La Salle and the discovery of the great West - North Central ...

'54 FRANCE TAKES POSSESSION, ETC. [1671.beside him. He is like a great tree, and they arebut thelittle herbs that one walks over and tramplesunder foot. You know Onontio, 1 that famous chiefat Quebec ;you know and you have seen that he isthe terror of the Iroquois, and that his very namemakes them tremble, since he has laid their countrywaste and burned their towns with fire. Across thesea there are ten thousand Onontios like him, whoare but the warriors of our great King, of whom Ihave told you. When he says, 4 1 am going to war,everybody obeys his orders; and each of these tenthousand chiefs raisesa troop of a hundred warriors,some on sea and some on land. Some embark ingreat ships, such as you have seen at Quebec.Yourcanoes carry only four or five men, or, at the most,ten or twelve ; but our ships carry four or five hundred,and sometimes a thousand.by land, and in such numbers that ifOthers go to warthey stood in adouble file they would reach from here to Mississaquenk,which is more than twenty leagues off. Whenour King attacks his enemies, he is more terrible thanthe thunder : the earth trembles ; the air and the seaare all on fire with the blaze of his cannon :he is seenin the midst of his warriors, covered over with theblood of his enemies, whom he kills in such numbersthat he does not reckon them by the scalps, but bythe streams of blood which he causes to flow. Hetakes so many prisoners that he holds them in noaccount, but lets them go where they will, to show1The Indian name of the governor of Canada.