About the middle of the month of May, Champlain set forth to paddle up the river, accompanied by a band of the Montagnais redskins. As he proceeded, he saw the lodges of an Indian encampment thickly clustered in the bordering forest, and, landing, found there his Huron and Algonquin allies. The red men were amazed to see a person with a white skin, and gathered about the steel-clad strangers (for he had several other Frenchmen with him) in astonished awe and admiration. “I would speak with your chieftain,” said Champlain. The staring natives led him towards a great lodge where sat not one chief, but two, for each tribe had its own leader with them. Now there was much speech-making, feasting, and smoking of the peace pipes; then, all paddled down the river to Quebec, for the redskins were anxious to view that town, the fame of which had been borne to them in their distant habitations of the forest. The native Canadians were much interested in the wooden houses built by the white men. They yelped in consternation at the explosions of the French guns, and the roar of the iron cannon. After they had examined everything to their satisfaction, their camps were pitched, they bedecked themselves for the war dance, and, when night fell, leaped about, howling and singing in the yellow glare of a huge bon-fire. Next morning they were ready for their expedition into the wilderness, where their enemies, the fierce Iroquois, had dragged unfortunate members of their tribe, who had fallen into their hands, to be beaten and tortured with horrible indignities. No wonder they longed to have these white men as their allies, so that they could revenge themselves upon their enemies. It was now the twenty-eighth day of May. The air was balmy, yet cool, so the expedition started under pleasant auspices. Entering a small sloop, the Sieur De Champlain pointed her nose up stream, and, accompanied by eleven companions, and surrounded by hundreds of redskins in birch bark canoes, set sail for the mouth of the Rivière de Iroquois, which connects the swirling waters of the St. Lawrence with that beautiful lake which was to subsequently bear the name of this venturesome explorer. The members of the famous war-party crossed the Lake of St. Peter, threaded the crooked channels among its many islands, and at length started down the winding stream towards the dreamy, gray expanse of the tempestuous lake,—afterwards to be known as Lake Champlain,—and the country of the Iroquois.