n also gave to the World, in
the same volume, the first known picture of Niagara.

It was unquestionably a Frenchman who first, through pale-face eyes,
saw the great Cataract; and it was later than 1608, the year when the
ancient City of Quebec was founded, and white men first settled in the
northern part of this Continent.

Possibly, though improbably, he may have been one of those holy men,
Priests of the Catholic Church, who devoted their learning, their
strength, and their years to the cause of their Maker; who daily risked
their lives, as alone they braved the hardships and the sufferings of
long journeys through pathless forests, and who encountered the fury of
unknown savages, as they carried the Gospel to Tribes who dwelt along
the shores of mighty waters, in a vast and an unexplored wilderness;
and tried, though in vain, to lead those strange peoples to the Ways of
God.

[Illustration: FIRST PICTURE OF NIAGARA, BY FATHER
HENNEPIN--1697.]

It is more likely to have been one of those fearless and hardy men, one
of the earliest members of what later became a distinct class--the
Coureurs de Bois, or Woodsmen--a class founded by Champlain; on a
correct principle for commercial intercourse and the extension of
sovereignty, under conditions as they then and there existed (but
probably without any full appreciation of the important and prominent
part it was destined, later, to play in the development of New France);
when, in 1610, he gave a young Frenchman, Etienne Brule, to the
Algonquin chief Iroquet; who, in appreciation of Champlain's
confidence, gave him a young savage named Savignon, as a pledge of
future friendship.

Brule was the first Frenchman known to have joined the savages, to
become one of them, and adopt their manner of life. He spent years
amongst them, was a woodsman or trader, learnt their languages, was
Champlain's personal interpreter among the various tribes, and was
often sent as Ambassador from the French at Quebec to savage Nations.

Beloved and trusted by the Indians for years, traveling all over the
Northwest, claiming to have discovered Lake Superior, and a copper mine
on its shores (in proof of which he brought back samples of that metal
to Quebec), he was finally tortured, put to death, and eaten by the
Savages.

By reason of his acquaintance with many tribes, of his occupation, and
of his travels, there is no one who is more likely to be entitled to
the distinction of hav