There, began the felling and hewing of trees that were to touch the farther shores of Michigan. The supplies brought out from Paris had been lost by the wreck of La Salle's smaller vessel on the way up Ontario, but enough was saved, or brought by La Salle on his return from Fort Frontenac, to give this sixty-ton vessel full equipment, for in the spring she was launched. The "friar pronounced his blessing on her; the assembled company sang _Te Deum_; cannon were fired; and French and Indians ... shouted and yelped in chorus as she glided into Niagara." She carried five cannon and on her prow was carved such a "portentous monster" as doubtless is to be found among the grotesques of Notre Dame--a griffin (that is, a beast with the body of a lion and the head, beak, and pinions of a bird), in honor of the armorial bearings of Count Frontenac. Through spring and half the summer the vessel lay moored beyond reach of the Indians but near enough so that Hennepin "could preach on Sundays from the deck to the men encamped along the bank." When La Salle, who had been obliged by disasters to go back to Fort Frontenac during the building of the ship, again appeared above the falls in midsummer, the _Griffin_ was warped up into the placid lake, and on the 7th of August anchor was lifted and the fateful voyage was begun. There was (as when the _Argo_, the "first bold vessel, dared the seas") no Orpheus standing "high on the stern" and "raising his entrancing strain." Nor did a throng of proud Thessalians or of "transported demi-gods" stand round to cheer them off. The naked Indians, their hands over their mouths in wonderment or shouting, "Gannorom! Gannorom!" alone saw the great boat move out over the waters without oar or paddle or towing rope. For music there was only the _Te Deum_ again, sung by raw, unpractised voices, such as one might hear among the boatmen of the Seine. It was not such music, at any rate, as that of Orpheus, to make plain men grow "heroes at the sound." Doubtless no one felt himself a hero. The only intimation of any consciousness of a high mission comes from Hennepin, who, when the _Griffin_, some days later, was ploughing peacefully through the straits that led to the Mer Douce--"verdant prairies, dotted with groves and bordered with lofty forests" on either side, "herds of deer and flocks of swans and wild turkeys" within sight, and the "bulwarks plentifully hung with game"--wrote: "Those who will one day have the happiness to possess this fertile and pleasant strait, will be very much obliged to those who have shown them the way."