Early Narratives Of The Northwest 1634 1699 PDF Download

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1917 edition. Excerpt: ...our canoes and proceeded, still five by land, for two days, to the place of the canoe. As the cold was still very severe, the game was still in the depth of the woods and did not come towards the shore of the great lake. Thus we were short of meat, and were five or six days eating nothing but a little Indian corn cooked in water. We arrived at last at the place where our people had placed the canoe in question and we found it no longer there, because the Iroquois having come upon it during the winter, while hunting, had carried it off. I leave you to imagine whether we were embarrassed. We were without provisions, in a very severe season, at a place where there was no means of obtaining any at the time, and without being able to get away for lack of canoes. We could do nothing else than recommend the matter to God and prepare for great misery and suffering. We sent our people hunting for a day, and they did not see so much as one animal. We could not as yet strip bark to make a canoe, because the wood was not in sap, and would not become so for a month and a half, and we were unable to wait that time for want of provisions. In short, we were in this perplexity when one of our men, going in search of dry wood to put on the fire, came upon the canoe that we wanted hidden between two large trees. The Indians had placed it on the other side of a river1 and hidden it so well that it was impossible to find it without a special providence of God. Everybody was delighted over this discovery; and although we were without provisions, we thought we were in a condition to reach some good hunting spot soon. And in fact at the end of one day's travel we found ourselves in a place that appeared very suitable to put animals in and where there was plenty...