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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 40143 ***
+
+ +----------------------------------------------------------------+
+ | Transcriber's Note: |
+ | |
+ | * Obvious punctuation and spelling errors repaired. |
+ | Original spelling and its variations were not harmonized. |
+ | |
+ | * Footnotes were moved to the ends of the chapters in which |
+ | they belonged and numbered in one continuous sequence. |
+ | The pagination in index entries which referred to these |
+ | footnotes was not changed to match their new locations |
+ + and is therefore incorrect. |
+ +----------------------------------------------------------------+
+
+
+
+
+Francis Parkman's Works.
+
+NEW LIBRARY EDITION.
+
+Vol. III.
+
+
+
+
+ FRANCIS PARKMAN'S WORKS.
+
+ New Library Edition.
+
+ Pioneers of France in the New World 1 vol.
+
+ The Jesuits in North America 1 vol.
+
+ La Salle and the Discovery of the Great West 1 vol.
+
+ The Old Régime in Canada 1 vol.
+
+ Count Frontenac and New France under Louis XIV. 1 vol.
+
+ A Half Century of Conflict 2 vols.
+
+ Montcalm and Wolfe 2 vols.
+
+ The Conspiracy of Pontiac and the Indian War after
+ the Conquest of Canada 2 vols.
+
+ The Oregon Trail 1 vol.
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+_La Salle Presenting a Petition to Louis XIV._
+
+Drawn by Adrien Moreau.
+
+La Salle and the Discovery of the Great West, _Frontispiece_
+
+
+
+
+ LA SALLE
+ AND THE
+ DISCOVERY OF THE GREAT WEST.
+
+ FRANCE AND ENGLAND IN
+ NORTH AMERICA.
+
+ Part Third.
+
+ BY
+ FRANCIS PARKMAN.
+
+ BOSTON:
+ LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY.
+ 1908.
+
+
+ Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1869, by
+ Francis Parkman,
+ In the Clerk's Office
+ of the
+ District Court of the District of Massachusetts.
+
+ Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1879, by
+ Francis Parkman,
+ In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington.
+
+ _Copyright, 1897,_
+ By Little, Brown, and Company.
+
+ _Copyright, 1897,_
+ By Grace P. Coffin and Katharine S. Coolidge.
+
+ _Copyright, 1907,_
+ By Grace P. Coffin.
+
+ Printers
+ S. J. Parkhill & Co., Boston, U. S. A.
+
+
+TO
+
+THE CLASS OF 1844,
+
+Harvard College,
+
+THIS BOOK IS CORDIALLY DEDICATED
+
+BY ONE OF THEIR NUMBER.
+
+
+
+
+PREFACE OF THE ELEVENTH EDITION.
+
+
+When the earlier editions of this book were
+published, I was aware of the existence of a collection
+of documents relating to La Salle, and
+containing important material to which I had
+not succeeded in gaining access. This collection
+was in possession of M. Pierre Margry, director
+of the Archives of the Marine and Colonies at
+Paris, and was the result of more than thirty
+years of research. With rare assiduity and zeal,
+M. Margry had explored not only the vast depository
+with which he has been officially connected
+from youth, and of which he is now the
+chief, but also the other public archives of
+France, and many private collections in Paris
+and the provinces. The object of his search
+was to throw light on the career and achievements
+of French explorers, and, above all, of La
+Salle. A collection of extraordinary richness
+grew gradually upon his hands. In the course
+of my own inquiries, I owed much to his friendly
+aid; but his collections, as a whole, remained
+inaccessible, since he naturally wished to be the
+first to make known the results of his labors.
+An attempt to induce Congress to furnish him
+with the means of printing documents so interesting
+to American history was made in 1870
+and 1871, by Henry Harrisse, Esq., aided by the
+American minister at Paris; but it unfortunately
+failed.
+
+In the summer and autumn of 1872, I had
+numerous interviews with M. Margry, and at his
+desire undertook to try to induce some American
+bookseller to publish the collection. On returning
+to the United States, I accordingly made
+an arrangement with Messrs. Little, Brown &
+Co., of Boston, by which they agreed to print
+the papers if a certain number of subscriptions
+should first be obtained. The condition proved
+very difficult; and it became clear that the best
+hope of success lay in another appeal to Congress.
+This was made in the following winter,
+in conjunction with Hon. E. B. Washburne;
+Colonel Charles Whittlesey, of Cleveland; O. H.
+Marshall, Esq., of Buffalo; and other gentlemen
+interested in early American history. The attempt
+succeeded. Congress made an appropriation
+for the purchase of five hundred copies of
+the work, to be printed at Paris, under direction
+of M. Margry; and the three volumes devoted
+to La Salle are at length before the public.
+
+Of the papers contained in them which I had
+not before examined, the most interesting are
+the letters of La Salle, found in the original by
+M. Margry, among the immense accumulations
+of the Archives of the Marine and Colonies and
+the Bibliothèque Nationale. The narrative of
+La Salle's companion, Joutel, far more copious
+than the abstract printed in 1713, under the
+title of "Journal Historique," also deserves
+special mention. These, with other fresh material
+in these three volumes, while they add new
+facts and throw new light on the character of
+La Salle, confirm nearly every statement made
+in the first edition of the Discovery of the Great
+West. The only exception of consequence relates
+to the causes of La Salle's failure to find
+the mouth of the Mississippi in 1684, and to the
+conduct, on that occasion, of the naval commander,
+Beaujeu.
+
+This edition is revised throughout, and in part
+rewritten with large additions. A map of the
+country traversed by the explorers is also added.
+The name of La Salle is placed on the titlepage,
+as seems to be demanded by his increased prominence
+in the narrative of which he is the central
+figure.
+
+Boston, 10 December, 1878.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+Note.--The title of M. Margry's printed collection is "Découvertes
+et Établissements des Français dans l'Ouest et dans le Sud
+de l'Amérique Septentrionale (1614-1754), Mémoires et Documents
+originaux." I., II., III. Besides the three volumes relating to La
+Salle, there will be two others, relating to other explorers. In
+accordance with the agreement with Congress, an independent edition
+will appear in France, with an introduction setting forth the
+circumstances of the publication.
+
+
+
+
+PREFACE OF THE FIRST EDITION.
+
+
+The discovery of the "Great West," or the
+valleys of the Mississippi and the Lakes, is a
+portion of our history hitherto very obscure.
+Those magnificent regions were revealed to the
+world through a series of daring enterprises,
+of which the motives and even the incidents
+have been but partially and superficially known.
+The chief actor in them wrote much, but printed
+nothing; and the published writings of his associates
+stand wofully in need of interpretation
+from the unpublished documents which exist,
+but which have not heretofore been used as
+material for history.
+
+This volume attempts to supply the defect.
+Of the large amount of wholly new material
+employed in it, by far the greater part is drawn
+from the various public archives of France, and
+the rest from private sources. The discovery of
+many of these documents is due to the indefatigable
+research of M. Pierre Margry, assistant
+director of the Archives of the Marine and Colonies
+at Paris, whose labors as an investigator of
+the maritime and colonial history of France can
+be appreciated only by those who have seen their
+results. In the department of American colonial
+history, these results have been invaluable;
+for, besides several private collections made by
+him, he rendered important service in the collection
+of the French portion of the Brodhead documents,
+selected and arranged the two great
+series of colonial papers ordered by the Canadian
+government, and prepared with vast labor analytical
+indexes of these and of supplementary
+documents in the French archives, as well as a
+copious index of the mass of papers relating to
+Louisiana. It is to be hoped that the valuable
+publications on the maritime history of France
+which have appeared from his pen are an earnest
+of more extended contributions in future.
+
+The late President Sparks, some time after the
+publication of his Life of La Salle, caused a
+collection to be made of documents relating to
+that explorer, with the intention of incorporating
+them in a future edition. This intention
+was never carried into effect, and the documents
+were never used. With the liberality which
+always distinguished him, he placed them at my
+disposal, and this privilege has been kindly continued
+by Mrs. Sparks.
+
+Abbé Faillon, the learned author of "La Colonie
+Française en Canada," has sent me copies
+of various documents found by him, including
+family papers of La Salle. Among others who
+in various ways have aided my inquiries are Dr.
+John Paul, of Ottawa, Ill.; Count Adolphe de
+Circourt, and M. Jules Marcou, of Paris; M. A.
+Gérin Lajoie, Assistant Librarian of the Canadian
+Parliament; M. J. M. Le Moine, of Quebec;
+General Dix, Minister of the United States
+at the Court of France; O. H. Marshall, of Buffalo;
+J. G. Shea, of New York; Buckingham
+Smith, of St. Augustine; and Colonel Thomas
+Aspinwall, of Boston.
+
+The smaller map contained in the book is a
+portion of the manuscript map of Franquelin, of
+which an account will be found in the Appendix.
+
+The next volume of the series will be devoted
+to the efforts of Monarchy and Feudalism under
+Louis XIV. to establish a permanent power on
+this continent, and to the stormy career of Louis
+de Buade, Count of Frontenac.
+
+Boston, 16 September, 1869.
+
+
+
+
+ CONTENTS.
+
+
+ Page
+
+ INTRODUCTION 3
+
+
+ CHAPTER I.
+
+ 1643-1669.
+
+ CAVELIER DE LA SALLE.
+
+ The Youth of La Salle: his Connection with the Jesuits; he goes to
+ Canada; his Character; his Schemes; his Seigniory at La Chine; his
+ Expedition in Search of a Western Passage to India. 7
+
+
+ CHAPTER II.
+
+ 1669-1671.
+
+ LA SALLE AND THE SULPITIANS.
+
+ The French in Western New York.--Louis Joliet.--The Sulpitians on Lake
+ Erie; at Detroit; at Saut Ste. Marie.--The Mystery of La Salle: he
+ discovers the Ohio; he descends the Illinois; did he reach the 19
+ Mississippi?
+
+
+ CHAPTER III.
+
+ 1670-1672.
+
+ THE JESUITS ON THE LAKES.
+
+ The Old Missions and the New.--A Change of Spirit.--Lake Superior and
+ the Copper-mines.--Ste. Marie.--La Pointe.--Michilimackinac.--Jesuits
+ on Lake Michigan.--Allouez and Dablon.--The Jesuit Fur-trade. 36
+
+
+ CHAPTER IV.
+
+ 1667-1672.
+
+ FRANCE TAKES POSSESSION OF THE WEST.
+
+ Talon.--Saint-Lusson.--Perrot.--The Ceremony at Saut Ste. Marie.--The
+ Speech of Allouez.--Count Frontenac. 48
+
+
+ CHAPTER V.
+
+ 1672-1675.
+
+ THE DISCOVERY OF THE MISSISSIPPI.
+
+ Joliet sent to find the Mississippi.--Jacques
+ Marquette.--Departure.--Green Bay.--The Wisconsin.--The
+ Mississippi.--Indians.--Manitous.--The Arkansas.--The
+ Illinois.--Joliet's Misfortune.--Marquette at Chicago: his Illness;
+ his Death. 57
+
+
+ CHAPTER VI.
+
+ 1673-1678.
+
+ LA SALLE AND FRONTENAC.
+
+ Objects of La Salle.--Frontenac favors him.--Projects of
+ Frontenac.--Cataraqui.--Frontenac on Lake Ontario.--Fort
+ Frontenac.--La Salle and Fénelon.--Success of La Salle:
+ his Enemies. 83
+
+
+ CHAPTER VII.
+
+ 1678.
+
+ PARTY STRIFE.
+
+ La Salle and his Reporter.--Jesuit Ascendency.--The Missions and the
+ Fur-trade.--Female Inquisitors.--Plots against La Salle: his Brother
+ the Priest.--Intrigues of the Jesuits.--La Salle poisoned: he
+ exculpates the Jesuits.--Renewed Intrigues. 106
+
+
+ CHAPTER VIII.
+
+ 1677, 1678.
+
+ THE GRAND ENTERPRISE.
+
+ La Salle at Fort Frontenac.--La Salle at Court: his
+ Memorial.--Approval of the King.--Money and Means.--Henri de
+ Tonty.--Return to Canada. 120
+
+
+ CHAPTER IX.
+
+ 1678-1679.
+
+ LA SALLE AT NIAGARA.
+
+ Father Louis Hennepin: his Past Life; his
+ Character.--Embarkation.--Niagara Falls.--Indian Jealousy.--La Motte
+ and the Senecas.--A Disaster.--La Salle and his Followers. 131
+
+
+ CHAPTER X.
+
+ 1679.
+
+ THE LAUNCH OF THE "GRIFFIN."
+
+ The Niagara Portage.--A Vessel on the Stocks.--Suffering and
+ Discontent.--La Salle's Winter Journey.--The Vessel launched.--Fresh
+ Disasters. 144
+
+
+ CHAPTER XI.
+
+ 1679.
+
+ LA SALLE ON THE UPPER LAKES.
+
+ The Voyage of the "Griffin."--Detroit.--A Storm.--St. Ignace of
+ Michilimackinac.--Rivals and Enemies.--Lake Michigan.--Hardships.--A
+ Threatened Fight.--Fort Miami.--Tonty's Misfortunes.--Forebodings. 151
+
+
+ CHAPTER XII.
+
+ 1679, 1680.
+
+ LA SALLE ON THE ILLINOIS.
+
+ The St. Joseph.--Adventure of La Salle.--The Prairies.--Famine.--The
+ Great Town of the Illinois.--Indians.--Intrigues.--Difficulties.--
+ Policy of La Salle.--Desertion.--Another Attempt to poison
+ La Salle. 164
+
+
+ CHAPTER XIII.
+
+ 1680.
+
+ FORT CRÈVECOE]UR.
+
+ Building of the Fort.--Loss of the "Griffin."--A Bold
+ Resolution.--Another Vessel.--Hennepin sent to the
+ Mississippi.--Departure of La Salle. 180
+
+
+ CHAPTER XIV.
+
+ 1680.
+
+ HARDIHOOD OF LA SALLE.
+
+ The Winter Journey.--The Deserted Town.--Starved Rock.--Lake
+ Michigan.--The Wilderness.--War Parties.--La Salle's Men give
+ out.--Ill Tidings.--Mutiny.--Chastisement of the Mutineers. 189
+
+
+ CHAPTER XV.
+
+ 1680.
+
+ INDIAN CONQUERORS.
+
+ The Enterprise renewed.--Attempt to rescue Tonty.--Buffalo.--A
+ Frightful Discovery.--Iroquois Fury.--The Ruined Town.--A Night
+ of Horror.--Traces of the Invaders.--No News of Tonty. 202
+
+
+ CHAPTER XVI.
+
+ 1680.
+
+ TONTY AND THE IROQUOIS.
+
+ The Deserters.--The Iroquois War.--The Great Town of the
+ Illinois.--The Alarm.--Onset of the Iroquois.--Peril of
+ Tonty.--A Treacherous Truce.--Intrepidity of Tonty.--Murder
+ of Ribourde.--War upon the Dead. 216
+
+
+ CHAPTER XVII.
+
+ 1680.
+
+ THE ADVENTURES OF HENNEPIN.
+
+ Hennepin an Impostor: his Pretended Discovery; his Actual Discovery;
+ captured by the Sioux.--The Upper Mississippi. 242
+
+
+ CHAPTER XVIII.
+
+ 1680, 1681.
+
+ HENNEPIN AMONG THE SIOUX.
+
+ Signs of Danger.--Adoption.--Hennepin and his Indian Relatives.--The
+ Hunting Party.--The Sioux Camp.--Falls of St. Anthony.--A Vagabond
+ Friar: his Adventures on the Mississippi.--Greysolon Du Lhut.--Return
+ to Civilization. 259
+
+
+ CHAPTER XIX.
+
+ 1681.
+
+ LA SALLE BEGINS ANEW.
+
+ His Constancy; his Plans; his Savage Allies; he becomes
+ Snow-blind.--Negotiations.--Grand Council.--La Salle's
+ Oratory.--Meeting with Tonty.--Preparation.--Departure. 283
+
+
+ CHAPTER XX.
+
+ 1681-1682.
+
+ SUCCESS OF LA SALLE.
+
+ His Followers.--The Chicago Portage.--Descent of the Mississippi.--The
+ Lost Hunter.--The Arkansas.--The Taensas.--The Natchez.--Hostility.--The
+ Mouth of the Mississippi.--Louis XIV. proclaimed Sovereign of the Great
+ West. 295
+
+
+ CHAPTER XXI.
+
+ 1682, 1683.
+
+ ST. LOUIS OF THE ILLINOIS.
+
+ Louisiana.--Illness of La Salle: his Colony on the Illinois.--Fort
+ St. Louis.--Recall of Frontenac.--Le Febvre de la Barre.--Critical
+ Position of La Salle.--Hostility of the New Governor.--Triumph of
+ the Adverse Faction.--La Salle sails for France. 309
+
+
+ CHAPTER XXII.
+
+ 1680-1683.
+
+ LA SALLE PAINTED BY HIMSELF.
+
+ Difficulty of knowing him; his Detractors; his Letters; vexations of
+ his Position; his Unfitness for Trade; risks of Correspondence; his
+ Reported Marriage; alleged Ostentation; motives of Action; charges
+ of Harshness; intrigues against him; unpopular Manners; a Strange
+ Confession; his Strength and his Weakness; contrasts of his
+ Character. 328
+
+
+ CHAPTER XXIII.
+
+ 1684.
+
+ A NEW ENTERPRISE.
+
+ La Salle at Court: his Proposals.--Occupation of Louisiana.--Invasion
+ of Mexico.--Royal Favor.--Preparation.--A Divided Command.--Beaujeu
+ and La Salle.--Mental Condition of La Salle: his Farewell to his
+ Mother. 343
+
+
+ CHAPTER XXIV.
+
+ 1684, 1685.
+
+ THE VOYAGE.
+
+ Disputes with Beaujeu.--St. Domingo.--La Salle attacked with
+ Fever: his Desperate Condition.--The Gulf of Mexico.--A Vain Search
+ and a Fatal Error. 366
+
+
+ CHAPTER XXV.
+
+ 1685.
+
+ LA SALLE IN TEXAS.
+
+ A Party of Exploration.--Wreck of the "Aimable."--Landing of the
+ Colonists.--A Forlorn Position.--Indian Neighbors.--Friendly Advances
+ of Beaujeu: his Departure.--A Fatal Discovery. 378
+
+
+ CHAPTER XXVI.
+
+ 1685-1687.
+
+ ST. LOUIS OF TEXAS.
+
+ The Fort.--Misery and Dejection.--Energy of La Salle: his Journey of
+ Exploration.--Adventures and Accidents.--The Buffalo.--Duhaut.--Indian
+ Massacre.--Return of La Salle.--A New Calamity.--A Desperate
+ Resolution.--Departure for Canada.--Wreck of the
+ "Belle."--Marriage.--Sedition.--Adventures of La Salle's Party.--The
+ Cenis.--The Camanches.--The Only Hope.--The Last Farewell. 391
+
+
+ CHAPTER XXVII.
+
+ 1687.
+
+ ASSASSINATION OF LA SALLE.
+
+ His Followers.--Prairie Travelling.--A Hunters' Quarrel.--The Murder
+ of Moranget.--The Conspiracy.--Death of La Salle: his Character. 420
+
+
+ CHAPTER XXVIII.
+
+ 1687, 1688.
+
+ THE INNOCENT AND THE GUILTY.
+
+ Triumph of the Murderers.--Danger of Joutel.--Joutel among the
+ Cenis.--White Savages.--Insolence of Duhaut and his
+ Accomplices.--Murder of Duhaut and Liotot.--Hiens, the
+ Buccaneer.--Joutel and his Party: their Escape; they reach the
+ Arkansas.--Bravery and Devotion of Tonty.--The Fugitives reach
+ the Illinois.--Unworthy Conduct of Cavelier.--He and his Companions
+ return to France. 435
+
+
+ CHAPTER XXIX.
+
+ 1688-1689.
+
+ FATE OF THE TEXAN COLONY.
+
+ Tonty attempts to rescue the Colonists: his Difficulties and
+ Hardships.--Spanish Hostility.--Expedition of Alonzo de Leon: he
+ reaches Fort St. Louis.--A Scene of Havoc.--Destruction of the
+ French.--The End. 464
+
+
+
+
+ APPENDIX.
+
+ I. Early Unpublished Maps of the Mississippi and the Great
+ Lakes 475
+
+
+ II. The Eldorado of Mathieu Sâgean 485
+
+
+
+
+ INDEX 491
+
+[Illustration:
+
+COUNTRIES
+traversed by
+MARQUETTE, HENNEPIN
+AND
+LA SALLE.
+
+G.W. Boynton, Sc.]
+
+
+
+
+LA SALLE
+AND THE
+DISCOVERY OF THE GREAT WEST.
+
+
+
+
+INTRODUCTION.
+
+
+The Spaniards discovered the Mississippi. De
+Soto was buried beneath its waters; and it was down
+its muddy current that his followers fled from the
+Eldorado of their dreams, transformed to a wilderness
+of misery and death. The discovery was never used,
+and was well-nigh forgotten. On early Spanish
+maps, the Mississippi is often indistinguishable from
+other affluents of the Gulf. A century passed after
+De Soto's journeyings in the South, before a French
+explorer reached a northern tributary of the great
+river.
+
+This was Jean Nicollet, interpreter at Three Rivers on the St. Lawrence.
+He had been some twenty years in Canada, had lived among the savage
+Algonquins of Allumette Island, and spent eight or nine years among the
+Nipissings, on the lake which bears their name. Here he became an Indian
+in all his habits, but remained, nevertheless, a zealous Catholic, and
+returned to civilization at last because he could not live without the
+sacraments. Strange stories were current among the Nipissings of a
+people without hair or beard, who came from the West to trade with a
+tribe beyond the Great Lakes. Who could doubt that these strangers were
+Chinese or Japanese? Such tales may well have excited Nicollet's
+curiosity; and when, in 1635, or possibly in 1638, he was sent as an
+ambassador to the tribe in question, he would not have been surprised if
+on arriving he had found a party of mandarins among them. Perhaps it was
+with a view to such a contingency that he provided himself, as a dress
+of ceremony, with a robe of Chinese damask embroidered with birds and
+flowers. The tribe to which he was sent was that of the Winnebagoes,
+living near the head of the Green Bay of Lake Michigan. They had come to
+blows with the Hurons, allies of the French; and Nicollet was charged to
+negotiate a peace. When he approached the Winnebago town, he sent one of
+his Indian attendants to announce his coming, put on his robe of damask,
+and advanced to meet the expectant crowd with a pistol in each hand. The
+squaws and children fled, screaming that it was a manito, or spirit,
+armed with thunder and lightning; but the chiefs and warriors regaled
+him with so bountiful a hospitality that a hundred and twenty beavers
+were devoured at a single feast. From the Winnebagoes, he passed
+westward, ascended Fox River, crossed to the Wisconsin, and descended
+it so far that, as he reported on his return, in three days more he
+would have reached the sea. The truth seems to be that he mistook the
+meaning of his Indian guides, and that the "great water" to which he was
+so near was not the sea, but the Mississippi.
+
+It has been affirmed that one Colonel Wood, of Virginia, reached a
+branch of the Mississippi as early as the year 1654, and that about 1670
+a certain Captain Bolton penetrated to the river itself. Neither
+statement is sustained by sufficient evidence. It is further affirmed
+that, in 1678, a party from New England crossed the Mississippi, reached
+New Mexico, and, returning, reported their discoveries to the
+authorities of Boston,--a story without proof or probability. Meanwhile,
+French Jesuits and fur-traders pushed deeper and deeper into the
+wilderness of the northern lakes. In 1641, Jogues and Raymbault preached
+the Faith to a concourse of Indians at the outlet of Lake Superior. Then
+came the havoc and desolation of the Iroquois war, and for years farther
+exploration was arrested. In 1658-59 Pierre Esprit Radisson, a Frenchman
+of St. Malo, and his brother-in-law, Médard Chouart des Groseilliers,
+penetrated the regions beyond Lake Superior, and roamed westward till,
+as Radisson declares, they reached what was called the Forked River,
+"because it has two branches, the one towards the west, the other
+towards the south, which, we believe, runs towards Mexico,"--which seems
+to point to the Mississippi and its great confluent the Missouri. Two
+years later, the aged Jesuit Ménard attempted to plant a mission on the
+southern shore of Lake Superior, but perished in the forest by famine or
+the tomahawk. Allouez succeeded him, explored a part of Lake Superior,
+and heard, in his turn, of the Sioux and their great river the
+"Messipi." More and more, the thoughts of the Jesuits--and not of the
+Jesuits alone--dwelt on this mysterious stream. Through what regions did
+it flow; and whither would it lead them,--to the South Sea or the "Sea
+of Virginia;" to Mexico, Japan, or China? The problem was soon to be
+solved, and the mystery revealed.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+1643-1669.
+
+CAVELIER DE LA SALLE.
+
+ The Youth of La Salle: his Connection with the Jesuits; he goes to
+ Canada; his Character; his Schemes; his Seigniory at La Chine; his
+ Expedition in Search of a Western Passage to India.
+
+
+Among the burghers of Rouen was the old and rich family of the
+Caveliers. Though citizens and not nobles, some of their connections
+held high diplomatic posts and honorable employments at Court. They were
+destined to find a better claim to distinction. In 1643 was born at
+Rouen Robert Cavelier, better known by the designation of La Salle.[1]
+His father Jean and his uncle Henri were wealthy merchants, living more
+like nobles than like burghers; and the boy received an education
+answering to the marked traits of intellect and character which he soon
+began to display. He showed an inclination for the exact sciences, and
+especially for the mathematics, in which he made great proficiency. At
+an early age, it is said, he became connected with the Jesuits; and,
+though doubt has been expressed of the statement, it is probably
+true.[2]
+
+[Sidenote: LA SALLE AND THE JESUITS.]
+
+La Salle was always an earnest Catholic; and yet, judging by the
+qualities which his after-life evinced, he was not very liable to
+religious enthusiasm. It is nevertheless clear that the Society of Jesus
+may have had a powerful attraction for his youthful imagination. This
+great organization, so complicated yet so harmonious, a mighty machine
+moved from the centre by a single hand, was an image of regulated power,
+full of fascination for a mind like his. But if it was likely that he
+would be drawn into it, it was no less likely that he would soon wish to
+escape. To find himself not at the centre of power, but at the
+circumference; not the mover, but the moved; the passive instrument of
+another's will, taught to walk in prescribed paths, to renounce his
+individuality and become a component atom of a vast whole,--would have
+been intolerable to him. Nature had shaped him for other uses than to
+teach a class of boys on the benches of a Jesuit school. Nor, on his
+part, was he likely to please his directors; for, self-controlled and
+self-contained as he was, he was far too intractable a subject to serve
+their turn. A youth whose calm exterior hid an inexhaustible fund of
+pride; whose inflexible purposes, nursed in secret, the confessional and
+the "manifestation of conscience" could hardly drag to the light; whose
+strong personality would not yield to the shaping hand; and who, by a
+necessity of his nature, could obey no initiative but his own,--was not
+after the model that Loyola had commended to his followers.
+
+La Salle left the Jesuits, parting with them, it is said, on good terms,
+and with a reputation of excellent acquirements and unimpeachable
+morals. This last is very credible. The cravings of a deep ambition, the
+hunger of an insatiable intellect, the intense longing for action and
+achievement, subdued in him all other passions; and in his faults the
+love of pleasure had no part. He had an elder brother in Canada, the
+Abbé Jean Cavelier, a priest of St. Sulpice. Apparently, it was this
+that shaped his destinies. His connection with the Jesuits had deprived
+him, under the French law, of the inheritance of his father, who had
+died not long before. An allowance was made to him of three or (as is
+elsewhere stated) four hundred livres a year, the capital of which was
+paid over to him; and with this pittance he sailed for Canada, to seek
+his fortune, in the spring of 1666.[3]
+
+[Sidenote: LA SALLE AT MONTREAL.]
+
+Next, we find him at Montreal. In another volume, we have seen how an
+association of enthusiastic devotees had made a settlement at this
+place.[4] Having in some measure accomplished its work, it was now
+dissolved; and the corporation of priests, styled the Seminary of St.
+Sulpice, which had taken a prominent part in the enterprise, and,
+indeed, had been created with a view to it, was now the proprietor and
+the feudal lord of Montreal. It was destined to retain its seignorial
+rights until the abolition of the feudal tenures of Canada in our own
+day, and it still holds vast possessions in the city and island. These
+worthy ecclesiastics, models of a discreet and sober conservatism, were
+holding a post with which a band of veteran soldiers or warlike
+frontiersmen would have been better matched. Montreal was perhaps the
+most dangerous place in Canada. In time of war, which might have been
+called the normal condition of the colony, it was exposed by its
+position to incessant inroads of the Iroquois, or Five Nations, of New
+York; and no man could venture into the forests or the fields without
+bearing his life in his hand. The savage confederates had just received
+a sharp chastisement at the hands of Courcelle, the governor; and the
+result was a treaty of peace which might at any moment be broken, but
+which was an inexpressible relief while it lasted.
+
+The priests of St. Sulpice were granting out their lands, on very easy
+terms, to settlers. They wished to extend a thin line of settlements
+along the front of their island, to form a sort of outpost, from which
+an alarm could be given on any descent of the Iroquois. La Salle was the
+man for such a purpose. Had the priests understood him,--which they
+evidently did not, for some of them suspected him of levity, the last
+foible with which he could be charged,--had they understood him, they
+would have seen in him a young man in whom the fire of youth glowed not
+the less ardently for the veil of reserve that covered it; who would
+shrink from no danger, but would not court it in bravado; and who would
+cling with an invincible tenacity of gripe to any purpose which he might
+espouse. There is good reason to think that he had come to Canada with
+purposes already conceived, and that he was ready to avail himself of
+any stepping-stone which might help to realize them. Queylus, Superior
+of the Seminary, made him a generous offer; and he accepted it. This
+was the gratuitous grant of a large tract of land at the place now
+called La Chine, above the great rapids of the same name, and eight or
+nine miles from Montreal. On one hand, the place was greatly exposed to
+attack; and, on the other, it was favorably situated for the fur-trade.
+La Salle and his successors became its feudal proprietors, on the sole
+condition of delivering to the Seminary, on every change of ownership, a
+medal of fine silver, weighing one mark.[5] He entered on the
+improvement of his new domain with what means he could command, and
+began to grant out his land to such settlers as would join him.
+
+Approaching the shore where the city of Montreal now stands, one would
+have seen a row of small compact dwellings, extending along a narrow
+street, parallel to the river, and then, as now, called St. Paul Street.
+On a hill at the right stood the windmill of the seigniors, built of
+stone, and pierced with loopholes to serve, in time of need, as a place
+of defence. On the left, in an angle formed by the junction of a rivulet
+with the St. Lawrence, was a square bastioned fort of stone. Here lived
+the military governor, appointed by the Seminary, and commanding a few
+soldiers of the regiment of Carignan. In front, on the line of the
+street, were the enclosure and buildings of the Seminary, and, nearly
+adjoining them, those of the Hôtel-Dieu, or Hospital, both provided for
+defence in case of an Indian attack. In the hospital enclosure was a
+small church, opening on the street, and, in the absence of any other,
+serving for the whole settlement.[6]
+
+Landing, passing the fort, and walking southward along the shore, one
+would soon have left the rough clearings, and entered the primeval
+forest. Here, mile after mile, he would have journeyed on in solitude,
+when the hoarse roar of the rapids, foaming in fury on his left, would
+have reached his listening ear; and at length, after a walk of some
+three hours, he would have found the rude beginnings of a settlement. It
+was where the St. Lawrence widens into the broad expanse called the Lake
+of St. Louis. Here, La Salle had traced out the circuit of a palisaded
+village, and assigned to each settler half an arpent, or about the third
+of an acre, within the enclosure, for which he was to render to the
+young seignior a yearly acknowledgment of three capons, besides six
+deniers--that is, half a sou--in money. To each was assigned, moreover,
+sixty arpents of land beyond the limits of the village, with the
+perpetual rent of half a sou for each arpent. He also set apart a
+common, two hundred arpents in extent, for the use of the settlers, on
+condition of the payment by each of five sous a year. He reserved four
+hundred and twenty arpents for his own personal domain, and on this he
+began to clear the ground and erect buildings. Similar to this were the
+beginnings of all the Canadian seigniories formed at this troubled
+period.[7]
+
+[Sidenote: LA CHINE.]
+
+That La Salle came to Canada with objects distinctly in view, is
+probable from the fact that he at once began to study the Indian
+languages,--and with such success that he is said, within two or three
+years, to have mastered the Iroquois and seven or eight other languages
+and dialects.[8] From the shore of his seigniory, he could gaze westward
+over the broad breast of the Lake of St. Louis, bounded by the dim
+forests of Chateauguay and Beauharnois; but his thoughts flew far
+beyond, across the wild and lonely world that stretched towards the
+sunset. Like Champlain, and all the early explorers, he dreamed of a
+passage to the South Sea, and a new road for commerce to the riches of
+China and Japan. Indians often came to his secluded settlement; and, on
+one occasion, he was visited by a band of the Seneca Iroquois, not long
+before the scourge of the colony, but now, in virtue of the treaty,
+wearing the semblance of friendship. The visitors spent the winter with
+him, and told him of a river called the Ohio, rising in their country,
+and flowing into the sea, but at such a distance that its mouth could
+only be reached after a journey of eight or nine months. Evidently, the
+Ohio and the Mississippi are here merged into one.[9] In accordance with
+geographical views then prevalent, he conceived that this great river
+must needs flow into the "Vermilion Sea;" that is, the Gulf of
+California. If so, it would give him what he sought, a western passage
+to China; while, in any case, the populous Indian tribes said to inhabit
+its banks might be made a source of great commercial profit.
+
+[Sidenote: SCHEMES OF DISCOVERY.]
+
+La Salle's imagination took fire. His resolution was soon formed; and he
+descended the St. Lawrence to Quebec, to gain the countenance of the
+governor for his intended exploration. Few men were more skilled than he
+in the art of clear and plausible statement. Both the governor Courcelle
+and the intendant Talon were readily won over to his plan; for which,
+however, they seem to have given him no more substantial aid than that
+of the governor's letters patent authorizing the enterprise.[10] The
+cost was to be his own; and he had no money, having spent it all on his
+seigniory. He therefore proposed that the Seminary, which had given it
+to him, should buy it back again, with such improvements as he had made.
+Queylus, the Superior, being favorably disposed towards him, consented,
+and bought of him the greater part; while La Salle sold the remainder,
+including the clearings, to one Jean Milot, an iron-monger, for
+twenty-eight hundred livres.[11] With this he bought four canoes, with
+the necessary supplies, and hired fourteen men.
+
+Meanwhile, the Seminary itself was preparing a similar enterprise. The
+Jesuits at this time not only held an ascendency over the other
+ecclesiastics in Canada, but exercised an inordinate influence on the
+civil government. The Seminary priests of Montreal were jealous of these
+powerful rivals, and eager to emulate their zeal in the saving of souls
+and the conquering of new domains for the Faith. Under this impulse,
+they had, three years before, established a mission at Quinté, on the
+north shore of Lake Ontario, in charge of two of their number, one of
+whom was the Abbé Fénelon, elder brother of the celebrated Archbishop of
+Cambray. Another of them, Dollier de Casson, had spent the winter in a
+hunting-camp of the Nipissings, where an Indian prisoner, captured in
+the Northwest, told him of populous tribes of that quarter living in
+heathenish darkness. On this, the Seminary priests resolved to essay
+their conversion; and an expedition, to be directed by Dollier, was
+fitted out to this end.
+
+[Sidenote: DEPARTURE.]
+
+He was not ill suited to the purpose. He had been a soldier in his
+youth, and had fought valiantly as an officer of cavalry under Turenne.
+He was a man of great courage; of a tall, commanding person; and of
+uncommon bodily strength, which he had notably proved in the campaign of
+Courcelle against the Iroquois, three years before.[12] On going to
+Quebec to procure the necessary outfit, he was urged by Courcelle to
+modify his plans so far as to act in concert with La Salle in exploring
+the mystery of the great unknown river of the West. Dollier and his
+brother priests consented. One of them, Galinée, was joined with him as
+a colleague, because he was skilled in surveying, and could make a map
+of their route. Three canoes were procured, and seven hired men
+completed the party. It was determined that La Salle's expedition and
+that of the Seminary should be combined in one,--an arrangement ill
+suited to the character of the young explorer, who was unfit for any
+enterprise of which he was not the undisputed chief.
+
+Midsummer was near, and there was no time to lose. Yet the moment was
+most unpropitious, for a Seneca chief had lately been murdered by three
+scoundrel soldiers of the fort of Montreal; and, while they were
+undergoing their trial, it became known that three other Frenchmen had
+treacherously put to death several Iroquois of the Oneida tribe, in
+order to get possession of their furs. The whole colony trembled in
+expectation of a new outbreak of the war. Happily, the event proved
+otherwise. The authors of the last murder escaped; but the three
+soldiers were shot at Montreal, in presence of a considerable number of
+the Iroquois, who declared themselves satisfied with the atonement; and
+on this same day, the sixth of July, the adventurers began their voyage.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[1] The following is the _acte de naissance_, discovered by Margry in
+the _registres de l'état civil_, Paroisse St. Herbland, Rouen: "Le
+vingt-deuxième jour de novembre, 1643, a été baptisé Robert Cavelier,
+fils de honorable homme Jean Cavelier et de Catherine Geest; ses parrain
+et marraine honorables personnes Nicolas Geest et Marguerite Morice."
+
+La Salle's name in full was René-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de la Salle. La
+Salle was the name of an estate near Rouen, belonging to the Caveliers.
+The wealthy French burghers often distinguished the various members of
+their families by designations borrowed from landed estates. Thus,
+François Marie Arouet, son of an ex-notary, received the name of
+Voltaire, which he made famous.
+
+[2] Margry, after investigations at Rouen, is satisfied of its truth
+(_Journal Général de l'Instruction Publique_, xxxi. 571.) Family papers
+of the Caveliers, examined by the Abbé Faillon, and copies of some of
+which he has sent to me, lead to the same conclusion. We shall find
+several allusions hereafter to La Salle's having in his youth taught in
+a school, which, in his position, could only have been in connection
+with some religious community. The doubts alluded to have proceeded from
+the failure of Father Felix Martin, S. J., to find the name of La Salle
+on the list of novices. If he had looked for the name of Robert
+Cavelier, he would probably have found it. The companion of La Salle,
+Hennepin, is very explicit with regard to this connection with the
+Jesuits, a point on which he had no motive for falsehood.
+
+[3] It does not appear what vows La Salle had taken. By a recent
+ordinance (1666), persons entering religious orders could not take the
+final vows before the age of twenty-five. By the family papers above
+mentioned, it appears, however, that he had brought himself under the
+operation of the law, which debarred those who, having entered religious
+orders, afterwards withdrew, from claiming the inheritance of relatives
+who had died after their entrance.
+
+[4] The Jesuits in North America, chap. xv.
+
+[5] _Transport de la Seigneurie de St. Sulpice_, cited by Faillon. La
+Salle called his new domain as above. Two or three years later, it
+received the name of La Chine, for a reason which will appear.
+
+[6] A detailed plan of Montreal at this time is preserved in the
+Archives de l'Empire, and has been reproduced by Faillon. There is
+another, a few years later, and still more minute, of which a fac-simile
+will be found in the Library of the Canadian Parliament.
+
+[7] The above particulars have been unearthed by the indefatigable Abbé
+Faillon. Some of La Salle's grants are still preserved in the ancient
+records of Montreal.
+
+[8] _Papiers de Famille._ He is said to have made several journeys into
+the forests, towards the North, in the years 1667 and 1668, and to have
+satisfied himself that little could be hoped from explorations in that
+direction.
+
+[9] According to Dollier de Casson, who had good opportunities of
+knowing, the Iroquois always called the Mississippi the Ohio, while the
+Algonquins gave it its present name.
+
+[10] _Patoulet à Colbert, 11 Nov., 1669._
+
+[11] _Cession de la Seigneurie; Contrat de Vente_ (Margry, i. 103, 104).
+
+[12] He was the author of the very curious and valuable _Histoire de
+Montréal_, preserved in the Bibliothèque Mazarine, of which a copy is in
+my possession. The Historical Society of Montreal has recently resolved
+to print it.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+1669-1671.
+
+LA SALLE AND THE SULPITIANS.
+
+ The French in Western New York.--Louis Joliet.--The Sulpitians on
+ Lake Erie; at Detroit; at Saut Ste. Marie.--The Mystery of La
+ Salle: he discovers the Ohio; he descends the Illinois; did he
+ reach the Mississippi?
+
+
+La Chine was the starting-point; and the combined parties, in all
+twenty-four men with seven canoes, embarked on the Lake of St. Louis.
+With them were two other canoes, bearing the party of Senecas who had
+wintered at La Salle's settlement, and who were now to act as guides.
+Father Galinée recounts the journey. He was no woodsman: the river, the
+forests, the rapids, were all new to him, and he dilates on them with
+the minuteness of a novice. Above all, he admired the Indian birch
+canoes. "If God," he says, "grants me the grace of returning to France,
+I shall try to carry one with me." Then he describes the bivouac: "Your
+lodging is as extraordinary as your vessels; for, after paddling or
+carrying the canoes all day, you find mother earth ready to receive your
+wearied body. If the weather is fair, you make a fire and lie down to
+sleep without further trouble; but if it rains, you must peel bark from
+the trees, and make a shed by laying it on a frame of sticks. As for
+your food, it is enough to make you burn all the cookery books that ever
+were written; for in the woods of Canada one finds means to live well
+without bread, wine, salt, pepper, or spice. The ordinary food is Indian
+corn, or Turkey wheat as they call it in France, which is crushed
+between two stones and boiled, seasoning it with meat or fish, when you
+can get them. This sort of life seemed so strange to us that we all felt
+the effects of it; and before we were a hundred leagues from Montreal,
+not one of us was free from some malady or other. At last, after all our
+misery, on the second of August, we discovered Lake Ontario, like a
+great sea with no land beyond it."
+
+[Sidenote: THE SENECA VILLAGES.]
+
+Thirty-five days after leaving La Chine, they reached Irondequoit Bay,
+on the south side of the lake. Here they were met by a number of Seneca
+Indians, who professed friendship and invited them to their villages,
+fifteen or twenty miles distant. As this was on their way to the upper
+waters of the Ohio, and as they hoped to find guides at the villages to
+conduct them, they accepted the invitation. Dollier, with most of the
+men, remained to guard the canoes; while La Salle, with Galinée and
+eight other Frenchmen, accompanied by a troop of Indians, set out on the
+morning of the twelfth, and reached the principal village before
+evening. It stood on a hill, in the midst of a clearing nearly two
+leagues in compass.[13] A rude stockade surrounded it; and as the
+visitors drew near they saw a band of old men seated on the grass,
+waiting to receive them. One of these veterans, so feeble with age that
+he could hardly stand, made them an harangue, in which he declared that
+the Senecas were their brothers, and invited them to enter the village.
+They did so, surrounded by a crowd of savages, and presently found
+themselves in the midst of a disorderly cluster of large but filthy
+abodes of bark, about a hundred and fifty in number, the most capacious
+of which was assigned to their use. Here they made their quarters, and
+were soon overwhelmed by Seneca hospitality. Children brought them
+pumpkins and berries from the woods; and boy messengers came to summon
+them to endless feasts, where they were regaled with the flesh of dogs
+and with boiled maize seasoned with oil pressed from nuts and the seed
+of sunflowers.
+
+La Salle had flattered himself that he knew enough Iroquois to hold
+communication with the Senecas; but he failed completely in the attempt.
+The priests had a Dutch interpreter, who spoke Iroquois fluently, but
+knew so little French, and was withal so obstinate, that he proved
+useless; so that it was necessary to employ a man in the service of the
+Jesuit Fremin, whose mission was at this village. What the party needed
+was a guide to conduct them to the Ohio; and soon after their arrival a
+party of warriors appeared, with a young prisoner belonging to one of
+the tribes of that region. Galinée wanted to beg or buy him from his
+captors; but the Senecas had other intentions. "I saw," writes the
+priest, "the most miserable spectacle I ever beheld in my life." It was
+the prisoner tied to a stake and tortured for six hours with diabolical
+ingenuity, while the crowd danced and yelled with delight, and the
+chiefs and elders sat in a row smoking their pipes and watching the
+contortions of the victim with an air of serene enjoyment. The body was
+at last cut up and eaten, and in the evening the whole population
+occupied themselves in scaring away the angry ghost by beating with
+sticks against the bark sides of the lodges.
+
+La Salle and his companions began to fear for their own safety. Some of
+their hosts wished to kill them in revenge for the chief murdered near
+Montreal; and as these and others were at times in a frenzy of
+drunkenness, the position of the French became critical. They suspected
+that means had been used to prejudice the Senecas against them. Not only
+could they get no guides, but they were told that if they went to the
+Ohio the tribes of those parts would infallibly kill them. Their Dutch
+interpreter became disheartened and unmanageable, and, after staying a
+month at the village, the hope of getting farther on their way seemed
+less than ever. Their plan, it was clear, must be changed; and an Indian
+from Otinawatawa, a kind of Iroquois colony at the head of Lake
+Ontario, offered to guide them to his village and show them a better way
+to the Ohio. They left the Senecas, coasted the south shore of the lake,
+passed the mouth of the Niagara, where they heard the distant roar of
+the cataract, and on the twenty-fourth of September reached Otinawatawa,
+which was a few miles north of the present town of Hamilton. The
+inhabitants proved friendly, and La Salle received the welcome present
+of a Shawanoe prisoner, who told them that the Ohio could be reached in
+six weeks, and that he would guide them to it. Delighted at this good
+fortune, they were about to set out; when they heard, to their
+astonishment, of the arrival of two other Frenchmen at a neighboring
+village.
+
+[Sidenote: LOUIS JOLIET.]
+
+One of the strangers was destined to hold a conspicuous place in the
+history of western discovery. This was Louis Joliet, a young man of
+about the age of La Salle. Like him, he had studied for the priesthood;
+but the world and the wilderness had conquered his early inclinations,
+and changed him to an active and adventurous fur-trader. Talon had sent
+him to discover and explore the copper-mines of Lake Superior. He had
+failed in the attempt, and was now returning. His Indian guide, afraid
+of passing the Niagara portage lest he should meet enemies, had led him
+from Lake Erie, by way of Grand River, towards the head of Lake Ontario;
+and thus it was that he met La Salle and the Sulpitians.
+
+This meeting caused a change of plan. Joliet showed the priests a map
+which he had made of such parts of the Upper Lakes as he had visited,
+and gave them a copy of it; telling them, at the same time, of the
+Pottawattamies and other tribes of that region in grievous need of
+spiritual succor. The result was a determination on their part to follow
+the route which he suggested, notwithstanding the remonstrances of La
+Salle, who in vain reminded them that the Jesuits had preoccupied the
+field, and would regard them as intruders. They resolved that the
+Pottawattamies should no longer sit in darkness; while, as for the
+Mississippi, it could be reached, as they conceived, with less risk by
+this northern route than by that of the south.
+
+La Salle was of a different mind. His goal was the Ohio, and not the
+northern lakes. A few days before, while hunting, he had been attacked
+by a fever, sarcastically ascribed by Galinée to his having seen three
+large rattle-snakes crawling up a rock. He now told his two colleagues
+that he was in no condition to go forward, and should be forced to part
+with them. The staple of La Salle's character, as his life will attest,
+was an invincible determination of purpose, which set at naught all
+risks and all sufferings. He had cast himself with all his resources
+into this enterprise; and, while his faculties remained, he was not a
+man to recoil from it. On the other hand, the masculine fibre of which
+he was made did not always withhold him from the practice of the arts of
+address, and the use of what Dollier de Casson styles _belles paroles_.
+He respected the priesthood, with the exception, it seems, of the
+Jesuits; and he was under obligations to the Sulpitians of Montreal.
+Hence there can be no doubt that he used his illness as a pretext for
+escaping from their company without ungraciousness, and following his
+own path in his own way.
+
+[Sidenote: SEPARATION.]
+
+On the last day of September, the priests made an altar, supported by
+the paddles of the canoes laid on forked sticks. Dollier said mass; La
+Salle and his followers received the sacrament, as did also those of his
+late colleagues; and thus they parted, the Sulpitians and their party
+descending the Grand River towards Lake Erie, while La Salle, as they
+supposed, began his return to Montreal. What course he actually took we
+shall soon inquire; and meanwhile, for a few moments, we will follow the
+priests. When they reached Lake Erie, they saw it tossing like an angry
+ocean. They had no mind to tempt the dangerous and unknown navigation,
+and encamped for the winter in the forest near the peninsula called the
+Long Point. Here they gathered a good store of chestnuts, hickory-nuts,
+plums, and grapes, and built themselves a log cabin, with a recess at
+the end for an altar. They passed the winter unmolested, shooting game
+in abundance, and saying mass three times a week. Early in spring, they
+planted a large cross, attached to it the arms of France, and took
+formal possession of the country in the name of Louis XIV. This done,
+they resumed their voyage, and, after many troubles, landed one evening
+in a state of exhaustion on or near Point Pelée, towards the western
+extremity of Lake Erie. A storm rose as they lay asleep, and swept off a
+great part of their baggage, which, in their fatigue, they had left at
+the edge of the water. Their altar-service was lost with the rest,--a
+misfortune which they ascribed to the jealousy and malice of the Devil.
+Debarred henceforth from saying mass, they resolved to return to
+Montreal and leave the Pottawattamies uninstructed. They presently
+entered the strait by which Lake Huron joins Lake Erie, and landing near
+where Detroit now stands, found a large stone, somewhat suggestive of
+the human figure, which the Indians had bedaubed with paint, and which
+they worshipped as a manito. In view of their late misfortune, this
+device of the arch-enemy excited their utmost resentment. "After the
+loss of our altar-service," writes Galinée, "and the hunger we had
+suffered, there was not a man of us who was not filled with hatred
+against this false deity. I devoted one of my axes to breaking him in
+pieces; and then, having fastened our canoes side by side, we carried
+the largest piece to the middle of the river, and threw it, with all the
+rest, into the water, that he might never be heard of again. God
+rewarded us immediately for this good action, for we killed a deer and a
+bear that same day."
+
+[Sidenote: AT STE. MARIE DU SAUT.]
+
+This is the first recorded passage of white men through the Strait of
+Detroit; though Joliet had, no doubt, passed this way on his return from
+the Upper Lakes.[14] The two missionaries took this course, with the
+intention of proceeding to the Saut Ste. Marie, and there joining the
+Ottawas, and other tribes of that region, in their yearly descent to
+Montreal. They issued upon Lake Huron; followed its eastern shores till
+they reached the Georgian Bay, near the head of which the Jesuits had
+established their great mission of the Hurons, destroyed, twenty years
+before, by the Iroquois;[15] and, ignoring or slighting the labors of
+the rival missionaries, held their way northward along the rocky
+archipelago that edged those lonely coasts. They passed the Manitoulins,
+and, ascending the strait by which Lake Superior discharges its waters,
+arrived on the twenty-fifth of May at Ste. Marie du Saut. Here they
+found the two Jesuits, Dablon and Marquette, in a square fort of cedar
+pickets, built by their men within the past year, and enclosing a chapel
+and a house. Near by, they had cleared a large tract of land, and sown
+it with wheat, Indian corn, peas, and other crops. The new-comers were
+graciously received, and invited to vespers in the chapel; but they very
+soon found La Salle's prediction made good, and saw that the Jesuit
+fathers wanted no help from St. Sulpice. Galinée, on his part, takes
+occasion to remark, that, though the Jesuits had baptized a few Indians
+at the Saut, not one of them was a good enough Christian to receive the
+Eucharist; and he intimates that the case, by their own showing, was
+still worse at their mission of St. Esprit. The two Sulpitians did not
+care to prolong their stay; and, three days after their arrival, they
+left the Saut,--not, as they expected, with the Indians, but with a
+French guide, furnished by the Jesuits. Ascending French River to Lake
+Nipissing, they crossed to the waters of the Ottawa, and descended to
+Montreal, which they reached on the eighteenth of June. They had made no
+discoveries and no converts; but Galinée, after his arrival, made the
+earliest map of the Upper Lakes known to exist.[16]
+
+[Sidenote: LA SALLE'S DISCOVERIES.]
+
+We return now to La Salle, only to find ourselves involved in mist and
+obscurity. What did he do after he left the two priests? Unfortunately,
+a definite answer is not possible; and the next two years of his life
+remain in some measure an enigma. That he was busied in active
+exploration, and that he made important discoveries, is certain; but the
+extent and character of these discoveries remain wrapped in doubt. He is
+known to have kept journals and made maps; and these were in existence,
+and in possession of his niece, Madeleine Cavelier, then in advanced
+age, as late as the year 1756; beyond which time the most diligent
+inquiry has failed to trace them. Abbé Faillon affirms that some of La
+Salle's men, refusing to follow him, returned to La Chine, and that the
+place then received its name, in derision of the young adventurer's
+dream of a westward passage to China.[17] As for himself, the only
+distinct record of his movements is that contained in a paper, entitled
+"Histoire de Monsieur de la Salle." It is an account of his
+explorations, and of the state of parties in Canada previous to the year
+1678,--taken from the lips of La Salle himself, by a person whose name
+does not appear, but who declares that he had ten or twelve
+conversations with him at Paris, whither he had come with a petition to
+the Court. The writer himself had never been in America, and was
+ignorant of its geography; hence blunders on his part might reasonably
+be expected. His statements, however, are in some measure intelligible;
+and the following is the substance of them.
+
+After leaving the priests, La Salle went to Onondaga, where we are left
+to infer that he succeeded better in getting a guide than he had before
+done among the Senecas. Thence he made his way to a point six or seven
+leagues distant from Lake Erie, where he reached a branch of the Ohio,
+and, descending it, followed the river as far as the rapids at
+Louisville,--or, as has been maintained, beyond its confluence with the
+Mississippi. His men now refused to go farther, and abandoned him,
+escaping to the English and the Dutch; whereupon he retraced his steps
+alone.[18] This must have been in the winter of 1669-70, or in the
+following spring; unless there is an error of date in the statement of
+Nicolas Perrot, the famous _voyageur_, who says that he met him in the
+summer of 1670, hunting on the Ottawa with a party of Iroquois.[19]
+
+[Sidenote: THE RIVER ILLINOIS.]
+
+But how was La Salle employed in the following year? The same memoir has
+its solution to the problem. By this it appears that the indefatigable
+explorer embarked on Lake Erie, ascended the Detroit to Lake Huron,
+coasted the unknown shores of Michigan, passed the Straits of
+Michilimackinac, and, leaving Green Bay behind him, entered what is
+described as an incomparably larger bay, but which was evidently the
+southern portion of Lake Michigan. Thence he crossed to a river flowing
+westward,--evidently the Illinois,--and followed it until it was joined
+by another river flowing from the northwest to the southeast. By this,
+the Mississippi only can be meant; and he is reported to have said that
+he descended it to the thirty-sixth degree of latitude; where he
+stopped, assured that it discharged itself not into the Gulf of
+California, but into the Gulf of Mexico, and resolved to follow it
+thither at a future day, when better provided with men and supplies.[20]
+
+[Sidenote: THE MISSISSIPPI.]
+
+The first of these statements,--that relating to the Ohio,--confused,
+vague, and in great part incorrect, as it certainly is, is nevertheless
+well sustained as regards one essential point. La Salle himself, in a
+memorial addressed to Count Frontenac in 1677, affirms that he
+discovered the Ohio, and descended it as far as to a fall which
+obstructed it.[21] Again, his rival, Louis Joliet, whose testimony on
+this point cannot be suspected, made two maps of the region of the
+Mississippi and the Great Lakes. The Ohio is laid down on both of them,
+with an inscription to the effect that it had been explored by La
+Salle.[22] That he discovered the Ohio may then be regarded as
+established. That he descended it to the Mississippi, he himself does
+not pretend; nor is there reason to believe that he did so.
+
+With regard to his alleged voyage down the Illinois, the case is
+different. Here, he is reported to have made a statement which admits
+but one interpretation,--that of the discovery by him of the Mississippi
+prior to its discovery by Joliet and Marquette. This statement is
+attributed to a man not prone to vaunt his own exploits, who never
+proclaimed them in print, and whose testimony, even in his own case,
+must therefore have weight. But it comes to us through the medium of a
+person strongly biassed in favor of La Salle, and against Marquette and
+the Jesuits.
+
+[Sidenote: LA SALLE'S DISCOVERIES.]
+
+Seven years had passed since the alleged discovery, and La Salle had not
+before laid claim to it; although it was matter of notoriety that during
+five years it had been claimed by Joliet, and that his claim was
+generally admitted. The correspondence of the governor and the intendant
+is silent as to La Salle's having penetrated to the Mississippi, though
+the attempt was made under the auspices of the latter, as his own
+letters declare; while both had the discovery of the great river
+earnestly at heart. The governor, Frontenac, La Salle's ardent supporter
+and ally, believed in 1672, as his letters show, that the Mississippi
+flowed into the Gulf of California; and, two years later, he announces
+to the minister Colbert its discovery by Joliet.[23] After La Salle's
+death, his brother, his nephew, and his niece addressed a memorial to
+the king, petitioning for certain grants in consideration of the
+discoveries of their relative, which they specify at some length; but
+they do not pretend that he reached the Mississippi before his
+expeditions of 1679 to 1682.[24] This silence is the more significant,
+as it is this very niece who had possession of the papers in which La
+Salle recounts the journeys of which the issues are in question.[25]
+Had they led him to the Mississippi, it is reasonably certain that she
+would have made it known in her memorial. La Salle discovered the Ohio,
+and in all probability the Illinois also; but that he discovered the
+Mississippi has not been proved, nor, in the light of the evidence we
+have, is it likely.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[13] This village seems to have been that attacked by Denonville in
+1687. It stood on Boughton Hill, near the present town of Victor.
+
+[14] The Jesuits and fur-traders, on their way to the Upper Lakes, had
+followed the route of the Ottawa, or, more recently, that of Toronto and
+the Georgian Bay. Iroquois hostility had long closed the Niagara portage
+and Lake Erie against them.
+
+[15] The Jesuits in North America.
+
+[16] See Appendix. The above narrative is from _Récit de ce qui s'est
+passé de plus remarquable dans le Voyage de MM. Dollier et Galinée_.
+(Bibliothèque Nationale.)
+
+[17] Dollier de Casson alludes to this as "cette transmigration célèbre
+qui se fit de la Chine dans ces quartiers."
+
+[18] The following is the passage relating to this journey in the
+remarkable paper above mentioned. After recounting La Salle's visit with
+the Sulpitians to the Seneca village, and stating that the intrigues of
+the Jesuit missionary prevented them from obtaining a guide, it speaks
+of the separation of the travellers and the journey of Galinée and his
+party to the Saut Ste. Marie, where "les Jésuites les congédièrent." It
+then proceeds as follows: "Cependant Mr. de la Salle continua son
+chemin par une rivière qui va de l'est à l'ouest; et passe à Onontaqué
+[_Onondaga_], puis à six ou sept lieues au-dessous du Lac Erié; et
+estant parvenu jusqu'au 280me ou 83me degré de longitude, et
+jusqu'au 41me degré de latitude, trouva un sault qui tombe vers
+l'ouest dans un pays bas, marescageux, tout couvert de vielles souches,
+dont il y en a quelques-unes qui sont encore sur pied. Il fut donc
+contraint de prendre terre, et suivant une hauteur qui le pouvoit mener
+loin, il trouva quelques sauvages qui luy dirent que fort loin de là le
+mesme fleuve qui se perdoit dans cette terre basse et vaste se
+réunnissoit en un lit. Il continua donc son chemin, mais comme la
+fatigue estoit grande, 23 ou 24 hommes qu'il avoit menez jusques là le
+quittèrent tous en une nuit, regagnèrent le fleuve, et se sauvèrent, les
+uns à la Nouvelle Hollande et les autres à la Nouvelle Angleterre. Il se
+vit donc seul à 400 lieues de chez luy, où il ne laisse pas de revenir,
+remontant la rivière et vivant de chasse, d'herbes, et de ce que luy
+donnèrent les sauvages qu'il rencontra en son chemin."
+
+[19] Perrot, _Mémoires_, 119, 120.
+
+[20] The memoir--after stating, as above, that he entered Lake Huron,
+doubled the peninsula of Michigan, and passed La Baye des Puants (_Green
+Bay_)--says: "Il reconnut une baye incomparablement plus large; au fond
+de laquelle vers l'ouest il trouva un très-beau havre et au fond de ce
+havre un fleuve qui va de l'est à l'ouest. Il suivit ce fleuve, et
+estant parvenu jusqu'environ le 280me degré de longitude et le
+39me de latitude, il trouva un autre fleuve qui se joignant au
+premier coulait du nordouest au sudest, et il suivit ce fleuve jusqu'au
+36me degré de latitude."
+
+The "très-beau havre" may have been the entrance of the river Chicago,
+whence, by an easy portage, he might have reached the Des Plaines branch
+of the Illinois. We shall see that he took this course in his famous
+exploration of 1682.
+
+The intendant Talon announces, in his despatches of this year that he
+had sent La Salle southward and westward to explore.
+
+[21] The following are his words (he speaks of himself in the third
+person): "L'année 1667, et les suivantes, il fit divers voyages avec
+beaucoup de dépenses, dans lesquels il découvrit le premier beaucoup de
+pays au sud des grands lacs, et _entre autres la grande rivière d'Ohio_;
+il la suivit jusqu'à un endroit où elle tombe de fort haut dans de
+vastes marais, à la hauteur de 37 degrés, après avoir été grossie par
+une autre rivière fort large qui vient du nord; et toutes ces eaux se
+dêchargent selon toutes les apparences dans le Golfe du Mexique."
+
+This "autre rivière," which, it seems, was above the fall, may have been
+the Miami or the Scioto. There is but one fall on the river, that of
+Louisville, which is not so high as to deserve to be described as "fort
+haut," being only a strong rapid. The latitude, as will be seen, is
+different in the two accounts, and incorrect in both.
+
+[22] One of these maps is entitled _Carte de la découverte du Sieur
+Joliet_, 1674. Over the lines representing the Ohio are the words,
+"Route du sieur de la Salle pour aller dans le Mexique." The other map
+of Joliet bears, also written over the Ohio, the words, "Rivière par où
+descendit le sieur de la Salle au sortir du lac Erié pour aller dans le
+Mexique." I have also another manuscript map, made before the voyage of
+Joliet and Marquette, and apparently in the year 1673, on which the Ohio
+is represented as far as to a point a little below Louisville, and over
+it is written, "Rivière Ohio, ainsy appellée par les Iroquois à cause de
+sa beauté, par où le sieur de la Salle est descendu." The Mississippi is
+not represented on this map; but--and this is very significant, as
+indicating the extent of La Salle's exploration of the following year--a
+small part of the upper Illinois is laid down.
+
+[23] _Lettre de Frontenac au Ministre, 14 Nov., 1674._ He here speaks of
+"la grande rivière qu'il [_Joliet_] a trouvée, qui va du nord au sud, et
+qui est aussi large que celle du Saint-Laurent vis-à-vis de Québec."
+Four years later, Frontenac speaks slightingly of Joliet, but neither
+denies his discovery of the Mississippi, nor claims it for La Salle, in
+whose interest he writes.
+
+[24] _Papiers de Famille; Mémoire présenté au Roi._ The following is an
+extract: "Il parvient ... jusqu'à la rivière des Illinois. Il y
+construisit un fort situé à 350 lieues au-delà du fort de Frontenac, et
+suivant ensuite le cours de cette rivière, il trouva qu'elle se jettoit
+dans un grand fleuve appellé par ceux du pays Mississippi, c'est à dire
+_grande eau_, environ cent lieues au-dessous du fort qu'il venoit de
+construire." This fort was Fort Crèvecoeur, built in 1680, near the
+site of Peoria. The memoir goes on to relate the descent of La Salle to
+the Gulf, which concluded this expedition of 1679-82.
+
+[25] The following is an extract, given by Margry, from a letter of the
+aged Madeleine Cavelier, dated 21 Février, 1756, and addressed to her
+nephew, M. Le Baillif, who had applied for the papers in behalf of the
+minister, Silhouette: "J'ay cherché une occasion sûre pour vous anvoyé
+les papiers de M. de la Salle. Il y a des cartes que j'ay jointe à ces
+papiers, qui doivent prouver que, en 1675, M. de Lasalle avet déja fet
+deux voyages en ces decouverte, puisqu'il y avet une carte, que je vous
+envoye, par laquelle il est fait mention de l'androit auquel M. de
+Lasalle aborda près le fleuve de Mississipi; un autre androit qu'il
+nomme le fleuve Colbert; en un autre il prans possession de ce pais au
+nom du roy et fait planter une crois."
+
+The words of the aged and illiterate writer are obscure, but her
+expression "aborda près" seems to indicate that La Salle had not reached
+the Mississippi prior to 1675, but only approached it. Finally, a
+memorial presented to Seignelay, along with the official narrative of
+1679-81, by a friend of La Salle, whose object was to place the
+discoverer and his achievements in the most favorable light, contains
+the following: "Il [_La Salle_] a esté le premier à former le dessein de
+ces descouvertes, qu'il communiqua, il y a plus de quinze ans, à M. de
+Courcelles, gouverneur, et à M. Talon, intendant du Canada, qui
+l'approuvèrent. Il a fait ensuite plusieurs voyages de ce costé-là, et
+un entr'autres en 1669 avec MM. Dolier et Galinée, prestres du Séminaire
+de St. Sulpice. _Il est vray que le sieur Jolliet, pour le prévenir, fit
+un voyage in 1673, à la rivière Colbert_; mais ce fut uniquement pour y
+faire commerce." See Margry, ii. 285. This passage is a virtual
+admission that Joliet reached the Mississippi (_Colbert_) before La
+Salle.
+
+Margry, in a series of papers in the _Journal Général de l'Instruction
+Publique_ for 1862, first took the position that La Salle reached the
+Mississippi in 1670 and 1671, and has brought forward in defence of it
+all the documents which his unwearied research enabled him to discover.
+Father Tailhan, S.J., has replied at length, in the copious notes to his
+edition of Nicolas Perrot, but without having seen the principal
+document cited by Margry, and of which extracts have been given in the
+notes to this chapter.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+1670-1672.
+
+THE JESUITS ON THE LAKES.
+
+ The Old Missions and the New.--A Change of Spirit.--Lake Superior
+ and the Copper-mines.--Ste. Marie.--La
+ Pointe.--Michilimackinac.--Jesuits on Lake Michigan.--Allouez and
+ Dablon.--The Jesuit Fur-trade.
+
+
+What were the Jesuits doing? Since the ruin of their great mission of
+the Hurons, a perceptible change had taken place in them. They had put
+forth exertions almost superhuman, set at naught famine, disease, and
+death, lived with the self-abnegation of saints and died with the
+devotion of martyrs; and the result of all had been a disastrous
+failure. From no short-coming on their part, but from the force of
+events beyond the sphere of their influence, a very demon of havoc had
+crushed their incipient churches, slaughtered their converts, uprooted
+the populous communities on which their hopes had rested, and scattered
+them in bands of wretched fugitives far and wide through the
+wilderness.[26] They had devoted themselves in the fulness of faith to
+the building up of a Christian and Jesuit empire on the conversion of
+the great stationary tribes of the lakes; and of these none remained but
+the Iroquois, the destroyers of the rest,--among whom, indeed, was a
+field which might stimulate their zeal by an abundant promise of
+sufferings and martyrdoms, but which, from its geographical position,
+was too much exposed to Dutch and English influence to promise great and
+decisive results. Their best hopes were now in the North and the West;
+and thither, in great part, they had turned their energies.
+
+[Sidenote: REPORTS OF THE JESUITS.]
