They did not know by what route to reach them, although they tried more than a hundred; there were no gestures which would sufficiently express their ideas, not if they would use ten thousand of them. Meanwhile our gentlemen Savages, to pass away the time, made abundant sport of their pupils, always telling them a lot of [152] nonsense. And yet if you wanted to take advantage of this fun, if you had your paper and pencil ready to write, you had to set before them a full plate with a napkin underneath. For to such tripods do good oracles yield; without this incentive, both Apollo and Mercury would fail them; as it was, they even became angry and went away, if we wished to detain them a little. What would you have done under the circumstances? For in truth, this work cannot be understood except by those who have tried it. Besides, as these Savages have no formulated Religion, government, towns, nor trades, so the words and proper phrases for all those things are lacking; Holy, Blessed, Angel, Grace, Mystery, Sacrament, Temptation, Faith, Law, Prudence, Subjection, Authority, etc. Where will [153] you get all these things that they lack? Or, how will you do without them? O God, with what ease we make our plans in France! And the beauty of it is, that, after having racked our brains by dint of questions and researches, and after thinking that we have at last found the philosopher's stone, we find only that a ghost has been taken for a body, a shadow for a substance, and that all this precious Elixir has gone up in smoke! They often ridiculed, instead of teaching us, and sometimes palmed off on us indecent words, which we went about innocently preaching for beautiful sentences from the Gospels. God knows who were the instigators of such sacrileges. Vn expedient se presenta aux Iesuites pour se depestrer heureusement [154] de ces embroüillements, & entraues. C'estoit d'aller trouuer le ieune du Pont duquel on apportoit nouuelle, qu'il s'estoit resolu d'hyuerner à la riuiere S. Ieã, à quelques dix-huict, où vingt lieuës de Port Royal. Car d'autãt que ledit du Pont auoit ja long temps vescu au pays, & mesmes à la Syluatique parmy les Originaires, on disoit de luy, qu'il entendoit fort bi[~e] la lãgue. Et ne falloit point douter, qu'au moins il sçauroit proprem[~e]t expliquer les demandes pour tirer des sauuages la response à propos: ce qui estoit necessaire pour coucher par escrit vn petit Catechisme, & instruction Chrestienne. Le P. Biard donc se resolut d'aller chercher ledit du Pont, se determinant de plustost passer la Baye Françoise dans vn cauot, deuant que de ne se seruir de ceste occasion de bien faire. [155] Mais le sieur de Biencourt s'opposa fort à ceste deliberation, entrant à ceste occasion en de grãds ombrages, ausquels il fallut ceder, pour auoir paix.