Naturally, the first great mission was to the Hurons, who had been the firm friends of the French, and who had been introduced to Christianity already by the Récollets; and who, moreover, lived in permanent settlements, and cultivated their fields. So the Jesuits followed the trail of Le Caron and for nearly a quarter of a century Brebeuf and his companions worked faithfully in Huronia, that part of what is now known as the province of Ontario called the county of Simcoe and bordering upon the Georgian Bay. His brother priest in this great missionary enterprise was Lalemant. Headquarters with a school were now established in a well-planned fort, which they built on the eastern bank of the Wye and from which missionaries were sent out to some twelve stations in Huronia, and among the neighbouring tribes. This was really a model settlement for the Hurons, who could see fields of corn, beans, pumpkins and wheat, with pigs and cattle outside, and shops of useful trades inside where were the men at the forge, the shoe shop, the laundry and the carpenter shop. The Hurons, however, were ignorant and superstitious and the medicine men took advantage of epidemics of sickness, which arose from the unsanitary living, to blame the missionaries, who indeed must have been men of infinite patience and unselfish devotion to their work. [Illustration: THE CORN HARVEST Among the Iroquois the cultivation of maize, beans, squashes and other garden produce was extensive and furnished a large portion of their food supply. The women of each village were organized in companies to plant and harvest the grain. The men cleared the land and provided the meat supply, but they seldom worked in the fields. This group depicts a harvest scene in the Genesee valley on the flats near Squakie hill at Mount Morris. The activities are gathering and braiding corn, shelling beans, pounding corn for meal and baking corn bread. The man has just come from his canoe and reaches the field in time for lunch. The figures are life casts of Seneca Indians.] And now just when it seemed as if they might see some result of their long and unselfish labour the Iroquois began to make raids upon this northern country. There were constant encounters on the trading journeys to Quebec, but in 1642 a great Huron village near where the town of Orillia now stands was wiped out by a marauding party of Iroquois. And yet the Hurons would not take seriously the warnings of their missionaries and made no preparations against their unrelenting enemies.