+
+We find them on Lake Huron, Lake Superior, and Lake Michigan, laboring
+vigorously as of old, but in a spirit not quite the same. Now, as
+before, two objects inspired their zeal,--the "greater glory of God,"
+and the influence and credit of the Order of Jesus. If the one motive
+had somewhat lost in power, the other had gained. The epoch of the
+saints and martyrs was passing away; and henceforth we find the Canadian
+Jesuit less and less an apostle, more and more an explorer, a man of
+science, and a politician. The yearly reports of the missions are still,
+for the edification of the pious reader, filled with intolerably tedious
+stories of baptisms, conversions, and the exemplary deportment of
+neophytes,--for these have become a part of the formula; but they are
+relieved abundantly by more mundane topics. One finds observations on
+the winds, currents, and tides of the Great Lakes; speculations on a
+subterranean outlet of Lake Superior; accounts of its copper-mines, and
+how we, the Jesuit fathers, are laboring to explore them for the profit
+of the colony; surmises touching the North Sea, the South Sea, the Sea
+of China, which we hope ere long to discover; and reports of that great
+mysterious river of which the Indians tell us,--flowing southward,
+perhaps to the Gulf of Mexico, perhaps to the Vermilion Sea,--and the
+secrets whereof, with the help of the Virgin, we will soon reveal to the
+world.
+
+The Jesuit was as often a fanatic for his Order as for his faith; and
+oftener yet the two fanaticisms mingled in him inextricably. Ardently as
+he burned for the saving of souls, he would have none saved on the Upper
+Lakes except by his brethren and himself. He claimed a monopoly of
+conversion, with its attendant monopoly of toil, hardship, and
+martyrdom. Often disinterested for himself, he was inordinately
+ambitious for the great corporate power in which he had merged his own
+personality; and here lies one cause, among many, of the seeming
+contradictions which abound in the annals of the Order.
+
+Prefixed to the _Relation_ of 1671 is that monument of Jesuit hardihood
+and enterprise, the map of Lake Superior,--a work of which, however, the
+exactness has been exaggerated, as compared with other Canadian maps of
+the day. While making surveys, the priests were diligently looking for
+copper. Father Dablon reports that they had found it in greatest
+abundance on Isle Minong, now Isle Royale. "A day's journey from the
+head of the lake, on the south side, there is," he says, "a rock of
+copper weighing from six hundred to eight hundred pounds, lying on the
+shore where any who pass may see it;" and he further speaks of great
+copper boulders in the bed of the river Ontonagan.[27]
+
+[Sidenote: STE. MARIE DU SAUT.]
+
+There were two principal missions on the Upper Lakes, which were, in a
+certain sense, the parents of the rest. One of these was Ste. Marie du
+Saut,--the same visited by Dollier and Galinée,--at the outlet of Lake
+Superior. This was a noted fishing-place; for the rapids were full of
+white-fish, and Indians came thither in crowds. The permanent residents
+were an Ojibwa band, whom the French called Sauteurs, and whose bark
+lodges were clustered at the foot of the rapids, near the fort of the
+Jesuits. Besides these, a host of Algonquins, of various tribes,
+resorted thither in the spring and summer,--living in abundance on the
+fishery, and dispersing in winter to wander and starve in scattered
+hunting-parties far and wide through the forests.
+
+The other chief mission was that of St. Esprit, at La Pointe, near the
+western extremity of Lake Superior. Here were the Hurons, fugitives
+twenty years before from the slaughter of their countrymen; and the
+Ottawas, who, like them, had sought an asylum from the rage of the
+Iroquois. Many other tribes--Illinois, Pottawattamies, Foxes,
+Menomonies, Sioux, Assiniboins, Knisteneaux, and a multitude
+besides--came hither yearly to trade with the French. Here was a young
+Jesuit, Jacques Marquette, lately arrived from the Saut Ste. Marie. His
+savage flock disheartened him by its backslidings; and the best that he
+could report of the Hurons, after all the toil and all the blood
+lavished in their conversion, was, that they "still retain a little
+Christianity;" while the Ottawas are "far removed from the kingdom of
+God, and addicted beyond all other tribes to foulness, incantations, and
+sacrifices to evil spirits."[28]
+
+[Sidenote: MARQUETTE AND ANDRÉ.]
+
+Marquette heard from the Illinois--yearly visitors at La Pointe--of the
+great river which they had crossed on their way,[29] and which, as he
+conjectured, flowed into the Gulf of California. He heard marvels of it
+also from the Sioux, who lived on its banks; and a strong desire
+possessed him to explore the mystery of its course. A sudden calamity
+dashed his hopes. The Sioux--the Iroquois of the West, as the Jesuits
+call them--had hitherto kept the peace with the expatriated tribes of La
+Pointe; but now, from some cause not worth inquiry, they broke into open
+war, and so terrified the Hurons and Ottawas that they abandoned their
+settlements and fled. Marquette followed his panic-stricken flock, who,
+passing the Saut Ste. Marie, and descending to Lake Huron, stopped at
+length,--the Hurons at Michilimackinac, and the Ottawas at the Great
+Manitoulin Island. Two missions were now necessary to minister to the
+divided bands. That of Michilimackinac was assigned to Marquette, and
+that of the Manitoulin Island to Louis André. The former took post at
+Point St. Ignace, on the north shore of the Straits of Michilimackinac,
+while the latter began the mission of St. Simon at the new abode of the
+Ottawas. When winter came, scattering his flock to their
+hunting-grounds, André made a missionary tour among the Nipissings and
+other neighboring tribes. The shores of Lake Huron had long been an
+utter solitude, swept of their denizens by the terror of the
+all-conquering Iroquois; but now that these tigers had felt the power of
+the French, and learned for a time to leave their Indian allies in
+peace, the fugitive hordes were returning to their ancient abodes.
+André's experience among them was of the roughest. The staple of his
+diet was acorns and _tripe de roche_,--a species of lichen, which, being
+boiled, resolved itself into a black glue, nauseous, but not void of
+nourishment. At times, he was reduced to moss, the bark of trees, or
+moccasins and old moose-skins cut into strips and boiled. His hosts
+treated him very ill, and the worst of their fare was always his
+portion. When spring came to his relief, he returned to his post of St.
+Simon, with impaired digestion and unabated zeal.
+
+[Sidenote: THE GREEN BAY MISSION.]
+
+Besides the Saut Ste. Marie and Michilimackinac, both noted
+fishing-places, there was another spot, no less famous for game and
+fish, and therefore a favorite resort of Indians. This was the head of
+the Green Bay of Lake Michigan.[30] Here and in adjacent districts
+several distinct tribes had made their abode. The Menomonies were on the
+river which bears their name; the Pottawattamies and Winnebagoes were
+near the borders of the bay; the Sacs, on Fox River; the Mascoutins,
+Miamis, and Kickapoos, on the same river, above Lake Winnebago; and the
+Outagamies, or Foxes, on a tributary of it flowing from the north. Green
+Bay was manifestly suited for a mission; and, as early as the autumn of
+1669, Father Claude Allouez was sent thither to found one. After nearly
+perishing by the way, he set out to explore the destined field of his
+labors, and went as far as the town of the Mascoutins. Early in the
+autumn of 1670, having been joined by Dablon, Superior of the missions
+on the Upper Lakes, he made another journey, but not until the two
+fathers had held a council with the congregated tribes at St. François
+Xavier; for so they named their mission of Green Bay. Here, as they
+harangued their naked audience, their gravity was put to the proof; for
+a band of warriors, anxious to do them honor, walked incessantly up and
+down, aping the movements of the soldiers on guard before the governor's
+tent at Montreal. "We could hardly keep from laughing," writes Dablon,
+"though, we were discoursing on very important subjects; namely, the
+mysteries of our religion, and the things necessary to escaping from
+eternal fire."[31]
+
+The fathers were delighted with the country, which Dablon calls an
+earthly paradise; but he adds that the way to it is as hard as the path
+to heaven. He alludes especially to the rapids of Fox River, which gave
+the two travellers great trouble. Having safely passed them, they saw
+an Indian idol on the bank, similar to that which Dollier and Galinée
+found at Detroit,--being merely a rock, bearing some resemblance to a
+man, and hideously painted. With the help of their attendants, they
+threw it into the river. Dablon expatiates on the buffalo, which he
+describes apparently on the report of others, as his description is not
+very accurate. Crossing Winnebago Lake, the two priests followed the
+river leading to the town of the Mascoutins and Miamis, which they
+reached on the fifteenth of September.[32] These two tribes lived
+together within the compass of the same enclosure of palisades,--to the
+number, it is said, of more than three thousand souls. The missionaries,
+who had brought a highly colored picture of the Last Judgment, called
+the Indians to council and displayed it before them; while Allouez, who
+spoke Algonquin, harangued them on hell, demons, and eternal flames.
+They listened with open ears, beset him night and day with questions,
+and invited him and his companion to unceasing feasts. They were
+welcomed in every lodge, and followed everywhere with eyes of curiosity,
+wonder, and awe. Dablon overflows with praises of the Miami chief, who
+was honored by his subjects like a king, and whose demeanor towards his
+guests had no savor of the savage.
+
+Their hosts told them of the great river Mississippi, rising far in the
+north and flowing southward,--they knew not whither,--and of many tribes
+that dwelt along its banks. When at length they took their departure,
+they left behind them a reputation as medicine-men of transcendent
+power.
+
+[Sidenote: THE CROSS AMONG THE FOXES.]
+
+In the winter following, Allouez visited the Foxes, whom he found in
+extreme ill-humor. They were incensed against the French by the
+ill-usage which some of their tribe had lately met when on a trading
+visit to Montreal; and they received the Faith with shouts of derision.
+The priest was horror-stricken at what he saw. Their lodges, each
+containing from five to ten families, seemed in his eyes like seraglios;
+for some of the chiefs had eight wives. He armed himself with patience,
+and at length gained a hearing. Nay, he succeeded so well, that when he
+showed them his crucifix they would throw tobacco on it as an offering;
+and, on another visit which he made them soon after, he taught the whole
+village to make the sign of the cross. A war-party was going out against
+their enemies, and he bethought him of telling them the story of the
+Cross and the Emperor Constantine. This so wrought upon them that they
+all daubed the figure of a cross on their shields of bull-hide, set out
+for the war, and came back victorious, extolling the sacred symbol as a
+great war-medicine.
+
+"Thus it is," writes Dablon, who chronicles the incident, "that our holy
+faith is established among these people; and we have good hope that we
+shall soon carry it to the famous river called the Mississippi, and
+perhaps even to the South Sea."[33] Most things human have their phases
+of the ludicrous; and the heroism of these untiring priests is no
+exception to the rule.
+
+[Sidenote: TRADING WITH INDIANS.]
+
+The various missionary stations were much alike. They consisted of a
+chapel (commonly of logs) and one or more houses, with perhaps a
+store-house and a workshop; the whole fenced with palisades, and
+forming, in fact, a stockade fort, surrounded with clearings and
+cultivated fields. It is evident that the priests had need of other
+hands than their own and those of the few lay brothers attached to the
+mission. They required men inured to labor, accustomed to the forest
+life, able to guide canoes and handle tools and weapons. In the earlier
+epoch of the missions, when enthusiasm was at its height, they were
+served in great measure by volunteers, who joined them through devotion
+or penitence, and who were known as _donnés_ or "given men." Of late,
+the number of these had much diminished; and they now relied chiefly on
+hired men, or _engagés_. These were employed in building, hunting,
+fishing, clearing, and tilling the ground, guiding canoes, and (if faith
+is to be placed in reports current throughout the colony) in trading
+with the Indians for the profit of the missions. This charge of
+trading--which, if the results were applied exclusively to the support
+of the missions, does not of necessity involve much censure--is
+vehemently reiterated in many quarters, including the official
+despatches of the governor of Canada; while, so far as I can discover,
+the Jesuits never distinctly denied it, and on several occasions they
+partially admitted its truth.[34]
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[26] See "The Jesuits in North America."
+
+[27] He complains that the Indians were very averse to giving
+information on the subject, so that the Jesuits had not as yet
+discovered the metal _in situ_, though they hoped soon to do so. The
+Indians told him that the copper had first been found by four hunters,
+who had landed on a certain island, near the north shore of the lake.
+Wishing to boil their food in a vessel of bark, they gathered stones on
+the shore, heated them red hot, and threw them in, but presently
+discovered them to be pure copper. Their repast over, they hastened to
+re-embark, being afraid of the lynxes and the hares, which, on this
+island, were as large as dogs, and which would have devoured their
+provisions, and perhaps their canoe. They took with them some of the
+wonderful stones; but scarcely had they left the island, when a deep
+voice, like thunder, sounded in their ears, "Who are these thieves who
+steal the toys of my children?" It was the God of the Waters, or some
+other powerful manito. The four adventurers retreated in great terror;
+but three of them soon died, and the fourth survived only long enough to
+reach his village, and tell the story. The island has no foundation, but
+floats with the movement of the wind; and no Indian dares land on its
+shores, dreading the wrath of the manito. Dablon, _Relation_, 1670, 84.
+
+[28] _Lettre du Père Jacques Marquette au R. P. Supérieur des Missions;_
+in _Relation_, 1670, 87.
+
+[29] The Illinois lived at this time beyond the Mississippi, thirty
+days' journey from La Pointe; whither they had been driven by the
+Iroquois, from their former abode near Lake Michigan. Dablon
+(_Relation_, 1671, 24, 25) says that they lived seven days' journey
+beyond the Mississippi, in eight villages. A few years later, most of
+them returned to the east side, and made their abode on the river
+Illinois.
+
+[30] The Baye des Puants of the early writers; or, more correctly, La
+Baye des Eaux Puantes. The Winnebago Indians, living near it, were
+called Les Puans, apparently for no other reason than because some
+portion of the bay was said to have an odor like the sea.
+
+Lake Michigan, the "Lac des Illinois" of the French, was, according to a
+letter of Father Allouez, called "Machihiganing" by the Indians. Dablon
+writes the name "Mitchiganon."
+
+[31] _Relation_, 1671, 43.
+
+[32] This town was on the Neenah or Fox River, above Lake Winnebago. The
+Mascoutins, Fire Nation, or Nation of the Prairie, are extinct or merged
+in other tribes. See "The Jesuits in North America." The Miamis soon
+removed to the banks of the river St. Joseph, near Lake Michigan.
+
+[33] _Relation_, 1672, 42.
+
+[34] This charge was made from the first establishment of the missions.
+For remarks on it, see "The Jesuits in North America" and "The Old
+Régime in Canada."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+1667-1672.
+
+FRANCE TAKES POSSESSION OF THE WEST.
+
+ Talon.--Saint-Lusson.--Perrot.--The Ceremony at Saut Ste.
+ Marie.--The Speech of Allouez.--Count Frontenac.
+
+
+Jean Talon, intendant of Canada, was full of projects for the good of
+the colony. On the one hand, he set himself to the development of its
+industries, and, on the other, to the extension of its domain. He meant
+to occupy the interior of the continent, control the rivers, which were
+its only highways, and hold it for France against every other nation. On
+the east, England was to be hemmed within a narrow strip of seaboard;
+while, on the south, Talon aimed at securing a port on the Gulf of
+Mexico, to keep the Spaniards in check, and dispute with them the
+possession of the vast regions which they claimed as their own. But the
+interior of the continent was still an unknown world. It behooved him to
+explore it; and to that end he availed himself of Jesuits, officers,
+fur-traders, and enterprising schemers like La Salle. His efforts at
+discovery seem to have been conducted with a singular economy of the
+King's purse. La Salle paid all the expenses of his first expedition
+made under Talon's auspices; and apparently of the second also, though
+the intendant announces it in his despatches as an expedition sent out
+by himself.[35] When, in 1670, he ordered Daumont de Saint-Lusson to
+search for copper mines on Lake Superior, and at the same time to take
+formal possession of the whole interior for the King, it was arranged
+that he should pay the costs of the journey by trading with the
+Indians.[36]
+
+[Sidenote: SAINT-LUSSON AND PERROT.]
+
+Saint-Lusson set out with a small party of men, and Nicolas Perrot as
+his interpreter. Among Canadian _voyageurs_, few names are so
+conspicuous as that of Perrot; not because there were not others who
+matched him in achievement, but because he could write, and left behind
+him a tolerable account of what he had seen.[37] He was at this time
+twenty-six years old, and had formerly been an _engagé_ of the Jesuits.
+He was a man of enterprise, courage, and address,--the last being
+especially shown in his dealings with Indians, over whom he had great
+influence. He spoke Algonquin fluently, and was favorably known to many
+tribes of that family.
+
+Saint-Lusson wintered at the Manitoulin Islands; while Perrot, having
+first sent messages to the tribes of the north, inviting them to meet
+the deputy of the governor at the Saut Ste. Marie in the following
+spring, proceeded to Green Bay, to urge the same invitation upon the
+tribes of that quarter. They knew him well, and greeted him with clamors
+of welcome. The Miamis, it is said, received him with a sham battle,
+which was designed to do him honor, but by which nerves more susceptible
+would have been severely shaken.[38] They entertained him also with a
+grand game of _la crosse_, the Indian ball-play. Perrot gives a
+marvellous account of the authority and state of the Miami chief, who,
+he says, was attended day and night by a guard of warriors,--an
+assertion which would be incredible, were it not sustained by the
+account of the same chief given by the Jesuit Dablon. Of the tribes of
+the Bay, the greater part promised to send delegates to the Saut; but
+the Pottawattamies dissuaded the Miami potentate from attempting so long
+a journey, lest the fatigue incident to it might injure his health; and
+he therefore deputed them to represent him and his tribesmen at the
+great meeting. Their principal chiefs, with those of the Sacs,
+Winnebagoes, and Menomonies, embarked, and paddled for the place of
+rendezvous, where they and Perrot arrived on the fifth of May.[39]
+
+Saint-Lusson was here with his men, fifteen in number, among whom was
+Louis Joliet;[40] and Indians were fast thronging in from their
+wintering grounds, attracted, as usual, by the fishery of the rapids or
+moved by the messages sent by Perrot,--Crees, Monsonis, Amikoués,
+Nipissings, and many more. When fourteen tribes, or their
+representatives, had arrived, Saint-Lusson prepared to execute the
+commission with which he was charged.
+
+[Sidenote: CEREMONY AT THE SAUT.]
+
+At the foot of the rapids was the village of the Sauteurs, above the
+village was a hill, and hard by stood the fort of the Jesuits. On the
+morning of the fourteenth of June, Saint-Lusson led his followers to the
+top of the hill, all fully equipped and under arms. Here, too, in the
+vestments of their priestly office, were four Jesuits,--Claude Dablon,
+Superior of the Missions of the lakes, Gabriel Druilletes, Claude
+Allouez, and Louis André.[41] All around the great throng of Indians
+stood, or crouched, or reclined at length, with eyes and ears intent. A
+large cross of wood had been made ready. Dablon, in solemn form,
+pronounced his blessing on it; and then it was reared and planted in the
+ground, while the Frenchmen, uncovered, sang the _Vexilla Regis_. Then a
+post of cedar was planted beside it, with a metal plate attached,
+engraven with the royal arms; while Saint-Lusson's followers sang the
+_Exaudiat_, and one of the Jesuits uttered a prayer for the King.
+Saint-Lusson now advanced, and, holding his sword in one hand, and
+raising with the other a sod of earth, proclaimed in a loud voice,--
+
+"In the name of the Most High, Mighty, and Redoubted Monarch, Louis,
+Fourteenth of that name, Most Christian King of France and of Navarre, I
+take possession of this place, Sainte Marie du Saut, as also of Lakes
+Huron and Superior, the Island of Manitoulin, and all countries, rivers,
+lakes, and streams contiguous and adjacent thereunto,--both those which
+have been discovered and those which may be discovered hereafter, in all
+their length and breadth, bounded on the one side by the seas of the
+North and of the West, and on the other by the South Sea: declaring to
+the nations thereof that from this time forth they are vassals of his
+Majesty, bound to obey his laws and follow his customs; promising them
+on his part all succor and protection against the incursions and
+invasions of their enemies: declaring to all other potentates, princes,
+sovereigns, states, and republics,--to them and to their subjects,--that
+they cannot and are not to seize or settle upon any parts of the
+aforesaid countries, save only under the good pleasure of His Most
+Christian Majesty, and of him who will govern in his behalf; and this on
+pain of incurring his resentment and the efforts of his arms. _Vive le
+Roi_."[42]
+
+The Frenchmen fired their guns and shouted "Vive le Roi," and the yelps
+of the astonished Indians mingled with the din.
+
+What now remains of the sovereignty thus pompously proclaimed? Now and
+then the accents of France on the lips of some straggling boatman or
+vagabond half-breed,--this, and nothing more.
+
+[Sidenote: ALLOUEZ'S HARANGUE.]
+
+When the uproar was over, Father Allouez addressed the Indians in a
+solemn harangue; and these were his words: "It is a good work, my
+brothers, an important work, a great work, that brings us together in
+council to-day. Look up at the cross which rises so high above your
+heads. It was there that Jesus Christ, the Son of God, after making
+himself a man for the love of men, was nailed and died, to satisfy his
+Eternal Father for our sins. He is the master of our lives; the ruler of
+Heaven, Earth, and Hell. It is he of whom I am continually speaking to
+you, and whose name and word I have borne through all your country. But
+look at this post to which are fixed the arms of the great chief of
+France, whom we call King. He lives across the sea. He is the chief of
+the greatest chiefs, and has no equal on earth. All the chiefs whom you
+have ever seen are but children beside him. He is like a great tree,
+and they are but the little herbs that one walks over and tramples under
+foot. You know Onontio,[43] that famous chief at Quebec; you know and
+you have seen that he is the terror of the Iroquois, and that his very
+name makes them tremble, since he has laid their country waste and
+burned their towns with fire. Across the sea there are ten thousand
+Onontios like him, who are but the warriors of our great King, of whom I
+have told you. When he says, 'I am going to war,' everybody obeys his
+orders; and each of these ten thousand chiefs raises a troop of a
+hundred warriors, some on sea and some on land. Some embark in great
+ships, such as you have seen at Quebec. Your canoes carry only four or
+five men, or, at the most, ten or twelve; but our ships carry four or
+five hundred, and sometimes a thousand. Others go to war by land, and in
+such numbers that if they stood in a double file they would reach from
+here to Mississaquenk, which is more than twenty leagues off. When our
+King attacks his enemies, he is more terrible than the thunder: the
+earth trembles; the air and the sea are all on fire with the blaze of
+his cannon: he is seen in the midst of his warriors, covered over with
+the blood of his enemies, whom he kills in such numbers that he does not
+reckon them by the scalps, but by the streams of blood which he causes
+to flow. He takes so many prisoners that he holds them in no account,
+but lets them go where they will, to show that he is not afraid of
+them. But now nobody dares make war on him. All the nations beyond the
+sea have submitted to him and begged humbly for peace. Men come from
+every quarter of the earth to listen to him and admire him. All that is
+done in the world is decided by him alone.
+
+"But what shall I say of his riches? You think yourselves rich when you
+have ten or twelve sacks of corn, a few hatchets, beads, kettles, and
+other things of that sort. He has cities of his own, more than there are
+of men in all this country for five hundred leagues around. In each city
+there are store-houses where there are hatchets enough to cut down all
+your forests, kettles enough to cook all your moose, and beads enough to
+fill all your lodges. His house is longer than from here to the top of
+the Saut,--that is to say, more than half a league,--and higher than
+your tallest trees; and it holds more families than the largest of your
+towns."[44] The father added more in a similar strain; but the
+peroration of his harangue is not on record.
+
+Whatever impression this curious effort of Jesuit rhetoric may have
+produced upon the hearers, it did not prevent them from stripping the
+royal arms from the post to which they were nailed, as soon as
+Saint-Lusson and his men had left the Saut; probably, not because they
+understood the import of the symbol, but because they feared it as a
+charm. Saint-Lusson proceeded to Lake Superior, where, however, he
+accomplished nothing, except, perhaps, a traffic with the Indians on his
+own account; and he soon after returned to Quebec. Talon was resolved to
+find the Mississippi, the most interesting object of search, and
+seemingly the most attainable, in the wild and vague domain which he had
+just claimed for the King. The Indians had described it; the Jesuits
+were eager to discover it; and La Salle, if he had not reached it, had
+explored two several avenues by which it might be approached. Talon
+looked about him for a fit agent of the enterprise, and made choice of
+Louis Joliet, who had returned from Lake Superior.[45] But the intendant
+was not to see the fulfilment of his design. His busy and useful career
+in Canada was drawing to an end. A misunderstanding had arisen between
+him and the governor, Courcelle. Both were faithful servants of the
+King; but the relations between the two chiefs of the colony were of a
+nature necessarily so critical, that a conflict of authority was
+scarcely to be avoided. Each thought his functions encroached upon, and
+both asked for recall. Another governor succeeded; one who was to stamp
+his mark, broad, bold, and ineffaceable, on the most memorable page of
+French-American History,--Louis de Buade, Count of Palluau and
+Frontenac.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[35] At least, La Salle was in great need of money, about the time of
+his second journey. On the sixth of August, 1671, he had received on
+credit, "dans son grand besoin et nécessité," from Branssac, fiscal
+attorney of the Seminary, merchandise to the amount of four hundred and
+fifty livres; and on the eighteenth of December of the following year he
+gave his promise to pay the same sum, in money or furs, in the August
+following. Faillon found the papers in the ancient records of Montreal.
+
+[36] In his despatch of 2d Nov., 1671, Talon writes to the King that
+"Saint-Lusson's expedition will cost nothing, as he has received beaver
+enough from the Indians to pay him."
+
+[37] _Moeurs, Coustumes, et Relligion des Sauvages de l'Amérique
+Septentrionale._ This work of Perrot, hitherto unpublished, appeared in
+1864, under the editorship of Father Tailhan, S.J. A great part of it is
+incorporated in La Potherie.
+
+[38] See La Potherie, ii. 125. Perrot himself does not mention it.
+Charlevoix erroneously places this interview at Chicago. Perrot's
+narrative shows that he did not go farther than the tribes of Green Bay;
+and the Miamis were then, as we have seen, on the upper part of Fox
+River.
+
+[39] Perrot, _Mémoires_, 127.
+
+[40] _Procès Verbal de la Prise de Possession, etc., 14 Juin, 1671._ The
+names are attached to this instrument.
+
+[41] Marquette is said to have been present; but the official act just
+cited, proves the contrary. He was still at St. Esprit.
+
+[42] _Procès Verbal de la Prise de Possession._
+
+[43] The Indian name of the governor of Canada.
+
+[44] A close translation of Dablon's report of the speech. See
+_Relation_, 1671, 27.
+
+[45] _Lettre de Frontenac au Ministre, 2 Nov., 1672._ In the Brodhead
+Collection, by a copyist's error, the name of the Chevalier de
+Grandfontaine is substituted for that of Talon.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+1672-1675.
+
+THE DISCOVERY OF THE MISSISSIPPI.
+
+ Joliet sent to find the Mississippi.--Jacques
+ Marquette.--Departure.--Green Bay.--The Wisconsin.--The
+ Mississippi.--Indians.--Manitous.--The Arkansas.--The
+ Illinois.--Joliet's Misfortune.--Marquette at Chicago: his Illness;
+ his Death.
+
+
+If Talon had remained in the colony, Frontenac would infallibly have
+quarrelled with him; but he was too clear-sighted not to approve his
+plans for the discovery and occupation of the interior. Before sailing
+for France, Talon recommended Joliet as a suitable agent for the
+discovery of the Mississippi, and the governor accepted his counsel.[46]
+
+Louis Joliet was the son of a wagon-maker in the service of the Company
+of the Hundred Associates,[47] then owners of Canada. He was born at
+Quebec in 1645, and was educated by the Jesuits. When still very young,
+he resolved to be a priest. He received the tonsure and the minor orders
+at the age of seventeen. Four years after, he is mentioned with
+especial honor for the part he bore in the disputes in philosophy, at
+which the dignitaries of the colony were present, and in which the
+intendant himself took part.[48] Not long after, he renounced his
+clerical vocation, and turned fur-trader. Talon sent him, with one Péré,
+to explore the copper-mines of Lake Superior; and it was on his return
+from this expedition that he met La Salle and the Sulpitians near the
+head of Lake Ontario.[49]
+
+In what we know of Joliet, there is nothing that reveals any salient or
+distinctive trait of character, any especial breadth of view or boldness
+of design. He appears to have been simply a merchant, intelligent, well
+educated, courageous, hardy, and enterprising. Though he had renounced
+the priesthood, he retained his partiality for the Jesuits; and it is
+more than probable that their influence had aided not a little to
+determine Talon's choice. One of their number, Jacques Marquette, was
+chosen to accompany him.
+
+[Sidenote: MARQUETTE.]
+
+He passed up the lakes to Michilimackinac, and found his destined
+companion at Point St. Ignace, on the north side of the strait, where,
+in his palisaded mission-house and chapel, he had labored for two years
+past to instruct the Huron refugees from St. Esprit, and a band of
+Ottawas who had joined them. Marquette was born in 1637, of an old and
+honorable family at Laon, in the north of France, and was now
+thirty-five years of age. When about seventeen, he had joined the
+Jesuits, evidently from motives purely religious; and in 1666 he was
+sent to the missions of Canada. At first, he was destined to the station
+of Tadoussac; and to prepare himself for it, he studied the Montagnais
+language under Gabriel Druilletes. But his destination was changed, and
+he was sent to the Upper Lakes in 1668, where he had since remained. His
+talents as a linguist must have been great; for within a few years he
+learned to speak with ease six Indian languages. The traits of his
+character are unmistakable. He was of the brotherhood of the early
+Canadian missionaries, and the true counterpart of Garnier or Jogues. He
+was a devout votary of the Virgin Mary, who, imaged to his mind in
+shapes of the most transcendent loveliness with which the pencil of
+human genius has ever informed the canvas, was to him the object of an
+adoration not unmingled with a sentiment of chivalrous devotion. The
+longings of a sensitive heart, divorced from earth, sought solace in
+the skies. A subtile element of romance was blended with the fervor of
+his worship, and hung like an illumined cloud over the harsh and hard
+realities of his daily lot. Kindled by the smile of his celestial
+mistress, his gentle and noble nature knew no fear. For her he burned to
+dare and to suffer, discover new lands and conquer new realms to her
+sway.
+
+He begins the journal of his voyage thus: "The day of the Immaculate
+Conception of the Holy Virgin; whom I had continually invoked since I
+came to this country of the Ottawas to obtain from God the favor of
+being enabled to visit the nations on the river Mississippi,--this very
+day was precisely that on which M. Joliet arrived with orders from Count
+Frontenac, our governor, and from M. Talon, our intendant, to go with me
+on this discovery. I was all the more delighted at this good news,
+because I saw my plans about to be accomplished, and found myself in the
+happy necessity of exposing my life for the salvation of all these
+tribes,--and especially of the Illinois, who, when I was at Point St.
+Esprit, had begged me very earnestly to bring the word of God among
+them."
+
+[Sidenote: DEPARTURE.]
+
+The outfit of the travellers was very simple. They provided themselves
+with two birch canoes, and a supply of smoked meat and Indian corn;
+embarked with five men, and began their voyage on the seventeenth of
+May. They had obtained all possible information from the Indians, and
+had made, by means of it, a species of map of their intended route.
+"Above all," writes Marquette, "I placed our voyage under the protection
+of the Holy Virgin Immaculate, promising that if she granted us the
+favor of discovering the great river, I would give it the name of the
+Conception."[50] Their course was westward; and, plying their paddles,
+they passed the Straits of Michilimackinac, and coasted the northern
+shores of Lake Michigan, landing at evening to build their camp-fire at
+the edge of the forest, and draw up their canoes on the strand. They
+soon reached the river Menomonie, and ascended it to the village of the
+Menomonies, or Wild-rice Indians.[51] When they told them the object of
+their voyage, they were filled with astonishment, and used their best
+ingenuity to dissuade them. The banks of the Mississippi, they said,
+were inhabited by ferocious tribes, who put every stranger to death,
+tomahawking all new-comers without cause or provocation. They added that
+there was a demon in a certain part of the river, whose roar could be
+heard at a great distance, and who would engulf them in the abyss where
+he dwelt; that its waters were full of frightful monsters, who would
+devour them and their canoe; and, finally, that the heat was so great
+that they would perish inevitably. Marquette set their counsel at
+naught, gave them a few words of instruction in the mysteries of the
+Faith, taught them a prayer, and bade them farewell.
+
+The travellers next reached the mission at the head of Green Bay;
+entered Fox River; with difficulty and labor dragged their canoes up the
+long and tumultuous rapids; crossed Lake Winnebago; and followed the
+quiet windings of the river beyond, where they glided through an endless
+growth of wild rice, and scared the innumerable birds that fed upon it.
+On either hand rolled the prairie, dotted with groves and trees,
+browsing elk and deer.[52] On the seventh of June, they reached the
+Mascoutins and Miamis, who, since the visit of Dablon and Allouez, had
+been joined by the Kickapoos. Marquette, who had an eye for natural
+beauty, was delighted with the situation of the town, which he describes
+as standing on the crown of a hill; while, all around, the prairie
+stretched beyond the sight, interspersed with groves and belts of tall
+forest. But he was still more delighted when he saw a cross planted in
+the midst of the place. The Indians had decorated it with a number of
+dressed deer-skins, red girdles, and bows and arrows, which they had
+hung upon it as an offering to the Great Manitou of the French; a sight
+by which Marquette says he was "extremely consoled."
+
+[Sidenote: THE WISCONSIN RIVER.]
+
+The travellers had no sooner reached the town than they called the
+chiefs and elders to a council. Joliet told them that the governor of
+Canada had sent him to discover new countries, and that God had sent his
+companion to teach the true faith to the inhabitants; and he prayed for
+guides to show them the way to the waters of the Wisconsin. The council
+readily consented; and on the tenth of June the Frenchmen embarked
+again, with two Indians to conduct them. All the town came down to the
+shore to see their departure. Here were the Miamis, with long locks of
+hair dangling over each ear, after a fashion which Marquette thought
+very becoming; and here, too, the Mascoutins and the Kickapoos, whom he
+describes as mere boors in comparison with their Miami townsmen. All
+stared alike at the seven adventurers, marvelling that men could be
+found to risk an enterprise so hazardous.
+
+The river twisted among lakes and marshes choked with wild rice; and,
+but for their guides, they could scarcely have followed the perplexed
+and narrow channel. It brought them at last to the portage, where, after
+carrying their canoes a mile and a half over the prairie and through the
+marsh, they launched them on the Wisconsin, bade farewell to the waters
+that flowed to the St. Lawrence, and committed themselves to the current
+that was to bear them they knew not whither,--perhaps to the Gulf of
+Mexico, perhaps to the South Sea or the Gulf of California. They glided
+calmly down the tranquil stream, by islands choked with trees and
+matted with entangling grape-vines; by forests, groves, and prairies,
+the parks and pleasure-grounds of a prodigal Nature; by thickets and
+marshes and broad bare sand-bars; under the shadowing trees, between
+whose tops looked down from afar the bold brow of some woody bluff. At
+night, the bivouac,--the canoes inverted on the bank, the flickering
+fire, the meal of bison-flesh or venison, the evening pipes, and slumber
+beneath the stars; and when in the morning they embarked again, the mist
+hung on the river like a bridal veil, then melted before the sun, till
+the glassy water and the languid woods basked breathless in the sultry
+glare.[53]
+
+[Sidenote: THE MISSISSIPPI.]
+
+On the seventeenth of June they saw on their right the broad meadows,
+bounded in the distance by rugged hills, where now stand the town and
+fort of Prairie du Chien. Before them a wide and rapid current coursed
+athwart their way, by the foot of lofty heights wrapped thick in
+forests. They had found what they sought, and "with a joy," writes
+Marquette, "which I cannot express," they steered forth their canoes on
+the eddies of the Mississippi.
+
+Turning southward, they paddled down the stream, through a solitude
+unrelieved by the faintest trace of man. A large fish, apparently one of
+the huge cat-fish of the Mississippi, blundered against Marquette's
+canoe, with a force which seems to have startled him; and once, as they
+drew in their net, they caught a "spade-fish," whose eccentric
+appearance greatly astonished them. At length the buffalo began to
+appear, grazing in herds on the great prairies which then bordered the
+river; and Marquette describes the fierce and stupid look of the old
+bulls, as they stared at the intruders through the tangled mane which
+nearly blinded them.
+
+[Sidenote: THE ILLINOIS INDIANS.]
+
+They advanced with extreme caution, landed at night, and made a fire to
+cook their evening meal; then extinguished it, embarked again, paddled
+some way farther, and anchored in the stream, keeping a man on the watch
+till morning. They had journeyed more than a fortnight without meeting a
+human being, when, on the twenty-fifth, they discovered footprints of
+men in the mud of the western bank, and a well-trodden path that led to
+the adjacent prairie. Joliet and Marquette resolved to follow it; and
+leaving the canoes in charge of their men, they set out on their
+hazardous adventure. The day was fair, and they walked two leagues in
+silence, following the path through the forest and across the sunny
+prairie, till they discovered an Indian village on the banks of a river,
+and two others on a hill half a league distant.[54] Now, with beating
+hearts, they invoked the aid of Heaven, and, again advancing, came so
+near, without being seen, that they could hear the voices of the
+Indians among the wigwams. Then they stood forth in full view, and
+shouted to attract attention. There was great commotion in the village.
+The inmates swarmed out of their huts, and four of their chief men
+presently came forward to meet the strangers, advancing very
+deliberately, and holding up toward the sun two calumets, or
+peace-pipes, decorated with feathers. They stopped abruptly before the
+two Frenchmen, and stood gazing at them without speaking a word.
+Marquette was much relieved on seeing that they wore French cloth,
+whence he judged that they must be friends and allies. He broke the
+silence, and asked them who they were; whereupon they answered that they
+were Illinois, and offered the pipe; which having been duly smoked, they
+all went together to the village. Here the chief received the travellers
+after a singular fashion, meant to do them honor. He stood stark naked
+at the door of a large wigwam, holding up both hands as if to shield his
+eyes. "Frenchmen, how bright the sun shines when you come to visit us!
+All our village awaits you; and you shall enter our wigwams in peace."
+So saying, he led them into his own, which was crowded to suffocation
+with savages, staring at their guests in silence. Having smoked with the
+chiefs and old men, they were invited to visit the great chief of all
+the Illinois, at one of the villages they had seen in the distance; and
+thither they proceeded, followed by a throng of warriors, squaws, and
+children. On arriving, they were forced to smoke again, and listen to a
+speech of welcome from the great chief, who delivered it standing
+between two old men, naked like himself. His lodge was crowded with the
+dignitaries of the tribe, whom Marquette addressed in Algonquin,
+announcing himself as a messenger sent by the God who had made them, and
+whom it behooves them to recognize and obey. He added a few words
+touching the power and glory of Count Frontenac, and concluded by asking
+information concerning the Mississippi, and the tribes along its banks,
+whom he was on his way to visit. The chief replied with a speech of
+compliment; assuring his guests that their presence added flavor to his
+tobacco, made the river more calm, the sky more serene, and the earth
+more beautiful. In conclusion, he gave them a young slave and a calumet,
+begging them at the same time to abandon their purpose of descending the
+Mississippi.
+
+A feast of four courses now followed. First, a wooden bowl full of a
+porridge of Indian meal boiled with grease was set before the guests;
+and the master of ceremonies fed them in turn, like infants, with a
+large spoon. Then appeared a platter of fish; and the same functionary,
+carefully removing the bones with his fingers, and blowing on the
+morsels to cool them, placed them in the mouths of the two Frenchmen. A
+large dog, killed and cooked for the occasion, was next placed before
+them; but, failing to tempt their fastidious appetites, was supplanted
+by a dish of fat buffalo-meat, which concluded the entertainment. The
+crowd having dispersed, buffalo-robes were spread on the ground, and
+Marquette and Joliet spent the night on the scene of the late festivity.
+In the morning, the chief, with some six hundred of his tribesmen,
+escorted them to their canoes, and bade them, after their stolid
+fashion, a friendly farewell.
+
+[Sidenote: A REAL DANGER.]
+
+Again they were on their way, slowly drifting down the great river. They
+passed the mouth of the Illinois, and glided beneath that line of rocks
+on the eastern side, cut into fantastic forms by the elements, and
+marked as "The Ruined Castles" on some of the early French maps.
+Presently they beheld a sight which reminded them that the Devil was
+still lord paramount of this wilderness. On the flat face of a high rock
+were painted, in red, black, and green, a pair of monsters, each "as
+large as a calf, with horns like a deer, red eyes, a beard like a tiger,
+and a frightful expression of countenance. The face is something like
+that of a man, the body covered with scales; and the tail so long that
+it passes entirely round the body, over the head and between the legs,
+ending like that of a fish." Such is the account which the worthy Jesuit
+gives of these manitous, or Indian gods.[55] He confesses that at first
+they frightened him; and his imagination and that of his credulous
+companions was so wrought upon by these unhallowed efforts of Indian
+art, that they continued for a long time to talk of them as they plied
+their paddles. They were thus engaged, when they were suddenly aroused
+by a real danger. A torrent of yellow mud rushed furiously athwart the
+calm blue current of the Mississippi, boiling and surging, and sweeping
+in its course logs, branches, and uprooted trees. They had reached the
+mouth of the Missouri, where that savage river, descending from its mad
+career through a vast unknown of barbarism, poured its turbid floods
+into the bosom of its gentler sister. Their light canoes whirled on the
+miry vortex like dry leaves on an angry brook. "I never," writes
+Marquette, "saw anything more terrific;" but they escaped with their
+fright, and held their way down the turbulent and swollen current of the
+now united rivers.[56] They passed the lonely forest that covered the
+site of the destined city of St. Louis, and, a few days later, saw on
+their left the mouth of the stream to which the Iroquois had given the
+well-merited name of Ohio, or the "Beautiful River."[57] Soon they began
+to see the marshy shores buried in a dense growth of the cane, with its
+tall straight stems and feathery light-green foliage. The sun glowed
+through the hazy air with a languid stifling heat, and by day and night
+mosquitoes in myriads left them no peace. They floated slowly down the
+current, crouched in the shade of the sails which they had spread as
+awnings, when suddenly they saw Indians on the east bank. The surprise
+was mutual, and each party was as much frightened as the other.
+Marquette hastened to display the calumet which the Illinois had given
+him by way of passport; and the Indians, recognizing the pacific symbol,
+replied with an invitation to land. Evidently, they were in
+communication with Europeans, for they were armed with guns, knives, and
+hatchets, wore garments of cloth, and carried their gunpowder in small
+bottles of thick glass. They feasted the Frenchmen with buffalo-meat,
+bear's oil, and white plums; and gave them a variety of doubtful
+information, including the agreeable but delusive assurance that they
+would reach the mouth of the river in ten days. It was, in fact, more
+than a thousand miles distant.
+
+[Sidenote: THE LOWER MISSISSIPPI.]
+
+They resumed their course, and again floated down the interminable
+monotony of river, marsh, and forest. Day after day passed on in
+solitude, and they had paddled some three hundred miles since their
+meeting with the Indians, when, as they neared the mouth of the
+Arkansas, they saw a cluster of wigwams on the west bank. Their inmates
+were all astir, yelling the war-whoop, snatching their weapons, and
+running to the shore to meet the strangers, who, on their part, called
+for succor to the Virgin. In truth, they had need of her aid; for
+several large wooden canoes, filled with savages, were putting out from
+the shore, above and below them, to cut off their retreat, while a swarm
+of headlong young warriors waded into the water to attack them. The
+current proved too strong; and, failing to reach the canoes of the
+Frenchmen, one of them threw his war-club, which flew over the heads of
+the startled travellers. Meanwhile, Marquette had not ceased to hold up
+his calumet, to which the excited crowd gave no heed, but strung their
+bows and notched their arrows for immediate action; when at length the
+elders of the village arrived, saw the peace-pipe, restrained the ardor
+of the youth, and urged the Frenchmen to come ashore. Marquette and his
+companions complied, trembling, and found a better reception than they
+had reason to expect. One of the Indians spoke a little Illinois, and
+served as interpreter; a friendly conference was followed by a feast of
+sagamite and fish; and the travellers, not without sore misgivings,
+spent the night in the lodges of their entertainers.[58]
+
+[Sidenote: THE ARKANSAS.]
+
+Early in the morning, they embarked again, and proceeded to a village of
+the Arkansas tribe, about eight leagues below. Notice of their coming
+was sent before them by their late hosts; and as they drew near they
+were met by a canoe, in the prow of which stood a naked personage,
+holding a calumet, singing, and making gestures of friendship. On
+reaching the village, which was on the east side,[59] opposite the mouth
+of the river Arkansas, they were conducted to a sort of scaffold, before
+the lodge of the war-chief. The space beneath had been prepared for
+their reception, the ground being neatly covered with rush mats. On
+these they were seated; the warriors sat around them in a semi-circle;
+then the elders of the tribe; and then the promiscuous crowd of
+villagers, standing, and staring over the heads of the more dignified
+members of the assembly. All the men were naked; but, to compensate for
+the lack of clothing, they wore strings of beads in their noses and
+ears. The women were clothed in shabby skins, and wore their hair
+clumped in a mass behind each ear. By good luck, there was a young
+Indian in the village, who had an excellent knowledge of Illinois; and
+through him Marquette endeavored to explain the mysteries of
+Christianity, and to gain information concerning the river below. To
+this end he gave his auditors the presents indispensable on such
+occasions, but received very little in return. They told him that the
+Mississippi was infested by hostile Indians, armed with guns procured
+from white men; and that they, the Arkansas, stood in such fear of them
+that they dared not hunt the buffalo, but were forced to live on Indian
+corn, of which they raised three crops a year.
+
+During the speeches on either side, food was brought in without
+ceasing,--sometimes a platter of sagamite or mush; sometimes of corn
+boiled whole; sometimes a roasted dog. The villagers had large earthen
+pots and platters, made by themselves with tolerable skill, as well as
+hatchets, knives, and beads, gained by traffic with the Illinois and
+other tribes in contact with the French or Spaniards. All day there was
+feasting without respite, after the merciless practice of Indian
+hospitality; but at night some of their entertainers proposed to kill
+and plunder them,--a scheme which was defeated by the vigilance of the
+chief, who visited their quarters, and danced the calumet dance to
+reassure his guests.
+
+The travellers now held counsel as to what course they should take. They
+had gone far enough, as they thought, to establish one important
+point,--that the Mississippi discharged its waters, not into the
+Atlantic or sea of Virginia, nor into the Gulf of California or
+Vermilion Sea, but into the Gulf of Mexico. They thought themselves
+nearer to its mouth than they actually were, the distance being still
+about seven hundred miles; and they feared that if they went farther
+they might be killed by Indians or captured by Spaniards, whereby the
+results of their discovery would be lost. Therefore they resolved to
+return to Canada, and report what they had seen.
+
+They left the Arkansas village, and began their homeward voyage on the
+seventeenth of July. It was no easy task to urge their way upward, in
+the heat of midsummer, against the current of the dark and gloomy
+stream, toiling all day under the parching sun, and sleeping at night in
+the exhalations of the unwholesome shore, or in the narrow confines of
+their birchen vessels, anchored on the river. Marquette was attacked
+with dysentery. Languid and well-nigh spent, he invoked his celestial
+mistress, as day after day, and week after week, they won their slow way
+northward. At length, they reached the Illinois, and, entering its
+mouth, followed its course, charmed, as they went, with its placid
+waters, its shady forests, and its rich plains, grazed by the bison and
+the deer. They stopped at a spot soon to be made famous in the annals of
+western discovery. This was a village of the Illinois, then called
+"Kaskaskia;" a name afterwards transferred to another locality.[60] A
+chief, with a band of young warriors, offered to guide them to the Lake
+of the Illinois; that is to say, Lake Michigan. Thither they repaired;
+and, coasting its shores, reached Green Bay at the end of September,
+after an absence of about four months, during which they had paddled
+their canoes somewhat more than two thousand five hundred miles.[61]
+
+[Sidenote: RETURN TO CANADA.]
+
+Marquette remained to recruit his exhausted strength; but Joliet
+descended to Quebec, to bear the report of his discovery to Count
+Frontenac. Fortune had wonderfully favored him on his long and perilous
+journey; but now she abandoned him on the very threshold of home. At the
+foot of the rapids of La Chine, and immediately above Montreal, his
+canoe was overset, two of his men and an Indian boy were drowned, all
+his papers were lost, and he himself narrowly escaped.[62] In a letter
+to Frontenac, he speaks of the accident as follows: "I had escaped every
+peril from the Indians; I had passed forty-two rapids; and was on the
+point of disembarking, full of joy at the success of so long and
+difficult an enterprise, when my canoe capsized, after all the danger
+seemed over. I lost two men and my box of papers, within sight of the
+first French settlements, which I had left almost two years before.
+Nothing remains to me but my life, and the ardent desire to employ it on
+any service which you may please to direct."[63]
+
+[Sidenote: MARQUETTE'S MISSION.]
+
+Marquette spent the winter and the following summer at the mission of
+Green Bay, still suffering from his malady. In the autumn, however, it
+abated; and he was permitted by his Superior to attempt the execution of
+a plan to which he was devotedly attached,--the founding, at the
+principal town of the Illinois, of a mission to be called the
+"Immaculate Conception," a name which he had already given to the river
+Mississippi. He set out on this errand on the twenty-fifth of October,
+accompanied by two men, named Pierre and Jacques, one of whom had been
+with him on his great journey of discovery. A band of Pottawattamies and
+another band of Illinois also joined him. The united parties--ten canoes
+in all--followed the east shore of Green Bay as far as the inlet then
+called "Sturgeon Cove," from the head of which they crossed by a
+difficult portage through the forest to the shore of Lake Michigan.
+November had come. The bright hues of the autumn foliage were changed to
+rusty brown. The shore was desolate, and the lake was stormy. They were
+more than a month in coasting its western border, when at length they
+reached the river Chicago, entered it, and ascended about two leagues.
+Marquette's disease had lately returned, and hemorrhage now ensued. He
+told his two companions that this journey would be his last. In the
+condition in which he was, it was impossible to go farther. The two men
+built a log hut by the river, and here they prepared to spend the
+winter; while Marquette, feeble as he was, began the spiritual exercises
+of Saint Ignatius, and confessed his two companions twice a week.
+
+Meadow, marsh, and forest were sheeted with snow, but game was abundant.
+Pierre and Jacques killed buffalo and deer, and shot wild turkeys close
+to their hut. There was an encampment of Illinois within two days'
+journey; and other Indians, passing by this well-known thoroughfare,
+occasionally visited them, treating the exiles kindly, and sometimes
+bringing them game and Indian corn. Eighteen leagues distant was the
+camp of two adventurous French traders,--one of them, a noted _coureur
+de bois_, nicknamed La Taupine;[64] and the other, a self-styled
+surgeon. They also visited Marquette, and befriended him to the best of
+their power.
+
+[Sidenote: THE MISSION AT KASKASKIA.]
+
+Urged by a burning desire to lay, before he died, the foundation of his
+new mission of the Immaculate Conception, Marquette begged his two
+followers to join him in a _novena_, or nine days' devotion to the
+Virgin. In consequence of this, as he believed, his disease relented; he
+began to regain strength, and in March was able to resume the journey.
+On the thirtieth of the month, they left their hut, which had been
+inundated by a sudden rise of the river, and carried their canoe through
+mud and water over the portage which led to the Des Plaines. Marquette
+knew the way, for he had passed by this route on his return from the
+Mississippi. Amid the rains of opening spring, they floated down the
+swollen current of the Des Plaines, by naked woods and spongy, saturated
+prairies, till they reached its junction with the main stream of the
+Illinois, which they descended to their destination, the Indian town
+which Marquette calls "Kaskaskia." Here, as we are told, he was received
+"like an angel from Heaven." He passed from wigwam to wigwam, telling
+the listening crowds of God and the Virgin, Paradise and Hell, angels
+and demons; and, when he thought their minds prepared, he summoned them
+all to a grand council.
+
+It took place near the town, on the great meadow which lies between the
+river and the modern village of Utica. Here five hundred chiefs and old
+men were seated in a ring; behind stood fifteen hundred youths and
+warriors, and behind these again all the women and children of the
+village. Marquette, standing in the midst, displayed four large pictures
+of the Virgin; harangued the assembly on the mysteries of the Faith, and
+exhorted them to adopt it. The temper of his auditory met his utmost
+wishes. They begged him to stay among them and continue his
+instructions; but his life was fast ebbing away, and it behooved him to
+depart.
+
+[Sidenote: BURIAL OF MARQUETTE.]
+
+A few days after Easter he left the village, escorted by a crowd of
+Indians, who followed him as far as Lake Michigan. Here he embarked with
+his two companions. Their destination was Michilimackinac, and their
+course lay along the eastern borders of the lake. As, in the freshness
+of advancing spring, Pierre and Jacques urged their canoe along that
+lonely and savage shore, the priest lay with dimmed sight and prostrated
+strength, communing with the Virgin and the angels. On the nineteenth of
+May, he felt that his hour was near; and, as they passed the mouth of a
+small river, he requested his companions to land. They complied, built a
+shed of bark on a rising ground near the bank, and carried thither the
+dying Jesuit. With perfect cheerfulness and composure, he gave
+directions for his burial, asked their forgiveness for the trouble he
+had caused them, administered to them the sacrament of penitence, and
+thanked God that he was permitted to die in the wilderness, a missionary
+of the Faith and a member of the Jesuit brotherhood. At night, seeing
+that they were fatigued, he told them to take rest, saying that he would
+call them when he felt his time approaching. Two or three hours after,
+they heard a feeble voice, and, hastening to his side, found him at the
+point of death. He expired calmly, murmuring the names of Jesus and
+Mary, with his eyes fixed on the crucifix which one of his followers
+held before him. They dug a grave beside the hut, and here they buried
+him according to the directions which he had given them; then,
+re-embarking, they made their way to Michilimackinac, to bear the
+tidings to the priests at the mission of St. Ignace.[65]
+
+In the winter of 1676, a party of Kiskakon Ottawas were hunting on Lake
+Michigan; and when, in the following spring, they prepared to return
+home, they bethought them, in accordance with an Indian custom, of
+taking with them the bones of Marquette, who had been their instructor
+at the mission of St. Esprit. They repaired to the spot, found the
+grave, opened it, washed and dried the bones and placed them carefully
+in a box of birch-bark. Then, in a procession of thirty canoes, they
+bore it, singing their funeral songs, to St. Ignace of Michilimackinac.
+As they approached, priests, Indians, and traders all thronged to the
+shore. The relics of Marquette were received with solemn ceremony, and
+buried beneath the floor of the little chapel of the mission.[66]
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[46] _Lettre de Frontenac au Ministre, 2 Nov., 1672; Ibid., 14 Nov.,
+1674_.
+
+[47] See "The Jesuits in North America."
+
+[48] "Le 2 Juillet (1666) les premières disputes de philosophie se font
+dans la congrégation avec succès. Toutes les puissances s'y trouvent; M.
+l'Intendant entr'autres y a argumenté très-bien. M. Jolliet et Pierre
+Francheville y ont très-bien répondu de toute la logique."--_Journal des
+Jésuites._
+
+[49] Nothing was known of Joliet till Shea investigated his history.
+Ferland, in his _Notes sur les Registres de Notre-Dame de Québec_;
+Faillon, in his _Colonie Française en Canada_; and Margry, in a series
+of papers in the _Journal Général de l'Instruction Publique_,--have
+thrown much new light on his life. From journals of a voyage made by him
+at a later period to the coast of Labrador, given in substance by
+Margry, he seems to have been a man of close and intelligent
+observation. His mathematical acquirements appear to have been very
+considerable.
+
+[50] The doctrine of the Immaculate Conception, sanctioned in our own
+time by the Pope, was always a favorite tenet of the Jesuits; and
+Marquette was especially devoted to it.
+
+[51] The Malhoumines, Malouminek, Oumalouminek, or Nation des
+Folles-Avoines, of early French writers. The _folle-avoine_, wild oats
+or "wild rice" (_Zizania aquatica_), was their ordinary food, as also of
+other tribes of this region.
+
+[52] Dablon, on his journey with Allouez in 1670, was delighted with the
+aspect of the country and the abundance of game along this river.
+Carver, a century later, speaks to the same effect, saying that the
+birds rose up in clouds from the wild-rice marshes.
+
+[53] The above traits of the scenery of the Wisconsin are taken from
+personal observation of the river during midsummer.
+
+[54] The Indian villages, under the names of Peouaria (_Peoria_) and
+Moingouena, are represented in Marquette's map upon a river
+corresponding in position with the Des Moines; though the distance from
+the Wisconsin, as given by him, would indicate a river farther north.
+
+[55] The rock where these figures were painted is immediately above the
+city of Alton. The tradition of their existence remains, though they are
+entirely effaced by time. In 1867, when I passed the place, a part of
+the rock had been quarried away, and, instead of Marquette's monsters,
+it bore a huge advertisement of "Plantation Bitters." Some years ago,
+certain persons, with more zeal than knowledge, proposed to restore the
+figures, after conceptions of their own; but the idea was abandoned.
+
+Marquette made a drawing of the two monsters, but it is lost. I have,
+however, a fac-simile of a map made a few years later, by order of the
+Intendant Duchesneau, which is decorated with the portrait of one of
+them, answering to Marquette's description, and probably copied from his
+drawing. St. Cosme, who saw them in 1699, says that they were even then
+almost effaced. Douay and Joutel also speak of them,--the former,
+bitterly hostile to his Jesuit contemporaries, charging Marquette with
+exaggeration in his account of them. Joutel could see nothing terrifying
+in their appearance; but he says that his Indians made sacrifices to
+them as they passed.
+
+[56] The Missouri is called "Pekitanouï" by Marquette. It also bears, on
+early French maps, the names of "Rivière des Osages," and "Rivière des
+Emissourites," or "Oumessourits." On Marquette's map, a tribe of this
+name is placed near its banks, just above the Osages. Judging by the
+course of the Mississippi that it discharged into the Gulf of Mexico, he
+conceived the hope of one day reaching the South Sea by way of the
+Missouri.
+
+[57] Called, on Marquette's map, "Ouabouskiaou." On some of the earliest
+maps, it is called "Ouabache" (Wabash).
+
+[58] This village, called "Mitchigamea," is represented on several
+contemporary maps.
+
+[59] A few years later, the Arkansas were all on the west side.
+
+[60] Marquette says that it consisted at this time of seventy-four
+lodges. These, like the Huron and Iroquois lodges, contained each
+several fires and several families. This village was about seven miles
+below the site of the present town of Ottawa.
+
+[61] The journal of Marquette, first published in an imperfect form by
+Thevenot, in 1681, has been reprinted by Mr. Lenox, under the direction
+of Mr. Shea, from the manuscript preserved in the archives of the
+Canadian Jesuits. It will also be found in Shea's _Discovery and
+Exploration of the Mississippi Valley_, and the _Relations Inédites_ of
+Martin. The true map of Marquette accompanies all these publications.
+The map published by Thevenot and reproduced by Bancroft is not
+Marquette's. The original of this, of which I have a fac-simile, bears
+the title _Carte de la Nouvelle Découverte que les Pères Jésuites ont
+faite en l'année 1672, et continuée par le Père Jacques Marquette, etc._
+The return route of the expedition is incorrectly laid down on it. A
+manuscript map of the Jesuit Raffeix, preserved in the Bibliothèque
+Impériale, is more accurate in this particular. I have also another
+contemporary manuscript map, indicating the various Jesuit stations in
+the West at this time, and representing the Mississippi, as discovered
+by Marquette. For these and other maps, see Appendix.
+
+[62] _Lettre de Frontenac au Ministre, Québec, 14 Nov., 1674._
+
+[63] This letter is appended to Joliet's smaller map of his discoveries.
+See Appendix. Compare _Détails sur le Voyage de Louis Joliet_ and
+_Relation de la Descouverte de plusieurs Pays situez au midi de la
+Nouvelle France, faite en 1673_ (Margry, i. 259). These are oral
+accounts given by Joliet after the loss of his papers. Also, _Lettre de
+Joliet, Oct. 10, 1674_ (Harrisse). On the seventh of October, 1675,
+Joliet married Claire Bissot, daughter of a wealthy Canadian merchant,
+engaged in trade with the northern Indians. This drew Joliet's attention
+to Hudson's Bay; and he made a journey thither in 1679, by way of the
+Saguenay. He found three English forts on the bay, occupied by about
+sixty men, who had also an armed vessel of twelve guns and several small
+trading-craft. The English held out great inducements to Joliet to join
+them; but he declined, and returned to Quebec, where he reported that
+unless these formidable rivals were dispossessed, the trade of Canada
+would be ruined. In consequence of this report, some of the principal
+merchants of the colony formed a company to compete with the English in
+the trade of Hudson's Bay. In the year of this journey, Joliet received
+a grant of the islands of Mignan; and in the following year, 1680, he
+received another grant, of the great island of Anticosti in the lower
+St. Lawrence. In 1681 he was established here, with his wife and six
+servants. He was engaged in fisheries; and, being a skilful navigator
+and surveyor, he made about this time a chart of the St. Lawrence. In
+1690, Sir William Phips, on his way with an English fleet to attack
+Quebec, made a descent on Joliet's establishment, burnt his buildings,
+and took prisoners his wife and his mother-in-law. In 1694 Joliet
+explored the coasts of Labrador, under the auspices of a company formed
+for the whale and seal fishery. On his return, Frontenac made him royal
+pilot for the St. Lawrence; and at about the same time he received the
+appointment of hydrographer at Quebec. He died, apparently poor, in 1699
+or 1700, and was buried on one of the islands of Mignan. The discovery
+of the above facts is due in great part to the researches of Margry.
+
+[64] Pierre Moreau, _alias_ La Taupine, was afterwards bitterly
+complained of by the Intendant Duchesneau, for acting as the governor's
+agent in illicit trade with the Indians.
+
+[65] The contemporary _Relation_ tells us that a miracle took place at
+the burial of Marquette. One of the two Frenchmen, overcome with grief
+and colic, bethought him of applying a little earth from the grave to
+the seat of pain. This at once restored him to health and cheerfulness.
+
+[66] For Marquette's death, see the contemporary _Relation_, published
+by Shea, Lenox, and Martin, with the accompanying _Lettre et Journal_.
+The river where he died is a small stream in the west of Michigan, some
+distance south of the promontory called the "Sleeping Bear." It long
+bore his name, which is now borne by a larger neighboring stream,
+Charlevoix's account of Marquette's death is derived from tradition, and
+is not supported by the contemporary narrative. In 1877, human bones,
+with fragments of birch-bark, were found buried on the supposed site of
+the Jesuit chapel at Point St. Ignace.
+
+In 1847, the missionary of the Algonquins at the Lake of Two Mountains,
+above Montreal, wrote down a tradition of the death of Marquette, from
+the lips of an old Indian woman, born in 1777, at Michilimackinac. Her
+ancestress had been baptized by the subject of the story. The tradition
+has a resemblance to that related as fact by Charlevoix. The old squaw
+said that the Jesuit was returning, very ill, to Michilimackinac, when a
+storm forced him and his two men to land near a little river. Here he
+told them that he should die, and directed them to ring a bell over his
+grave and plant a cross. They all remained four days at the spot; and,
+though without food, the men felt no hunger. On the night of the fourth
+day he died, and the men buried him as he had directed. On waking in the
+morning, they saw a sack of Indian corn, a quantity of bacon, and some
+biscuit, miraculously sent to them, in accordance with the promise of
+Marquette, who had told them that they should have food enough for their
+journey to Michilimackinac. At the same instant, the stream began to
+rise, and in a few moments encircled the grave of the Jesuit, which
+formed, thenceforth, an islet in the waters. The tradition adds, that an
+Indian battle afterwards took place on the banks of this stream, between
+Christians and infidels; and that the former gained the victory, in
+consequence of invoking the name of Marquette. This story bears the
+attestation of the priest of the Two Mountains that it is a literal
+translation of the tradition, as recounted by the old woman.
+
+It has been asserted that the Illinois country was visited by two
+priests, some time before the visit of Marquette. This assertion was
+first made by M. Noiseux, late Grand Vicar of Quebec, who gives no
+authority for it. Not the slightest indication of any such visit appears
+in any contemporary document or map, thus far discovered. The
+contemporary writers, down to the time of Marquette and La Salle, all
+speak of the Illinois as an unknown country. The entire groundlessness
+of Noiseux's assertion is shown by Shea, in a paper in the "Weekly
+Herald," of New York, April 21,1855.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+1673-1678.
+
+LA SALLE AND FRONTENAC.
+
+ Objects of La Salle.--Frontenac favors him.--Projects of
+ Frontenac.--Cataraqui.--Frontenac on Lake Ontario.--Fort
+ Frontenac.--La Salle and Fénelon.--Success of La Salle: his
+ Enemies.
+
+
+We turn from the humble Marquette, thanking God with his last breath
+that he died for his Order and his Faith; and by our side stands the
+masculine form of Cavelier de la Salle. Prodigious was the contrast
+between the two discoverers: the one, with clasped hands and upturned
+eyes, seems a figure evoked from some dim legend of mediæval saintship;
+the other, with feet firm planted on the hard earth, breathes the
+self-relying energies of modern practical enterprise. Nevertheless, La
+Salle's enemies called him a visionary. His projects perplexed and
+startled them. At first, they ridiculed him; and then, as step by step
+he advanced towards his purpose, they denounced and maligned him. What
+was this purpose? It was not of sudden growth, but developed as years
+went on. La Salle at La Chine dreamed of a western passage to China, and
+nursed vague schemes of western discovery. Then, when his earlier
+journeyings revealed to him the valley of the Ohio and the fertile
+plains of Illinois, his imagination took wing over the boundless
+prairies and forests drained by the great river of the West. His
+ambition had found its field. He would leave barren and frozen Canada
+behind, and lead France and civilization into the valley of the
+Mississippi. Neither the English nor the Jesuits should conquer that
+rich domain: the one must rest content with the country east of the
+Alleghanies, and the other with the forests, savages, and beaver-skins
+of the northern lakes. It was for him to call into light the latent
+riches of the great West. But the way to his land of promise was rough
+and long: it lay through Canada, filled with hostile traders and hostile
+priests, and barred by ice for half the year. The difficulty was soon
+solved. La Salle became convinced that the Mississippi flowed, not into
+the Pacific or the Gulf of California, but into the Gulf of Mexico. By a
+fortified post at its mouth, he could guard it against both English and
+Spaniards, and secure for the trade of the interior an access and an
+outlet under his own control, and open at every season. Of this trade,
+the hides of the buffalo would at first form the staple, and along with
+furs would reward the enterprise till other resources should be
+developed.
+
+Such were the vast projects that unfolded themselves in the mind of La
+Salle. Canada must needs be, at the outset, his base of action, and
+without the support of its authorities he could do nothing. This
+support he found. From the moment when Count Frontenac assumed the
+government of the colony, he seems to have looked with favor on the
+young discoverer. There were points of likeness between the two men.
+Both were ardent, bold, and enterprising. The irascible and fiery pride
+of the noble found its match in the reserved and seemingly cold pride of
+the ambitious burgher. Each could comprehend the other; and they had,
+moreover, strong prejudices and dislikes in common. An understanding,
+not to say an alliance, soon grew up between them.
+
+[Sidenote: PROJECTS OF FRONTENAC.]
+
+Frontenac had come to Canada a ruined man. He was ostentatious, lavish,
+and in no way disposed to let slip an opportunity of mending his
+fortune. He presently thought that he had found a plan by which he could
+serve both the colony and himself. His predecessor, Courcelle, had urged
+upon the King the expediency of building a fort on Lake Ontario, in
+order to hold the Iroquois in check and intercept the trade which the
+tribes of the Upper Lakes had begun to carry on with the Dutch and
+English of New York. Thus a stream of wealth would be turned into
+Canada, which would otherwise enrich her enemies. Here, to all
+appearance, was a great public good, and from the military point of view
+it was so in fact; but it was clear that the trade thus secured might be
+made to profit, not the colony at large, but those alone who had control
+of the fort, which would then become the instrument of a monopoly. This
+the governor understood; and, without doubt, he meant that the projected
+establishment should pay him tribute. How far he and La Salle were
+acting in concurrence at this time, it is not easy to say; but Frontenac
+often took counsel of the explorer, who, on his part, saw in the design
+a possible first step towards the accomplishment of his own far-reaching
+schemes.
+
+[Sidenote: EXPEDITION OF FRONTENAC.]
