i, had done so.
And, curiously enough, at the very time when Docteur Gendron wrote his
letters, Fathers Ragueneau and Bressani were also in that Huron
Country. It is, therefore, more than reasonably certain, that all three
of them being Europeans, all three living among the Hurons,--whose
territory was not large, through which news of the presence of white
men in those days traveled fast,--that they must have known each other,
not only as acquaintances, but as intimates. The Priests had their
headquarters at the Home of the Huron Mission, and the Docteur would,
for every reason, take up his residence in that same Indian Village.
Those three men,--with the exception of Champlain, the earliest known
chroniclers of the existence of Niagara Falls,--were doubtless near
neighbors and close friends, in the Huron Country, in the wilds of
Canada, over two hundred and fifty years ago.

[Illustration: NIAGARA IN EARLY DAYS, BY THOMAS COLE.]

In 1636, there had been published at Paris a work in five volumes,
written by one Pierre Davity, who had died the year before, entitled
"The Whole World; With all its Parts, States, Empires, Kingdoms,
Republics and Governments." It had been reissued at least twice by
1649. In all three of those Editions, "America, The Third Part of the
World," had been treated of at some length--especially the Southern
Hemisphere;--and while Canada had not been overlooked, there had been
no mention of Niagara.

In 1660, Jean Baptiste de Rocoles, who was both a Counsellor to the
King and also his State Historian, reissued the work, enlarged and
"brought up to date." This issue was in three volumes, folio; rather
ponderous tomes; well printed, and elaborately bound. As in the
previous editions, it was issued by consent of the King, and with the
approval of the Clergy; and it now had the official editing of the
King's Historian.

At the end of the portion relating to America--that is, at the very end
of the last volume--its contents evidently coming to Rocoles' notice at
the last moment; probably after the work was entirely printed (for the
preceding page bears the imprint, "End of America"; and there is no
mention of its contents in the Index), is a short Chapter entitled
(translated),

"Certain Special Information about the Country of the Hurons in New
France. Recorded by the Sieur Gendron, Doctor of Medicine, who has
lived for a long time in that Country."

This supplementary Chapter is