de passer à gay le grand Ocean que vous sçauez estre si profond, car c'est cette grãde mer qui enuironne vostre pays, tu te trompe, respondent-ils, où les terres sont conjointes en quelque endroict, ou bien il y a quelque passage guayable par où passent nos ames: & de faict nous apprenons que l'on n'a peu encore passer du costé du Nord, c'est à cause (leur repartis-ie) des grãds froids qui sont en ces mers, que si vos ames prẽnent cette route elles seront glacées & toutes roides de froid, deuant qu'elles arriuent en leurs villages. Furthermore, the Savages persuade themselves that not only men and other animals, but also all other things, are endowed with souls, and that all the souls are immortal;[17] they imagine the souls as shadows of the animate objects; never having heard of anything purely spiritual, they represent the soul of man [59] as a dark and sombre image, or as a shadow of the man himself, attributing to it feet, hands, a mouth, a head, and all the other parts of the human body. Hence this is the reason that they say the souls drink and eat, and therefore they give them food when any one dies, throwing the best meat they have into the fire; and they have often told me that the next morning they find meat which has been gnawed during the night by the souls. Now, having declared to me this fine article of their faith, I propound to them several questions. "First, where do these souls go, after the death of man and other creatures?" "They go," they say, "very far away, to a large village situated where the Sun sets." "All your country," I say to them (meaning America), "is an immense Island, as you seem to know; how is it that the souls of men, of animals, of hatchets, of knives, of kettles,--in short, the souls of all things that die or that are used, can cross the water to go to this great village that you place where the sun sets? do they [60] find ships all ready to embark them and take them over the water?" "No, they go on foot," they answer me, "fording the water in some places." "And how," I respond; "can they ford the great Ocean which you know is so deep, for it is this great sea which surrounds your country?" "Thou art mistaken," they answer; "either the lands are united in some places, or there is some passage which is fordable over which our souls pass; and, indeed, we know that no one has yet been able to pass beyond the North coast." "It is because (I answer them) of the great cold in those seas, so that if your souls take this route they will be frozen and all stiff from cold, before they reach their villages."