United States or Latvia ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
From lip to lip the story of his lone trail was repeated through the bark lodges of the Algonkins, and the long houses of the fierce Hurons, and even among the gentle nuns and gaunt priests of the brave mission settlements upon the lower St. Lawrence River. But the nuns and priests did not favor such bloody deeds, which led only to more.
While he made the fur trade of great value to the merchant company in France, he committed the fatal mistake of mixing up with Indian quarrels. Between the Five Nations of New York and the Hurons and their allies, the Algonquins of the St. Lawrence, perpetual war prevailed, and Champlain by taking sides against the former incurred for the French the lasting hatred of those powerful Indians.
But at last he found his way back to a river which he recognized, and reached the camp of the Hurons, who were extremely delighted at his return. Had they not found him, or had he not come back of himself, they told him that they could never again have visited the French for fear of being held responsible for his death.
On the next day, they all came down the rapids, and landed near the town. There were fully five hundred of them, Hurons, Ottawas, Ojibwas, Pottawatamies, Crees, and Nipissings, with a hundred and ten canoes laden with beaver skins to the value of nearly a hundred thousand crowns.
"Are the bones of my young men," he concluded, "in the burial-place of the Hurons? You know they are not. Their spirits are gone towards the setting sun, and are already crossing the great waters, to the happy hunting-grounds. But they departed without food, without guns or knives, without moccasins, naked and poor as they were born. Shall this be?
Among the most dangerous of their enemies were the Hurons and the eastern Algonkins, sustained and encouraged by the French colonists.
That article is now fitted with India-rubber soles for the Quebec demand, a continuation of the sole running in a low strip round the edge of the foot. With the gradual widening of that strip, until the moccason of the red man has been clean obliterated from things that are by the India-rubber of the white, will the remnant of the Hurons have passed away with things that were.
"Seven nights, and as many summer days, have I fasted on the trail of the Hurons," Uncas coldly replied; "the children of the Lenape know how to travel the path of the just without lingering to eat."
It is now bright; when it is red, it shall be buried." "But Magua is pledged not to sully the lilies of France. The enemies of the great king across the salt lake are his enemies; his friends, the friends of the Hurons." "Friends!" repeated the Indian in scorn. "Let his father give Magua a hand."
Then came those years of terror, when trade and enterprise were paralysed by those raids of the Iroquois, which culminated in the dispersion of the Hurons. For years the Ottawa valley was almost deserted, and very few traders or coureurs de bois ventured into the country around the western lakes.
Word Of The Day