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Proceeding towards the West, at a distance of forty-five leagues, is found the second Nation, calledOneida, which has no more, at most, than one hundred and forty warriors, and has never wished tolisten to any negotiations for peace; on the contrary it has always embarrassed affairs when theyappeared about to be arranged.
Fifteen leagues towards sunset is Onnontagu6, which has full three hundred men. We have beenformerly received there as friends and treated as enemies, which obliged us to abandon that post,where we remained two years, as if in the centre of all the Iroquois Nations , whence we proclaimedthe gospel to all those poor people, assisted by a garrison of Frenchmen sent by Monsieur de Lauzon,then Governor of New France, to take possession of those countries in his Majesty’s name.
At twenty or thirty leagues from there still towards the West is the village of Cayuga, of threehundred warriors, where in the year 1657, we had a mission which formed a little church filled withpiety in the midst of these Barbarians .
Towards the termination of the Great Lake, called Ontario , is located the most numerous of theFive Iroquois Nations , named the Senecas, which contains full twelve hundred men in two or threevillages of which it is composed.
These last two nations have never openly made war on us, and have always remained neuter.
All that extent of country is partly south, partly west of the French settlements, at a distance offrom one hundred to one hundred and fifty leagues. It is for the most part fertile, covered with finetimber; among the rest entire forests of chestnut and hickory (noyer,) intersected by numerous lakesand rivers abounding in fish. The air is temperate; the seasons regular as in France, capable ofbearing all the fruits of Touraine and Provence . The snows are not deep nor of long duration.The three winters which we passed there among the Onnontagu6s, were mild, compared with thewinters at Quebec where the ground is covered five months with snow, three, four and five feet deep.As we inhabit the Northern part of New France and the Iroquois the South, it is not surprising thattheir lands are more agreeable and more capable of cultivation and of bearing better fruit.
There are two principal rivers leading to the Iroquois ; one to those which are near New Nether-land and this is the Richelieu river of which we shall speak hereafter; the second conducts to theother Nations more distant from us, always ascending our great river St. Lawrence which divides,above Montreal , as if into two branches, whereof one goes to the antient country of the Hurons, theother to that of the Iroquois .
This is one of the most important rivers that can be seen, whether we regard its beauty or its con-venience ; for we meet there almost throughout, a vast number of beautiful Islands , some largeothers small, but all covered with fine timber and full of deer, bears, wild cows which supply abun-dance of provisions necessary for the travellers who find it every where, and some times entire herdsof fallow deer. The banks of the main land are ordinarily shaded by huge oaks and other loftytimber covering a good soil.
Before arriving at the Great Lake Ontario , two others are traversed, one of which adjoins theIsland of Montreal , the other is amidway. It is ten leagues long by six wide. It is terminated bya great many little islands very pleasing to the sight, and we have named it Lake St. Francis.]
But what renders this river inconvenient is the water falls and rapids which extend for the spaceof forty leagues, to wit from Montreal to the entrance of Lake Ontario , there being only the twolakes just mentioned of easy navigation. To surmount these torrents, we must often debark fromthe canoe and walk in the river whose waters are sufficiently low in these quarters, chiefly towardsthe banks. We take the canoe in hand dragging it after us. Ordinarily two men suffice, one for-ward at the bow, the other behind at the stem; and as the canoe is very light, being made merelyof the bark of trees, and as it is not loaded, it glides more smoothly over the water, not meetinggreat resistance. Some times the canoe is to be landed and carried some distance, one man in front,