Finding that they were so slow in assembling their army, and that I should have time to visit their country, I resolved to go by short days' journeys from village to village as far as Cahiague, where the rendezvous of the entire army was to be, and which was fourteen leagues distant from Carhagouha, from which village I set out on the fourteenth of August with ten of my companions. I visited five of the more important villages, which were enclosed with palisades of wood, and reached Cahiague, the principal village of the country, where there were two hundred large cabins and where all the men of war were to assemble. Now in all these villages they received us very courteously with their simple welcome. All the country where I went contains some twenty to thirty leagues, is very fine, and situated in latitude 44 deg. 30'. It is very extensively cleared up. They plant in it a great quantity of Indian corn, which grows there finely. They plant likewise squashes,[120] and sun-flowers,[121] from the seed of which they make oil, with which they anoint the head. The region is extensively traversed with brooks, discharging into the lake. There are many very good vines [122] and plums, which are excellent,[123] raspberries,[124] strawberries,[125] little wild apples,[126] nuts,[127] and a kind of fruit of the form and color of small lemons, with a similar taste, but having an interior which is very good and almost like that of figs. The plant which bears this fruit is two and a half feet high, with but three or four leaves at most, which are of the shape of those of the fig-tree, and each plant bears but two pieces of fruit. There are many of these plants in various places, the fruit being very good and savory.[128] Oaks, elms, and beeches [129] are numerous here, as also forests of fir, the regular retreat of partridges [130] and hares.[131] There are also quantities of small cherries [132] and black cherries,[133] and the same varieties of wood that we have in our forests in France. The soil seems to me indeed a little sandy, yet it is for all that good for their kind of cereal. The small tract of country which I visited is thickly settled with a countless number of human beings, not to speak of the other districts where I did not go, and which, according to general report, are as thickly settled or more so than those mentioned above. I reflected what a great misfortune it is that so many poor creatures live and die without the knowledge of God, and even without any religion or law established among them, whether divine, political, or civil; for they neither worship, nor pray to any object, at least so far as I could perceive from their conversation. But they have, however, some sort of ceremony, which I shall describe in its proper place, in regard to the sick, or in order to ascertain what is to happen to them, and even in regard to the dead. These, however, are the works of certain