The things we do!

There was a time when these "Relations," as they came from the famous
press of Cramoisy, were eagerly awaited and devoured, and were everywhere
the themes of enthusiastic discussion in circles of high devotion in Paris
and throughout France, where it is doubtless believed by many to-day that
the borders of the lakes which the authors of these "Relations" traversed
are still possessed by Indians, or at best by half-civilized, half-
barbaric peoples who would stand agape in the Louvre as the Goths stood
before the temples and the statues of Rome.
The "Relations" of Jesuits are among our most precious chronicles in
America. With these the history of the north--the valleys of the St.
Lawrence, the Great Lakes, and the Mississippi--begins. The coureurs de
bois may have anticipated the priests in some solitary places, but they
seldom made records. Doubtless, like Nicolet, they told their stories to
the priests when they went back to the altars for sacrament, so that even
their experiences have been for the most part preserved.


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