answer was made that it was the customary token 283 that some one had already departed this life. But as they approached nearer to the huts of the Savages, a boy, on being questioned, informed them that the lamentation was not for a dead, but for a dying person ”

“ When our brethren had proved by strong evidence the entire blamelessness of their colony, not only in respect to their honorable life in other ways, but also in that which was the subject of the conversation, the Captain seemed [593] to yield his assent, and to find as the only fault in us our neglect to preserve the commission of our expedition. From that time on, he treated our Fathers with great consideration, and received them in all matters with honor, and with kindness at his table. ”

“ Et pour toutes les vertus que vous leur sauriez dire, sagesse, fidelité, justice, misericorde, recognoissance, pieté, et autres, tout chez eux tout n'est sinon l'heureux, tendre amour, bon cœur. Semblablement un loup, un renard, un esquirieu, un orignac, ils les vous nommeront, et ainsy chaque espece de celle qu'ils ont, les quelles, hors les chiens, sont toutes sauvages; mais une beste, un animal, un corps, une substance, et ainsy les semblables universels et genres, cela est par trop docte pour eux. ”

“ Many of the remaining tribes of New France, especially those of the North, across the great Sacqué River, our French countrymen know only from hearsay. Among those whom they know, however, they have secured as friends, and almost as allies, the Souriquois, Eteminquis, Montagnais, Almochiquois, Algomequois, and Ochasteguis. The Iroquois, who are deadly enemies of these tribes, prove hostile to the French also, mainly because the latter have waged war against them, in company with their enemies. ”

“ But as we are now on the subject of sickness and death, I do not wish to pass over in silence a custom which I did not know about, and which, never having seen practiced, I did not speak of in my History of New France. It is, that when our Savages see a person gradually failing from old age or sickness, through a certain compassion they hasten his death ”

“ The Etheminqui number less than a thousand, the Algonquins and the Montagnais together would not amount to much more, the Soriquois would not amount to two thousand. Thus four thousand Indians at most roam through, rather than occupy, these vast stretches of inland territory and sea-shore. For they are a nomadic people, living in the forests and scattered over wide spaces, as is natural for those who live by hunting and fishing only. They are nearly all beardless and of average stature, or even a little shorter and more slender than we, but not degraded nor ill-favored in appearance ”

“ Besides, I find this matter involved in so much error and darkness by the older Geographers, that unless we, who know these things not from hearsay only, but are eyewitnesses thereof, come to the rescue, it is impossible that the mind, in tracing our footsteps and our journeys, should not wander as far away from the truth as it has to do from the body. ”

“ My conspirators followed in their boat, and approaching with a great show of friendliness (for they always make the greatest show of affection when they are the most treacherous) , they go among them, and at a given signal each one seizes his man and stabs him to death. Thus were eleven Englishmen dispatched. The others were intimidated and abandoned their enterprise the same year; they have not resumed it since, being satisfied to come in the summer to fish, at this island of Emetenic, which we have said was eight leagues from the fort they had begun building. ”

“ John river, upon an island called Emenenic, some six leagues up the river. We were still one league and a half from the island when the twilight ended and night came on. The stars had already begun to appear, when suddenly, toward the Northward, a part of the heavens became blood-red: and this light spreading, little by little, 29 in vivid streaks and flashes, moved directly over the settlement of the Malouins and there stopped. ”

“ The reason for this is that, as the savages have no definite religion, 11 magistracy or government, liberal or mechanical arts, commercial or civil life, they have consequently no words to describe [48] things which they have never seen or even conceived.
D'avantage, comme rudes et incultes qu'ils sont, ils ont toutes leurs conceptions attachées aux sens et à la matiere; rien d'abstraict, interne, spirituel ou distinct. Bon, fort, rouge, noir, grand, dur, ils le vous diront en leur patois; bonté, force, rougeur, noircissure, ils ne scavent que c'est. ”

“ It is true that Monsieur de Biancourt, who understands the savage tongue better than any one else here, is filled with earnest zeal, and every day takes a great deal of trouble to serve as our interpreter. ”

“ But the name of Canada, which is commonly given to this entire country, belongs only to that Northern region which is washed by the abundant waters of the river Canada,48 and of the noble gulf which is called St. Lawrence. Indeed, the whole territory of New France, although now much more confined than formerly, towards the frontiers of Florida, is nevertheless bounded on the South by the thirty-ninth parallel, and extends many leagues beyond the breadth of our France. ”

“ Therefore, a Cross was erected, by way of consecrating the place; the ground was marked out for the erection of the buildings; the earth was dug up for laying the foundations; and our abode, while still in its infancy, was called by the same name as the harbor, St. Sauveur. La Saussaye, the commander of the colonists, took, from the beginning, so deep an interest in agriculture that he thought of that alone, and neglected everything else; and through his excessive zeal for husbandry, called off a large 251 portion of the colony from the work of building, and set them to farming. ”

“ Quant aux Sauvages ils ne sçauent que c'est du labourage, & ne s'y peuvent addonner, courageux seulement & penibles à la chasse, & à la pécherie. Toutefois les Armouchiquois & autres plus esloignés plantent du blé & des fevés, mais ils laissent faire cela aux femmes.
As to the Savages, they know nothing about cultivating the land, and cannot give themselves up to it, showing themselves courageous and laborious only in hunting and fishing. ”

“ For they have learned from us that, toward others than these, whether here or in the ships, nothing is readily given away. They hunt after the lice in their heads and regard them as a dainty. They are most importunate beggars and, after the fashion of beggars and needy people, they are hypocritical—contradicting, flattering and lying to achieve their ends. ”

“ So, although Membertou's family were Christians, nevertheless they had not yet been taught that it is not lawful for men to shorten the days of the aged, or sick, although they think they are doing right; but rather that they must await the will of God, and leave Nature to do her work. ”

“ But yet, however 105 great these Giants be, that David with the sling and stone shall prevail against them, even he who tramples the earth under foot in his anger, and in his rage strikes terror into the senses of men; that Jesus, the Savior of mankind, who blesses the world and leads it toward perfection in spite of all its shortcomings; he, even he, as we hope, will deem it a thing worthy of his love and his power that, as Isaiah prophesied, The solitude should exult and blossom like a lily ”