s. They encamped near the sandbar and waited for the canoes,
which had doubtless been delayed by the weather. The missionaries put
themselves on short rations in order to permit the hunters to keep up
their strength for the chase, and were rewarded with a stag as the
result. As it was Holy Week the whole party decided not to leave the
spot until they had kept their Easter together. On the Tuesday
following, which was the eighth day of April, they heard mass and,
although the lake had still a border of ice, they launched their canoe,
and continued their journey as before, five of the party going by land.
When they arrived at "the place of the canoe," on the 10th great was
their disappointment to find that the Iroquois had anticipated them and
carried it away. Later in the day however it was found, hidden between
two large trees on the other side of a stream. The discoverers came
upon it unexpectedly whilst looking for dry wood to make a fire, and
bore it in triumph to the lake. The hunters were out the whole day
without seeing any game. For five or six days the party subsisted on
boiled maize, no meat being obtainable. Being provided now with three
canoes, the party paddled up the lake in one day to a place where game
was abundant. The hunters saw more than 200 deer in a single herd, but
missed their aim. In their craving for flesh-meat, they shot and
skinned a poor wolf and had it ready for the kettle, when one of their
men perceived twenty or thirty deer "on the other side of a small lake
on the shore of which we were."[7] The deer were surrounded and forced
into the water, where 10 were killed, the rest being permitted to
escape. Well supplied with fresh and smoked meat they went on nearly
twenty leagues (about fifty miles) in one day, "as far as a long point
which you will find marked in the map of Lake Erie. We arrived there on
a beautiful sand-beach on the east side of this point."[8] Here
disaster overtook them. They had drawn up their canoes beyond high
water mark, but left their goods on the sand near the water, whilst
they camped for the night. A terrific gale came up from the north-east,
and the water of the lake rose until it swept with violence over the
beach. One of the party was awakened by the roaring of the waves and
wind and aroused the rest, who attempted to save their supplies.
Groping with torches along the shore, they succeeded in securing the
cargo of Galinee's canoe, and of one of Dollier's. The oth