escorted by a file of soldiers, set out for Onondaga, scarcely five leagues distant. They followed the Indian trail, under the leafy arches of the woods, by hill and hollow, still swamp and gurgling brook, till through the opening foliage they saw the Iroquois capital, compassed with cornfields and girt with its rugged palisade. As the Jesuits, like black spectres, issued from the shadows of the forest, followed by the plumed soldiers with shouldered arquebuses, the red-skinned population swarmed out like bees, and they defiled to the town through gazing and admiring throngs. All conspired to welcome them. Feast followed feast throughout the afternoon, till, what with harangues and songs, bear’s meat, beaver-tails, and venison, beans, corn, and grease, they were wellnigh killed with kindness. “If, after this, they murder us,” writes Le Mercier, “it will be from fickleness, not premeditated treachery.” But the Jesuits, it seems, had not sounded the depths of Iroquois dissimulation. * There was one exception to the real or pretended joy. Some Mohawks were in the town, and their orator was insolent and sarcastic; but the ready tongue of Chaumonot turned the laugh against him and put him to shame. Here burned the council fire of the Iroquois, and at this very time the deputies of the five tribes were assembling. The session opened on the 24th. * The Jesuits were afterwards told by Hurons, captive among the Mohawks and the Onondagas, that, from the first, it was intended to massacre the French as soon as their presence had attracted the remnant of the Hurons of Orleans into the power of the Onondagas. Lettre du P Ragueneau au R. P. Provincial, 31 Août, 1658. In the great council house, on the earthen floor and the broad platforms beneath the smoke-begrimed concave of the bark roof, stood, sat, or squatted, the wisdom and valor of the confederacy; Mohawks, Oneidas, Onondagas, Cayugas, and Senecas; sachems, counsellors, orators, warriors fresh from Erie victories; tall, stalwart figures, limbed like Grecian statues. The pressing business of the council over, it was Chaumonot’s turn to speak. But, first, all the Frenchmen, kneeling in a row, with clasped hands sang the _Veni Creator_, amid the silent admiration of the auditors. Then Chaumonot rose, with an immense wampum-belt in his hand.