+
+Such of the Canadian merchants as were not in the governor's confidence
+looked on his plan with extreme distrust. Frontenac, therefore, thought
+it expedient "to make use," as he expresses it, "of address." He gave
+out merely that he intended to make a tour through the upper parts of
+the colony with an armed force, in order to inspire the Indians with
+respect, and secure a solid peace. He had neither troops, money,
+munitions, nor means of transportation; yet there was no time to lose,
+for, should he delay the execution of his plan, it might be
+countermanded by the King. His only resource, therefore, was in a prompt
+and hardy exertion of the royal authority; and he issued an order
+requiring the inhabitants of Quebec, Montreal, Three Rivers, and other
+settlements to furnish him, at their own cost, as soon as the spring
+sowing should be over, with a certain number of armed men, besides the
+requisite canoes. At the same time, he invited the officers settled in
+the country to join the expedition,--an invitation which, anxious as
+they were to gain his good graces, few of them cared to decline.
+Regardless of murmurs and discontent, he pushed his preparation
+vigorously, and on the third of June left Quebec with his guard, his
+staff, a part of the garrison of the Castle of St. Louis, and a number
+of volunteers. He had already sent to La Salle, who was then at
+Montreal, directing him to repair to Onondaga, the political centre of
+the Iroquois, and invite their sachems to meet the governor in council
+at the Bay of Quinté on the north of Lake Ontario. La Salle had set out
+on his mission, but first sent Frontenac a map, which convinced him that
+the best site for his proposed fort was the mouth of the Cataraqui,
+where Kingston now stands. Another messenger was accordingly despatched,
+to change the rendezvous to this point.
+
+Meanwhile, the governor proceeded at his leisure towards Montreal,
+stopping by the way to visit the officers settled along the bank, who,
+eager to pay their homage to the newly risen sun, received him with a
+hospitality which under the roof of a log hut was sometimes graced by
+the polished courtesies of the salon and the boudoir. Reaching Montreal,
+which he had never before seen, he gazed, we may suppose, with some
+interest at the long row of humble dwellings which lined the bank, the
+massive buildings of the Seminary, and the spire of the church
+predominant over all. It was a rude scene, but the greeting that awaited
+him savored nothing of the rough simplicity of the wilderness. Perrot,
+the local governor, was on the shore with his soldiers and the
+inhabitants, drawn up under arms and firing a salute to welcome the
+representative of the King. Frontenac was compelled to listen to a long
+harangue from the judge of the place, followed by another from the
+syndic. Then there was a solemn procession to the church, where he was
+forced to undergo a third effort of oratory from one of the priests. _Te
+Deum_ followed, in thanks for his arrival; and then he took refuge in
+the fort. Here he remained thirteen days, busied with his preparations,
+organizing the militia, soothing their mutual jealousies, and settling
+knotty questions of rank and precedence. During this time, every means,
+as he declares, was used to prevent him from proceeding; and among other
+devices a rumor was set on foot that a Dutch fleet, having just captured
+Boston, was on its way to attack Quebec.[67]
+
+[Sidenote: FRONTENAC'S JOURNEY.]
+
+Having sent men, canoes, and baggage, by land, to La Salle's old
+settlement of La Chine, Frontenac himself followed on the twenty-eighth
+of June. Including Indians from the missions, he now had with him about
+four hundred men and a hundred and twenty canoes, besides two large
+flat-boats, which he caused to be painted in red and blue, with strange
+devices, intended to dazzle the Iroquois by a display of unwonted
+splendor. Now their hard task began. Shouldering canoes through the
+forest, dragging the flat-boats along the shore, working like
+beavers,--sometimes in water to the knees, sometimes to the armpits,
+their feet cut by the sharp stones, and they themselves well-nigh swept
+down by the furious current,--they fought their way upward against the
+chain of mighty rapids that break the navigation of the St. Lawrence.
+The Indians were of the greatest service. Frontenac, like La Salle,
+showed from the first a special faculty of managing them; for his keen,
+incisive spirit was exactly to their liking, and they worked for him as
+they would have worked for no man else. As they approached the Long
+Saut, rain fell in torrents; and the governor, without his cloak, and
+drenched to the skin, directed in person the amphibious toil of his
+followers. Once, it is said, he lay awake all night, in his anxiety lest
+the biscuit should be wet, which would have ruined the expedition. No
+such mischance took place, and at length the last rapid was passed, and
+smooth water awaited them to their journey's end. Soon they reached the
+Thousand Islands, and their light flotilla glided in long file among
+those watery labyrinths, by rocky islets, where some lonely pine towered
+like a mast against the sky; by sun-scorched crags, where the brown
+lichens crisped in the parching glare; by deep dells, shady and cool,
+rich in rank ferns, and spongy, dark-green mosses; by still coves, where
+the water-lilies lay like snow-flakes on their broad, flat leaves,--till
+at length they neared their goal, and the glistening bosom of Lake
+Ontario opened on their sight.
+
+Frontenac, to impose respect on the Iroquois, now set his canoes in
+order of battle. Four divisions formed the first line, then came the two
+flat-boats; he himself, with his guards, his staff, and the gentlemen
+volunteers, followed, with the canoes of Three Rivers on his right, and
+those of the Indians on his left, while two remaining divisions formed a
+rear line. Thus, with measured paddles, they advanced over the still
+lake, till they saw a canoe approaching to meet them. It bore several
+Iroquois chiefs, who told them that the dignitaries of their nation
+awaited them at Cataraqui, and offered to guide them to the spot. They
+entered the wide mouth of the river, and passed along the shore, now
+covered by the quiet little city of Kingston, till they reached the
+point at present occupied by the barracks, at the western end of
+Cataraqui bridge. Here they stranded their canoes and disembarked.
+Baggage was landed, fires lighted, tents pitched, and guards set. Close
+at hand, under the lee of the forest, were the camping sheds of the
+Iroquois, who had come to the rendezvous in considerable numbers.
+
+[Sidenote: FRONTENAC AT CATARAQUI.]
+
+At daybreak of the next morning, the thirteenth of July, the drums beat,
+and the whole party were drawn up under arms. A double line of men
+extended from the front of Frontenac's tent to the Indian camp; and,
+through the lane thus formed, the savage deputies, sixty in number,
+advanced to the place of council. They could not hide their admiration
+at the martial array of the French, many of whom were old soldiers of
+the regiment of Carignan; and when they reached the tent they ejaculated
+their astonishment at the uniforms of the governor's guard who
+surrounded it. Here the ground had been carpeted with the sails of the
+flat-boats, on which the deputies squatted themselves in a ring and
+smoked their pipes for a time with their usual air of deliberate
+gravity; while Frontenac, who sat surrounded by his officers, had full
+leisure to contemplate the formidable adversaries whose mettle was
+hereafter to put his own to so severe a test. A chief named Garakontié,
+a noted friend of the French, at length opened the council, in behalf of
+all the five Iroquois nations, with expressions of great respect and
+deference towards "Onontio;" that is to say, the governor of Canada.
+Whereupon Frontenac, whose native arrogance where Indians were concerned
+always took a form which imposed respect without exciting anger, replied
+in the following strain:--
+
+"Children! Mohawks, Oneidas, Onondagas, Cayugas, and Senecas. I am glad
+to see you here, where I have had a fire lighted for you to smoke by,
+and for me to talk to you. You have done well, my children, to obey the
+command of your Father. Take courage: you will hear his word, which is
+full of peace and tenderness. For do not think that I have come for war.
+My mind is full of peace, and she walks by my side. Courage, then,
+children, and take rest."
+
+With that, he gave them six fathoms of tobacco, reiterated his
+assurances of friendship, promised that he would be a kind father so
+long as they should be obedient children, regretted that he was forced
+to speak through an interpreter, and ended with a gift of guns to the
+men, and prunes and raisins to their wives and children. Here closed
+this preliminary meeting, the great council being postponed to another
+day.
+
+During the meeting, Raudin, Frontenac's engineer, was tracing out the
+lines of a fort, after a predetermined plan; and the whole party, under
+the direction of their officers, now set themselves to construct it.
+Some cut down trees, some dug the trenches, some hewed the palisades;
+and with such order and alacrity was the work urged on, that the Indians
+were lost in astonishment. Meanwhile, Frontenac spared no pains to make
+friends of the chiefs, some of whom he had constantly at his table. He
+fondled the Iroquois children, and gave them bread and sweetmeats, and
+in the evening feasted the squaws to make them dance. The Indians were
+delighted with these attentions, and conceived a high opinion of the new
+Onontio.
+
+[Sidenote: FRONTENAC AND THE INDIANS.]
+
+On the seventeenth, when the construction of the fort was well advanced,
+Frontenac called the chiefs to a grand council, which was held with all
+possible state and ceremony. His dealing with the Indians on this and
+other occasions was truly admirable. Unacquainted as he was with them,
+he seems to have had an instinctive perception of the treatment they
+required. His predecessors had never ventured to address the Iroquois
+as "Children," but had always styled them "Brothers;" and yet the
+assumption of paternal authority on the part of Frontenac was not only
+taken in good part, but was received with apparent gratitude. The
+martial nature of the man, his clear, decisive speech, and his frank and
+downright manner, backed as they were by a display of force which in
+their eyes was formidable, struck them with admiration, and gave tenfold
+effect to his words of kindness. They thanked him for that which from
+another they would not have endured.
+
+Frontenac began by again expressing his satisfaction that they had
+obeyed the commands of their Father, and come to Cataraqui to hear what
+he had to say. Then he exhorted them to embrace Christianity; and on
+this theme he dwelt at length, in words excellently adapted to produce
+the desired effect,--words which it would be most superfluous to tax as
+insincere, though doubtless they lost nothing in emphasis because in
+this instance conscience and policy aimed alike. Then, changing his
+tone, he pointed to his officers, his guard, the long files of the
+militia, and the two flat-boats, mounted with cannon, which lay in the
+river near by. "If," he said, "your Father can come so far, with so
+great a force, through such dangerous rapids, merely to make you a visit
+of pleasure and friendship, what would he do, if you should awaken his
+anger, and make it necessary for him to punish his disobedient children?
+He is the arbiter of peace and war. Beware how you offend him!" And he
+warned them not to molest the Indian allies of the French, telling them,
+sharply, that he would chastise them for the least infraction of the
+peace.
+
+From threats he passed to blandishments, and urged them to confide in
+his paternal kindness, saying that, in proof of his affection, he was
+building a store-house at Cataraqui, where they could be supplied with
+all the goods they needed, without the necessity of a long and dangerous
+journey. He warned them against listening to bad men, who might seek to
+delude them by misrepresentations and falsehoods; and he urged them to
+give heed to none but "men of character, like the Sieur de la Salle." He
+expressed a hope that they would suffer their children to learn French
+from the missionaries, in order that they and his nephews--meaning the
+French colonists--might become one people; and he concluded by
+requesting them to give him a number of their children to be educated in
+the French manner, at Quebec.
+
+[Sidenote: TREATY WITH THE INDIANS.]
+
+This speech, every clause of which was reinforced by abundant presents,
+was extremely well received; though one speaker reminded him that he had
+forgotten one important point, inasmuch as he had not told them at what
+prices they could obtain goods at Cataraqui. Frontenac evaded a precise
+answer, but promised them that the goods should be as cheap as possible,
+in view of the great difficulty of transportation. As to the request
+concerning their children, they said that they could not accede to it
+till they had talked the matter over in their villages; but it is a
+striking proof of the influence which Frontenac had gained over them,
+that, in the following year, they actually sent several of their
+children to Quebec to be educated,--the girls among the Ursulines, and
+the boys in the household of the governor.
+
+Three days after the council, the Iroquois set out on their return; and
+as the palisades of the fort were now finished, and the barracks nearly
+so, Frontenac began to send his party homeward by detachments. He
+himself was detained for a time by the arrival of another band of
+Iroquois, from the villages on the north side of Lake Ontario. He
+repeated to them the speech he had made to the others; and, this final
+meeting over, he embarked with his guard, leaving a sufficient number to
+hold the fort, which was to be provisioned for a year by means of a
+convoy then on its way up the river. Passing the rapids safely, he
+reached Montreal on the first of August.
+
+His enterprise had been a complete success. He had gained every point,
+and, in spite of the dangerous navigation, had not lost a single canoe.
+Thanks to the enforced and gratuitous assistance of the inhabitants, the
+whole had cost the King only about ten thousand francs, which Frontenac
+had advanced on his own credit. Though in a commercial point of view the
+new establishment was of very questionable benefit to the colony at
+large, the governor had, nevertheless, conferred an inestimable blessing
+on all Canada by the assurance he had gained of a long respite from the
+fearful scourge of Iroquois hostility. "Assuredly," he writes, "I may
+boast of having impressed them at once with respect, fear, and
+good-will."[68] He adds that the fort at Cataraqui, with the aid of a
+vessel now building, will command Lake Ontario, keep the peace with the
+Iroquois, and cut off the trade with the English; and he proceeds to say
+that by another fort at the mouth of the Niagara, and another vessel on
+Lake Erie, we, the French, can command all the Upper Lakes. This plan
+was an essential link in the schemes of La Salle; and we shall soon find
+him employed in executing it.
+
+A curious incident occurred soon after the building of the fort on Lake
+Ontario. Frontenac, on his way back, quarrelled with Perrot, the
+governor of Montreal, whom, in view of his speculations in the
+fur-trade, he seems to have regarded as a rival in business; but who, by
+his folly and arrogance, would have justified any reasonable measure of
+severity. Frontenac, however, was not reasonable. He arrested Perrot,
+threw him into prison, and set up a man of his own as governor in his
+place; and as the judge of Montreal was not in his interest, he removed
+him, and substituted another on whom he could rely. Thus for a time he
+had Montreal well in hand.
+
+The priests of the Seminary, seigniors of the island, regarded these
+arbitrary proceedings with extreme uneasiness. They claimed the right of
+nominating their own governor; and Perrot, though he held a commission
+from the King, owed his place to their appointment. True, he had set
+them at nought, and proved a veritable King Stork; yet nevertheless they
+regarded his removal as an infringement of their rights.
+
+During the quarrel with Perrot, La Salle chanced to be at Montreal,
+lodged in the house of Jacques Le Ber, who, though one of the principal
+merchants and most influential inhabitants of the settlement, was
+accustomed to sell goods across his counter in person to white men and
+Indians, his wife taking his place when he was absent. Such were the
+primitive manners of the secluded little colony. Le Ber, at this time,
+was in the interest of Frontenac and La Salle; though he afterwards
+became one of their most determined opponents. Amid the excitement and
+discussion occasioned by Perrot's arrest, La Salle declared himself an
+adherent of the governor, and warned all persons against speaking ill of
+him in his hearing.
+
+[Sidenote: ABBÉ FÉNELON.]
+
+The Abbé Fénelon, already mentioned as half-brother to the famous
+Archbishop, had attempted to mediate between Frontenac and Perrot, and
+to this end had made a journey to Quebec on the ice, in midwinter. Being
+of an ardent temperament, and more courageous than prudent, he had
+spoken somewhat indiscreetly, and had been very roughly treated by the
+stormy and imperious Count. He returned to Montreal greatly excited, and
+not without cause. It fell to his lot to preach the Easter sermon. The
+service was held in the little church of the Hôtel-Dieu, which was
+crowded to the porch, all the chief persons of the settlement being
+present. The curé of the parish, whose name also was Perrot, said High
+Mass, assisted by La Salle's brother, Cavelier, and two other priests.
+Then Fénelon mounted the pulpit. Certain passages of his sermon were
+obviously levelled against Frontenac. Speaking of the duties of those
+clothed with temporal authority, he said that the magistrate, inspired
+with the spirit of Christ, was as ready to pardon offences against
+himself as to punish those against his prince; that he was full of
+respect for the ministers of the altar, and never maltreated them when
+they attempted to reconcile enemies and restore peace; that he never
+made favorites of those who flattered him, nor under specious pretexts
+oppressed other persons in authority who opposed his enterprises; that
+he used his power to serve his king, and not to his own advantage; that
+he remained content with his salary, without disturbing the commerce of
+the country, or abusing those who refused him a share in their profits;
+and that he never troubled the people by inordinate and unjust levies of
+men and material, using the name of his prince as a cover to his own
+designs.[69]
+
+[Sidenote: LA SALLE AND FÉNELON.]
+
+La Salle sat near the door; but as the preacher proceeded he suddenly
+rose to his feet in such a manner as to attract the notice of the
+congregation. As they turned their heads, he signed to the principal
+persons among them, and by his angry looks and gesticulation called
+their attention to the words of Fénelon. Then meeting the eye of the
+curé, who sat beside the altar, he made the same signs to him, to which
+the curé replied by a deprecating shrug of the shoulders. Fénelon
+changed color, but continued his sermon.[70]
+
+This indecent proceeding of La Salle, and the zeal with which throughout
+the quarrel he took the part of the governor, did not go unrewarded.
+Henceforth, Frontenac was more than ever his friend; and this plainly
+appeared in the disposition made, through his influence, of the new fort
+on Lake Ontario. Attempts had been made to induce the king to have it
+demolished; but it was resolved at last that, being built, it should be
+allowed to stand; and, after long delay, a final arrangement was made
+for its maintenance, in the manner following: In the autumn of 1674, La
+Salle went to France, with letters of strong recommendation from
+Frontenac.[71] He was well received at Court; and he made two petitions
+to the King,--the one for a patent of nobility, in consideration of his
+services as an explorer; and the other for a grant in seigniory of Fort
+Frontenac, for so he called the new post, in honor of his patron. On his
+part, he offered to pay back the ten thousand francs which the fort had
+cost the King; to maintain it at his own charge, with a garrison equal
+to that of Montreal, besides fifteen or twenty laborers; to form a
+French colony around it; to build a church, whenever the number of
+inhabitants should reach one hundred; and, meanwhile, to support one or
+more Récollet friars; and, finally, to form a settlement of domesticated
+Indians in the neighborhood. His offers were accepted. He was raised to
+the rank of the untitled nobles; received a grant of the fort and lands
+adjacent, to the extent of four leagues in front and half a league in
+depth, besides the neighboring islands; and was invested with the
+government of the fort and settlement, subject to the orders of the
+governor-general.[72]
+
+La Salle returned to Canada, proprietor of a seigniory which, all things
+considered, was one of the most valuable in the colony. His friends and
+his family, rejoicing in his good fortune and not unwilling to share it,
+made him large advances of money, enabling him to pay the stipulated sum
+to the King, to rebuild the fort in stone, maintain soldiers and
+laborers, and procure in part, at least, the necessary outfit. Had La
+Salle been a mere merchant, he was in a fair way to make a fortune, for
+he was in a position to control the better part of the Canadian
+fur-trade. But he was not a mere merchant; and no commercial profit
+could content his ambition.
+
+Those may believe, who will, that Frontenac did not expect a share in
+the profits of the new post. That he did expect it, there is positive
+evidence; for a deposition is extant, taken at the instance of his enemy
+the Intendant Duchesneau, in which three witnesses attest that the
+governor, La Salle, his lieutenant La Forest, and one Boisseau, had
+formed a partnership to carry on the trade of Fort Frontenac.
+
+[Sidenote: ENEMIES OF LA SALLE.]
+
+No sooner was La Salle installed in his new post than the merchants of
+Canada joined hands to oppose him. Le Ber, once his friend, became his
+bitter enemy; for he himself had hoped to share the monopoly of Fort
+Frontenac, of which he and one Bazire had at first been placed
+provisionally in control, and from which he now saw himself ejected. La
+Chesnaye, Le Moyne, and others of more or less influence took part in
+the league, which, in fact, embraced all the traders in the colony
+except the few joined with Frontenac and La Salle. Duchesneau, intendant
+of the colony, aided the malcontents. As time went on, their bitterness
+grew more bitter; and when at last it was seen that, not satisfied with
+the monopoly of Fort Frontenac, La Salle aimed at the control of the
+valleys of the Ohio and the Mississippi, and the usufruct of half a
+continent, the ire of his opponents redoubled, and Canada became for him
+a nest of hornets, buzzing in wrath and watching the moment to sting.
+But there was another element of opposition, less noisy, but not less
+formidable; and this arose from the Jesuits. Frontenac hated them; and
+they, under befitting forms of duty and courtesy, paid him back in the
+same coin. Having no love for the governor, they would naturally have
+little for his partisan and _protégé_; but their opposition had another
+and a deeper root, for the plans of the daring young schemer jarred with
+their own.
+
+[Sidenote: PURPOSES OF THE JESUITS.]
+
+We have seen the Canadian Jesuits in the early apostolic days of their
+mission, when the flame of their zeal, fed by an ardent hope, burned
+bright and high. This hope was doomed to disappointment. Their avowed
+purpose of building another Paraguay on the borders of the Great
+Lakes[73] was never accomplished, and their missions and their converts
+were swept away in an avalanche of ruin. Still, they would not despair.
+From the lakes they turned their eyes to the Valley of the Mississippi,
+in the hope to see it one day the seat of their new empire of the Faith.
+But what did this new Paraguay mean? It meant a little nation of
+converted and domesticated savages, docile as children, under the
+paternal and absolute rule of Jesuit fathers, and trained by them in
+industrial pursuits, the results of which were to inure, not to the
+profit of the producers, but to the building of churches, the founding
+of colleges, the establishment of warehouses and magazines, and the
+construction of works of defence,--all controlled by Jesuits, and
+forming a part of the vast possessions of the Order. Such was the old
+Paraguay;[74] and such, we may suppose, would have been the new, had the
+plans of those who designed it been realized.
+
+I have said that since the middle of the century the religious
+exaltation of the early missions had sensibly declined. In the nature of
+things, that grand enthusiasm was too intense and fervent to be long
+sustained. But the vital force of Jesuitism had suffered no diminution.
+That marvellous _esprit de corps_, that extinction of self and
+absorption of the individual in the Order which has marked the Jesuits
+from their first existence as a body, was no whit changed or
+lessened,--a principle, which, though different, was no less strong
+than the self-devoted patriotism of Sparta or the early Roman Republic.
+
+The Jesuits were no longer supreme in Canada; or, in other words, Canada
+was no longer simply a mission. It had become a colony. Temporal
+interests and the civil power were constantly gaining ground; and the
+disciples of Loyola felt that relatively, if not absolutely, they were
+losing it. They struggled vigorously to maintain the ascendency of their
+Order, or, as they would have expressed it, the ascendency of religion;
+but in the older and more settled parts of the colony it was clear that
+the day of their undivided rule was past. Therefore, they looked with
+redoubled solicitude to their missions in the West. They had been among
+its first explorers; and they hoped that here the Catholic Faith, as
+represented by Jesuits, might reign with undisputed sway. In Paraguay,
+it was their constant aim to exclude white men from their missions. It
+was the same in North America. They dreaded fur-traders, partly because
+they interfered with their teachings and perverted their converts, and
+partly for other reasons. But La Salle was a fur-trader, and far worse
+than a fur-trader: he aimed at occupation, fortification, and
+settlement. The scope and vigor of his enterprises, and the powerful
+influence that aided them, made him a stumbling-block in their path. He
+was their most dangerous rival for the control of the West, and from
+first to last they set themselves against him.
+
+[Sidenote: SPIRIT OF LA SALLE.]
+
+What manner of man was he who could conceive designs so vast and defy
+enmities so many and so powerful? And in what spirit did he embrace
+these designs? We will look hereafter for an answer.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[67] _Lettre de Frontenac à Colbert, 13 Nov., 1673._ This rumor, it
+appears, originated with the Jesuit Dablon. _Journal du Voyage du Comte
+de Frontenac au lac Ontario_. The Jesuits were greatly opposed to the
+establishment of forts and trading-posts in the upper country, for
+reasons that will appear hereafter.
+
+[68] _Lettre de Frontenac au Ministre, 13 Nov., 1673._
+
+[69] Faillon, _Colonie Française_, iii. 497, and manuscript authorities
+there cited. I have examined the principal of these. Faillon himself is
+a priest of St. Sulpice. Compare H. Verreau, _Les Deux Abbés de
+Fénelon_, chap. vii.
+
+[70] _Information faicte par nous, Charles le Tardieu, Sieur de Tilly,
+et Nicolas Dupont, etc., etc., contre le Sr. Abbé de Fénelon._ Tilly
+and Dupont were sent by Frontenac to inquire into the affair. Among the
+deponents is La Salle himself.
+
+[71] In his despatch to the minister Colbert, of the fourteenth of
+November, 1674, Frontenac speaks of La Salle as follows: "I cannot help,
+Monseigneur, recommending to you the Sieur de la Salle, who is about to
+go to France, and who is a man of intelligence and ability, more capable
+than anybody else I know here to accomplish every kind of enterprise and
+discovery which may be intrusted to him, as he has the most perfect
+knowledge of the state of the country, as you will see, if you are
+disposed to give him a few moments of audience."
+
+[72] _Mémoire pour l'entretien du Fort Frontenac, par le Sr. de la
+Salle, 1674. Petition du Sr. de la Salle au Roi. Lettres patentes de
+concession, du Fort de Frontenac et terres adjacentes au profit du
+Sr. de la Salle; données à Compiègne le 13 Mai, 1675. Arrêt qui
+accepte les offres faites par Robert Cavelier Sr. de la Salle; à
+Compiègne le 13 Mai, 1675. Lettres de noblesse pour le Sr. Cavelier
+de la Salle; données à Compiègne le 13 Mai, 1675. Papiers de Famille.
+Mémoire au Roi._
+
+[73] This purpose is several times indicated in the _Relations_. For an
+instance, see "The Jesuits in North America," 245.
+
+[74] Compare Charlevoix, _Histoire de Paraguay_, with Robertson,
+_Letters on Paraguay_.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+1678.
+
+PARTY STRIFE.
+
+ La Salle and his Reporter.--Jesuit Ascendency.--The Missions and
+ the Fur-trade.--Female Inquisitors.--Plots against La Salle: his
+ Brother the Priest.--Intrigues Of the Jesuits.--La Salle poisoned:
+ he exculpates the Jesuits.--Renewed Intrigues.
+
+
+[Sidenote: LA SALLE'S MEMOIR.]
+
+One of the most curious monuments of La Salle's time is a long memoir,
+written by a person who made his acquaintance at Paris in the summer of
+1678, when, as we shall soon see, he had returned to France in
+prosecution of his plans. The writer knew the Sulpitian Galinée,[75]
+who, as he says, had a very high opinion of La Salle; and he was also in
+close relations with the discoverer's patron, the Prince de Conti.[76]
+He says that he had ten or twelve interviews with La Salle; and,
+becoming interested in him and in that which he communicated, he wrote
+down the substance of his conversation. The paper is divided into two
+parts: the first, called "Mémoire sur Mr. de la Salle," is devoted to
+the state of affairs in Canada, and chiefly to the Jesuits; the second,
+entitled "Histoire de Mr. de la Salle," is an account of the
+discoverer's life, or as much of it as the writer had learned from
+him.[77] Both parts bear throughout the internal evidence of being what
+they profess to be; but they embody the statements of a man of intense
+partisan feeling, transmitted through the mind of another person in
+sympathy with him, and evidently sharing his prepossessions. In one
+respect, however, the paper is of unquestionable historical value; for
+it gives us a vivid and not an exaggerated picture of the bitter strife
+of parties which then raged in Canada, and which was destined to tax to
+the utmost the vast energy and fortitude of La Salle. At times, the
+memoir is fully sustained by contemporary evidence; but often, again, it
+rests on its own unsupported authority. I give an abstract of its
+statements as I find them.
+
+The following is the writer's account of La Salle: "All those among my
+friends who have seen him find him a man of great intelligence and
+sense. He rarely speaks of any subject except when questioned about it,
+and his words are very few and very precise. He distinguishes perfectly
+between that which he knows with certainly and that which he knows with
+some mingling of doubt. When he does not know, he does not hesitate to
+avow it; and though I have heard him say the same thing more than five
+or six times, when persons were present who had not heard it before, he
+always said it in the same manner. In short, I never heard anybody speak
+whose words carried with them more marks of truth."[78]
+
+[Sidenote: JESUIT ASCENDENCY.]
+
+After mentioning that he is thirty-three or thirty-four years old, and
+that he has been twelve years in America, the memoir declares that he
+made the following statements: that the Jesuits are masters at Quebec;
+that the bishop is their creature, and does nothing but in concert with
+them;[79] that he is not well inclined towards the Récollets,[80] who
+have little credit, but who are protected by Frontenac; that in Canada
+the Jesuits think everybody an enemy to religion who is an enemy to
+them; that, though they refused absolution to all who sold brandy to the
+Indians, they sold it themselves, and that he, La Salle, had himself
+detected them in it;[81] that the bishop laughs at the orders of the
+King when they do not agree with the wishes of the Jesuits; that the
+Jesuits dismissed one of their servants named Robert, because he told of
+their trade in brandy; that Albanel,[82] in particular, carried on a
+great fur-trade, and that the Jesuits have built their college in part
+from the profits of this kind of traffic; that they admitted that they
+carried on a trade, but denied that they gained so much by it as was
+commonly supposed.[83]
+
+[Sidenote: FEMALE INQUISITORS.]
+
+The memoir proceeds to affirm that they trade largely with the Sioux at
+Ste. Marie, and with other tribes at Michilimackinac, and that they are
+masters of the trade of that region, where the forts are in their
+possession.[84] An Indian said, in full council, at Quebec, that he had
+prayed and been a Christian as long as the Jesuits would stay and teach
+him, but since no more beaver were left in his country, the missionaries
+were gone also. The Jesuits, pursues the memoir, will have no priests
+but themselves in their missions, and call them all Jansenists, not
+excepting the priests of St. Sulpice.
+
+The bishop is next accused of harshness and intolerance, as well as of
+growing rich by tithes, and even by trade, in which it is affirmed he
+has a covert interest.[85] It is added that there exists in Quebec,
+under the auspices of the Jesuits, an association called the Sainte
+Famille, of which Madame Bourdon[86] is superior. They meet in the
+cathedral every Thursday, with closed doors, where they relate to each
+other--as they are bound by a vow to do--all they have learned, whether
+good or evil, concerning other people, during the week. It is a sort of
+female inquisition, for the benefit of the Jesuits, the secrets of whose
+friends, it is said, are kept, while no such discretion is observed with
+regard to persons not of their party.[87]
+
+Here follow a series of statements which it is needless to repeat, as
+they do not concern La Salle. They relate to abuse of the confessional,
+hostility to other priests, hostility to civil authorities, and
+over-hasty baptisms, in regard to which La Salle is reported to have
+made a comparison, unfavorable to the Jesuits, between them and the
+Récollets and Sulpitians.
+
+[Sidenote: PLOTS AGAINST LA SALLE.]
+
+We now come to the second part of the memoir, entitled "History of
+Monsieur de la Salle." After stating that he left France at the age of
+twenty-one or twenty-two, with the purpose of attempting some new
+discovery, it makes the statements repeated in a former chapter,
+concerning his discovery of the Ohio, the Illinois, and possibly the
+Mississippi. It then mentions the building of Fort Frontenac, and says
+that one object of it was to prevent the Jesuits from becoming
+undisputed masters of the fur-trade.[88] Three years ago, it pursues, La
+Salle came to France, and obtained a grant of the fort; and it proceeds
+to give examples of the means used by the party opposed to him to injure
+his good name and bring him within reach of the law. Once, when he was
+at Quebec, the farmer of the King's revenue, one of the richest men in
+the place, was extremely urgent in his proffers of hospitality, and at
+length, though he knew La Salle but slightly, persuaded him to lodge in
+his house. He had been here but a few days when his host's wife began to
+enact the part of the wife of Potiphar, and this with so much vivacity
+that on one occasion La Salle was forced to take an abrupt leave, in
+order to avoid an infringement of the laws of hospitality. As he opened
+the door, he found the husband on the watch, and saw that it was a plot
+to entrap him.[89]
+
+Another attack, of a different character, though in the same direction,
+was soon after made. The remittances which La Salle received from the
+various members and connections of his family were sent through the
+hands of his brother, Abbé Cavelier, from whom his enemies were,
+therefore, very eager to alienate him. To this end, a report was made to
+reach the priest's ears that La Salle had seduced a young woman, with
+whom he was living in an open and scandalous manner at Fort Frontenac.
+The effect of this device exceeded the wishes of its contrivers; for the
+priest, aghast at what he had heard, set out for the fort, to administer
+his fraternal rebuke, but on arriving, in place of the expected
+abomination, found his brother, assisted by two Récollet friars, ruling
+with edifying propriety over a most exemplary household.
+
+Thus far the memoir. From passages in some of La Salle's letters, it may
+be gathered that Abbé Cavelier gave him at times no little annoyance. In
+his double character of priest and elder brother, he seems to have
+constituted himself the counsellor, monitor, and guide of a man who,
+though many years his junior, was in all respects incomparably superior
+to him, as the sequel will show. This must have been almost insufferable
+to a nature like that of La Salle, who, nevertheless, was forced to arm
+himself with patience, since his brother held the purse-strings. On one
+occasion his forbearance was put to a severe proof, when, wishing to
+marry a damsel of good connections in the colony, Abbé Cavelier saw fit
+for some reason to interfere, and prevented the alliance.[90]
+
+[Sidenote: INTRIGUES OF THE JESUITS.]
+
+To resume the memoir. It declares that the Jesuits procured an ordinance
+from the Supreme Council prohibiting traders from going into the Indian
+country, in order that they, the Jesuits, being already established
+there in their missions, might carry on trade without competition. But
+La Salle induced a good number of the Iroquois to settle around his
+fort; thus bringing the trade to his own door, without breaking the
+ordinance. These Iroquois, he is further reported to have said, were
+very fond of him, and aided him in rebuilding the fort with cut stone.
+The Jesuits told the Iroquois on the south side of the lake, where they
+were established as missionaries, that La Salle was strengthening his
+defences with the view of making war on them. They and the intendant,
+who was their creature, endeavored to embroil the Iroquois with the
+French in order to ruin La Salle; writing to him at the same time that
+he was the bulwark of the country, and that he ought to be always on his
+guard. They also tried to persuade Frontenac that it was necessary to
+raise men and prepare for war. La Salle suspected them; and seeing that
+the Iroquois, in consequence of their intrigues, were in an excited
+state, he induced the governor to come to Fort Frontenac to pacify them.
+He accordingly did so; and a council was held, which ended in a complete
+restoration of confidence on the part of the Iroquois.[91] At this
+council they accused the two Jesuits, Bruyas and Pierron,[92] of
+spreading reports that the French were preparing to attack them. La
+Salle thought that the object of the intrigue was to make the Iroquois
+jealous of him, and engage Frontenac in expenses which would offend the
+King. After La Salle and the governor had lost credit by the rupture,
+the Jesuits would come forward as pacificators, in the full assurance
+that they could restore quiet, and appear in the attitude of saviors of
+the colony.
+
+La Salle, pursues his reporter, went on to say that about this time a
+quantity of hemlock and verdigris was given him in a salad; and that the
+guilty person was a man in his employ named Nicolas Perrot, otherwise
+called Jolycoeur, who confessed the crime.[93] The memoir adds that La
+Salle, who recovered from the effects of the poison, wholly exculpates
+the Jesuits.
+
+This attempt, which was not, as we shall see, the only one of the kind
+made against La Salle, is alluded to by him in a letter to a friend at
+Paris, written in Canada when he was on the point of departure on his
+great expedition to descend the Mississippi. The following is an extract
+from it:
+
+[Sidenote: LA SALLE EXCULPATES THE JESUITS.]
+
+"I hope to give myself the honor of sending you a more particular
+account of this enterprise when it shall have had the success which I
+hope for it; but I have need of a strong protection for its support. It
+traverses the commercial operations of certain persons, who will find it
+hard to endure it. They intended to make a new Paraguay in these parts,
+and the route which I close against them gave them facilities for an
+advantageous correspondence with Mexico. This check will infallibly be a
+mortification to them; and you know how they deal with whatever opposes
+them. _Nevertheless, I am bound to render them the justice to say that
+the poison which was given me was not at all of their instigation._ The
+person who was conscious of the guilt, believing that I was their enemy
+because he saw that our sentiments were opposed, thought to exculpate
+himself by accusing them, and I confess that at the time I was not sorry
+to have this indication of their ill-will; but having afterwards
+carefully examined the affair, I clearly discovered the falsity of the
+accusation which this rascal had made against them. I nevertheless
+pardoned him, in order not to give notoriety to the affair; as the mere
+suspicion might sully their reputation, to which I should scrupulously
+avoid doing the slightest injury unless I thought it necessary to the
+good of the public, and unless the fact were fully proved. Therefore,
+Monsieur, if anybody shared the suspicion which I felt, oblige me by
+undeceiving him."[94]
+
+This letter, so honorable to La Salle, explains the statement made in
+the memoir, that, notwithstanding his grounds of complaint against the
+Jesuits, he continued to live on terms of courtesy with them,
+entertained them at his fort, and occasionally corresponded with them.
+The writer asserts, however, that they intrigued with his men to induce
+them to desert,--employing for this purpose a young man named
+Deslauriers, whom they sent to him with letters of recommendation. La
+Salle took him into his service; but he soon after escaped, with several
+other men, and took refuge in the Jesuit missions.[95] The object of the
+intrigue is said to have been the reduction of La Salle's garrison to a
+number less than that which he was bound to maintain, thus exposing him
+to a forfeiture of his title of possession.
+
+[Sidenote: RENEWED INTRIGUES.]
+
+He is also stated to have declared that Louis Joliet was an
+impostor,[96] and a _donné_ of the Jesuits,--that is, a man who worked
+for them without pay; and, further, that when he, La Salle, came to
+court to ask for privileges enabling him to pursue his discoveries, the
+Jesuits represented in advance to the minister Colbert that his head was
+turned, and that he was fit for nothing but a mad-house. It was only by
+the aid of influential friends that he was at length enabled to gain an
+audience.
+
+Here ends this remarkable memoir, which, criticise it as we may, does
+not exaggerate the jealousies and enmities that beset the path of the
+discoverer.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[75] _Ante_, p. 17.
+
+[76] Louis-Armand de Bourbon, second Prince de Conti. The author of the
+memoir seems to have been Abbé Renaudot, a learned churchman.
+
+[77] Extracts from this have already been given in connection with La
+Salle's supposed discovery of the Mississippi. _Ante_, p. 29.
+
+[78] "Tous ceux de mes amis qui l'ont vu luy trouve beaucoup d'esprit et
+un très-grand sens; il ne parle guère que des choses sur lesquelles on
+l'interroge; il les dit en très-peu de mots et très-bien
+circonstanciées; il distingue parfaitement ce qu'il scait avec
+certitude, de ce qu'il scait avec quelque mélange de doute. Il avoue
+sans aucune façon ne pas savoir ce qu'il ne scait pas, et quoyque je luy
+aye ouy dire plus de cinq ou six fois les mesme choses à l'occasion de
+quelques personnes qui ne les avaient point encore entendues, je les luy
+ay toujours ouy dire de la mesme manière. En un mot je n'ay jamais ouy
+parler personne dont les paroles portassent plus de marques de vérité."
+
+[79] "Il y a une autre chose qui me déplait, qui est l'entière
+dépendence dans laquelle les Prêtres du Séminaire de Québec et le Grand
+Vicaire de l'Evêque sont pour les Pères Jésuites, car il ne fait pas la
+moindre chose sans leur ordre; ce qui fait qu'indirectement ils sont les
+maîtres de ce qui regarde le spirituel, qui, comme vous savez, est une
+grande machine pour remuer tout le reste."--_Lettre de Frontenac à
+Colbert, 2 Nov., 1672._
+
+[80] "Ces réligieux [_les Récollets_] sont fort protégés partout par le
+comte de Frontenac, gouverneur du pays, et à cause de cela assez
+maltraités par l'évesque, parceque la doctrine de l'évesque et des
+Jésuites est que les affaires de la Réligion chrestienne n'iront point
+bien dans ce pays-là que quand le gouverneur sera créature des Jésuites,
+ou que l'évesque sera gouverneur."--_Mémoire sur Mr. de la Salle_.
+
+[81] "Ils [_les Jésuites_] refusent l'absolution à ceux qui ne veulent
+pas promettre de n'en plus vendre [_de l'eau-de-vie_], et s'ils meurent
+en cet étât, ils les privent de la sépulture ecclésiastique; au
+contraire ils se permettent à eux-mêmes sans aucune difficulté ce mesme
+trafic quoique toute sorte de trafic soit interdite à tous les
+ecclésiastiques par les ordonnances du Roy, et par une bulle expresse du
+Pape. La Bulle et les ordonnances sont notoires, et quoyqu'ils cachent
+le trafic qu'ils font d'eau-de-vie, M. de la Salle prétend qu'il ne
+l'est pas moins; qu'outre la notoriété il en a des preuves certaines, et
+qu'il les a surpris dans ce trafic, et qu'ils luy ont tendu des pièges
+pour l'y surprendre.... Ils ont chassé leur valet Robert à cause qu'il
+révéla qu'ils en traitaient jour et nuit."--_Ibid._ The writer says that
+he makes this last statement, not on the authority of La Salle, but on
+that of a memoir made at the time when the intendant, Talon, with whom
+he elsewhere says that he was well acquainted, returned to France. A
+great number of particulars are added respecting the Jesuit trade in
+furs.
+
+[82] Albanel was prominent among the Jesuit explorers at this time. He
+is best known by his journey up the Saguenay to Hudson's Bay in 1672.
+
+[83] "Pour vous parler franchement, ils [_les Jésuites_] songent autant
+à la conversion du Castor qu'à celle des âmes."--_Lettre de Frontenac à
+Colbert, 2 Nov., 1672_.
+
+In his despatch of the next year, he says that the Jesuits ought to
+content themselves with instructing the Indians in their old missions,
+instead of neglecting them to make new ones in countries where there are
+"more beaver-skins to gain than souls to save."
+
+[84] These forts were built by them, and were necessary to the security
+of their missions.
+
+[85] François Xavier de Laval-Montmorency, first bishop of Quebec, was a
+prelate of austere character. His memory is cherished in Canada by
+adherents of the Jesuits and all ultramontane Catholics.
+
+[86] This Madame Bourdon was the widow of Bourdon, the engineer (see
+"The Jesuits in North America," 297). If we may credit the letters of
+Marie de l'Incarnation, she had married him from a religious motive, in
+order to charge herself with the care of his motherless children;
+stipulating in advance that he should live with her, not as a husband,
+but as a brother. As may be imagined, she was regarded as a most devout
+and saint-like person.
+
+[87] "Il y a dans Québec une congrégation de femmes et de filles qu'ils
+[_les Jésuites_] appellent la sainte famille, dans laquelle on fait
+voeu sur les Saints Evangiles de dire tout ce qu'on sait de bien et de
+mal des personnes qu'on connoist. La Supérieure de cette compagnie
+s'appelle Madame Bourdon; une Mde. d'Ailleboust est, je crois,
+l'assistante et une Mde. Charron, la Trésorière. La Compagnie
+s'assemble tous les Jeudis dans la Cathédrale, à porte fermée, et là
+elles se disent les unes aux autres tout ce qu'elles ont appris. C'est
+une espèce d'Inquisition contre toutes les personnes qui ne sont pas
+unies avec les Jésuites. Ces personnes sont accusées de tenir secret ce
+qu'elles apprennent de mal des personnes de leur party et de n'avoir pas
+la mesme discretion pour les autres."--_Mémoire sur M^r. de la Salle_.
+
+The Madame d'Ailleboust mentioned above was a devotee like Madame
+Bourdon, and, in one respect, her history was similar. See "The Jesuits
+in North America," 360.
+
+The association of the Sainte Famille was founded by the Jesuit
+Chaumonot at Montreal in 1663. Laval, Bishop of Quebec, afterwards
+encouraged its establishment at that place; and, as Chaumonot himself
+writes, caused it to be attached to the cathedral. _Vie de Chaumonot_,
+83. For its establishment at Montreal, see Faillon, _Vie de Mlle.
+Mance_, i. 233.
+
+"Ils [_les Jésuites_] ont tous une si grande envie de savoir tout ce qui
+se fait dans les familles qu'ils ont des Inspecteurs à gages dans la
+Ville, qui leur rapportent tout ce qui se fait dans les maisons," etc.,
+etc.--_Lettre de Frontenac au Ministre, 13 Nov., 1673._
+
+[88] Mention has been made (p. 88, _note_) of the report set on foot by
+the Jesuit Dablon, to prevent the building of the fort.
+
+[89] This story is told at considerable length, and the advances of the
+lady particularly described.
+
+[90] Letter of La Salle, in possession of M. Margry.
+
+[91] Louis XIV. alludes to this visit, in a letter to Frontenac, dated
+28 April, 1677. "I cannot but approve," he writes, "of what you have
+done, in your voyage to Fort Frontenac, to reconcile the minds of the
+Five Iroquois Nations, and to clear yourself from the suspicions they
+had entertained, and from the motives that might induce them to make
+war." Frontenac's despatches of this year, as well as of the preceding
+and following years, are missing from the archives.
+
+In a memoir written in November, 1680, La Salle alludes to "le désir que
+l'on avoit que Monseigneur le Comte de Frontenac fit la guerre aux
+Iroquois." See Thomassy, _Géologie Pratique de la Louisiane_, 203.
+
+[92] Bruyas was about this time stationed among the Onondagas. Pierron
+was among the Senecas. He had lately removed to them from the Mohawk
+country. _Relation des Jésuites, 1673-79_, 140 (Shea). Bruyas was also
+for a long time among the Mohawks.
+
+[93] This puts the character of Perrot in a new light; for it is not
+likely that any other can be meant than the famous _voyageur_. I have
+found no mention elsewhere of the synonyme of Jolycoeur. Poisoning was
+the current crime of the day, and persons of the highest rank had
+repeatedly been charged with it. The following is the passage:--
+
+"Quoiqu'il en soit, Mr. de la Salle se sentit quelque temps après
+empoisonné d'une salade dans laquelle on avoit meslé du ciguë, qui est
+poison en ce pays là, et du verd de gris. Il en fut malade à
+l'extrémité, vomissant presque continuellement 40 ou 50 jours après, et
+il ne réchappa que par la force extrême de sa constitution. Celuy qui
+luy donna le poison fut un nommé Nicolas Perrot, autrement Jolycoeur,
+l'un de ses domestiques.... Il pouvait faire mourir cet homme, qui a
+confessé son crime, mais il s'est contenté de l'enfermer les fers aux
+pieds."--_Histoire de Mr. de la Salle._
+
+[94] The following words are underlined in the original: "_Je suis
+pourtant obligé de leur rendre une justice, que le poison qu'on m'avoit
+donné n'éstoit point de leur instigation."--Lettre de La Salle au Prince
+de Conti, 31 Oct., 1678._
+
+[95] In a letter to the King, Frontenac mentions that several men who
+had been induced to desert from La Salle had gone to Albany, where the
+English had received them well. _Lettre de Frontenac au Roy, 6 Nov.,
+1679._ The Jesuits had a mission in the neighboring tribe of the Mohawks
+and elsewhere in New York.
+
+[96] This agrees with expressions used by La Salle in a memoir addressed
+by him to Frontenac in November, 1680. In this, he intimates his belief
+that Joliet went but little below the mouth of the Illinois, thus doing
+flagrant injustice to that brave explorer.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+1677, 1678.
+
+THE GRAND ENTERPRISE.
+
+ La Salle at Fort Frontenac.--La Salle at Court: his
+ Memorial.--Approval of the King.--Money and Means.--Henri de
+ Tonty.--Return to Canada.
+
+
+"If," writes a friend of La Salle," he had preferred gain to glory, he
+had only to stay at his fort, where he was making more than twenty-five
+thousand livres a year."[97] He loved solitude and he loved power; and
+at Fort Frontenac he had both, so far as each consisted with the other.
+The nearest settlement was a week's journey distant, and he was master
+of all around him. He had spared no pains to fulfil the conditions on
+which his wilderness seigniory had been granted, and within two years he
+had demolished the original wooden fort, replacing it by another much
+larger, enclosed on the land side by ramparts and bastions of stone, and
+on the water side by palisades. It contained a range of barracks of
+squared timber, a guard-house, a lodging for officers, a forge, a well,
+a mill, and a bakery. Nine small cannon were mounted on the walls. Two
+officers and a surgeon, with ten or twelve soldiers, made up the
+garrison; and three or four times that number of masons, laborers, and
+canoe-men were at one time maintained at the place.
+
+[Sidenote: LA SALLE AT FORT FRONTENAC.]
+
+Along the shore south of the fort was a small village of French
+families, to whom La Salle had granted farms, and, farther on, a village
+of Iroquois, whom he had persuaded to settle here. Near these villages
+were the house and chapel of two Récollet friars, Luc Buisset and Louis
+Hennepin. More than a hundred French acres of land had been cleared of
+wood, and planted in part with crops; while cattle, fowls, and swine had
+been brought up from Montreal. Four vessels, of from twenty-five to
+forty tons, had been built for the lake and the river; but canoes served
+best for ordinary uses, and La Salle's followers became so skilled in
+managing them that they were reputed the best canoe-men in America.
+Feudal lord of the forests around him, commander of a garrison raised
+and paid by himself, founder of the mission, and patron of the church,
+he reigned the autocrat of his lonely little empire.[98]
+
+[Sidenote: LA SALLE'S MEMORIAL.]
+
+It was not solely or chiefly for commercial gain that La Salle had
+established Fort Frontenac. He regarded it as a first step towards
+greater things; and now, at length, his plans were ripe and his time was
+come. In the autumn of 1677 he left the fort in charge of his
+lieutenant, descended the St. Lawrence to Quebec, and sailed for France.
+He had the patronage of Frontenac and the help of strong friends in
+Paris. It is said, as we have seen already, that his enemies denounced
+him, in advance, as a madman; but a memorial of his, which his friends
+laid before the minister Colbert, found a favorable hearing. In it he
+set forth his plans, or a portion of them. He first recounted briefly
+the discoveries he had made, and then described the country he had seen
+south and west of the great lakes. "It is nearly all so beautiful and so
+fertile; so free from forests, and so full of meadows, brooks, and
+rivers; so abounding in fish, game, and venison, that one can find there
+in plenty, and with little trouble, all that is needful for the support
+of flourishing colonies. The soil will produce everything that is raised
+in France. Flocks and herds can be left out at pasture all winter; and
+there are even native wild cattle, which, instead of hair, have a fine
+wool that may answer for making cloth and hats. Their hides are better
+than those of France, as appears by the sample which the Sieur de la
+Salle has brought with him. Hemp and cotton grow here naturally, and may
+be manufactured with good results; so there can be no doubt that
+colonies planted here would become very prosperous. They would be
+increased by a great number of western Indians, who are in the main of a
+tractable and social disposition; and as they have the use neither of
+our weapons nor of our goods, and are not in intercourse with other
+Europeans, they will readily adapt themselves to us and imitate our way
+of life as soon as they taste the advantages of our friendship and of
+the commodities we bring them, insomuch that these countries will
+infallibly furnish, within a few years, a great many new subjects to the
+Church and the King.
+
+"It was the knowledge of these things, joined to the poverty of Canada,
+its dense forests, its barren soil, its harsh climate, and the snow that
+covers the ground for half the year, that led the Sieur de la Salle to
+undertake the planting of colonies in these beautiful countries of the
+West."
+
+Then he recounts the difficulties of the attempt,--the vast distances,
+the rapids and cataracts that obstruct the way; the cost of men,
+provisions, and munitions; the danger from the Iroquois, and the rivalry
+of the English, who covet the western country, and would gladly seize it
+for themselves. "But this last reason," says the memorial, "only
+animates the Sieur de la Salle the more, and impels him to anticipate
+them by the promptness of his action."
+
+He declares that it was for this that he had asked for the grant of Fort
+Frontenac; and he describes what he had done at that post, in order to
+make it a secure basis for his enterprise. He says that he has now
+overcome the chief difficulties in his way, and that he is ready to
+plant a new colony at the outlet of Lake Erie, of which the English, if
+not prevented, might easily take possession. Towards the accomplishment
+of his plans, he asks the confirmation of his title to Fort Frontenac,
+and the permission to establish at his own cost two other posts, with
+seigniorial rights over all lands which he may discover and colonize
+within twenty years, and the government of all the country in question.
+On his part, he proposes to renounce all share in the trade carried on
+between the tribes of the Upper Lakes and the people of Canada.
+
+La Salle seems to have had an interview with the minister, in which the
+proposals of his memorial were somewhat modified. He soon received in
+reply the following patent from the King:--
+
+[Sidenote: THE KING'S APPROVAL.]
+
+"Louis, by the grace of God King of France and Navarre, to our dear and
+well-beloved Robert Cavelier, Sieur de la Salle, greeting. We have
+received with favor the very humble petition made us in your name, to
+permit you to labor at the discovery of the western parts of New France;
+and we have the more willingly entertained this proposal, since we have
+nothing more at heart than the exploration of this country, through
+which, to all appearance, a way may be found to Mexico.... For this and
+other causes thereunto moving us, we permit you by these presents,
+signed with our hand, to labor at the discovery of the western parts of
+our aforesaid country of New France; and, for the execution of this
+enterprise, to build forts at such places as you may think necessary,
+and enjoy possession thereof under the same clauses and conditions as of
+Fort Frontenac, conformably to our letters patent of May thirteenth,
+1675, which, so far as needful, we confirm by these presents. And it is
+our will that they be executed according to their form and tenor: on
+condition, nevertheless, that you finish this enterprise within five
+years, failing which, these presents shall be void, and of no effect;
+that you carry on no trade with the savages called Ottawas, or with
+other tribes who bring their peltries to Montreal; and that you do the
+whole at your own cost and that of your associates, to whom we have
+granted the sole right of trade in buffalo-hides. And we direct the
+Sieur Count Frontenac, our governor and lieutenant-general, and also
+Duchesneau, intendant of justice, police, and finance, and the officers
+of the supreme council of the aforesaid country, to see to the execution
+of these presents; for such is our pleasure.
+
+"Given at St. Germain en Laye, this 12th day of May, 1678, and of our
+reign the 35th year."
+
+This patent grants both more and less than the memorial had asked. It
+authorizes La Salle to build and own, not two forts only, but as many as
+he may see fit, provided that he do so within five years; and it gives
+him, besides, the monopoly of buffalo-hides, for which at first he had
+not petitioned. Nothing is said of colonies. To discover the country,
+secure it by forts, and find, if possible, a way to Mexico, are the only
+object set forth; for Louis XIV. always discountenanced settlement in
+the West, partly as tending to deplete Canada, and partly as removing
+his subjects too far from his paternal control. It was but the year
+before that he refused to Louis Joliet the permission to plant a trading
+station in the Valley of the Mississippi.[99] La Salle, however, still
+held to his plan of a commercial and industrial colony, and in
+connection with it to another purpose, of which his memorial had made no
+mention. This was the building of a vessel on some branch of the
+Mississippi, in order to sail down that river to its mouth, and open a
+route to commerce through the Gulf of Mexico. It is evident that this
+design was already formed; for he had no sooner received his patent,
+than he engaged ship-carpenters, and procured iron, cordage, and
+anchors, not for one vessel, but for two.
+
+[Sidenote: MONEY AND MEANS.]
+
+What he now most needed was money; and having none of his own, he set
+himself to raising it from others. A notary named Simonnet lent him four
+thousand livres; an advocate named Raoul, twenty-four thousand; and one
+Dumont, six thousand. His cousin François Plet, a merchant of Rue St.
+Martin, lent him about eleven thousand, at the interest of forty per
+cent; and when he returned to Canada, Frontenac found means to procure
+him another loan of about fourteen thousand, secured by the mortgage of
+Fort Frontenac. But his chief helpers were his family, who became
+sharers in his undertaking. "His brothers and relations," says a
+memorial afterwards addressed by them to the King, "spared nothing to
+enable him to respond worthily to the royal goodness;" and the document
+adds, that, before his allotted five years were ended, his discoveries
+had cost them more than five hundred thousand livres (francs).[100] La
+Salle himself believed, and made others believe, that there was more
+profit than risk in his schemes.
+
+Lodged rather obscurely in Rue de la Truanderie, and of a nature
+reserved and shy, he nevertheless found countenance and support from
+personages no less exalted than Colbert, Seignelay, and the Prince de
+Conti. Others, too, in stations less conspicuous, warmly espoused his
+cause, and none more so than the learned Abbé Renaudot, who helped him
+with tongue and pen, and seems to have been instrumental in introducing
+to him a man who afterwards proved invaluable. This was Henri de Tonty,
+an Italian officer, a _protégé_ of the Prince de Conti, who sent him to
+La Salle as a person suited to his purposes, Tonty had but one hand, the
+other having been blown off by a grenade in the Sicilian wars.[101] His
+father, who had been governor of Gaeta, but who had come to France in
+consequence of political disturbances in Naples, had earned no small
+reputation as a financier, and had invented the form of life insurance
+still called the Tontine. La Salle learned to know his new lieutenant on
+the voyage across the Atlantic; and, soon after reaching Canada, he
+wrote of him to his patron in the following terms: "His honorable
+character and his amiable disposition were well known to you; but
+perhaps you would not have thought him capable of doing things for which
+a strong constitution, an acquaintance with the country, and the use of
+both hands seemed absolutely necessary. Nevertheless, his energy and
+address make him equal to anything; and now, at a season when everybody
+is in fear of the ice, he is setting out to begin a new fort, two
+hundred leagues from this place, and to which I have taken the liberty
+to give the name of Fort Conti. It is situated near that great cataract,
+more than a hundred and twenty _toises_ in height, by which the lakes of
+higher elevation precipitate themselves into Lake Frontenac [Ontario].
+From there one goes by water, five hundred leagues, to the place where
+Fort Dauphin is to be begun; from which it only remains to descend the
+great river of the Bay of St. Esprit, to reach the Gulf of
+Mexico."[102]
+
+[Sidenote: RETURN TO CANADA.]
+
+Besides Tonty, La Salle found in France another ally, La Motte de
+Lussière, to whom he offered a share in the enterprise, and who joined
+him at Rochelle, the place of embarkation. Here vexatious delays
+occurred. Bellinzani, director of trade, who had formerly taken lessons
+in rascality in the service of Cardinal Mazarin, abused his official
+position to throw obstacles in the way of La Salle, in order to extort
+money from him; and he extorted, in fact, a considerable sum, which his
+victim afterwards reclaimed. It was not till the fourteenth of July that
+La Salle, with Tonty, La Motte, and thirty men, set sail for Canada, and
+two months more elapsed before he reached Quebec. Here, to increase his
+resources and strengthen his position, he seems to have made a league
+with several Canadian merchants, some of whom had before been his
+enemies, and were to be so again. Here, too, he found Father Louis
+Hennepin, who had come down from Fort Frontenac to meet him.[103]
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[97] _Mémoire pour Monseigneur le Marquis de Seignelay sur les
+Descouvertes du Sieur de la Salle_, 1682.
+
+[98] _État de la dépense faite par Mr. de la Salle, Gouverneur du
+Fort Frontenac. Récit de Nicolas de la Salle. Revue faite au Fort de
+Frontenac, 1677; Mémoire sur le Projet du Sieur de la Salle_ (Margry, i.
+329). Plan of Fort Frontenac, published by Faillon, from the original
+sent to France by Denonville in 1685. _Relation des Découvertes du Sieur
+de la Salle._ When Frontenac was at the fort in September, 1677, he
+found only four _habitants_. It appears, by the _Relation des
+Découvertes du Sieur de la Salle_, that, three or four years later,
+there were thirteen or fourteen families. La Salle spent 34,426 francs
+on the fort. _Mémoire au Roy, Papiers de Famille._
+
+[99] _Colbert à Duchesneau, 28 Avril, 1677._
+
+[100] _Mémoire au Roy, présenté sous la Régence; Obligation du Sieur de
+la Salle envers le Sieur Plet; Autres Emprunts de Cavelier de la Salle_
+(Margry, i. 423-432).
+
+[101] Tonty, _Mémoire_, in Margry, _Relations et Mémoires inédits_, 5.
+
+[102] _Lettre de La Salle, 31 Oct., 1678._ Fort Conti was to have been
+built on the site of the present Fort Niagara. The name of Lac de Conti
+was given by La Salle to Lake Erie. The fort mentioned as Fort Dauphin
+was built, as we shall see, on the Illinois, though under another name.
+La Salle, deceived by Spanish maps, thought that the Mississippi
+discharged itself into the Bay of St. Esprit (Mobile Bay).
+
+Henri de Tonty signed his name in the Gallicized, and not in the
+original Italian form _Tonti_. He wore a hand of iron or some other
+metal, which was usually covered with a glove. La Potherie says that he
+once or twice used it to good purpose when the Indians became
+disorderly, in breaking the heads of the most contumacious or knocking
+out their teeth. Not knowing at the time the secret of the unusual
+efficacy of his blows, they regarded him as a "medicine" of the first
+order. La Potherie erroneously ascribes the loss of his hand to a
+sabre-cut received in a _sortie_ at Messina.
+
+[103] _La Motte de Lussière à----, sans date; Mémoíre de la Salle sur
+les Extorsions commises par Bellinzani; Société formée par La Salle;
+Relation de Henri de Tonty_, 1684 (Margry, i. 338, 573; ii. 2, 25).
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+1678-1679.
+
+LA SALLE AT NIAGARA.
+
+ Father Louis Hennepin: his Past Life; his
+ Character.--Embarkation.--Niagara Falls.--Indian Jealousy.--La
+ Motte and the Senecas.--A Disaster.--La Salle and his Followers.
+
+
+Hennepin was all eagerness to join in the adventure; and, to his great
+satisfaction, La Salle gave him a letter from his Provincial, Father Le
+Fèvre, containing the coveted permission. Whereupon, to prepare himself,
+he went into retreat at the Récollet convent of Quebec, where he
+remained for a time in such prayer and meditation as his nature, the
+reverse of spiritual, would permit. Frontenac, always partial to his
+Order, then invited him to dine at the château; and having visited the
+bishop and asked his blessing, he went down to the Lower Town and
+embarked. His vessel was a small birch canoe, paddled by two men. With
+sandalled feet, a coarse gray capote, and peaked hood, the cord of St.
+Francis about his waist, and a rosary and crucifix hanging at his side,
+the father set forth on his memorable journey. He carried with him the
+furniture of a portable altar, which in time of need he could strap on
+his back like a knapsack.
+
+He slowly made his way up the St. Lawrence, stopping here and there,
+where a clearing and a few log houses marked the feeble beginning of a
+parish and a seigniory. The settlers, though good Catholics, were too
+few and too poor to support a priest, and hailed the arrival of the
+friar with delight. He said mass, exhorted a little, as was his custom,
+and on one occasion baptized a child. At length he reached Montreal,
+where the enemies of the enterprise enticed away his two canoe-men. He
+succeeded in finding two others, with whom he continued his voyage,
+passed the rapids of the upper St. Lawrence, and reached Fort Frontenac
+at eleven o'clock at night of the second of November, where his brethren
+of the mission, Ribourde and Buisset, received him with open arms.[104]
+La Motte, with most of the men, appeared on the eighth; but La Salle and
+Tonty did not arrive till more than a month later. Meanwhile, in
+pursuance of his orders, fifteen men set out in canoes for Lake Michigan
+and the Illinois, to trade with the Indians and collect provisions,
+while La Motte embarked in a small vessel for Niagara, accompanied by
+Hennepin.[105]
+
+[Illustration]
+
+_Father Hennepin Celebrating Mass._
+
+Drawn by Howard Pyle.
+
+La Salle and the Discovery of the Great West, 132.
+
+[Sidenote: HENNEPIN.]
+
+This bold, hardy, and adventurous friar, the historian of the
+expedition, and a conspicuous actor in it, has unwittingly painted his
+own portrait with tolerable distinctness. "I always," he says, "felt a
+strong inclination to fly from the world and live according to the rules
+of a pure and severe virtue; and it was with this view that I entered
+the Order of St. Francis."[106] He then speaks of his zeal for the
+saving of souls, but admits that a passion for travel and a burning
+desire to visit strange lands had no small part in his inclination for
+the missions.[107] Being in a convent in Artois, his Superior sent him
+to Calais, at the season of the herring-fishery, to beg alms, after the
+practice of the Franciscans. Here and at Dunkirk he made friends of the
+sailors, and was never tired of their stories. So insatiable, indeed,
+was his appetite for them, that "often," he says, "I hid myself behind
+tavern doors while the sailors were telling of their voyages. The
+tobacco smoke made me very sick at the stomach; but, notwithstanding, I
+listened attentively to all they said about their adventures at sea and
+their travels in distant countries. I could have passed whole days and
+nights in this way without eating."[108]
+
+He presently set out on a roving mission through Holland; and he
+recounts various mishaps which befell him, "in consequence of my zeal in
+laboring for the saving of souls," "I was at the bloody fight of
+Seneff," he pursues, "where so many perished by fire and sword, and
+where I had abundance of work in comforting and consoling the poor
+wounded soldiers. After undergoing great fatigues, and running extreme
+danger in the sieges of towns, in the trenches, and in battles, where I
+exposed myself freely for the salvation of others while the soldiers
+were breathing nothing but blood and carnage, I found myself at last in
+a way of satisfying my old inclination for travel."[109]
+
+He got leave from his superiors to go to Canada, the most adventurous of
+all the missions, and accordingly sailed in 1675, in the ship which
+carried La Salle, who had just obtained the grant of Fort Frontenac. In
+the course of the voyage, he took it upon him to reprove a party of
+girls who were amusing themselves and a circle of officers and other
+passengers by dancing on deck. La Salle, who was among the spectators,
+was annoyed at Hennepin's interference, and told him that
+he was behaving like a pedagogue. The friar retorted, by
+alluding--unconsciously, as he says--to the circumstance that La Salle
+was once a pedagogue himself, having, according to Hennepin, been for
+ten or twelve years teacher of a class in a Jesuit school. La Salle, he
+adds, turned pale with rage, and never forgave him to his dying day,
+but always maligned and persecuted him.[110]
+
+On arriving in Canada, he was sent up to Fort Frontenac, as a
+missionary. That wild and remote post was greatly to his liking. He
+planted a gigantic cross, superintended the building of a chapel for
+himself and his colleague Buisset, and instructed the Iroquois
+colonists of the place. He visited, too, the neighboring Indian
+settlements,--paddling his canoe in summer, when the lake was open, and
+journeying in winter on snow-shoes, with a blanket slung at his back.
+His most noteworthy journey was one which he made in the
+winter,--apparently of 1677,--with a soldier of the fort. They crossed
+the eastern extremity of Lake Ontario on snow-shoes, and pushed
+southward through the forests, towards Onondaga,--stopping at evening to
+dig away the snow, which was several feet deep, and collect wood for
+their fire, which they were forced to replenish repeatedly during the
+night, to keep themselves from freezing. At length, they reached the
+great Onondaga town, where the Indians were much amazed at their
+hardihood. Thence they proceeded eastward to the Oneidas, and afterwards
+to the Mohawks, who regaled them with small frogs, pounded up with a
+porridge of Indian corn. Here Hennepin found the Jesuit Bruyas, who
+permitted him to copy a dictionary of the Mohawk language[111] which he
+had compiled; and here he presently met three Dutchmen, who urged him to
+visit the neighboring settlement of Orange, or Albany,--an invitation
+which he seems to have declined.[112]
+
+They were pleased with him, he says, because he spoke Dutch. Bidding
+them farewell, he tied on his snow-shoes again, and returned with his
+companion to Fort Frontenac. Thus he inured himself to the hardships of
+the woods, and prepared for the execution of the grand plan of discovery
+which he calls his own,--"an enterprise," to borrow his own words,
+"capable of terrifying anybody but me."[113] When the later editions of
+his book appeared, doubts had been expressed of his veracity. "I here
+protest to you, before God," he writes, addressing the reader, "that my
+narrative is faithful and sincere, and that you may believe everything
+related in it."[114] And yet, as we shall see, this reverend father was
+the most impudent of liars; and the narrative of which he speaks is a
+rare monument of brazen mendacity. Hennepin, however, had seen and dared
+much; for among his many failings fear had no part, and where his
+vanity or his spite was not involved, he often told the truth. His books
+have their value, with all their enormous fabrications.[115]
+
+La Motte and Hennepin, with sixteen men, went on board the little vessel
+of ten tons, which lay at Fort Frontenac. The friar's two brethren,
+Buisset and Ribourde, threw their arms about his neck as they bade him
+farewell; while his Indian proselytes, learning whither he was bound,
+stood with their hands pressed upon their mouths, in amazement at the
+perils which awaited their ghostly instructor. La Salle, with the rest
+of the party, was to follow as soon as he could finish his preparations.
