for a living. The Hurons, too, were bound to the French
by both war and trade. Champlain had assisted them and
the Algonquins in battle against the common foe, the
Iroquois or Five Nations, and a flotilla of canoes from
the Huron country, bringing furs to one of the trading-
posts on the St Lawrence, was an annual event. The
Recollets, therefore, felt confident of a friendly
reception among the Hurons; and it was with buoyant hopes
that Le Caron girded himself for the journey to his
distant mission-field.

On the 6th or 7th of July, in company with a party of
Hurons, Le Caron set out from the island of Montreal.
The Hurons had come down to trade, and to arrange with
Champlain for another punitive expedition against the
Iroquois, and were now returning to their own villages.
It was a laborious and painful journey--up the Ottawa,
across Lake Nipissing, and down the French River--but at
length the friar stood on the shores of Lake Huron, the
first of white men to see its waters. From the mouth of
the French River the course lay southward for mere than
a hundred miles along the east shore of Georgian Bay,
until the party arrived at the peninsula which lies
between Nottawasaga and Matchedash Bays. Three or four
miles inland from the west shore of this peninsula stood
the town of Carhagouha, a triple-palisaded stronghold of
the Hurons. Here the Indians gave the priest an enthusiastic
welcome and invited him to share their common lodges;
but as he desired a retreat 'in which he could meditate
in silence,' they built him a commodious cabin apart from