Untitled - Libr@rsi

1651-62] RELATION OF 1650-51 69
Letter of Father Jaques Buteux, written from
three Rivers to Reverend Father Paul
Ragueneau, residing at Quebec.
MY Reverend Father,
Pax Christi.
The inward sorrow that I felt on leaving
Sillery, whither I went by Your Reverence's order,
and the state of abandonment into which the good
God cast me, were no doubt but presentiments and
foretastes of the cross that I was to meet with, and
of the chalice that I was to drink, on my arrival at
three Rivers. I felt this cross all the more, because
I considered myself guilty of the [127] loss of some
Catechumens, who had died without Baptism and I
;
had more reason to grieve for the death of some
brave Neophytes who advanced Christianity, a thousand
times more than I, among the tribes whom God
has placed under my charge.
The Iroquois penetrated into the country of the
Attikamegues, as far as the lake called Kisakami.^
I would never have thought that they could have
found or reached that lake with their canoes. On
the journey that I made to those regions, we walked
about twenty days on the snow, before coming to it.
The length of the road, the currents of water, the
horrible and very frequent torrents, did not prevent
those Barbarians from going thither, and surprising
twenty-two persons in the darkness of night. There
were only [128] three men in their cabin who