"He had spent twenty-five years in New France, and had always been a useful person. On his first arrival, by orders of those who presided over the French colony of Quebec, he spent two whole years among the Algonquins of the Island, for the purpose of learning their language, without any Frenchman as a companion, and in the midst of those hardships, which may be readily conceived, if we will reflect what it must be to pass severe winters in the woods, under a covering of cedar or birch bark; to have one's means of subsistence dependent upon hunting; to be perpetually hearing rude outcries; to be deprived of the pleasant society of one's own people; and to be constantly exposed, not only to derision and insulting words, but even to daily peril of life. There was a time, indeed, when he went without food for a whole week; and (what is really wonderful) he even spent seven weeks without having any thing to eat but a little bark. After this preliminary training[134] was completed, being sent with four hundred Algonquins to the Iroquois to treat of peace, he performed his mission successfully. Soon after, he went to the Nipissiriens, and spent seven years with them, as an adopted member of their tribe. He had his own small estate, wigwam, and household stuff, implements for hunting and fishing, and, no doubt, his own beaver skins, with the same right of trade as the rest; in a word, he was taken into their counsels; until, being recalled, by the rulers of the French colony, he was at the same time made a commissary and charged to perform the office of an interpreter.