“We left next day, continuing our route along the river as far as the mouth of the Lake. Here are a number of beautiful, but low islands filled with very fine woods and prairies, a quantity of game and wild animals, such as stags, deer, fawns, roe-bucks, bears and other sorts of animals that come from the main land to the said islands. We caught a quantity of them. There is also quite a number of beavers, as well in the river as in several other streams which fall into it. These parts, though agreeable, are not inhabited by any Indians, in consequence of their wars. They retire from the rivers as far as possible, deep into the country, in order not to be so soon discovered. “Next day we entered the lake, which is of considerable extent; some 50 or 60 leagues in length, where I saw 4 beautiful islands, 10, 12 and 15 leagues in length formerly inhabited, as well as the Iroquois river, by Indians, but abandoned since they have been at war the one with the other. “Several rivers, also, discharge into the lake, surrounded by a number of fine trees similar to those we have in France, with a quantity of vines handsomer than any I ever saw; a great many chestnuts, and I have not yet seen except the margin of the lake, where there is a large abundance of fish of divers species. Among the rest there is one called by the Indians of the country Chaousarou, the divers lengths. The largest I was informed by the people, are of eight to ten feet. I saw one of 5, as thick as a thigh, with a head as big as two fists, with jaws two feet and a half long, and a double set of very sharp and dangerous teeth. The form of the body resembles that of the pike, and it is armed with scales that a thrust of a poniard cannot pierce; and is of a silver grey colour. The point of the snout is like that of a hog. This fish makes war on all others in the lakes and rivers and possesses, as those people assure me, a wonderful instinct; which is, that when it wants to catch any birds, it goes among the rushes or reeds, bordering the lake in many places, keeping the beak out of the water without budging, so that when the birds perch on his beak, imagining it a limb of a tree, it is so subtle that closing the jaws which it keeps half open, it draws the birds under water by the feet. The Indians gave me a head of it, which they prize highly, saying, when they have a headache they let blood with the teeth of this fish at the seat of the pain which immediately goes away.