about fifteen miles distant. His Indian companions were impatient to
reach their towns; the rain prevented the kindling of a fire; while the
priest, who for a long time had not heard mass, was eager to renew his
communion as soon as possible. Hence, tired and hungry as he was,
he shouldered his sack, and took the path for Ossossane without breaking
his fast. He toiled on, half-spent, amid the ceaseless pattering,
trickling, and whispering of innumerable drops among innumerable leaves,
till, as day dawned, he reached a clearing, and descried through the
mists a cluster of Huron houses. Faint and bedrenched, he entered the
principal one, and was greeted with the monosyllable "Shay!"--"Welcome!"
A squaw spread a mat for him by the fire, roasted four ears of Indian
corn before the coals, baked two squashes in the embers, ladled from her
kettle a dish of sagamite, and offered them to her famished guest.
Missionaries seem to have been a novelty at this place; for, while the
Father breakfasted, a crowd, chiefly of children, gathered about him,
and stared at him in silence. One examined the texture of his cassock;
another put on his hat; a third took the shoes from his feet, and tried
them on her own. Du Peron requited his entertainers with a few trinkets,
and begged, by signs, a guide to Ossossane. An Indian accordingly set
out with him, and conducted him to the mission-house, which he reached at
six o'clock in the evening.

Here he found a warm welcome, and little other refreshment. In respect
to the commodities of life, the Jesuits were but a step in advance of the
Indians. Their house, though well ventilated by numberless crevices in
its bark walls, always smelt of smoke, and, when the wind was in certain
quarters, was filled with it to suffocation. At their meals, the Fathers
sat on logs around the fire, over which their kettle was slung in the
Indian fashion. Each had his wooden platter, which, from the difficulty
of transportation, was valued, in the Huron country, at the price of a