Becoming America - An Exploration of American Literature from Precolonial to Post-Revolution, 2018a

BECOMING AMERICA
PRE- AND EARLY COLONIAL LITERATURE
We left the next day, continuing our course in the river as far as the entrance
to the lake. In this there are many pretty islands, which are low, covered with very
beautiful woods and meadows, where there is a quantity of game, and animals
for hunting, such as stags, fallow-deer, fawns, roebucks, bears and other animals
which come from the mainland to these islands. We caught a great many of them.
There are also many beavers, not only in this river, but in many other little ones
which empty into it. These places, although they are pleasant, are not inhabited
by any savages, on account of their wars. They withdraw as far as possible from
the river into the interior, in order not to be suddenly surprised. The next day we
entered the lake, which is of great extent, perhaps 50 or 60 leagues long. There
I saw four beautiful islands 10, 12 and 15 leagues long, which formerly had been
inhabited by savages, like the River of the Iroquois; but they had been abandoned
since they had been at war with one another. There are also several rivers which
ow into the lake that are bordered by many ne trees, of the same sorts that we
have in France, with a quantity of vines more beautiful than any I had seen in any
other place; many chestnut trees, and I have not seen any at all before, except on
the shores of the lake, where there is a great abundance of sh of a good many
varieties. Among other kinds there is one called by the savages Chaousarou, which
is of various lengths; but the longest, as these people told me, is eight or ten feet.
I saw some of them ve feet long, as big as a man’s thigh, with a head as large
as two sts, a snout two and a half feet long, and a double row of very sharp and
dangerous teeth. Its body is, in all respects, like that of the pike, but it is armed
with scales so strong that a dagger could not pierce them, and it is silver grey in
color. And the end of its snout is like that of a pig. This sh ghts all the others in
the lakes and rivers, and is wonderfully cunning, to judge from what the people
have assured me, which is, that when it wishes to catch certain birds, it goes into
the rushes or weeds which border the lake in several places, and puts its snout out
of the water without moving at all, so that when the birds come to light on its snout,
thinking that it is the trunk of a tree, the sh is so skillful in closing its snout, which
had been half open, that it draws the birds under the water by the feet. The savages
gave me a head of one of them. They set great store by them, saying that when they
have a headache they Weed themselves with the teeth of this sh where the pain is,
and it passes o at once.
Continuing our course in this lake on the west side I saw, as I was observing the
country, some very high mountains on the east side, with snow on the top of them.
I inquired of the savages if these places were inhabited. They told me that they
were by the Iroquois and that in these places there were beautiful valleys and open
stretches fertile in grain, such as I had eaten in this country, with a great many
other fruits; and that the lake went near some mountains, which were perhaps, as
it seemed to me, about fteen leagues from us. I saw on the south others not less
high than the rst, but they had no snow at all. The savages told me that it was there
that we were to go to nd their enemies, and that these mountains were thickly
peopled. They also said it was necessary to pass a rapid, which I saw afterward,
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