At the moment of our capture the Iroquois were dying of hunger; so that, in two or three days, they consumed all our provisions, and we had no food during the rest of the way but from hunting, fishing, or some wild roots, if any were found. Their want was so great that they picked up on the shore a dead beaver already putrefying. They gave it to me in the evening to wash in the river; but, its stench leading me to believe that they did not want it, I threw it into the water. I was paid for that by a severe penance. I will not here relate all I had to suffer in that voyage. It is enough to say that we had to carry our loads in the woods where there were no roads, but only stones, shoots, holes, water, and snow, which had not yet everywhere melted. We were barefooted, and were left fasting sometimes till three or four o'clock in the afternoon, and often during the whole day, exposed to the rain, and drenched with the waters of the torrents and rivers which we had to cross. When evening was come I was ordered to go for wood, to bring water, and to cook when they had any provisions. When I did not succeed, or misunderstood the orders which I received, blows were not spared; still less when we met other barbarians going to fish or hunt. It was not easy for me to rest at night, because they tied me to a tree, leaving me exposed to the keen night air, which was still quite cold. We at last arrived at their lake [Champlain]. We had to make other canoes, in which I too had to do my part. After five or six days' sailing we landed, and marched for three more. The fourth day, which was the fifteenth of May, we arrived about the twentieth hour [3 P.M.], and before having as yet taken any food, at a river where some four hundred barbarians were gathered fishing. Hearing of our approach, they came out to meet us. When about two hundred paces from their cabins, they stripped off all my clothes, and made me march ahead. The young men formed a line on each side, armed with sticks, except the first one, who held a knife in his hand. When I began my march this one stopped my passage, and, seizing my left hand, cleft it open with his knife between the little finger and the ring finger, with such force and violence that I thought he would lay open my whole hand. The others then began to load me with blows till I reached the stage which they had erected for our torture. Then I had to mount on great pieces of bark, raised about nine palms high so as to give the crowd an opportunity to see and insult us. I was all drenched and covered with blood that streamed from every part of my body, and exposed to a very cold wind that made it congeal immediately on my skin. But I consoled myself, seeing that God granted me the favor of suffering in this world some pain in place of what I was under obligation, on account of my sins, to pay in the other with torments incomparably greater.