They say that this doth keep them warm and in health: they never go without some of it about them.

We ourselves have tried the same smoke, and having put it in our mouths, it seemed almost as hot as pepper." The foregoing is one of the earliest descriptions of tobacco smoking in any European language, the original words being in Cartier's Norman French.] As the winter set in with its customary Canadian severity the real trouble of the French began.

They did not suffer from the cold, but they were dying of scurvy.

This disease, from which the natives also suffered to some extent, was due to their eating nothing but salt or smoked provisions--forms of meat or fish.

They lived, of course, shut up in the fort, and Cartier's fixed idea was to keep the Hurons from the knowledge of his misfortune, fearing lest, if they realized how the garrison was reduced, they might treacherously attack and massacre the rest; for in spite of the extravagant joy with which their arrival had been greeted, the Amerindians--notably the two interpreters who had been to France and returned--showed at intervals signs of disquiet and a longing to be rid of these mysterious white men, whose coming might involve the country in unknown misfortunes.