+It was a boisterous and gusty day, the eighteenth of November. The sails
+were spread; the shore receded,--the stone walls of the fort, the huge
+cross that the friar had reared, the wigwams, the settlers' cabins, the
+group of staring Indians on the strand. The lake was rough; and the men,
+crowded in so small a craft, grew nervous and uneasy. They hugged the
+northern shore, to escape the fury of the wind, which blew savagely from
+the northeast; while the long gray sweep of naked forests on their right
+betokened that winter was fast closing in. On the twenty-sixth, they
+reached the neighborhood of the Indian town of Taiaiagon,[116] not far
+from Toronto, and ran their vessel, for safety, into the mouth of a
+river,--probably the Humber,--where the ice closed about her, and they
+were forced to cut her out with axes. On the fifth of December, they
+attempted to cross to the mouth of the Niagara; but darkness overtook
+them, and they spent a comfortless night, tossing on the troubled lake,
+five or six miles from shore. In the morning, they entered the mouth of
+the Niagara, and landed on the point at its eastern side, where now
+stand the historic ramparts of Fort Niagara. Here they found a small
+village of Senecas, attracted hither by the fisheries, who gazed with
+curious eyes at the vessel, and listened in wonder as the voyagers sang
+_Te Deum_ in gratitude for their safe arrival.
+
+[Sidenote: NIAGARA FALLS.]
+
+Hennepin, with several others, now ascended the river in a canoe to the
+foot of the mountain ridge of Lewiston, which, stretching on the right
+hand and on the left, forms the acclivity of a vast plateau, rent with
+the mighty chasm, along which, from this point to the cataract, seven
+miles above, rush, with the fury of an Alpine torrent, the gathered
+waters of four inland oceans. To urge the canoe farther was impossible.
+He landed, with his companions, on the west bank, near the foot of that
+part of the ridge now called Queenstown Heights, climbed the steep
+ascent, and pushed through the wintry forest on a tour of exploration.
+On his left sank the cliffs, the furious river raging below; till at
+length, in primeval solitudes unprofaned as yet by the pettiness of man,
+the imperial cataract burst upon his sight.[117]
+
+The explorers passed three miles beyond it, and encamped for the night
+on the banks of Chippewa Creek, scraping away the snow, which was a foot
+deep, in order to kindle a fire. In the morning they retraced their
+steps, startling a number of deer and wild turkeys on their way, and
+rejoined their companions at the mouth of the river.
+
+[Sidenote: LA MOTTE AND THE SENECAS.]
+
+La Motte now began the building of a fortified house, some two leagues
+above the mouth of the Niagara.[118] Hot water was used to soften the
+frozen ground; but frost was not the only obstacle. The Senecas of the
+neighboring village betrayed a sullen jealousy at a design which,
+indeed, boded them no good. Niagara was the key to the four great lakes
+above; and whoever held possession of it could, in no small measure,
+control the fur-trade of the interior. Occupied by the French, it would
+in time of peace intercept the trade which the Iroquois carried on
+between the western Indians and the Dutch and English at Albany, and in
+time of war threaten them with serious danger. La Motte saw the
+necessity of conciliating these formidable neighbors, and, if possible,
+cajoling them to give their consent to the plan. La Salle, indeed, had
+instructed him to that effect. He resolved on a journey to the great
+village of the Senecas, and called on Hennepin, who was busied in
+building a bark chapel for himself, to accompany him. They accordingly
+set out with several men well armed and equipped, and bearing at their
+backs presents of very considerable value. The village was beyond the
+Genesee, southeast of the site of Rochester.[119] After a march of five
+days, they reached it on the last day of December. They were conducted
+to the lodge of the great chief, where they were beset by a staring
+crowd of women and children. Two Jesuits, Raffeix and Julien Garnier,
+were in the village; and their presence boded no good for the embassy.
+La Motte, who seems to have had little love for priests of any kind, was
+greatly annoyed at seeing them; and when the chiefs assembled to hear
+what he had to say, he insisted that the two fathers should leave the
+council-house. At this, Hennepin, out of respect for his cloth, thought
+it befitting that he should retire also. The chiefs, forty-two in
+number, squatted on the ground, arrayed in ceremonial robes of beaver,
+wolf, or black-squirrel skin. "The senators of Venice," writes Hennepin,
+"do not look more grave or speak more deliberately than the counsellors
+of the Iroquois." La Motte's interpreter harangued the attentive
+conclave, placed gift after gift at their feet,--coats, scarlet cloth,
+hatchets, knives, and beads,--and used all his eloquence to persuade
+them that the building of a fort on the banks of the Niagara, and a
+vessel on Lake Erie, were measures vital to their interest. They gladly
+took the gifts, but answered the interpreter's speech with evasive
+generalities; and having been entertained with the burning of an Indian
+prisoner, the discomfited embassy returned, half-famished, to Niagara.
+
+Meanwhile, La Salle and Tonty were on their way from Fort Frontenac,
+with men and supplies, to join La Motte and his advance party. They
+were in a small vessel, with a pilot either unskilful or treacherous.
+On Christmas eve, he was near wrecking them off the Bay of Quinté. On
+the next day they crossed to the mouth of the Genesee; and La Salle,
+after some delay, proceeded to the neighboring town of the Senecas,
+where he appears to have arrived just after the departure of La Motte
+and Hennepin. He, too, called them to a council, and tried to soothe the
+extreme jealousy with which they regarded his proceedings. "I told them
+my plan," he says, "and gave the best pretexts I could, and I succeeded
+in my attempt."[120] More fortunate than La Motte, he persuaded them to
+consent to his carrying arms and ammunition by the Niagara portage,
+building a vessel above the cataract, and establishing a fortified
+warehouse at the mouth of the river.
+
+[Sidenote: JEALOUSIES.]
+
+This success was followed by a calamity. La Salle had gone up the
+Niagara to find a suitable place for a ship-yard, when he learned that
+the pilot in charge of the vessel he had left had disobeyed his orders,
+and ended by wrecking it on the coast. Little was saved except the
+anchors and cables destined for the new vessel to be built above the
+cataract. This loss threw him into extreme perplexity, and, as Hennepin
+says, "would have made anybody but him give up the enterprise."[121] The
+whole party were now gathered at the palisaded house which La Motte had
+built, a little below the mountain ridge of Lewiston. They were a motley
+crew of French, Flemings, and Italians, all mutually jealous. La Salle's
+enemies had tampered with some of the men; and none of them seemed to
+have had much heart for the enterprise. The fidelity even of La Motte
+was doubtful. "He served me very ill," says La Salle; "and Messieurs de
+Tonty and de la Forest knew that he did his best to debauch all my
+men."[122] His health soon failed under the hardships of these winter
+journeyings, and he returned to Fort Frontenac, half-blinded by an
+inflammation of the eyes.[123] La Salle, seldom happy in the choice of
+subordinates, had, perhaps, in all his company but one man whom he could
+fully trust; and this was Tonty. He and Hennepin were on indifferent
+terms. Men thrown together in a rugged enterprise like this quickly
+learn to know each other; and the vain and assuming friar was not likely
+to commend himself to La Salle's brave and loyal lieutenant. Hennepin
+says that it was La Salle's policy to govern through the dissensions of
+his followers; and, from whatever cause, it is certain that those
+beneath him were rarely in perfect harmony.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[104] Hennepin, _Description de la Louisiane_ (1683), 19; Ibid., _Voyage
+Curieux_ (1704), 66. Ribourde had lately arrived.
+
+[105] _Lettre de La Motte de la Lussière, sans date; Relation de Henri
+de Tonty écrite de Québec, le 14 Novembre, 1684_ (Margry, i. 573). This
+paper, apparently addressed to Abbé Renaudot, is entirely distinct from
+Tonty's memoir of 1693, addressed to the minister Ponchartrain.
+
+[106] Hennepin, _Nouvelle Découverte_ (1697), 8.
+
+[107] Ibid., _Avant Propos_, 5.
+
+[108] Ibid., _Voyage Curieux_ (1704), 12.
+
+[109] Hennepin, _Voyage Curieux_ (1704), 18.
+
+[110] Ibid. _Avis au Lecteur._ He elsewhere represents himself as on
+excellent terms with La Salle; with whom, he says, he used to read
+histories of travels at Fort Frontenac, after which they discussed
+together their plans of discovery.
+
+[111] This was the _Racines Agnières_ of Bruyas. It was published by Mr.
+Shea in 1862. Hennepin seems to have studied it carefully; for on
+several occasions he makes use of words evidently borrowed from it,
+putting them into the mouths of Indians speaking a dialect different
+from that of the Agniers, or Mohawks.
+
+[112] Compare Brodhead in _Hist. Mag._, x. 268.
+
+[113] "Une enterprise capable d'épouvanter tout autre que
+moi."--Hennepin, _Voyage Curieux, Avant Propos_ (1704).
+
+[114] "Je vous proteste ici devant Dieu, que ma Relation est fidèle et
+sincère," etc.--Ibid., _Avis au Lecteur_.
+
+[115] The nature of these fabrications will be shown hereafter. They
+occur, not in the early editions of Hennepin's narrative, which are
+comparatively truthful, but in the edition of 1697 and those which
+followed. La Salle was dead at the time of their publication.
+
+[116] This place is laid down on a manuscript map sent to France by the
+Intendant Duchesneau, and now preserved in the Archives de la Marine,
+and also on several other contemporary maps.
+
+[117] Hennepin's account of the falls and river of Niagara--especially
+his second account, on his return from the West--is very minute, and on
+the whole very accurate. He indulges in gross exaggeration as to the
+height of the cataract, which, in the edition of 1683, he states at five
+hundred feet, and raises to six hundred in that of 1697. He also says
+that there was room for four carriages to pass abreast under the
+American Fall without being wet. This is, of course, an exaggeration at
+the best; but it is extremely probable that a great change has taken
+place since his time. He speaks of a small lateral fall at the west side
+of the Horse Shoe Fall which does not now exist. Table Rock, now
+destroyed, is distinctly figured in his picture. He says that he
+descended the cliffs on the west side to the foot of the cataract, but
+that no human being can get down on the east side.
+
+The name of Niagara, written _Onguiaahra_ by Lalemant in 1641, and
+_Ongiara_ by Sanson, on his map of 1657, is used by Hennepin in its
+present form. His description of the falls is the earliest known to
+exist. They are clearly indicated on the map of Champlain, 1632. For
+early references to them, see "The Jesuits in North America," 235,
+_note_. A brief but curious notice of them is given by Gendron,
+_Quelques Particularitez du Pays des Hurons_, 1659. The indefatigable
+Dr. O'Callaghan has discovered thirty-nine distinct forms of the name
+Niagara. _Index to Colonial Documents of New York_, 465. It is of
+Iroquois origin, and in the Mohawk dialect is pronounced Nyàgarah.
+
+[118] Tonty, _Relation_, 1684 (Margry, i. 573).
+
+[119] Near the town of Victor. It is laid down on the map of Galinée,
+and other unpublished maps. Compare Marshall, _Historical Sketches of
+the Niagara Frontier_, 14.
+
+[120] _Lettre de La Salle à un de ses associés_ (Margry, ii. 32).
+
+[121] _Description de la Louisiane_ (1683), 41. It is characteristic of
+Hennepin that, in the editions of his book published after La Salle's
+death, he substitutes, for "anybody but him," "anybody but those who had
+formed so generous a design,"--meaning to include himself, though he
+lost nothing by the disaster, and had not formed the design.
+
+On these incidents, compare the two narratives of Tonty, of 1684 and
+1693. The book bearing Tonty's name is a compilation full of errors. He
+disowned its authorship.
+
+[122] _Lettre de La Salle, 22 Août, 1682_ (Margry, ii. 212).
+
+[123] _Lettre de La Motte, sans date._
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+1679.
+
+THE LAUNCH OF THE "GRIFFIN."
+
+ The Niagara Portage.--A Vessel on the Stocks.--Suffering and
+ Discontent.--La Salle's Winter Journey.--The Vessel
+ launched.--Fresh Disasters.
+
+
+[Sidenote: THE NIAGARA PORTAGE.]
+
+A more important work than that of the warehouse at the mouth of the
+river was now to be begun. This was the building of a vessel above the
+cataract. The small craft which had brought La Motte and Hennepin with
+their advance party had been hauled to the foot of the rapids at
+Lewiston, and drawn ashore with a capstan, to save her from the drifting
+ice. Her lading was taken out, and must now be carried beyond the
+cataract to the calm water above. The distance to the destined point was
+at least twelve miles, and the steep heights above Lewiston must first
+be climbed. This heavy task was accomplished on the twenty-second of
+January. The level of the plateau was reached, and the file of burdened
+men, some thirty in number, toiled slowly on its way over the snowy
+plains and through the gloomy forests of spruce and naked oak-trees;
+while Hennepin plodded through the drifts with his portable altar
+lashed fast to his back. They came at last to the mouth of a stream
+which entered the Niagara two leagues above the cataract, and which was
+undoubtedly that now called Cayuga Creek.[124]
+
+Trees were felled, the place cleared, and the master-carpenter set his
+ship-builders at work. Meanwhile, two Mohegan hunters, attached to the
+party, made bark wigwams to lodge the men. Hennepin had his chapel,
+apparently of the same material, where he placed his altar, and on
+Sundays and saints' days said mass, preached, and exhorted; while some
+of the men, who knew the Gregorian chant, lent their aid at the service.
+When the carpenters were ready to lay the keel of the vessel, La Salle
+asked the friar to drive the first bolt; "but the modesty of my
+religious profession," he says, "compelled me to decline this honor."
+
+Fortunately, it was the hunting-season of the Iroquois, and most of the
+Seneca warriors were in the forests south of Lake Erie; yet enough
+remained to cause serious uneasiness. They loitered sullenly about the
+place, expressing their displeasure at the proceedings of the French.
+One of them, pretending to be drunk, attacked the blacksmith and tried
+to kill him; but the Frenchman, brandishing a red-hot bar of iron, held
+him at bay till Hennepin ran to the rescue, when, as he declares, the
+severity of his rebuke caused the savage to desist.[125] The work of the
+ship-builders advanced rapidly; and when the Indian visitors beheld the
+vast ribs of the wooden monster, their jealousy was redoubled. A squaw
+told the French that they meant to burn the vessel on the stocks. All
+now stood anxiously on the watch. Cold, hunger, and discontent found
+imperfect antidotes in Tonty's energy and Hennepin's sermons.
+
+[Sidenote: SUFFERING AND DISCONTENT.]
+
+La Salle was absent, and his lieutenant commanded in his place. Hennepin
+says that Tonty was jealous because he, the friar, kept a journal, and
+that he was forced to use all manner of just precautions to prevent the
+Italian from seizing it. The men, being half-starved, in consequence of
+the loss of their provisions on Lake Ontario, were restless and moody;
+and their discontent was fomented by one of their number, who had very
+probably been tampered with by La Salle's enemies.[126] The Senecas
+refused to supply them with corn, and the frequent exhortations of the
+Récollet father proved an insufficient substitute. In this extremity,
+the two Mohegans did excellent service,--bringing deer and other game,
+which relieved the most pressing wants of the party, and went far to
+restore their cheerfulness.
+
+La Salle, meanwhile, had gone down to the mouth of the river, with a
+sergeant and a number of men; and here, on the high point of land where
+Fort Niagara now stands, he marked out the foundations of two
+blockhouses.[127] Then, leaving his men to build them, he set out on
+foot for Fort Frontenac, where the condition of his affairs demanded his
+presence, and where he hoped to procure supplies to replace those lost
+in the wreck of his vessel. It was February, and the distance was some
+two hundred and fifty miles, through the snow-encumbered forests of the
+Iroquois and over the ice of Lake Ontario. Two men attended him, and a
+dog dragged his baggage on a sledge. For food, they had only a bag of
+parched corn, which failed them two days before they reached the fort;
+and they made the rest of the journey fasting.
+
+[Sidenote: THE SHIP FINISHED.]
+
+During his absence, Tonty finished the vessel, which was of about
+forty-five tons' burden.[128] As spring opened, she was ready for
+launching. The friar pronounced his blessing on her; the assembled
+company sang _Te Deum_; cannon were fired; and French and Indians,
+warmed alike by a generous gift of brandy, shouted and yelped in chorus
+as she glided into the Niagara. Her builders towed her out and anchored
+her in the stream, safe at last from incendiary hands; and then,
+swinging their hammocks under her deck, slept in peace, beyond reach of
+the tomahawk. The Indians gazed on her with amazement. Five small cannon
+looked out from her portholes; and on her prow was carved a portentous
+monster, the Griffin, whose name she bore, in honor of the armorial
+bearings of Frontenac. La Salle had often been heard to say that he
+would make the griffin fly above the crows, or, in other words, make
+Frontenac triumph over the Jesuits.
+
+They now took her up the river, and made her fast below the swift
+current at Black Rock. Here they finished her equipment, and waited for
+La Salle's return; but the absent commander did not appear. The spring
+and more than half of the summer had passed before they saw him again.
+At length, early in August, he arrived at the mouth of the Niagara,
+bringing three more friars; for, though no friend of the Jesuits, he was
+zealous for the Faith, and was rarely without a missionary in his
+journeyings. Like Hennepin, the three friars were all Flemings. One of
+them, Melithon Watteau, was to remain at Niagara; the others, Zenobe
+Membré and Gabriel Ribourde, were to preach the Faith among the tribes
+of the West. Ribourde was a hale and cheerful old man of sixty-four. He
+went four times up and down the Lewiston heights, while the men were
+climbing the steep pathway with their loads. It required four of them,
+well stimulated with brandy, to carry up the principal anchor destined
+for the "Griffin."
+
+La Salle brought a tale of disaster. His enemies, bent on ruining the
+enterprise, had given out that he was embarked on a harebrained venture,
+from which he would never return. His creditors, excited by rumors set
+afloat to that end, had seized on all his property in the settled parts
+of Canada, though his seigniory of Fort Frontenac alone would have more
+than sufficed to pay all his debts. There was no remedy. To defer the
+enterprise would have been to give his adversaries the triumph that they
+sought; and he hardened himself against the blow with his usual
+stoicism.[129]
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[124] It has been a matter of debate on which side of the Niagara the
+first vessel on the Upper Lakes was built. A close study of Hennepin,
+and a careful examination of the localities, have convinced me that the
+spot was that indicated above. Hennepin repeatedly alludes to a large
+detached rock, rising out of the water at the foot of the rapids above
+Lewiston, on the west side of the river. This rock may still be seen
+immediately under the western end of the Lewiston suspension-bridge.
+Persons living in the neighborhood remember that a ferry-boat used to
+pass between it and the cliffs of the western shore; but it has since
+been undermined by the current and has inclined in that direction, so
+that a considerable part of it is submerged, while the gravel and earth
+thrown down from the cliff during the building of the bridge has filled
+the intervening channel. Opposite to this rock, and on the east side of
+the river, says Hennepin, are three mountains, about two leagues below
+the cataract. (_Nouveau Voyage_ (1704), 462, 466.) To these "three
+mountains," as well as to the rock, he frequently alludes. They are also
+spoken of by La Hontan, who clearly indicates their position. They
+consist in the three successive grades of the acclivity: first, that
+which rises from the level of the water, forming the steep and lofty
+river-bank; next, an intermediate ascent, crowned by a sort of terrace,
+where the tired men could find a second resting-place and lay down their
+burdens, whence a third effort carried them with difficulty to the level
+top of the plateau. That this was the actual "portage," or carrying
+place of the travellers, is shown by Hennepin (1704), 114, who describes
+the carrying of anchors and other heavy articles up these heights in
+August, 1679. La Hontan also passed the Falls by way of the "three
+mountains" eight years later. La Hontan (1703), 106. It is clear, then,
+that the portage was on the east side, whence it would be safe to
+conclude that the vessel was built on the same side. Hennepin says that
+she was built at the mouth of a stream (_rivière_) entering the Niagara
+two leagues above the Falls. Excepting one or two small brooks, there is
+no stream on the west side but Chippewa Creek, which Hennepin had
+visited and correctly placed at about a league from the cataract. His
+distances on the Niagara are usually correct. On the east side there is
+a stream which perfectly answers the conditions. This is Cayuga Creek,
+two leagues above the Falls. Immediately in front of it is an island
+about a mile long, separated from the shore by a narrow and deep arm of
+the Niagara, into which Cayuga Creek discharges itself. The place is so
+obviously suited to building and launching a vessel, that, in the early
+part of this century, the government of the United States chose it for
+the construction of a schooner to carry supplies to the garrisons of the
+Upper Lakes. The neighboring village now bears the name of La Salle.
+
+In examining this and other localities on the Niagara, I have been
+greatly aided by my friend O. H. Marshall, Esq., of Buffalo, who is
+unrivalled in his knowledge of the history and traditions of the Niagara
+frontier.
+
+[125] Hennepin (1704), 97. On a paper drawn up at the instance of the
+Intendant Duchesneau, the names of the greater number of La Salle's men
+are preserved. These agree with those given by Hennepin: thus, the
+master-carpenter, whom he calls Maître Moyse, appears as Moïse Hillaret;
+and the blacksmith, whom he calls La Forge, is mentioned as--(illegible)
+dit la Forge.
+
+[126] "This bad man," says Hennepin, "would infallibly have debauched
+our workmen, if I had not reassured them by the exhortations which I
+made them on fête-days and Sundays, after divine service." (1704), 98.
+
+[127] _Lettre de La Salle, 22 Août, 1682_ (Margry, ii. 229); _Relation
+de Tonty_, 1684 (Ibid., i. 577). He called this new post Fort Conti. It
+was burned some months after, by the carelessness of the sergeant in
+command, and was the first of a succession of forts on this historic
+spot.
+
+[128] Hennepin (1683), 46. In the edition of 1697, he says that it was
+of sixty tons. I prefer to follow the earlier and more trustworthy
+narrative.
+
+[129] La Salle's embarrassment at this time was so great that he
+purposed to send Tonty up the lakes in the "Griffin," while he went back
+to the colony to look after his affairs; but suspecting that the pilot,
+who had already wrecked one of his vessels, was in the pay of his
+enemies, he resolved at last to take charge of the expedition himself,
+to prevent a second disaster. (_Lettre de La Salle, 22 Août, 1682_;
+Margry, ii. 214.) Among the creditors who bore hard upon him were
+Migeon, Charon, Giton, and Peloquin, of Montreal, in whose name his furs
+at Fort Frontenac had been seized. The intendant also placed under seal
+all his furs at Quebec, among which is set down the not very precious
+item of two hundred and eighty-four skins of _enfants du diable_, or
+skunks.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+
+1679.
+
+LA SALLE ON THE UPPER LAKES.
+
+ The Voyage of the "Griffin."--Detroit.--A Storm.--St. Ignace of
+ Michilimackinac.--Rivals and Enemies.--Lake
+ Michigan.--Hardships.--A Threatened Fight.--Fort Miami.--Tonty's
+ Misfortunes.--Forebodings.
+
+
+The "Griffin" had lain moored by the shore, so near that Hennepin could
+preach on Sundays from the deck to the men encamped along the bank. She
+was now forced up against the current with tow-ropes and sails, till she
+reached the calm entrance of Lake Erie. On the seventh of August, La
+Salle and his followers embarked, sang _Te Deum_, and fired their
+cannon. A fresh breeze sprang up; and with swelling canvas the "Griffin"
+ploughed the virgin waves of Lake Erie, where sail was never seen
+before. For three days they held their course over these unknown waters,
+and on the fourth turned northward into the Strait of Detroit. Here, on
+the right hand and on the left, lay verdant prairies, dotted with groves
+and bordered with lofty forests. They saw walnut, chestnut, and wild
+plum trees, and oaks festooned with grape-vines; herds of deer, and
+flocks of swans and wild turkeys. The bulwarks of the "Griffin" were
+plentifully hung with game which the men killed on shore, and among the
+rest with a number of bears, much commended by Hennepin for their want
+of ferocity and the excellence of their flesh. "Those," he says, "who
+will one day have the happiness to possess this fertile and pleasant
+strait, will be very much obliged to those who have shown them the way."
+They crossed Lake St. Clair,[130] and still sailed northward against the
+current, till now, sparkling in the sun, Lake Huron spread before them
+like a sea.
+
+[Sidenote: ST. IGNACE.]
+
+For a time they bore on prosperously. Then the wind died to a calm, then
+freshened to a gale, then rose to a furious tempest; and the vessel
+tossed wildly among the short, steep, perilous waves of the raging lake.
+Even La Salle called on his followers to commend themselves to Heaven.
+All fell to their prayers but the godless pilot, who was loud in
+complaint against his commander for having brought him, after the honor
+he had won on the ocean, to drown at last ignominiously in fresh water.
+The rest clamored to the saints. St. Anthony of Padua was promised a
+chapel to be built in his honor, if he would but save them from their
+jeopardy; while in the same breath La Salle and the friars declared him
+patron of their great enterprise.[131] The saint heard their prayers.
+The obedient winds were tamed; and the "Griffin" plunged on her way
+through foaming surges that still grew calmer as she advanced. Now the
+sun shone forth on woody islands, Bois Blanc and Mackinaw and the
+distant Manitoulins,--on the forest wastes of Michigan and the vast blue
+bosom of the angry lake; and now her port was won, and she found her
+rest behind the point of St. Ignace of Michilimackinac, floating in that
+tranquil cove where crystal waters cover but cannot hide the pebbly
+depths beneath. Before her rose the house and chapel of the Jesuits,
+enclosed with palisades; on the right, the Huron village, with its bark
+cabins and its fence of tall pickets; on the left, the square compact
+houses of the French traders; and, not far off, the clustered wigwams of
+an Ottawa village.[132] Here was a centre of the Jesuit missions, and a
+centre of the Indian trade; and here, under the shadow of the cross, was
+much sharp practice in the service of Mammon. Keen traders, with or
+without a license, and lawless _coureurs de bois_, whom a few years of
+forest life had weaned from civilization, made St. Ignace their resort;
+and here there were many of them when the "Griffin" came. They and their
+employers hated and feared La Salle, who, sustained as he was by the
+governor, might set at nought the prohibition of the King, debarring him
+from traffic with these tribes. Yet, while plotting against him, they
+took pains to allay his distrust by a show of welcome.
+
+The "Griffin" fired her cannon, and the Indians yelped in wonder and
+amazement. The adventurers landed in state, and marched under arms to
+the bark chapel of the Ottawa village, where they heard mass. La Salle
+knelt before the altar, in a mantle of scarlet bordered with gold.
+Soldiers, sailors, and artisans knelt around him,--black Jesuits, gray
+Récollets, swarthy _voyageurs_, and painted savages; a devout but motley
+concourse.
+
+As they left the chapel, the Ottawa chiefs came to bid them welcome, and
+the Hurons saluted them with a volley of musketry. They saw the
+"Griffin" at her anchorage, surrounded by more than a hundred bark
+canoes, like a Triton among minnows. Yet it was with more wonder than
+good-will that the Indians of the mission gazed on the "floating fort,"
+for so they called the vessel. A deep jealousy of La Salle's designs had
+been infused into them. His own followers, too, had been tampered with.
+In the autumn before, it may be remembered, he had sent fifteen men up
+the lakes to trade for him, with orders to go thence to the Illinois and
+make preparation against his coming. Early in the summer, Tonty had been
+despatched in a canoe from Niagara to look after them.[133] It was high
+time. Most of the men had been seduced from their duty, and had
+disobeyed their orders, squandered the goods intrusted to them, or used
+them in trading on their own account. La Salle found four of them at
+Michilimackinac. These he arrested, and sent Tonty to the Falls of Ste.
+Marie, where two others were captured, with their plunder. The rest were
+in the woods, and it was useless to pursue them.
+
+[Sidenote: RIVALS AND ENEMIES.]
+
+Anxious and troubled as to the condition of his affairs in Canada. La
+Salle had meant, after seeing his party safe at Michilimackinac, to
+leave Tonty to conduct it to the Illinois, while he himself returned to
+the colony. But Tonty was still at Ste. Marie, and he had none to trust
+but himself. Therefore, he resolved at all risks to remain with his men;
+"for," he says, "I judged my presence absolutely necessary to retain
+such of them as were left me, and prevent them from being enticed away
+during the winter." Moreover, he thought that he had detected an
+intrigue of his enemies to hound on the Iroquois against the Illinois,
+in order to defeat his plan by involving him in the war.
+
+Early in September he set sail again, and passing westward into Lake
+Michigan,[134] cast anchor near one of the islands at the entrance of
+Green Bay. Here, for once, he found a friend in the person of a
+Pottawattamie chief, who had been so wrought upon by the politic
+kindness of Frontenac that he declared himself ready to die for the
+children of Onontio.[135] Here, too, he found several of his advance
+party, who had remained faithful and collected a large store of furs. It
+would have been better had they proved false, like the rest. La Salle,
+who asked counsel of no man, resolved, in spite of his followers, to
+send back the "Griffin" laden with these furs, and others collected on
+the way, to satisfy his creditors.[136] It was a rash resolution, for it
+involved trusting her to the pilot, who had already proved either
+incompetent or treacherous. She fired a parting shot, and on the
+eighteenth of September set sail for Niagara, with orders to return to
+the head of Lake Michigan as soon as she had discharged her cargo. La
+Salle, with the fourteen men who remained, in four canoes deeply laden
+with a forge, tools, merchandise, and arms, put out from the island and
+resumed his voyage.
+
+[Sidenote: POTTAWATTAMIES.]
+
+The parting was not auspicious. The lake, glassy and calm in the
+afternoon, was convulsed at night with a sudden storm, when the canoes
+were midway between the island and the main shore. It was with
+difficulty that they could keep together, the men shouting to each
+other through the darkness. Hennepin, who was in the smallest canoe with
+a heavy load, and a carpenter for a companion who was awkward at the
+paddle, found himself in jeopardy which demanded all his nerve. The
+voyagers thought themselves happy when they gained at last the shelter
+of a little sandy cove, where they dragged up their canoes, and made
+their cheerless bivouac in the drenched and dripping forest. Here they
+spent five days, living on pumpkins and Indian corn, the gift of their
+Pottawattamie friends, and on a Canada porcupine brought in by La
+Salle's Mohegan hunter. The gale raged meanwhile with relentless fury.
+They trembled when they thought of the "Griffin." When at length the
+tempest lulled, they re-embarked, and steered southward along the shore
+of Wisconsin; but again the storm fell upon them, and drove them for
+safety to a bare, rocky islet. Here they made a fire of drift-wood,
+crouched around it, drew their blankets over their heads, and in this
+miserable plight, pelted with sleet and rain, remained for two days.
+
+At length they were afloat again; but their prosperity was brief. On the
+twenty-eighth, a fierce squall drove them to a point of rocks covered
+with bushes, where they consumed the little that remained of their
+provisions. On the first of October they paddled about thirty miles,
+without food, when they came to a village of Pottawattamies, who ran
+down to the shore to help them to land; but La Salle, fearing that some
+of his men would steal the merchandise and desert to the Indians,
+insisted on going three leagues farther, to the great indignation of his
+followers. The lake, swept by an easterly gale, was rolling its waves
+against the beach, like the ocean in a storm. In the attempt to land, La
+Salle's canoe was nearly swamped. He and his three canoe-men leaped into
+the water, and in spite of the surf, which nearly drowned them, dragged
+their vessel ashore with all its load. He then went to the rescue of
+Hennepin, who with his awkward companion was in woful need of succor.
+Father Gabriel, with his sixty-four years, was no match for the surf and
+the violent undertow. Hennepin, finding himself safe, waded to his
+relief, and carried him ashore on his sturdy shoulders; while the old
+friar, though drenched to the skin, laughed gayly under his cowl as his
+brother missionary staggered with him up the beach.[137]
+
+When all were safe ashore, La Salle, who distrusted the Indians they had
+passed, took post on a hill, and ordered his followers to prepare their
+guns for action. Nevertheless, as they were starving, an effort must be
+risked to gain a supply of food; and he sent three men back to the
+village to purchase it. Well armed, but faint with toil and famine, they
+made their way through the stormy forest bearing a pipe of peace, but on
+arriving saw that the scared inhabitants had fled. They found, however,
+a stock of corn, of which they took a portion, leaving goods in
+exchange, and then set out on their return.
+
+Meanwhile, about twenty of the warriors, armed with bows and arrows,
+approached the camp of the French to reconnoitre. La Salle went to meet
+them with some of his men, opened a parley with them, and kept them
+seated at the foot of the hill till his three messengers returned, when
+on seeing the peace-pipe the warriors set up a cry of joy. In the
+morning they brought more corn to the camp, with a supply of fresh
+venison, not a little cheering to the exhausted Frenchmen, who, in dread
+of treachery, had stood under arms all night.
+
+[Sidenote: HARDSHIPS.]
+
+This was no journey of pleasure. The lake was ruffled with almost
+ceaseless storms; clouds big with rain above, a turmoil of gray and
+gloomy waves beneath. Every night the canoes must be shouldered through
+the breakers and dragged up the steep banks, which, as they neared the
+site of Milwaukee, became almost insurmountable. The men paddled all
+day, with no other food than a handful of Indian corn. They were spent
+with toil, sick with the haws and wild berries which they ravenously
+devoured, and dejected at the prospect before them. Father Gabriel's
+good spirits began to fail. He fainted several times from famine and
+fatigue, but was revived by a certain "confection of Hyacinth"
+administered by Hennepin, who had a small box of this precious specific.
+
+At length they descried at a distance, on the stormy shore, two or three
+eagles among a busy congregation of crows or turkey buzzards. They
+paddled in all haste to the spot. The feasters took flight; and the
+starved travellers found the mangled body of a deer, lately killed by
+the wolves. This good luck proved the inauguration of plenty. As they
+approached the head of the lake, game grew abundant; and, with the aid
+of the Mohegan, there was no lack of bear's meat and venison. They found
+wild grapes, too, in the woods, and gathered them by cutting down the
+trees to which the vines clung.
+
+[Sidenote: ENCOUNTER WITH INDIANS.]
+
+While thus employed, they were startled by a sight often so fearful in
+the waste and the wilderness,--the print of a human foot. It was clear
+that Indians were not far off. A strict watch was kept, not, as it
+proved, without cause; for that night, while the sentry thought of
+little but screening himself and his gun from the floods of rain, a
+party of Outagamies crept under the bank, where they lurked for some
+time before he discovered them. Being challenged, they came forward,
+professing great friendship, and pretending to have mistaken the French
+for Iroquois. In the morning, however, there was an outcry from La
+Salle's servant, who declared that the visitors had stolen his coat from
+under the inverted canoe where he had placed it; while some of the
+carpenters also complained of being robbed. La Salle well knew that if
+the theft were left unpunished, worse would come of it. First, he posted
+his men at the woody point of a peninsula, whose sandy neck was
+interposed between them and the main forest. Then he went forth, pistol
+in hand, met a young Outagami, seized him, and led him prisoner to his
+camp. This done, he again set out, and soon found an Outagami
+chief,--for the wigwams were not far distant,--to whom he told what he
+had done, adding that unless the stolen goods were restored, the
+prisoner should be killed. The Indians were in perplexity, for they had
+cut the coat to pieces and divided it. In this dilemma they resolved,
+being strong in numbers, to rescue their comrade by force. Accordingly,
+they came down to the edge of the forest, or posted themselves behind
+fallen trees on the banks, while La Salle's men in their stronghold
+braced their nerves for the fight. Here three Flemish friars with their
+rosaries, and eleven Frenchmen with their guns, confronted a hundred and
+twenty screeching Outagamies. Hennepin, who had seen service, and who
+had always an exhortation at his tongue's end, busied himself to inspire
+the rest with a courage equal to his own. Neither party, however, had an
+appetite for the fray. A parley ensued: full compensation was made for
+the stolen goods, and the aggrieved Frenchmen were farther propitiated
+with a gift of beaver-skins.
+
+Their late enemies, now become friends, spent the next day in dances,
+feasts, and speeches. They entreated La Salle not to advance farther,
+since the Illinois, through whose country he must pass, would be sure to
+kill him; for, added these friendly counsellors, they hated the French
+because they had been instigating the Iroquois to invade their country,
+Here was another subject of anxiety. La Salle was confirmed in his
+belief that his busy and unscrupulous enemies were intriguing for his
+destruction.
+
+He pushed on, however, circling around the southern shore of Lake
+Michigan, till he reached the mouth of the St. Joseph, called by him the
+Miamis. Here Tonty was to have rejoined him with twenty men, making his
+way from Michilimackinac along the eastern shore of the lake; but the
+rendezvous was a solitude,--Tonty was nowhere to be seen. It was the
+first of November; winter was at hand, and the streams would soon be
+frozen. The men clamored to go forward, urging that they should starve
+if they could not reach the villages of the Illinois before the tribe
+scattered for the winter hunt. La Salle was inexorable. If they should
+all desert, he said, he, with his Mohegan hunter and the three friars,
+would still remain and wait for Tonty. The men grumbled, but obeyed;
+and, to divert their thoughts, he set them at building a fort of timber
+on a rising ground at the mouth of the river.
+
+They had spent twenty days at this task, and their work was well
+advanced, when at length Tonty appeared. He brought with him only half
+of his men. Provisions had failed; and the rest of his party had been
+left thirty leagues behind, to sustain themselves by hunting. La Salle
+told him to return and hasten them forward. He set out with two men. A
+violent north wind arose. He tried to run his canoe ashore through the
+breakers. The two men could not manage their vessel, and he with his one
+hand could not help them. She swamped, rolling over in the surf. Guns,
+baggage, and provisions were lost; and the three voyagers returned to
+the Miamis, subsisting on acorns by the way. Happily, the men left
+behind, excepting two deserters, succeeded, a few days after, in
+rejoining the party.[138]
+
+[Sidenote: FOREBODINGS.]
+
+Thus was one heavy load lifted from the heart of La Salle. But where was
+the "Griffin"? Time enough, and more than enough, had passed for her
+voyage to Niagara and back again. He scanned the dreary horizon with an
+anxious eye. No returning sail gladdened the watery solitude, and a dark
+foreboding gathered on his heart. Yet further delay was impossible. He
+sent back two men to Michilimackinac to meet her, if she still existed,
+and pilot her to his new fort of the Miamis, and then prepared to ascend
+the river, whose weedy edges were already glassed with thin flakes of
+ice.[139]
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[130] They named it Sainte Claire, of which the present name is a
+perversion.
+
+[131] Hennepin (1683), 58.
+
+[132] There is a rude plan of the establishment in La Hontan, though in
+several editions its value is destroyed by the reversal of the plate.
+
+[133] _Relation de Tonty, 1684; Ibid., 1693_. He was overtaken at the
+Detroit by the "Griffin."
+
+[134] Then usually known as Lac des Illinois, because it gave access to
+the country of the tribes so called. Three years before, Allouez gave it
+the name of Lac St. Joseph, by which it is often designated by the early
+writers. Membré, Douay, and others, call it Lac Dauphin.
+
+[135] "The Great Mountain," the Iroquois name for the governor of
+Canada. It was borrowed by other tribes also.
+
+[136] In the license of discovery granted to La Salle, he is expressly
+prohibited from trading with the Ottawas and others who brought furs to
+Montreal. This traffic on the lakes was, therefore, illicit. His enemy,
+the Intendant Duchesneau, afterwards used this against him. _Lettre de
+Duchesneau au Ministre, 10 Nov., 1680._
+
+[137] Hennepin (1683), 79.
+
+[138] Hennepin (1683), 112; _Relation de Tonty_, 1693.
+
+[139] The official account of this journey is given at length in the
+_Relation des Découvertes et des Voyages du Sieur de la Salle_,
+1679-1681. This valuable document, compiled from letters and diaries of
+La Salle, early in the year 1682, was known to Hennepin, who evidently
+had a copy of it before him when he wrote his book, in which he
+incorporated many passages from it.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+
+1679, 1680.
+
+LA SALLE ON THE ILLINOIS.
+
+ The St. Joseph.--Adventure of La Salle.--The
+ Prairies.--Famine.--The Great Town of the
+ Illinois.--Indians.--Intrigues.--Difficulties.--Policy of la
+ Salle.--Desertion.--Another Attempt to poison La Salle.
+
+
+[Sidenote: LA SALLE'S ADVENTURE.]
+
+On the third of December the party re-embarked, thirty-three in all, in
+eight canoes,[140] and ascended the chill current of the St. Joseph,
+bordered with dreary meadows and bare gray forests. When they approached
+the site of the present village of South Bend, they looked anxiously
+along the shore on their right to find the portage or path leading to
+the headquarters of the Illinois. The Mohegan was absent, hunting; and,
+unaided by his practised eye, they passed the path without seeing it. La
+Salle landed to search the woods. Hours passed, and he did not return.
+Hennepin and Tonty grew uneasy, disembarked, bivouacked, ordered guns to
+be fired, and sent out men to scour the country. Night came, but not
+their lost leader. Muffled in their blankets and powdered by the
+thick-falling snow-flakes, they sat ruefully speculating as to what had
+befallen him; nor was it till four o'clock of the next afternoon that
+they saw him approaching along the margin of the river. His face and
+hands were besmirched with charcoal; and he was further decorated with
+two opossums which hung from his belt, and which he had killed with a
+stick as they were swinging head downwards from the bough of a tree,
+after the fashion of that singular beast. He had missed his way in the
+forest, and had been forced to make a wide circuit around the edge of a
+swamp; while the snow, of which the air was full, added to his
+perplexities. Thus he pushed on through the rest of the day and the
+greater part of the night, till, about two o'clock in the morning, he
+reached the river again, and fired his gun as a signal to his party.
+Hearing no answering shot, he pursued his way along the bank, when he
+presently saw the gleam of a fire among the dense thickets close at
+hand. Not doubting that he had found the bivouac of his party, he
+hastened to the spot. To his surprise, no human being was to be seen.
+Under a tree beside the fire was a heap of dry grass impressed with the
+form of a man who must have fled but a moment before, for his couch was
+still warm. It was no doubt an Indian, ambushed on the bank, watching to
+kill some passing enemy. La Salle called out in several Indian
+languages; but there was dead silence all around. He then, with
+admirable coolness, took possession of the quarters he had found,
+shouting to their invisible proprietor that he was about to sleep in
+his bed; piled a barricade of bushes around the spot, rekindled the
+dying fire, warmed his benumbed hands, stretched himself on the dried
+grass, and slept undisturbed till morning.
+
+The Mohegan had rejoined the party before La Salle's return, and with
+his aid the portage was soon found. Here the party encamped. La Salle,
+who was excessively fatigued, occupied, together with Hennepin, a wigwam
+covered in the Indian manner with mats of reeds. The cold forced them to
+kindle a fire, which before daybreak set the mats in a blaze; and the
+two sleepers narrowly escaped being burned along with their hut.
+
+[Sidenote: THE KANKAKEE.]
+
+In the morning, the party shouldered their canoes and baggage and began
+their march for the sources of the river Illinois, some five miles
+distant. Around them stretched a desolate plain, half-covered with snow
+and strewn with the skulls and bones of buffalo; while, on its farthest
+verge, they could see the lodges of the Miami Indians, who had made this
+place their abode. As they filed on their way, a man named Duplessis,
+bearing a grudge against La Salle, who walked just before him, raised
+his gun to shoot him through the back, but was prevented by one of his
+comrades. They soon reached a spot where the oozy, saturated soil quaked
+beneath their tread. All around were clumps of alder-bushes, tufts of
+rank grass, and pools of glistening water. In the midst a dark and lazy
+current, which a tall man might bestride, crept twisting like a snake
+among the weeds and rushes. Here were the sources of the Kankakee, one
+of the heads of the Illinois.[141] They set their canoes on this thread
+of water, embarked their baggage and themselves, and pushed down the
+sluggish streamlet, looking, at a little distance, like men who sailed
+on land. Fed by an unceasing tribute of the spongy soil, it quickly
+widened to a river; and they floated on their way through a voiceless,
+lifeless solitude of dreary oak barrens, or boundless marshes overgrown
+with reeds. At night, they built their fire on ground made firm by
+frost, and bivouacked among the rushes. A few days brought them to a
+more favored region. On the right hand and on the left stretched the
+boundless prairie, dotted with leafless groves and bordered by gray
+wintry forests, scorched by the fires kindled in the dried grass by
+Indian hunters, and strewn with the carcasses and the bleached skulls of
+innumerable buffalo. The plains were scored with their pathways, and the
+muddy edges of the river were full of their hoof-prints. Yet not one was
+to be seen. At night, the horizon glowed with distant fires; and by day
+the savage hunters could be descried at times roaming on the verge of
+the prairie. The men, discontented and half-starved, would have deserted
+to them had they dared. La Salle's Mohegan could kill no game except two
+lean deer, with a few wild geese and swans. At length, in their straits,
+they made a happy discovery. It was a buffalo bull, fast mired in a
+slough. They killed him, lashed a cable about him, and then twelve men
+dragged out the shaggy monster, whose ponderous carcass demanded their
+utmost efforts.
+
+The scene changed again as they descended. On either hand ran ranges of
+woody hills, following the course of the river; and when they mounted to
+their tops, they saw beyond them a rolling sea of dull green prairie, a
+boundless pasture of the buffalo and the deer, in our own day strangely
+transformed,--yellow in harvest-time with ripened wheat, and dotted with
+the roofs of a hardy and valiant yeomanry.[142]
+
+[Sidenote: THE ILLINOIS TOWN.]
+
+They passed the site of the future town of Ottawa, and saw on their
+right the high plateau of Buffalo Rock, long a favorite dwelling-place
+of Indians. A league below, the river glided among islands bordered with
+stately woods. Close on their left towered a lofty cliff,[143] crested
+with trees that overhung the rippling current; while before them spread
+the valley of the Illinois, in broad low meadows, bordered on the right
+by the graceful hills at whose foot now lies the village of Utica. A
+population far more numerous then tenanted the valley. Along the right
+bank of the river were clustered the lodges of a great Indian town.
+Hennepin counted four hundred and sixty of them.[144] In shape, they
+were somewhat like the arched top of a baggage-wagon. They were built
+of a framework of poles, covered with mats of rushes closely interwoven;
+and each contained three or four fires, of which the greater part served
+for two families.
+
+[Sidenote: HUNGER RELIEVED.]
+
+Here, then, was the town; but where were the inhabitants? All was silent
+as the desert. The lodges were empty, the fires dead, and the ashes
+cold. La Salle had expected this; for he knew that in the autumn the
+Illinois always left their towns for their winter hunting, and that the
+time of their return had not yet come. Yet he was not the less
+embarrassed, for he would fain have bought a supply of food to relieve
+his famished followers. Some of them, searching the deserted town,
+presently found the _caches_, or covered pits, in which the Indians hid
+their stock of corn. This was precious beyond measure in their eyes, and
+to touch it would be a deep offence. La Salle shrank from provoking
+their anger, which might prove the ruin of his plans; but his necessity
+overcame his prudence, and he took thirty _minots_ of corn, hoping to
+appease the owners by presents. Thus provided, the party embarked again,
+and resumed their downward voyage.
+
+On New Year's Day, 1680, they landed and heard mass. Then Hennepin
+wished a happy new year to La Salle first, and afterwards to all the
+men, making them a speech, which, as he tells us, was "most
+touching."[145] He and his two brethren next embraced the whole company
+in turn, "in a manner," writes the father, "most tender and
+affectionate," exhorting them, at the same time, to patience, faith, and
+constancy. Four days after these solemnities, they reached the long
+expansion of the river then called Pimitoui, and now known as Peoria
+Lake, and leisurely made their way downward to the site of the city of
+Peoria.[146] Here, as evening drew near, they saw a faint spire of
+smoke curling above the gray forest, betokening that Indians were at
+hand. La Salle, as we have seen, had been warned that these tribes had
+been taught to regard him as their enemy; and when, in the morning, he
+resumed his course, he was prepared alike for peace or war.
+
+The shores now approached each other; and the Illinois was once more a
+river, bordered on either hand with overhanging woods.[147]
+
+At nine o'clock, doubling a point, he saw about eighty Illinois wigwams,
+on both sides of the river. He instantly ordered the eight canoes to be
+ranged in line, abreast, across the stream,--Tonty on the right, and he
+himself on the left. The men laid down their paddles and seized their
+weapons; while, in this warlike guise, the current bore them swiftly
+into the midst of the surprised and astounded savages. The camps were in
+a panic. Warriors whooped and howled; squaws and children screeched in
+chorus. Some snatched their bows and war-clubs; some ran in terror; and,
+in the midst of the hubbub, La Salle leaped ashore, followed by his men.
+None knew better how to deal with Indians; and he made no sign of
+friendship, knowing that it might be construed as a token of fear. His
+little knot of Frenchmen stood, gun in hand, passive, yet prepared for
+battle. The Indians, on their part, rallying a little from their
+fright, made all haste to proffer peace. Two of their chiefs came
+forward, holding out the calumet; while another began a loud harangue,
+to check the young warriors who were aiming their arrows from the
+farther bank. La Salle, responding to these friendly overtures,
+displayed another calumet; while Hennepin caught several scared children
+and soothed them with winning blandishments.[148] The uproar was
+quelled; and the strangers were presently seated in the midst of the
+camp, beset by a throng of wild and swarthy figures.
+
+[Sidenote: ILLINOIS HOSPITALITY.]
+
+Food was placed before them; and, as the Illinois code of courtesy
+enjoined, their entertainers conveyed the morsels with their own hands
+to the lips of these unenviable victims of their hospitality, while
+others rubbed their feet with bear's grease. La Salle, on his part, made
+them a gift of tobacco and hatchets; and when he had escaped from their
+caresses, rose and harangued them. He told them that he had been forced
+to take corn from their granaries, lest his men should die of hunger;
+but he prayed them not to be offended, promising full restitution or
+ample payment. He had come, he said, to protect them against their
+enemies, and teach them to pray to the true God. As for the Iroquois,
+they were subjects of the Great King, and therefore brethren of the
+French; yet, nevertheless, should they begin a war and invade the
+country of the Illinois, he would stand by them, give them guns, and
+fight in their defence, if they would permit him to build a fort among
+them for the security of his men. It was also, he added, his purpose to
+build a great wooden canoe, in which to descend the Mississippi to the
+sea, and then return, bringing them the goods of which they stood in
+need; but if they would not consent to his plans and sell provisions to
+his men, he would pass on to the Osages, who would then reap all the
+benefits of intercourse with the French, while they were left destitute,
+at the mercy of the Iroquois.[149]
+
+This threat had its effect, for it touched their deep-rooted jealousy of
+the Osages. They were lavish of promises, and feasts and dances consumed
+the day. Yet La Salle soon learned that the intrigues of his enemies
+were still pursuing him. That evening, unknown to him, a stranger
+appeared in the Illinois camp. He was a Mascoutin chief, named Monso,
+attended by five or six Miamis, and bringing a gift of knives, hatchets,
+and kettles to the Illinois.[150] The chiefs assembled in a secret
+nocturnal session, where, smoking their pipes, they listened with open
+ears to the harangue of the envoys. Monso told them that he had come in
+behalf of certain Frenchmen, whom he named, to warn his hearers against
+the designs of La Salle, whom he denounced as a partisan and spy of the
+Iroquois, affirming that he was now on his way to stir up the tribes
+beyond the Mississippi to join in a war against the Illinois, who, thus
+assailed from the east and from the west, would be utterly destroyed.
+There was no hope for them, he added, but in checking the farther
+progress of La Salle, or, at least, retarding it, thus causing his men
+to desert him. Having thrown his fire-brand, Monso and his party left
+the camp in haste, dreading to be confronted with the object of their
+aspersions.[151]
+
+[Sidenote: FRESH INTRIGUES.]
+
+In the morning, La Salle saw a change in the behavior of his hosts. They
+looked on him askance, cold, sullen, and suspicious. There was one
+Omawha, a chief, whose favor he had won the day before by the politic
+gift of two hatchets and three knives, and who now came to him in secret
+to tell him what had taken place at the nocturnal council. La Salle at
+once saw in it a device of his enemies; and this belief was confirmed,
+when, in the afternoon, Nicanopé, brother of the head chief, sent to
+invite the Frenchmen to a feast. They repaired to his lodge; but before
+dinner was served,--that is to say, while the guests, white and red,
+were seated on mats, each with his hunting-knife in his hand, and the
+wooden bowl before him which was to receive his share of the bear's or
+buffalo's meat, or the corn boiled in fat, with which he was to be
+regaled,--while such was the posture of the company, their host arose
+and began a long speech. He told the Frenchmen that he had invited them
+to his lodge less to refresh their bodies with good cheer than to cure
+their minds of the dangerous purpose which possessed them, of descending
+the Mississippi. Its shores, he said, were beset by savage tribes,
+against whose numbers and ferocity their valor would avail nothing; its
+waters were infested by serpents, alligators, and unnatural monsters;
+while the river itself, after raging among rocks and whirlpools, plunged
+headlong at last into a fathomless gulf, which would swallow them and
+their vessel forever.
+
+[Sidenote: LA SALLE AND THE INDIANS.]
+
+La Salle's men were for the most part raw hands, knowing nothing of the
+wilderness, and easily alarmed at its dangers; but there were two among
+them, old _coureurs de bois_, who unfortunately knew too much; for they
+understood the Indian orator, and explained his speech to the rest. As
+La Salle looked around on the circle of his followers, he read an augury
+of fresh trouble in their disturbed and rueful visages. He waited
+patiently, however, till the speaker had ended, and then answered him,
+through his interpreter, with great composure. First, he thanked him for
+the friendly warning which his affection had impelled him to utter; but,
+he continued, the greater the danger, the greater the honor; and even
+if the danger were real, Frenchmen would never flinch from it. But were
+not the Illinois jealous? Had they not been deluded by lies? "We were
+not asleep, my brother, when Monso came to tell you, under cover of
+night, that we were spies of the Iroquois. The presents he gave you,
+that you might believe his falsehoods, are at this moment buried in the
+earth under this lodge. If he told the truth, why did he skulk away in
+the dark? Why did he not show himself by day? Do you not see that when
+we first came among you, and your camp was all in confusion, we could
+have killed you without needing help from the Iroquois? And now, while I
+am speaking, could we not put your old men to death, while your young
+warriors are all gone away to hunt? If we meant to make war on you, we
+should need no help from the Iroquois, who have so often felt the force
+of our arms. Look at what we have brought you. It is not weapons to
+destroy you, but merchandise and tools for your good. If you still
+harbor evil thoughts of us, be frank as we are, and speak them boldly.
+Go after this impostor Monso, and bring him back, that we may answer him
+face to face; for he never saw either us or the Iroquois, and what can
+he know of the plots that he pretends to reveal?"[152] Nicanopé had
+nothing to reply, and, grunting assent in the depths of his throat,
+made a sign that the feast should proceed.
+
+The French were lodged in huts, near the Indian camp; and, fearing
+treachery, La Salle placed a guard at night. On the morning after the
+feast, he came out into the frosty air and looked about him for the
+sentinels. Not one of them was to be seen. Vexed and alarmed, he entered
+hut after hut and roused his drowsy followers. Six of the number,
+including two of the best carpenters, were nowhere to be found.
+Discontented and mutinous from the first, and now terrified by the
+fictions of Nicanopé, they had deserted, preferring the hardships of the
+midwinter forest to the mysterious terrors of the Mississippi. La Salle
+mustered the rest before him, and inveighed sternly against the
+cowardice and baseness of those who had thus abandoned him, regardless
+of his many favors. If any here, he added, are afraid, let them but wait
+till the spring, and they shall have free leave to return to Canada,
+safely and without dishonor.[153]
+
+[Sidenote: LA SALLE AGAIN POISONED.]
+
+This desertion cut him to the heart. It showed him that he was leaning
+on a broken reed; and he felt that, on an enterprise full of doubt and
+peril, there were scarcely four men in his party whom he could trust.
+Nor was desertion the worst he had to fear; for here, as at Fort
+Frontenac, an attempt was made to kill him. Tonty tells us that poison
+was placed in the pot in which their food was cooked, and that La Salle
+was saved by an antidote which some of his friends had given him before
+he left France. This, it will be remembered, was an epoch of poisoners.
+It was in the following month that the notorious La Voisin was burned
+alive, at Paris, for practices to which many of the highest nobility
+were charged with being privy, not excepting some in whose veins ran the
+blood of the gorgeous spendthrift who ruled the destinies of
+France.[154]
+
+In these early French enterprises in the West, it was to the last degree
+difficult to hold men to their duty. Once fairly in the wilderness,
+completely freed from the sharp restraints of authority in which they
+had passed their lives, a spirit of lawlessness broke out among them
+with a violence proportioned to the pressure which had hitherto
+controlled it. Discipline had no resources and no guarantee; while those
+outlaws of the forest, the _coureurs de bois_, were always before their
+eyes, a standing example of unbridled license. La Salle, eminently
+skilful in his dealings with Indians, was rarely so happy with his own
+countrymen; and yet the desertions from which he was continually
+suffering were due far more to the inevitable difficulty of his position
+than to any want of conduct on his part.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[140] _Lettre de Duchesneau à----, 10 Nov., 1680._
+
+[141] The Kankakee was called at this time the Theakiki, or Haukiki
+(Marest); a name which, as Charlevoix says, was afterwards corrupted by
+the French to Kiakiki whence, probably, its present form. In La Salle's
+time, the name "Theakiki" was given to the river Illinois through all
+its course. It was also called the Rivière Seignelay, the Rivière des
+Macopins, and the Rivière Divine, or Rivière de la Divine. The latter
+name, when Charlevoix visited the country in 1721, was confined to the
+northern branch. He gives an interesting and somewhat graphic account of
+the portage and the sources of the Kankakee, in his letter dated _De la
+Source du Theakiki, ce dix-sept Septembre_, 1721.
+
+Why the Illinois should ever have been called the "Divine," it is not
+easy to see. The Memoirs of St. Simon suggest an explanation. Madame de
+Frontenac and her friend Mademoiselle d'Outrelaise, he tells us, lived
+together in apartments at the Arsenal, where they held their _salon_ and
+exercised a great power in society. They were called at court _les
+Divines_. (St. Simon, v. 335: Cheruel.) In compliment to Frontenac, the
+river may have been named after his wife or her friend. The suggestion
+is due to M. Margry. I have seen a map by Raudin, Frontenac's engineer,
+on which the river is called "Rivière de la Divine ou l'Outrelaise."
+
+[142] The change is very recent. Within the memory of men not yet old,
+wolves and deer, besides wild swans, wild turkeys, cranes, and pelicans,
+abounded in this region. In 1840, a friend of mine shot a deer from the
+window of a farmhouse, near the present town of La Salle. Running wolves
+on horseback was his favorite amusement in this part of the country. The
+buffalo long ago disappeared; but the early settlers found frequent
+remains of them. Mr. James Clark, of Utica, Ill., told me that he once
+found a large quantity of their bones and skulls in one place, as if a
+herd had perished in the snowdrifts.
+
+[143] "Starved Rock." It will hold, hereafter, a conspicuous place in
+the narrative.
+
+[144] _La Louisiane_, 137. Allouez (_Relation_, 1673-79) found three
+hundred and fifty-one lodges. This was in 1677. The population of this
+town, which embraced five or six distinct tribes of the Illinois, was
+continually changing. In 1675, Marquette addressed here an auditory
+composed of five hundred chiefs and old men, and fifteen hundred young
+men, besides women and children. He estimates the number of fires at
+five or six hundred. (_Voyages du Père Marquette_, 98: Lenox.) Membré,
+who was here in 1680, says that it then contained seven or eight
+thousand souls. (Membré in Le Clerc, _Premier Établissement de la Foy_,
+ii. 173.) On the remarkable manuscript map of Franquelin, 1684, it is
+set down at twelve hundred warriors, or about six thousand souls. This
+was after the destructive inroad of the Iroquois. Some years later,
+Rasle reported upwards of twenty-four hundred families. (_Lettre à son
+Frère, in Lettres Édifiantes._)
+
+At times, nearly the whole Illinois population was gathered here. At
+other times, the several tribes that composed it separated, some
+dwelling apart from the rest; so that at one period the Illinois formed
+eleven villages, while at others they were gathered into two, of which
+this was much the larger. The meadows around it were extensively
+cultivated, yielding large crops, chiefly of Indian corn. The lodges
+were built along the river-bank for a distance of a mile, and sometimes
+far more. In their shape, though not in their material, they resembled
+those of the Hurons. There were no palisades or embankments.
+
+This neighborhood abounds in Indian relics. The village graveyard
+appears to have been on a rising ground, near the river immediately in
+front of the town of Utica. This is the only part of the river bottom,
+from this point to the Mississippi, not liable to inundation in the
+spring floods. It now forms part of a farm occupied by a tenant of Mr.
+James Clark. Both Mr. Clark and his tenant informed me that every year
+great quantities of human bones and teeth were turned up here by the
+plough. Many implements of stone are also found, together with beads and
+other ornaments of Indian and European fabric.
+
+[145] "Les paroles les plus touchantes."--_Hennepin_ (1683), 139. The
+later editions add the modest qualification, "que je pus."
+
+[146] Peoria was the name of one of the tribes of the Illinois.
+Hennepin's dates here do not exactly agree with those of La Salle
+(_Lettre du 29 Sept., 1680_), who says that they were at the Illinois
+village on the first of January, and at Peoria Lake on the fifth.
+
+[147] At least, it is so now at this place. Perhaps, in La Salle's time,
+it was not wholly so; for there is evidence, in various parts of the
+West, that the forest has made considerable encroachments on the open
+country.
+
+[148] Hennepin (1683), 142.
+
+[149] Hennepin (1683), 144-149. The later editions omit a part of the
+above.
+
+[150] "Un sauvage, nommé Monso, qui veut dire Chevreuil_."--La Salle._
+Probably Monso is a misprint for Mouso, as _mousoa_ is Illinois for
+_chevreuil_, or deer.
+
+[151] Hennepin (1683), 151, (1704), 205; Le Clerc, ii. 157; _Mémoire du
+Voyage de M. de la Salle_. This is a paper appended to Frontenac's
+Letter to the Minister, 9 Nov., 1680. Hennepin prints a translation of
+it in the English edition of his later work. It charges the Jesuit
+Allouez with being at the bottom of the intrigue. Compare _Lettre de La
+Salle, 29 Sept., 1680_ (Margry, ii. 41), and _Mémoire de La Salle_, in
+Thomassy, _Géologie Pratique de la Louisiane_, 203.
+
+The account of the affair of Monso, in the spurious work bearing Tonty's
+name, is mere romance.
+
+[152] The above is a paraphrase, with some condensation, from Hennepin,
+whose account is substantially identical with that of La Salle.
+
+[153] Hennepin (1683), 162. _Déclaration faite par Moyse Hillaret,
+charpentier de barque, cy devant au service du Sr. de la Salle._
+
+[154] The equally noted Brinvilliers was burned four years before. An
+account of both will be found in the Letters of Madame de Sévigné. The
+memoirs of the time abound in evidence of the frightful prevalence of
+these practices, and the commotion which they excited in all ranks of
+society.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII.
+
+1680.
+
+FORT CRÈVEC[OE]UR.
+
+ Building of the Fort.--Loss of the "Griffin."--A Bold
+ Resolution.--Another Vessel.--Hennepin sent to the
+ Mississippi.--Departure of La Salle.
+
+
+[Sidenote: BUILDING OF THE FORT.]
+
+La Salle now resolved to leave the Indian camp, and fortify himself for
+the winter in a strong position, where his men would be less exposed to
+dangerous influence, and where he could hold his ground against an
+outbreak of the Illinois or an Iroquois invasion. At the middle of
+January, a thaw broke up the ice which had closed the river; and he set
+out in a canoe, with Hennepin, to visit the site he had chosen for his
+projected fort. It was half a league below the camp, on a low hill or
+knoll, two hundred yards from the southern bank. On either side was a
+deep ravine, and in front a marshy tract, overflowed at high water.
+Thither, then, the party was removed. They dug a ditch behind the hill,
+connecting the two ravines, and thus completely isolating it. The hill
+was nearly square in form. An embankment of earth was thrown up on every
+side: its declivities were sloped steeply down to the bottom of the
+ravines and the ditch, and further guarded by _chevaux-de-frise_; while
+a palisade, twenty-five feet high, was planted around the whole. The
+lodgings of the men, built of musket-proof timber, were at two of the
+angles; the house of the friars at the third; the forge and magazine at
+the fourth; and the tents of La Salle and Tonty in the area within.
+
+Hennepin laments the failure of wine, which prevented him from saying
+mass; but every morning and evening he summoned the men to his cabin to
+listen to prayers and preaching, and on Sundays and fête-days they
+chanted vespers. Father Zenobe usually spent the day in the Indian camp,
+striving, with very indifferent success, to win them to the Faith, and
+to overcome the disgust with which their manners and habits inspired
+him.
+
+Such was the first civilized occupation of the region which now forms
+the State of Illinois. La Salle christened his new fort Fort
+Crèvecoeur. The name tells of disaster and suffering, but does no
+justice to the iron-hearted constancy of the sufferer. Up to this time
+he had clung to the hope that his vessel, the "Griffin," might still be
+safe. Her safety was vital to his enterprise. She had on board articles
+of the last necessity to him, including the rigging and anchors of
+another vessel which he was to build at Fort Crèvecoeur, in order to
+descend the Mississippi and sail thence to the West Indies. But now his
+last hope had well-nigh vanished. Past all reasonable doubt, the
+"Griffin" was lost; and in her loss he and all his plans seemed ruined
+alike.
+
+Nothing, indeed, was ever heard of her. Indians, fur-traders, and even
+Jesuits, have been charged with contriving her destruction. Some say
+that the Ottawas boarded and burned her, after murdering those on board;
+others accuse the Pottawattamies; others affirm that her own crew
+scuttled and sunk her; others, again, that she foundered in a
+storm.[155] As for La Salle, the belief grew in him to a settled
+conviction that she had been treacherously sunk by the pilot and the
+sailors to whom he had intrusted her; and he thought he had found
+evidence that the authors of the crime, laden with the merchandise they
+had taken from her, had reached the Mississippi and ascended it, hoping
+to join Du Lhut, a famous chief of _coureurs de bois_, and enrich
+themselves by traffic with the northern tribes.[156]
+
+[Sidenote: LA SALLE'S ANXIETIES.]
+
+But whether her lading was swallowed in the depths of the lake, or lost
+in the clutches of traitors, the evil was alike past remedy. She was
+gone, it mattered little how. The main-stay of the enterprise was
+broken; yet its inflexible chief lost neither heart nor hope. One path,
+beset with hardships and terrors, still lay open to him. He might return
+on foot to Fort Frontenac, and bring thence the needful succors.
+
+La Salle felt deeply the dangers of such a step. His men were uneasy,
+discontented, and terrified by the stories with which the jealous
+Illinois still constantly filled their ears, of the whirlpools and the
+monsters of the Mississippi. He dreaded lest, in his absence, they
+should follow the example of their comrades, and desert. In the midst of
+his anxieties, a lucky accident gave him the means of disabusing them.
+He was hunting, one day, near the fort, when he met a young Illinois on
+his way home, half-starved, from a distant war excursion. He had been
+absent so long that he knew nothing of what had passed between his
+countrymen and the French. La Salle gave him a turkey he had shot,
+invited him to the fort, fed him, and made him presents. Having thus
+warmed his heart, he questioned him, with apparent carelessness, as to
+the countries he had visited, and especially as to the Mississippi,--on
+which the young warrior, seeing no reason to disguise the truth, gave
+him all the information he required. La Salle now made him the present
+of a hatchet, to engage him to say nothing of what had passed, and,
+leaving him in excellent humor, repaired, with some of his followers, to
+the Illinois camp. Here he found the chiefs seated at a feast of bear's
+meat, and he took his place among them on a mat of rushes. After a
+pause, he charged them with having deceived him in regard to the
+Mississippi; adding that he knew the river perfectly, having been
+instructed concerning it by the Master of Life. He then described it to
+them with so much accuracy that his astonished hearers, conceiving that
+he owed his knowledge to "medicine," or sorcery, clapped their hands to
+their mouths in sign of wonder, and confessed that all they had said was
+but an artifice, inspired by their earnest desire that he should remain
+among them.[157] On this, La Salle's men took heart again; and their
+courage rose still more when, soon after, a band of Chickasa, Arkansas,
+and Osage warriors, from the Mississippi, came to the camp on a friendly
+visit, and assured the French not only that the river was navigable to
+the sea, but that the tribes along its banks would give them a warm
+welcome.
+
+[Sidenote: ANOTHER VESSEL.]
