"Many a melancholy Day," says Hennepin, "did I pass among these Savages." His coarse, filthy food was often of the scantiest, and his work, which he was compelled to do with squaws and slaves--for, of course, no warrior would stoop to labor--was of the hardest. Besides his useful services, one thing that helped greatly to keep him alive was the superstition of his masters. One of his belongings inspired them with wholesome dread. "I had," he says, "an Iron Pot about three foot round, which had the Figure of a Lion on it, which during our Voyage served us to bake our Victuals in. This Pot the Barbarians durst never so much as touch, without covering their Hands first in something of Castor-Skin. And so great a Terror was it to the women, { 305} that they durst not come or sleep in the Cabin where it was. They thought that there was a Spirit hid within, that would certainly kill them."
At length the time came for the Indians to go on their annual hunt, and they took Hennepin along. His countrymen were also of the party, and thus he was again thrown with them. The friar gives this indignant account of their outfit: "Our whole Equipage consisted of fifteen or twenty Charges of Powder, a Fusil [gun], a little sorry Earthen Pot, which the Barbarians gave us, a knife between us both, and a Garment of Castor [beaver]. Thus we were equipped for a voyage of 250 Leagues."
The whole band, some two hundred and fifteen in number, descended Rum River, the outlet of Mille Lacs, and encamped opposite its mouth, on the bank of the Mississippi. Food was scarce. The whole camp was on short rations, and the three Frenchmen could get little to eat but unripe berries.
This condition of things was scarcely endurable, and Hennepin was happy in securing permission from the head chief, who always acted in a very friendly manner, to go with his countrymen to { 306} the mouth of the Wisconsin, where he said that he had an appointment to meet some French traders who were coming thither with goods--a piece of pure invention which, however, served its purpose very well. Accau refused to go, preferring the savage life to traveling with the friar. But Du Gay gladly joined him, and the two set off in a small canoe that had been given them. They went swiftly down the river, and soon came to a famous cataract, between the sites of St. Paul and Minneapolis, which Hennepin called the Falls of St. Anthony, in honor of the saint whom he particularly reverenced, St. Anthony of Padua. The name remains to this day and keeps alive the memory of the eccentric friar.[3]