of that familiar life from which he
had awakened to contrasts so startling. That his progress up the Ottawa
was far from being an excursion of pleasure is attested by his letters,
fragments of which have come down to us.

"It would be hard to tell you," he writes to a friend, "how tired I was
with paddling all day, with all my strength, among the Indians; wading
the rivers a hundred times and more, through the mud and over the sharp
rocks that cut my feet; carrying the canoe and luggage through the woods
to avoid the rapids and frightful cataracts; and half starved all the
while, for we had nothing to eat but a little sagantite, a sort of
porridge of water and pounded maize, of which they gave us a very
small allowance every morning and night. But I must needs tell you what
abundant consolation I found under all my troubles; for when one sees so
many infidels needing nothing but a drop of water to make them children
of God, one feels an inexpressible ardor to labor for their conversion,
and sacrifice to it one's repose and life."

Another Recollet, Gabriel Sagard, followed the same route in similar
company a few years later, and has left an account of his experience,
of which Le Caron's was the counterpart. Sagard reckons from eighty to a
hundred waterfalls and rapids in the course of the journey, and the task
of avoiding them by pushing through the woods was the harder for him
because he saw fit to go barefoot, "in imitation of our seraphic father,
Saint Francis." "We often came upon rocks, mudholes, and fallen trees,
which we had to scramble over, and sometimes we must force our way with
head and hands through dense woods and thickets, without road or path.
When the time came, my Indians looked for a good place to pass the
night. Some went for dry wood; others for poles to make a shed; others
kindled a fire, and hung the kettle to a stick stuck aslant in the
ground; and others looked for two flat stones to bruise the Indian corn,
of which they make sagamite."

This sagamite was an extremely thin porridge; and, though scraps of fish
were now and then boiled in it, the friar pined away daily on this
weak and scanty fare, which was, moreover, made repulsive to him by
the exceeding filthiness of the cookery. Nevertheless, he was forced
to disguise his feelings. "One must always keep a smiling, modest,
contented face, and now and then sing a hymn, both for his own
consolation and to please and edify the savages, who take