They
broke this carrion into fragments, and thawed and devoured it, to the
disgust of the spectators, who tried vainly to prevent them.
This was but a severe access of the periodical famine which, during
winter, was a normal condition of the Algonquin tribes of Acadia and the
Lower St. Lawrence, who, unlike the cognate tribes of New England, never
tilled the soil, or made any reasonable provision against the time of
need.
One would gladly know how the founders of Quebec spent the long hours of
their first winter; but on this point the only man among them, perhaps,
who could write, has not thought it necessary to enlarge. He himself
beguiled his leisure with trapping foxes, or hanging a dead dog from a
tree and watching the hungry martens in their efforts to reach it.
Towards the close of winter, all found abundant employment in nursing
themselves or their neighbors, for the inevitable scurvy broke out with
virulence. At the middle of May, only eight men of the twenty-eight were
alive, and of these half were suffering from disease.
This wintry purgatory wore away; the icy stalactites that hung from the
cliffs fell crashing to the earth; the clamor of the wild geese was
heard; the bluebirds appeared in the naked woods; the water-willows were
covered with their soft caterpillar-like blossoms; the twigs of the
swamp maple were flushed with ruddy bloom; the ash hung out its black
tufts; the shad-bush seemed a wreath of snow; the white stars of the
bloodroot gleamed among dank, fallen leaves; and in the young grass of
the wet meadows the marsh-marigolds shone like spots of gold.
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