Remedies, as furnished by her to man, and in their simplest forms; and if that Niagara product benefited his savage patients (mainly because they had faith that it would do so) surely the good Docteur earned his professional fee--which he probably had to take in trade--that is, in furs. Niagara, meaning thereby the Niagara Frontier, or, more properly, that portion thereof which extended from Lake Ontario to about two miles above the Falls (which included Fort Niagara, and the whole of the famous Portage around the Cataract) even in Aboriginal days, before the first Fort Niagara was built, when the Indians applied the word Onguiaahra to the same territory, by reason of its accessibility, its central location, its Portage and its "Erie Stones," was widely known as a "Center of Trade." When the French became the masters of this region its main importance lay in its portage; and the same is true of it under British rule; and also under United States ownership, down to 1826, when the Erie Canal was completed. And during all those three periods it was indeed a Trade Center. For over it passed on their westward way, all the soldiers, French, British, and American, who built or won, and garrisoned every fort and trading post in the West. All the cannon, equipments, arms, ammunition, clothing of all kinds, tools, most of the food (all of it save the fish they caught, the game they shot, and the few vegetables they raised) which sustained life in the poorly-fed garrisons in those far off posts on the upper Lakes; most of the necessities, everyone of the luxuries,--every pound of coffee, of tea, of sugar, of tobacco, of salt, of flour, of dried and salted meats, every bit of medicine, every gallon of rum;--all those and many other articles had to go to them, annually, by "way of Niagara." There was no other feasible way of transporting goods to the West. In fact there was no other way, save by the Ottawa and through the Georgian Bay; and on the Ottawa, there were forty-two portages, whereas via Niagara there was but the one. And under both French and British rule, Niagara was a great Center of Trade, in furs, and an enormous trade it was. Both the military and the commercial trade of half a Continent flowed by its doors; and both, going eastward and westward, required unloading and transporting over its seven miles of portage.