er canoe load
was lost, including provisions, goods for bartering, ammunition, and,
most important of all, the altar service, with which they intended
establishing their mission among the Pottawatamies. The question was
debated whether they should take up their mission with some other
tribe, or go back to Montreal for a new altar service and supplies,
and, returning at a later period, establish themselves wherever they
should then determine. Deciding in favor of the latter view, they
concluded that the return journey would be as short by way of the Sault
and the French River as by the route which they had followed from the
east. In favor of this decision was the further consideration that not
only would they see a new country but they would have the escort of the
Ottawas who were assembling at the Sault for their annual trading visit
to Montreal and Quebec. Galinee continues: "We pursued our journey
accordingly towards the west, and after having made about 100 leagues
on Lake Erie arrived at the place where the _Lake of the Hurons_,
otherwise called the _Fresh-water Sea of the Hurons_, or the Michigan,
discharges itself into that lake. This outlet is perhaps half a league
wide and turns sharply to the north-east, so that we were in a measure
retracing our steps; at the end of six leagues we found a place that
was very remarkable and held in great veneration by all the savages of
these regions, because of a stone idol of natural formation, to which
they say they owe the success of their navigation on Lake Erie when
they have crossed it without accident, and which they appease by
sacrifices, presents of skins, provisions, etc., when they wish to
embark on it."

[7] Evidently the Rondeau.

[8] This was Point Pelee.

"This place was full of huts of those who had come to pay homage to this
idol, which had no other resemblance to a human figure than that which
the imagination chose to give it. However it was painted all over, and a
kind of face had been formed for it with vermillion. I leave you to
imagine whether we avenged upon this idol, which the Iroquois had
strongly recommended us to honor, the loss of our chapel."

"We attributed to it even the scarcity of food from which we had
suffered up to that time. In fine there was nobody whose hatred it had
not incurred. I consecrated one of my hatchets to break this god of
stone, and then having locked canoes we carried the largest piece to the
middle of the r