Overcome with fatigue and oppressed by hunger, they at length arrived at Allumette Island, the abode of the chief Tessoüat, by whom they were cordially entertained. Nothing but the hope of reaching the north sea could have sustained them amid the perils and sufferings through which they had passed in reaching this inhospitable region. The Indians had chosen this retreat not from choice, but chiefly on account of its great inaccessibility to their enemies. They were astonished to see Champlain and his company, and facetiously suggested that it must be a dream, or that these new-comers had fallen from the clouds. After the usual ceremonies of feasting and smoking, Champlain was permitted to lay before Tessoüat and his chiefs the object of his journey. When he informed them that he was in search of a salt sea far to the north of them, which had been actually seen two years before by one of his companions, he learned to his disappointment and mortification that the whole story of Vignan was a sheer fabrication. The miscreant had indeed passed a winter on the very spot where they then were, but had never been a league further north. The Indians themselves had no knowledge of the north sea, and were highly enraged at the baseness of Vignan's falsehood, and craved the opportunity of despatching him at once. They jeered at him, calling him a liar, and even the children took up the refrain, vociferating vigorously and heaping maledictions upon his head. Indignant as he was, Champlain had too much philosophy in his composition to commit an indiscretion at such a moment as this. He accordingly restrained the savages and his own anger, bore his insult and disappointment with exemplary patience, giving up all hope of seeing the salt sea in this direction, as he humorously added, "except in imagination." Before leaving Allumette Island on his return, Champlain invited Tessoüat to send a trading expedition to the Falls of St. Louis, where he would find an ample opportunity for an exchange of commodities. The invitation was readily accepted, and information was at once sent out to the neighboring chiefs, requesting them to join in the enterprise. The savages soon began to assemble, and when Champlain left, he was accompanied by forty canoes well laden with furs; others joined them at different points on the way, and on reaching Montreal the number had swollen to eighty.