Page:History of the United States of America, Spencer, v1.djvu/160

 

1626—1689.

the close of our first chapter, we gave a brief account of the progress of navigation and settlement by the French in Canada and its contiguous waters. Resuming the narrative from that point, we call the attention of the reader to some interesting facts in connection with the efforts of those enterprising Frenchmen by whose energy and perseverance their country was enabled to lay claim to that vast region of interior America known in general terms as.

The determined hostility of the Mohawks having prevented the French from occupying the upper waters of the Hudson, and cut off all progress towards the south, the Franciscan missionaries who had accompanied Champlain to Canada were led to penetrate along the northern shore of Lake Ontario till they reached the rivers flowing into Lake Huron. When Canada was restored to the French in 1632, the Jesuits obtained the privilege of occupying the vast missionary ground which New France laid open to their efforts; and it must be confessed by even the sternest Protestant that their labors for the cause which they had in hand have rarely been surpassed by missionaries in any age or in any part of the world.

Two Jesuit missionaries. Brebeuf and Daniel, guided by a party of Huron Indians, set out for the far-distant wigwams of their tribe. Paddling up the St. Lawrence, they ascended its great tributary, the Ottawa, surmounting its numerous falls and rapids, and by carrying their canoes through tangled pathways in the forest, as do the "voyageurs" of the present day, and enduring every species of hardship, they reached, after a journey of three hundred miles, the eastern projection of Lake Huron, converted one of the leading chiefs, and succeeded in establishing six missions among the rude but impressible savages on its borders. "Now and then," says Mr. Hildreth, "one of these fathers would make a voyage to Quebec in a canoe, with two or three savages, paddle in hand, exhausted with rowing, his feet naked, his breviary hanging about his neck, 