renovated state of being, to pastimes found congenial and appeasing in life--their undisturbed enthroning, as it were. Joyously, anticipation clings to a haunt delectable--happily and charmingly contrived to embosom spacious parks immure seductive coverts; refreshed soothingly his spirits by dreams of illimitable, virgin preserves, which should be stocked with unnumbered game, and where--equipped to perfection for the chase--he should plunge with satiety into its vehement pursuit." "It has been said that the Indian, agog for some ample scheme of ethics, is much more prone to follow the evil than the moral practices of the whites.... There can be no doubt, I fancy, that were the Indian to be thrown continuously with a corrupt community amongst the whites--should he consort freely with a class with whom a lower order of morality obtains--his acquisition of higher knowledge, instead of giving him better and finer tastes, must inevitably make him more skilled in planning works of iniquity." The writer draws attention to the sardonic delight the humorous Indian takes in perpetrating some dire practical joke on his victim. The same trait was shown in this early period, when the brave would calmly smoke his pipe and grimly watch the Christian missionary's finger forcibly placed in it, gradually frizzle away. The modern Iroquois is a supremely indolent creature--fasting stoically when food does not come easily, but ever ready for unbounded feasting. The effect of spirituous liquors on him is the same as of old, and justifies the attempts of the Montreal clergy to suppress its traffic to the natives. "Intoxicants," says the writer quoted, "when freely used by the Indian, cloud, often wholly dethrone his reason, annul his self-control; madly slaying all the gentler, enkindle and set ablaze all the baser, emotions of his nature, impelling him to acts vile, inhuman, bestial; with direful transforming power, make the man a fiend, leave him, in short, the mere sport of demoniac passion. It may be thought that this is an overdrawn sketch, and that, even if it were true--which I aver it to be--full exposure of its fearsome aspect, its sombre outlines, might well have been withheld." FOOTNOTES: [44] Dollier de Casson says that Montreal was all handed over on October 15, 1641. Vimont, who was an eye witness, gives the date as May 17, 1642. See "Relations for 1642." We combine both accounts.