consequent n'ont oüy la Messe toute l'annee, ne se sont ny confessez, ny communiez à Pasques, & viuent dans des occasions tres-grandes de pecher. _Quæritur_, s'ils peuuent en cõscience y aller de la forte; Vostre [6] Reuer[~e]ce me fera plaisir de consulter quelqu'vn de nos Peres pour en sçauoir la resolution & me l'escrire. [1 i.e.,3] Letter[35] from Father Charles L'Allemant, Superior of the Mission of Canadas, of the Society of JESUS. To Father Jerome l'Allemant, his brother.[36] The peace of Christ be with you. LAST year (about the middle of July) I wrote to Your Reverence in regard to the success of our voyage. I have not been able to communicate with you since then, because the ships touch here only once a year; and therefore news can be expected from us only from year to year. And if these ships failed once, it would not be surprising if you did not receive news before two years; besides, during the intervening year we should be obliged to look entirely to the providence of God for the necessaries of life. Now, since my last letters, the following is what I have been able to learn about this country, and what has been done here. This country is of vast extent, being easily a thousand or twelve hundred leagues long, and in width extending about 40 degrees toward the Orient. It is bounded by the Ocean sea, and towards the West by the sea of China. Many Tribes inhabit it, about 38 or 40 having been named to me, besides those which are unknown; of the existence of which, however, the Savages assure us. The place inhabited by the French, called Kebec, is in 46 and one-half degrees, upon the shore of one of the most beautiful rivers in the world, called by the French the river saint Lawrence. Kebec is about two hundred leagues from the mouth of this river, and yet the tide ascends 35 or 40 leagues above us. [4] The narrowest part of this river is opposite the settlement, and yet its width here is more than one-fourth of a league. Now although the country where we are, being in latitude about 46 and one-half degrees, is farther South than Paris by nearly two degrees, yet the Winter generally lasts here 5 months and a half; the snow is 3 or 4 feet deep, but it is so firm that it does not usually melt until near the middle of April, and it always begins in the month of November. During all this time the earth is never seen; indeed our Frenchmen have even told me that they dragged their maypole over the snow on the first day of May, in the very year of our arrival, and that with snowshoes; for it is the custom in this country to walk on snowshoes during the winter, for fear of sinking into the snow, in imitation of the Savages; who never go otherwise to hunt the moose. The mildest Winter that has been seen is the one that we have passed here (say