+
+La Salle had now good reason to hope that his followers would neither
+mutiny nor desert in his absence. One chief purpose of his intended
+journey was to procure the anchors, cables, and rigging of the vessel
+which he meant to build at Fort Crèvecoeur, and he resolved to see her
+on the stocks before he set out. This was no easy matter, for the
+pit-sawyers had deserted. "Seeing," he writes, "that I should lose a
+year if I waited to get others from Montreal, I said one day, before my
+people, that I was so vexed to find that the absence of two sawyers
+would defeat my plans and make all my trouble useless, that I was
+resolved to try to saw the planks myself, if I could find a single man
+who would help me with a will." Hereupon, two men stepped forward and
+promised to do their best. They were tolerably successful, and, the rest
+being roused to emulation, the work went on with such vigor that within
+six weeks the hull of the vessel was half finished. She was of forty
+tons' burden, and was built with high bulwarks, to protect those on
+board from Indian arrows.
+
+La Salle now bethought him that, in his absence, he might get from
+Hennepin service of more value than his sermons; and he requested him to
+descend the Illinois, and explore it to its mouth. The friar, though
+hardy and daring, would fain have excused himself, alleging a
+troublesome bodily infirmity; but his venerable colleague Ribourde,
+himself too old for the journey, urged him to go, telling him that if he
+died by the way, his apostolic labors would redound to the glory of God.
+Membré had been living for some time in the Indian camp, and was
+thoroughly out of humor with the objects of his missionary efforts, of
+whose obduracy and filth he bitterly complained. Hennepin proposed to
+take his place, while he should assume the Mississippi adventure; but
+this Membré declined, preferring to remain where he was. Hennepin now
+reluctantly accepted the proposed task. "Anybody but me," he says, with
+his usual modesty, "would have been very much frightened at the dangers
+of such a journey; and, in fact, if I had not placed all my trust in
+God, I should not have been the dupe of the Sieur de la Salle, who
+exposed my life rashly."[158]
+
+On the last day of February, Hennepin's canoe lay at the water's edge;
+and the party gathered on the bank to bid him farewell. He had two
+companions,--Michel Accau, and a man known as the Picard du Gay,[159]
+though his real name was Antoine Auguel. The canoe was well laden with
+gifts for the Indians,--tobacco, knives, beads, awls, and other goods,
+to a very considerable value, supplied at La Salle's cost; "and, in
+fact," observes Hennepin, "he is liberal enough towards his
+friends."[160]
+
+[Sidenote: DEPARTURE OF HENNEPIN.]
+
+The friar bade farewell to La Salle, and embraced all the rest in turn.
+Father Ribourde gave him his benediction. "Be of good courage and let
+your heart be comforted," said the excellent old missionary, as he
+spread his hands in benediction over the shaven crown of the reverend
+traveller. Du Gay and Accau plied their paddles; the canoe receded, and
+vanished at length behind the forest. We will follow Hennepin hereafter
+on his adventures, imaginary and real. Meanwhile, we will trace the
+footsteps of his chief, urging his way, in the storms of winter, through
+those vast and gloomy wilds,--those realms of famine, treachery, and
+death,--that lay betwixt him and his far-distant goal of Fort Frontenac.
+
+On the first of March,[161] before the frost was yet out of the ground,
+when the forest was still leafless, and the oozy prairies still patched
+with snow, a band of discontented men were again gathered on the shore
+for another leave-taking. Hard by, the unfinished ship lay on the
+stocks, white and fresh from the saw and axe, ceaselessly reminding them
+of the hardship and peril that was in store. Here you would have seen
+the calm, impenetrable face of La Salle, and with him the Mohegan
+hunter, who seems to have felt towards him that admiring attachment
+which he could always inspire in his Indian retainers. Besides the
+Mohegan, four Frenchmen were to accompany him,--Hunaut, La Violette,
+Collin, and Dautray.[162] His parting with Tonty was an anxious one,
+for each well knew the risks that environed both. Embarking with his
+followers in two canoes, he made his way upward amid the drifting ice;
+while the faithful Italian, with two or three honest men and twelve or
+thirteen knaves, remained to hold Fort Crèvecoeur in his absence.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[155] Charlevoix, i. 459; La Potherie, ii. 140; La Hontan, _Memoir on
+the Fur-Trade of Canada_. I am indebted for a copy of this paper to
+Winthrop Sargent, Esq., who purchased the original at the sale of the
+library of the poet Southey. Like Hennepin, La Hontan went over to the
+English; and this memoir is written in their interest.
+
+[156] _Lettre de La Salle à La Barre, Chicagou, 4 Juin, 1683._ This is a
+long letter, addressed to the successor of Frontenac in the government
+of Canada. La Salle says that a young Indian belonging to him told him
+that three years before he saw a white man, answering the description of
+the pilot, a prisoner among a tribe beyond the Mississippi. He had been
+captured with four others on that river, while making his way with
+canoes, laden with goods, towards the Sioux. His companions had been
+killed. Other circumstances, which La Salle details at great length,
+convinced him that the white prisoner was no other than the pilot of the
+"Griffin." The evidence, however, is not conclusive.
+
+[157] _Relation des Découvertes et des Voyages du Sr. de la Salle,
+Seigneur et Gouverneur du Fort de Frontenac, au delà des grands Lacs de
+la Nouvelle France, faits par ordre de Monseigneur Colbert_, 1679, 80 et
+81. Hennepin gives a story which is not essentially different, except
+that he makes himself a conspicuous actor in it.
+
+[158] All the above is from Hennepin; and it seems to be marked by his
+characteristic egotism. It appears, from La Salle's letters, that Accau
+was the real chief of the party; that their orders were to explore not
+only the Illinois, but also a part of the Mississippi; and that Hennepin
+volunteered to go with the others. Accau was chosen because he spoke
+several Indian languages.
+
+[159] An eminent writer has mistaken "Picard" for a personal name. Du
+Gay was called "Le Picard," because he came from the province of
+Picardy.
+
+[160] (1683), 188. This commendation is suppressed in the later
+editions.
+
+[161] Tonty erroneously places their departure on the twenty-second.
+
+[162] _Déclaration faite par Moyse Hillaret, charpentier de barque._
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV.
+
+1680.
+
+HARDIHOOD OF LA SALLE.
+
+ The Winter Journey.--The Deserted Town.--Starved Rock.--Lake
+ Michigan.--The Wilderness.--War Parties.--La Salle's Men give
+ out.--Ill Tidings.--Mutiny.--Chastisement of the Mutineers.
+
+
+La Salle well knew what was before him, and nothing but necessity
+spurred him to this desperate journey. He says that he could trust
+nobody else to go in his stead, and that unless the articles lost in the
+"Griffin" were replaced without delay, the expedition would be retarded
+a full year, and he and his associates consumed by its expenses.
+"Therefore," he writes to one of them, "though the thaws of approaching
+spring greatly increased the difficulty of the way, interrupted as it
+was everywhere by marshes and rivers, to say nothing of the length of
+the journey, which is about five hundred leagues in a direct line, and
+the danger of meeting Indians of four or five different nations through
+whose country we were to pass, as well as an Iroquois army which we knew
+was coming that way; though we must suffer all the time from hunger;
+sleep on the open ground, and often without food; watch by night and
+march by day, loaded with baggage, such as blanket, clothing, kettle,
+hatchet, gun, powder, lead, and skins to make moccasins; sometimes
+pushing through thickets, sometimes climbing rocks covered with ice and
+snow, sometimes wading whole days through marshes where the water was
+waist-deep or even more, at a season when the snow was not entirely
+melted,--though I knew all this, it did not prevent me from resolving to
+go on foot to Fort Frontenac, to learn for myself what had become of my
+vessel, and bring back the things we needed."[163]
+
+The winter had been a severe one; and when, an hour after leaving the
+fort, he and his companions reached the still water of Peoria Lake, they
+found it sheeted with ice from shore to shore. They carried their canoes
+up the bank, made two rude sledges, placed the light vessels upon them,
+and dragged them to the upper end of the lake, where they encamped. In
+the morning they found the river still covered with ice, too weak to
+bear them and too strong to permit them to break a way for the canoes.
+They spent the whole day in carrying them through the woods, toiling
+knee-deep in saturated snow. Rain fell in floods, and they took shelter
+at night in a deserted Indian hut.
+
+In the morning, the third of March, they dragged their canoes half a
+league farther; then launched them, and, breaking the ice with clubs and
+hatchets, forced their way slowly up the stream. Again their progress
+was barred, and again they took to the woods, toiling onward till a
+tempest of moist, half-liquid snow forced them to bivouac for the night.
+A sharp frost followed, and in the morning the white waste around them
+was glazed with a dazzling crust. Now, for the first time, they could
+use their snow-shoes. Bending to their work, dragging their canoes,
+which glided smoothly over the polished surface, they journeyed on hour
+after hour and league after league, till they reached at length the
+great town of the Illinois, still void of its inhabitants.[164]
+
+[Sidenote: THE DESERTED TOWN.]
+
+It was a desolate and lonely scene,--the river gliding dark and cold
+between its banks of rushes; the empty lodges, covered with crusted
+snow; the vast white meadows; the distant cliffs, bearded with shining
+icicles; and the hills wrapped in forests, which glittered from afar
+with the icy incrustations that cased each frozen twig. Yet there was
+life in the savage landscape. The men saw buffalo wading in the snow,
+and they killed one of them. More than this: they discovered the tracks
+of moccasins. They cut rushes by the edge of the river, piled them on
+the bank, and set them on fire, that the smoke might attract the eyes of
+savages roaming near.
+
+On the following day, while the hunters were smoking the meat of the
+buffalo, La Salle went out to reconnoitre, and presently met three
+Indians, one of whom proved to be Chassagoac, the principal chief of the
+Illinois.[165] La Salle brought them to his bivouac, feasted them, gave
+them a red blanket, a kettle, and some knives and hatchets, made friends
+with them, promised to restrain the Iroquois from attacking them, told
+them that he was on his way to the settlements to bring arms and
+ammunition to defend them against their enemies, and, as the result of
+these advances, gained from the chief a promise that he would send
+provisions to Tonty's party at Fort Crèvecoeur.
+
+After several days spent at the deserted town, La Salle prepared to
+resume his journey. Before his departure, his attention was attracted to
+the remarkable cliff of yellow sandstone, now called Starved Rock, a
+mile or more above the village,--a natural fortress, which a score of
+resolute white men might make good against a host of savages; and he
+soon afterwards sent Tonty an order to examine it, and make it his
+stronghold in case of need.[166]
+
+On the fifteenth the party set out again, carried their canoes along
+the bank of the river as far as the rapids above Ottawa, then launched
+them and pushed their way upward, battling with the floating ice, which,
+loosened by a warm rain, drove down the swollen current in sheets. On
+the eighteenth they reached a point some miles below the site of Joliet,
+and here found the river once more completely closed. Despairing of
+farther progress by water, they hid their canoes on an island, and
+struck across the country for Lake Michigan.
+
+[Sidenote: LA SALLE'S JOURNEY.]
+
+It was the worst of all seasons for such a journey. The nights were
+cold, but the sun was warm at noon, and the half-thawed prairie was one
+vast tract of mud, water, and discolored, half-liquid snow. On the
+twenty-second they crossed marshes and inundated meadows, wading to the
+knee, till at noon they were stopped by a river, perhaps the Calumet.
+They made a raft of hard-wood timber, for there was no other, and shoved
+themselves across. On the next day they could see Lake Michigan dimly
+glimmering beyond the waste of woods; and, after crossing three swollen
+streams, they reached it at evening. On the twenty-fourth they followed
+its shore, till, at nightfall, they arrived at the fort which they had
+built in the autumn at the mouth of the St. Joseph. Here La Salle found
+Chapelle and Leblanc, the two men whom he had sent from hence to
+Michilimackinac, in search of the "Griffin."[167] They reported that
+they had made the circuit of the lake, and had neither seen her nor
+heard tidings of her. Assured of her fate, he ordered them to rejoin
+Tonty at Fort Crèvecoeur; while he pushed onward with his party
+through the unknown wild of Southern Michigan.
+
+"The rain," says La Salle, "which lasted all day, and the raft we were
+obliged to make to cross the river, stopped us till noon of the
+twenty-fifth, when we continued our march through the woods, which was
+so interlaced with thorns and brambles that in two days and a half our
+clothes were all torn, and our faces so covered with blood that we
+hardly knew each other. On the twenty-eighth we found the woods more
+open, and began to fare better, meeting a good deal of game, which after
+this rarely failed us; so that we no longer carried provisions with us,
+but made a meal of roast meat wherever we happened to kill a deer, bear,
+or turkey. These are the choicest feasts on a journey like this; and
+till now we had generally gone without them, so that we had often walked
+all day without breakfast.
+
+[Sidenote: INDIAN ALARMS.]
+
+"The Indians do not hunt in this region, which is debatable ground
+between five or six nations who are at war, and, being afraid of each
+other, do not venture into these parts except to surprise each other,
+and always with the greatest precaution and all possible secrecy. The
+reports of our guns and the carcasses of the animals we killed soon led
+some of them to find our trail. In fact, on the evening of the
+twenty-eighth, having made our fire by the edge of a prairie, we were
+surrounded by them; but as the man on guard waked us, and we posted
+ourselves behind trees with our guns, these savages, who are called
+Wapoos, took us for Iroquois, and thinking that there must be a great
+many of us because we did not travel secretly, as they do when in small
+bands, they ran off without shooting their arrows, and gave the alarm to
+their comrades, so that we were two days without meeting anybody."
+
+La Salle guessed the cause of their fright; and, in order to confirm
+their delusion, he drew with charcoal, on the trunks of trees from which
+he had stripped the bark, the usual marks of an Iroquois war-party, with
+signs for prisoners and for scalps, after the custom of those dreaded
+warriors. This ingenious artifice, as will soon appear, was near proving
+the destruction of the whole party. He also set fire to the dry grass of
+the prairies over which he and his men had just passed, thus destroying
+the traces of their passage. "We practised this device every night, and
+it answered very well so long as we were passing over an open country;
+but on the thirtieth we got into great marshes, flooded by the thaws,
+and were obliged to cross them in mud or water up to the waist; so that
+our tracks betrayed us to a band of Mascoutins who were out after
+Iroquois. They followed us through these marshes during the three days
+we were crossing them; but we made no fire at night, contenting
+ourselves with taking off our wet clothes and wrapping ourselves in our
+blankets on some dry knoll, where we slept till morning. At last, on
+the night of the second of April, there came a hard frost, and our
+clothes, which were drenched when we took them off, froze stiff as
+sticks, so that we could not put them on in the morning without making a
+fire to thaw them. The fire betrayed us to the Indians, who were
+encamped across the marsh; and they ran towards us with loud cries, till
+they were stopped halfway by a stream so deep that they could not get
+over, the ice which had formed in the night not being strong enough to
+bear them. We went to meet them, within gun-shot; and whether our
+fire-arms frightened them, or whether they thought us more numerous than
+we were, or whether they really meant us no harm, they called out, in
+the Illinois language, that they had taken us for Iroquois, but now saw
+that we were friends and brothers; whereupon, they went off as they
+came, and we kept on our way till the fourth, when two of my men fell
+ill and could not walk."
+
+In this emergency, La Salle went in search of some watercourse by which
+they might reach Lake Erie, and soon came upon a small river, which was
+probably the Huron. Here, while the sick men rested, their companions
+made a canoe. There were no birch-trees; and they were forced to use
+elm-bark, which at that early season would not slip freely from the wood
+until they loosened it with hot water. Their canoe being made, they
+embarked in it, and for a time floated prosperously down the stream,
+when at length the way was barred by a matted barricade of trees fallen
+across the water. The sick men could now walk again, and, pushing
+eastward through the forest, the party soon reached the banks of the
+Detroit.
+
+[Sidenote: THE JOURNEY'S END.]
+
+La Salle directed two of the men to make a canoe, and go to
+Michilimackinac, the nearest harborage. With the remaining two, he
+crossed the Detroit on a raft, and, striking a direct line across the
+country, reached Lake Erie not far from Point Pelée. Snow, sleet, and
+rain pelted them with little intermission: and when, after a walk of
+about thirty miles, they gained the lake, the Mohegan and one of the
+Frenchmen were attacked with fever and spitting of blood. Only one man
+now remained in health. With his aid, La Salle made another canoe, and,
+embarking the invalids, pushed for Niagara. It was Easter Monday when
+they landed at a cabin of logs above the cataract, probably on the spot
+where the "Griffin" was built. Here several of La Salle's men had been
+left the year before, and here they still remained. They told him woful
+news. Not only had he lost the "Griffin," and her lading of ten thousand
+crowns in value, but a ship from France, freighted with his goods,
+valued at more than twenty-two thousand livres, had been totally wrecked
+at the mouth of the St. Lawrence; and of twenty hired men on their way
+from Europe to join him, some had been detained by his enemy, the
+Intendant Duchesneau, while all but four of the remainder, being told
+that he was dead, had found means to return home.
+
+His three followers were all unfit for travel: he alone retained his
+strength and spirit. Taking with him three fresh men at Niagara, he
+resumed his journey, and on the sixth of May descried, looming through
+floods of rain, the familiar shores of his seigniory and the bastioned
+walls of Fort Frontenac. During sixty-five days he had toiled almost
+incessantly, travelling, by the course he took, about a thousand miles
+through a country beset with every form of peril and obstruction,--"the
+most arduous journey," says the chronicler, "ever made by Frenchmen in
+America."
+
+Such was Cavelier de la Salle. In him, an unconquerable mind held at its
+service a frame of iron, and tasked it to the utmost of its endurance.
+The pioneer of western pioneers was no rude son of toil, but a man of
+thought, trained amid arts and letters.[168] He had reached his goal;
+but for him there was neither rest nor peace. Man and Nature seemed in
+arms against him. His agents had plundered him; his creditors had seized
+his property; and several of his canoes, richly laden, had been lost in
+the rapids of the St. Lawrence.[169] He hastened to Montreal, where his
+sudden advent caused great astonishment; and where, despite his crippled
+resources and damaged credit, he succeeded, within a week, in gaining
+the supplies which he required and the needful succors for the forlorn
+band on the Illinois. He had returned to Fort Frontenac, and was on the
+point of embarking for their relief, when a blow fell upon him more
+disheartening than any that had preceded.
+
+[Sidenote: THE MUTINEERS.]
+
+On the twenty-second of July, two _voyageurs_, Messier and Laurent, came
+to him with a letter from Tonty, who wrote that soon after La Salle's
+departure nearly all the men had deserted, after destroying Fort
+Crèvecoeur, plundering the magazine, and throwing into the river all
+the arms, goods, and stores which they could not carry off. The
+messengers who brought this letter were speedily followed by two of the
+_habitants_ of Fort Frontenac, who had been trading on the lakes, and
+who, with a fidelity which the unhappy La Salle rarely knew how to
+inspire, had travelled day and night to bring him their tidings. They
+reported that they had met the deserters, and that, having been
+reinforced by recruits gained at Michilimackinac and Niagara, they now
+numbered twenty men.[170] They had destroyed the fort on the St.
+Joseph, seized a quantity of furs belonging to La Salle at
+Michilimackinac, and plundered the magazine at Niagara. Here they had
+separated, eight of them coasting the south side of Lake Ontario to find
+harborage at Albany, a common refuge at that time of this class of
+scoundrels; while the remaining twelve, in three canoes, made for Fort
+Frontenac along the north shore, intending to kill La Salle as the
+surest means of escaping punishment.
+
+[Sidenote: CHASTISEMENT.]
+
+He lost no time in lamentation. Of the few men at his command he chose
+nine of the trustiest, embarked with them in canoes, and went to meet
+the marauders. After passing the Bay of Quinté, he took his station with
+five of his party at a point of land suited to his purpose, and detached
+the remaining four to keep watch. In the morning, two canoes were
+discovered approaching without suspicion, one of them far in advance of
+the other. As the foremost drew near, La Salle's canoe darted out from
+under the leafy shore,--two of the men handling the paddles, while he,
+with the remaining two, levelled their guns at the deserters, and called
+on them to surrender. Astonished and dismayed, they yielded at once;
+while two more, who were in the second canoe, hastened to follow their
+example. La Salle now returned to the fort with his prisoners, placed
+them in custody, and again set forth. He met the third canoe upon the
+lake at about six o'clock in the evening. His men vainly plied their
+paddles in pursuit. The mutineers reached the shore, took post among
+rocks and trees, levelled their guns, and showed fight. Four of La
+Salle's men made a circuit to gain their rear and dislodge them, on
+which they stole back to their canoe and tried to escape in the
+darkness. They were pursued, and summoned to yield; but they replied by
+aiming their guns at their pursuers, who instantly gave them a volley,
+killed two of them, and captured the remaining three. Like their
+companions, they were placed in custody at the fort, to await the
+arrival of Count Frontenac.[171]
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[163] _Lettre de La Salle à un de ses associés_ (Thouret?), _29 Sept.,
+1680_ (Margry, ii. 50).
+
+[164] Membré says that he was in the town at the time; but this could
+hardly have been the case. He was, in all probability, among the
+Illinois, in their camp near Fort Crèvecoeur.
+
+[165] The same whom Hennepin calls Chassagouasse. He was brother of the
+chief, Nicanopé, who, in his absence, had feasted the French on the day
+after the nocturnal council with Monso. Chassagoac was afterwards
+baptized by Membré or Ribourde, but soon relapsed into the superstitions
+of his people, and died, as the former tells us, "doubly a child of
+perdition." See Le Clerc, ii. 181.
+
+[166] Tonty, _Mémoire_. The order was sent by two Frenchmen, whom La
+Salle met on Lake Michigan.
+
+[167] _Déclaration de Moyse Hillaret; Relation des Découvertes._
+
+[168] A Rocky Mountain trapper, being complimented on the hardihood of
+himself and his companions, once said to the writer, "That's so; but a
+gentleman of the right sort will stand hardship better than anybody
+else." The history of Arctic and African travel and the military records
+of all time are a standing evidence that a trained and developed mind is
+not the enemy, but the active and powerful ally, of constitutional
+hardihood. The culture that enervates instead of strengthening is always
+a false or a partial one.
+
+[169] Zenobe Membré in Le Clerc, ii. 202.
+
+[170] When La Salle was at Niagara, in April, he had ordered Dautray,
+the best of the men who had accompanied him from the Illinois, to return
+thither as soon as he was able. Four men from Niagara were to go with
+him and he was to rejoin Tonty with such supplies as that post could
+furnish. Dautray set out accordingly, but was met on the lakes by the
+deserters, who told him that Tonty was dead, and seduced his men.
+(_Relation des Découvertes._) Dautray himself seems to have remained
+true; at least, he was in La Salle's service immediately after, and was
+one of his most trusted followers. He was of good birth, being the son
+of Jean Bourdon, a conspicuous personage in the early period of the
+colony; and his name appears on official records as Jean Bourdon, Sieur
+d'Autray.
+
+[171] La Salle's long letter, written apparently to his associate
+Thouret, and dated 29 Sept., 1680, is the chief authority for the above.
+The greater part of this letter is incorporated, almost verbatim, in the
+official narrative called _Relation des Découvertes_. Hennepin, Membré,
+and Tonty also speak of the journey from Fort Crèvecoeur. The death of
+the two mutineers was used by La Salle's enemies as the basis of a
+charge of murder.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV.
+
+1680.
+
+INDIAN CONQUERORS.
+
+ The Enterprise renewed.--Attempt to rescue Tonty.--Buffalo.--A
+ Frightful Discovery.--Iroquois Fury.--The Ruined Town.--A Night of
+ Horror.--Traces of the Invaders.--No News of Tonty.
+
+
+[Sidenote: ANOTHER EFFORT.]
+
+And now La Salle's work must be begun afresh. He had staked all, and all
+had seemingly been lost. In stern, relentless effort he had touched the
+limits of human endurance; and the harvest of his toil was
+disappointment, disaster, and impending ruin. The shattered fabric of
+his enterprise was prostrate in the dust. His friends desponded; his
+foes were blatant and exultant. Did he bend before the storm? No human
+eye could pierce the depths of his reserved and haughty nature; but the
+surface was calm, and no sign betrayed a shaken resolve or an altered
+purpose. Where weaker men would have abandoned all in despairing apathy,
+he turned anew to his work with the same vigor and the same apparent
+confidence as if borne on the full tide of success.
+
+His best hope was in Tonty. Could that brave and true-hearted officer
+and the three or four faithful men who had remained with him make good
+their foothold on the Illinois, and save from destruction the vessel on
+the stocks and the forge and tools so laboriously carried thither, then
+a basis was left on which the ruined enterprise might be built up once
+more. There was no time to lose. Tonty must be succored soon, or succor
+would come too late. La Salle had already provided the necessary
+material, and a few days sufficed to complete his preparations. On the
+tenth of August he embarked again for the Illinois. With him went his
+lieutenant La Forest, who held of him in fief an island, then called
+Belle Isle, opposite Fort Frontenac.[172] A surgeon, ship-carpenters,
+joiners, masons, soldiers, _voyageurs_ and laborers completed his
+company, twenty-five men in all, with everything needful for the outfit
+of the vessel.
+
+His route, though difficult, was not so long as that which he had
+followed the year before. He ascended the river Humber; crossed to Lake
+Simcoe, and thence descended the Severn to the Georgian Bay of Lake
+Huron; followed its eastern shore, coasted the Manitoulin Islands, and
+at length reached Michilimackinac. Here, as usual, all was hostile; and
+he had great difficulty in inducing the Indians, who had been excited
+against him, to sell him provisions. Anxious to reach his destination,
+he pushed forward with twelve men, leaving La Forest to bring on the
+rest. On the fourth of November[173] he reached the ruined fort at the
+mouth of the St. Joseph, and left five of his party, with the heavy
+stores, to wait till La Forest should come up, while he himself hastened
+forward with six Frenchmen and an Indian. A deep anxiety possessed him.
+The rumor, current for months past, that the Iroquois, bent on
+destroying the Illinois, were on the point of invading their country had
+constantly gained strength. Here was a new disaster, which, if realized,
+might involve him and his enterprise in irretrievable wreck.
+
+He ascended the St. Joseph, crossed the portage to the Kankakee, and
+followed its course downward till it joined the northern branch of the
+Illinois. He had heard nothing of Tonty on the way, and neither here nor
+elsewhere could he discover the smallest sign of the passage of white
+men. His friend, therefore, if alive, was probably still at his post;
+and he pursued his course with a mind lightened, in some small measure,
+of its load of anxiety.
+
+[Sidenote: BUFFALO.]
+
+When last he had passed here, all was solitude; but now the scene was
+changed. The boundless waste was thronged with life. He beheld that
+wondrous spectacle, still to be seen at times on the plains of the
+remotest West, and the memory of which can quicken the pulse and stir
+the blood after the lapse of years: far and near, the prairie was alive
+with buffalo; now like black specks dotting the distant swells; now
+trampling by in ponderous columns, or filing in long lines, morning,
+noon, and night, to drink at the river,--wading, plunging, and snorting
+in the water; climbing the muddy shores, and staring with wild eyes at
+the passing canoes. It was an opportunity not to be lost. The party
+landed, and encamped for a hunt. Sometimes they hid under the shelving
+bank, and shot them as they came to drink; sometimes, flat on their
+faces, they dragged themselves through the long dead grass, till the
+savage bulls, guardians of the herd, ceased their grazing, raised their
+huge heads, and glared through tangled hair at the dangerous intruders.
+The hunt was successful. In three days the hunters killed twelve
+buffalo, besides deer, geese, and swans. They cut the meat into thin
+flakes, and dried it in the sun or in the smoke of their fires. The men
+were in high spirits,--delighting in the sport, and rejoicing in the
+prospect of relieving Tonty and his hungry followers with a plentiful
+supply.
+
+They embarked again, and soon approached the great town of the Illinois.
+The buffalo were far behind; and once more the canoes glided on their
+way through a voiceless solitude. No hunters were seen; no saluting
+whoop greeted their ears. They passed the cliff afterwards called the
+Rock of St. Louis, where La Salle had ordered Tonty to build his
+stronghold; but as he scanned its lofty top he saw no palisades, no
+cabins, no sign of human hand, and still its primeval crest of forests
+overhung the gliding river. Now the meadow opened before them where the
+great town had stood. They gazed, astonished and confounded: all was
+desolation. The town had vanished, and the meadow was black with fire.
+They plied their paddles, hastened to the spot, landed; and as they
+looked around their cheeks grew white, and the blood was frozen in their
+veins.
+
+[Sidenote: A NIGHT OF HORROR.]
+
+Before them lay a plain once swarming with wild human life and covered
+with Indian dwellings, now a waste of devastation and death, strewn with
+heaps of ashes, and bristling with the charred poles and stakes which
+had formed the framework of the lodges. At the points of most of them
+were stuck human skulls, half picked by birds of prey.[174] Near at hand
+was the burial-ground of the village. The travellers sickened with
+horror as they entered its revolting precincts. Wolves in multitudes
+fled at their approach; while clouds of crows or buzzards, rising from
+the hideous repast, wheeled above their heads, or settled on the naked
+branches of the neighboring forest. Every grave had been rifled, and the
+bodies flung down from the scaffolds where, after the Illinois custom,
+many of them had been placed. The field was strewn with broken bones and
+torn and mangled corpses. A hyena warfare had been waged against the
+dead. La Salle knew the handiwork of the Iroquois. The threatened blow
+had fallen, and the wolfish hordes of the five cantons had fleshed their
+rabid fangs in a new victim.[175]
+
+Not far distant, the conquerors had made a rude fort of trunks, boughs,
+and roots of trees laid together to form a circular enclosure; and this,
+too, was garnished with skulls, stuck on the broken branches and
+protruding sticks. The _caches_, or subterranean store-houses of the
+villagers, had been broken open and the contents scattered. The
+cornfields were laid waste, and much of the corn thrown into heaps and
+half burned. As La Salle surveyed this scene of havoc, one thought
+engrossed him: where were Tonty and his men? He searched the Iroquois
+fort: there were abundant traces of its savage occupants, and, among
+them, a few fragments of French clothing. He examined the skulls; but
+the hair, portions of which clung to nearly all of them, was in every
+case that of an Indian. Evening came on before he had finished the
+search. The sun set, and the wilderness sank to its savage rest. Night
+and silence brooded over the waste, where, far as the raven could wing
+his flight, stretched the dark domain of solitude and horror.
+
+Yet there was no silence at the spot where La Salle and his companions
+made their bivouac. The howling of the wolves filled the air with fierce
+and dreary dissonance. More dangerous foes were not far off, for before
+nightfall they had seen fresh Indian tracks; "but, as it was very cold,"
+says La Salle, "this did not prevent us from making a fire and lying
+down by it, each of us keeping watch in turn. I spent the night in a
+distress which you can imagine better than I can write it; and I did not
+sleep a moment with trying to make up my mind as to what I ought to do.
+My ignorance as to the position of those I was looking after, and my
+uncertainty as to what would become of the men who were to follow me
+with La Forest if they arrived at the ruined village and did not find me
+there, made me apprehend every sort of trouble and disaster. At last, I
+decided to keep on my way down the river, leaving some of my men behind
+in charge of the goods, which it was not only useless but dangerous to
+carry with me, because we should be forced to abandon them when the
+winter fairly set in, which would be very soon."
+
+[Sidenote: FEARS FOR TONTY.]
+
+This resolution was due to a discovery he had made the evening before,
+which offered, as he thought, a possible clew to the fate of Tonty and
+the men with him. He thus describes it: "Near the garden of the Indians,
+which was on the meadows, a league from the village and not far from the
+river, I found six pointed stakes set in the ground and painted red. On
+each of them was the figure of a man with bandaged eyes, drawn in black.
+As the savages often set stakes of this sort where they have killed
+people, I thought, by their number and position, that when the Iroquois
+came, the Illinois, finding our men alone in the hut near their garden,
+had either killed them or made them prisoners. And I was confirmed in
+this, because, seeing no signs of a battle, I supposed that on hearing
+of the approach of the Iroquois, the old men and other non-combatants
+had fled, and that the young warriors had remained behind to cover their
+flight, and afterwards followed, taking the French with them; while the
+Iroquois, finding nobody to kill, had vented their fury on the corpses
+in the graveyard."
+
+Uncertain as was the basis of this conjecture, and feeble as was the
+hope it afforded, it determined him to push forward, in order to learn
+more. When daylight returned, he told his purpose to his followers, and
+directed three of them to await his return near the ruined village. They
+were to hide themselves on an island, conceal their fire at night, make
+no smoke by day, fire no guns, and keep a close watch. Should the rest
+of the party arrive, they, too, were to wait with similar precautions.
+The baggage was placed in a hollow of the rocks, at a place difficult of
+access; and, these arrangements made, La Salle set out on his perilous
+journey with the four remaining men, Dautray, Hunaut, You, and the
+Indian. Each was armed with two guns, a pistol, and a sword; and a
+number of hatchets and other goods were placed in the canoe, as presents
+for Indians whom they might meet.
+
+Several leagues below the village they found, on their right hand close
+to the river, a sort of island, made inaccessible by the marshes and
+water which surrounded it. Here the flying Illinois had sought refuge
+with their women and children, and the place was full of their deserted
+huts. On the left bank, exactly opposite, was an abandoned camp of the
+Iroquois. On the level meadow stood a hundred and thirteen huts, and on
+the forest trees which covered the hills behind were carved the totems,
+or insignia, of the chiefs, together with marks to show the number of
+followers which each had led to the war. La Salle counted five hundred
+and eighty-two warriors. He found marks, too, for the Illinois killed or
+captured, but none to indicate that any of the Frenchmen had shared
+their fate.
+
+[Sidenote: SEARCH FOR TONTY.]
+
+As they descended the river, they passed, on the same day, six abandoned
+camps of the Illinois; and opposite to each was a camp of the invaders.
+The former, it was clear, had retreated in a body; while the Iroquois
+had followed their march, day by day, along the other bank. La Salle and
+his men pushed rapidly onward, passed Peoria Lake, and soon reached Fort
+Crèvecoeur, which they found, as they expected, demolished by the
+deserters. The vessel on the stocks was still left entire, though the
+Iroquois had found means to draw out the iron nails and spikes. On one
+of the planks were written the words: "_Nous sommes tous sauvages: ce
+15, 1680_,"--the work, no doubt, of the knaves who had pillaged and
+destroyed the fort.
+
+La Salle and his companions hastened on, and during the following day
+passed four opposing camps of the savage armies. The silence of death
+now reigned along the deserted river, whose lonely borders, wrapped deep
+in forests, seemed lifeless as the grave. As they drew near the mouth of
+the stream they saw a meadow on their right, and on its farthest verge
+several human figures, erect, yet motionless. They landed, and
+cautiously examined the place. The long grass was trampled down, and all
+around were strewn the relics of the hideous orgies which formed the
+ordinary sequel of an Iroquois victory. The figures they had seen were
+the half-consumed bodies of women, still bound to the stakes where they
+had been tortured. Other sights there were, too revolting for
+record.[176] All the remains were those of women and children. The men,
+it seemed, had fled, and left them to their fate.
+
+Here, again, La Salle sought long and anxiously, without finding the
+smallest sign that could indicate the presence of Frenchmen. Once more
+descending the river, they soon reached its mouth. Before them, a broad
+eddying current rolled swiftly on its way; and La Salle beheld the
+Mississippi,--the object of his day-dreams, the destined avenue of his
+ambition and his hopes. It was no time for reflections. The moment was
+too engrossing, too heavily charged with anxieties and cares. From a
+rock on the shore, he saw a tree stretched forward above the stream; and
+stripping off its bark to make it more conspicuous, he hung upon it a
+board on which he had drawn the figures of himself and his men, seated
+in their canoe, and bearing a pipe of peace. To this he tied a letter
+for Tonty, informing him that he had returned up the river to the ruined
+village.
+
+His four men had behaved admirably throughout, and they now offered to
+continue the journey if he saw fit, and follow him to the sea; but he
+thought it useless to go farther, and was unwilling to abandon the three
+men whom he had ordered to await his return. Accordingly, they retraced
+their course, and, paddling at times both day and night, urged their
+canoe so swiftly that they reached the village in the incredibly short
+space of four days.[177]
+
+[Sidenote: THE COMET.]
+
+The sky was clear, and as night came on the travellers saw a prodigious
+comet blazing above this scene of desolation. On that night, it was
+chilling with a superstitious awe the hamlets of New England and the
+gilded chambers of Versailles; but it is characteristic of La Salle,
+that, beset as he was with perils and surrounded with ghastly images of
+death, he coolly notes down the phenomenon, not as a portentous
+messenger of war and woe, but rather as an object of scientific
+curiosity.[178]
+
+He found his three men safely ensconced upon their island, where they
+were anxiously looking for his return. After collecting a store of
+half-burnt corn from the ravaged granaries of the Illinois, the whole
+party began to ascend the river, and on the sixth of January reached the
+junction of the Kankakee with the northern branch. On their way downward
+they had descended the former stream; they now chose the latter, and
+soon discovered, by the margin of the water, a rude cabin of bark. La
+Salle landed and examined the spot, when an object met his eye which
+cheered him with a bright gleam of hope. It was but a piece of wood; but
+the wood had been cut with a saw. Tonty and his party, then, had passed
+this way, escaping from the carnage behind them. Unhappily, they had
+left no token of their passage at the fork of the two streams; and thus
+La Salle, on his voyage downward, had believed them to be still on the
+river below.
+
+With rekindled hope, the travellers pursued their journey, leaving their
+canoes, and making their way overland towards the fort on the St.
+Joseph.
+
+"Snow fell in extraordinary quantities all day," writes La Salle, "and
+it kept on falling for nineteen days in succession, with cold so severe
+that I never knew so hard a winter, even in Canada. We were obliged to
+cross forty leagues of open country, where we could hardly find wood to
+warm ourselves at evening, and could get no bark whatever to make a hut,
+so that we had to spend the night exposed to the furious winds which
+blow over these plains. I never suffered so much from cold, or had more
+trouble in getting forward; for the snow was so light, resting suspended
+as it were among the tall grass, that we could not use snow-shoes.
+Sometimes it was waist deep; and as I walked before my men, as usual, to
+encourage them by breaking the path, I often had much ado, though I am
+rather tall, to lift my legs above the drifts, through which I pushed
+by the weight of my body."
+
+[Sidenote: FORT MIAMI.]
+
+At length they reached their goal, and found shelter and safety within
+the walls of Fort Miami. Here was the party left in charge of La Forest;
+but, to his surprise and grief, La Salle heard no tidings of Tonty. He
+found some amends for the disappointment in the fidelity and zeal of La
+Forest's men, who had restored the fort, cleared ground for planting,
+and even sawed the planks and timber for a new vessel on the lake.
+
+And now, while La Salle rests at Fort Miami, let us trace the adventures
+which befell Tonty and his followers, after their chief's departure from
+Fort Crèvecoeur.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[172] _Robert Cavelier, Sr. de la Salle, à François Daupin, Sr. de
+la Forest, 10 Juin, 1679._
+
+[173] This date is from the _Relation_. Membré says the twenty-eighth;
+but he is wrong, by his own showing, as he says that the party reached
+the Illinois village on the first of December, which would be an
+impossibility.
+
+[174] "Il ne restoit que quelques bouts de perches brulées qui
+montroient quelle avoit été l'étendue du village, et sur la plupart
+desquelles il y avoit des têtes de morts plantées et mangées des
+corbeaux."--_Relation des Découvertes du Sr. de la Salle._
+
+[175] "Beaucoup de carcasses à demi rongées par les loups, les
+sépulchres démolis, les os tirés de leurs fosses et épars par la
+campagne; ... enfin les loups et les corbeaux augmentoient encore par
+leurs hurlemens et par leurs cris l'horreur de ce spectacle."--_Relation
+des Découvertes du Sr. de la Salle._
+
+The above may seem exaggerated; but it accords perfectly with what is
+well established concerning the ferocious character of the Iroquois and
+the nature of their warfare. Many other tribes have frequently made war
+upon the dead. I have myself known an instance in which five corpses of
+Sioux Indians placed in trees, after the practice of the Western bands
+of that people, were thrown down and kicked into fragments by a war
+party of the Crows, who then held the muzzles of their guns against the
+skulls, and blew them to pieces. This happened near the head of the
+Platte, in the summer of 1846. Yet the Crows are much less ferocious
+than were the Iroquois in La Salle's time.
+
+[176] "On ne sçauroit exprimer la rage de ces furieux ni les tourmens
+qu'ils avoient fait souffrir aux misérables Tamaroa [_a tribe of the
+Illinois_]. Il y en avoit encore dans des chaudières qu'ils avoient
+laissées pleines sur les feux, qui depuis s'étoient éteints," etc.,
+etc.--_Relation des Découvertes._
+
+[177] The distance is about two hundred and fifty miles. The letters of
+La Salle, as well as the official narrative compiled from them, say that
+they left the village on the second of December, and returned to it on
+the eleventh, having left the mouth of the river on the seventh.
+
+[178] This was the "Great Comet of 1680." Dr. B. A. Gould writes me: "It
+appeared in December, 1680, and was visible until the latter part of
+February, 1681, being especially brilliant in January." It was said to
+be the largest ever seen. By observations upon it, Newton demonstrated
+the regular revolutions of comets around the sun. "No comet," it is
+said, "has threatened the earth with a nearer approach than that of
+1680." (_Winthrop on Comets, Lecture II_. p. 44.) Increase Mather, in
+his _Discourse concerning Comets_, printed at Boston in 1683, says of
+this one: "Its appearance was very terrible; the Blaze ascended above 60
+Degrees almost to its Zenith." Mather thought it fraught with terrific
+portent to the nations of the earth.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI.
+
+1680.
+
+TONTY AND THE IROQUOIS.
+
+ The Deserters.--The Iroquois War.--The Great Town of the
+ Illinois.--The Alarm.--Onset of the Iroquois.--Peril of Tonty.--A
+ Treacherous Truce.--Intrepidity of Tonty.--Murder of Ribourde.--War
+ upon the Dead.
+
+
+When La Salle set out on his rugged journey to Fort Frontenac, he left,
+as we have seen, fifteen men at Fort Crèvecoeur,--smiths,
+ship-carpenters, house-wrights, and soldiers, besides his servant
+L'Espérance and the two friars Membré and Ribourde. Most of the men were
+ripe for mutiny. They had no interest in the enterprise, and no love for
+its chief. They were disgusted with the present, and terrified at the
+future. La Salle, too, was for the most part a stern commander,
+impenetrable and cold; and when he tried to soothe, conciliate, and
+encourage, his success rarely answered to the excellence of his
+rhetoric. He could always, however, inspire respect, if not love; but
+now the restraint of his presence was removed. He had not been long
+absent, when a fire-brand was thrown into the midst of the discontented
+and restless crew.
+
+It may be remembered that La Salle had met two of his men, La Chapelle
+and Leblanc, at his fort on the St. Joseph, and ordered them to rejoin
+Tonty. Unfortunately, they obeyed. On arriving, they told their comrades
+that the "Griffin" was lost, that Fort Frontenac was seized by the
+creditors of La Salle, that he was ruined past recovery, and that they,
+the men, would never receive their pay. Their wages were in arrears for
+more than two years; and, indeed, it would have been folly to pay them
+before their return to the settlements, as to do so would have been a
+temptation to desert. Now, however, the effect on their minds was still
+worse, believing, as many of them did, that they would never be paid at
+all.
+
+[Sidenote: THE DESERTERS.]
+
+La Chapelle and his companion had brought a letter from La Salle to
+Tonty, directing him to examine and fortify the cliff so often
+mentioned, which overhung the river above the great Illinois village.
+Tonty, accordingly, set out on his errand with some of the men. In his
+absence, the malcontents destroyed the fort, stole powder, lead, furs,
+and provisions, and deserted, after writing on the side of the
+unfinished vessel the words seen by La Salle, "_Nous sommes tous
+sauvages_."[179] The brave young Sieur de Boisrondet and the servant
+L'Espérance hastened to carry the news to Tonty, who at once despatched
+four of those with him, by two different routes, to inform La Salle of
+the disaster.[180] Besides the two just named, there now remained with
+him only one hired man and the Récollet friars. With this feeble band,
+he was left among a horde of treacherous savages, who had been taught to
+regard him as a secret enemy. Resolved, apparently, to disarm their
+jealousy by a show of confidence, he took up his abode in the midst of
+them, making his quarters in the great village, whither, as spring
+opened, its inhabitants returned, to the number, according to Membré, of
+seven or eight thousand. Hither he conveyed the forge and such tools as
+he could recover, and here he hoped to maintain himself till La Salle
+should reappear. The spring and the summer were past, and he looked
+anxiously for his coming, unconscious that a storm was gathering in the
+east, soon to burst with devastation over the fertile wilderness of the
+Illinois.
+
+[Sidenote: THE IROQUOIS WAR.]
+
+I have recounted the ferocious triumphs of the Iroquois in another
+volume.[181] Throughout a wide semi-circle around their cantons, they
+had made the forest a solitude; destroyed the Hurons, exterminated the
+Neutrals and the Eries, reduced the formidable Andastes to helpless
+insignificance, swept the borders of the St. Lawrence with fire, spread
+terror and desolation among the Algonquins of Canada; and now, tired of
+peace, they were seeking, to borrow their own savage metaphor, new
+nations to devour. Yet it was not alone their homicidal fury that now
+impelled them to another war. Strange as it may seem, this war was in no
+small measure one of commercial advantage. They had long traded with the
+Dutch and English of New York, who gave them, in exchange for their
+furs, the guns, ammunition, knives, hatchets, kettles, beads, and brandy
+which had become indispensable to them. Game was scarce in their
+country. They must seek their beaver and other skins in the vacant
+territories of the tribes they had destroyed; but this did not content
+them. The French of Canada were seeking to secure a monopoly of the furs
+of the north and west; and, of late, the enterprises of La Salle on the
+tributaries of the Mississippi had especially roused the jealousy of the
+Iroquois, fomented, moreover, by Dutch and English traders.[182] These
+crafty savages would fain reduce all these regions to subjection, and
+draw thence an exhaustless supply of furs, to be bartered for English
+goods with the traders of Albany. They turned their eyes first towards
+the Illinois, the most important, as well as one of the most accessible,
+of the western Algonquin tribes; and among La Salle's enemies were some
+in whom jealousy of a hated rival could so far override all the best
+interests of the colony that they did not scruple to urge on the
+Iroquois to an invasion which they hoped would prove his ruin. The
+chiefs convened, war was decreed, the war-dance was danced, the war-song
+sung, and five hundred warriors began their march. In their path lay the
+town of the Miamis, neighbors and kindred of the Illinois. It was always
+their policy to divide and conquer; and these forest Machiavels had
+intrigued so well among the Miamis, working craftily on their jealousy,
+that they induced them to join in the invasion, though there is every
+reason to believe that they had marked these infatuated allies as their
+next victims.[183]
+
+[Sidenote: THE ILLINOIS TOWN.]
+
+Go to the banks of the Illinois where it flows by the village of Utica,
+and stand on the meadow that borders it on the north. In front glides
+the river, a musket-shot in width; and from the farther bank rises, with
+gradual slope, a range of wooded hills that hide from sight the vast
+prairie behind them. A mile or more on your left these gentle
+acclivities end abruptly in the lofty front of the great cliff, called
+by the French the Rock of St. Louis, looking boldly out from the forests
+that environ it; and, three miles distant on your right, you discern a
+gap in the steep bluffs that here bound the valley, marking the mouth of
+the river Vermilion, called Aramoni by the French.[184] Now stand in
+fancy on this same spot in the early autumn of the year 1680. You are in
+the midst of the great town of the Illinois,--hundreds of mat-covered
+lodges, and thousands of congregated savages. Enter one of their
+dwellings: they will not think you an intruder. Some friendly squaw will
+lay a mat for you by the fire; you may seat yourself upon it, smoke your
+pipe, and study the lodge and its inmates by the light that streams
+through the holes at the top. Three or four fires smoke and smoulder on
+the ground down the middle of the long arched structure; and, as to
+each fire there are two families, the place is somewhat crowded when all
+are present. But now there is breathing room, for many are in the
+fields. A squaw sits weaving a mat of rushes; a warrior, naked except
+his moccasins, and tattooed with fantastic devices, binds a stone
+arrow-head to its shaft, with the fresh sinews of a buffalo. Some lie
+asleep, some sit staring in vacancy, some are eating, some are squatted
+in lazy chat around a fire. The smoke brings water to your eyes; the
+fleas annoy you; small unkempt children, naked as young puppies, crawl
+about your knees and will not be repelled. You have seen enough; you
+rise and go out again into the sunlight. It is, if not a peaceful, at
+least a languid scene. A few voices break the stillness, mingled with
+the joyous chirping of crickets from the grass. Young men lie flat on
+their faces, basking in the sun; a group of their elders are smoking
+around a buffalo-skin on which they have just been playing a game of
+chance with cherry-stones. A lover and his mistress, perhaps, sit
+together under a shed of bark, without uttering a word. Not far off is
+the graveyard, where lie the dead of the village, some buried in the
+earth, some wrapped in skins and laid aloft on scaffolds, above the
+reach of wolves. In the cornfields around, you see squaws at their
+labor, and children driving off intruding birds; and your eye ranges
+over the meadows beyond, spangled with the yellow blossoms of the
+resin-weed and the Rudbeckia, or over the bordering hills still green
+with the foliage of summer.[185]
+
+This, or something like it, one may safely affirm, was the aspect of the
+Illinois village at noon of the tenth of September.[186] In a hut apart
+from the rest, you would probably have found the Frenchmen. Among them
+was a man, not strong in person, and disabled, moreover, by the loss of
+a hand, yet in this den of barbarism betraying the language and bearing
+of one formed in the most polished civilization of Europe. This was
+Henri de Tonty. The others were young Boisrondet, the servant
+L'Espérance, and a Parisian youth named Étienne Renault. The friars,
+Membré and Ribourde, were not in the village, but at a hut a league
+distant, whither they had gone to make a "retreat" for prayer and
+meditation. Their missionary labors had not been fruitful; they had made
+no converts, and were in despair at the intractable character of the
+objects of their zeal. As for the other Frenchmen, time, doubtless, hung
+heavy on their hands; for nothing can surpass the vacant monotony of an
+Indian town when there is neither hunting, nor war, nor feasts, nor
+dances, nor gambling, to beguile the lagging hours.
+
+[Sidenote: THE ALARM.]
+
+Suddenly the village was wakened from its lethargy as by the crash of a
+thunderbolt. A Shawanoe, lately here on a visit, had left his Illinois
+friends to return home. He now reappeared, crossing the river in hot
+haste, with the announcement that he had met, on his way, an army of
+Iroquois approaching to attack them. All was panic and confusion. The
+lodges disgorged their frightened inmates; women and children screamed,
+startled warriors snatched their weapons. There were less than five
+hundred of them, for the greater part of the young men had gone to war.
+A crowd of excited savages thronged about Tonty and his Frenchmen,
+already objects of their suspicion, charging them, with furious
+gesticulation, with having stirred up their enemies to invade them.
+Tonty defended himself in broken Illinois, but the naked mob were but
+half convinced. They seized the forge and tools and flung them into the
+river, with all the goods that had been saved from the deserters; then,
+distrusting their power to defend themselves, they manned the wooden
+canoes which lay in multitudes by the bank, embarked their women and
+children, and paddled down the stream to that island of dry land in the
+midst of marshes which La Salle afterwards found filled with their
+deserted huts. Sixty warriors remained here to guard them, and the rest
+returned to the village. All night long fires blazed along the shore.
+The excited warriors greased their bodies, painted their faces,
+befeathered their heads, sang their war-songs, danced, stamped, yelled,
+and brandished their hatchets, to work up their courage to face the
+crisis. The morning came, and with it came the Iroquois.
+
+Young warriors had gone out as scouts, and now they returned. They had
+seen the enemy in the line of forest that bordered the river Aramoni, or
+Vermilion, and had stealthily reconnoitred them. They were very
+numerous,[187] and armed for the most part with guns, pistols, and
+swords. Some had bucklers of wood or raw-hide, and some wore those
+corselets of tough twigs interwoven with cordage which their fathers had
+used when fire-arms were unknown. The scouts added more, for they
+declared that they had seen a Jesuit among the Iroquois; nay, that La
+Salle himself was there, whence it must follow that Tonty and his men
+were enemies and traitors. The supposed Jesuit was but an Iroquois chief
+arrayed in a black hat, doublet, and stockings; while another, equipped
+after a somewhat similar fashion, passed in the distance for La Salle.
+But the Illinois were furious. Tonty's life hung by a hair. A crowd of
+savages surrounded him, mad with rage and terror. He had come lately
+from Europe, and knew little of Indians, but, as the friar Membré says
+of him, "he was full of intelligence and courage," and when they heard
+him declare that he and his Frenchmen would go with them to fight the
+Iroquois, their threats grew less clamorous and their eyes glittered
+with a less deadly lustre.
+
+[Sidenote: TONTY'S MEDIATION.]
+
+Whooping and screeching, they ran to their canoes, crossed the river,
+climbed the woody hill, and swarmed down upon the plain beyond. About a
+hundred of them had guns; the rest were armed with bows and arrows. They
+were now face to face with the enemy, who had emerged from the woods of
+the Vermilion, and were advancing on the open prairie. With unwonted
+spirit, for their repute as warriors was by no means high, the Illinois
+began, after their fashion, to charge; that is, they leaped, yelled, and
+shot off bullets and arrows, advancing as they did so; while the
+Iroquois replied with gymnastics no less agile and howlings no less
+terrific, mingled with the rapid clatter of their guns. Tonty saw that
+it would go hard with his allies. It was of the last moment to stop the
+fight, if possible. The Iroquois were, or professed to be, at peace with
+the French; and, taking counsel of his courage, he resolved on an
+attempt to mediate, which may well be called a desperate one. He laid
+aside his gun, took in his hand a wampum belt as a flag of truce, and
+walked forward to meet the savage multitude, attended by Boisrondet,
+another Frenchman, and a young Illinois who had the hardihood to
+accompany him. The guns of the Iroquois still flashed thick and fast.
+Some of them were aimed at him, on which he sent back the two Frenchmen
+and the Illinois, and advanced alone, holding out the wampum belt.[188]
+A moment more, and he was among the infuriated warriors. It was a
+frightful spectacle,--the contorted forms, bounding, crouching,
+twisting, to deal or dodge the shot; the small keen eyes that shone like
+an angry snake's; the parted lips pealing their fiendish yells; the
+painted features writhing with fear and fury, and every passion of an
+Indian fight,--man, wolf, and devil, all in one.[189] With his swarthy
+complexion and his half-savage dress, they thought he was an Indian, and
+thronged about him, glaring murder. A young warrior stabbed at his heart
+with a knife, but the point glanced aside against a rib, inflicting only
+a deep gash. A chief called out that, as his ears were not pierced, he
+must be a Frenchman. On this, some of them tried to stop the bleeding,
+and led him to the rear, where an angry parley ensued, while the yells
+and firing still resounded in the front. Tonty, breathless, and bleeding
+at the mouth with the force of the blow he had received, found words to
+declare that the Illinois were under the protection of the King and the
+governor of Canada, and to demand that they should be left in
+peace.[190]
+
+[Sidenote: PERIL OF TONTY.]
+
+A young Iroquois snatched Tonty's hat, placed it on the end of his gun,
+and displayed it to the Illinois, who, thereupon thinking he was
+killed, renewed the fight; and the firing in front clattered more
+angrily than before. A warrior ran in, crying out that the Iroquois were
+giving ground, and that there were Frenchmen among the Illinois, who
+fired at them. On this, the clamor around Tonty was redoubled. Some
+wished to kill him at once; others resisted. "I was never," he writes,
+"in such perplexity; for at that moment there was an Iroquois behind me,
+with a knife in his hand, lifting my hair as if he were going to scalp
+me. I thought it was all over with me, and that my best hope was that
+they would knock me in the head instead of burning me, as I believed
+they would do." In fact, a Seneca chief demanded that he should be
+burned; while an Onondaga chief, a friend of La Salle, was for setting
+him free. The dispute grew fierce and hot. Tonty told them that the
+Illinois were twelve hundred strong, and that sixty Frenchmen were at
+the village, ready to back them. This invention, though not fully
+believed, had no little effect. The friendly Onondaga carried his point;
+and the Iroquois, having failed to surprise their enemies, as they had
+hoped, now saw an opportunity to delude them by a truce. They sent back
+Tonty with a belt of peace: he held it aloft in sight of the Illinois;
+chiefs and old warriors ran to stop the fight; the yells and the firing
+ceased; and Tonty, like one waked from a hideous nightmare, dizzy,
+almost fainting with loss of blood, staggered across the intervening
+prairie, to rejoin his friends. He was met by the two friars, Ribourde
+and Membré, who in their secluded hut, a league from the village, had
+but lately heard of what was passing, and who now, with benedictions and
+thanksgiving, ran to embrace him as a man escaped from the jaws of
+death.
+
+The Illinois now withdrew, re-embarking in their canoes, and crossing
+again to their lodges; but scarcely had they reached them, when their
+enemies appeared at the edge of the forest on the opposite bank. Many
+found means to cross, and, under the pretext of seeking for provisions,
+began to hover in bands about the skirts of the town, constantly
+increasing in numbers. Had the Illinois dared to remain, a massacre
+would doubtless have ensued; but they knew their foe too well, set fire
+to their lodges, embarked in haste, and paddled down the stream to
+rejoin their women and children at the sanctuary among the morasses. The
+whole body of the Iroquois now crossed the river, took possession of the
+abandoned town, building for themselves a rude redoubt or fort of the
+trunks of trees and of the posts and poles forming the framework of the
+lodges which escaped the fire. Here they ensconced themselves, and
+finished the work of havoc at their leisure.
+
+Tonty and his companions still occupied their hut; but the Iroquois,
+becoming suspicious of them, forced them to remove to the fort, crowded
+as it was with the savage crew. On the second day, there was an alarm.
+The Illinois appeared in numbers on the low hills, half a mile behind
+the town; and the Iroquois, who had felt their courage, and who had
+been told by Tonty that they were twice as numerous as themselves,
+showed symptoms of no little uneasiness. They proposed that he should
+act as mediator, to which he gladly assented, and crossed the meadow
+towards the Illinois, accompanied by Membré, and by an Iroquois who was
+sent as a hostage. The Illinois hailed the overtures with delight, gave
+the ambassadors some refreshment, which they sorely needed, and sent
+back with them a young man of their nation as a hostage on their part.
+This indiscreet youth nearly proved the ruin of the negotiation; for he
+was no sooner among the Iroquois than he showed such an eagerness to
+close the treaty, made such promises, professed such gratitude, and
+betrayed so rashly the numerical weakness of the Illinois, that he
+revived all the insolence of the invaders. They turned furiously upon
+Tonty, and charged him with having robbed them of the glory and the
+spoils of victory. "Where are all your Illinois warriors, and where are
+the sixty Frenchmen that you said were among them?" It needed all
+Tonty's tact and coolness to extricate himself from this new danger.
+
+[Sidenote: IROQUOIS TREACHERY.]
+
+The treaty was at length concluded; but scarcely was it made, when the
+Iroquois prepared to break it, and set about constructing canoes of
+elm-bark, in which to attack the Illinois women and children in their
+island sanctuary. Tonty warned his allies that the pretended peace was
+but a snare for their destruction. The Iroquois, on their part, grew
+hourly more jealous of him, and would certainly have killed him, had it
+not been their policy to keep the peace with Frontenac and the French.
+
+Several days after, they summoned him and Membré to a council. Six packs
+of beaver-skins were brought in; and the savage orator presented them to
+Tonty in turn, explaining their meaning as he did so. The first two were
+to declare that the children of Count Frontenac--that is, the
+Illinois--should not be eaten; the next was a plaster to heal Tonty's
+wound; the next was oil wherewith to anoint him and Membré, that they
+might not be fatigued in travelling; the next proclaimed that the sun
+was bright; and the sixth and last required them to decamp and go
+home.[191] Tonty thanked them for their gifts, but demanded when they
+themselves meant to go and leave the Illinois in peace. At this, the
+conclave grew angry; and, despite their late pledge, some of them said
+that before they went they would eat Illinois flesh. Tonty instantly
+kicked away the packs of beaver-skins, the Indian symbol of the scornful
+rejection of a proposal, telling them that since they meant to eat the
+governor's children he would have none of their presents. The chiefs,
+in a rage, rose and drove him from the lodge. The French withdrew to
+their hut, where they stood all night on the watch, expecting an attack,
+and resolved to sell their lives dearly. At daybreak, the chiefs ordered
+them to begone.
+
+[Sidenote: MURDER OF RIBOURDE.]
+
+Tonty, with admirable fidelity and courage, had done all in the power of
+man to protect the allies of Canada against their ferocious assailants;
+and he thought it unwise to persist further in a course which could lead
+to no good, and which would probably end in the destruction of the whole
+party. He embarked in a leaky canoe with Membré, Ribourde, Boisrondet,
+and the remaining two men, and began to ascend the river. After paddling
+about five leagues, they landed to dry their baggage and repair their
+crazy vessel; when Father Ribourde, breviary in hand, strolled across
+the sunny meadows for an hour of meditation among the neighboring
+groves. Evening approached, and he did not return. Tonty, with one of
+the men, went to look for him, and, following his tracks, presently
+discovered those of a band of Indians, who had apparently seized or
+murdered him. Still, they did not despair. They fired their guns to
+guide him, should he still be alive; built a huge fire by the bank, and
+then, crossing the river, lay watching it from the other side. At
+midnight, they saw the figure of a man hovering around the blaze; then
+many more appeared, but Ribourde was not among them. In truth, a band of
+Kickapoos, enemies of the Iroquois, about whose camp they had been
+prowling in quest of scalps, had met and wantonly murdered the
+inoffensive old man. They carried his scalp to their village, and danced
+round it in triumph, pretending to have taken it from an enemy. Thus, in
+his sixty-fifth year, the only heir of a wealthy Burgundian house
+perished under the war-clubs of the savages for whose salvation he had
+renounced station, ease, and affluence.[192]
+
+[Sidenote: ATTACK OF THE IROQUOIS.]
+
+Meanwhile, a hideous scene was enacted at the ruined village of the
+Illinois. Their savage foes, balked of a living prey, wreaked their fury
+on the dead. They dug up the graves; they threw down the scaffolds. Some
+of the bodies they burned; some they threw to the dogs; some, it is
+affirmed, they ate.[193] Placing the skulls on stakes as trophies, they
+turned to pursue the Illinois, who, when the French withdrew, had
+abandoned their asylum and retreated down the river. The Iroquois,
+still, it seems, in awe of them, followed them along the opposite bank,
+each night encamping face to face with them; and thus the adverse bands
+moved slowly southward, till they were near the mouth of the river.
+Hitherto, the compact array of the Illinois had held their enemies in
+check; but now, suffering from hunger, and lulled into security by the
+assurances of the Iroquois that their object was not to destroy them,
+but only to drive them from the country, they rashly separated into
+their several tribes. Some descended the Mississippi; some, more
+prudent, crossed to the western side. One of their principal tribes, the
+Tamaroas, more credulous than the rest, had the fatuity to remain near
+the mouth of the Illinois, where they were speedily assailed by all the
+force of the Iroquois. The men fled, and very few of them were killed;
+but the women and children were captured to the number, it is said, of
+seven hundred.[194] Then followed that scene of torture of which, some
+two weeks later, La Salle saw the revolting traces.[195] Sated, at
+length, with horrors, the conquerors withdrew, leading with them a host
+of captives, and exulting in their triumphs over women, children, and
+the dead.
+
+After the death of Father Ribourde, Tonty and his companions remained
+searching for him till noon of the next day, and then in despair of
+again seeing him, resumed their journey. They ascended the river,
+leaving no token of their passage at the junction of its northern and
+southern branches. For food, they gathered acorns and dug roots in the
+meadows. Their canoe proved utterly worthless; and, feeble as they were,
+they set out on foot for Lake Michigan. Boisrondet wandered off, and was
+lost. He had dropped the flint of his gun, and he had no bullets; but he
+cut a pewter porringer into slugs, with which he shot wild turkeys by
+discharging his piece with a fire-brand, and after several days he had
+the good fortune to rejoin the party. Their object was to reach the
+Pottawattamies of Green Bay. Had they aimed at Michilimackinac, they
+would have found an asylum with La Forest at the fort on the St. Joseph;
+but unhappily they passed westward of that post, and, by way of Chicago,
+followed the borders of Lake Michigan northward. The cold was intense;
+and it was no easy task to grub up wild onions from the frozen ground to
+save themselves from starving. Tonty fell ill of a fever and a swelling
+of the limbs, which disabled him from travelling, and hence ensued a
+long delay. At length they neared Green Bay, where they would have
+starved, had they not gleaned a few ears of corn and frozen squashes in
+the fields of an empty Indian town.
+
+[Sidenote: FRIENDS IN NEED.]
+
+This enabled them to reach the bay, and having patched an old canoe
+which they had the good luck to find, they embarked in it; whereupon,
+says Tonty, "there rose a northwest wind, which lasted five days, with
+driving snow. We consumed all our food; and not knowing what to do next,
+we resolved to go back to the deserted town, and die by a warm fire in
+one of the wigwams. On our way, we saw a smoke; but our joy was short,
+for when we reached the fire we found nobody there. We spent the night
+by it; and before morning the bay froze. We tried to break a way for our
+canoe through the ice, but could not; and therefore we determined to
+stay there another night, and make moccasins in order to reach the town.
+We made some out of Father Gabriel's cloak. I was angry with Étienne
+Renault for not finishing his; but he excused himself on account of
+illness, because he had a great oppression of the stomach, caused by
+eating a piece of an Indian shield of raw-hide, which he could not
+digest. His delay proved our salvation; for the next day, December
+fourth, as I was urging him to finish the moccasins, and he was still
+excusing himself on the score of his malady, a party of Kiskakon
+Ottawas, who were on their way to the Pottawattamies, saw the smoke of
+our fire, and came to us. We gave them such a welcome as was never seen
+before. They took us into their canoes, and carried us to an Indian
+village, only two leagues off. There we found five Frenchmen, who
+received us kindly, and all the Indians seemed to take pleasure in
+sending us food; so that, after thirty-four days of starvation, we found
+our famine turned to abundance."
+
+This hospitable village belonged to the Pottawattamies, and was under
+the sway of the chief who had befriended La Salle the year before, and
+who was wont to say that he knew but three great captains in the
+world,--Frontenac, La Salle, and himself.[196]
+
+THE ILLINOIS TOWN.
+
+The Site of the Great Illinois Town.--This has not till now been
+determined, though there have been various conjectures concerning it.
+From a study of the contemporary documents and maps, I became satisfied,
+first, that the branch of the river Illinois, called the "Big
+Vermilion," was the _Aramoni_ of the French explorers; and, secondly,
+that the cliff called "Starved Rock" was that known to the French as _Le
+Rocher_, or the Rock of St. Louis. If I was right in this conclusion,
+then the position of the Great Village was established; for there is
+abundant proof that it was on the north side of the river, above the
+Aramoni, and below Le Rocher. I accordingly went to the village of
+Utica, which, as I judged by the map, was very near the point in
+question, and mounted to the top of one of the hills immediately behind
+it, whence I could see the valley of the Illinois for miles, bounded on
+the farther side by a range of hills, in some parts rocky and
+precipitous, and in others covered with forests. Far on the right was a
+gap in these hills, through which the Big Vermilion flowed to join the
+Illinois; and somewhat towards the left, at the distance of a mile and a
+half, was a huge cliff, rising perpendicularly from the opposite margin
+of the river. This I assumed to be _Le Rocher_ of the French, though
+from where I stood I was unable to discern the distinctive features
+which I was prepared to find in it. In every other respect, the scene
+before me was precisely what I had expected to see. There was a meadow
+on the hither side of the river, on which stood a farmhouse; and this,
+as it seemed to me, by its relations with surrounding objects, might be
+supposed to stand in the midst of the space once occupied by the
+Illinois town.
+
+On the way down from the hill I met Mr. James Clark, the principal
+inhabitant of Utica, and one of the earliest settlers of this region. I
+accosted him, told him my objects, and requested a half hour's
+conversation with him, at his leisure. He seemed interested in the
+inquiry, and said he would visit me early in the evening at the inn,
+where, accordingly, he soon appeared. The conversation took place in the
+porch, where a number of farmers and others were gathered. I asked Mr.
