To deter his men from the voyage, La Salle’s enemies had declared that the lake was full of rocks and sands. For the first day and night, therefore, the men kept their sounding-lines busy, but navigation proved to be easy. On the fourth day after leaving Niagara, they reached the mouth of that wide river called by the French “The Strait,”--Détroit. Here the current was so strong that they came to anchor to wait for a favorable breeze. Soon a brisk wind arose and the _Griffon_ ploughed her way through the rapids between Grosse Isle and the mainland, pioneer of the mighty vessels which to-day make that strait one of the great commercial highways of the world. On both sides stretched fine open fields dotted with fruit trees, and walnut and chestnut groves, and beyond in the distance were lofty forests. All were “so well-disposed,” says Hennepin, “that one would think Nature alone without the help of art could not have made so charming a prospect.” Flocks of turkeys and swans circled about, and from the deck of the ship herds of deer could be seen roaming the meadows. The _Griffon_ was soon well stocked with meat, and the returning hunters united in heaping praises on this beautiful spot where fruit and game of every kind abounded, and where even the bears were not so savage as in other places. Hennepin urged La Salle to make a settlement on this “charming strait,” but La Salle coldly reminded him of the great passion which he had professed a few months before for the discovery of a new country, and the priest was silenced. Amid the later hardships of the journey all must have looked longingly back to this time of ease and plenty at the strait of Detroit. On the 12th of August, the _Griffon_ passed by the site of the present city of Detroit. Had they come here ten years before, the explorers would have found on the bank of the river a large stone, rudely fashioned in the likeness of a human figure and bedaubed with paint, which the Indians worshipped as a manito, or god. But in 1670 French priests, making the first recorded passage through the strait, had come upon this image, and “full of hatred for this false deity,” had fallen upon it with their axes, breaking it in pieces and casting it into the water. Beyond Detroit the river widened into a beautiful little sheet of water. As it was St. Claire’s day, Hennepin’s proposal that the name of the founder of his order be given to this lake was carried out, and it received its present name.