Landing again on the southern shore of the lake, they carried their canoes nine miles through the forest to Chautauqua Lake, and then dropped down the stream running out of it until they reached the Ohio.

The fertile country here was inhabited by the Delawares, Shawanoes, Wyandots, and Iroquois, or Indians of the Five Nations, who had migrated thither from their original territories in the colony of New York.

Further west, on the banks of the Miami, the Wabash, and other streams, was a confederacy of the Miami and their kindred tribes.

Still further west, in the country of the Illinois, near the Mississippi, the French had a strong stone fort called Fort Chartres, which formed one of the chief links of the chain of posts that connected Quebec with New Orleans.
The French missionaries and the French political agents had, for seventy years, laboured hard to bring these Indian tribes into close connection with France.

The missionaries had failed signally; but the presents, so lavishly bestowed, had inclined the tribes to the side of their donors, until the English traders with their cheap goods came pushing west over the Alleghenies.