Francis Parkman

The lot of the favored guest of an Indian camp or village is idleness without repose, for he is never left alone, with the repletion of incessant and inevitable feasts. Tired of this inane routine, Champlain, with some of his Frenchmen, set forth on a tour of observation. Journeying at their ease by the Indian trails, they visited, in three days, five palisaded villages. The country delighted them, with its meadows, its deep woods, its pine and cedar thickets, full of hares and partridges, its wild grapes and plums, cherries, crab-apples, nuts, and raspberries.

 THE HURON SEMINARY. - MADAME DE LA PELTRIE. - HER PIOUS SCHEMES. - 
 HER SHAM MARRIAGE. - SHE VISITS THE URSULINES OF TOURS. - 
 MARIE DE SAINT BERNARD. - MARIE DE L'INCARNATION. - HER ENTHUSIASM. - 
 HER MYSTICAL MARRIAGE. - HER DEJECTION. - HER MENTAL CONFLICTS. - 

 THE TOBACCO MISSIONS. - ST. JEAN ATTACKED. - DEATH OF GARNIER. - 
 THE JOURNEY OF CHABANEL. - HIS DEATH. - GARREAU AND GRELON.

The Iroquois were a people far more conspicuous in history, and their institutions are not yet extinct. In early and recent times, they have been closely studied, and no little light has been cast upon a subject as difficult and obscure as it is curious. By comparing the statements of observers, old and new, the character of their singular organization becomes sufficiently clear.

 DAUVERSIERE AND THE VOICE FROM HEAVEN. - ABBE OLIER. - THEIR SCHEMES. - 
 THE SOCIETY OF NOTRE-DAME DE MONTREAL. - MAISONNEUVE. - DEVOUT LADIES. - 
 MADEMOISELLE MANCE. - MARGUERITE BOURGEOIS. - THE MONTREALISTS AT QUEBEC. - 
 JEALOUSY. - QUARRELS. - ROMANCE AND DEVOTION. - EMBARKATION. - 
 FOUNDATION OF MONTREAL.

 FAMINE AND THE TOMAHAWK. - A NEW ASYLUM. - 
 VOYAGE OF THE REFUGEES TO QUEBEC. - MEETING WITH BRESSANI. - 
 DESPERATE COURAGE OF THE IROQUOIS. - INROADS AND BATTLES. - 
 DEATH OF BUTEUX.

The religious belief of the North-American Indians seems, on a first view, anomalous and contradictory. It certainly is so, if we adopt the popular impression. Romance, Poetry, and Rhetoric point, on the one hand, to the august conception of a one all-ruling Deity, a Great Spirit, omniscient and omnipresent; and we are called to admire the untutored intellect which could conceive a thought too vast for Socrates and Plato. On the other hand, we find a chaos of degrading, ridiculous, and incoherent superstitions.

 THE IROQUOIS WAR. - JOGUES. - HIS CAPTURE. - HIS JOURNEY TO THE MOHAWKS. - 
 LAKE GEORGE. - THE MOHAWK TOWNS. - THE MISSIONARY TORTURED. - 
 DEATH OF GOUPIL. - MISERY OF JOGUES. - THE MOHAWK "BABYLON." - 
 FORT ORANGE. - ESCAPE OF JOGUES. - MANHATTAN. - THE VOYAGE TO FRANCE. - 
 JOGUES AMONG HIS BRETHREN. - HE RETURNS TO CANADA.

 FATE OF THE VANQUISHED. - 
 THE REFUGEES OF ST. JEAN BAPTISTE AND ST. MICHEL. - 
 THE TOBACCO NATION AND ITS WANDERINGS. - THE MODERN WYANDOTS. - 
 THE BITER BIT. - THE HURONS AT QUEBEC. - NOTRE-DAME DE LORETTE.