"The little lake on which we sailed in the darkness of the night froze as we advanced. God, however, delivered us and, after having advanced all night and all the following day, we arrived in the evening at Lake Ontario. The first day was the most dangerous. Ten or twelve Iroquois could have intercepted us, for the river was narrow, and ten leagues down the stream it leaped over a frightful precipice. It took us four hours to carry our boats around it, through a dense and unknown forest. The perils in which we walked made us shudder after we escaped them. We had no bed at night but the snow, after having passed entire days in icy water. "Ten days after our departure we reached the St. Lawrence, but it was frozen and we had to cut a channel through the ice. Two days after our little fleet nearly foundered in the rapids. We were in the Long Sault without knowing it. We found ourselves in the midst of breakers, with rocks on all sides, against which the mountains of water flung us at every stroke of our paddles. The cries of our people, mingling with the roar of the waters, added to the horror of the scene. One of our canoes was engulfed in the breakers and barred the passage through which we all had to pass. Three Frenchmen were drowned there; a fourth fortunately saved himself by clinging to the canoe. He was picked up at the foot of the Sault just as his strength was giving out and he was letting go his hold. On the 3rd of April we landed at Montreal at the beginning of the night." At Montreal, the fugitives were received with tender solicitude and the graphic details recounted at length. Thus the first attempt to plant Christianity in New York territory, after two years had come to a disastrous end. Radisson, the half-civilized Frenchman, who had spent his early manhood as an adopted Iroquois, had accompanied Ragueneau from Montreal to Onondaga and back, tells the story in his "Travels." He dwells mostly on the occurrences of the feast, when the Indians gorged themselves so, that it was suggested to the priest by a Frenchman, probably by Radisson himself, that the fugitives should massacre them in their helpless drunken stupor and sleep--a suggestion which Ragueneau repudiated. The surprise of the Onondagas next day was afterwards learned. "When night had given place to day," wrote Ragueneau, "darkness to light, the barbarians awoke from sleep and, leaving their cabins, roved around our well-locked house. They were astonished at the profound silence that reigned there. They saw no one going in or out. They heard no voice. They thought at first that we were at prayer or in council but, the day advancing, and the prayers not coming to an end, they knocked at the door. The dogs, which we had designedly left behind, answered by barking." Radisson's account adds that the idea of a religious ceremony going on within was stimulated by a pig who had a bell rope attached to his leg, so that whenever he moved the bell pealed.