nd furnished with a peaked
hood, to be drawn over the head. Their naked feet were shod with wooden
sandals, more than an inch thick.

Their first care was to choose a site for their convent, near the
fortified dwellings and storehouses built by Champlain. This done,
they made an altar, and celebrated the first mass ever said in Canada.
Dolbean was the officiating priest; all New France kneeled on the bare
earth around him, and cannon from the ship and the ramparts hailed
the mystic rite. Then, in imitation of the Apostles, they took counsel
together, and assigned to each his province in the vast field of their
mission,--to Le Caron the Hurons, and to Dolbean the Montagnais; while
Jamay and Du Plessis were to remain for the present near Quebec.

Dolbean, full of zeal, set out for his post, and in the next winter
tried to follow the roving hordes of Tadoussac to their frozen
hunting-grounds. He was not robust, and his eyes were weak. Lodged in
a hut of birch bark, full of abominations, dogs, fleas, stench, and all
uncleanness, he succumbed at length to the smoke, which had wellnigh
blinded him, forcing him to remain for several days with his eyes
closed. After debating within himself whether God required of him
the sacrifice of his sight, he solved his doubts with a negative, and
returned to Quebec, only to depart again with opening spring on a tour
so extensive that it brought him in contact with outlying bands of the
Esquimaux. Meanwhile Le Caron had long been absent on a more noteworthy
mission.

While his brethren were building their convent and garnishing their
altar at Quebec, the ardent friar had hastened to the site of Montreal,
then thronged with a savage concourse come down for the yearly trade.
he mingled with them, studied their manners, tried to learn their
languages, and, when Champlain and Pontgrave arrived, declared his
purpose of wintering in their villages. Dissuasion availed nothing.
"What," he demanded, "are privations to him whose life is devoted to
perpetual poverty, and who has no ambition but to serve God?"

The assembled Indians were more eager for temporal than for spiritual
succor, and beset Champlain with clamors for aid against the Iroquois.
He and Pontgrave were of one mind. The aid demanded must be given,
and that from no motive of the hour, but in pursuance of a deliberate
policy. It was evident that the innumerable tribes of New France,
otherwise divided, were united in a common fear a