In regard to the name, the pronunciation nearest to the original which it may be possible to perpetuate is Ni-ag-a-rah; the accent on the second syllable, the vowel in the first pronounced as in the word _nigh_; the _a_ in the third and fourth syllables but slightly abbreviated from the long _a_ in _far_, and that in the second syllable but slightly aspirated. CHAPTER V. The lower Niagara--Fort Niagara--Fort Mississauga--Niagara Village--Lewiston--Portage around the Falls--The first railroad in the United States--Fort Schlosser--The ambuscade at Devil's Hole--La Salle's vessel, the _Griffin_--The Niagara frontier. From the earliest visit of the French missionaries and _voyageurs_ to the lake region, the banks of the lower Niagara were to them a favorite locality. Very early they were cleared of the grand forest which covered them, and the genial, fertile, and easily worked soil, enriched by the deep vegetable mold that had been accumulating upon it for centuries, produced in lavish abundance wheat, maize, garden vegetables, and fruits, large and small. "On the 6th day of December, 1678," says Marshall, "La Salle, in his brigantine of ten tons, doubled the point where Fort Niagara now stands, and anchored in the sheltered waters of the river. The prosecution of his bold enterprise at that inclement season, involving the exploration of a vast and unknown country, in vessels built on the way, indicates the indomitable energy and self-reliance of the intrepid discoverer. His crew consisted of sixteen persons, under the immediate command of the Sieur de la Motte. The grateful Franciscans chanted '_Te Deum laudamus_' as they entered the noble river. The strains of that ancient hymn of the Church, as they rose from the deck of the adventurous bark, and echoed from shore and forest, must have startled the watchful Senecas with the unusual sound, as they gazed upon their strange visitors. Never before had white men, so far as history tells us, ascended the river." La Salle rested here for a time, but no defensive work was constructed until 1687, when the Marquis De Nonville, returning from his famous expedition against the Senecas, fortified it, after the fashion of the time, with palisades and ditches. The small garrison of one hundred men which he left were obliged to abandon it the following season, after partially destroying it. By consent of the Iroquois it was reconstructed in stone in 1725-6.