superstition once fell under the writer's notice, in the case of a
wounded Indian, who begged of every one he met to drink a large bowl of
water, in order that he, the Indian, might be cured. ]

Turning from these eccentricities of the "noble savage" [ 1 ] to the
zealots who were toiling, according to their light, to snatch him from
the clutch of Satan, we see the irrepressible Jesuits roaming from town
to town in restless quest of subjects for baptism. In the case of adults,
they thought some little preparation essential; but their efforts to this
end, even with the aid of St. Joseph, whom they constantly invoked, [ 2 ]
were not always successful; and, cheaply as they offered salvation,
they sometimes railed to find a purchaser. With infants, however,
a simple drop of water sufficed for the transfer from a prospective Hell
to an assured Paradise. The Indians, who at first had sought baptism as
a cure, now began to regard it as a cause of death; and when the priest
entered a lodge where a sick child lay in extremity, the scowling parents
watched him with jealous distrust, lest unawares the deadly drop should
be applied. The Jesuits were equal to the emergency. Father Le Mercier
will best tell his own story.

[ 1 In the midst of these absurdities we find recorded one of the best
traits of the Indian character. At Ihonatiria, a house occupied by a
family of orphan children was burned to the ground, leaving the inmates
destitute. The villagers united to aid them. Each contributed something,
and they were soon better provided for than before. ]

[ 2 "C'est nostre refuge ordinaire en semblables necessitez, et
d'ordinaire auec tels succez, que nous auons sujet d'en benir Dieu a
iamais, qui nous fait cognoistre en cette barbarie le credit de ce
S. Patriarche aupres de son infinie misericorde."--Le Mercier, Relation