, and took three Frenchmen,
one of whom was a Jesuit. They killed one, but the Jesuit (whose left
thumb was cut off, and all the nails and parts of his fingers were
bitten,) we released, and sent him to France by a yacht which was going
to our country. They spare all the children from ten to twelve years
old, and all the women whom they take in war, unless the women are very
old, and then they kill them too. Though they are so very cruel to
their enemies, they are very friendly to us, and we have no dread of
them. We go with them into the woods, we meet with each other,
sometimes at an hour or two's walk from any houses, and think no more
about it than as if we met with a Christian. They sleep by us, too, in
our chambers before our beds. I have had eight at once lying and
sleeping upon the floor near my bed, for it is their custom to sleep
simply on the bare ground, and to have only a stone or a bit of wood
under their heads. In the evening, they go to bed very soon after they
have supped; but early in the morning, before day begins to break, they
are up again. They are very slovenly and dirty; they wash neither
their face nor hands, but let all remain upon their yellow skin, and
look like hogs. Their bread is Indian corn beaten to pieces between
two stones, of which they make a cake, and bake it in the ashes: their
other victuals are venison, turkies, hares, bears, wild cats, their own
dogs, etc. The fish they cook just as they get them out of the water
without cleansing; also the entrails of deer with all their contents,
which they cook a little; and if the intestines are then too tough,
they take one end in their mouth, and the other in their hand, and
between hand and mouth they separate and eat them. So they do commonly
with the flesh, for they carve a little piece and lay it on the fire,
as long as one would need to walk from his house to church, and then it
is done; and then they bite into it so that the blood runs along their
mouths. They can also take a piece of bear's-fat as large as two fists,
and eat it clear without bread or anything else. It is natural to them
to have no bears; not one in an hundred has any hair about his mouth.

They have also naturally a very high opinion of themselves; they say,
Ihy Othkon, ("I am the Devil") by which they mean that they are
superior folks. In order to praise themselves and their people,
whenever we tell them they are very expert at catching deer, or doing