+Clark if any Indian remains were found in the neighborhood. "Yes," he
+replied, "plenty of them." I then inquired if there was any one spot
+where they were more numerous than elsewhere. "Yes," he answered again,
+pointing towards the farmhouse on the meadow; "on my farm down yonder by
+the river, my tenant ploughs up teeth and bones by the peck every
+spring, besides arrow-heads, beads, stone hatchets, and other things of
+that sort." I replied that this was precisely what I had expected, as I
+had been led to believe that the principal town of the Illinois Indians
+once covered that very spot. "If," I added, "I am right in this belief,
+the great rock beyond the river is the one which the first explorers
+occupied as a fort; and I can describe it to you from their accounts of
+it, though I have never seen it, except from the top of the hill where
+the trees on and around it prevented me from seeing any part but the
+front." The men present now gathered around to listen. "The rock," I
+continued, "is nearly a hundred and fifty feet high, and rises directly
+from the water. The front and two sides are perpendicular and
+inaccessible; but there is one place where it is possible for a man to
+climb up, though with difficulty. The top is large enough and level
+enough for houses and fortifications." Here several of the men
+exclaimed: "That's just it." "You've hit it exactly." I then asked if
+there was any other rock on that side of the river which could answer to
+the description. They all agreed that there was no such rock on either
+side, along the whole length of the river. I then said: "If the Indian
+town was in the place where I suppose it to have been, I can tell you
+the nature of the country which lies behind the hills on the farther
+side of the river, though I know nothing about it except what I have
+learned from writings nearly two centuries old. From the top of the
+hills, you look out upon a great prairie reaching as far as you can see,
+except that it is crossed by a belt of woods, following the course of a
+stream which enters the main river a few miles below." (See _ante_, p.
+221, _note_.) "You are exactly right again," replied Mr. Clark; "we call
+that belt of timber the 'Vermilion Woods,' and the stream is the Big
+Vermilion." "Then," I said, "the Big Vermilion is the river which the
+French called the Aramoni; 'Starved Rock' is the same on which they
+built a fort called St. Louis, in the year 1682; and your farm is on the
+site of the great town of the Illinois."
+
+I spent the next day in examining these localities, and was fully
+confirmed in my conclusions. Mr. Clark's tenant showed me the spot where
+the human bones were ploughed up. It was no doubt the graveyard violated
+by the Iroquois. The Illinois returned to the village after their
+defeat, and long continued to occupy it. The scattered bones were
+probably collected and restored to their place of burial.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[179] For the particulars of this desertion, Membré in Le Clerc, ii.
+171, _Relation des Découvertes_; Tonty, _Mémoire_, 1684, 1693;
+_Déclaration faite par devant le Sr. Duchesneau, Intendant en Canada,
+par Moyse Hillaret, charpentier de barque cy-devant au service du Sr.
+de la Salle, Aoust, 1680_.
+
+Moyse Hillaret, the "Maître Moyse" of Hennepin, was a ring-leader of the
+deserters, and seems to have been one of those captured by La Salle near
+Fort Frontenac. Twelve days after, Hillaret was examined by La Salle's
+enemy, the intendant; and this paper is the formal statement made by
+him. It gives the names of most of the men, and furnishes incidental
+confirmation of many statements of Hennepin, Tonty, Membré, and the
+_Relation des Découvertes_. Hillaret, Leblanc, and Le Meilleur, the
+blacksmith nicknamed La Forge, went off together, and the rest seem to
+have followed afterwards. Hillaret does not admit that any goods were
+wantonly destroyed.
+
+There is before me a schedule of the debts of La Salle, made after his
+death. It includes a claim of this man for wages to the amount of 2,500
+livres.
+
+[180] Two of the messengers, Laurent and Messier, arrived safely. The
+others seem to have deserted.
+
+[181] The Jesuits in North America.
+
+[182] Duchesneau, in _Paris Docs._, ix. 163.
+
+[183] There had long been a rankling jealousy between the Miamis and the
+Illinois. According to Membré, La Salle's enemies had intrigued
+successfully among the former, as well as among the Iroquois, to induce
+them to take arms against the Illinois.
+
+[184] The above is from notes made on the spot. The following is La
+Salle's description of the locality in the _Relation des Découvertes_,
+written in 1681: "La rive gauche de la rivière, du coté du sud, est
+occupée par un long rocher, fort étroit et escarpé presque partout, à la
+réserve d'un endroit de plus d'une lieue de longueur, situé vis-à-vis du
+village, ou le terrain, tout couvert de beaux chênes, s'étend par une
+pente douce jusqu'au bord de la rivière. Au delà de cette hauteur est
+une vaste plaine, qui s'étend bien loin du coté du sud, et qui est
+traversée par la rivière Aramoni, dont les bords sont couverts d'une
+lisière de bois peu large."
+
+The Aramoni is laid down on the great manuscript map of Franquelin,
+1684, and on the map of Coronelli, 1688. It is, without doubt, the Big
+Vermilion. _Aramoni_ is the Illinois word for "red," or "vermilion."
+Starved Rock, or the Rock of St. Louis, is the highest and steepest
+escarpment of the _long rocher_ above mentioned.
+
+[185] The Illinois were an aggregation of distinct though kindred
+tribes,--the Kaskaskias, the Peorias, the Kahokias, the Tamaroas, the
+Moingona, and others. Their general character and habits were those of
+other Indian tribes; but they were reputed somewhat cowardly and
+slothful. In their manners, they were more licentious than many of their
+neighbors, and addicted to practices which are sometimes supposed to be
+the result of a perverted civilization. Young men enacting the part of
+women were frequently to be seen among them. These were held in great
+contempt. Some of the early travellers, both among the Illinois and
+among other tribes, where the same practice prevailed, mistook them for
+hermaphrodites. According to Charlevoix (_Journal Historique_, 303),
+this abuse was due in part to a superstition. The Miamis and Piankishaws
+were in close affinities of language and habits with the Illinois. All
+these tribes belonged to the great Algonquin family. The first
+impressions which the French received of them, as recorded in the
+_Relation_ of 1671, were singularly favorable; but a closer acquaintance
+did not confirm them. The Illinois traded with the lake tribes, to whom
+they carried slaves taken in war, receiving in exchange guns, hatchets,
+and other French goods. Marquette in _Relation_, 1670, 91.
+
+[186] This is Membré's date. The narratives differ as to the day, though
+all agree as to the month.
+
+[187] The _Relation des Découvertes_ says, five hundred Iroquois and one
+hundred Shawanoes. Membré says that the allies were Miamis. He is no
+doubt right, as the Miamis had promised their aid, and the Shawanoes
+were at peace with the Illinois. Tonty is silent on the point.
+
+[188] Membré says that he went with Tonty: "J'étois aussi à côté du
+Sieur de Tonty." This is an invention of the friar's vanity. "Les deux
+pères Récollets étoient alors dans une cabane à une lieue du village, où
+ils s'étoient retirés pour faire une espèce de retraite, et ils ne
+furent avertis de l'arrivée des Iroquois que dans le temps du
+combat."--_Relation des Découvertes_. "Je rencontrai en chemin les pères
+Gabriel et Zenobe Membré, qui cherchoient de mes nouvelles."--Tonty,
+_Mémoire_, 1693. This was on his return from the Iroquois. The
+_Relation_ confirms the statement, as far as concerns Membré: "II
+rencontra le Père Zenobe [_Membré_], qui venoit pour le secourir, aiant
+été averti du combat et de sa blessure."
+
+The perverted _Dernières Découvertes_, published without authority,
+under Tonty's name, says that he was attended by a slave, whom the
+Illinois sent with him as interpreter. In his narrative of 1684, Tonty
+speaks of a Sokokis (Saco) Indian who was with the Iroquois and who
+spoke French enough to serve as interpreter.
+
+[189] Being once in an encampment of Sioux when a quarrel broke out, and
+the adverse factions raised the war-whoop and began to fire at each
+other, I had a good, though for the moment a rather dangerous,
+opportunity of seeing the demeanor of Indians at the beginning of a
+fight. The fray was quelled before much mischief was done, by the
+vigorous intervention of the elder warriors, who ran between the
+combatants.
+
+[190] "Je leur fis connoistre que les Islinois étoient sous la
+protection du roy de France et du gouverneur du pays, que j'estois
+surpris qu'ils voulussent rompre avec les François et qu'ils voulussent
+_attendre_ [_sic_] à une paix."--Tonty, _Mémoire_, 1693.
+
+[191] An Indian speech, it will be remembered, is without validity if
+not confirmed by presents, each of which has its special interpretation.
+The meaning of the fifth pack of beaver, informing Tonty that the sun
+was bright,--"que le soleil étoit beau," that is, that the weather was
+favorable for travelling,--is curiously misconceived by the editor of
+the _Dernières Découvertes_, who improves upon his original by
+substituting the words "par le cinquième paquet _ils nous exhortoient à
+adorer le Soleil_."
+
+[192] Tonty, _Mémoire_; Membré in Le Clerc, ii. 191. Hennepin, who hated
+Tonty, unjustly charges him with having abandoned the search too soon,
+admitting, however, that it would have been useless to continue it. This
+part of his narrative is a perversion of Membré's account.
+
+[193] "Cependant les Iroquois, aussitôt après le départ du Sr. de
+Tonty, exercèrent leur rage sur les corps morts des Ilinois, qu'ils
+déterrèrent ou abbattèrent de dessus les échafauds où les Ilinois les
+laissent longtemps exposés avant que de les mettre en terre. Ils en
+brûlèrent la plus grande partie, ils en mangèrent même quelques uns, et
+jettèrent le reste aux chiens. Ils plantèrent les têtes de ces cadavres
+à demi décharnés sur des pieux," etc.--_Relation des Découvertes_.
+
+[194] _Relation des Découvertes_; Frontenac to the King, _N. Y. Col.
+Docs._, ix. 147. A memoir of Duchesneau makes the number twelve hundred.
+
+[195] "Ils [_les Illinois_] trouvèrent dans leur campement des carcasses
+de leurs enfans que ces anthropophages avoient mangez, ne voulant même
+d'autre nourriture que la chair de ces infortunez."--_La Potherie_, ii.
+145, 146. Compare _note, ante_, p. 211.
+
+[196] Membré in Le Clerc, ii. 199. The other authorities for the
+foregoing chapter are the letters of La Salle, the _Relation des
+Découvertes_, in which portions of them are embodied, and the two
+narratives of Tonty, of 1684 and 1693. They all agree in essential
+points.
+
+In his letters of this period, La Salle dwells at great length on the
+devices by which, as he believed, his enemies tried to ruin him and his
+enterprise. He is particularly severe against the Jesuit Allouez, whom
+he charges with intriguing "pour commencer la guerre entre les Iroquois
+et les Illinois par le moyen des Miamis qu'on engageoit dans cette
+négociation afin ou de me faire massacrer avec mes gens par quelqu'une
+de ces nations ou de me brouiller avec les Iroquois."--_Lettre (à
+Thouret?), 22 Août, 1682_. He gives in detail the circumstances on which
+this suspicion rests, but which are not convincing. He says, further,
+that the Jesuits gave out that Tonty was dead in order to discourage the
+men going to his relief, and that Allouez encouraged the deserters,
+"leur servoit de conseil, bénit mesme leurs balles, et les asseura
+plusieurs fois que M. de Tonty auroit la teste cassée." He also affirms
+that great pains were taken to spread the report that he was himself
+dead. A Kiskakon Indian, he says, was sent to Tonty with a story to this
+effect; while a Huron named Scortas was sent to him (La Salle) with
+false news of the death of Tonty. The latter confirms this statement,
+and adds that the Illinois had been told "que M. de la Salle estoit venu
+en leur pays pour les donner à manger aux Iroquois."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII.
+
+1680.
+
+THE ADVENTURES OF HENNEPIN.
+
+ Hennepin an Impostor: his Pretended Discovery; his Actual
+ Discovery; Captured by the Sioux.--The Upper Mississippi.
+
+
+It was on the last day of the winter that preceded the invasion of the
+Iroquois that Father Hennepin, with his two companions, Accau and Du
+Gay, had set out from Fort Crèvecoeur to explore the Illinois to its
+mouth. It appears from his own later statements, as well as from those
+of Tonty, that more than this was expected of him, and that La Salle had
+instructed him to explore, not alone the Illinois, but also the Upper
+Mississippi. That he actually did so, there is no reasonable doubt; and
+could he have contented himself with telling the truth, his name would
+have stood high as a bold and vigorous discoverer. But his vicious
+attempts to malign his commander and plunder him of his laurels have
+wrapped his genuine merit in a cloud.
+
+Hennepin's first book was published soon after his return from his
+travels, and while La Salle was still alive. In it he relates the
+accomplishment of the instructions given him, without the smallest
+intimation that he did more.[197] Fourteen years after, when La Salle
+was dead, he published another edition of his travels,[198] in which he
+advanced a new and surprising pretension. Reasons connected with his
+personal safety, he declares, before compelled him to remain silent; but
+a time at length had come when the truth must be revealed. And he
+proceeds to affirm, that, before ascending the Mississippi, he, with his
+two men, explored its whole course from the Illinois to the sea,--thus
+anticipating the discovery which forms the crowning laurel of La Salle.
+
+[Sidenote: HENNEPIN'S RESOLUTION.]
+
+"I am resolved," he says, "to make known here to the whole world the
+mystery of this discovery, which I have hitherto concealed, that I might
+not offend the Sieur de la Salle, who wished to keep all the glory and
+all the knowledge of it to himself. It is for this that he sacrificed
+many persons whose lives he exposed, to prevent them from making known
+what they had seen, and thereby crossing his secret plans.... I was
+certain that if I went down the Mississippi, he would not fail to
+traduce me to my superiors for not taking the northern route, which I
+was to have followed in accordance with his desire and the plan we had
+made together. But I saw myself on the point of dying of hunger, and
+knew not what to do; because the two men who were with me threatened
+openly to leave me in the night, and carry off the canoe and everything
+in it, if I prevented them from going down the river to the nations
+below. Finding myself in this dilemma, I thought that I ought not to
+hesitate, and that I ought to prefer my own safety to the violent
+passion which possessed the Sieur de la Salle of enjoying alone the
+glory of this discovery. The two men, seeing that I had made up my mind
+to follow them, promised me entire fidelity; so, after we had shaken
+hands together as a mutual pledge, we set out on our voyage."[199]
+
+He then proceeds to recount at length the particulars of his alleged
+exploration. The story was distrusted from the first.[200] Why had he
+not told it before? An excess of modesty, a lack of self-assertion, or a
+too sensitive reluctance to wound the susceptibilities of others, had
+never been found among his foibles. Yet some, perhaps, might have
+believed him, had he not in the first edition of his book gratuitously
+and distinctly declared that he did not make the voyage in question. "We
+had some designs," he says, "of going down the river Colbert
+[Mississippi] as far as its mouth; but the tribes that took us prisoners
+gave us no time to navigate this river both up and down."[201]
+
+[Sidenote: HENNEPIN AN IMPOSTOR.]
+
+In declaring to the world the achievement which he had so long concealed
+and so explicitly denied, the worthy missionary found himself in serious
+embarrassment. In his first book, he had stated that on the twelfth of
+March he left the mouth of the Illinois on his way northward, and that
+on the eleventh of April he was captured by the Sioux near the mouth of
+the Wisconsin, five hundred miles above. This would give him only a
+month to make his alleged canoe-voyage from the Illinois to the Gulf of
+Mexico, and again upward to the place of his capture,--a distance of
+three thousand two hundred and sixty miles. With his means of
+transportation, three months would have been insufficient.[202] He saw
+the difficulty; but, on the other hand, he saw that he could not greatly
+change either date without confusing the parts of his narrative which
+preceded and which followed. In this perplexity he chose a middle
+course, which only involved him in additional contradictions. Having, as
+he affirms, gone down to the Gulf and returned to the mouth of the
+Illinois, he set out thence to explore the river above; and he assigns
+the twenty-fourth of April as the date of this departure. This gives him
+forty-three days for his voyage to the mouth of the river and back.
+Looking further, we find that having left the Illinois on the
+twenty-fourth he paddled his canoe two hundred leagues northward, and
+was then captured by the Sioux on the twelfth of the same month. In
+short, he ensnares himself in a hopeless confusion of dates.[203]
+
+Here, one would think, is sufficient reason for rejecting his story; and
+yet the general truth of the descriptions, and a certain verisimilitude
+which marks it, might easily deceive a careless reader and perplex a
+critical one. These, however, are easily explained. Six years before
+Hennepin published his pretended discovery, his brother friar, Father
+Chrétien Le Clerc, published an account of the Récollet missions among
+the Indians, under the title of "Établissement de la Foi." This book,
+offensive to the Jesuits, is said to have been suppressed by order of
+government; but a few copies fortunately survive.[204] One of these is
+now before me. It contains the journal of Father Zenobe Membré, on his
+descent of the Mississippi in 1681, in company with La Salle. The
+slightest comparison of his narrative with that of Hennepin is
+sufficient to show that the latter framed his own story out of incidents
+and descriptions furnished by his brother missionary, often using his
+very words, and sometimes copying entire pages, with no other
+alterations than such as were necessary to make himself, instead of La
+Salle and his companions, the hero of the exploit. The records of
+literary piracy may be searched in vain for an act of depredation more
+recklessly impudent.[205]
+
+Such being the case, what faith can we put in the rest of Hennepin's
+story? Fortunately, there are tests by which the earlier parts of his
+book can be tried; and, on the whole, they square exceedingly well with
+contemporary records of undoubted authenticity. Bating his exaggerations
+respecting the Falls of Niagara, his local descriptions, and even his
+estimates of distance, are generally accurate. He constantly, it is
+true, magnifies his own acts, and thrusts himself forward as one of the
+chiefs of an enterprise to the costs of which he had contributed
+nothing, and to which he was merely an appendage; and yet, till he
+reaches the Mississippi, there can be no doubt that in the main he tells
+the truth. As for his ascent of that river to the country of the Sioux,
+the general statement is fully confirmed by La Salle, Tonty, and other
+contemporary writers.[206] For the details of the journey we must rest
+on Hennepin alone, whose account of the country and of the peculiar
+traits of its Indian occupants afford, as far as they go, good evidence
+of truth. Indeed, this part of his narrative could only have been
+written by one well versed in the savage life of this northwestern
+region.[207] Trusting, then, to his own guidance in the absence of
+better, let us follow in the wake of his adventurous canoe.
+
+[Sidenote: HIS VOYAGE NORTHWARD.]
+
+It was laden deeply with goods belonging to La Salle, and meant by him
+as presents to Indians on the way, though the travellers, it appears,
+proposed to use them in trading on their own account. The friar was
+still wrapped in his gray capote and hood, shod with sandals, and
+decorated with the cord of St. Francis. As for his two companions,
+Accau[208] and Du Gay, it is tolerably clear that the former was the
+real leader of the party, though Hennepin, after his custom, thrusts
+himself into the foremost place. Both were somewhat above the station of
+ordinary hired hands; and Du Gay had an uncle who was an ecclesiastic of
+good credit at Amiens, his native place.
+
+In the forests that overhung the river the buds were feebly swelling
+with advancing spring. There was game enough. They killed buffalo, deer,
+beavers, wild turkeys, and now and then a bear swimming in the river.
+With these, and the fish which they caught in abundance, they fared
+sumptuously, though it was the season of Lent. They were exemplary,
+however, at their devotions. Hennepin said prayers at morning and night,
+and the _angelus_ at noon, adding a petition to Saint Anthony of Padua
+that he would save them from the peril that beset their way. In truth,
+there was a lion in the path. The ferocious character of the Sioux, or
+Dacotah, who occupied the region of the Upper Mississippi, was already
+known to the French; and Hennepin, with excellent reason, prayed that it
+might be his fortune to meet them, not by night, but by day.
+
+[Sidenote: CAPTURED BY THE SIOUX.]
+
+On the eleventh or twelfth of April, they stopped in the afternoon to
+repair their canoe; and Hennepin busied himself in daubing it with
+pitch, while the others cooked a turkey. Suddenly, a fleet of Sioux
+canoes swept into sight, bearing a war-party of a hundred and twenty
+naked savages, who on seeing the travellers raised a hideous clamor;
+and, some leaping ashore and others into the water, they surrounded the
+astonished Frenchmen in an instant.[209] Hennepin held out the
+peace-pipe; but one of them snatched it from him. Next, he hastened to
+proffer a gift of Martinique tobacco, which was better received. Some of
+the old warriors repeated the name _Miamiha_, giving him to understand
+that they were a war-party, on the way to attack the Miamis; on which,
+Hennepin, with the help of signs and of marks which he drew on the sand
+with a stick, explained that the Miamis had gone across the Mississippi,
+beyond their reach. Hereupon, he says that three or four old men placed
+their hands on his head, and began a dismal wailing; while he with his
+handkerchief wiped away their tears, in order to evince sympathy with
+their affliction, from whatever cause arising. Notwithstanding this
+demonstration of tenderness, they refused to smoke with him in his
+peace-pipe, and forced him and his companions to embark and paddle
+across the river; while they all followed behind, uttering yells and
+howlings which froze the missionary's blood.
+
+On reaching the farther side, they made their camp-fires, and allowed
+their prisoners to do the same. Accau and Du Gay slung their kettle;
+while Hennepin, to propitiate the Sioux, carried to them two turkeys,
+of which there were several in the canoe. The warriors had seated
+themselves in a ring, to debate on the fate of the Frenchmen; and two
+chiefs presently explained to the friar, by significant signs, that it
+had been resolved that his head should be split with a war-club. This
+produced the effect which was no doubt intended. Hennepin ran to the
+canoe, and quickly returned with one of the men, both loaded with
+presents, which he threw into the midst of the assembly; and then,
+bowing his head, offered them at the same time a hatchet with which to
+kill him, if they wished to do so. His gifts and his submission seemed
+to appease them. They gave him and his companions a dish of beaver's
+flesh; but, to his great concern, they returned his peace-pipe,--an act
+which he interpreted as a sign of danger. That night the Frenchmen slept
+little, expecting to be murdered before morning. There was, in fact, a
+great division of opinion among the Sioux. Some were for killing them
+and taking their goods; while others, eager above all things that French
+traders should come among them with the knives, hatchets, and guns of
+which they had heard the value, contended that it would be impolitic to
+discourage the trade by putting to death its pioneers.
+
+Scarcely had morning dawned on the anxious captives, when a young chief,
+naked, and painted from head to foot, appeared before them and asked for
+the pipe, which the friar gladly gave him. He filled it, smoked it,
+made the warriors do the same, and, having given this hopeful pledge of
+amity, told the Frenchmen that, since the Miamis were out of reach, the
+war-party would return home, and that they must accompany them. To this
+Hennepin gladly agreed, having, as he declares, his great work of
+exploration so much at heart that he rejoiced in the prospect of
+achieving it even in their company.
+
+[Sidenote: SUSPECTED OF SORCERY.]
+
+He soon, however, had a foretaste of the affliction in store for him;
+for when he opened his breviary and began to mutter his morning
+devotion, his new companions gathered about him with faces that betrayed
+their superstitious terror, and gave him to understand that his book was
+a bad spirit with which he must hold no more converse. They thought,
+indeed, that he was muttering a charm for their destruction. Accau and
+Du Gay, conscious of the danger, begged the friar to dispense with his
+devotions, lest he and they alike should be tomahawked; but Hennepin
+says that his sense of duty rose superior to his fears, and that he was
+resolved to repeat his office at all hazards, though not until he had
+asked pardon of his two friends for thus imperilling their lives.
+Fortunately, he presently discovered a device by which his devotion and
+his prudence were completely reconciled. He ceased the muttering which
+had alarmed the Indians, and, with the breviary open on his knees, sang
+the service in loud and cheerful tones. As this had no savor of sorcery,
+and as they now imagined that the book was teaching its owner to sing
+for their amusement, they conceived a favorable opinion of both alike.
+
+These Sioux, it may be observed, were the ancestors of those who
+committed the horrible but not unprovoked massacres of 1862, in the
+valley of the St. Peter. Hennepin complains bitterly of their treatment
+of him, which, however, seems to have been tolerably good. Afraid that
+he would lag behind, as his canoe was heavy and slow,[210] they placed
+several warriors in it to aid him and his men in paddling. They kept on
+their way from morning till night, building huts for their bivouac when
+it rained, and sleeping on the open ground when the weather was
+fair,--which, says Hennepin, "gave us a good opportunity to contemplate
+the moon and stars." The three Frenchmen took the precaution of sleeping
+at the side of the young chief who had been the first to smoke the
+peace-pipe, and who seemed inclined to befriend them; but there was
+another chief, one Aquipaguetin, a crafty old savage, who having lost a
+son in war with the Miamis, was angry that the party had abandoned their
+expedition, and thus deprived him of his revenge. He therefore kept up a
+dismal lament through half the night; while other old men, crouching
+over Hennepin as he lay trying to sleep, stroked him with their hands,
+and uttered wailings so lugubrious that he was forced to the belief
+that he had been doomed to death, and that they were charitably
+bemoaning his fate.[211]
+
+[Sidenote: THE CAPTIVE FRIAR.]
+
+One night, the captives were, for some reason, unable to bivouac near
+their protector, and were forced to make their fire at the end of the
+camp. Here they were soon beset by a crowd of Indians, who told them
+that Aquipaguetin had at length resolved to tomahawk them. The
+malcontents were gathered in a knot at a little distance, and Hennepin
+hastened to appease them by another gift of knives and tobacco. This was
+but one of the devices of the old chief to deprive them of their goods
+without robbing them outright. He had with him the bones of a deceased
+relative, which he was carrying home wrapped in skins prepared with
+smoke after the Indian fashion, and gayly decorated with bands of dyed
+porcupine quills. He would summon his warriors, and placing these relics
+in the midst of the assembly, call on all present to smoke in their
+honor; after which, Hennepin was required to offer a more substantial
+tribute in the shape of cloth, beads, hatchets, tobacco, and the like,
+to be laid upon the bundle of bones. The gifts thus acquired were then,
+in the name of the deceased, distributed among the persons present.
+
+On one occasion, Aquipaguetin killed a bear, and invited the chiefs and
+warriors to feast upon it. They accordingly assembled on a prairie, west
+of the river, where, after the banquet, they danced a "medicine-dance."
+They were all painted from head to foot, with their hair oiled,
+garnished with red and white feathers, and powdered with the down of
+birds. In this guise they set their arms akimbo, and fell to stamping
+with such fury that the hard prairie was dented with the prints of their
+moccasins; while the chief's son, crying at the top of his throat, gave
+to each in turn the pipe of war. Meanwhile, the chief himself, singing
+in a loud and rueful voice, placed his hands on the heads of the three
+Frenchmen, and from time to time interrupted his music to utter a
+vehement harangue. Hennepin could not understand the words, but his
+heart sank as the conviction grew strong within him that these
+ceremonies tended to his destruction. It seems, however, that, after all
+the chief's efforts, his party was in the minority, the greater part
+being adverse to either killing or robbing the three strangers.
+
+Every morning, at daybreak, an old warrior shouted the signal of
+departure; and the recumbent savages leaped up, manned their birchen
+fleet, and plied their paddles against the current, often without
+waiting to break their fast. Sometimes they stopped for a buffalo-hunt
+on the neighboring prairies; and there was no lack of provisions. They
+passed Lake Pepin, which Hennepin called the Lake of Tears, by reason
+of the howlings and lamentations here uttered over him by Aquipaguetin,
+and nineteen days after his capture landed near the site of St. Paul.
+The father's sorrows now began in earnest. The Indians broke his canoe
+to pieces, having first hidden their own among the alder-bushes. As they
+belonged to different bands and different villages, their mutual
+jealousy now overcame all their prudence; and each proceeded to claim
+his share of the captives and the booty. Happily, they made an amicable
+distribution, or it would have fared ill with the three Frenchmen; and
+each taking his share, not forgetting the priestly vestments of
+Hennepin, the splendor of which they could not sufficiently admire, they
+set out across the country for their villages, which lay towards the
+north in the neighborhood of Lake Buade, now called Mille Lac.
+
+[Sidenote: A HARD JOURNEY.]
+
+Being, says Hennepin, exceedingly tall and active, they walked at a
+prodigious speed, insomuch that no European could long keep pace with
+them. Though the month of May had begun, there were frosts at night; and
+the marshes and ponds were glazed with ice, which cut the missionary's
+legs as he waded through. They swam the larger streams, and Hennepin
+nearly perished with cold as he emerged from the icy current. His two
+companions, who were smaller than he, and who could not swim, were
+carried over on the backs of the Indians. They showed, however, no
+little endurance; and he declares that he should have dropped by the
+way, but for their support. Seeing him disposed to lag, the Indians, to
+spur him on, set fire to the dry grass behind him, and then, taking him
+by the hands, ran forward with him to escape the flames. To add to his
+misery, he was nearly famished, as they gave him only a small piece of
+smoked meat once a day, though it does not appear that they themselves
+fared better. On the fifth day, being by this time in extremity, he saw
+a crowd of squaws and children approaching over the prairie, and
+presently descried the bark lodges of an Indian town. The goal was
+reached. He was among the homes of the Sioux.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[197] _Description de la Louisiane, nouvellement découverte_, Paris,
+1683.
+
+[198] _Nouvelle Découverte d'un très grand Pays situé dans l'Amérique_,
+Utrecht, 1697.
+
+[199] _Nouvelle Découverte_, 248, 250, 251.
+
+[200] See the preface of the Spanish translation by Don Sebastian
+Fernandez de Medrano, 1699, and also the letter of Gravier, dated 1701,
+in Shea's _Early Voyages on the Mississippi_. Barcia, Charlevoix, Kalm,
+and other early writers put a low value on Hennepin's veracity.
+
+[201] _Description de la Louisiane_, 218.
+
+[202] La Salle, in the following year, with a far better equipment, was
+more than three months and a half in making the journey. A Mississippi
+trading-boat of the last generation, with sails and oars, ascending
+against the current, was thought to do remarkably well if it could make
+twenty miles a day. Hennepin, if we believe his own statements, must
+have ascended at an average rate of sixty miles, though his canoe was
+large and heavily laden.
+
+[203] Hennepin here falls into gratuitous inconsistencies. In the
+edition of 1697, in order to gain a little time, he says that he left
+the Illinois on his voyage southward on the eighth of March, 1680; and
+yet in the preceding chapter he repeats the statement of the first
+edition, that he was detained at the Illinois by floating ice till the
+twelfth. Again, he says in the first edition that he was captured by the
+Sioux on the eleventh of April; and in the edition of 1697 he changes
+this date to the twelfth, without gaining any advantage by doing so.
+
+[204] Le Clerc's book had been made the text of an attack on the
+Jesuits. See _Reflexions sur un Livre intitulé Premier Établissement de
+la Foi_. This piece is printed in the _Morale Pratique des Jésuites_.
+
+[205] Hennepin may have copied from the unpublished journal of Membré,
+which the latter had placed in the hands of his Superior; or he may have
+compiled from Le Clerc's book, relying on the suppression of the edition
+to prevent detection. He certainly saw and used it; for he elsewhere
+borrows the exact words of the editor. He is so careless that he steals
+from Membré passages which he might easily have written for himself; as,
+for example, a description of the opossum and another of the
+cougar,--animals with which he was acquainted. Compare the following
+pages of the _Nouvelle Découverte_ with the corresponding pages of Le
+Clerc: Hennepin, 252, Le Clerc, ii. 217; H. 253, Le C. ii. 218; H. 257,
+Le C. ii. 221; H. 259, Le C. ii. 224; H. 262, Le C. ii. 226; H. 265, Le
+C. ii. 229; H. 267, Le C. ii. 233; H. 270, Le C. ii. 235; H. 280, Le C.
+ii. 240; H. 295, Le C. ii. 249; H. 296, Le C. ii. 250; H. 297, Le C. ii.
+253; H. 299, Le C. ii. 254; H. 301, Le C. ii. 257. Some of these
+parallel passages will be found in Sparks's _Life of La Salle_, where
+this remarkable fraud was first fully exposed. In Shea's _Discovery of
+the Mississippi_, there is an excellent critical examination of
+Hennepin's works. His plagiarisms from Le Clerc are not confined to the
+passages cited above; for in his later editions he stole largely from
+other parts of the suppressed _Établissement de la Foi_.
+
+[206] It is certain that persons having the best means of information
+believed at the time in Hennepin's story of his journeys on the Upper
+Mississippi. The compiler of the _Relation des Découvertes_, who was in
+close relations with La Salle and those who acted with him, does not
+intimate a doubt of the truth of the report which Hennepin on his return
+gave to the Provincial Commissary of his Order, and which is in
+substance the same which he published two years later. The _Relation_,
+it is to be observed, was written only a few months after the return of
+Hennepin, and embodies the pith of his narrative of the Upper
+Mississippi, no part of which had then been published.
+
+[207] In this connection, it is well to examine the various Sioux words
+which Hennepin uses incidentally, and which he must have acquired by
+personal intercourse with the tribe, as no Frenchman then understood the
+language. These words, as far as my information reaches, are in every
+instance correct. Thus, he says that the Sioux called his breviary a
+"bad spirit,"--_Ouackanché_. _Wakanshe_, or _Wakanshecha_, would express
+the same meaning in modern English spelling. He says elsewhere that they
+called the guns of his companions _Manzaouackanché_, which he
+translates, "iron possessed with a bad spirit." The western Sioux to
+this day call a gun _Manzawakan_, "metal possessed with a spirit."
+_Chonga (shonka)_, "a dog," _Ouasi (wahsee)_, "a pine-tree," _Chinnen
+(shinnan)_, "a robe," or "garment," and other words, are given
+correctly, with their interpretations. The word _Louis_, affirmed by
+Hennepin to mean "the sun," seems at first sight a wilful inaccuracy, as
+this is not the word used in general by the Sioux. The Yankton band of
+this people, however, call the sun _oouee_, which, it is evident,
+represents the French pronunciation of _Louis_, omitting the initial
+letter. This Hennepin would be apt enough to supply, thereby conferring
+a compliment alike on himself, Louis Hennepin, and on the King, Louis
+XIV., who, to the indignation of his brother monarchs, had chosen the
+sun as his emblem.
+
+Various trivial incidents touched upon by Hennepin, while recounting his
+life among the Sioux, seem to me to afford a strong presumption of an
+actual experience. I speak on this point with the more confidence, as
+the Indians in whose lodges I was once domesticated for several weeks
+belonged to a western band of the same people.
+
+[208] Called Ako by Hennepin. In contemporary documents, it is written
+Accau, Acau, D'Accau, Dacau, Dacan, and D'Accault.
+
+[209] The edition of 1683 says that there were thirty-three canoes; that
+of 1697 raises the number to fifty. The number of Indians is the same in
+both. The later narrative is more in detail than the former.
+
+[210] And yet it had, by his account, made a distance of thirteen
+hundred and eighty miles from the mouth of the Mississippi upward in
+twenty-four days!
+
+[211] This weeping and wailing over Hennepin once seemed to me an
+anomaly in his account of Sioux manners, as I am not aware that such
+practices are to be found among them at present. They are mentioned,
+however, by other early writers. Le Sueur, who was among them in
+1699-1700, was wept over no less than Hennepin. See the abstract of his
+journal in La Harpe.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII.
+
+1680, 1681.
+
+HENNEPIN AMONG THE SIOUX.
+
+ Signs of Danger.--Adoption.--Hennepin and his Indian
+ Relatives.--The Hunting Party.--The Sioux Camp.--Falls of St.
+ Anthony.--A Vagabond Friar: his Adventures on the
+ Mississippi.--Greysolon du Lhut.--Return to Civilization.
+
+
+As Hennepin entered the village, he beheld a sight which caused him to
+invoke Saint Anthony of Padua. In front of the lodges were certain
+stakes, to which were attached bundles of straw, intended, as he
+supposed, for burning him and his friends alive. His concern was
+redoubled when he saw the condition of the Picard Du Gay, whose hair and
+face had been painted with divers colors, and whose head was decorated
+with a tuft of white feathers. In this guise he was entering the
+village, followed by a crowd of Sioux, who compelled him to sing and
+keep time to his own music by rattling a dried gourd containing a number
+of pebbles. The omens, indeed, were exceedingly threatening; for
+treatment like this was usually followed by the speedy immolation of the
+captive. Hennepin ascribes it to the effect of his invocations, that,
+being led into one of the lodges, among a throng of staring squaws and
+children, he and his companions were seated on the ground, and presented
+with large dishes of birch-bark, containing a mess of wild rice boiled
+with dried whortleberries,--a repast which he declares to have been the
+best that had fallen to his lot since the day of his captivity.[212]
+
+[Sidenote: THE SIOUX.]
+
+This soothed his fears; but, as he allayed his famished appetite, he
+listened with anxious interest to the vehement jargon of the chiefs and
+warriors, who were disputing among themselves to whom the three captives
+should respectively belong; for it seems that, as far as related to
+them, the question of distribution had not yet been definitely settled.
+The debate ended in the assigning of Hennepin to his old enemy
+Aquipaguetin, who, however, far from persisting in his evil designs,
+adopted him on the spot as his son. The three companions must now part
+company. Du Gay, not yet quite reassured of his safety, hastened to
+confess himself to Hennepin; but Accau proved refractory, and refused
+the offices of religion, which did not prevent the friar from embracing
+them both, as he says, with an extreme tenderness. Tired as he was, he
+was forced to set out with his self-styled father to his village, which
+was fortunately not far off. An unpleasant walk of a few miles through
+woods and marshes brought them to the borders of a sheet of water,
+apparently Lake Buade, where five of Aquipaguetin's wives received the
+party in three canoes, and ferried them to an island on which the
+village stood.
+
+At the entrance of the chief's lodge, Hennepin was met by a decrepit old
+Indian, withered with age, who offered him the peace-pipe, and placed
+him on a bear-skin which was spread by the fire. Here, to relieve his
+fatigue,--for he was well-nigh spent,--a small boy anointed his limbs
+with the fat of a wild-cat, supposed to be sovereign in these cases by
+reason of the great agility of that animal. His new father gave him a
+bark-platter of fish, covered him with a buffalo-robe, and showed him
+six or seven of his wives, who were thenceforth, he was told, to regard
+him as a son. The chief's household was numerous; and his allies and
+relatives formed a considerable clan, of which the missionary found
+himself an involuntary member. He was scandalized when he saw one of his
+adopted brothers carrying on his back the bones of a deceased friend,
+wrapped in the chasuble of brocade which they had taken with other
+vestments from his box.
+
+[Sidenote: HENNEPIN AS A MISSIONARY.]
+
+Seeing their new relative so enfeebled that he could scarcely stand, the
+Indians made for him one of their sweating baths,[213] where they
+immersed him in steam three times a week,--a process from which he
+thinks he derived great benefit. His strength gradually returned, in
+spite of his meagre fare; for there was a dearth of food, and the squaws
+were less attentive to his wants than to those of their children. They
+respected him, however, as a person endowed with occult powers, and
+stood in no little awe of a pocket compass which he had with him, as
+well as of a small metal pot with feet moulded after the face of a lion.
+This last seemed in their eyes a "medicine" of the most formidable
+nature, and they would not touch it without first wrapping it in a
+beaver-skin. For the rest, Hennepin made himself useful in various ways.
+He shaved the heads of the children, as was the custom of the tribe;
+bled certain asthmatic persons, and dosed others with orvietan, the
+famous panacea of his time, of which he had brought with him a good
+supply. With respect to his missionary functions, he seems to have given
+himself little trouble, unless his attempt to make a Sioux vocabulary is
+to be regarded as preparatory to a future apostleship. "I could gain
+nothing over them," he says, "in the way of their salvation, by reason
+of their natural stupidity." Nevertheless, on one occasion, he baptized
+a sick child, naming it Antoinette in honor of Saint Anthony of Padua.
+It seemed to revive after the rite, but soon relapsed and presently
+died, "which," he writes, "gave me great joy and satisfaction." In this
+he was like the Jesuits, who could find nothing but consolation in the
+death of a newly baptized infant, since it was thus assured of a
+paradise which, had it lived, it would probably have forfeited by
+sharing in the superstitions of its parents.
+
+With respect to Hennepin and his Indian father, there seems to have been
+little love on either side; but Ouasicoudé, the principal chief of the
+Sioux of this region, was the fast friend of the three white men. He was
+angry that they had been robbed, which he had been unable to prevent, as
+the Sioux had no laws, and their chiefs little power; but he spoke his
+mind freely, and told Aquipaguetin and the rest, in full council, that
+they were like a dog who steals a piece of meat from a dish and runs
+away with it. When Hennepin complained of hunger, the Indians had always
+promised him that early in the summer he should go with them on a
+buffalo hunt, and have food in abundance. The time at length came, and
+the inhabitants of all the neighboring villages prepared for departure.
+To each band was assigned its special hunting-ground, and he was
+expected to accompany his Indian father. To this he demurred; for he
+feared lest Aquipaguetin, angry at the words of the great chief, might
+take this opportunity to revenge the insult put upon him. He therefore
+gave out that he expected a party of "Spirits"--that is to say,
+Frenchmen--to meet him at the mouth of the Wisconsin, bringing a supply
+of goods for the Indians; and he declares that La Salle had in fact
+promised to send traders to that place. Be this as it may, the Indians
+believed him; and, true or false, the assertion, as will be seen,
+answered the purpose for which it was made.
+
+[Sidenote: CAMP OF SAVAGES.]
+
+The Indians set out in a body to the number of two hundred and fifty
+warriors, with their women and children. The three Frenchmen, who though
+in different villages had occasionally met during the two months of
+their captivity, were all of the party. They descended Rum River, which
+forms the outlet of Mille Lac, and which is called the St. Francis by
+Hennepin. None of the Indians had offered to give him passage; and,
+fearing lest he should be abandoned, he stood on the bank, hailing the
+passing canoes and begging to be taken in. Accau and Du Gay presently
+appeared, paddling a small canoe which the Indians had given them; but
+they would not listen to the missionary's call, and Accau, who had no
+love for him, cried out that he had paddled him long enough already. Two
+Indians, however, took pity on him, and brought him to the place of
+encampment, where Du Gay tried to excuse himself for his conduct; but
+Accau was sullen, and kept aloof.
+
+After reaching the Mississippi, the whole party encamped together
+opposite to the mouth of Rum River, pitching their tents of skin, or
+building their bark-huts, on the slope of a hill by the side of the
+water. It was a wild scene, this camp of savages among whom as yet no
+traders had come and no handiwork of civilization had found its
+way,--the tall warriors, some nearly naked, some wrapped in
+buffalo-robes, and some in shirts of dressed deer-skin fringed with hair
+and embroidered with dyed porcupine quills, war-clubs of stone in their
+hands, and quivers at their backs filled with stone-headed arrows; the
+squaws, cutting smoke-dried meat with knives of flint, and boiling it in
+rude earthen pots of their own making, driving away, meanwhile, with
+shrill cries, the troops of lean dogs, which disputed the meal with a
+crew of hungry children. The whole camp, indeed, was threatened with
+starvation. The three white men could get no food but unripe
+berries,--from the effects of which Hennepin thinks they might all have
+died, but for timely doses of his orvietan.
+
+[Sidenote: FALLS OF ST. ANTHONY.]
+
+Being tired of the Indians, he became anxious to set out for the
+Wisconsin to find the party of Frenchmen, real or imaginary, who were to
+meet him at that place. That he was permitted to do so was due to the
+influence of the great chief Ouasicoudé, who always befriended him, and
+who had soundly berated his two companions for refusing him a seat in
+their canoe. Du Gay wished to go with him; but Accau, who liked the
+Indian life as much as he disliked Hennepin, preferred to remain with
+the hunters. A small birch-canoe was given to the two adventurers,
+together with an earthen pot; and they had also between them a gun, a
+knife, and a robe of beaver-skin. Thus equipped, they began their
+journey, and soon approached the Falls of St. Anthony, so named by
+Hennepin in honor of the inevitable Saint Anthony of Padua.[214] As they
+were carrying their canoe by the cataract, they saw five or six Indians,
+who had gone before, and one of whom had climbed into an oak-tree beside
+the principal fall, whence in a loud and lamentable voice he was
+haranguing the spirit of the waters, as a sacrifice to whom he had just
+hung a robe of beaver-skin among the branches.[215] Their attention was
+soon engrossed by another object. Looking over the edge of the cliff
+which overhung the river below the falls, Hennepin saw a snake, which,
+as he avers, was six feet long,[216] writhing upward towards the holes
+of the swallows in the face of the precipice, in order to devour their
+young. He pointed him out to Du Gay, and they pelted him with stones
+till he fell into the river, but not before his contortions and the
+darting of his forked tongue had so affected the Picard's imagination
+that he was haunted that night with a terrific incubus.
+
+[Sidenote: ADVENTURES.]
+
+They paddled sixty leagues down the river in the heats of July, and
+killed no large game but a single deer, the meat of which soon spoiled.
+Their main resource was the turtles, whose shyness and watchfulness
+caused them frequent disappointments and many involuntary fasts. They
+once captured one of more than common size; and, as they were
+endeavoring to cut off his head, he was near avenging himself by
+snapping off Hennepin's finger. There was a herd of buffalo in sight on
+the neighboring prairie; and Du Gay went with his gun in pursuit of
+them, leaving the turtle in Hennepin's custody. Scarcely was he gone
+when the friar, raising his eyes, saw that their canoe, which they had
+left at the edge of the water, had floated out into the current. Hastily
+turning the turtle on his back, he covered him with his habit of St.
+Francis, on which, for greater security, he laid a number of stones, and
+then, being a good swimmer, struck out in pursuit of the canoe, which
+he at length overtook. Finding that it would overset if he tried to
+climb into it, he pushed it before him to the shore, and then paddled
+towards the place, at some distance above, where he had left the turtle.
+He had no sooner reached it than he heard a strange sound, and beheld a
+long file of buffalo--bulls, cows, and calves--entering the water not
+far off, to cross to the western bank. Having no gun, as became his
+apostolic vocation, he shouted to Du Gay, who presently appeared,
+running in all haste, and they both paddled in pursuit of the game. Du
+Gay aimed at a young cow, and shot her in the head. She fell in shallow
+water near an island, where some of the herd had landed; and being
+unable to drag her out, they waded into the water and butchered her
+where she lay. It was forty-eight hours since they had tasted food.
+Hennepin made a fire, while Du Gay cut up the meat. They feasted so
+bountifully that they both fell ill, and were forced to remain two days
+on the island, taking doses of orvietan, before they were able to resume
+their journey.
+
+Apparently they were not sufficiently versed in woodcraft to smoke the
+meat of the cow; and the hot sun soon robbed them of it. They had a few
+fishhooks, but were not always successful in the use of them. On one
+occasion, being nearly famished, they set their line, and lay watching
+it, uttering prayers in turn. Suddenly, there was a great turmoil in the
+water. Du Gay ran to the line, and, with the help of Hennepin, drew in
+two large cat-fish.[217] The eagles, or fish-hawks, now and then dropped
+a newly caught fish, of which they gladly took possession; and once they
+found a purveyor in an otter which they saw by the bank, devouring some
+object of an appearance so wonderful that Du Gay cried out that he had a
+devil between his paws. They scared him from his prey, which proved to
+be a spade-fish, or, as Hennepin correctly describes it, a species of
+sturgeon, with a bony projection from his snout in the shape of a
+paddle. They broke their fast upon him, undeterred by this eccentric
+appendage.
+
+[Sidenote: THE UPPER MISSISSIPPI.]
+
+If Hennepin had had an eye for scenery, he would have found in these his
+vagabond rovings wherewith to console himself in some measure for his
+frequent fasts. The young Mississippi, fresh from its northern springs,
+unstained as yet by unhallowed union with the riotous Missouri, flowed
+calmly on its way amid strange and unique beauties,--a wilderness,
+clothed with velvet grass; forest-shadowed valleys; lofty heights, whose
+smooth slopes seemed levelled with the scythe; domes and pinnacles,
+ramparts and ruined towers, the work of no human hand. The canoe of the
+voyagers, borne on the tranquil current, glided in the shade of gray
+crags festooned with honeysuckles; by trees mantled with wild
+grape-vines; dells bright with the flowers of the white euphorbia, the
+blue gentian, and the purple balm; and matted forests, where the red
+squirrels leaped and chattered. They passed the great cliff whence the
+Indian maiden threw herself in her despair;[218] and Lake Pepin lay
+before them, slumbering in the July sun,--the far-reaching sheets of
+sparkling water, the woody slopes, the tower-like crags, the grassy
+heights basking in sunlight or shadowed by the passing cloud; all the
+fair outline of its graceful scenery, the finished and polished
+master-work of Nature. And when at evening they made their bivouac fire
+and drew up their canoe, while dim, sultry clouds veiled the west, and
+the flashes of the silent heat-lightning gleamed on the leaden water,
+they could listen, as they smoked their pipes, to the mournful cry of
+the whippoorwills and the quavering scream of the owls.
+
+Other thoughts than the study of the picturesque occupied the mind of
+Hennepin when one day he saw his Indian father, Aquipaguetin, whom he
+had supposed five hundred miles distant, descending the river with ten
+warriors in canoes. He was eager to be the first to meet the traders,
+who, as Hennepin had given out, were to come with their goods to the
+mouth of the Wisconsin. The two travellers trembled for the
+consequences of this encounter; but the chief, after a short colloquy,
+passed on his way. In three days he returned in ill-humor, having found
+no traders at the appointed spot. The Picard was absent at the time,
+looking for game; and Hennepin was sitting under the shade of his
+blanket, which he had stretched on forked sticks to protect him from the
+sun, when he saw his adopted father approaching with a threatening look,
+and a war-club in his hand. He attempted no violence, however, but
+suffered his wrath to exhale in a severe scolding, after which he
+resumed his course up the river with his warriors.
+
+If Hennepin, as he avers, really expected a party of traders at the
+Wisconsin, the course he now took is sufficiently explicable. If he did
+not expect them, his obvious course was to rejoin Tonty on the Illinois,
+for which he seems to have had no inclination; or to return to Canada by
+way of the Wisconsin,--an attempt which involved the risk of starvation,
+as the two travellers had but ten charges of powder left. Assuming,
+then, his hope of the traders to have been real, he and Du Gay resolved,
+in the mean time, to join a large body of Sioux hunters, who, as
+Aquipaguetin had told them, were on a stream which he calls Bull River,
+now the Chippeway, entering the Mississippi near Lake Pepin. By so
+doing, they would gain a supply of food, and save themselves from the
+danger of encountering parties of roving warriors.
+
+[Sidenote: HE REJOINS THE INDIANS.]
+
+They found this band, among whom was their companion Accau, and followed
+them on a grand hunt along the borders of the Mississippi. Du Gay was
+separated for a time from Hennepin, who was placed in a canoe with a
+withered squaw more than eighty years old. In spite of her age, she
+handled her paddle with great address, and used it vigorously, as
+occasion required, to repress the gambols of three children, who, to
+Hennepin's annoyance, occupied the middle of the canoe. The hunt was
+successful. The Sioux warriors, active as deer, chased the buffalo on
+foot with their stone-headed arrows, on the plains behind the heights
+that bordered the river; while the old men stood sentinels at the top,
+watching for the approach of enemies. One day an alarm was given. The
+warriors rushed towards the supposed point of danger, but found nothing
+more formidable than two squaws of their own nation, who brought strange
+news. A war-party of Sioux, they said, had gone towards Lake Superior,
+and had met by the way five "Spirits;" that is to say, five Europeans.
+Hennepin was full of curiosity to learn who the strangers might be; and
+they, on their part, were said to have shown great anxiety to know the
+nationality of the three white men who, as they were told, were on the
+river. The hunt was over; and the hunters, with Hennepin and his
+companion, were on their way northward to their towns, when they met the
+five "Spirits" at some distance below the Falls of St. Anthony. They
+proved to be Daniel Greysolon du Lhut, with four well-armed Frenchmen.
+
+[Sidenote: DE LHUT'S EXPLORATIONS.]
+
+This bold and enterprising man, stigmatized by the Intendant Duchesneau
+as a leader of _coureurs de bois_, was a cousin of Tonty, born at Lyons.
+He belonged to that caste of the lesser nobles whose name was legion,
+and whose admirable military qualities shone forth so conspicuously in
+the wars of Louis XIV. Though his enterprises were independent of those
+of La Salle, they were at this time carried on in connection with Count
+Frontenac and certain merchants in his interest, of whom Du Lhut's
+uncle, Patron, was one; while Louvigny, his brother-in-law, was in
+alliance with the governor, and was an officer of his guard. Here, then,
+was a kind of family league, countenanced by Frontenac, and acting
+conjointly with him, in order, if the angry letters of the intendant are
+to be believed, to reap a clandestine profit under the shadow of the
+governor's authority, and in violation of the royal ordinances. The
+rudest part of the work fell to the share of Du Lhut, who with a
+persistent hardihood, not surpassed perhaps even by La Salle, was
+continually in the forest, in the Indian towns, or in remote wilderness
+outposts planted by himself, exploring, trading, fighting, ruling
+lawless savages and whites scarcely less ungovernable, and on one or
+more occasions varying his life by crossing the ocean to gain interviews
+with the colonial minister Seignelay, amid the splendid vanities of
+Versailles. Strange to say, this man of hardy enterprise was a martyr
+to the gout, which for more than a quarter of a century grievously
+tormented him; though for a time he thought himself cured by the
+intercession of the Iroquois saint, Catharine Tegahkouita, to whom he
+had made a vow to that end. He was, without doubt, an habitual breaker
+of the royal ordinances regulating the fur-trade; yet his services were
+great to the colony and to the crown, and his name deserves a place of
+honor among the pioneers of American civilization.[219]
+
+When Hennepin met him, he had been about two years in the wilderness. In
+September, 1678, he left Quebec for the purpose of exploring the region
+of the Upper Mississippi, and establishing relations of friendship with
+the Sioux and their kindred the Assiniboins. In the summer of 1679 he
+visited three large towns of the eastern division of the Sioux,
+including those visited by Hennepin in the following year, and planted
+the King's arms in all of them. Early in the autumn he was at the head
+of Lake Superior, holding a council with the Assiniboins and the lake
+tribes, and inducing them to live at peace with the Sioux. In all this,
+he acted in a public capacity, under the authority of the governor; but
+it is not to be supposed that he forgot his own interests or those of
+his associates. The intendant angrily complains that he aided and
+abetted the _coureurs de bois_ in their lawless courses, and sent down
+in their canoes great quantities of beaver-skins consigned to the
+merchants in league with him, under cover of whose names the governor
+reaped his share of the profits.
+
+In June, 1680, while Hennepin was in the Sioux villages, Du Lhut set out
+from the head of Lake Superior, with two canoes, four Frenchmen, and an
+Indian, to continue his explorations.[220] He ascended a river,
+apparently the Burnt Wood, and reached from thence a branch of the
+Mississippi, which seems to have been the St. Croix. It was now that, to
+his surprise, he learned that there were three Europeans on the main
+river below; and fearing that they might be Englishmen or Spaniards
+encroaching on the territories of the King, he eagerly pressed forward
+to solve his doubts. When he saw Hennepin, his mind was set at rest; and
+the travellers met with mutual cordiality. They followed the Indians to
+their villages of Mille Lac, where Hennepin had now no reason to
+complain of their treatment of him. The Sioux gave him and Du Lhut a
+grand feast of honor, at which were seated a hundred and twenty naked
+guests; and the great chief Ouasicoudé, with his own hands, placed
+before Hennepin a bark dish containing a mess of smoked meat and wild
+rice.
+
+Autumn had come, and the travellers bethought them of going home. The
+Sioux, consoled by their promises to return with goods for trade, did
+not oppose their departure; and they set out together, eight white men
+in all. As they passed St. Anthony's Falls, two of the men stole two
+buffalo-robes which were hung on trees as offerings to the spirit of the
+cataract. When Du Lhut heard of it he was very angry, telling the men
+that they had endangered the lives of the whole party. Hennepin admitted
+that in the view of human prudence he was right, but urged that the act
+was good and praiseworthy, inasmuch as the offerings were made to a
+false god; while the men, on their part, proved mutinous, declaring that
+they wanted the robes and meant to keep them. The travellers continued
+their journey in great ill-humor, but were presently soothed by the
+excellent hunting which they found on the way. As they approached the
+Wisconsin, they stopped to dry the meat of the buffalo they had killed,
+when to their amazement they saw a war-party of Sioux approaching in a
+fleet of canoes. Hennepin represents himself as showing on this occasion
+an extraordinary courage, going to meet the Indians with a peace-pipe,
+and instructing Du Lhut, who knew more of these matters than he, how he
+ought to behave. The Sioux proved not unfriendly, and said nothing of
+the theft of the buffalo-robes. They soon went on their way to attack
+the Illinois and Missouris, leaving the Frenchmen to ascend the
+Wisconsin unmolested.
+
+[Sidenote: THE RETURN.]
+
+After various adventures, they reached the station of the Jesuits at
+Green Bay; but its existence is wholly ignored by Hennepin, whose zeal
+for his own Order will not permit him to allude to this establishment of
+the rival missionaries.[221] He is equally reticent with regard to the
+Jesuit mission at Michilimackinac, where the party soon after arrived,
+and where they spent the winter. The only intimation which he gives of
+its existence consists in the mention of the Jesuit Pierson, who was a
+Fleming like himself, and who often skated with him on the frozen lake,
+or kept him company in fishing through a hole in the ice.[222] When the
+spring opened, Hennepin descended Lake Huron, followed the Detroit to
+Lake Erie, and proceeded thence to Niagara. Here he spent some time in
+making a fresh examination of the cataract, and then resumed his voyage
+on Lake Ontario. He stopped, however, at the great town of the Senecas,
+near the Genesee, where, with his usual spirit of meddling, he took upon
+him the functions of the civil and military authorities, convoked the
+chiefs to a council, and urged them to set at liberty certain Ottawa
+prisoners whom they had captured in violation of treaties. Having
+settled this affair to his satisfaction, he went to Fort Frontenac,
+where his brother missionary, Buisset, received him with a welcome
+rendered the warmer by a story which had reached him that the Indians
+had hanged Hennepin with his own cord of St. Francis.
+
+From Fort Frontenac he went to Montreal; and leaving his two men on a
+neighboring island, that they might escape the payment of duties on a
+quantity of furs which they had with them, he paddled alone towards the
+town. Count Frontenac chanced to be here, and, looking from the window
+of a house near the river, he saw approaching in a canoe a Récollet
+father, whose appearance indicated the extremity of hard service; for
+his face was worn and sunburnt, and his tattered habit of St. Francis
+was abundantly patched with scraps of buffalo-skin. When at length he
+recognized the long-lost Hennepin, he received him, as the father
+writes, "with all the tenderness which a missionary could expect from a
+person of his rank and quality." He kept him for twelve days in his own
+house, and listened with interest to such of his adventures as the friar
+saw fit to divulge.
+
+[Sidenote: LA SALLE'S LETTERS.]
+
+And here we bid farewell to Father Hennepin. "Providence," he writes,
+"preserved my life that I might make known my great discoveries to the
+world." He soon after went to Europe, where the story of his travels
+found a host of readers, but where he died at last in a deserved
+obscurity.[223]
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[212] The Sioux, or Dacotah, as they call themselves, were a numerous
+people, separated into three great divisions, which were again
+subdivided into bands. Those among whom Hennepin was a prisoner belonged
+to the division known as the Issanti, Issanyati, or, as he writes it,
+_Issati_, of which the principal band was the Meddewakantonwan. The
+other great divisions, the Yanktons and the Tintonwans, or Tetons, lived
+west of the Mississippi, extending beyond the Missouri, and ranging as
+far as the Rocky Mountains. The Issanti cultivated the soil; but the
+extreme western bands subsisted on the buffalo alone. The former had two
+kinds of dwelling,--the _teepee_, or skin-lodge, and the bark-lodge. The
+teepee, which was used by all the Sioux, consists of a covering of
+dressed buffalo-hide, stretched on a conical stack of poles. The
+bark-lodge was peculiar to the Eastern Sioux; and examples of it might
+be seen, until within a few years, among the bands on the St. Peter's.
+In its general character, it was like the Huron and Iroquois houses, but
+was inferior in construction. It had a ridge roof, framed of poles,
+extending from the posts which formed the sides; and the whole was
+covered with elm-bark. The lodges in the villages to which Hennepin was
+conducted were probably of this kind.
+
+The name Sioux is an abbreviation of _Nadouessioux_, an Ojibwa word,
+meaning "enemies." The Ojibwas used it to designate this people, and
+occasionally also the Iroquois, being at deadly war with both.
+
+Rev. Stephen B. Riggs, for many years a missionary among the Issanti
+Sioux, says that this division consists of four distinct bands. They
+ceded all their lands east of the Mississippi to the United States in
+1837, and lived on the St. Peter's till driven thence in consequence of
+the massacres of 1862, 1863. The Yankton Sioux consist of two bands,
+which are again subdivided. The Assiniboins, or Hohays, are an offshoot
+from the Yanktons, with whom they are now at war. The Tintonwan, or
+Teton Sioux, forming the most western division and the largest, comprise
+seven bands, and are among the bravest and fiercest tenants of the
+prairie.
+
+The earliest French writers estimate the total number of the Sioux at
+forty thousand; but this is little better than conjecture. Mr. Riggs, in
+1852, placed it at about twenty-five thousand.
+
+[213] These baths consist of a small hut, covered closely with
+buffalo-skins, into which the patient and his friends enter, carefully
+closing every aperture. A pile of heated stones is placed in the middle,
+and water is poured upon them, raising a dense vapor. They are still
+(1868) in use among the Sioux and some other tribes.
+
+[214] Hennepin's notice of the falls of St. Anthony, though brief, is
+sufficiently accurate. He says, in his first edition, that they are
+forty or fifty feet high, but adds ten feet more in the edition of 1697.
+In 1821, according to Schoolcraft, the perpendicular fall measured forty
+feet. Great changes, however, have taken place here, and are still in
+progress. The rock is a very soft, friable sandstone, overlaid by a
+stratum of limestone; and it is crumbling with such rapidity under the
+action of the water that the cataract will soon be little more than a
+rapid. Other changes equally disastrous, in an artistic point of view,
+are going on even more quickly. Beside the falls stands a city, which,
+by an ingenious combination of the Greek and Sioux languages, has
+received the name of Minneapolis, or City of the Waters, and which in
+1867 contained ten thousand inhabitants, two national banks, and an
+opera-house; while its rival city of St. Anthony, immediately opposite,
+boasted a gigantic water-cure and a State university. In short, the
+great natural beauty of the place is utterly spoiled.
+
+[215] Oanktayhee, the principal deity of the Sioux, was supposed to live
+under these falls, though he manifested himself in the form of a
+buffalo. It was he who created the earth, like the Algonquin Manabozho,
+from mud brought to him in the paws of a musk-rat. Carver, in 1766, saw
+an Indian throw everything he had about him into the cataract as an
+offering to this deity.
+
+[216] In the edition of 1683. In that of 1697 he had grown to seven or
+eight feet. The bank-swallows still make their nests in these cliffs,
+boring easily into the soft sandstone.
+
+[217] Hennepin speaks of their size with astonishment, and says that the
+two together would weigh twenty-five pounds. Cat-fish have been taken in
+the Mississippi, weighing more than a hundred and fifty pounds.
+
+[218] The "Lover's Leap," or "Maiden's Rock" from which a Sioux girl,
+Winona, or the "Eldest Born," is said to have thrown herself, in the
+despair of disappointed affection. The story, which seems founded in
+truth, will be found, not without embellishments, in Mrs. Eastman's
+_Legends of the Sioux_.
+
+[219] The facts concerning Du Lhut have been gleaned from a variety of
+contemporary documents, chiefly the letters of his enemy Duchesneau, who
+always puts him in the worst light, especially in his despatch to
+Seignelay of 10 Nov., 1679, where he charges both him and the governor
+with carrying on an illicit trade with the English of New York. Du Lhut
+himself, in a memoir dated 1685 (see Harrisse, _Bibliographie_, 176),
+strongly denies these charges. Du Lhut built a trading fort on Lake
+Superior, called Cananistigoyan (La Hontan), or Kamalastigouia (Perrot).
+It was on the north side, at the mouth of a river entering Thunder Bay,
+where Fort William now stands. In 1684 he caused two Indians, who had
+murdered several Frenchmen on Lake Superior, to be shot. He displayed in
+this affair great courage and coolness, undaunted by the crowd of
+excited savages who surrounded him and his little band of Frenchmen. The
+long letter, in which he recounts the capture and execution of the
+murderers, is before me. Duchesneau makes his conduct on this occasion
+the ground of a charge of rashness. In 1686 Denonville, then governor of
+the colony, ordered him to fortify the Detroit; that is, the strait
+between Lakes Erie and Huron. He went thither with fifty men and built a
+palisade fort, which he occupied for some time. In 1687 he, together
+with Tonty and Durantaye, joined Denonville against the Senecas, with a
+body of Indians from the Upper Lakes. In 1689, during the panic that
+followed the Iroquois invasion of Montreal, Du Lhut, with twenty-eight
+Canadians, attacked twenty-two Iroquois in canoes, received their fire
+without returning it, bore down upon them, killed eighteen of them, and
+captured three, only one escaping. In 1695 he was in command at Fort
+Frontenac. In 1697 he succeeded to the command of a company of infantry,
+but was suffering wretchedly from the gout at Fort Frontenac. In 1710
+Vaudreuil, in a despatch to the minister Ponchartrain, announced his
+death as occurring in the previous winter, and added the brief comment,
+"c'était un très-honnête homme." Other contemporaries speak to the same
+effect. "Mr. Dulhut, Gentilhomme Lionnois, qui a beaucoup de mérite
+et de capacité."--_La Hontan_, i. 103 (1703). "Le Sieur du Lut, homme
+d'esprit et d'expérience."--_Le Clerc_, ii. 137. Charlevoix calls him
+"one of the bravest officers the King has ever had in this colony." His
+name is variously spelled Du Luc, Du Lud, Du Lude, Du Lut, Du Luth, Du
+Lhut. For an account of the Iroquois virgin, Tegahkouita, whose
+intercession is said to have cured him of the gout, see Charlevoix, i.
+572.
+
+On a contemporary manuscript map by the Jesuit Raffeix, representing the
+routes of Marquette, La Salle, and Du Lhut, are the following words,
+referring to the last-named discoverer, and interesting in connection
+with Hennepin's statements: "Mr. du Lude le premier a esté chez les
+Sioux en 1678, et a esté proche la source du Mississippi, et ensuite
+vint retirer le P. Louis [_Hennepin_] qui avoit esté fait prisonnier
+chez les Sioux." Du Lhut here appears as the deliverer of Hennepin. One
+of his men was named Pepin; hence, no doubt, the name of Lake Pepin.
+
+[220] _Memoir on the French Dominion in Canada, N. Y. Col. Docs._, ix.
+781.
+
+[221] On the other hand, he sets down on his map of 1683 a mission of
+the Récollets at a point north of the farthest sources of the
+Mississippi, to which no white man had ever penetrated.
+
+[222] He says that Pierson had come among the Indians to learn their
+language; that he "retained the frankness and rectitude of our country"
+and "a disposition always on the side of candor and sincerity. In a
+word, he seemed to me to be all that a Christian ought to be" (1697),
+433.
+
+[223] Since the two preceding chapters were written, the letters of La
+Salle have been brought to light by the researches of M. Margry. They
+confirm, in nearly all points, the conclusions given above; though, as
+before observed (_note_, 186), they show misstatements on the part of
+Hennepin concerning his position at the outset of the expedition. La
+Salle writes: "J'ay fait remonter le fleuve Colbert, nommé par les
+Iroquois Gastacha, par les Outaouais Mississipy par un canot conduit par
+deux de mes gens, l'un nommé Michel Accault et l'autre Picard, auxquels
+le R. P. Hennepin se joignit pour ne perdre pas l'occasion de prescher
+l'Évangile aux peuples qui habitent dessus et qui n'en avoient jamais
+oui parler." In the same letter he recounts their voyage on the Upper
+Mississippi, and their capture by the Sioux in accordance with the story
+of Hennepin himself. Hennepin's assertion, that La Salle had promised to
+send a number of men to meet him at the mouth of the Wisconsin, turns
+out to be true. "Estans tous revenus en chasse avec les Nadouessioux
+[_Sioux_] vers Ouisconsing [_Wisconsin_], le R. P. Louis Hempin
+[_Hennepin_] et Picard prirent résolution de venir jusqu'à l'emboucheure
+de la rivière où j'avois promis d'envoyer de mes nouvelles, comme
+j'avois fait par six hommes que les Jésuistes desbauchèrent en leur
+disant que le R. P. Louis et ses compagnons de voyage avoient esté
+tuez."
