50 THE DISCOVERY OF BURLINGTON BAY. 



" Many offered some to the Frenchmen, telling them there was 

 nothing in the world better to eat, but no one desired to try the ex- 

 periment. 



" During our stay at that village we inquired particularly about 

 the road we must take in order to reach the Ohio river, and they all 

 told us to go in search of it from Sonnontaoun. That it required six 

 days' journey by land.* 



" This induced us to believe that we could not possibly reach it 

 in that way, as we would hardly be able to carry, for so long a jour- 

 ney, our necessary provisions, much less our baggage. But they told 

 us at the same time, that in going to find it by way of Lake Erie in 

 canoes, we would have only a three days' portage before arriving at 

 that river. 



" We were relieved from our difficulties in regard to a guide, by 

 the arrival from the Dutch of an Indian who lodged in our cabin. 

 He belonged to a village of one of the five Iroquois nations, which 

 is situated at the end of Lake Ontario, for the convenience of hunt- 

 ing the deer and the bear, which are abundant in that vicinity. 

 This Indian assured us that we would have no trouble in finding a 

 guide — that a number of captives of the nations we desired to visit 

 were there, and he would very cheerfully conduct us thither. 



" After departing we found a riverf one eighth of a league broad 

 and extremely rapid, forming the outlet or communication from 

 Lake Erie to Lake Ontario. The depth of the river (for it is 

 properly the St. Lawrence), is at this place extraordinary, for, on 

 sounding close by the shore, we found fifteen or sixteen fathoms of 

 water. This outlet is forty leagues long, and has, for ten or twelve 

 leagues above its embrouchre into Lake Ontario, one of the finest 

 cataracts, or falls of water in the world, for all the Indians of whom 

 I have enquired about it, say, that the river falls at that place from a 

 rock higher than the tallest pines, that is about two hundred feet. 

 In fact we heard it from the place where we were, although from 

 ten to twelve leagues distant, but the fall gives such a momentum to 

 the water, that its velocity prevented our ascending the current by 

 rowing, except with great difficulty. At a quarter of a league from 



* The route they proposed to take was probably up the Genessee river to one of its sources 

 crossing from thence to the head waters of the Alleghany River, 

 t Niagara. 



