"In truth, I was cut to the heart. I had thought of coming to Canada, only because I was sent. I felt no particular regard for the savages, but I would have rendered obedience, had they sent me a thousand times further; but I can truly say, that, even if I should have detested this country, I should have been touched by what I have seen, had my heart been brass. Would to God, that those who can help these poor souls, and do something for their salvation, could be here for three days! I think the desire of saving them would seize their whole souls." Then he proceeds to reflect that in England, in Spain, in Germany, when the Gospel was first carried thither, the barbarism of the people had been as great. (He says nothing about France, evidently considering that the time of _its_ barbarism belonged to remote antiquity.) And further, that the Indians do not lack sense, but instruction; and then goes on to speak of his plans for founding schools for the more docile children; thus anticipating the common-sense missionary policy of our own day. And he takes refuge in the end, as all souls yearning for the salvation of their fellows have had to do, in the promise of the Eternal: "_Dabo tibi gentes heridatatem tuam, et possessionem termios terræ_."
In that same bay of Tadousac, too, May recollected, the good Fathers had their first experience of what the St. Lawrence could do in the way of a storm, and had reason to be thankful for the measure of shelter which this bay could give them. As another sample of New World experience, they were nearly eaten up by the mosquitoes and a host of other insect persecutors, while the fireflies formed at least one cheering exception as they glittered among the woods "like sparks of fire, by which he could even see to read at night."
But the captain went on to talk about some of the old floating legends that still increase the romantic interest attaching to this strange river of the North,--of the fierce battles between the rival tribes, in the course of one of which is said to have taken place the terrible earthquake which rent asunder these scarped and jagged cliffs, to form this sublime channel of the Saguenay. And he spoke, also, of the romantic story which has been woven out of the old legend that a mixed marriage between the white man and the Indian was followed by the impending doom; and the terrible forest fires which have at times swept over the whole region, scorching and destroying all life, vegetable and animal, that lay in their course, and leaving their melancholy traces in the splintered, seamed crags that raise aloft majestic forms once clothed in a graceful drapery of green, now only crested here and there with a dreary skeleton of their departed forests. It was not difficult to imagine the awfulness of the scene at night, when the billows of red flame and ruddy smoke rolled in dread majesty over those grand hills, uncontrolled and uncontrollable, till they were suddenly checked by the dark, deep waters of the cold and deep river.