XXIV INTRODUCTION. 



of the wilderness was broken only by the splash of the 

 passing paddle. To the north of the river there was 

 indeed a small Algonquin band, called La Petite Nation^ 

 together with one or two other feeble communities ; but 

 they dwelt far from the banks, through fear of the 

 ubiquitous Iroquois. It was nearly three hundred miles, 

 by the windings of the stream, before one reached that 

 Algonquin tribe, La Nation de FLsle, who occupied the 

 great island of the Allumettes. Then, after many a day 

 of lonely travel, the voyager found a savage welcome 

 among the Nipissings, on the lake which bears their 

 name ; and then circling west and south for a hundred 

 and fifty miles of solitude, he reached for the first time a 

 people speaking a dialect of the Iroquois tongue. Here 

 all was changed. Populous towns, rude fortifications, 

 and an extensive, though barbarous tillage, indicated a 

 people far in advance of the famished wanderers of the 

 Saguenay, or their less abject kindred of New England. 

 These were the Hurons, of whom the modern Wy an dots 

 are a remnant. Both in themselves and as a type of 

 their generic stock they demand more than a passing 

 notice.^ 



THE HURONS. 



More than two centuries have elapsed since the Hu- 

 rons vanished from their ancient seats, and the settlers 

 of this rude solitude stand perplexed and wondering over 

 the relics of a lost people. In the damp shadow of what 



1 The usual confusion of Indian tribal names prevails in the case of 

 the Hurons. The following are their synonymes : — 



Hurons (of French origin) ; Ochateguins (Champlain) ; Attigouantans 

 (the name of one of their tribes, used by Champlain for the whole 

 nation); Ouendat (their true name, according to Lalemant) ; Yendat, 

 Wyandot, Guyandot (corruptions of the preceding) ; Ouaouakecinatouek 

 (Potier); Quatogies (Colden). 



