water and was used to grease the hair.  This same Huron country (the Simcoe country of modern times) was remarkable for its wild fruits.  There was the Canada plum (Prunus americana), the wild black cherry (Prunus serotina), the red cherries (P. pennsylvanica), the choke cherry (P. virginiana), wild apples (Pyrus coronaria), wild pears (a small berry-like pear called “poire” by the French:  Pyrus canadensis), and the may-apple (Podophyllum peltatum).  Champlain describes this may-apple as of the form and colour of a small lemon with a similar taste, but having an interior which is very good and almost like that of figs.  The may-apples grow on a plant which is two and a half feet high, with not more than three or four leaves like those of the fig tree, and only two fruits on each plant.]

The Hurons persuaded Champlain to go with them to attack the Iroquois tribe of the Senekas (Entuhonorons) on the south shores of Lake Ontario.  On the way thither he noticed the abundance of stags and bears, and, near the lake, of cranes, white and purple-brown.[28]

[Footnote 28:  The cranes of Canada—­so often alluded to by the French explorers as “Grues”—­are of two species, Grus canadensis, with its plumage of a purple-grey, and Grus americanus, which is pure white (see p. 139).]

On the southern shores of the lake[29] were large numbers of chestnut trees, “whose fruit was still in the burr.  The chestnuts are small but of a good flavour.”  The southern country was covered with forests, with very few clearings.  After crossing the Oneida River the Hurons captured eleven of the Senekas, four women, one girl, three boys, and three men.  The people had left the stockade in which their relations were living to go and fish by the lake shore.  One of the Huron chiefs—­the celebrated Iroquet, who had been so much associated with Champlain from the time of his arrival—­proceeded at once to cut off the finger of one of these women prisoners.  Whereupon Champlain, firmer than in years gone by, interposed and reprimanded him, pointing out that it was not the act of a warrior such as he declared himself to be, to conduct himself with cruelty towards women “who had no defence but their tears, so that one should treat them with humanity on account of their helplessness and weakness”.  Champlain went on to say that this act was base and brutal, and that if he committed any more of such cruelties he, Champlain, “would have no heart to assist or favour them in the war”.  To this Iroquet replied that their enemies treated them in the same manner, but that since this was displeasing to the Frenchmen he would not do anything more to women, but he would not promise to refrain from torturing the men.

[Footnote 29:  Lakes Ontario and Huron were probably first actually reached by Father Le Caron, a Recollett missionary who came out with Champlain in 1615 (see p. 90), and by Etienne Brule, Champlain’s interpreter.]