396 ON THE EARLY DISCOVERIES OF THE 



him to France. Hearing from this man, on his return in the spring of 

 1612, that hy the route of the Ottawa he could reach the North Sea, 

 where the English had in the meantime discovered Hudson's Bay, he 

 proceeded up the Ottawa, giving a very clear description of the rapids 

 and portages, and the confluence of the Rideau, Madawaska, and other 

 streams, and reached as far as the great Alumette Island, which was 

 the seat of the principal Algonquin Chief in those parts. Finding, 

 however, that he had been deceived as to the probability of reaching 

 the North Sea, and the Indians being unwilling to accompany him 

 farther, he once more returned to France, and spent three years there 

 in trying to induce some of the leading nobility to take his infant 

 colony under their patronage. 



This is the period of the first maps which I have seen. They bear 

 date 1603, 1607, and 1609 ; but the most extensive is that published 

 in 1613, with the first account of Champlain's voyages. It is not 

 amongst those which I have copied. It gives his discoveries on the 

 Atlantic coast, on the lower St. Lawrence, and the Ottawa, and indi- 

 •eates the existence of a large lake, from which the St. Lawrence flows. 

 Immediately upon his return in 1615, he joined, with about a dozen 

 companions in another expedition against the Iroquois, the details of 

 which are more particularly interesting to us, not only because it gave 

 rise to the most important of the early discoveries, but because it was the 

 first introduction of civilized man into what is now Upper Canada. Seeing 

 that the Iroquois were seated on the south bank of the St. Lawrence, and 

 their chief villages were amongst those lakes and rivers south of Lake 

 Ontario which still bear the English names for the different tribes, he took 

 a very curious road to reach them. It must, however, be remembered, 

 that his Indian allies had to return home to collect their forces. He 

 ascended the Ottawa beyond the limit of his first journey, till he 

 branched off into the chain of small lakes, which led him to the Lake 

 of the Epicerini, or Nebicerini, as later writers call them, an Algonquin 

 tribe, who were long celebrated for their power as sorcerers, and whose 

 name we still preserve in that of Lake Nipissing. Descending the 

 river which flows out of that lake, he readied the great lake of the 

 Attagouantans, or the fresh water sea of the Hurons, which he tells 

 us is three hundred leagues from east to west, and fifty leagues wide. 

 Turning to the east, and coasting along the northern shore, he crossed 

 a bay at the end of the lake (Matchedash Bay) to a fine country which 

 was the home of the Hurons. Proceeding from village to village, the 

 names of several of which he gives, all of them evidently situated on 

 Matchedash Bay, and between that and Lake Simcoe, he arrived at the 

 chief place of the tribe, which he calls Cahiague, situated apparently 



