In the autumn of 1678 a Franciscan friar, Hennepin, set out with two
canoemen, the first solitary figures of the expedition--a gray priest from
the gray Rock of Quebec, in a birch canoe, carrying with him the
"furniture of a portable altar"--a priest who professed a zeal for souls,
but who admitted a passion for travel and a burning desire to visit
strange lands. He relates of himself that, being sent from a convent in
Artois to Calais at the season of herring fishing, he made friends of the
sailors and never tired of their stories. "Often," he says, "I hid myself
behind tavern doors while the sailors were telling of their voyages. The
tobacco smoke made me very sick at the stomach, but nevertheless I
listened attentively.... I could have passed whole days and nights in this
way without eating." [Footnote: Parkman, "La Salle," p. 133. Hennepin, "A
New Discovery of a Large Country in America," ed. Thwaites, 1:30.]
Along the way up the St. Lawrence he stopped to minister to the habitants
--too few and too poor to support a priest--saying mass, exhorting, and
baptizing.
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