Читать книгу Canada онлайн

27 страница из 30

In the discovery of Lake Ontario, two years later, Champlain found some compensation for his disappointment. He was the first European to visit the "freshwater sea," as he called it. He penned a description of all he had seen, and carried it to France, where it was eagerly read. One of Champlain's mottoes was that "the salvation of a single soul was worth more than the conquest of an Empire." Up to now Quebec had been wholly without priests, but when Champlain returned to the colony he brought out four priests of the Order of the Recollets, pious men who had taken vows of poverty and self-denial. These set about converting the savages to Christianity. One of them, Joseph Le Caron, went forward to the distant Huron country, which had not yet been visited by any European. Champlain himself accompanied the priest from Quebec. On reaching the rapids just above Montreal, the Governor held a conference with the Hurons, who had come from their homes in the West to meet him and induce him to fulfil his pledge to attack the Iroquois. This expedition was one of the most fateful episodes in Champlain's life. He knew nothing about Iroquois history or character. If he had had any suspicion of what his present action was to cost his countrymen in Canada, he would rather have died than provoke the enmity of so terrible a foe. Champlain chose this time to take a most round-about route, measuring full 300 leagues, he and his men often carrying on their backs the canoes and baggage, living on coarse food, and suffering many hardships. Even the priest was obliged to take his share of the hardest work, paddling his oar until the sweat mantled his brow, staggering through the forest with a load such as a mule might carry, and with it all obliged, with the whole party, to hasten at full speed for fear of falling behind into the hands of Iroquois. In those days when there were no roads and hardly even any long paths, travellers made their way by following the rivers and lakes in canoes. When they came to the end of one waterway and wished to reach the beginning of another, they followed what were called the portages or carrying-places, paths in the woods, sometimes only a few yards long and sometimes as long as nine or ten miles.