Sometimes a word, or a dream, or a fancy, or even the smallest sense of inconvenience, is enough to cause them to illtreat, or set ashore, and I dare say to murder one,--as happened last year to a poor Algonquain, who was abandoned in a rapid by his own nephew; and, not a month ago, a poor young man, also an Algonquain, having fallen into the fire, was killed near our village by his own Tribesmen, for fear he might [133] be an inconvenience in the canoe. What makes me believe they killed him is that it is the custom among them; that the Hurons said so; and that, the evening before, he ate heartily a good quantity of what we gave him; besides, two Algonquains assured us that they had a mind to brain him with one or two blows of an axe. Your Reverence has seen or known of similar cases in your winter's stay among the Savages. In a word, he who thinks of coming here must make up his mind to many obvious dangers and to great fatigues. I attribute, nevertheless, all these extraordinary difficulties to the sickness among our Savages. For we know very well how sickness alters the disposition and the inclinations even of the most sociable. I know not at what price our French and the Montagnais [134] will have become rid of it. I know, indeed, that the greater part of the Montagnais who were at the three Rivers when we embarked were sick, and that many of them died; and also that almost no one who returned by canoe from trading, was not afflicted with this contagion. It has been so universal among the Savages of our acquaintance that I do not know if one has escaped its attacks. All these poor people have been much inconvenienced by it, particularly during the Autumn, as much in their fishing as in their harvesting. Many crops are lying beneath the snow; a large number of persons are dead; there are still some who have not recovered. This sickness began with violent fever, which was followed by a sort of measles or smallpox, different, [135] however, from that common in France, accompanied in several cases by blindness for some days, or by dimness of sight, and terminated at length by diarrhœa which has carried off many and is still bringing some to the grave.
Parmy ces peines & dangers, nous auons de grandes obligations à la prouidence & bonté paternelle de nostre Seigneur: car ny par les chemins, ny dedans le Pays, pas vn de nous n'a esté pris de ce mal, ny cedé à la faim, ou perdu l'appétit. Quelques-vns ont eu du depuis quelque legere atteinte de maladie, mais cela s'est passé en peu de iours. Nostre Seigneur soit loüé à iamais, & la tres-immaculée Vierge, auec son tres-chaste Espoux, de cette singuliere faueur, qui nous a beaucoup aidé pour authoriser nostre Foy parmy ces Peuples.