only a falcon-shot wide; it has as great a supply of fish as any river in the world. As to the country, it is wonderfully beautiful, and abounds in game. But being in a colder region than port Royal, since it is eighty leagues farther North, the fur there is all the finer. For (among other animals) the Foxes are black and of such beautiful fur that they seem to put the Martens to shame. The Savages of Port Royal can go to Kebec in ten or twelve days by means of the rivers, which they navigate almost up to their sources; and thence, carrying their little bark canoes for some distance through the woods, they reach another stream which flows into the river of Canada, and thus greatly expedite their long voyages, which we ourselves could not do in the present state of the country. And from Port Royal to Kebec by sea it is more than four hundred leagues, going by way of Cape Breton. Sieur de Monts sent some cows there two years and a half ago, but for want of some village housewife who understood [41] taking care of them, they let the greater part die in giving birth to their calves. [_The need of women._] Which shows how necessary a woman is in a house, and I cannot understand why so many people slight them, although they cannot do without them. For my part, I shall always believe that, in any settlement whatsoever, nothing will be accomplished without the presence of women. Without them life is sad, sickness comes, and we die uncared-for. Therefore I despise those woman-haters who have wished them all sorts of evil, which I hope will overtake that lunatic in particular, who has been placed among the number of the seven Sages, who said that woman is a necessary evil, since there is no blessing in the world to be compared to her. [_Ecclesiastes 4, verse 10._] Therefore God gave her _as a companion to man, to aid and comfort him_: and the Wise Man says:--_Woe to him that is alone, for when he falleth, he hath none to lift him up. And if two lie together, they shall warm one another_. If there are some worthless women, we must remember that men are not faultless. Several suffered because of this lack of cows, for, when they fell ill they did not have all the comforts [42] that they would have had otherwise, and so they have departed to the Elysian fields. [_A conspiracy punished._] Another, who had been with us on the voyage, did not have the patience to wait for death, but must needs go to heaven by scaling the walls, as soon as he arrived there, by a conspiracy against sieur de Champlein, his Captain. His accomplices were condemned to the galleys and sent back to France. [_Journey to the land of the Iroquois._] When Summer came, that is a year ago, Champlein wishing to see the country of the Iroquois, to prevent the Savages from seizing his Fort in his absence, persuaded them to go and make war against them; so they departed with him and two other Frenchmen, to the number of eighty or a hundred, to the lake of the Iroquois,