lies. Here, within an area of thirty or forty miles, was the
seat of one of the most remarkable savage communities on the continent.
By the Indian standard, it was a mighty nation; yet the entire Huron
population did not exceed that of a third or fourth class American city.

To the south and southeast lay other tribes of kindred race and tongue,
all stationary, all tillers of the soil, and all in a state of social
advancement when compared with the roving bands of Eastern Canada:
the Neutral Nation west of the Niagara, and the Eries and Andastes in
Western New York and Pennsylvania; while from the Genesee eastward to
the Hudson lay the banded tribes of the Iroquois, leading members of
this potent family, deadly foes of their kindred, and at last their
destroyers.

In Champlain the Hurons saw the champion who was to lead them to
victory. There was bountiful feasting in his honor in the great lodge at
Otonacha; and other welcome, too, was tendered, of which the Hurons were
ever liberal, but which, with all courtesy, was declined by the virtuous
Champlain. Next, he went to Carmaron, a league distant, and then
to Tonagnainchain and Tequenonquihayc; till at length he reached
Carhagouha, with its triple palisade thirty-five feet high. Here he
found Le Caron. The Indians, eager to do him honor, were building for
him a bark lodge in the neighboring forest, fashioned like their own,
but much smaller. In it the friar made an altar, garnished with those
indispensable decorations which he had brought with him through all the
vicissitudes of his painful journeying; and hither, night and day, came
a curious multitude to listen to his annunciation of the new doctrine.
It was a joyful hour when he saw Champlain approach his hermitage; and
the two men embraced like brothers long sundered.

The twelfth of August was a day evermore marked with white in the
friar's calendar. Arrayed in priestly vestments, he stood before his
simple altar; behind him his little band of Christians,--the twelve
Frenchmen who had attended him, and the two who had followed Champlain.
Here stood their devout and valiant chief, and, at his side, that
pioneer of pioneers, Etienne Brule the interpreter. The Host was raised
aloft; the worshippers kneeled. Then their rough voices joined in
the hymn of praise, Te Deum laudamus; and then a volley of their guns
proclaimed the triumph of the faith to the okies, the manitous, and all
the brood of anomalous devils who ha