They knew that Çhaumonot with a crowd of Indians was awaiting them at a spot on the margin of the water, which he and Dablon had chosen as the site of their settlement. Landing on the strand, they fired, to give notice of their approach, five small cannon which they had brought in their canoes. Waves, woods, and hills resounded with the thunder of their miniature artillery. Then reembarking, they advanced in order, four canoes abreast, towards the destined spot. In front floated their banner of white silk, embroidered in large letters with the name of Jesus. Here were Du Puys and his soldiers, with the picturesque uniforms and quaint weapons of their time; Le Mercier and his Jesuits in robes of black; hunters and bush-rangers; Indians painted and feathered for a festal day. As they neared the place where a spring bubbling from the hillside is still known as the “Jesuits’ Well,” they saw the edge of the forest dark with the muster of savages whose yells of welcome answered the salvo of their guns. Happily for them, a flood of summer rain saved them from the harangues of the Onondaga orators, and forced white men and red alike to seek such shelter as they could find. Their hosts, with hospitable intent, would fain have sung and danced all night; but the Frenchmen pleaded fatigue, and the courteous savages, squatting around their tents, chanted in monotonous tones to lull them to sleep. In the morning they woke refreshed, sang _Te Deum_, reared an altar, and, with a solemn mass, took possession of the country in the name of Jesus. * Three things, which they saw or heard of in their new home, excited their astonishment. The first was the vast flight of wild pigeons which in spring darkened the air around the Lake of Onondaga; the second was the salt springs of Salina; the third was the rattlesnakes, which Le Mercier describes with excellent precision, adding that, as he learns from the Indians, their tails are good for toothache and their flesh for fever. These reptiles, for reasons best known to themselves, haunted the neighborhood of the salt-springs, but did not intrude their presence into the abode of the French. On the 17th of July, Le Mercier and Chamnonot, * Le Mercier, Relation, 1657, 14.