"'You are a bold liar. You know that every night you slept by my side with my children. How have you the impudence to tell your chief such lies?'
"The upshot was that Champlain returned down the Ottawa, followed by an escort of fifty canoes.
"When the party reached the Chaudiere the savages, he said, performed their mystic rites. After having carried their canoes to the foot of the Falls, they gathered in a certain spot where one of them, provided with a wooden dish, passed it round, and each one placed in the dish a piece of tobacco.
"The collection finished, the dish was placed in the midst of the band and all danced around it, chanting after their fashion. Then one of the chiefs delivered a harangue, explaining that from olden times they had always made such an offering, and that by this means they are protected from their enemies and saved from misfortune, for so the devil persuades them. Then the same chief took the dish and proceeded to throw the tobacco into the Chaudiere, amid the loud shoutings of the band. 'They are so superstitious,' said Champlain, 'that they do not believe that they can make a safe journey if they have not performed this ceremony in this particular place.'
"The Chief proceeded to throw the tobacco into the Chaudiere."
"Ah, Monsieur," Mr. Papineau continued, "it stirred my soul as I stood on that rocky cliff and thought of how many canoes of heroic missionaries, Indian braves and cheery voyageurs have paddled these waters and torn their feet on the rocky shores, going, some of them to death and some to tortures worse than death. As we drifted down with the current in the moonlight the gentle breeze in the pines along the shore seemed to be whispering sad tales of other days."
Mr. Papineau, who had spoken with such animation and fluency, relapsed into silence for several minutes, then, rousing himself, said, with even greater enthusiasm and vigor:
"Providence has crowned our lives with great blessing since the heroic Daulac struck the death-blow to the power of the Iroquois in this country, and since the English undertook the responsibility of its government. Though I am proud of the fact that every bone and muscle, nerve and sinew within me is French, though I dearly love my Mother Country and my fellow countrymen, I have no hesitation in making the solemn assertion that our country has enjoyed a greater degree of prosperity under the new regime than it ever did under the old. But it must ever be remembered that much of the foundation of that prosperity was laid in the blood of the early French martyrs and in the heroic achievements of the early French settlers."