The canoes of the adventurous Frenchmen went down French River, and at last reached the waters of the great Fresh Water Sea, the _Mer Douce_ of Champlain's maps, and now named Lake Huron in memory of the hapless race that once made their home in that wild region. Passing by the western shore of the picturesque district of Muskoka, the party landed at the foot of the bay and found themselves before long among the villages of the Hurons, whose country lay then between Nottawasaga Bay and Lake Simcoe. Here Champlain saw the triple palisades, long houses, containing several households, and other distinctive features of those Indian villages, one of which Cartier found at the foot of Mont Royal. In the village of Carhagouaha, where the palisades were as high as thirty-five feet, Champlain met Father Le Caron, the pioneer of these intrepid missionaries who led the way to the head-waters and tributaries of the great lakes. For the first time in that western region the great Roman Catholic ceremony of the Mass was celebrated in the presence of Champlain and wondering Indian warriors. At the town of Cahiague, the Indian capital, comprising two hundred cabins, and situated within the modern township of Orillia, he was received with great rejoicings, and preparations immediately made for the expedition against the Iroquois. Stephen Brule undertook the dangerous mission of communicating with the Andastes, a friendly nation near the {83} headwaters of the Susquehanna, who had promised to bring five hundred warriors to the assistance of the Canadian allied forces. [Illustration: Onondaga fort in the Iroquois country; from Champlain's sketch.]