The enemy pursued us about half a league, in order to capture some of our rear guard, but their efforts were useless and they withdrew. . . . The retreat was very tedious, being from twenty-five to thirty leagues, and greatly fatigued the wounded, and those who carried them, though they relieved each other from time to time. On the 18th considerable snow fell which lasted but a short time. It was accompanied with a violent wind, which greatly incommoded us. Nevertheless we made such progress, that we reached the banks of the lake of the _Entouhonorons_, at the place where we had concealed our canoes, and which were found all whole. We were apprehensive that the enemy had broken them up. [Illustration: Map of French Forts in America, 1750-60.] As the roar of Niagara greets from afar the listening ears of the innumerable host of pilgrims who come to it to-day, so the fame of the cataract reached the first explorers of the continent long before they came to it, indeed almost as soon as their feet touched the shore of the New World. Four centuries ago Niagara was the wonder of the world as it must be four centuries hence and four times four. In May, 1535, Jacques Cartier left France on his second voyage to America in three ships; reaching the St. Lawrence, which he so named from the Saint, he asked concerning its sources and was told that, after ascending many leagues among rapids and waterfalls, he would reach a lake 140 or 150 leagues broad, at the western extremity of which the waters were wholesome and the winters mild; that a river emptied into it from the south, which had its source in the country of the Iroquois; that beyond the lake he would find a cataract and portage, then another lake about equal to the former, which they had never explored. This is the first known mention of Niagara Falls. Champlain mapped the Niagara frontier, and his map of 1613 shows the position of the great Falls; he refers to it only as a "waterfall," which was "so very high that many kinds of fish are stunned in its descent." He probably never saw Niagara but wrote his description from hearsay. During the half century between Champlain's Lake Ontario tour and the coming of La Salle and Hennepin the Niagara must have been often visited by the Catholic missionaries, but few of them left mention of it.