Dieu soit beny de tout. Si nos [13] Peres qui iront en ces pais là, ont de la peine, Dieu les sçaura fort bien recompenser. Voyant donc que ie perdois beaucoup de temps en ces allées & venues aux cabanes, ie cherchay vn autre moyẽ de tirer quelque chose de la langue, dont ie parleray tantost. When I reached the cabins of the Savages, I saw their place for drying eels. This work is done entirely by the women, who empty the fish, and wash them very carefully, opening them, not up the belly but up the back; then they hang them in the smoke, first having suspended them upon poles outside their huts to drain. They gash them in a number of places, in order that the smoke may dry them more easily. The quantity of eels which they catch in the season is incredible. I saw nothing else inside and [10] outside of their cabins. They and the French eat them continually during this season, and keep a large quantity of them for the time when meat is not eaten; I mean the French, for the Savages usually have no other meat than this until the snow is deep enough for Moose hunting. As I went about from hut to hut, a little boy about twelve years old came straight up to me. A few days before, meeting him somewhere, I had given him a caress, as he seemed to me quite bright and modest. Having recognized me he said; _Ania achtam achtam_; "My brother, come, come." He conducted me to the hut of his parents, where I found an old woman who was his grandmother; he said two or three words to her which I did not understand, and this good old woman presented me with four smoked eels. I dared not refuse them [11] for fear of making her angry. I sat down upon the ground near her grandson, and took out a piece of bread that I had brought with me for my dinner; I gave some to the little boy, to his grandmother, and to his mother, who came in. They roasted an eel for me upon a little wooden spit, which they thrust into the ground near the fire. They then presented it to me upon a small piece of bark. I ate it with the child, of whom I asked some water; he brought me some in a dipper or dish made of bark. As soon as I had drunk, all those in the cabin drank after me. The little boy, having handled the roasted eel, which was very greasy, used his hair as a napkin, and the others rubbed their hands on the dogs. The good old woman, seeing that I was looking for something upon which to wipe my hands, gave me some powder made of [12] dry and rotten wood. It is with this that the mothers clean their little children, for they have no other towels. After having dined, this simple woman made me a speech, and gave me some more eel: it seemed that she was commending her son to me, but I did not understand. I took out my paper, and told her as well as I could that her son should come to see me and bring the eels they had given me, as I