French interest in the history of New France is indicated
by a delightful reprint of Trois Voyages au Canada, edited by M. Bertrand Guegan, that comes to us from Paris (Editions du Carrefour : 60 francs). This engaging quarto contains the narrative of Cartier (1534-36), Champlain's story of two of his voyages (1608 and 1611), and the longer and less known description of the Hurons in 1624 by Father Gabriel Sagard, a Recollet missionary, with the original prints and maps. Sagard's work is of great importance to anthropologists, as a dispassionate account of an Indian tribe in its primitive state before it had learned new ways, good or bad, from European colonists. Those who think that the red man has been maligned by later observers should read Sagard's grim pages on the Hurons' modes of warfare and their practice of torturing their prisoners. * * * *
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