Untitled - Libr@rsi

14 PREFACE TO VOL. XXXVII
land, and raised a fair crop of corn a fort has been
;
built, also a chapel, and a house for the Fathers—
Chaumonot and Garreau, the former having evidently
written this account of them.
Good news comes from Tadoussac, where a mission
chapel and residence of timber have been
erected, and two new mission outposts established
among tribes beyond the Saguenay. At Tadoussac
itself, some eighty persons were baptized, and nearly
three hundred came to confession, during the past
year. In the winter, the Fathers sometimes go to
Quebec, and sometimes join their savage disciples in
their winter hunt, suffering therein many privations
and hardships. In the spring, these wandering
sheep come back to Tadoussac, to a joyful reunion
with their pastor. As usual, their great stumblingblock
is in the liquors brought in trade by the
French ;
the missionaries contend against this to the
utmost of their ability, but cannot prevent the evil
traffic. The Attikamegues, terrified at the invasion
of their land by the Iroquois, have fled to the St.
Lawrence, part of them to Tadoussac.
A chapter is devoted to Father de Quen's journal
of his mission to the Porcupine tribe, about Lake St.
John. He goes thither with a trading-fleet of canoes,
and spends twelve days in religious ministrations to
those remote disciples, of whose simple faith and
zeal he recounts several incidents. Immediately after
his return to Tadoussac, he undertakes a similar mission
to the Bersiamites tribe, who dwell on the north
shore of the St. Lawrence, below Anticosti Island.
He is greatly aided by the Christian Indians who
escort him thither, who show much zeal for the
conversion of their allies.