Nevertheless, he was forced to
disguise his feelings. "One must always keep a smiling, modest,
contented face, and now and then sing a hymn, both for his own
consolation and to please and edify the savages, who take a singular
pleasure in hearing us sing the praises of our God." Among all his
trials, none afflicted him so much as the flies and mosquitoes. "If I
had not kept my face wrapped in a cloth, I am almost sure they would
have blinded me, so pestiferous and poisonous are the bites of these
little demons. They make one look like a leper, hideous to the sight. I
confess that this is the worst martyrdom I suffered in this country;
hunger, thirst, weariness, and fever are nothing to it. These little
beasts not only persecute you all day, but at night they get into your
eyes and mouth, crawl under your clothes, or stick their long stings
through them, and make such a noise that it distracts your attention,
and prevents you from saying your prayers." He reckons three or four
kinds of them, and adds, that in the Montagnais country there is still
another kind, so small that they can hardly be seen, but which "bite
like devils' imps." The sportsman who has bivouacked in the woods of
Maine will at once recognize the minute tormentors there known as
"no-see-'ems.
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