Father Daniel was abandoned, and compelled to seek another canoe, as also was Pierre, one of our men. Little Martin was very roughly treated, and at last was left behind with the Bissiriniens, where he remained so long that he was about two months on the road, and only arrived among the Hurons on the nineteenth of September. Baron[26] was robbed by his savages on the very day he arrived in these regions; and he would have lost much more if he had not compelled them, through fear of his arms, to give him back a part of what they had taken. In short, [128] all the Frenchmen suffered great hardships, incurred great expense, considering the few goods they had, and ran remarkable risks. And whosoever will come up here must make up his mind to all this, and to something more, even to death itself, whose Image we see every moment before our eyes. For myself, not knowing how to swim, I once had a very narrow escape from drowning. As we were leaving the Bissiriniens, while descending a rapid we would have gone over a precipice, had not my Savages promptly and skillfully leaped into the water, to turn aside the canoe which the current was sweeping on. It is probable that the others might say as much, and more, considering the number of such incidents there are. Three other difficulties gave trouble to me in particular. The first [129] was the importunity of my men, at the start, to hide somewhere a box that one of our Frenchmen had put into our canoe. The second was anxiety for those of our men we had left behind. The third, that the Algonquains, through whose territory we were passing, tried to intimidate us, saying that the Hurons would kill us as they had Brulé, and desiring to keep us among them, with abundant demonstrations of good will. Since our arrival, I have learned that the Master of my canoe had proposed to land me somewhere with my little baggage, but that his proposal had been at once repelled, and so I saw no sign of anything of the kind. All that, thank God, did not trouble me much; for having declared to them [130] that I would myself carry the box about which the trouble arose, although they had received pay to carry it, I resigned myself as far, as everything else was concerned, to the will of God, ready to die for the honor of his Son, our good Lord, and for the salvation of these poor Peoples.
Law Brief
The Jesuit Relations and Allied Documents, v. 8: Quebec, Hurons, Cape Breton, 1634-1636 — Part 46
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