-men long after he was dead.

In the following spring (1611) Champlain did another memorable thing: he
established a post, which afterward grew into a trading-station, at
Montreal. Thus the two oldest and most historic towns of Canada owe
their foundation to him.

Champlain purposed accompanying a great force of Algonquins and Hurons in
an inroad into the Iroquois country. The savage warriors, however,
unwilling to wait for him, set out for their villages, taking with them
an adventurous friar named Le Caron. But Champlain was not to be baulked
by this circumstance. He immediately started on the track of the larger
party, with ten Indians and two Frenchmen, one of whom was his
interpreter, Etienne Brule. He went up the Ottawa River, made a portage
through the woods, and launched his canoes on the waters of Lake
Nipissing, passing through the country of a tribe so sunk in degrading
superstitions, that the Jesuits afterward called them "the Sorcerers."

After resting here two days and feasting on {134} fish and deer, which
must have been very welcome diet after the scant fare of the journey, he
descended French River, which empties the waters of Nipissing into Lake
Huron. On the way down, hunger again pinched his party, and they were
forced to subsist on berries which, happily, grew in great abundance. At
last a welcome sight greeted Champlain. Lake Huron lay before him. He
called it the "Mer Douce" (Fresh-water Sea).

Down the eastern shore of the Georgian Bay for more than a hundred miles
Champlain took his course, through countless islets, to its lower end.
Then his Indians landed and struck into a well-beaten trail leading into
the heart of the Huron country, between Lakes Huron and Ontario. Here he
witnessed a degree of social advancement far beyond that of the shiftless
Algonquins on the St. Lawrence. Here were people living in permanent
villages protected by triple palisades of trees, and cultivating fields
of maize and pumpkins and patches of sunflowers. To him, coming from
gloomy desolation, this seemed a land of beauty and abundance.

The Hurons welcomed him with lavish hospitality, expecting that he would
lead them to {135} victory. He was taken from village to village. In
the last he found the friar Le Caron with his twelve Frenchmen. Now
there were feasts and dances for several days, while the warriors
assembled for the march into the Iroquois country. Then the little army
set out, carryin