each religion.

The three men chosen for the work among the Hurons were Fathers Brebeuf,
Daniel, and Davost. On their journey to their post, if they could have
followed a direct line, they would have gone up the St. Lawrence to Lake
Ontario, traversed the length of the lake, and then by a short overland
journey reached their destination. But this route would have exposed
them to the ferocious Iroquois, whose country bordered Lake Ontario on
the south. Therefore, it was necessary to take the long and circuitous
canoe-voyage which Champlain had taken fifteen years earlier (_See map_).

At last, after many pains and perils, half-dead with hunger and fatigue,
they reached a village of the Huron country. Soon they settled down to
the routine of their daily life, of which they have left us a very
readable account. Every day they had numerous visitors, some from long
distances, who came to gaze in silent wonder at their domestic
arrangements. For instance, there was the clock. They squatted on the
floor for hours, watching it and waiting to hear it strike. They thought
it was alive and asked what it ate. {153} They listened in awe when it
struck, sure that they heard the voice of a living being. "The Captain"
they called it.

Sometimes one of the French soldiers who accompanied the Jesuits, when
"the Captain" had sounded his last stroke, would cry out, "Stop!" Its
immediate silence proved that it heard and obeyed.

"What does the Captain say?" the Indians sometimes asked.

"When he strikes twelve times, he says, 'Hang on the kettle,' and when he
strikes four times, he says, 'Get up and go home.'"

This was a particularly happy thought; at the stroke of four their
visitors would invariably rise and take themselves off.

In spite of the lack of outward signs of success, the good men were
making a conquest of the savage people's hearts. Their unwearied
patience, their kindness, the innocence of their lives, and the tact with
which they avoided every occasion of ill-will, did not fail to gain the
confidence of those whom they sought to win, and chiefs of distant
villages came to urge that they would take up their abode with them.
Soon the Huron country contained no less than {154} six different points
where faithful priests preached the gospel.

The Fathers had abundant opportunities of observing the habits of the
natives. They have left a most interesting description of the great
Feast of the Dead, which was