195. Passing through Lake St. Louis, they come to the River Ottawa, sometimes called the River of the Algonquins. 196. The Cascades, Cèdres and Rapids du Coteau du Lac with subdivisions. _Laverdière_. La Hontan mentions four rapids between Lake St. Louis and St Francis, as _Cascades, Le Cataracte du Trou, Sauts des Cedres_, and _du Buisson_. 197. Lake St. Francis, about twenty-five miles long. 198. Long Saut. 199. Hardly a lake but rather the river uninterrupted by falls or rapids. 200. The smaller rapids, the Galops, Point Cardinal, and others.--_Vide_ La Hontan's description of his passage up this river, _New Voyages to N. America_, London, 1735. Vol. I. p. 30. 201. Lake Ontario. It is one hundred and eighty miles long.--_Garneau_. 202. Niagara Falls. Champlain does not appear to have obtained from the Indians any adequate idea of the grandeur and magnificence of this fall. The expression, _qui est quelque peu éleué, où il y a peu d'eau, laquelle descend_, would imply that it was of moderate if not of an inferior character. This may have arisen from the want of a suitable medium of communication, but it is more likely that the intensely practical nature of the Indian did not enable him to appreciate or even observe the beauties by which he was surrounded. The immense volume of water and the perpendicular fall of 160 feet render it unsurpassed in grandeur by any other cataract in the world. Although Champlain appears never to have seen this fall, he had evidently obtained a more accurate description of it before 1629.--_Vide_ note No. 90 to map in ed. 1632. 203. Lake Erie, 250 miles long.--_Garneau_. 204. Detroit river, or the strait which connects Lake Erie and Lake St. Clair.--_Atlas of the Dominion of Canada_. 205. Lake Huron, denominated on early maps _Mer Douce_, the sweet sea of which the knowledge of the Indian guides was very imperfect. 206. The Indians with whom Champlain came in contact on this hasty visit in 1603 appear to have had some notion of a salt sea, or as they say water that is very bad like the sea, lying in an indefinite region, which neither they nor their friends had ever visited. The salt sea to which they occasionally referred was probably Hudson's Bay, of which some knowledge may have been transmitted from the tribes dwelling near it to others more remote, and thus passing from tribe to tribe till it reached, in rather an indefinite shape, those dwelling on the St. Lawrence. CHAPTER IX. RETURN FROM THE FALL TO TADOUSSAC.--TESTIMONY OF SEVERAL SAVAGES IN REGARD TO THE LENGTH AND COMMENCEMENT OF THE GREAT RIVER OF CANADA, NUMBER OF THE FALLS, AND THE LAKES WHICH IT TRAVERSES.