One prisoner in defiance has thrown down his burden and his captor is about to strike him when a chief woman of the village coming up the steep hill interposes by holding up a string of white ransom wampum saving the captive from death. Another warrior examines the bag of booty dropped by the prisoner. To the right near the stockade wall is seen a Mohawk war chief in full regalia leading a captive Mahikan, who bends beneath his burden. In the background is a figure calling the rest of the warriors to the hilltop council. The scene is laid on the hill overlooking the ancient Mohawk site of Two Noses, just above the present village of Sprakers in the Mohawk valley, and the observer is looking north toward the foothills of the Adirondacks. The purpose of this group is to illustrate (1) the treatment of prisoners, (2) the authority of the Iroquois woman, (3) the difference between the Mohawks and the Hudson river Mahikans, (4) an Iroquois village with its stockade wall, (5) a typical Mohawk valley landscape in Indian times.] Accompanied by Etienne Brulé, his interpreter, a brave and skilful woodsman, Champlain’s party went up the Ottawa, crossed over the divide from the Upper Ottawa and launched their canoes on Lake Nipissing. Thence they paddled down the French River into Lake Huron. One can imagine the joy of Champlain when he saw this great body of water stretching away beyond his vision and which he christened Mer Douce (Fresh Water Sea). This was the first of the Great Lakes to be discovered by a white man, and Champlain, with Le Caron and Brulé, were the first white men to sail on its waters. Down the shore they went for more than a hundred miles until the Indians came to the outlet of a well-known trail leading into the heart of the territory of the Hurons, to the palisaded town of Otoucha. This part of the country had many permanent Indian villages whose inhabitants were more agricultural than those in the east, and Champlain was greatly impressed with the fields of maize and pumpkins and sun flowers. Here he found Le Caron, who had preceded him on the journey, and on August 12th, 1615, the first mass, the first religious service in what was afterwards known as Upper Canada, was celebrated in what is now the township of Tiny, near Penetanguishene, in the county of Simcoe. This event was commemorated three hundred years later by the Archbishop of Toronto, who celebrated mass as nearly as possible on the same spot, and to mark which a monument has been erected.