Libr@rsi

(656 - 58] RELA TION OF 1637 -58 161
withdrawal undiscovered, situated as we were in the
heart of the country and constantly beset by many
of its barbarians, who, in order to watch our bearing
at this juncture, were always quartered near our
house ? It is true, they
did not think that we would
ever have the courage to undertake this move, well
knowing that we had neither canoes nor boatmen,
and that we were unfamiliar with the route, which
was bordered with precipitous bluffs, where a dozen
Iroquois could have easily defeated us. Moreover,
the season was unendurable, in the frigid temperature
of the icy water, [12] through which, nevertheless,
the canoes must be dragged, ourselves immersed
sometimes up to the neck, and remaining so for
whole hours; and we had never undertaken such
expeditions without Savages to guide us.
Despite these obstacles,— which, to them as well as
to us, appeared insurmountable,— God, who holds
every moment of our lives in his hands, inspired us
so happily with all that we needed to do, that, leav-
ing our house of sainte Marie, near Onnontagu^,
toward eleven o'clock on the night of March 20th,
we were guided by his divine Providence, as by a
constant miracle, amid all imaginable dangers, and
arrived at Quebec on the 23rd of the month of April.
We had stopped at Montreal and at three Rivers
before the launching of a single canoe had been
possible there, the river being closed to navigation
until the very day of our appearance.
All the French settlements regarded us as persons
[13] come from the other world; and could not
sufficiently marvel at the goodness of God who had,
on the one hand, miraculously delivered us from
such evident peril, and, on the other, freed from