On the 9th of July, 1615, Champlain embarked, taking with him an interpreter, probably Etienne Brûlé, a French servant, and ten savages, who, with their equipments, were to be accommodated in two canoes. They entered the Rivière des Prairies, which flows into the St. Lawrence some leagues east of Montreal, crossing the Lake of the Two Mountains, passed up the Ottawa, taking the same route which he had traversed some years before, revisiting its long succession of reaches, its placid lakes, impetuous rapids, and magnificent falls, and at length arrived at the point where the river, by an abrupt angle, begins to flow from the northwest. Here, leaving the Ottawa, they entered the Mattawan, passing down this river into Lac du Talon, thence into Lac la Tortue, and by a short portage, into Lake Nipissing. After remaining here two days, entertained generously by the Nipissingian chiefs, they crossed the lake, and, following the channel of French River, entered Lake Huron, or rather the Georgian Bay. They coasted along until they reached the northern limits of the county of Simcoe. Here they disembarked and entered the territory of their old friends and allies, the Hurons. The domain of this tribe consisted of a peninsula formed by the Georgian Bay, the river Severn, and Lake Simcoe, at the farthest, not more than forty by twenty-five miles in extent, but more generally cultivated by the native population, and of a richer soil than any region hitherto explored north of the St. Lawrence and the lakes. They visited four of their villages and were cordially received and feasted on Indian corn, squashes, and fish, with some variety in the methods of cooking. They then proceeded to Carhagouha, [80] a town fortified with a triple palisade of wood thirty-five feet in height. Here they found the Recollect Father Joseph Le Caron, who, having preceded them but a few days, and not anticipating the visit, was filled with raptures of astonishment and joy. The good Father was intent upon his pious work. On the 12th of August, surrounded by his followers, he formally erected a cross as a symbol of the faith, and on the same day they celebrated the mass and chanted TE DEUM LAUDAMUS for the first time.