great lake, enjoying an abundance of ducks, fish, and
fresh meat. Radisson was amazed at "the great number of ffowles that
are so fatt by eating of this graine [wild rice] that heardly they will
move from it." He saw "a wildman killing 3 ducks at once with one
arrow."

When the final start was made for the French settlements, there were
seven hundred Indians in 360 canoes, with a proportionately large
quantity of beaver-skins. A stop was made at the River of Sturgeons,
to lay in a store of food against the voyage. In a few days over a
thousand of these fish were killed and dried.

After they had started again, Radisson came near to parting unwillingly
with the splendid fleet of canoes that he was guiding down to the
French settlements. One day they espied seven Iroquois. So great was
the dread of these formidable savages, that, though these seven took to
their heels and {220} discarded their kettles, even their arms, in
their flight, the sight of them threw the hundreds with Radisson into a
panic. They were for breaking up and putting off their visit to
Montreal for a year. Radisson pleaded hard, and, after twelve days of
delay and powwowing, he succeeded in prevailing on all except the Crees
to go on with him.

Down the St. Mary's River into Lake Huron the great fleet of canoes
went in long procession. Then, the wind being favorable, everybody
hoisted some kind of sail, and they were driven along merrily until
they came to the portage. This passed, they went on down the Ottawa
River without misadventure as far as the long rapids. Then another
panic seized the Indian fleet, this time on more reasonable grounds,
for the party discovered the evidences of a slaughter of Frenchmen.
Seventeen of these, with about seventy Algonquins and Hurons, had laid
an ambush here for Iroquois, whom they expected to pass this way.
Instead, the biter was bitten. The Iroquois, when they came, numbered
many hundreds, and they overwhelmed and, after a desperate resistance,
destroyed the little band of Frenchmen, with their allies. The
appalling {221} evidences of this slaughter were terrible proof that
the enemy were numerous in that neighborhood. Even Radisson and his
brother were alarmed. They had much ado to persuade their Indian
friends to go on with them. As last they succeeded and proudly led to
Montreal the biggest canoe-fleet that had ever arrived there, "a number
of boats that did almost cover ye whole River."