The bark flotilla was at length ready to leave the borders of the present State of New York. According to their usual custom in canoe navigation, they crept along the shore of the Ontario, revisiting an island at the eastern extremity of the lake, not unlikely the same place where Champlain had stopped to take the latitude a few weeks before. Crossing over from the island to the mainland on the north, they appear to have continued up the Cataraqui Creek east of Kingston, and, after a short portage, entered Loughborough Lake, a sheet of water then renowned as a resort of waterfowl in vast numbers and varieties. Having bagged all they desired, they proceeded inland twenty or thirty miles, to the objective point of their excursion, which was a famous hunting-ground for wild game. Here they constructed a deer-trap, an enclosure into which the unsuspecting animals were beguiled and from which it was impossible for them to escape. Deer-hunting was of all pursuits, if we except war, the most exciting to the Indians. It not only yielded the richest returns to their larder, and supplied more fully other domestic wants, but it possessed the element of fascination, which has always given zest and inspiration to the sportsman. They lingered here thirty-eight days, during which time they captured one hundred and twenty deer. They purposely prolonged their stay that the frost might seal up the marshes, ponds, and rivers over which they were to pass. Early in December they began to arrange into convenient packages their peltry and venison, the fat of which was to serve as butter in their rude huts during the icy months of winter. On the 4th of the month they broke camp and began their weary march, each savage bearing a burden of not less than a hundred pounds, while Champlain himself carried a package of about twenty. Some of them constructed rude sledges, on which they easily dragged their luggage over the ice and snow. During the progress of the journey, a warm current came sweeping up from the south, melted the ice, flooded the marshes, and for four days the overburdened and weary travellers struggled on, knee-deep in mud and water and slush. Without experience, a lively imagination alone can picture the toil, suffering, and exposure of a journey through the tangled forests and half-submerged bogs and marshes of Canada, in the most inclement season of the year.