Identifier: popularhistoryof00brya (find matches)
Title: A popular history of the United States : from the first discovery of the western hemisphere by the Northmen, to the end of the first century of the union of the states ; preceded by a sketch of the prehistoric period and the age of the mound builders
Year: 1876 (1870s)
Authors: Bryant, William Cullen, 1794-1878 Gay, Sydney Howard, 1814-1888
Subjects:
Publisher: New York : Scribner, Armstrong, and Company
Contributing Library: Lincoln Financial Foundation Collection
Digitizing Sponsor: The Institute of Museum and Library Services through an Indiana State Library LSTA Grant

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e of His holy Word.The Indians were marvellously attentive, looking to heaven asthe Christians did, and imitating all the gestures of devotion ; butthey better understood, and were overwhelmed with joy when, theprayers being finished, the distribution of hatchets, knives, beads,rings, brooches of tin, and other trifles was begun. 1 The Conquest of Canada, by the author of Hochelaga, vol. ii., p. 55. 186 FRENCH DISCOVERIES. (Chap. YIII. Cartier and his companions soon returned to their winter-quartersat the mouth of the St. Charles, where those they had left behind hadmeanwhile built a rough fort. The river wnthin a few weeks wascovered with solid ice, and the ships were buried in four feet of snow.With the increasing cold, one of those pestilences so commonamong the amonff the Indians broke out, and, whether it was contagious, French. -, i • • i i i i ° . or whether it was superinduced by exposure to the severityof the climate, it soon attacked the French. Twenty-four of the com-
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Cartier at Hochelaga. pany died, and the rest were so enfeebled that only three were capableof any exertion. To the fear of death from sickness was added sus-picion of the Indians, who, they were afraid, would take advantage ofthe weakness of the strangers and exterminate those whom the pesti-lence spared. The natives were ordered to keep away from the fortand the ships under pretence of precaution against infection; and,when any of them approached, Cartier ordered his sick men to beatwith hammers and sticks against the side of their berths that the noisemight be mistaken for sounds of busy industry. But where they looked for danger came succor. From the Indiansthey learned that a decoction of the leaves and bark of a certain treevras a specific for that malady under which they were fast perishing.The squaws brought branches of the tree, and taught them how to pre- 1540.) EXPEDITION OF ROBERVAL. 187 pare and use this sovereign medicine, which, in a few days, not only didall that was p

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