+
+It is clear that La Salle understood Hennepin; for, after speaking of
+his journey, he adds: "J'ai cru qu'il estoit à propos de vous faire le
+narré des aventures de ce canot parce que je ne doute pas qu'on en
+parle; et si vous souhaitez en conférer avec le P. Louis Hempin,
+Récollect, qui est repassé en France, il faut un peu le connoistre, car
+il ne manquera pas d'exagérer toutes choses, c'est son caractère, et à
+moy mesme il m'a escrit comme s'il eust esté tout près d'estre bruslé,
+quoiqu'il n'en ait pas esté seulement en danger; mais il croit qu'il luy
+est honorable de le faire de la sorte, et _il parle plus conformément à
+ce qu'il veut qu'à ce qu'il scait_."--_Lettre de la Salle, 22 Août,
+1682_ (1681?), Margry, ii. 259.
+
+On his return to France, Hennepin got hold of the manuscript, _Relation
+des Découvertes_, compiled for the government from La Salle's letters,
+and, as already observed, made very free use of it in the first edition
+of his book, printed in 1683. In 1699 he wished to return to Canada;
+but, in a letter of that year, Louis XIV. orders the governor to seize
+him, should he appear, and send him prisoner to Rochefort. This seems to
+have been in consequence of his renouncing the service of the French
+crown, and dedicating his edition of 1697 to William III. of England.
+
+More than twenty editions of Hennepin's travels appeared, in French,
+English, Dutch, German, Italian, and Spanish. Most of them include the
+mendacious narrative of the pretended descent of the Mississippi. For a
+list of them, see _Hist. Mag._, i. 346; ii. 24.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX.
+
+1681.
+
+LA SALLE BEGINS ANEW.
+
+ His Constancy; his Plans; his Savage Allies; he becomes
+ Snow-blind.--Negotiations.--Grand Council.--La Salle's
+ Oratory.--Meeting with Tonty.--Preparation.--Departure.
+
+
+In tracing the adventures of Tonty and the rovings of Hennepin, we have
+lost sight of La Salle, the pivot of the enterprise. Returning from the
+desolation and horror in the valley of the Illinois, he had spent the
+winter at Fort Miami, on the St. Joseph, by the borders of Lake
+Michigan. Here he might have brooded on the redoubled ruin that had
+befallen him,--the desponding friends, the exulting foes; the wasted
+energies, the crushing load of debt, the stormy past, the black and
+lowering future. But his mind was of a different temper. He had no
+thought but to grapple with adversity, and out of the fragments of his
+ruin to build up the fabric of success.
+
+He would not recoil; but he modified his plans to meet the new
+contingency. His white enemies had found, or rather perhaps had made, a
+savage ally in the Iroquois. Their incursions must be stopped, or his
+enterprise would come to nought; and he thought he saw the means by
+which this new danger could be converted into a source of strength. The
+tribes of the West, threatened by the common enemy, might be taught to
+forget their mutual animosities and join in a defensive league, with La
+Salle at its head. They might be colonized around his fort in the valley
+of the Illinois, where in the shadow of the French flag, and with the
+aid of French allies, they could hold the Iroquois in check, and acquire
+in some measure the arts of a settled life. The Franciscan friars could
+teach them the Faith; and La Salle and his associates could supply them
+with goods, in exchange for the vast harvest of furs which their hunters
+could gather in these boundless wilds. Meanwhile, he would seek out the
+mouth of the Mississippi; and the furs gathered at his colony in the
+Illinois would then find a ready passage to the markets of the world.
+Thus might this ancient slaughter-field of warring savages be redeemed
+to civilization and Christianity; and a stable settlement, half-feudal,
+half-commercial, grow up in the heart of the western wilderness. This
+plan was but a part of the original scheme of his enterprise, adapted to
+new and unexpected circumstances; and he now set himself to its
+execution with his usual vigor, joined to an address which, when dealing
+with Indians, never failed him.
+
+[Sidenote: INDIAN FRIENDS.]
+
+There were allies close at hand. Near Fort Miami were the huts of
+twenty-five or thirty savages, exiles from their homes, and strangers
+in this western world. Several of the English colonies, from Virginia to
+Maine, had of late years been harassed by Indian wars; and the Puritans
+of New England, above all, had been scourged by the deadly outbreak of
+King Philip's war. Those engaged in it had paid a bitter price for their
+brief triumphs. A band of refugees, chiefly Abenakis and Mohegans,
+driven from their native seats, had roamed into these distant wilds, and
+were wintering in the friendly neighborhood of the French. La Salle soon
+won them over to his interests. One of their number was the Mohegan
+hunter, who for two years had faithfully followed his fortunes, and who
+had been four years in the West. He is described as a prudent and
+discreet young man, in whom La Salle had great confidence, and who could
+make himself understood in several western languages, belonging, like
+his own, to the great Algonquin tongue. This devoted henchman proved an
+efficient mediator with his countrymen. The New-England Indians, with
+one voice, promised to follow La Salle, asking no recompense but to call
+him their chief, and yield to him the love and admiration which he
+rarely failed to command from this hero-worshipping race.
+
+New allies soon appeared. A Shawanoe chief from the valley of the Ohio,
+whose following embraced a hundred and fifty warriors, came to ask the
+protection of the French against the all-destroying Iroquois. "The
+Shawanoes are too distant," was La Salle's reply; "but let them come to
+me at the Illinois, and they shall be safe." The chief promised to join
+him in the autumn, at Fort Miami, with all his band. But, more important
+than all, the consent and co-operation of the Illinois must be gained;
+and the Miamis, their neighbors and of late their enemies, must be
+taught the folly of their league with the Iroquois, and the necessity of
+joining in the new confederation. Of late, they had been made to see the
+perfidy of their dangerous allies. A band of the Iroquois, returning
+from the slaughter of the Tamaroa Illinois, had met and murdered a band
+of Miamis on the Ohio, and had not only refused satisfaction, but had
+intrenched themselves in three rude forts of trees and brushwood in the
+heart of the Miami country. The moment was favorable for negotiating;
+but, first, La Salle wished to open a communication with the Illinois,
+some of whom had begun to return to the country they had abandoned. With
+this view, and also, it seems, to procure provisions, he set out on the
+first of March, with his lieutenant La Forest, and fifteen men.
+
+The country was sheeted in snow, and the party journeyed on snow-shoes;
+but when they reached the open prairies, the white expanse glared in the
+sun with so dazzling a brightness that La Salle and several of the men
+became snow-blind. They stopped and encamped under the edge of a forest;
+and here La Salle remained in darkness for three days, suffering extreme
+pain. Meanwhile, he sent forward La Forest and most of the men, keeping
+with him his old attendant Hunaut. Going out in quest of pine-leaves,--a
+decoction of which was supposed to be useful in cases of
+snow-blindness,--this man discovered the fresh tracks of Indians,
+followed them, and found a camp of Outagamies, or Foxes, from the
+neighborhood of Green Bay. From them he heard welcome news. They told
+him that Tonty was safe among the Pottawattamies, and that Hennepin had
+passed through their country on his return from among the Sioux.[224]
+
+[Sidenote: ILLINOIS ALLIES.]
+
+A thaw took place; the snow melted rapidly; the rivers were opened; the
+blind men began to recover; and launching the canoes which they had
+dragged after them, the party pursued their way by water. They soon met
+a band of Illinois. La Salle gave them presents, condoled with them on
+their losses, and urged them to make peace and alliance with the Miamis.
+Thus, he said, they could set the Iroquois at defiance; for he himself,
+with his Frenchmen and his Indian friends, would make his abode among
+them, supply them with goods, and aid them to defend themselves. They
+listened, well pleased, promised to carry his message to their
+countrymen, and furnished him with a large supply of corn.[225]
+Meanwhile he had rejoined La Forest, whom he now sent to
+Michilimackinac to await Tonty, and tell him to remain there till he, La
+Salle, should arrive.
+
+Having thus accomplished the objects of his journey, he returned to Fort
+Miami, whence he soon after ascended the St. Joseph to the village of
+the Miami Indians, on the portage, at the head of the Kankakee. Here he
+found unwelcome guests. These were three Iroquois warriors, who had been
+for some time in the place, and who, as he was told, had demeaned
+themselves with the insolence of conquerors, and spoken of the French
+with the utmost contempt. He hastened to confront them, rebuked and
+menaced them, and told them that now, when he was present, they dared
+not repeat the calumnies which they had uttered in his absence. They
+stood abashed and confounded, and during the following night secretly
+left the town and fled. The effect was prodigious on the minds of the
+Miamis, when they saw that La Salle, backed by ten Frenchmen, could
+command from their arrogant visitors a respect which they, with their
+hundreds of warriors, had wholly failed to inspire. Here, at the outset,
+was an augury full of promise for the approaching negotiations.
+
+There were other strangers in the town,--a band of eastern Indians, more
+numerous than those who had wintered at the fort. The greater number
+were from Rhode Island, including, probably, some of King Philip's
+warriors; others were from New York, and others again from Virginia. La
+Salle called them to a council, promised them a new home in the West
+under the protection of the Great King, with rich lands, an abundance of
+game, and French traders to supply them with the goods which they had
+once received from the English. Let them but help him to make peace
+between the Miamis and the Illinois, and he would insure for them a
+future of prosperity and safety. They listened with open ears, and
+promised their aid in the work of peace.
+
+[Sidenote: GRAND COUNCIL.]
+
+On the next morning, the Miamis were called to a grand council. It was
+held in the lodge of their chief, from which the mats were removed, that
+the crowd without might hear what was said. La Salle rose and harangued
+the concourse. Few men were so skilled in the arts of forest rhetoric
+and diplomacy. After the Indian mode, he was, to follow his chroniclers,
+"the greatest orator in North America."[226] He began with a gift of
+tobacco, to clear the brains of his auditory; next, for he had brought a
+canoe-load of presents to support his eloquence, he gave them cloth to
+cover their dead, coats to dress them, hatchets to build a grand
+scaffold in their honor, and beads, bells, and trinkets of all sorts, to
+decorate their relatives at a grand funeral feast. All this was mere
+metaphor. The living, while appropriating the gifts to their own use,
+were pleased at the compliment offered to their dead; and their delight
+redoubled as the orator proceeded. One of their great chiefs had lately
+been killed; and La Salle, after a eulogy of the departed, declared that
+he would now raise him to life again; that is, that he would assume his
+name and give support to his squaws and children. This flattering
+announcement drew forth an outburst of applause; and when, to confirm
+his words, his attendants placed before them a huge pile of coats,
+shirts, and hunting-knives, the whole assembly exploded in yelps of
+admiration.
+
+Now came the climax of the harangue, introduced by a further present of
+six guns:--
+
+"He who is my master, and the master of all this country, is a mighty
+chief, feared by the whole world; but he loves peace, and the words of
+his lips are for good alone. He is called the King of France, and he is
+the mightiest among the chiefs beyond the great water. His goodness
+reaches even to your dead, and his subjects come among you to raise them
+up to life. But it is his will to preserve the life he has given; it is
+his will that you should obey his laws, and make no war without the
+leave of Onontio, who commands in his name at Quebec, and who loves all
+the nations alike, because such is the will of the Great King. You
+ought, then, to live at peace with your neighbors, and above all with
+the Illinois. You have had causes of quarrel with them; but their defeat
+has avenged you. Though they are still strong, they wish to make peace
+with you. Be content with the glory of having obliged them to ask for
+it. You have an interest in preserving them; since, if the Iroquois
+destroy them, they will next destroy you. Let us all obey the Great
+King, and live together in peace, under his protection. Be of my mind,
+and use these guns that I have given you, not to make war, but only to
+hunt and to defend yourselves."[227]
+
+[Sidenote: THE CHIEFS REPLY.]
+
+So saying, he gave two belts of wampum to confirm his words; and the
+assembly dissolved. On the following day, the chiefs again convoked it,
+and made their reply in form. It was all that La Salle could have
+wished. "The Illinois is our brother, because he is the son of our
+Father, the Great King." "We make you the master of our beaver and our
+lands, of our minds and our bodies." "We cannot wonder that our brothers
+from the East wish to live with you. We should have wished so too, if we
+had known what a blessing it is to be the children of the Great King."
+The rest of this auspicious day was passed in feasts and dances, in
+which La Salle and his Frenchmen all bore part. His new scheme was
+hopefully begun. It remained to achieve the enterprise, twice defeated,
+of the discovery of the mouth of the Mississippi,--that vital condition
+of his triumph, without which all other success was meaningless and
+vain.
+
+To this end he must return to Canada, appease his creditors, and collect
+his scattered resources. Towards the end of May he set out in canoes
+from Fort Miami, and reached Michilimackinac after a prosperous voyage.
+Here, to his great joy, he found Tonty and Zenobe Membré, who had lately
+arrived from Green Bay. The meeting was one at which even his stoic
+nature must have melted. Each had for the other a tale of disaster; but
+when La Salle recounted the long succession of his reverses, it was with
+the tranquil tone and cheerful look of one who relates the incidents of
+an ordinary journey. Membré looked on him with admiration. "Any one
+else," he says, "would have thrown up his hand and abandoned the
+enterprise; but, far from this, with a firmness and constancy that never
+had its equal, I saw him more resolved than ever to continue his work
+and push forward his discovery."[228]
+
+Without loss of time they embarked together for Fort Frontenac, paddled
+their canoes a thousand miles, and safely reached their destination.
+Here, in this third beginning of his enterprise, La Salle found himself
+beset with embarrassments. Not only was he burdened with the fruitless
+costs of his two former efforts, but the heavy debts which he had
+incurred in building and maintaining Fort Frontenac had not been wholly
+paid. The fort and the seigniory were already deeply mortgaged; yet
+through the influence of Count Frontenac, the assistance of his
+secretary Barrois, a consummate man of business, and the support of a
+wealthy relative, he found means to appease his creditors and even to
+gain fresh advances. To this end, however, he was forced to part with a
+portion of his monopolies. Having first made his will at Montreal, in
+favor of a cousin who had befriended him,[229] he mustered his men, and
+once more set forth, resolved to trust no more to agents, but to lead on
+his followers, in a united body, under his own personal command.[230]
+
+[Sidenote: THE TORONTO PORTAGE.]
+
+At the beginning of autumn he was at Toronto, where the long and
+difficult portage to Lake Simcoe detained him a fortnight. He spent a
+part of it in writing an account of what had lately occurred to a
+correspondent in France, and he closes his letter thus: "This is all I
+can tell you this year. I have a hundred things to write, but you could
+not believe how hard it is to do it among Indians. The canoes and their
+lading must be got over the portage, and I must speak to them
+continually and bear all their importunity, or else they will do nothing
+I want. I hope to write more at leisure next year, and tell you the end
+of this business, which I hope will turn out well: for I have M. de
+Tonty, who is full of zeal; thirty Frenchmen, all good men, without
+reckoning such as I cannot trust; and more than a hundred Indians, some
+of them Shawanoes, and others from New England, all of whom know how to
+use guns."
+
+It was October before he reached Lake Huron. Day after day and week
+after week the heavy-laden canoes crept on along the lonely wilderness
+shores, by the monotonous ranks of bristling moss-bearded firs; lake and
+forest, forest and lake; a dreary scene haunted with yet more dreary
+memories,--disasters, sorrows, and deferred hopes; time, strength, and
+wealth spent in vain; a ruinous past and a doubtful future; slander,
+obloquy, and hate. With unmoved heart, the patient voyager held his
+course, and drew up his canoes at last on the beach at Fort Miami.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[224] _Relation des Découvertes._ Compare _Lettre de La Salle_ (Margry,
+ii. 144).
+
+[225] This seems to have been taken from the secret repositories, or
+_caches_, of the ruined town of the Illinois.
+
+[226] "En ce genre, il étoit le plus grand orateur de l'Amérique
+Septentrionale."--_Relation des Découvertes._
+
+[227] Translated from the _Relation_, where these councils are reported
+at great length.
+
+[228] Membré in Le Clerc, ii. 208. Tonty, in his memoir of 1693, speaks
+of the joy of La Salle at the meeting. The _Relation_, usually very
+accurate, says, erroneously, that Tonty had gone to Fort Frontenac. La
+Forest had gone thither, not long before La Salle's arrival.
+
+[229] _Copie du Testament du deffunt Sr. de la Salle, 11 Août, 1681._
+The relative was François Plet, to whom he was deeply in debt.
+
+[230] "On apprendra à la fin de cette année, 1682, le succès de la
+découverte qu'il étoit résolu d'achever, au plus tard le printemps
+dernier ou de périr en y travaillant. Tant de traverses et de malheurs
+toujours arrivés en son absence l'ont fait résoudre à ne se fier plus à
+personne et à conduire lui-même tout son monde, tout son équipage, et
+toute son entreprise, de laquelle il espéroit une heureuse conclusion."
+
+The above is a part of the closing paragraph of the _Relation des
+Découvertes_, so often cited.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX.
+
+1681-1682.
+
+SUCCESS OF LA SALLE.
+
+ His Followers.--The Chicago Portage.--Descent of the
+ Mississippi.--The Lost Hunter.--The Arkansas.--The Taensas.--The
+ Natchez.--Hostility.--The Mouth of the Mississippi.--Louis XIV.
+ proclaimed Sovereign of the Great West.
+
+
+The season was far advanced. On the bare limbs of the forest hung a few
+withered remnants of its gay autumnal livery; and the smoke crept upward
+through the sullen November air from the squalid wigwams of La Salle's
+Abenaki and Mohegan allies. These, his new friends, were savages whose
+midnight yells had startled the border hamlets of New England; who had
+danced around Puritan scalps, and whom Puritan imaginations painted as
+incarnate fiends. La Salle chose eighteen of them, whom he added to the
+twenty-three Frenchmen who remained with him, some of the rest having
+deserted and others lagged behind. The Indians insisted on taking their
+squaws with them. These were ten in number, besides three children; and
+thus the expedition included fifty-four persons, of whom some were
+useless, and others a burden.
+
+On the 21st of December, Tonty and Membré set out from Fort Miami with
+some of the party in six canoes, and crossed to the little river
+Chicago.[231] La Salle, with the rest of the men, joined them a few days
+later. It was the dead of winter, and the streams were frozen. They made
+sledges, placed on them the canoes, the baggage, and a disabled
+Frenchman; crossed from the Chicago to the northern branch of the
+Illinois, and filed in a long procession down its frozen course. They
+reached the site of the great Illinois village, found it tenantless, and
+continued their journey, still dragging their canoes, till at length
+they reached open water below Lake Peoria.
+
+[Sidenote: PRUDHOMME.]
+
+La Salle had abandoned for a time his original plan of building a vessel
+for the navigation of the Mississippi. Bitter experience had taught him
+the difficulty of the attempt, and he resolved to trust to his canoes
+alone. They embarked again, floating prosperously down between the
+leafless forests that flanked the tranquil river; till, on the sixth of
+February, they issued upon the majestic bosom of the Mississippi. Here,
+for the time, their progress was stopped; for the river was full of
+floating ice. La Salle's Indians, too, had lagged behind; but within a
+week all had arrived, the navigation was once more free, and they
+resumed their course. Towards evening they saw on their right the mouth
+of a great river; and the clear current was invaded by the headlong
+torrent of the Missouri, opaque with mud. They built their camp-fires in
+the neighboring forest; and at daylight, embarking anew on the dark and
+mighty stream, drifted swiftly down towards unknown destinies. They
+passed a deserted town of the Tamaroas; saw, three days after, the mouth
+of the Ohio;[232] and, gliding by the wastes of bordering swamp, landed
+on the twenty-fourth of February near the Third Chickasaw Bluffs.[233]
+They encamped, and the hunters went out for game. All returned,
+excepting Pierre Prudhomme; and as the others had seen fresh tracks of
+Indians, La Salle feared that he was killed. While some of his followers
+built a small stockade fort on a high bluff[234] by the river, others
+ranged the woods in pursuit of the missing hunter. After six days of
+ceaseless and fruitless search, they met two Chickasaw Indians in the
+forest; and through them La Salle sent presents and peace-messages to
+that warlike people, whose villages were a few days' journey distant.
+Several days later Prudhomme was found, and brought into the camp,
+half-dead. He had lost his way while hunting; and to console him for his
+woes La Salle christened the newly built fort with his name, and left
+him, with a few others, in charge of it.
+
+Again they embarked; and with every stage of their adventurous progress
+the mystery of this vast New World was more and more unveiled. More and
+more they entered the realms of spring. The hazy sunlight, the warm and
+drowsy air, the tender foliage, the opening flowers, betokened the
+reviving life of Nature. For several days more they followed the
+writhings of the great river on its tortuous course through wastes of
+swamp and cane-brake, till on the thirteenth of March[235] they found
+themselves wrapped in a thick fog. Neither shore was visible; but they
+heard on the right the booming of an Indian drum and the shrill outcries
+of the war-dance. La Salle at once crossed to the opposite side, where,
+in less than an hour, his men threw up a rude fort of felled trees.
+Meanwhile the fog cleared; and from the farther bank the astonished
+Indians saw the strange visitors at their work. Some of the French
+advanced to the edge of the water, and beckoned them to come over.
+Several of them approached, in a wooden canoe, to within the distance of
+a gun-shot. La Salle displayed the calumet, and sent a Frenchman to meet
+them. He was well received; and the friendly mood of the Indians being
+now apparent, the whole party crossed the river.
+
+[Sidenote: THE ARKANSAS.]
+
+On landing, they found themselves at a town of the Kappa band of the
+Arkansas, a people dwelling near the mouth of the river which bears
+their name. "The whole village," writes Membré to his superior, "came
+down to the shore to meet us, except the women, who had run off. I
+cannot tell you the civility and kindness we received from these
+barbarians, who brought us poles to make huts, supplied us with firewood
+during the three days we were among them, and took turns in feasting us.
+But, my Reverend Father, this gives no idea of the good qualities of
+these savages, who are gay, civil, and free-hearted. The young men,
+though the most alert and spirited we had seen, are nevertheless so
+modest that not one of them would take the liberty to enter our hut, but
+all stood quietly at the door. They are so well formed that we were in
+admiration at their beauty. We did not lose the value of a pin while we
+were among them."
+
+Various were the dances and ceremonies with which they entertained the
+strangers, who, on their part, responded with a solemnity which their
+hosts would have liked less if they had understood it better. La Salle
+and Tonty, at the head of their followers, marched to the open area in
+the midst of the village. Here, to the admiration of the gazing crowd of
+warriors, women, and children, a cross was raised bearing the arms of
+France. Membré, in canonicals, sang a hymn; the men shouted _Vive le
+Roi_; and La Salle, in the King's name, took formal possession of the
+country.[236] The friar, not, he flatters himself, without success,
+labored to expound by signs the mysteries of the Faith; while La Salle,
+by methods equally satisfactory, drew from the chief an acknowledgement
+of fealty to Louis XIV.[237]
+
+[Sidenote: THE TAENSAS.]
+
+After touching at several other towns of this people, the voyagers
+resumed their course, guided by two of the Arkansas; passed the sites,
+since become historic, of Vicksburg and Grand Gulf; and, about three
+hundred miles below the Arkansas, stopped by the edge of a swamp on the
+western side of the river.[238] Here, as their two guides told them,
+was the path to the great town of the Taensas. Tonty and Membré were
+sent to visit it. They and their men shouldered their birch canoe
+through the swamp, and launched it on a lake which had once formed a
+portion of the channel of the river. In two hours, they reached the
+town; and Tonty gazed at it with astonishment. He had seen nothing like
+it in America,--large square dwellings, built of sun-baked mud mixed
+with straw, arched over with a dome-shaped roof of canes, and placed in
+regular order around an open area. Two of them were larger and better
+than the rest. One was the lodge of the chief; the other was the temple,
+or house of the Sun. They entered the former, and found a single room,
+forty feet square, where, in the dim light,--for there was no opening
+but the door,--the chief sat awaiting them on a sort of bedstead, three
+of his wives at his side; while sixty old men, wrapped in white cloaks
+woven of mulberry-bark, formed his divan. When he spoke, his wives
+howled to do him honor; and the assembled councillors listened with the
+reverence due to a potentate for whom, at his death, a hundred victims
+were to be sacrificed. He received the visitors graciously, and
+joyfully accepted the gifts which Tonty laid before him.[239] This
+interview over, the Frenchmen repaired to the temple, wherein were kept
+the bones of the departed chiefs. In construction, it was much like the
+royal dwelling. Over it were rude wooden figures, representing three
+eagles turned towards the east. A strong mud wall surrounded it, planted
+with stakes, on which were stuck the skulls of enemies sacrificed to the
+Sun; while before the door was a block of wood, on which lay a large
+shell surrounded with the braided hair of the victims. The interior was
+rude as a barn, dimly lighted from the doorway, and full of smoke. There
+was a structure in the middle which Membré thinks was a kind of altar;
+and before it burned a perpetual fire, fed with three logs laid end to
+end, and watched by two old men devoted to this sacred office. There was
+a mysterious recess, too, which the strangers were forbidden to explore,
+but which, as Tonty was told, contained the riches of the nation,
+consisting of pearls from the Gulf, and trinkets obtained, probably
+through other tribes, from the Spaniards and other Europeans.
+
+The chief condescended to visit La Salle at his camp,--a favor which he
+would by no means have granted, had the visitors been Indians. A master
+of ceremonies and six attendants preceded him, to clear the path and
+prepare the place of meeting. When all was ready, he was seen advancing,
+clothed in a white robe and preceded by two men bearing white fans,
+while a third displayed a disk of burnished copper,--doubtless to
+represent the Sun, his ancestor, or, as others will have it, his elder
+brother. His aspect was marvellously grave, and he and La Salle met with
+gestures of ceremonious courtesy. The interview was very friendly; and
+the chief returned well pleased with the gifts which his entertainer
+bestowed on him, and which, indeed, had been the principal motive of his
+visit.
+
+[Sidenote: THE NATCHEZ.]
+
+On the next morning, as they descended the river, they saw a wooden
+canoe full of Indians; and Tonty gave chase. He had nearly overtaken it,
+when more than a hundred men appeared suddenly on the shore, with bows
+bent to defend their countrymen. La Salle called out to Tonty to
+withdraw. He obeyed; and the whole party encamped on the opposite bank.
+Tonty offered to cross the river with a peace-pipe, and set out
+accordingly with a small party of men. When he landed, the Indians made
+signs of friendship by joining their hands,--a proceeding by which
+Tonty, having but one hand, was somewhat embarrassed; but he directed
+his men to respond in his stead. La Salle and Membré now joined him, and
+went with the Indians to their village, three leagues distant. Here they
+spent the night. "The Sieur de la Salle," writes Membré, "whose very
+air, engaging manners, tact, and address attract love and respect
+alike, produced such an effect on the hearts of these people that they
+did not know how to treat us well enough."[240]
+
+The Indians of this village were the Natchez; and their chief was
+brother of the great chief, or Sun, of the whole nation. His town was
+several leagues distant, near the site of the city of Natchez; and
+thither the French repaired to visit him. They saw what they had already
+seen among the Taensas,--a religious and political despotism, a
+privileged caste descended from the sun, a temple, and a sacred
+fire.[241] La Salle planted a large cross, with the arms of France
+attached, in the midst of the town; while the inhabitants looked on with
+a satisfaction which they would hardly have displayed had they
+understood the meaning of the act.
+
+[Sidenote: HOSTILITY.]
+
+The French next visited the Coroas, at their village two leagues below;
+and here they found a reception no less auspicious. On the thirty-first
+of March, as they approached Red River, they passed in the fog a town of
+the Oumas, and three days later discovered a party of fishermen, in
+wooden canoes, among the canes along the margin of the water. They fled
+at sight of the Frenchmen. La Salle sent men to reconnoitre, who, as
+they struggled through the marsh, were greeted with a shower of arrows;
+while from the neighboring village of the Quinipissas,[242] invisible
+behind the cane-brake, they heard the sound of an Indian drum and the
+whoops of the mustering warriors. La Salle, anxious to keep the peace
+with all the tribes along the river, recalled his men, and pursued his
+voyage. A few leagues below they saw a cluster of Indian lodges on the
+left bank, apparently void of inhabitants. They landed, and found three
+of them filled with corpses. It was a village of the Tangibao, sacked by
+their enemies only a few days before.[243]
+
+And now they neared their journey's end. On the sixth of April the river
+divided itself into three broad channels. La Salle followed that of the
+west, and Dautray that of the east; while Tonty took the middle passage.
+As he drifted down the turbid current, between the low and marshy
+shores, the brackish water changed to brine, and the breeze grew fresh
+with the salt breath of the sea. Then the broad bosom of the great Gulf
+opened on his sight, tossing its restless billows, limitless, voiceless,
+lonely as when born of chaos, without a sail, without a sign of life.
+
+La Salle, in a canoe, coasted the marshy borders of the sea; and then
+the reunited parties assembled on a spot of dry ground, a short distance
+above the mouth of the river. Here a column was made ready, bearing the
+arms of France, and inscribed with the words, "Louis Le Grand, Roy De
+France Et De Navarre, Règne; Le Neuvième Avril, 1682."
+
+The Frenchmen were mustered under arms; and while the New England
+Indians and their squaws looked on in wondering silence, they chanted
+the _Te Deum_, the _Exaudiat_, and the _Domine salvum fac Regem_. Then,
+amid volleys of musketry and shouts of _Vive le Roi_, La Salle planted
+the column in its place, and, standing near it, proclaimed in a loud
+voice,--
+
+[Sidenote: POSSESSION TAKEN.]
+
+"In the name of the most high, mighty, invincible, and victorious
+Prince, Louis the Great, by the grace of God King of France and of
+Navarre, Fourteenth of that name, I, this ninth day of April, one
+thousand six hundred and eighty-two, in virtue of the commission of his
+Majesty, which I hold in my hand, and which may be seen by all whom it
+may concern, have taken, and do now take, in the name of his Majesty and
+of his successors to the crown, possession of this country of Louisiana,
+the seas, harbors, ports, bays, adjacent straits, and all the nations,
+peoples, provinces, cities, towns, villages, mines, minerals, fisheries,
+streams, and rivers, within the extent of the said Louisiana, from the
+mouth of the great river St. Louis, otherwise called the Ohio, ... as
+also along the river Colbert, or Mississippi, and the rivers which
+discharge themselves thereinto, from its source beyond the country of
+the Nadouessioux ... as far as its mouth at the sea, or Gulf of Mexico,
+and also to the mouth of the River of Palms, upon the assurance we have
+had from the natives of these countries that we are the first Europeans
+who have descended or ascended the said river Colbert; hereby protesting
+against all who may hereafter undertake to invade any or all of these
+aforesaid countries, peoples, or lands, to the prejudice of the rights
+of his Majesty, acquired by the consent of the nations dwelling herein.
+Of which, and of all else that is needful, I hereby take to witness
+those who hear me, and demand an act of the notary here present."[244]
+
+Shouts of _Vive le Roi_ and volleys of musketry responded to his words.
+Then a cross was planted beside the column, and a leaden plate buried
+near it, bearing the arms of France, with a Latin inscription,
+_Ludovicus Magnus regnat_. The weather-beaten voyagers joined their
+voices in the grand hymn of the _Vexilla Regis_:--
+
+ "The banners of Heaven's King advance,
+ The mystery of the Cross shines forth;"
+
+and renewed shouts of _Vive le Roi_ closed the ceremony.
+
+On that day, the realm of France received on parchment a stupendous
+accession. The fertile plains of Texas; the vast basin of the
+Mississippi, from its frozen northern springs to the sultry borders of
+the Gulf; from the woody ridges of the Alleghanies to the bare peaks of
+the Rocky Mountains,--a region of savannas and forests, sun-cracked
+deserts, and grassy prairies, watered by a thousand rivers, ranged by a
+thousand warlike tribes, passed beneath the sceptre of the Sultan of
+Versailles; and all by virtue of a feeble human voice, inaudible at half
+a mile.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[231] La Salle, _Relation de la Découverte_, 1682, in Thomassy,
+_Géologie Pratique de la Louisiane 9; Lettre du Père Zenobe Membré, 3
+Juin, 1682; Ibid., 14 Août, 1682_; Membré in Le Clerc, ii. 214; Tonty,
+1684, 1693; _Procès Verbal de la Prise de Possession de la Louisiane,
+Feuilles détachées d'une Lettre de La Salle_ (Margry, ii. 164); _Récit
+de Nicolas de la Salle_ (Ibid., i. 547).
+
+The narrative ascribed to Membré and published by Le Clerc is based on
+the document preserved in the Archives Scientifiques de la Marine,
+entitled _Relation de la Découverte de l'Embouchure de la Rivière
+Mississippi faite par le Sieur de la Salle, l'année passée_, 1682. The
+writer of the narrative has used it very freely, copying the greater
+part verbatim, with occasional additions of a kind which seem to
+indicate that he had taken part in the expedition. The _Relation de la
+Découverte_, though written in the third person, is the official report
+of the discovery made by La Salle, or perhaps for him by Membré.
+
+[232] Called by Membré the Ouabache (Wabash).
+
+[233] La Salle, _Relation de la Découverte de l'Embouchure, etc._;
+Thomassy, 10. Membré gives the same date; but the _Procès Verbal_ makes
+it the twenty-sixth.
+
+[234] Gravier, in his letter of 16 Feb., 1701, says that he encamped
+near a "great bluff of stone, called Fort Prudhomme, because M. de La
+Salle, going on his discovery, intrenched himself here with his party,
+fearing that Prudhomme, who had lost himself in the woods, had been
+killed by the Indians, and that he himself would be attacked."
+
+[235] La Salle, _Relation_; Thomassy, 11.
+
+[236] _Procès Verbal de la Prise de Possession du Pays des Arkansas, 14
+Mars, 1682._
+
+[237] The nation of the Akanseas, Alkansas, or Arkansas, dwelt on the
+west bank of the Mississippi, near the mouth of the Arkansas. They were
+divided into four tribes, living for the most part in separate villages.
+Those first visited by La Salle were the Kappas, or Quapaws, a remnant
+of whom still subsists. The others were the Topingas, or Tongengas; the
+Torimans; and the Osotouoy, or Sauthouis. According to Charlevoix, who
+saw them in 1721, they were regarded as the tallest and best-formed
+Indians in America, and were known as _les Beaux Hommes_. Gravier says
+that they once lived on the Ohio.
+
+[238] In Tensas County, Louisiana. Tonty's estimates of distance are
+here much too low. They seem to be founded on observations of latitude,
+without reckoning the windings of the river. It may interest sportsmen
+to know that the party killed several large alligators, on their way.
+Membré is much astonished that such monsters should be born of eggs like
+chickens.
+
+[239] Tonty, 1684, 1693. In the spurious narrative, published in Tonty's
+name, the account is embellished and exaggerated. Compare Membré in Le
+Clerc, ii. 227. La Salle's statements in the _Relation_ of 1682
+(Thomassy, 12) sustain those of Tonty.
+
+[240] Membré in Le Clerc, ii. 232.
+
+[241] The Natchez and the Taensas, whose habits and customs were
+similar, did not, in their social organization, differ radically from
+other Indians. The same principle of clanship, or _totemship_, so widely
+spread, existed in full force among them, combined with their religious
+ideas, and developed into forms of which no other example, equally
+distinct, is to be found. (For Indian clanship, see "The Jesuits in
+North America," _Introduction_.) Among the Natchez and Taensas, the
+principal clan formed a ruling caste; and its chiefs had the attributes
+of demi-gods. As descent was through the female, the chief's son never
+succeeded him, but the son of one of his sisters; and as she, by the
+usual totemic law, was forced to marry in another clan,--that is, to
+marry a common mortal,--her husband, though the destined father of a
+demi-god, was treated by her as little better than a slave. She might
+kill him, if he proved unfaithful; but he was forced to submit to her
+infidelities in silence.
+
+The customs of the Natchez have been described by Du Pratz, Le Petit,
+Penecaut, and others. Charlevoix visited their temple in 1721, and found
+it in a somewhat shabby condition. At this time, the Taensas were
+extinct. In 1729 the Natchez, enraged by the arbitrary conduct of a
+French commandant, massacred the neighboring settlers, and were in
+consequence expelled from their country and nearly destroyed. A few
+still survive, incorporated with the Creeks; but they have lost their
+peculiar customs.
+
+[242] In St. Charles County, on the left bank, not far above New
+Orleans.
+
+[243] Hennepin uses this incident, as well as most of those which have
+preceded it, in making up the story of his pretended voyage to the Gulf.
+
+[244] In the passages omitted above, for the sake of brevity, the Ohio
+is mentioned as being called also the _Olighin_-(Alleghany) _Sipou_, and
+_Chukagoua_; and La Salle declares that he takes possession of the
+country with the consent of the nations dwelling in it, of whom he names
+the Chaouanons (Shawanoes), Kious, or Nadouessious (Sioux), Chikachas
+(Chickasaws), Motantees (?), Illinois, Mitchigamias, Arkansas, Natchez,
+and Koroas. This alleged consent is, of course, mere farce. If there
+could be any doubt as to the meaning of the words of La Salle, as
+recorded in the _Procès Verbal de la Prise de Possession de la
+Louisiane_, it would be set at rest by Le Clerc, who says: "Le Sieur de
+la Salle prit au nom de sa Majesté possession de ce fleuve, _de toutes
+les rivières qui y entrent, et de tous les pays qu'elles arrosent_."
+These words are borrowed from the report of La Salle (see Thomassy, 14).
+A copy of the original _Procès Verbal_ is before me. It bears the name
+of Jacques de la Metairie, Notary of Fort Frontenac, who was one of the
+party.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI.
+
+1682, 1683.
+
+ST. LOUIS OF THE ILLINOIS.
+
+ Louisiana.--Illness of La Salle: his Colony on the Illinois.--Fort
+ St. Louis.--Recall of Frontenac.--Le Febvre de la Barre.--Critical
+ Position of la Salle.--Hostility Of the New Governor.--Triumph of
+ the Adverse Faction.--La Salle sails for France.
+
+
+Louisiana was the name bestowed by La Salle on the new domain of the
+French crown. The rule of the Bourbons in the West is a memory of the
+past, but the name of the Great King still survives in a narrow corner
+of their lost empire. The Louisiana of to-day is but a single State of
+the American republic. The Louisiana of La Salle stretched from the
+Alleghanies to the Rocky Mountains; from the Rio Grande and the Gulf to
+the farthest springs of the Missouri.[245]
+
+La Salle had written his name in history; but his hard-earned success
+was but the prelude of a harder task. Herculean labors lay before him,
+if he would realize the schemes with which his brain was pregnant. Bent
+on accomplishing them, he retraced his course, and urged his canoes
+upward against the muddy current. The party were famished. They had
+little to subsist on but the flesh of alligators. When they reached the
+Quinipissas, who had proved hostile on their way down, they resolved to
+risk an interview with them, in the hope of obtaining food. The
+treacherous savages dissembled, brought them corn, and on the following
+night made an attack upon them, but met with a bloody repulse. The party
+next revisited the Coroas, and found an unfavorable change in their
+disposition towards them. They feasted them, indeed, but during the
+repast surrounded them with an overwhelming force of warriors. The
+French, however, kept so well on their guard, that their entertainers
+dared not make an attack, and suffered them to depart unmolested.[246]
+
+[Sidenote: ILLNESS OF LA SALLE.]
+
+And now, in a career of unwonted success and anticipated triumph, La
+Salle was arrested by a foe against which the boldest heart avails
+nothing. As he ascended the Mississippi, he was seized by a dangerous
+illness. Unable to proceed, he sent forward Tonty to Michilimackinac,
+whence, after despatching news of their discovery to Canada, he was to
+return to the Illinois. La Salle himself lay helpless at Fort Prudhomme,
+the palisade work which his men had built at the Chickasaw Bluffs on
+their way down. Father Zenobe Membré attended him; and at the end of
+July he was once more in a condition to advance by slow movements
+towards Fort Miami, which he reached in about a month.
+
+In September he rejoined Tonty at Michilimackinac, and in the following
+month wrote to a friend in France: "Though my discovery is made, and I
+have descended the Mississippi to the Gulf of Mexico, I cannot send you
+this year either an account of my journey or a map. On the way back I
+was attacked by a deadly disease, which kept me in danger of my life for
+forty days, and left me so weak that I could think of nothing for four
+months after. I have hardly strength enough now to write my letters, and
+the season is so far advanced that I cannot detain a single day this
+canoe which I send expressly to carry them. If I had not feared being
+forced to winter on the way, I should have tried to get to Quebec to
+meet the new governor, if it is true that we are to have one; but in my
+present condition this would be an act of suicide, on account of the bad
+nourishment I should have all winter in case the snow and ice stopped me
+on the way. Besides, my presence is absolutely necessary in the place to
+which I am going. I pray you, my dear sir, to give me once more all the
+help you can. I have great enemies, who have succeeded in all they have
+undertaken. I do not pretend to resist them, but only to justify myself,
+so that I can pursue by sea the plans I have begun here by land."
+
+This was what he had proposed to himself from the first; that is, to
+abandon the difficult access through Canada, beset with enemies, and
+open a way to his western domain through the Gulf and the Mississippi.
+This was the aim of all his toilsome explorations. Could he have
+accomplished his first intention of building a vessel on the Illinois
+and descending in her to the Gulf, he would have been able to defray in
+good measure the costs of the enterprise by means of the furs and
+buffalo-hides collected on the way and carried in her to France. With a
+fleet of canoes, this was impossible; and there was nothing to offset
+the enormous outlay which he and his associates had made. He meant, as
+we have seen, to found on the banks of the Illinois a colony of French
+and Indians to answer the double purpose of a bulwark against the
+Iroquois and a place of storage for the furs of all the western tribes;
+and he hoped in the following year to secure an outlet for this colony
+and for all the trade of the valley of the Mississippi, by occupying the
+mouth of that river with a fort and another colony. This, too, was an
+essential part of his original design.
+
+But for his illness, he would have gone to France to provide for its
+execution. Meanwhile, he ordered Tonty to collect as many men as
+possible, and begin the projected colony on the banks of the Illinois. A
+report soon after reached him that those pests of the wilderness the
+Iroquois were about to renew their attacks on the western tribes. This
+would be fatal to his plans; and, following Tonty to the Illinois, he
+rejoined him near the site of the great town.
+
+[Sidenote: "STARVED ROCK."]
+
+The cliff called "Starved Rock," now pointed out to travellers as the
+chief natural curiosity of the region, rises, steep on three sides as a
+castle wall, to the height of a hundred and twenty-five feet above the
+river. In front, it overhangs the water that washes its base; its
+western brow looks down on the tops of the forest trees below; and on
+the east lies a wide gorge or ravine, choked with the mingled foliage of
+oaks, walnuts, and elms; while in its rocky depths a little brook creeps
+down to mingle with the river. From the trunk of the stunted cedar that
+leans forward from the brink, you may drop a plummet into the river
+below, where the cat-fish and the turtles may plainly be seen gliding
+over the wrinkled sands of the clear and shallow current. The cliff is
+accessible only from behind, where a man may climb up, not without
+difficulty, by a steep and narrow passage. The top is about an acre in
+extent. Here, in the month of December, La Salle and Tonty began to
+intrench themselves. They cut away the forest that crowned the rock,
+built store-houses and dwellings of its remains, dragged timber up the
+rugged pathway, and encircled the summit with a palisade.[247]
+
+[Sidenote: LA SALLE'S COLONY.]
+
+[Illustration: LA SALLE'S COLONY
+on the Illinois,
+FROM THE MAP OF
+FRANQUELIN,
+1684]
+
+Thus the winter passed, and meanwhile the work of negotiation went
+prosperously on. The minds of the Indians had been already prepared. In
+La Salle they saw their champion against the Iroquois, the standing
+terror of all this region. They gathered round his stronghold like the
+timorous peasantry of the middle ages around the rock-built castle of
+their feudal lord. From the wooden ramparts of St. Louis,--for so he
+named his fort,--high and inaccessible as an eagle's nest, a strange
+scene lay before his eye. The broad, flat valley of the Illinois was
+spread beneath him like a map, bounded in the distance by its low wall
+of woody hills. The river wound at his feet in devious channels among
+islands bordered with lofty trees; then, far on the left, flowed calmly
+westward through the vast meadows, till its glimmering blue ribbon was
+lost in hazy distance.
+
+There had been a time, and that not remote, when these fair meadows were
+a waste of death and desolation, scathed with fire, and strewn with the
+ghastly relics of an Iroquois victory. Now all was changed. La Salle
+looked down from his rock on a concourse of wild human life. Lodges of
+bark and rushes, or cabins of logs, were clustered on the open plain or
+along the edges of the bordering forests. Squaws labored, warriors
+lounged in the sun, naked children whooped and gambolled on the grass.
+Beyond the river, a mile and a half on the left, the banks were studded
+once more with the lodges of the Illinois, who, to the number of six
+thousand, had returned, since their defeat, to this their favorite
+dwelling-place. Scattered along the valley, among the adjacent hills,
+or over the neighboring prairie, were the cantonments of a half-score of
+other tribes and fragments of tribes, gathered under the protecting ægis
+of the French,--Shawanoes from the Ohio, Abenakis from Maine, Miamis
+from the sources of the Kankakee, with others whose barbarous names are
+hardly worth the record.[248] Nor were these La Salle's only
+dependants. By the terms of his patent, he held seigniorial rights over
+this wild domain; and he now began to grant it out in parcels to his
+followers. These, however, were as yet but a score,--a lawless band,
+trained in forest license, and marrying, as their detractors affirm, a
+new squaw every day in the week. This was after their lord's departure,
+for his presence imposed a check on these eccentricities.
+
+La Salle, in a memoir addressed to the Minister of the Marine, reports
+the total number of the Indians around Fort St. Louis at about four
+thousand warriors, or twenty thousand souls. His diplomacy had been
+crowned with a marvellous success,--for which his thanks were due, first
+to the Iroquois, and the universal terror they inspired; next, to his
+own address and unwearied energy. His colony had sprung up, as it were,
+in a night; but might not a night suffice to disperse it?
+
+The conditions of maintaining it were twofold: first, he must give
+efficient aid to his savage colonists against the Iroquois; secondly, he
+must supply them with French goods in exchange for their furs. The men,
+arms, and ammunition for their defence, and the goods for trading with
+them, must be brought from Canada, until a better and surer avenue of
+supply could be provided through the entrepôt which he meant to
+establish at the mouth of the Mississippi. Canada was full of his
+enemies; but as long as Count Frontenac was in power, he was sure of
+support. Count Frontenac was in power no longer. He had been recalled to
+France through the intrigues of the party adverse to La Salle; and Le
+Febvre de la Barre reigned in his stead.
+
+[Sidenote: LA SALLE AND LA BARRE.]
+
+La Barre was an old naval officer of rank, advanced to a post for which
+he proved himself notably unfit. If he was without the arbitrary
+passions which had been the chief occasion of the recall of his
+predecessor, he was no less without his energies and his talents. He
+showed a weakness and an avarice for which his age may have been in some
+measure answerable. He was no whit less unscrupulous than his
+predecessor in his secret violation of the royal ordinances regulating
+the fur-trade, which it was his duty to enforce. Like Frontenac, he took
+advantage of his position to carry on an illicit traffic with the
+Indians; but it was with different associates. The late governor's
+friends were the new governor's enemies; and La Salle, armed with his
+monopolies, was the object of his especial jealousy.[249]
+
+Meanwhile, La Salle, buried in the western wilderness, remained for the
+time ignorant of La Barre's disposition towards him, and made an effort
+to secure his good-will and countenance. He wrote to him from his rock
+of St. Louis, early in the spring of 1683, expressing the hope that he
+should have from him the same support as from Count Frontenac;
+"although," he says, "my enemies will try to influence you against me."
+His attachment to Frontenac, he pursues, has been the cause of all the
+late governor's enemies turning against him. He then recounts his voyage
+down the Mississippi; says that, with twenty-two Frenchmen, he caused
+all the tribes along the river to ask for peace; and speaks of his right
+under the royal patent to build forts anywhere along his route, and
+grant out lands around them, as at Fort Frontenac.
+
+"My losses in my enterprises," he continues, "have exceeded forty
+thousand crowns. I am now going four hundred leagues south-southwest of
+this place, to induce the Chickasaws to follow the Shawanoes and other
+tribes, and settle, like them, at St. Louis. It remained only to settle
+French colonists here, and this I have already done. I hope you will not
+detain them as _coureurs de bois_, when they come down to Montreal to
+make necessary purchases. I am aware that I have no right to trade with
+the tribes who descend to Montreal, and I shall not permit such trade to
+my men; nor have I ever issued licenses to that effect, as my enemies
+say that I have done."[250]
+
+Again, on the fourth of June following, he writes to La Barre, from the
+Chicago portage, complaining that some of his colonists, going to
+Montreal for necessary supplies, have been detained by his enemies, and
+begging that they may be allowed to return, that his enterprise may not
+be ruined. "The Iroquois," he pursues, "are again invading the country.
+Last year, the Miamis were so alarmed by them that they abandoned their
+town and fled; but at my return they came back, and have been induced to
+settle with the Illinois at my fort of St. Louis. The Iroquois have
+lately murdered some families of their nation, and they are all in
+terror again. I am afraid they will take flight, and so prevent the
+Missouris and neighboring tribes from coming to settle at St. Louis, as
+they are about to do.
+
+"Some of the Hurons and French tell the Miamis that I am keeping them
+here for the Iroquois to destroy. I pray that you will let me hear from
+you, that I may give these people some assurances of protection before
+they are destroyed in my sight. Do not suffer my men who have come down
+to the settlements to be longer prevented from returning. There is great
+need here of reinforcements. The Iroquois, as I have said, have lately
+entered the country; and a great terror prevails. I have postponed going
+to Michilimackinac, because, if the Iroquois strike any blow in my
+absence, the Miamis will think that I am in league with them; whereas,
+if I and the French stay among them, they will regard us as protectors.
+But, Monsieur, it is in vain that we risk our lives here, and that I
+exhaust my means in order to fulfil the intentions of his Majesty, if
+all my measures are crossed in the settlements below, and if those who
+go down to bring munitions, without which we cannot defend ourselves,
+are detained under pretexts trumped up for the occasion. If I am
+prevented from bringing up men and supplies, as I am allowed to do by
+the permit of Count Frontenac, then my patent from the King is useless.
+It would be very hard for us, after having done what was required, even
+before the time prescribed, and after suffering severe losses, to have
+our efforts frustrated by obstacles got up designedly.
+
+"I trust that, as it lies with you alone to prevent or to permit the
+return of the men whom I have sent down, you will not so act as to
+thwart my plans. A part of the goods which I have sent by them belong
+not to me, but to the Sieur de Tonty, and are a part of his pay. Others
+are to buy munitions indispensable for our defence. Do not let my
+creditors seize them. It is for their advantage that my fort, full as it
+is of goods, should be held against the enemy. I have only twenty men,
+with scarcely a hundred pounds of powder; and I cannot long hold the
+country without more. The Illinois are very capricious and uncertain....
+If I had men enough to send out to reconnoitre the enemy, I would have
+done so before this; but I have not enough. I trust you will put it in
+my power to obtain more, that this important colony may be saved."[251]
+
+While La Salle was thus writing to La Barre, La Barre was writing to
+Seignelay, the Marine and Colonial Minister, decrying his
+correspondent's discoveries, and pretending to doubt their reality. "The
+Iroquois," he adds, "have sworn his [La Salle's] death. The imprudence
+of this man is about to involve the colony in war."[252] And again he
+writes, in the following spring, to say that La Salle was with a score
+of vagabonds at Green Bay, where he set himself up as a king, pillaged
+his countrymen, and put them to ransom, exposed the tribes of the West
+to the incursions of the Iroquois, and all under pretence of a patent
+from his Majesty, the provisions of which he grossly abused; but, as his
+privileges would expire on the twelfth of May ensuing, he would then be
+forced to come to Quebec, where his creditors, to whom he owed more than
+thirty thousand crowns, were anxiously awaiting him.[253]
+
+Finally, when La Barre received the two letters from La Salle, of which
+the substance is given above, he sent copies of them to the Minister
+Seignelay, with the following comment: "By the copies of the Sieur de la
+Salle's letters, you will perceive that his head is turned, and that he
+has been bold enough to give you intelligence of a false discovery, and
+that, instead of returning to the colony to learn what the King wishes
+him to do, he does not come near me, but keeps in the backwoods, five
+hundred leagues off, with the idea of attracting the inhabitants to him,
+and building up an imaginary kingdom for himself, by debauching all the
+bankrupts and idlers of this country. If you will look at the two
+letters I had from him, you can judge the character of this personage
+better than I can. Affairs with the Iroquois are in such a state that I
+cannot allow him to muster all their enemies together and put himself at
+their head. All the men who brought me news from him have abandoned him,
+and say not a word about returning, _but sell the furs they have brought
+as if they were their own_; so that he cannot hold his ground much
+longer."[254] Such calumnies had their effect. The enemies of La Salle
+had already gained the ear of the King; and he had written in August,
+from Fontainebleau, to his new governor of Canada: "I am convinced, like
+you, that the discovery of the Sieur de la Salle is very useless, and
+that such enterprises ought to be prevented in future, as they tend only
+to debauch the inhabitants by the hope of gain, and to diminish the
+revenue from beaver-skins."[255]
+
+In order to understand the posture of affairs at this time, it must be
+remembered that Dutch and English traders of New York were urging on the
+Iroquois to attack the western tribes, with the object of gaining,
+through their conquest, the control of the fur-trade of the interior,
+and diverting it from Montreal to Albany. The scheme was full of danger
+to Canada, which the loss of the trade would have ruined. La Barre and
+his associates were greatly alarmed at it. Its complete success would
+have been fatal to their hopes of profit; but they nevertheless wished
+it such a measure of success as would ruin their rival, La Salle. Hence,
+no little satisfaction mingled with their anxiety when they heard that
+the Iroquois were again threatening to invade the Miamis and the
+Illinois; and thus La Barre, whose duty it was strenuously to oppose the
+intrigue of the English, and use every effort to quiet the ferocious
+bands whom they were hounding against the Indian allies of the French,
+was, in fact, but half-hearted in the work. He cut off La Salle from all
+supplies; detained the men whom he sent for succor; and, at a conference
+with the Iroquois, told them that they were welcome to plunder and kill
+him.[256]
+
+[Sidenote: A NEW ALARM.]
+
+The old governor, and the unscrupulous ring with which he was
+associated, now took a step to which he was doubtless emboldened by the
+tone of the King's letter, in condemnation of La Salle's enterprise. He
+resolved to seize Fort Frontenac, the property of La Salle, under the
+pretext that the latter had not fulfilled the conditions of the grant,
+and had not maintained a sufficient garrison.[257] Two of his
+associates, La Chesnaye and Le Ber, armed with an order from him, went
+up and took possession, despite the remonstrances of La Salle's
+creditors and mortgagees; lived on La Salle's stores, sold for their own
+profit, and (it is said) that of La Barre, the provisions sent by the
+King, and turned in the cattle to pasture on the growing crops. La
+Forest, La Salle's lieutenant, was told that he might retain the command
+of the fort if he would join the associates; but he refused, and sailed
+in the autumn for France.[258]
+
+Meanwhile La Salle remained at the Illinois in extreme embarrassment,
+cut off from supplies, robbed of his men who had gone to seek them, and
+disabled from fulfilling the pledges he had given to the surrounding
+Indians. Such was his position, when reports came to Fort St. Louis that
+the Iroquois were at hand. The Indian hamlets were wild with terror,
+beseeching him for succor which he had no power to give. Happily, the
+report proved false. No Iroquois appeared; the threatened attack was
+postponed, and the summer passed away in peace. But La Salle's position,
+with the governor his declared enemy, was intolerable and untenable; and
+there was no resource but in the protection of the court. Early in the
+autumn, he left Tonty in command of the rock, bade farewell to his
+savage retainers, and descended to Quebec, intending to sail for France.
+
+On his way, he met the Chevalier de Baugis, an officer of the King's
+dragoons, commissioned by La Barre to take possession of Fort St. Louis,
+and bearing letters from the governor ordering La Salle to come to
+Quebec,--a superfluous command, as he was then on his way thither. He
+smothered his wrath, and wrote to Tonty to receive De Baugis well. The
+chevalier and his party proceeded to the Illinois, and took possession
+of the fort,--De Baugis commanding for the governor, while Tonty
+remained as representative of La Salle. The two officers could not live
+in harmony; but, with the return of spring, each found himself in sore
+need of aid from the other. Towards the end of March the Iroquois
+attacked their citadel, and besieged it for six days, but at length
+withdrew discomfited, carrying with them a number of Indian prisoners,
+most of whom escaped from their clutches.[259]
+
+[Sidenote: LA SALLE SAILS FOR FRANCE.]
+
+Meanwhile, La Salle had sailed for France.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[245] The boundaries are laid down on the great map of Franquelin, made
+in 1684, and preserved in the Dépôt des Cartes of the Marine. The line
+runs along the south shore of Lake Erie, and thence follows the heads of
+the streams flowing into Lake Michigan. It then turns northwest, and is
+lost in the vast unknown of the now British Territories. On the south,
+it is drawn by the heads of the streams flowing into the Gulf, as far
+west as Mobile, after which it follows the shore of the Gulf to a little
+south of the Rio Grande; then runs west, northwest, and finally north,
+along the range of the Rocky Mountains.
+
+[246] Tonty, 1684, 1693.
+
+[247] "Starved Rock" perfectly answers, in every respect, to the
+indications of the contemporary maps and documents concerning "Le
+Rocher," the site of La Salle's fort of St. Louis. It is laid down on
+several contemporary maps, besides the great map of La Salle's
+discoveries, made in 1684. They all place it on the south side of the
+river; whereas Buffalo Rock, three miles above, which has been supposed
+to be the site of the fort, is on the north. The latter is crowned by a
+plateau of great extent, is but sixty feet high, is accessible at many
+points, and would require a large force to defend it; whereas La Salle
+chose "Le Rocher," because a few men could hold it against a multitude.
+Charlevoix, in 1721, describes both rocks, and says that the top of
+Buffalo Rock had been occupied by the Miami village, so that it was
+known as _Le Fort des Miamis_. This is confirmed by Joutel, who found
+the Miamis here in 1687. Charlevoix then speaks of "Le Rocher," calling
+it by that name; says that it is about a league below, on the left or
+south side, forming a sheer cliff, very high, and looking like a
+fortress on the border of the river. He saw remains of palisades at the
+top, which, he thinks, were made by the Illinois (_Journal Historique,
+Let._ xxvii.), though his countrymen had occupied it only three years
+before. "The French reside on the rock (Le Rocher), which is very lofty
+and impregnable." (_Memoir on Western Indians_, 1718, _in N. Y. Col.
+Docs._, ix. 890.) St. Cosme, passing this way in 1699, mentions it as
+"Le Vieux Fort," and says that it is "a rock about a hundred feet high
+at the edge of the river, where M. de la Salle built a fort, since
+abandoned." (_Journal de St. Cosme._) Joutel, who was here in 1687,
+says, "Fort St. Louis is on a steep rock, about two hundred feet high,
+with the river running at its base." He adds that its only defences were
+palisades. The true height, as stated above, is about a hundred and
+twenty-five feet.
+
+A traditional interest also attaches to this rock. It is said that, in
+the Indian wars that followed the assassination of Pontiac, a few years
+after the cession of Canada, a party of Illinois, assailed by the
+Pottawattamies, here took refuge, defying attack. At length they were
+all destroyed by starvation, and hence the name of "Starved Rock."
+
+For other proofs concerning this locality, see _ante_, 239.
+
+[248] This singular extemporized colony of La Salle, on the banks of the
+Illinois, is laid down in detail on the great map of La Salle's
+discoveries, by Jean Baptiste Franquelin, finished in 1684. There can be
+no doubt that this part of the work is composed from authentic data. La
+Salle himself, besides others of his party, came down from the Illinois
+in the autumn of 1683, and undoubtedly supplied the young engineer with
+materials. The various Indian villages, or cantonments, are all
+indicated, with the number of warriors belonging to each, the aggregate
+corresponding very nearly with that of La Salle's report to the
+minister. The Illinois, properly so called, are set down at 1,200
+warriors; the Miamis, at 1,300; the Shawanoes, at 200; the Ouiatnoens
+(Weas), at 500; the Peanqhichia (Piankishaw) band, at 150; the
+Pepikokia, at 160; the Kilatica, at 300; and the Ouabona, at 70,--in
+all, 3,880 warriors. A few others, probably Abenakis, lived in the fort.
+
+The Fort St. Louis is placed, on the map, at the exact site of Starved
+Rock, and the Illinois village at the place where, as already mentioned
+(see 239), Indian remains in great quantities are yearly ploughed up.
+The Shawanoe camp, or village, is placed on the south side of the river,
+behind the fort. The country is here hilly, broken, and now, as in La
+Salle's time, covered with wood, which, however, soon ends in the open
+prairie. A short time since, the remains of a low, irregular earthwork
+of considerable extent were discovered at the intersection of two
+ravines, about twenty-four hundred feet behind, or south of, Starved
+Rock. The earthwork follows the line of the ravines on two sides. On the
+east, there is an opening, or gateway, leading to the adjacent prairie.
+The work is very irregular in form, and shows no trace of the civilized
+engineer. In the stump of an oak-tree upon it, Dr. Paul counted a
+hundred and sixty rings of annual growth. The village of the Shawanoes
+(Chaouenons), on Franquelin's map, corresponds with the position of this
+earthwork. I am indebted to the kindness of Dr. John Paul and Col. D. F.
+Hitt, the proprietor of Starved Rock, for a plan of these curious
+remains and a survey of the neighboring district. I must also express my
+obligations to Mr. W. E. Bowman, photographer at Ottawa, for views of
+Starved Rock and other features of the neighboring scenery.
+
+An interesting relic of the early explorers of this region was found a
+few years ago at Ottawa, six miles above Starved Rock, in the shape of a
+small iron gun, buried several feet deep in the drift of the river. It
+consists of a welded tube of iron, about an inch and a half in calibre,
+strengthened by a series of thick iron rings, cooled on, after the most
+ancient as well as the most recent method of making cannon. It is about
+fourteen inches long, the part near the muzzle having been burst off.
+The construction is very rude. Small field-pieces, on a similar
+principle, were used in the fourteenth century. Several of them may be
+seen at the Musée d'Artillerie at Paris. In the time of Louis XIV., the
+art of casting cannon was carried to a high degree of perfection. The
+gun in question may have been made by a French blacksmith on the spot. A
+far less probable supposition is, that it is a relic of some unrecorded
+visit of the Spaniards; but the pattern of the piece would have been
+antiquated, even in the time of De Soto.
+
+[249] The royal instructions to La Barre, on his assuming the
+government, dated at Versailles, 10 May, 1682, require him to give no
+further permission to make journeys of discovery towards the Sioux and
+the Mississippi, as his Majesty thinks his subjects better employed in
+cultivating the land. The letter adds, however, that La Salle is to be
+allowed to continue his discoveries, if they appear to be useful. The
+same instructions are repeated in a letter of the Minister of the Marine
+to the new intendant of Canada, De Meules.
+
+[250] _Lettre de La Salle à La Barre, Fort St. Louis, 2 Avril, 1683._
+The above is condensed from passages in the original.
+
+[251] _Lettre de La Salle à La Barre, Portage de Chicagou, 4 Juin,
+1683._ The substance of the letter is given above, in a condensed form.
+A passage is omitted, in which La Salle expresses his belief that his
+vessel, the "Griffin," had been destroyed, not by Indians, but by the
+pilot, who, as he thinks, had been induced to sink her, and then, with
+some of the crew, attempted to join Du Lhut with their plunder, but were
+captured by Indians on the Mississippi.
+
+[252] _Lettre de La Barre au Ministre, 14 Nov., 1682._
+
+[253] _Lettre de La Barre au Ministre, 30 Avril, 1683._ La Salle had
+spent the winter, not at Green Bay, as this slanderous letter declares,
+but in the Illinois country.
+
+[254] _Lettre de La Barre au Ministre, 4 Nov., 1683._
+
+[255] _Lettre du Roy à La Barre, 5 Août, 1683._
+
+[256] _Mémoire pour rendre compte à Monseigneur le Marquis de Seignelay
+de l'État où le Sieur de Lasalle a laissé le Fort Frontenac pendant le
+temps de sa découverte._ On La Barre's conduct, see "Count Frontenac and
+New France under Louis XIV.," chap. v.
+
+[257] La Salle, when at Mackinaw, on his way to Quebec, in 1682, had
+been recalled to the Illinois, as we have seen, by a threatened Iroquois
+invasion. There is before me a copy of a letter which he then wrote to
+Count Frontenac, begging him to send up more soldiers to the fort, at
+his (La Salle's) expense. Frontenac, being about to sail for France,
+gave this letter to his newly arrived successor, La Barre, who, far from
+complying with the request, withdrew La Salle's soldiers already at the
+fort, and then made its defenceless state a pretext for seizing it. This
+statement is made in the memoir addressed to Seignelay, before cited.
+
+[258] These are the statements of the memorial addressed in La Salle's
+behalf to the minister, Seignelay.
+
+[259] Tonty, 1684, 1693; _Lettre de La Barre au Ministre, 5 Juin, 1684;
+Ibid., 9 Juillet, 1684_.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII.
+
+1680-1683.
+
+LA SALLE PAINTED BY HIMSELF.
+
+ Difficulty of knowing him; his Detractors; his Letters; vexations
+ of his Position; his Unfitness for Trade; risks Of Correspondence;
+ his Reported Marriage; alleged Ostentation; motives of Action;
+ charges of Harshness; intrigues against him; unpopular Manners; a
+ Strange Confession; his Strength and his Weakness; contrasts of his
+ Character.
+
+
+We have seen La Salle in his acts. While he crosses the sea, let us look
+at him in himself. Few men knew him, even of those who saw him most.
+Reserved and self-contained as he was, with little vivacity or gayety or
+love of pleasure, he was a sealed book to those about him. His daring
+energy and endurance were patent to all; but the motive forces that
+urged him, and the influences that wrought beneath the surface of his
+character, were hidden where few eyes could pierce. His enemies were
+free to make their own interpretations, and they did not fail to use the
+opportunity.
+
+The interests arrayed against him were incessantly at work. His men were
+persuaded to desert and rob him; the Iroquois were told that he was
+arming the western tribes against them; the western tribes were told
+that he was betraying them to the Iroquois; his proceedings were
+denounced to the court; and continual efforts were made to alienate his
+associates. They, on their part, sore as they were from disappointment
+and loss, were in a mood to listen to the aspersions cast upon him; and
+they pestered him with letters, asking questions, demanding
+explanations, and dunning him for money. It is through his answers that
+we are best able to judge him; and at times, by those touches of nature
+which make the whole world kin, they teach us to know him and to feel
+for him.
+
+[Sidenote: CHARGES AGAINST LA SALLE.]
+
+The main charges against him were that he was a crack-brained schemer,
+that he was harsh to his men, that he traded where he had no right to
+trade, and that his discoveries were nothing but a pretence for making
+money. No accusations appear that touch his integrity or his honor.
+
+It was hard to convince those who were always losing by him. A
+remittance of good dividends would have been his best answer, and would
+have made any other answer needless; but, instead of bills of exchange,
+he had nothing to give but excuses and explanations. In the autumn of
+1680, he wrote to an associate who had demanded the long-deferred
+profits: "I have had many misfortunes in the last two years. In the
+autumn of '78, I lost a vessel by the fault of the pilot; in the next
+summer, the deserters I told you about robbed me of eight or ten
+thousand livres' worth of goods. In the autumn of '79, I lost a vessel
+worth more than ten thousand crowns; in the next spring, five or six
+rascals stole the value of five or six thousand livres in goods and
+beaver-skins, at the Illinois, when I was absent. Two other men of mine,
+carrying furs worth four or five thousand livres, were killed or drowned
+in the St. Lawrence, and the furs were lost. Another robbed me of three
+thousand livres in beaver-skins stored at Michilimackinac. This last
+spring, I lost about seventeen hundred livres' worth of goods by the
+upsetting of a canoe. Last winter, the fort and buildings at Niagara
+were burned by the fault of the commander; and in the spring the
+deserters, who passed that way, seized a part of the property that
+remained, and escaped to New York. All this does not discourage me in
+the least, and will only defer for a year or two the returns of profit
+which you ask for this year. These losses are no more my fault than the
+loss of the ship 'St. Joseph' was yours. I cannot be everywhere, and
+cannot help making use of the people of the country."
