DU PERON'S JOURNEY.--DAILY LIFE OF THE JESUITS.--
THEIR MISSIONARY EXCURSIONS.--CONVERTS AT OSSOSSANE.--
MACHINERY OF CONVERSION.--CONDITIONS OF BAPTISM.--BACKSLIDERS.--
THE CONVERTS AND THEIR COUNTRYMEN.--THE CANNIBALS AT ST. JOSEPH.


We have already touched on the domestic life of the Jesuits. That we may
the better know them, we will follow one of their number on his journey
towards the scene of his labors, and observe what awaited him on his
arrival.

Father Francois Pu Peron came up the Ottawa in a Huron canoe in September,
1638, and was well treated by the Indian owner of the vessel. Lalemant
and Le Moyne, who had set out from Three Rivers before him, did not fare
so well. The former was assailed by an Algonquin of Allumette Island,
who tried to strangle him in revenge for the death of a child, which a
Frenchman in the employ of the Jesuits had lately bled, but had failed to
restore to health by the operation. Le Moyne was abandoned by his Huron
conductors, and remained for a fortnight by the bank of the river,
with a French attendant who supported him by hunting. Another Huron,
belonging to the flotilla that carried Du Peron, then took him into his
canoe; but, becoming tired of him, was about to leave him on a rock in
the river, when his brother priest bribed the savage with a blanket to
carry him to his journey's end.

It was midnight, on the twenty-ninth of September, when Du Peron landed
on the shore of Thunder Bay, after paddling without rest since one
o'clock of the preceding morning. The night was rainy, and Ossossane was