From the rendezvous in the Huron country this second army of invasion, at the head of which rode Champlain, set out for the Iroquois land, to carry fire and sword to the homes of the enemy and forge so much the more firmly the chains of prejudice and hatred. Crossing Lake Ontario at its western extremity the march was taken up from a point near Sacketts Harbour for the Onondaga fort, which was located, probably, a few miles south of Lake Oneida.
The importance of the campaign on the Niagara frontier history is sufficient for us to include again Champlain's account of it:
We made about fourteen leagues in crossing to the other side of the Lake, in a southerly direction, towards the territories of the enemy. The Indians concealed all their canoes in the woods near the shore. We made by land about four leagues over a sandy beach, where I noticed a very agreeable and beautiful country, traversed by many small streams, and two small rivers which empty into the said Lake. Also many ponds and meadows, abounding in an infinite variety of game, numerous vines, and fine woods, a great number of chestnut trees, the fruit of which was yet in its covering. Although very small, it was of good flavour. All the canoes being thus concealed, we left the shore of the Lake, which is about eighty leagues long and twenty-five wide, the greater part of it being inhabited by Indians along its banks, and continued our way by land about twenty-five or thirty leagues. During four days we crossed numerous streams and a river issuing from a lake which empties into that of the Entouhonorons. This Lake, which is about twenty-five or thirty leagues in circumference, contains several beautiful islands, and is the place where our Iroquois enemies catch their fish, which are there in great abundance. On the 9th of October, our people being on a scout, encountered eleven Indians whom they took prisoners, namely, four women, three boys, a girl, and three men, who were going to the fishery, distant four leagues from the enemies' fort. . . . The next day, about three o'clock in the afternoon, we arrived before the fort. . . . Their village was enclosed with four strong rows of interlaced palisades, composed of large pieces of wood, thirty feet high, not more than half a foot apart and near an unfailing body of water. . . . We were encamped until the 16th of the month. . . . As the five hundred men did not arrive, the Indians decided to leave by an immediate retreat and began to make baskets in which to carry the wounded, who were placed in them doubled in a heap, and so bent and tied as to render it impossible for them to stir, any more than an infant in its swaddling clothes, and not without great suffering, as I can testify, having been carried several days on the back of one of our Indians, thus tied and imprisoned, which made me lose all patience. As soon as I had strength to sustain myself I escaped from this prison, or to speak plainly, from this hell.
The enemy pursued us about half a league, in order to capture some of our rear guard, but their efforts were useless and they withdrew. . . . The retreat was very tedious, being from twenty-five to thirty leagues, and greatly fatigued the wounded, and those who carried them, though they relieved each other from time to time. On the 18th considerable snow fell which lasted but a short time. It was accompanied with a violent wind, which greatly incommoded us. Nevertheless we made such progress, that we reached the banks of the lake of the Entouhonorons, at the place where we had concealed our canoes, and which were found all whole. We were apprehensive that the enemy had broken them up.
Map of French Forts in America, 1750-60.
As the roar of Niagara greets from afar the listening ears of the innumerable host of pilgrims who come to it to-day, so the fame of the cataract reached the first explorers of the continent long before they came to it, indeed almost as soon as their feet touched the shore of the New World. Four centuries ago Niagara was the wonder of the world as it must be four centuries hence and four times four.
In May, 1535, Jacques Cartier left France on his second voyage to America in three ships; reaching the St. Lawrence, which he so named from the Saint, he asked concerning its sources and
was told that, after ascending many leagues among rapids and waterfalls, he would reach a lake 140 or 150 leagues broad, at the western extremity of which the waters were wholesome and the winters mild; that a river emptied into it from the south, which had its source in the country of the Iroquois; that beyond the lake he would find a cataract and portage, then another lake about equal to the former, which they had never explored.