ts, and stone-pointed lances; while the drum kept up its hollow
boom, and the air was split with mingled yells.

The war-feast followed, and then all embarked together. Champlain was
in a small shallop, carrying, besides himself, eleven men of Pontgrave's
party, including his son-in-law Marais and the pilot La Routte. They
were armed with the arquebuse,--a matchlock or firelock somewhat like
the modern carbine, and from its shortness not ill suited for use in the
forest. On the twenty-eighth of June they spread their sails and held
their course against the current, while around them the river was alive
with canoes, and hundreds of naked arms plied the paddle with a steady,
measured sweep. They crossed the Lake of St. Peter, threaded the devious
channels among its many islands, and reached at last the mouth of the
Riviere des Iroquois, since called the Richelien, or the St. John.
Here, probably on the site of the town of Sorel, the leisurely warriors
encamped for two days, hunted, fished, and took their ease, regaling
their allies with venison and wildfowl. They quarrelled, too; three
fourths of their number seceded, took to their canoes in dudgeon, and
paddled towards their homes, while the rest pursued their course up the
broad and placid stream.

Walls of verdure stretched on left and right. Now, aloft in the lonely
air rose the cliffs of Belceil, and now, before them, framed in circling
forests, the Basin of Chambly spread its tranquil mirror, glittering in
the sun. The shallop outsailed the canoes. Champlain, leaving his allies
behind, crossed the basin and tried to pursue his course; but, as he
listened in the stillness, the unwelcome noise of rapids reached his
ear, and, by glimpses through the dark foliage of the Islets of St. John
he could see the gleam of snowy foam and the flash of hurrying waters.
Leaving the boat by the shore in charge of four men, he went with
Marais, La Routte, and five others, to explore the wild before him.
They pushed their way through the damps and shadows of the wood, through
thickets and tangled vines, over mossy rocks and mouldering logs. Still
the hoarse surging of the rapids followed them; and when, parting the
screen of foliage, they looked out upon the river, they saw it thick
set with rocks where, plunging over ledges, gurgling under drift-logs,
darting along clefts, and boiling in chasms, the angry waters filled the
solitude with monotonous ravings.

Champlain retraced his s