land, and raised a fair crop of corn; a fort has been built, also a chapel, and a house for the Fathers – Chaumonot and Garreau, the former having evidently written this account of them.
Good news comes from Tadoussac, where a mission chapel and residence of timber have been erected, and two new mission outposts established among tribes beyond the Saguenay. At Tadoussac itself, some eighty persons were baptized, and nearly three hundred came to confession, during the past year. In the winter, the Fathers sometimes go to Quebec, and sometimes join their savage disciples in their winter hunt, suffering therein many privations and hardships. In the spring, these wandering sheep come back to Tadoussac, to a joyful reunion with their pastor. As usual, their great stumbling-block is in the liquors brought in trade by the French; the missionaries contend against this to the utmost of their ability, but cannot prevent the evil traffic. The Attikamègues, terrified at the invasion of their land by the Iroquois, have fled to the St. Lawrence, part of them to Tadoussac.
A chapter is devoted to Father de Quen's journal of his mission to the Porcupine tribe, about Lake St. John. He goes thither with a trading-fleet of canoes, and spends twelve days in religious ministrations to those remote disciples, of whose simple faith and zeal he recounts several incidents. Immediately after his return to Tadoussac, he undertakes a similar mission to the Bersiamites tribe, who dwell on the north shore of the St. Lawrence, below Anticosti Island. He is greatly aided by the Christian Indians who escort him thither, who show much zeal for the conversion of their allies.
