Page:Historic highways of America (Volume 2).djvu/43

Rh "The fifth and sixth days were very different, and still they were both alike as regards the fatigues of the road. It rained the whole of the first, and it was very fine on the second; but both were very inconvenient because the snow, melted by the rays of the Sun, loaded our snowshoes and our trains. To avoid this, we were compelled on the ten following days to start very early in the morning, before the ice and snow had time to thaw.

"On the seventh day, we walked from three in the morning until one in the afternoon, in order to reach an Island, and to say holy Mass there on Palm Sunday. I said it, but I really endured in my own person some of the sufferings of the Passion of our good Master, and a thirst which glued my tongue to the roof of my mouth

"On the eighth day, to avoid the rapid torrents and the dangers of the river,—the ice on which was beginning to break up, and could not have borne us,—we entered the woods by a valley between two mountains. It was nothing but a mass of old trees overthrown by the winds, which blocked up a