There are different estimates as to the size of the ship, but that it was somewhere between fifty and sixty tons there is little doubt. Assisting in this work were Tonty and Hennepin, and it took all of the persuasive powers of the three to keep the _Griffin_, as the vessel had been named, from the hostile hands of the Senecas as she lay in her stocks. The ship, when launched, was completely rigged, found with supplies for a long voyage, and armed by seven pieces of cannon and a quantity of muskets. She carried two masts and a jib, and was decorated with the usual ornaments of an ancient ship of war, including a flying griffin at the jib-boom and a huge eagle aft. For hundreds of miles about, the Indians came to see this wonderful “floating fort” before she set sail. Thirty-two souls were to form the crew of the _Griffin_ in her adventurous search for the route to Cathay, and on the day that she turned her prow up the Niagara River, La Salle and his followers fell upon their knees, invoking upon themselves the mercies of God in an undertaking which, they believed, was to be one of the most venturesome of their age. With all on board singing the _Te Deum Laudamus_, the _Griffin_ passed into Lake Erie, and while at the sight of the great water ahead of them the priests again invoked the blessings of God, the first ship to sail the Lakes boldly headed into those “vast and unknown seas of which even their savage inhabitants knew not the end.” According to the historian Hennepin, who was a member of the expedition, days and nights of the wildest speculation, of hope, of fear, and of anxious anticipation now followed. Rumour filled the seas ahead of them with innumerable perils. The hardy navigators knew not at what instant destruction might overtake them in any one of a dozen ways in which they supposed themselves to be threatened. Each morning and night the entire crew joined in prayers and in singing the hymns of the Church. Lake Erie was crossed in safety, and on the eleventh of August the _Griffin_ entered the Detroit River. Hennepin was enthralled with its wonderful beauty. “The river was thirty leagues long,” he says, “bordered by low and level banks, and navigable throughout its entire length. On either side were vast prairies, extending back to hills covered with vines, fruit trees, thickets, and tall forest trees, so distributed as to seem rather the work of art than nature.” Passing between Grosse Isle and Bois Blanc Island, the _Griffin_ sailed slowly up the river, frequent stops being made along its course; it passed the present site of Detroit, and on the day of the festival of Saint Claire the navigators entered the lake which they gave that name. On the twenty-third of August, the _Griffin_ entered into Lake Huron, the Franciscans chanting the _Te Deum_ for the third time, and the entire crew joining in offering up thanks to the Almighty for the smiling fortune that had thus far accompanied them on their voyage.