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LOST IN THE FORESTS OF ACADIA
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from what direction it proceeded. You may judge of the joy which I experienced in seeing this charitable Indian who was coming to us to show us our road by that which you would have experienced yourself under similar circumstances." After making ready a camp for the party, he made them a present of a partridge which he had killed. Shortly after he secured two more at one shot from their roost on the branches of a fir, and the three were put in the kettle for the supper of the whole five. The Indian who had met them was charitable enough in his own way, but yet having an eye to business, so he offered to act as their guide and pilot them out of the forest on condition of receiving two dozen blankets, a barrel of flour, three of Indian corn, a dozen cloaks, ten guns, with powder and lead, besides a variety of other things. The party never passed a more agreeable night, but had to leave next morning without partaking of any food.

"About four o'clock in the afternoon, we fortunately found two large porcupines." In the words of Father LeClerc: "These animals, which very much resemble the hedgehog that one sees in France, were denned in the hollow of a tree whose bark they had eaten, and which had served for their food. Commonly, each has his own den, and the Indian was as much surprised as we were to see them both denning together. The one which was taken first was loaded on my shoulders in order that I might take it to the squaw who had already lighted the fire. We made a good meal of it. The soup seemed to us as savoury as a good "consommé;" and we experienced in reality that the proverb is very true, and that there is no better sauce than a good appetite.

The other porcupine we carried to the camp of our Indian, where we found eight persons, in whose attenuated and fleshless countenances could plainly be seen the effects of the little nourishment which they had taken, and the hunger which these poor unfortunates had suffered during