And when the glaciers made, across that channel, an embankment which is now the town site of Chicago, the three seas had to explore for a new outlet. So they filled the basin of Lake Erie, and poured over the edge of Queenstown Heights into Lake Ontario. The Iroquois called that fall the “Thunder of Waters,” which in their language is Niagara. All the vast region which was flooded by the ice-field of the great ice age became a forest, and every river turned by the ice out of its ancient channel became a string of lakes and waterfalls. This beautiful wilderness was the scene of tremendous adventures, where the red Indians fought the white men, and the English fought the French, and the Americans fought the Canadians, until the continent was cut into equal halves, and there was peace. Now let us see what manner of men were the Indians. At the summit of that age of glory--the sixteenth century--the world was ruled by the despot Akbar the Magnificent at Delhi, the despot Ivan the Terrible at Moscow, the despot Phillip II at Madrid, and a little lady despot, Elizabeth of the sea. Yet at that time the people in the Saint Lawrence Valley, the Mohawks, Oneidas, Senecas, Cayugas and, in the middle, the Onondagas, were free republics with female suffrage and women as members of parliament. Moreover the president of the Onondagas, Hiawatha, formed these five nations into the federal republic of the Iroquois, and they admitted the Tuscaroras into that United States which was created to put an end to war. In the art of government we have not yet caught up with the Iroquois. They were farmers, with rich fisheries, had comfortable houses, and fortified towns. In color they were like outdoor Spaniards, a tall, very handsome race, and every bit as able as the whites. Given horses, hard metals for their tools, and some channel or mountain range to keep off savage raiders, and they might well have become more civilized than the French, with fleets to attack old Europe, and missionaries to teach us their religion. Their first visitor from Europe was Jacques Cartier and they gave him a hearty welcome at Quebec. When his men were dying of scurvy an Indian doctor cured them. But to show his gratitude Cartier kidnaped the five principal chiefs, and ever after that, with very brief intervals, the French had reason to fear the Iroquois. Like many another Indian nation, driven away from its farms and fisheries, the six nation republic lapsed to savagery, lived by hunting and robbery, ravaged the white men’s settlements and the neighbor tribes for food, outraged and scalped the dead, burned or even ate their prisoners.