Lingering but two days, Champlain and ten of the French, eight of whom had belonged to the suite of Le Caron, proceeded slowly towards Cahiagué, [81] the rendezvous where the mustering hosts of the savage warriors were to set forth together upon their hostile excursion into the country of the Iroquois. Of the Huron villages visited by them, six are particularly mentioned as fortified by triple palisades of wood. Cahiagué, the capital, encircled two hundred large cabins within its wooden walls. It was situated on the north of Lake Simcoe, ten or twelve miles from this body of water, surrounded by a country rich in corn, squashes, and a great variety of small fruits, with plenty of game and fish. When the warriors had mostly assembled, the motley crowd, bearing their bark canoes, meal, and equipments on their shoulders, moved down in a southwesterly direction till they reached the narrow strait that unites Lake Chouchiching with Lake Simcoe, where the Hurons had a famous fishing weir. Here they remained some time for other more tardy bands to join them. At this point they despatched twelve of the most stalwart savages, with the interpreter, Étienne Brûlé, on a dangerous journey to a distant tribe dwelling on the west of the Five Nations, to urge them to hasten to the fort of the Iroquois, as they had already received word from them that they would join them in this campaign. Champlain and his allies soon left the fishing weir and coasted along the northeastern shore of Lake Simcoe until they reached its most eastern border, when they made a portage to Sturgeon Lake, thence sweeping down Pigeon and Stony Lakes, through the Otonabee into Rice Lake, the River Trent, the Bay of Quinté, and finally rounding the eastern point of Amherst Island, they were fairly on the waters of Lake Ontario, just as it merges into the great River St. Lawrence, and where the Thousand Islands begin to loom into sight. Here they crossed the extremity of the lake at its outflow into the river, pausing at this important geographical point to take the latitude, which, by his imperfect instruments, Champlain found to be 43 deg. north. [82]