with a few Indians, Champlain tried to pass the rapids of
St. Louis; but oars, paddles, and poles alike proved vain against the
foaming surges, and he was forced to return, but not till the Indians
had drawn for him rude plans of the river above, with its chain of
rapids and its lakes and its cataracts. They were quite impassable,
said the natives, though, indeed, to these white strangers everything
seemed possible.

"These white men must have fallen from the clouds," they said. "How
else could they have reached us through the woods and rapids which
even we find it hard to pass?" Champlain wanted to get to the upper
waters of the Ottawa River, to the land of the cannibal Nipissings,
who dwelt on the lake that bears their name; but they were enemies,
and the natives refused to advance into their country.

Two years later he accomplished his desire, and found himself at last
in the land of the Nipissings. He crossed their lake and steered his
canoes down the French river. Days passed and no signs of human life
appeared amid the rocky desolation, till suddenly three hundred
savages, tattooed, painted, and armed, rushed out on them. Fortunately
they were friendly, and it was from them that Champlain learned the
good news that the great freshwater lake of the Hurons was close at
hand.

What if the Friar Le Caron, one of Champlain's party, had preceded
him by a few days, Champlain was the first white man to give an account
of it, if not the first to sail on its beautiful waters. For over one
hundred miles he made his way along its eastern shores, until he reached
a broad opening with fields of maize and bright patches of sunflower,
from the seeds of which the Indians made their hair-oil. After staying
a few days at a little Huron village where he was feasted by friendly
natives, Champlain pushed on by Indian trails, passing village after
village till he reached the narrow end of Lake Simcoe. A "shrill clamour
of rejoicing and the screaming flight of terrified children" hailed
his approach. The little fleet of canoes pursued their course along
the lake and then down the chain of lakes leading to the river Trent.
The inhabited country of the Hurons had now given place to a desolate
region with no sign of human life, till from the mouth of the Trent,
"like a flock of venturous wild fowl," they found themselves floating
on the waters of Lake Ontario, across which they made their way safely.

It was a great day in the life of