Yroquet, who was Champlain's friend, as before mentioned, being a close ally of the Hurons, evidently had no desire for a Frenchman to open trade directly with the Iroquois--the sworn foes of the Hurons--and thus to divert any of the trade which he carried on with the French in the Huron Country. So the first white man known to have been on the Niagara River (in 1626) wrote about it as a "trading place." It clearly was regarded in that light, at that time, both by the Neutrals and by the Hurons; those being the only two tribes which Father Daillon had visited. And if it was so known to the tribes on the west and northwest, there was no reason why it should not have been so known--and it no doubt was so known--to the tribes to the south, to the east, and to the west. On his map, in 1632, Champlain continues his location of the Cataract at the point where the river enters Lake Ontario; and marks it, "Falls at the extremity of Lake St. Louis [Ontario] very high, where many fish come down and are stunned." [Illustration: NIAGARA IN 1759, BY THOMAS DAVIES.] In 1640, Fathers Brebeuf and Chaumonot, on their famous Mission to the Neutrals, crossed the Niagara River at Onguiaahra, a village of that Nation, which stood on the site of the present Lewiston. They probably never saw the Falls; their visit being filled with danger, hunger, and threats of their destruction by the very savages whose souls they were trying to save. Father L'Allement, their Superior, in his account of their Mission, in the Jesuit Relation of 1642, speaks merely of "the village Onguiaahra, of the same name as the river." Another passage in his letter says,-- "Many of our Frenchmen, who have been here in the Huron Country, in the past made journeys in this Country of the Neutral Nation, for the sake of reaping profit and advantage from furs, and other little wares that one might look for." And in all probability some of those Frenchmen had reached the Niagara River, in their trade with the Neutrals, before Father Daillon crossed its stream. Niagara was then, as it is now, the geographical center of the eastern one-third of North America; it was the center of population among the many and widely distributed Indian Tribes; it was the most accessible, the most easily reached place, from all directions, in America. Indian trails led toward it from all points of the compass; it was easily accessible by water from every quarter--and, by canoe, was the Indians preferred means of transportation.