Describing social life, he says that the country produced strong boys and girls, but they were led to study with difficulty. Wine was drunk in the best houses, beer in others, and a favourite drink in common use was "bouillon." Some houses were built of stone covered with pine boards, some were built with upright posts filled in with masonry; others were framework buildings of wood. There were no women servants in Canada. Most of the men started as servants and in a few years were at their ease working for themselves. He advised all who came to Canada to be ready to put their hands to anything, building or land clearing. They should bring provisions for two years, especially flour. He gives many other details showing the value of money and the price of things. The great difficulty beyond the mosquitoes and the length of the winter was the fear of the stealthy Iroquois who were here, there and everywhere, never attacking but when they were in strong force. When discovered they take to flight, and as they are so agile in their movements, it is difficult to pursue them. He trusted the "bon roi" would assist in destroying them. "And," says Boucher, "it would not be a difficult thing to get rid of them, for they consist but of eight to nine hundred men capable of bearing arms. It required only prudence and sufficient force to destroy them." Boucher was accompanied from France by Dumont, an officer in charge of 100 soldiers. In Dumont's account of his visit, written in 1663 in the "Relations," he says of Montreal that the inhabitants were the most soldierly in the country--a remark made also by Boucher. Boucher's mission to France helped to persuade the king to take over the colony as a royal possession. When the king's forces came to exterminate the Iroquois the Montreal fighting men did justice to their reputation, as we shall see. At this period the mode of living was very simple. The house was one long room lighted by three windows, in which all the family ate, slept and worked. At the bottom of the apartment was the bed of the parents, against the wall; in a corner a contrivance which served as a bench by day and a bed by night for the children. On the right, as you entered, you would have seen the open chimney rising a little above the room, and slung from a chain was the family cooking pot. Near the fireside was a small staircase or ladder leading to the grain loft above lighted by one or two small windows. A table and a few chairs or benches or a collapsible chair and table in one, completed the primitive furniture in the living room.