Iroquois scalping-parties infested the outskirts of their towns, and
murdered them in their fields and forests. The assembly met in August,
1637; and the Jesuits, knowing their deep stake in its deliberations,
failed not to be present, with a liberal gift of wampum, to show their
sympathy in the public calamities. In private, they sought to gain the
good-will of the deputies, one by one; but though they were successful in
some cases, the result on the whole was far from hopeful.

In the intervals of the council, Brebeuf discoursed to the crowd of
chiefs on the wonders of the visible heavens,--the sun, the moon, the
stars, and the planets. They were inclined to believe what he told them;
for he had lately, to their great amazement, accurately predicted an
eclipse. From the fires above he passed to the fires beneath, till the
listeners stood aghast at his hideous pictures of the flames of
perdition,--the only species of Christian instruction which produced any
perceptible effect on this unpromising auditory.

The council opened on the evening of the fourth of August, with all the
usual ceremonies; and the night was spent in discussing questions of
treaties and alliances, with a deliberation and good sense which the
Jesuits could not help admiring. [ Le Mercier, Relation des Hurons, 1638,
38. ] A few days after, the assembly took up the more exciting question
of the epidemic and its causes. Deputies from three of the four Huron
nations were present, each deputation sitting apart. The Jesuits were
seated with the Nation of the Bear, in whose towns their missions were
established. Like all important councils, the session was held at night.
It was a strange scene. The light of the fires flickered aloft into the
smoky vault and among the soot-begrimed rafters of the great council-
house, [ 1 ] and cast an uncertain gleam on the wild and dejected throng
that filled the platforms and the floor. "I think I never saw anything