+
+He begs his correspondent to send out an agent of his own. "He need not
+be very _savant_, but he must be faithful, patient of labor, and fond
+neither of gambling, women, nor good cheer; for he will find none of
+these with me. Trusting in what he will write you, you may close your
+ears to what priests and Jesuits tell you.
+
+[Sidenote: VEXATIONS OF HIS POSITION.]
+
+"After having put matters in good trim for trade I mean to withdraw,
+though I think it will be very profitable; for I am disgusted to find
+that I must always be making excuses, which is a part I cannot play
+successfully. I am utterly tired of this business; for I see that it is
+not enough to put property and life in constant peril, but that it
+requires more pains to answer envy and detraction than to overcome the
+difficulties inseparable from my undertaking."
+
+And he makes a variety of proposals, by which he hopes to get rid of a
+part of his responsibility to his correspondent. He begs him again to
+send out a confidential agent, saying that for his part he does not want
+to have any account to render, except that which he owes to the court,
+of his discoveries. He adds, strangely enough for a man burdened with
+such liabilities, "I have neither the habit nor the inclination to keep
+books, nor have I anybody with me who knows how." He says to another
+correspondent, "I think, like you, that partnerships in business are
+dangerous, on account of the little practice I have in these matters."
+It is not surprising that he wanted to leave his associates to manage
+business for themselves: "You know that this trade is good; and with a
+trusty agent to conduct it for you, you run no risk. As for me, I will
+keep the charge of the forts, the command of posts and of men, the
+management of Indians and Frenchmen, and the establishment of the
+colony, which will remain my property, leaving your agent and mine to
+look after our interests, and drawing my half without having any hand in
+what belongs to you."
+
+La Salle was a very indifferent trader; and his heart was not in the
+commercial part of his enterprise. He aimed at achievement, and thirsted
+after greatness. His ambition was to found another France in the West;
+and if he meant to govern it also,--as without doubt he did,--it is not
+a matter of wonder or of blame. His misfortune was, that, in the pursuit
+of a great design, he was drawn into complications of business with
+which he was ill fitted to grapple. He had not the instinct of the
+successful merchant. He dared too much, and often dared unwisely;
+attempted more than he could grasp, and forgot, in his sanguine
+anticipations, to reckon with enormous and incalculable risks.
+
+Except in the narrative parts, his letters are rambling and
+unconnected,--which is natural enough, written, as they were, at odd
+moments, by camp-fires and among Indians. The style is crude; and being
+well aware of this, he disliked writing, especially as the risk was
+extreme that his letters would miss their destination. "There is too
+little good faith in this country, and too many people on the watch, for
+me to trust anybody with what I wish to send you. Even sealed letters
+are not too safe. Not only are they liable to be lost or stopped by the
+way, but even such as escape the curiosity of spies lie at Montreal,
+waiting a long time to be forwarded."
+
+[Sidenote: HIS LETTERS INTERCEPTED.]
+
+Again, he writes: "I cannot pardon myself for the stoppage of my
+letters, though I made every effort to make them reach you. I wrote to
+you in '79 (in August), and sent my letters to M. de la Forest, who gave
+them in good faith to my brother. I don't know what he has done with
+them. I wrote you another, by the vessel that was lost last year. I sent
+two canoes, by two different routes; but the wind and the rain were so
+furious that they wintered on the way, and I found my letters at the
+fort on my return. I now send you one of them, which I wrote last year
+to M. Thouret, in which you will find a full account of what passed,
+from the time when we left the outlet of Lake Erie down to the sixteenth
+of August, 1680. What preceded was told at full length in the letters my
+brother has seen fit to intercept."
+
+This brother was the Sulpitian priest, Jean Cavelier, who had been
+persuaded that La Salle's enterprise would be ruinous, and therefore set
+himself sometimes to stop it altogether, and sometimes to manage it in
+his own way. "His conduct towards me," says La Salle, "has always been
+so strange, through the small love he bears me, that it was clear gain
+for me when he went away; since while he stayed he did nothing but cross
+all my plans, which I was forced to change every moment to suit his
+caprice."
+
+There was one point on which the interference of his brother and of his
+correspondents was peculiarly annoying. They thought it for their
+interest that he should remain a single man; whereas, it seems that his
+devotion to his purpose was not so engrossing as to exclude more tender
+subjects. He writes:--
+
+"I am told that you have been uneasy about my pretended marriage. I had
+not thought about it at that time; and I shall not make any engagement
+of the sort till I have given you reason to be satisfied with me. It is
+a little extraordinary that I must render account of a matter which is
+free to all the world.
+
+"In fine, Monsieur, it is only as an earnest of something more
+substantial that I write to you so much at length. I do not doubt that
+you will hereafter change the ideas about me which some persons wish to
+give you, and that you will be relieved of the anxiety which all that
+has happened reasonably causes you. I have written this letter at more
+than twenty different times; and I am more than a hundred and fifty
+leagues from where I began it. I have still two hundred more to get
+over, before reaching the Illinois. I am taking with me twenty-five men
+to the relief of the six or seven who remain with the Sieur de Tonty."
+
+This was the journey which ended in that scene of horror at the ruined
+town of the Illinois.
+
+[Sidenote: CHARGED WITH OSTENTATION.]
+
+To the same correspondent, pressing him for dividends, he says: "You
+repeat continually that you will not be satisfied unless I make you
+large returns of profit. Though I have reason to thank you for what you
+have done for this enterprise, it seems to me that I have done still
+more, since I have put everything at stake; and it would be hard to
+reproach me either with foolish outlays or with the ostentation which is
+falsely imputed to me. Let my accusers explain what they mean. Since I
+have been in this country, I have had neither servants nor clothes nor
+fare which did not savor more of meanness than of ostentation; and the
+moment I see that there is anything with which either you or the court
+find fault, I assure you that I will give it up,--for the life I am
+leading has no other attraction for me than that of honor; and the more
+danger and difficulty there is in undertakings of this sort, the more
+worthy of honor I think they are."
+
+His career attests the sincerity of these words. They are a momentary
+betrayal of the deep enthusiasm of character which may be read in his
+life, but to which he rarely allowed the faintest expression.
+
+"Above all," he continues, "if you want me to keep on, do not compel me
+to reply to all the questions and fancies of priests and Jesuits. They
+have more leisure than I; and I am not subtle enough to anticipate all
+their empty stories. I could easily give you the information you ask;
+but I have a right to expect that you will not believe all you hear, nor
+require me to prove to you that I am not a madman. That is the first
+point to which you should have attended, before having business with me;
+and in our long acquaintance, either you must have found me out, or else
+I must have had long intervals of sanity."
+
+To another correspondent he defends himself against the charge of
+harshness to his men: "The facility I am said to want is out of place
+with this sort of people, who are libertines for the most part; and to
+indulge them means to tolerate blasphemy, drunkenness, lewdness, and a
+license incompatible with any kind of order. It will not be found that I
+have in any case whatever treated any man harshly, except for
+blasphemies and other such crimes openly committed. These I cannot
+tolerate: first, because such compliance would give grounds for another
+accusation, much more just; secondly, because, if I allowed such
+disorders to become habitual, it would be hard to keep the men in
+subordination and obedience, as regards executing the work I am
+commissioned to do; thirdly, because the debaucheries, too common with
+this rabble, are the source of endless delays and frequent thieving;
+and, finally, because I am a Christian, and do not want to bear the
+burden of their crimes.
+
+[Sidenote: INTRIGUES AGAINST HIM.]
+
+"What is said about my servants has not even a show of truth; for I use
+no servants here, and all my men are on the same footing. I grant that
+as those who have lived with me are steadier and give me no reason to
+complain of their behavior, I treat them as gently as I should treat the
+others if they resembled them, and as those who were formerly my
+servants are the only ones I can trust, I speak more openly to them than
+to the rest, who are generally spies of my enemies. The twenty-two men
+who deserted and robbed me are not to be believed on their word,
+deserters and thieves as they are. They are ready enough to find some
+pretext for their crime; and it needs as unjust a judge as the intendant
+to prompt such rascals to enter complaints against a person to whom he
+had given a warrant to arrest them. But, to show the falsity of these
+charges, Martin Chartier, who was one of those who excited the rest to
+do as they did, was never with me at all; and the rest had made their
+plot before seeing me." And he proceeds to relate, in great detail, a
+variety of circumstances to prove that his men had been instigated first
+to desert, and then to slander him; adding, "Those who remain with me
+are the first I had, and they have not left me for six years."
+
+"I have a hundred other proofs of the bad counsel given to these
+deserters, and will produce them when wanted; but as they themselves are
+the only witnesses of the severity they complain of, while the witnesses
+of their crimes are unimpeachable, why am I refused the justice I
+demand, and why is their secret escape connived at?
+
+"I do not know what you mean by having popular manners. There is nothing
+special in my food, clothing, or lodging, which are all the same for me
+as for my men. How can it be that I do not talk with them? I have no
+other company. M. de Tonty has often found fault with me because I
+stopped too often to talk with them. You do not know the men one must
+employ here, when you exhort me to make merry with them. They are
+incapable of that; for they are never pleased, unless one gives free
+rein to their drunkenness and other vices. If that is what you call
+having popular manners, neither honor nor inclination would let me stoop
+to gain their favor in a way so disreputable: and, besides, the
+consequences would be dangerous, and they would have the same contempt
+for me that they have for all who treat them in this fashion.
+
+"You write me that even my friends say that I am not a man of popular
+manners. I do not know what friends they are. I know of none in this
+country. To all appearance they are enemies, more subtle and secret than
+the rest. I make no exceptions; for I know that those who seem to give
+me support do not do it out of love for me, but because they are in some
+sort bound in honor, and that in their hearts they think I have dealt
+ill with them. M. Plet will tell you what he has heard about it himself,
+and the reasons they have to give.[260] I have seen it for a long time;
+and these secret stabs they give me show it very plainly. After that, it
+is not surprising that I open my mind to nobody, and distrust everybody.
+I have reasons that I cannot write.
+
+"For the rest, Monsieur, pray be well assured that the information you
+are so good as to give me is received with a gratitude equal to the
+genuine friendship from which it proceeds; and, however unjust are the
+charges made against me, I should be much more unjust myself if I did
+not feel that I have as much reason to thank you for telling me of them
+as I have to complain of others for inventing them.
+
+[Sidenote: HIS MANNERS.]
+
+"As for what you say about my look and manner, I myself confess that you
+are not far from right. But _naturam expellas_; and if I am wanting in
+expansiveness and show of feeling towards those with whom I associate,
+_it is only through a timidity which is natural to me, and which has
+made me leave various employments, where without it I could have
+succeeded_. But as I judged myself ill-fitted for them on account of
+this defect, I have chosen a life more suited to my solitary
+disposition; which, nevertheless, does not make me harsh to my people,
+though, joined to a life among savages, it makes me, perhaps, less
+polished and complaisant than the atmosphere of Paris requires. I well
+believe that there is self-love in this; and that, knowing how little I
+am accustomed to a more polite life, the fear of making mistakes makes
+me more reserved than I like to be. So I rarely expose myself to
+conversation with those in whose company I am afraid of making blunders,
+and can hardly help making them. Abbé Renaudot knows with what
+repugnance I had the honor to appear before Monseigneur de Conti; and
+sometimes it took me a week to make up my mind to go to the
+audience,--that is, when I had time to think about myself, and was not
+driven by pressing business. It is much the same with letters, which I
+never write except when pushed to it, and for the same reason. It is a
+defect of which I shall never rid myself as long as I live, often as it
+spites me against myself, and often as I quarrel with myself about it."
+
+[Sidenote: HIS STRENGTH AND WEAKNESS.]
+
+Here is a strange confession for a man like La Salle. Without doubt, the
+timidity of which he accuses himself had some of its roots in pride; but
+not the less was his pride vexed and humbled by it. It is surprising
+that, being what he was, he could have brought himself to such an avowal
+under any circumstances or any pressure of distress. Shyness; a morbid
+fear of committing himself; and incapacity to express, and much more to
+simulate, feeling,--a trait sometimes seen in those with whom feeling is
+most deep,--are strange ingredients in the character of a man who had
+grappled so dauntlessly with life on its harshest and rudest side. They
+were deplorable defects for one in his position. He lacked that
+sympathetic power, the inestimable gift of the true leader of men, in
+which lies the difference between a willing and a constrained obedience.
+This solitary being, hiding his shyness under a cold reserve, could
+rouse no enthusiasm in his followers. He lived in the purpose which he
+had made a part of himself, nursed his plans in secret, and seldom asked
+or accepted advice. He trusted himself, and learned more and more to
+trust no others. One may fairly infer that distrust was natural to him;
+but the inference may possibly be wrong. Bitter experience had schooled
+him to it; for he lived among snares, pitfalls, and intriguing enemies.
+He began to doubt even the associates who, under representations he had
+made them in perfect good faith, had staked their money on his
+enterprise, and lost it, or were likely to lose it. They pursued him
+with advice and complaint, and half believed that he was what his
+maligners called him,--a visionary or a madman. It galled him that they
+had suffered for their trust in him, and that they had repented their
+trust. His lonely and shadowed nature needed the mellowing sunshine of
+success, and his whole life was a fight with adversity.
+
+All that appears to the eye is his intrepid conflict with obstacles
+without; but this, perhaps, was no more arduous than the invisible and
+silent strife of a nature at war with itself,--the pride, aspiration,
+and bold energy that lay at the base of his character battling against
+the superficial weakness that mortified and angered him. In such a man,
+the effect of such an infirmity is to concentrate and intensify the
+force within. In one form or another, discordant natures are common
+enough; but very rarely is the antagonism so irreconcilable as it was in
+him. And the greater the antagonism, the greater the pain. There are
+those in whom the sort of timidity from which he suffered is matched
+with no quality that strongly revolts against it. These gentle natures
+may at least have peace, but for him there was no peace.
+
+Cavelier de La Salle stands in history like a statue cast in iron; but
+his own unwilling pen betrays the man, and reveals in the stern, sad
+figure an object of human interest and pity.[261]
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[260] His cousin, François Plet, was in Canada in 1680, where, with La
+Salle's approval, he carried on the trade of Fort Frontenac, in order to
+indemnify himself for money advanced. La Salle always speaks of him with
+esteem and gratitude.
+
+[261] The following is the character of La Salle, as drawn by his
+friend, Abbé Bernou, in a memorial to the minister Seignelay: "Il est
+irréprochable dans ses moeurs, réglé dans sa conduite, et qui veut de
+l'ordre parmy ses gens. Il est savant, judicieux, politique, vigilant,
+infatigable, sobre, et intrépide. Il entend suffisament l'architecture
+civile, militaire, et navale ainsy que l'agriculture; il parle ou entend
+quatre ou cinq langues des Sauvages, et a beaucoup de facilité pour
+apprendre les autres. Il sçait toutes leurs manières et obtient d'eux
+tout ce qu'il veut par son adresse, par son éloquence, et parce qu'il
+est beaucoup estimé d'eux. Dans ses voyages il ne fait pas meilleure
+chère que le moindre de ses gens et se donne plus de peine que pas un
+pour les encourager, et il y a lieu de croire qu'avec la protection de
+Monseigneur il fondera des colonies plus considérables que toutes celles
+que les François ont établies jusqu'à présent."--_Mémoire pour
+Monseigneur le Marquis de Seignelay_, 1682 (Margry, ii. 277).
+
+The extracts given in the foregoing chapter are from La Salle's long
+letters of 29 Sept., 1680, and 22 Aug., 1682 (1681?). Both are printed
+in the second volume of the Margry collection, and the originals of both
+are in the Bibliothèque Nationale. The latter seems to have been written
+to La Salle's friend, Abbé Bernou; and the former, to a certain M.
+Thouret.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII.
+
+1684.
+
+A NEW ENTERPRISE.
+
+ La Salle at Court: his Proposals.--Occupation of
+ Louisiana.--Invasion of Mexico.--Royal Favor.--Preparation.--A
+ Divided Command.--Beaujeu and La Salle.--Mental Condition of La
+ Salle: his Farewell to his Mother.
+
+
+When La Salle reached Paris, he went to his old lodgings in Rue de la
+Truanderie, and, it is likely enough, thought for an instant of the
+adventures and vicissitudes he had passed since he occupied them before.
+Another ordeal awaited him. He must confront, not painted savages with
+tomahawk and knife, but--what he shrank from more--the courtly throngs
+that still live and move in the pages of Sévigné and Saint-Simon.
+
+The news of his discovery and the rumor of his schemes were the talk of
+a moment among the courtiers, and then were forgotten. It was not so
+with their master. La Salle's friends and patrons did not fail him. A
+student and a recluse in his youth, and a backwoodsman in his manhood,
+he had what was to him the formidable honor of an interview with royalty
+itself, and stood with such philosophy as he could command before the
+gilded arm-chair, where, majestic and awful, the power of France sat
+embodied. The King listened to all he said; but the results of the
+interview were kept so secret that it was rumored in the ante-chambers
+that his proposals had been rejected.[262]
+
+On the contrary, they had met with more than favor. The moment was
+opportune for La Salle. The King had long been irritated against the
+Spaniards, because they not only excluded his subjects from their
+American ports, but forbade them to enter the Gulf of Mexico. Certain
+Frenchmen who had sailed on this forbidden sea had been seized and
+imprisoned; and more recently a small vessel of the royal navy had been
+captured for the same offence. This had drawn from the King a
+declaration that every sea should be free to all his subjects; and Count
+d'Estrées was sent with a squadron to the Gulf, to exact satisfaction of
+the Spaniards, or fight them if they refused it.[263] This was in time
+of peace. War had since arisen between the two crowns, and brought with
+it the opportunity of settling the question forever. In order to do so,
+the minister Seignelay, like his father Colbert, proposed to establish a
+French port on the Gulf, as a permanent menace to the Spaniards and a
+basis of future conquest. It was in view of this plan that La Salle's
+past enterprises had been favored; and the proposals he now made were in
+perfect accord with it.
+
+[Sidenote: LA SALLE'S PROPOSALS.]
+
+These proposals were set forth in two memorials. The first of them
+states that the late Monseigneur Colbert deemed it important for the
+service of his Majesty to discover a port in the Gulf of Mexico; that to
+this end the memorialist, La Salle, made five journeys of upwards of
+five thousand leagues, in great part on foot; and traversed more than
+six hundred leagues of unknown country, among savages and cannibals, at
+the cost of a hundred and fifty thousand francs. He now proposes to
+return by way of the Gulf of Mexico and the mouth of the Mississippi to
+the countries he has discovered, whence great benefits may be expected:
+first, the cause of God may be advanced by the preaching of the gospel
+to many Indian tribes; and, secondly, great conquests may be effected
+for the glory of the King, by the seizure of provinces rich in silver
+mines, and defended only by a few indolent and effeminate Spaniards. The
+Sieur de la Salle, pursues the memorial, binds himself to be ready for
+the accomplishment of this enterprise within one year after his arrival
+on the spot; and he asks for this purpose only one vessel and two
+hundred men, with their arms, munitions, pay, and maintenance. When
+Monseigneur shall direct him, he will give the details of what he
+proposes. The memorial then describes the boundless extent, the
+fertility and resources of the country watered by the river Colbert, or
+Mississippi; the necessity of guarding it against foreigners, who will
+be eager to seize it now that La Salle's discovery has made it known;
+and the ease with which it may be defended by one or two forts at a
+proper distance above its mouth, which would form the key to an interior
+region eight hundred leagues in extent. "Should foreigners anticipate
+us," he adds, "they will complete the ruin of New France, which they
+already hem in by their establishments of Virginia, Pennsylvania, New
+England, and Hudson's Bay."[264]
+
+The second memorial is more explicit. The place, it says, which the
+Sieur de la Salle proposes to fortify, is on the river Colbert, or
+Mississippi, sixty leagues above its mouth, where the soil is very
+fertile, the climate very mild, and whence we, the French, may control
+the continent,--since, the river being narrow, we could defend ourselves
+by means of fire-ships against a hostile fleet, while the position is
+excellent both for attacking an enemy or retreating in case of need. The
+neighboring Indians detest the Spaniards, but love the French, having
+been won over by the kindness of the Sieur de la Salle. We could form of
+them an army of more than fifteen thousand savages, who, supported by
+the French and Abenakis, followers of the Sieur de la Salle, could
+easily subdue the province of New Biscay (the most northern province of
+Mexico), where there are but four hundred Spaniards, more fit to work
+the mines than to fight. On the north of New Biscay lie vast forests,
+extending to the river Seignelay[265] (Red River), which is but forty or
+fifty leagues from the Spanish province. This river affords the means of
+attacking it to great advantage.
+
+In view of these facts, pursues the memorial, the Sieur de la Salle
+offers, if the war with Spain continues, to undertake this conquest with
+two hundred men from France. He will take on his way fifty buccaneers at
+St. Domingo, and direct the four thousand Indian warriors at Fort St.
+Louis of the Illinois to descend the river and join him. He will
+separate his force into three divisions, and attack at the same time the
+centre and the two extremities of the province. To accomplish this great
+design, he asks only for a vessel of thirty guns, a few cannon for the
+forts, and power to raise in France two hundred such men as he shall
+think fit, to be armed, paid, and maintained six months at the King's
+charge. And the Sieur de la Salle binds himself, if the execution of
+this plan is prevented for more than three years, by peace with Spain,
+to refund to his Majesty all the costs of the enterprise, on pain of
+forfeiting the government of the ports he will have established.[266]
+
+[Sidenote: LA SALLES'S PLANS.]
+
+Such, in brief, was the substance of this singular proposition. And,
+first, it is to be observed that it is based on a geographical blunder,
+the nature of which is explained by the map of La Salle's discoveries
+made in this very year. Here the river Seignelay, or Red River, is
+represented as running parallel to the northern border of Mexico, and at
+no great distance from it,--the region now called Texas being almost
+entirely suppressed. According to the map, New Biscay might be reached
+from this river in a few days; and, after crossing the intervening
+forests, the coveted mines of Ste. Barbe, or Santa Barbara, would be
+within striking distance.[267] That La Salle believed in the possibility
+of invading the Spanish province of New Biscay from Red River there can
+be no doubt; neither can it reasonably be doubted that he hoped at some
+future day to make the attempt; and yet it is incredible that a man in
+his sober senses could have proposed this scheme with the intention of
+attempting to execute it at the time and in the manner which he
+indicates.[268] This memorial bears some indications of being drawn up
+in order to produce a certain effect on the minds of the King and his
+minister. La Salle's immediate necessity was to obtain from them the
+means for establishing a fort and a colony within the mouth of the
+Mississippi. This was essential to his own plans; nor did he in the
+least exaggerate the value of such an establishment to the French
+nation, and the importance of anticipating other powers in the
+possession of it. But he thought that he needed a more glittering lure
+to attract the eyes of Louis and Seignelay; and thus, it may be, he held
+before them, in a definite and tangible form, the project of Spanish
+conquest which had haunted his imagination from youth,--trusting that
+the speedy conclusion of peace, which actually took place, would absolve
+him from the immediate execution of the scheme, and give him time, with
+the means placed at his disposal, to mature his plans and prepare for
+eventual action. Such a procedure may be charged with indirectness; but
+there is a different explanation, which we shall suggest hereafter, and
+which implies no such reproach.[269]
+
+Even with this madcap enterprise lopped off, La Salle's scheme of
+Mississippi trade and colonization, perfectly sound in itself, was too
+vast for an individual,--above all, for one crippled and crushed with
+debt. While he grasped one link of the great chain, another, no less
+essential, escaped from his hand; while he built up a colony on the
+Mississippi, it was reasonably certain that evil would befall his
+distant colony of the Illinois.
+
+[Sidenote: LA BARRE REBUKED.]
+
+The glittering project which he now unfolded found favor in the eyes of
+the King and his minister; for both were in the flush of an unparalleled
+success, and looked in the future, as in the past, for nothing but
+triumphs. They granted more than the petitioner asked, as indeed they
+well might, if they expected the accomplishment of all that he proposed
+to attempt. La Forest, La Salle's lieutenant, ejected from Fort
+Frontenac by La Barre, was now at Paris; and he was despatched to
+Canada, empowered to reoccupy, in La Salle's name, both Fort Frontenac
+and Fort St. Louis of the Illinois. The King himself wrote to La Barre
+in a strain that must have sent a cold thrill through the veins of that
+official. "I hear," he says, "that you have taken possession of Fort
+Frontenac, the property of the Sieur de la Salle, driven away his men,
+suffered his land to run to waste, and even told the Iroquois that they
+might seize him as an enemy of the colony." He adds, that, if this is
+true, La Barre must make reparation for the wrong, and place all La
+Salle's property, as well as his men, in the hands of the Sieur de la
+Forest, "as I am satisfied that Fort Frontenac was not abandoned, as you
+wrote to me that it had been."[270] Four days later, he wrote to the
+intendant of Canada, De Meules, to the effect that the bearer, La
+Forest, is to suffer no impediment, and that La Barre is to surrender to
+him without reserve all that belongs to La Salle.[271] Armed with this
+letter, La Forest sailed for Canada.[272]
+
+A chief object of his mission, as it was represented to Seignelay, was,
+not only to save the colony at the Illinois from being broken up by La
+Barre, but also to collect La Salle's scattered followers, muster the
+savage warriors around the rock of St. Louis, and lead the whole down
+the Mississippi, to co-operate in the attack on New Biscay. If La Salle
+meant that La Forest should seriously attempt to execute such a scheme,
+then the charges of his enemies that his brain was turned were better
+founded than he would have us think.[273]
+
+[Sidenote: PREPARATION.]
+
+He had asked for two vessels,[274] and four were given to him. Agents
+were sent to Rochelle and Rochefort to gather recruits. A hundred
+soldiers were enrolled, besides mechanics and laborers; and thirty
+volunteers, including gentlemen and burghers of condition, joined the
+expedition. And, as the plan was one no less of colonization than of
+war, several families embarked for the new land of promise, as well as a
+number of girls, lured by the prospect of almost certain matrimony. Nor
+were missionaries wanting. Among them was La Salle's brother, Cavelier,
+and two other priests of St. Sulpice. Three Récollets were
+added,--Zenobe Membré, who was then in France, Anastase Douay, and
+Maxime Le Clerc. The principal vessel was the "Joly," belonging to the
+royal navy, and carrying thirty-six guns. Another armed vessel of six
+guns was added, together with a store-ship and a ketch.
+
+La Salle had asked for sole command of the expedition, with a subaltern
+officer, and one or two pilots to sail the vessels as he should direct.
+Instead of complying, Seignelay gave the command of the vessels to
+Beaujeu, a captain of the royal navy,--whose authority was restricted to
+their management at sea, while La Salle was to prescribe the route they
+were to take, and have entire control of the troops and colonists on
+land.[275] This arrangement displeased both parties. Beaujeu, an old and
+experienced officer, was galled that a civilian should be set over
+him,--and he, too, a burgher lately ennobled; nor was La Salle the man
+to soothe his ruffled spirit. Detesting a divided command, cold,
+reserved, and impenetrable, he would have tried the patience of a less
+excitable colleague. Beaujeu, on his part, though set to a task which he
+disliked, seems to have meant to do his duty, and to have been willing
+at the outset to make the relations between himself and his unwelcome
+associate as agreeable as possible. Unluckily, La Salle discovered that
+the wife of Beaujeu was devoted to the Jesuits. We have seen the extreme
+distrust with which he regarded these guides of his youth, and he seems
+now to have fancied that Beaujeu was their secret ally. Possibly, he
+suspected that information of his movements would be given to the
+Spaniards; more probably, he had undefined fears of adverse
+machinations. Granting that such existed, it was not his interest to
+stimulate them by needlessly exasperating the naval commander. His
+deportment, however, was not conciliating; and Beaujeu, prepared to
+dislike him, presently lost temper. While the vessels still lay at
+Rochelle; while all was bustle and preparation; while stores, arms, and
+munitions were embarking; while boys and vagabonds were enlisting as
+soldiers for the expedition,--Beaujeu was venting his disgust in long
+letters to the minister.
+
+[Sidenote: BEAUJEU AND LA SALLE.]
+
+"You have ordered me, Monseigneur, to give all possible aid to this
+undertaking, and I shall do so to the best of my power; but permit me to
+take great credit to myself, for I find it very hard to submit to the
+orders of the Sieur de la Salle, whom I believe to be a man of merit,
+but who has no experience of war except with savages, and who has no
+rank, while I have been captain of a ship thirteen years, and have
+served thirty by sea and land. Besides, Monseigneur, he has told me that
+in case of his death you have directed that the Sieur de Tonty shall
+succeed him. This, indeed, is very hard; for, though I am not acquainted
+with that country, I should be very dull, if, being on the spot, I did
+not know at the end of a month as much of it as they do. I beg,
+Monseigneur, that I may at least share the command with them; and that,
+as regards war, nothing may be done without my knowledge and
+concurrence,--for, as to their commerce, I neither intend nor desire to
+know anything about it."
+
+Seignelay answered by a rebuff, and told him to make no trouble about
+the command. This increased his irritation, and he wrote: "In my last
+letter, Monseigneur, I represented to you the hardship of compelling me
+to obey M. de la Salle, who has no rank, and _never commanded anybody
+but school-boys_; and I begged you at least to divide the command
+between us. I now, Monseigneur, take the liberty to say that I will obey
+without repugnance, if you order me to do so, having reflected that
+there can be no competition between the said Sieur de la Salle and me.
+
+"Thus far, he has not told me his plan; and he changes his mind every
+moment. He is a man so suspicious, and so afraid that one will penetrate
+his secrets, that I dare not ask him anything. He says that M. de
+Parassy, commissary's clerk, with whom he has often quarrelled, is paid
+by his enemies to defeat his undertaking; and many other things with
+which I will not trouble you....
+
+"He pretends that I am only to command the sailors, and have no
+authority over the volunteer officers and the hundred soldiers who are
+to take passage in the 'Joly;' and that they are not to recognize or
+obey me in any way during the voyage....
+
+"He has covered the decks with boxes and chests of such prodigious size
+that neither the cannon nor the capstan can be worked."
+
+La Salle drew up a long list of articles, defining the respective rights
+and functions of himself and Beaujeu, to whom he presented it for
+signature. Beaujeu demurred at certain military honors demanded by La
+Salle, saying that if a marshal of France should come on board his ship,
+he would have none left to offer him. The point was referred to the
+naval intendant; and the articles of the treaty having been slightly
+modified, Beaujeu set his name to it. "By this," he says, "you can judge
+better of the character of M. de la Salle than by all I can say. He is a
+man who wants smoke [form and ceremony]. I will give him his fill of it,
+and, perhaps, more than he likes.
+
+"I am bound to an unknown country, to seek what is about as hard to find
+as the philosopher's stone. It vexes me, Monseigneur, that you should
+have been involved in a business the success of which is very uncertain.
+M. de la Salle begins to doubt it himself."
+
+While Beaujeu wrote thus to the minister, he was also writing to Cabart
+de Villermont, one of his friends at Paris, with whom La Salle was also
+on friendly terms. These letters are lively and entertaining, and by no
+means suggestive of any secret conspiracy. He might, it is true, have
+been more reserved in his communications; but he betrays no confidence,
+for none was placed in him. It is the familiar correspondence of an
+irritable but not ill-natured veteran, who is placed in an annoying
+position, and thinks he is making the best of it.
+
+La Salle thought that the minister had been too free in communicating
+the secrets of the expedition to the naval intendant at Rochefort, and
+through him to Beaujeu. It is hard to see how Beaujeu was to blame for
+this; but La Salle nevertheless fell into a dispute with him. "He could
+hardly keep his temper, and used expressions which obliged me to tell
+him that I cared very little about his affairs, and that the King
+himself would not speak as he did. He retracted, made excuses, and we
+parted good friends....
+
+"I do not like his suspiciousness. I think him a good, honest Norman;
+but Normans are out of fashion. It is one thing to-day, another
+to-morrow. It seems to me that he is not so sure about his undertaking
+as he was at Paris. This morning he came to see me, and told me he had
+changed his mind, and meant to give a new turn to the business, and go
+to another coast. He gave very poor reasons, to which I assented, to
+avoid a quarrel. I thought, by what he said, that he wanted to find a
+scapegoat to bear the blame, in case his plan does not succeed as he
+hopes. For the rest, I think him a brave man and a true; and I am
+persuaded that if this business fails, it will be because he does not
+know enough, and will not trust us of the profession. As for me, I shall
+do my best to help him, as I have told you before; and I am delighted to
+have him keep his secret, so that I shall not have to answer for the
+result. Pray do not show my letters, for fear of committing me with him.
+He is too suspicious already; and never was Norman so Norman as he,
+which is a great hinderance to business."
+
+Beaujeu came from the same province and calls himself jocularly _un bon
+gros Normand_. His good-nature, however, rapidly gave way as time went
+on. "Yesterday," he writes, "this Monsieur told me that he meant to go
+to the Gulf of Mexico. A little while ago, as I said before, he talked
+about going to Canada. I see nothing certain in it. It is not that I do
+not believe that all he says is true; but not being of the profession,
+and not liking to betray his ignorance, he is puzzled what to do.
+
+"I shall go straight forward, without regarding a thousand whims and
+_bagatelles_. His continual suspicion would drive anybody mad except a
+Norman like me; but I shall humor him, as I have always done, even to
+sailing my ship on dry land, if he likes."
+
+[Sidenote: AN OPEN QUARREL.]
+
+A few days later, there was an open quarrel. "M. de la Salle came to me,
+and said, rather haughtily and in a tone of command, that I must put
+provisions for three months more on board my vessel. I told him it was
+impossible, as she had more lading already than anybody ever dared to
+put in her before. He would not hear reason, but got angry and abused me
+in good French, and found fault with me because the vessel would not
+hold his three months' provisions. He said I ought to have told him of
+it before. 'And how would you have me tell you,' said I, 'when you never
+tell me what you mean to do?' We had still another quarrel. He asked me
+where his officers should take their meals. I told him that they might
+take them where he pleased; for I gave myself no trouble in the matter,
+having no orders. He answered that they should not mess on bacon, while
+the rest ate fowls and mutton. I said that if he would send fowls and
+mutton on board, his people should eat them; but, as for bacon, I had
+often ate it myself. At this, he went off and complained to M. Dugué
+that I refused to embark his provisions, and told him that he must live
+on bacon. I excused him as not knowing how to behave himself, having
+spent his life among school-boy brats and savages. Nevertheless, I
+offered to him, his brother, and two of his friends, seats at my table
+and the same fare as myself. He answered my civility by an
+impertinence, saying that he distrusted people who offered so much and
+seemed so obliging. I could not help telling him that I saw he was
+brought up in the provinces."
+
+This was touching La Salle on a sensitive point. Beaujeu continues: "In
+fact, you knew him better than I; for I always took him for a gentleman
+(_honnête homme_). I see now that he is anything but that. Pray set Abbé
+Renaudot and M. Morel right about this man, and tell them he is not what
+they take him for. Adieu. It has struck twelve: the postman is just
+going."
+
+Bad as was the state of things, it soon grew worse. Renaudot wrote to La
+Salle that Beaujeu was writing to Villermont everything that happened,
+and that Villermont showed the letters to all his acquaintance.
+Villermont was a relative of the Jesuit Beschefer; and this was
+sufficient to suggest some secret machination to the mind of La Salle.
+Villermont's fault, however, seems to have been simple indiscretion, for
+which Beaujeu took him sharply to task. "I asked you to burn my letters;
+and I cannot help saying that I am angry with you, not because you make
+known my secrets, but because you show letters scrawled in haste, and
+sent off without being even read over. M. de la Salle not having told me
+his secret, though M. de Seignelay ordered him to tell me, I am not
+obliged to keep it, and have as good a right as anybody to make my
+conjectures on what I read about it in the _Gazette de Hollande_. Let
+Abbé Renaudot glorify M. de la Salle as much as he likes, and make him a
+Cortez, a Pizarro, or an Almagro,--that is nothing to me; but do not let
+him speak of me as an obstacle in his hero's way. Let him understand
+that I know how to execute the orders of the court as well as he....
+
+[Sidenote: LA SALLE'S INDISCRETION.]
+
+"You ask how I get on with M. de la Salle. Don't you know that this man
+is impenetrable, and that there is no knowing what he thinks of one? He
+told a person of note whom I will not name that he had suspicions about
+our correspondence, as well as about Madame de Beaujeu's devotion to the
+Jesuits. His distrust is incredible. If he sees one of his people speak
+to the rest, he suspects something, and is gruff with them. He told me
+himself that he wanted to get rid of M. de Tonty, who is in America."
+
+La Salle's claim to exclusive command of the soldiers on board the
+"Joly" was a source of endless trouble. Beaujeu declared that he would
+not set sail till officers, soldiers, and volunteers had all sworn to
+obey him when at sea; at which La Salle had the indiscretion to say, "If
+I am not master of my soldiers, how can I make him [Beaujeu] do his duty
+in case he does not want to do it?"
+
+Beaujeu says that this affair made a great noise among the officers at
+Rochefort, and adds: "_There are very few people who do not think that
+his brain is touched._ I have spoken to some who have known him twenty
+years. They all say that he was always rather visionary."
+
+It is difficult not to suspect that the current belief at Rochefort had
+some foundation; and that the deadly strain of extreme hardship,
+prolonged anxiety, and alternation of disaster and success, joined to
+the fever which nearly killed him, had unsettled his judgment and given
+a morbid development to his natural defects. His universal suspicion,
+which included even the stanch and faithful Henri de Tonty; his needless
+provocation of persons whose good-will was necessary to him; his doubts
+whether he should sail for the Gulf or for Canada, when to sail to
+Canada would have been to renounce, or expose to almost certain defeat,
+an enterprise long cherished and definitely planned,--all point to one
+conclusion. It may be thought that his doubts were feigned, in order to
+hide his destination to the last moment; but if so, he attempted to
+blind not only his ill wishers, but his mother, whom he also left in
+uncertainty as to his route.
+
+[Sidenote: AN OVERWROUGHT BRAIN.]
+
+Unless we assume that his scheme of invading Mexico was thrown out as a
+bait to the King, it is hard to reconcile it with the supposition of
+mental soundness. To base so critical an attempt on a geographical
+conjecture, which rested on the slightest possible information, and was
+in fact a total error; to postpone the perfectly sound plan of securing
+the mouth of the Mississippi, to a wild project of leading fifteen
+thousand savages for an unknown distance through an unknown country to
+attack an unknown enemy,--was something more than Quixotic daring. The
+King and the minister saw nothing impracticable in it, for they did not
+know the country or its inhabitants. They saw no insuperable difficulty
+in mustering and keeping together fifteen thousand of the most wayward
+and unstable savages on earth, split into a score and more of tribes,
+some hostile to each other and some to the French; nor in the problem of
+feeding such a mob, on a march of hundreds of miles; nor in the plan of
+drawing four thousand of them from the Illinois, nearly two thousand
+miles distant, though some of these intended allies had no canoes or
+other means of transportation, and though, travelling in such numbers,
+they would infallibly starve on the way to the rendezvous. It is
+difficult not to see in all this the chimera of an overwrought brain, no
+longer able to distinguish between the possible and the impossible.
+
+Preparation dragged slowly on; the season was growing late; the King
+grew impatient, and found fault with the naval intendant. Meanwhile, the
+various members of the expedition had all gathered at Rochelle. Joutel,
+a fellow-townsman of La Salle, returning to his native Rouen, after
+sixteen years in the army, found all astir with the new project. His
+father had been gardener to Henri Cavelier, La Salle's uncle; and being
+of an adventurous spirit he volunteered for the enterprise, of which he
+was to become the historian. With La Salle's brother the priest, and
+two of his nephews, one of whom was a boy of fourteen, Joutel set out
+for Rochelle, where all were to embark together for their promised
+land.[276]
+
+[Sidenote: A PARTING LETTER.]
+
+La Salle wrote a parting letter to his mother at Rouen:--
+
+
+ Rochelle, 18 July, 1684.
+
+Madame my Most Honored Mother,--
+
+At last, after having waited a long time for a favourable wind, and
+having had a great many difficulties to overcome, we are setting sail
+with four vessels, and nearly four hundred men on board. Everybody is
+well, including little Colin and my nephew. We all have good hope of a
+happy success. We are not going by way of Canada, but by the Gulf of
+Mexico. I passionately wish, and so do we all, that the success of this
+voyage may contribute to your repose and comfort. Assuredly, I shall
+spare no effort that it may; and I beg you, on your part, to preserve
+yourself for the love of us.
+
+You need not be troubled by the news from Canada, which are nothing but
+the continuation of the artifices of my enemies. I hope to be as
+successful against them as I have been thus far, and to embrace you a
+year hence with all the pleasure that the most grateful of children can
+feel with so good a mother as you have always been. Pray let this hope,
+which shall not disappoint you, support you through whatever trials may
+happen, and be sure that you will always find me with a heart full of
+the feelings which are due to you.
+
+Madame my Most Honored Mother, from your most humble and most obedient
+servant and son,
+
+ De la Salle.
+
+My brother, my nephews, and all the others greet you, and take their
+leave of you.
+
+This memorable last farewell has lain for two hundred years among the
+family papers of the Caveliers.[277]
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[262] _Lettres de l'Abbé Tronson, 8 Avril, 10 Avril, 1684_ (Margry, ii.
+354).
+
+[263] _Lettres du Roy et du Ministre sur la Navigation du Golfe du
+Mexique, 1669-1682_ (Margry, iii. 3-14).
+
+[264] _Mémoire du Sr. de la Salle, pour rendre compte à Monseigneur
+de Seignelay de la découverte qu'il a faite par l'ordre de sa Majesté._
+
+[265] This name, also given to the Illinois, is used to designate Red
+River on the map of Franquelin, where the forests above mentioned are
+represented.
+
+[266] _Mémoire du Sr. de la Salle sur l'Entreprise qu'il a proposé à
+Monseigneur le Marquis de Seignelay sur une des provinces de Mexique._
+
+[267] Both the memorial and the map represent the banks of Red River as
+inhabited by Indians, called Terliquiquimechi, and known to the
+Spaniards as _Indios bravos_, or _Indios de guerra_. The Spaniards, it
+is added, were in great fear of them, as they made frequent inroads into
+Mexico. La Salle's Mexican geography was in all respects confused and
+erroneous; nor was Seignelay better informed. Indeed, Spanish jealousy
+placed correct information beyond their reach.
+
+[268] While the plan, as proposed in the memorial, was clearly
+impracticable, the subsequent experience of the French in Texas tended
+to prove that the tribes of that region could be used with advantage in
+attacking the Spaniards of Mexico, and that an inroad on a comparatively
+small scale might have been successfully made with their help. In 1689,
+Tonty actually made the attempt, as we shall see, but failed, from the
+desertion of his men. In 1697, the Sieur de Louvigny wrote to the
+Minister of the Marine, asking to complete La Salle's discoveries, and
+invade Mexico from Texas. (_Lettre de M. de Louvigny, 14 Oct., 1697._)
+In an unpublished memoir of the year 1700, the seizure of the Mexican
+mines is given as one of the motives of the colonization of Louisiana.
+
+[269] Another scheme, with similar aims, but much more practicable, was
+at this very time before the court. Count Peñalossa, a Spanish Creole,
+born in Peru, had been governor of New Mexico, where he fell into a
+dispute with the Inquisition, which involved him in the loss of
+property, and for a time of liberty. Failing to obtain redress in Spain,
+he renounced his allegiance in disgust, and sought refuge in France,
+where, in 1682, he first proposed to the King the establishment of a
+colony of French buccaneers at the mouth of Rio Bravo, on the Gulf of
+Mexico. In January, 1684, after the war had broken out, he proposed to
+attack the Spanish town of Panuco, with twelve hundred buccaneers from
+St. Domingo; then march into the interior, seize the mines, conquer
+Durango, and occupy New Mexico. It was proposed to combine his plan with
+that of La Salle; but the latter, who had an interview with him,
+expressed distrust, and showed characteristic reluctance to accept a
+colleague. It is extremely probable, however, that his knowledge of
+Peñalossa's original proposal had some influence in stimulating him to
+lay before the court proposals of his own, equally attractive. Peace was
+concluded before the plans of the Spanish adventurer could be carried
+into effect.
+
+[270] _Lettre du Roy à La Barre, Versailles, 10 Avril, 1684._
+
+[271] _Lettre du Roy à De Meules, Versailles, 14 Avril, 1684._ Seignelay
+wrote to De Meules to the same effect.
+
+[272] On La Forest's mission,--_Mémoire pour representer à Monseigneur
+le Marquis de Seignelay la nécessité d'envoyer le Sr. de la Forest en
+diligence à la Nouvelle France; Lettre du Roy à La Barre, 14 Avril,
+1684; Ibid., 31 Oct., 1684._
+
+There is before me a promissory note of La Salle to La Forest, of 5,200
+livres, dated at Rochelle, 17 July, 1684. This seems to be pay due to La
+Forest, who had served as La Salle's officer for nine years. A
+memorandum is attached, signed by La Salle, to the effect that it is his
+wish that La Forest reimburse himself, "_par préférence_," out of any
+property of his (La Salle's) in France or Canada.
+
+[273] The attitude of La Salle, in this matter, is incomprehensible. In
+July, La Forest was at Rochefort, complaining because La Salle had
+ordered him to stay in garrison at Fort Frontenac. _Beaujeu à
+Villermont, 10 July, 1684_. This means an abandonment of the scheme of
+leading the warriors at the rock of St. Louis down the Mississippi; but,
+in the next month, La Salle writes to Seignelay that he is afraid La
+Barre will use the Iroquois war as a pretext to prevent La Forest from
+making his journey (to the Illinois), and that in this case he will
+himself try to go up the Mississippi, and meet the Illinois warriors; so
+that, in five or six months from the date of the letter, the minister
+will hear of his departure to attack the Spaniards. (_La Salle à
+Seignelay, Août, 1684._) Either this is sheer folly, or else it is meant
+to delude the minister.
+
+[274] _Mémoire de ce qui aura esté accordé au Sieur de la Salle._
+
+[275] _Lettre au Roy à La Salle, 12 Avril, 1684; Mémoire pour servir
+d'Instruction au Sieur de Beaujeu, 14 Avril, 1684._
+
+[276] Joutel, _Journal Historique_, 12.
+
+[277] The letters of Beaujeu to Seignelay and to Cabart de Villermont,
+with most of the other papers on which this chapter rests, will be found
+in Margry, ii. 354-471. This indefatigable investigator has also brought
+to light a number of letters from a brother officer of Beaujeu,
+Machaut-Rougemont, written at Rochefort, just after the departure of the
+expedition from Rochelle, and giving some idea of the views there
+entertained concerning it. He says: "L'on ne peut pas faire plus
+d'extravagances que le Sieur de la Salle n'en a fait sur toutes ses
+prétentions de commandement. Je plains beaucoup le pauvre Beaujeu
+d'avoir affaire à une humeur si saturnienne.... Je le croy beaucoup
+visionnaire ... Beaujeu a une sotte commission."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV.
+
+1684, 1685.
+
+THE VOYAGE.
+
+ Disputes with Beaujeu.--St. Domingo.--La Salle Attacked with Fever:
+ his Desperate Condition.--The Gulf Of Mexico.--A Vain Search and a
+ Fatal Error.
+
+
+The four ships sailed from Rochelle on the twenty-fourth of July. Four
+days after, the "Joly" broke her bowsprit, by design as La Salle
+fancied. They all put back to Rochefort, where the mischief was quickly
+repaired; and they put to sea again. La Salle, and the chief persons of
+the expedition, with a crowd of soldiers, artisans, and women, the
+destined mothers of Louisiana, were all on board the "Joly." Beaujeu
+wished to touch at Madeira, to replenish his water-casks. La Salle
+refused, lest by doing so the secret of the enterprise might reach the
+Spaniards. One Paget, a Huguenot, took up the word in support of
+Beaujeu. La Salle told him that the affair was none of his; and as Paget
+persisted with increased warmth and freedom, he demanded of Beaujeu if
+it was with his consent that a man of no rank spoke to him in that
+manner. Beaujeu sustained the Huguenot. "That is enough," returned La
+Salle, and withdrew into his cabin.[278]
+
+This was not the first misunderstanding; nor was it the last. There was
+incessant chafing between the two commanders; and the sailors of the
+"Joly" were soon of one mind with their captain. When the ship crossed
+the tropic, they made ready a tub on deck to baptize the passengers,
+after the villanous practice of the time; but La Salle refused to permit
+it, at which they were highly exasperated, having promised themselves a
+bountiful ransom, in money or liquor, from their victims. "Assuredly,"
+says Joutel, "they would gladly have killed us all."
+
+[Sidenote: ST. DOMINGO.]
+
+When, after a wretched voyage of two months the ships reached St.
+Domingo, a fresh dispute occurred. It had been resolved at a council of
+officers to stop at Port de Paix; but Beaujeu, on pretext of a fair
+wind, ran by that place in the night, and cast anchor at Petit Goave, on
+the other side of the island. La Salle was extremely vexed; for he
+expected to meet at Port de Paix the Marquis de Saint-Laurent,
+lieutenant-general of the islands, Bégon the intendant, and De Cussy,
+governor of La Tortue, who had orders to supply him with provisions and
+give him all possible aid.
+
+The "Joly" was alone: the other vessels had lagged behind. She had more
+than fifty sick men on board, and La Salle was of the number. He sent a
+messenger to Saint-Laurent, Bégon, and Cussy, begging them to come to
+him; ordered Joutel to get the sick ashore, suffocating as they were in
+the hot and crowded ship; and caused the soldiers to be landed on a
+small island in the harbor. Scarcely had the voyagers sung _Te Deum_ for
+their safe arrival, when two of the lagging vessels appeared, bringing
+tidings that the third, the ketch "St. François," had been taken by
+Spanish buccaneers. She was laden with provisions, tools, and other
+necessaries for the colony; and the loss was irreparable. Beaujeu was
+answerable for it; for had he anchored at Port de Paix, it would not
+have occurred. The lieutenant-general, with Bégon and Cussy, who
+presently arrived, plainly spoke their minds to him.[279]
+
+[Sidenote: ILLNESS OF LA SALLE.]
+
+La Salle's illness increased. "I was walking with him one day," writes
+Joutel, "when he was seized of a sudden with such a weakness that he
+could not stand, and was obliged to lie down on the ground. When he was
+a little better, I led him to a chamber of a house that the brothers
+Duhaut had hired. Here we put him to bed, and in the morning he was
+attacked by a violent fever."[280] "It was so violent that," says
+another of his shipmates, "his imagination pictured to him things
+equally terrible and amazing."[281] He lay delirious in the wretched
+garret, attended by his brother, and one or two others who stood
+faithful to him. A goldsmith of the neighborhood, moved at his
+deplorable condition, offered the use of his house; and Abbé Cavelier
+had him removed thither. But there was a tavern hard by, and the patient
+was tormented with daily and nightly riot. At the height of the fever, a
+party of Beaujeu's sailors spent a night in singing and dancing before
+the house; and, says Cavelier, "The more we begged them to be quiet, the
+more noise they made." La Salle lost reason and well-nigh life; but at
+length his mind resumed its balance, and the violence of the disease
+abated. A friendly Capucin friar offered him the shelter of his roof;
+and two of his men supported him thither on foot, giddy with exhaustion
+and hot with fever. Here he found repose, and was slowly recovering,
+when some of his attendants rashly told him the loss of the ketch "St.
+François;" and the consequence was a critical return of the
+disease.[282]
+
+There was no one to fill his place. Beaujeu would not; Cavelier could
+not. Joutel, the gardener's son, was apparently the most trusty man of
+the company; but the expedition was virtually without a head. The men
+roamed on shore, and plunged into every excess of debauchery,
+contracting diseases which eventually killed them.
+
+[Sidenote: COMPLAINTS OF BEAUJEU.]
+
+Beaujeu, in the extremity of ill-humor, resumed his correspondence with
+Seignelay. "But for the illness of the Sieur de la Salle," he writes, "I
+could not venture to report to you the progress of our voyage, as I am
+charged only with the navigation, and he with the secrets; but as his
+malady has deprived him of the use of his faculties, both of body and
+mind, I have thought myself obliged to acquaint you with what is
+passing, and of the condition in which we are."
+
+He then declares that the ships freighted by La Salle were so slow that
+the "Joly" had continually been forced to wait for them, thus doubling
+the length of the voyage; that he had not had water enough for the
+passengers, as La Salle had not told him that there were to be any such
+till the day they came on board; that great numbers were sick, and that
+he had told La Salle there would be trouble if he filled all the space
+between decks with his goods, and forced the soldiers and sailors to
+sleep on deck; that he had told him he would get no provisions at St.
+Domingo, but that he insisted on stopping; that it had always been
+so,--that whatever he proposed La Salle would refuse, alleging orders
+from the King; "and now," pursues the ruffled commander, "everybody is
+ill; and he himself has a violent fever, as dangerous, the surgeon tells
+me, to the mind as to the body."
+
+The rest of the letter is in the same strain. He says that a day or two
+after La Salle's illness began, his brother Cavelier came to ask him to
+take charge of his affairs; but that he did not wish to meddle with
+them, especially as nobody knows anything about them, and as La Salle
+has sold some of the ammunition and provisions; that Cavelier tells him
+that he thinks his brother keeps no accounts, wishing to hide his
+affairs from everybody; that he learns from buccaneers that the entrance
+of the Mississippi is very shallow and difficult, and that this is the
+worst season for navigating the Gulf; that the Spaniards have in these
+seas six vessels of from thirty to sixty guns each, besides row-galleys;
+but that he is not afraid, and will perish, or bring back an account of
+the Mississippi. "Nevertheless," he adds, "if the Sieur de la Salle
+dies, I shall pursue a course different from that which he has marked
+out; for I do not approve his plans."
+
+"If," he continues, "you permit me to speak my mind, M. de la Salle
+ought to have been satisfied with discovering his river, without
+undertaking to conduct three vessels with troops two thousand leagues
+through so many different climates, and across seas entirely unknown to
+him. I grant that he is a man of knowledge, that he has reading, and
+even some tincture of navigation; but there is so much difference
+between theory and practice, that a man who has only the former will
+always be at fault. There is also a great difference between conducting
+canoes on lakes and along a river, and navigating ships with troops on
+distant oceans."[283]
+
+While Beaujeu was complaining of La Salle, his followers were deserting
+him. It was necessary to send them on board ship, and keep them there;
+for there were French buccaneers at Petit Goave, who painted the
+promised land in such dismal colors that many of the adventurers
+completely lost heart. Some, too, were dying. "The air of this place is
+bad," says Joutel; "so are the fruits; and there are plenty of women
+worse than either."[284]
+
+It was near the end of November before La Salle could resume the voyage.
+He was told that Beaujeu had said that he would not wait longer for the
+store-ship "Aimable," and that she might follow as she could.[285]
+Moreover, La Salle was on ill terms with Aigron, her captain, who had
+declared that he would have nothing more to do with him.[286] Fearing,
+therefore, that some mishap might befall her, he resolved to embark in
+her himself, with his brother Cavelier, Membré, Douay, and others, the
+trustiest of his followers. On the twenty-fifth they set sail; the
+"Joly" and the little frigate "Belle" following. They coasted the shore
+of Cuba, and landed at the Isle of Pines, where La Salle shot an
+alligator, which the soldiers ate; and the hunter brought in a wild pig,
+half of which he sent to Beaujeu. Then they advanced to Cape St.
+Antoine, where bad weather and contrary winds long detained them. A load
+of cares oppressed the mind of La Salle, pale and haggard with recent
+illness, wrapped within his own thoughts, and seeking sympathy from
+none.
+
+[Sidenote: A VAIN SEARCH.]
+
+At length they entered the Gulf of Mexico, that forbidden sea whence by
+a Spanish decree, dating from the reign of Philip II., all foreigners
+were excluded on pain of extermination.[287] Not a man on board knew the
+secrets of its perilous navigation. Cautiously feeling their way, they
+held a north-westerly course, till on the twenty-eighth of December a
+sailor at the mast-head of the "Aimable" saw land. La Salle and all the
+pilots had been led to form an exaggerated idea of the force of the
+easterly currents; and they therefore supposed themselves near the Bay
+of Appalache, when, in fact, they were much farther westward.
+
+On New Year's Day they anchored three leagues from the shore. La Salle,
+with the engineer Minet, went to explore it, and found nothing but a
+vast marshy plain, studded with clumps of rushes. Two days after there
+was a thick fog, and when at length it cleared, the "Joly" was nowhere
+to be seen. La Salle in the "Aimable," followed closely by the little
+frigate "Belle," stood westward along the coast. When at the mouth of
+the Mississippi in 1682, he had taken its latitude, but unhappily could
+not determine its longitude; and now every eye on board was strained to
+detect in the monotonous lines of the low shore some tokens of the
+great river. In fact, they had already passed it. On the sixth of
+January, a wide opening was descried between two low points of land; and
+the adjacent sea was discolored with mud. "La Salle," writes his brother
+Cavelier, "has always thought that this was the Mississippi." To all
+appearance, it was the entrance of Galveston Bay.[288] But why did he
+not examine it? Joutel says that his attempts to do so were frustrated
+by the objections of the pilot of the "Aimable," to which, with a
+facility very unusual with him, he suffered himself to yield. Cavelier
+declares, on the other hand, that he would not enter the opening because
+he was afraid of missing the "Joly." But he might have entered with one
+of his two vessels, while the other watched outside for the absent ship.
+From whatever cause, he lay here five or six days, waiting in vain for
+Beaujeu;[289] till, at last, thinking that he must have passed westward,
+he resolved to follow. The "Aimable" and the "Belle" again spread their
+sails, and coasted the shores of Texas. Joutel, with a boat's crew,
+tried to land; but the sand-bars and breakers repelled him. A party of
+Indians swam out through the surf, and were taken on board; but La Salle
+could learn nothing from them, as their language was unknown to him.
+Again Joutel tried to land, and again the breakers repelled him. He
+approached as near as he dared, and saw vast plains and a dim expanse of
+forest, buffalo running with their heavy gallop along the shore, and
+deer grazing on the marshy meadows.
+
+[Sidenote: THE SHORES OF TEXAS.]
+
+Soon after, he succeeded in landing at a point somewhere between
+Matagorda Island and Corpus Christi Bay. The aspect of the country was
+not cheering, with its barren plains, its reedy marshes, its
+interminable oyster-beds, and broad flats of mud bare at low tide.
+Joutel and his men sought in vain for fresh water, and after shooting
+some geese and ducks returned to the "Aimable." Nothing had been seen of
+Beaujeu and the "Joly;" the coast was trending southward; and La Salle,
+convinced that he must have passed the missing ship, turned to retrace
+his course. He had sailed but a few miles when the wind failed, a fog
+covered the sea, and he was forced to anchor opposite one of the
+openings into the lagoons north of Mustang Island. At length, on the
+nineteenth, there came a faint breeze; the mists rolled away before it,
+and to his great joy he saw the "Joly" approaching.
+
+"His joy," says Joutel, "was short." Beaujeu's lieutenant, Aire, came on
+board to charge him with having caused the separation, and La Salle
+retorted by throwing the blame on Beaujeu. Then came a debate as to
+their position. The priest Esmanville was present, and reports that La
+Salle seemed greatly perplexed. He had more cause for perplexity than
+he knew; for in his ignorance of the longitude of the Mississippi, he
+had sailed more than four hundred miles beyond it.
+
+Of this he had not the faintest suspicion. In full sight from his ship
+lay a reach of those vast lagoons which, separated from the sea by
+narrow strips of land, line this coast with little interruption from
+Galveston Bay to the Rio Grande. The idea took possession of him that
+the Mississippi discharged itself into these lagoons, and thence made
+its way to the sea through the various openings he had seen along the
+coast, chief among which was that he had discovered on the sixth, about
+fifty leagues from the place where he now was.[290]
+
+[Sidenote: PERPLEXITY OF LA SALLE.]
+
+Yet he was full of doubt as to what he should do. Four days after
+rejoining Beaujeu, he wrote him the strange request to land the troops,
+that he "might fulfil his commission;" that is, that he might set out
+against the Spaniards.[291] More than a week passed, a gale had set in,
+and nothing was done. Then La Salle wrote again, intimating some doubt
+as to whether he was really at one of the mouths of the Mississippi, and
+saying that, being sure that he had passed the principal mouth, he was
+determined to go back to look for it.[292] Meanwhile, Beaujeu was in a
+state of great irritation. The weather was stormy, and the coast was
+dangerous. Supplies were scanty; and La Salle's soldiers, still crowded
+in the "Joly," were consuming the provisions of the ship. Beaujeu gave
+vent to his annoyance, and La Salle retorted in the same strain.
+
+According to Joutel, he urged the naval commander to sail back in search
+of the river; and Beaujeu refused, unless La Salle should give the
+soldiers provisions. La Salle, he adds, offered to supply them with
+rations for fifteen days; and Beaujeu declared this insufficient. There
+is reason, however, to believe that the request was neither made by the
+one nor refused by the other so positively as here appears.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[278] _Lettre (sans nom d'auteur) écrite de St. Domingue, 14 Nov., 1684_
+(Margry, ii. 492); _Mémoire autographe de l'Abbé Jean Cavelier sur le
+Voyage de 1684_. Compare Joutel.
+
+[279] _Mémoire de MM. de Saint-Laurens et Bégon_ (Margry, ii. 499);
+Joutel, _Journal Historique_, 28.
+
+[280] _Relation de Henri Joutel_ (Margry, iii. 98).
+
+[281] _Lettre (sans nom d'auteur), 14 Nov., 1684_ (Margry, ii. 496).
+
+[282] The above particulars are from the memoir of La Salle's brother,
+Abbé Cavelier, already cited.
+
+[283] _Lettre de Beaujeu au Ministre, 20 Oct., 1684._
+
+[284] _Relation de Henri Joutel_ (Margry, iii. 105).
+
+[285] _Mémoire autographe de l'Abbé Jean Cavelier._
+
+[286] _Lettre de Beaujeu au Ministre, 20 Oct., 1684._
+
+[287] _Letter of Don Luis de Onis to the Secretary of State_ (American
+State Papers, xii, 27-31).
+
+[288] "La hauteur nous a fait remarquer ... que ce que nous avions vu le
+sixième janvier estoit en effet la principale entrée de la rivière que
+nous cherchions."--_Lettre de La Salle au Ministre, 4 Mars, 1687._
+
+[289] _Mémoire autographe de l'Abbé Cavelier._
+
+[290] "Depuis que nous avions quitté cette rivière qu'il croyoit
+infailliblement estre le fleuve Colbert _[Mississippi]_ nous avions fait
+environ 45 lieues ou 50 au plus." (Cavelier, _Mémoire_.) This, taken in
+connection with the statement of La Salle that this "principale entrée
+de la rivière que nous cherchions" was twenty-five or thirty leagues
+northeast from the entrance of the Bay of St. Louis (Matagorda Bay),
+shows that it can have been no other than the entrance of Galveston Bay,
+mistaken by him for the chief outlet of the Mississippi. It is evident
+that he imagined Galveston Bay to form a part of the chain of lagoons
+from which it is in fact separated. He speaks of these lagoons as "une
+espèce de baye fort longue et fort large, _dans laquelle le fleuve
+Colbert se décharge_." He adds that on his descent to the mouth of the
+river in 1682 he had been deceived in supposing that this expanse of
+salt water, where no shore was in sight, was the open sea. _Lettre de La
+Salle au Ministre, 4 Mars, 1685._ Galveston Bay and the mouth of the
+Mississippi differ little in latitude, though separated by about five
+and a half degrees of longitude.
+
+[291] _Lettre de La Salle à Beaujeu, 23 Jan., 1685_ (Margry, ii. 526).
+
+[292] This letter is dated, "De l'emboucheure d'une rivière que _je
+crois estre_ une des descharges du Mississipy" (Margry, ii. 528).
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV.
+
+1685.
+
+LA SALLE IN TEXAS.
+
+ A Party of Exploration--Wreck of the "Aimable."--Landing of the
+ Colonists.--A Forlorn Position.--Indian Neighbors.--Friendly
+ Advances of Beaujeu: his Departure.--A Fatal Discovery.
+
+
+Impatience to rid himself of his colleague and to command alone no doubt
+had its influence on the judgment of La Salle. He presently declared
+that he would land the soldiers, and send them along shore till they
+came to the principal outlet of the river. On this, the engineer Minet
+took up the word,--expressed his doubts as to whether the Mississippi
+discharged itself into the lagoons at all; represented that even if it
+did, the soldiers would be exposed to great risks; and gave as his
+opinion that all should reimbark and continue the search in company. The
+advice was good, but La Salle resented it as coming from one in whom he
+recognized no right to give it. "He treated me," complains the engineer,
+"as if I were the meanest of mankind."[293]
+
+He persisted in his purpose, and sent Joutel and Moranget with a party
+of soldiers to explore the coast. They made their way northeastward
+along the shore of Matagorda Island, till they were stopped on the third
+day by what Joutel calls a river, but which was in fact the entrance of
+Matagorda Bay. Here they encamped, and tried to make a raft of
+drift-wood. "The difficulty was," says Joutel, "our great number of men,
+and the few of them who were fit for anything except eating. As I said
+before, they had all been caught by force or surprise, so that our
+company was like Noah's ark, which contained animals of all sorts."
+Before their raft was finished, they descried to their great joy the
+ships which had followed them along the coast.[294]
+
+[Sidenote: LANDING OF LA SALLE.]
+
+La Salle landed, and announced that here was the western mouth of the
+Mississippi, and the place to which the King had sent him. He said
+further that he would land all his men, and bring the "Aimable" and the
+"Belle" to the safe harborage within. Beaujeu remonstrated, alleging the
+shallowness of the water and the force of the currents; but his
+remonstrance was vain.[295]
+
+The Bay of St. Louis, now Matagorda Bay, forms a broad and sheltered
+harbor, accessible from the sea by a narrow passage, obstructed by
+sand-bars and by the small island now called Pelican Island. Boats were
+sent to sound and buoy out the channel, and this was successfully
+accomplished on the sixteenth of February. The "Aimable" was ordered to
+enter; and, on the twentieth, she weighed anchor. La Salle was on shore
+watching her. A party of men, at a little distance, were cutting down a
+tree to make a canoe. Suddenly some of them ran towards him with
+terrified faces, crying out that they had been set upon by a troop of
+Indians, who had seized their companions and carried them off. La Salle
+ordered those about him to take their arms, and at once set out in
+pursuit. He overtook the Indians, and opened a parley with them; but
+when he wished to reclaim his men, he discovered that they had been led
+away during the conference to the Indian camp, a league and a half
+distant. Among them was one of his lieutenants, the young Marquis de la
+Sablonnière. He was deeply vexed, for the moment was critical; but the
+men must be recovered, and he led his followers in haste towards the
+camp. Yet he could not refrain from turning a moment to watch the
+"Aimable," as she neared the shoals; and he remarked with deep anxiety
+to Joutel, who was with him, that if she held that course she would soon
+be aground.
+
+[Sidenote: WRECK OF THE "AIMABLE".]
+
+They hurried on till they saw the Indian huts. About fifty of them,
+oven-shaped, and covered with mats and hides, were clustered on a rising
+ground, with their inmates gathered among and around them. As the French
+entered the camp, there was the report of a cannon from the seaward.
+The startled savages dropped flat with terror. A different fear seized
+La Salle, for he knew that the shot was a signal of disaster. Looking
+back, he saw the "Aimable" furling her sails, and his heart sank with
+the conviction that she had struck upon the reef. Smothering his
+distress,--she was laden with all the stores of the colony,--he pressed
+forward among the filthy wigwams, whose astonished inmates swarmed about
+the band of armed strangers, staring between curiosity and fear. La
+Salle knew those with whom he was dealing, and, without ceremony,
+entered the chief's lodge with his followers. The crowd closed around
+them, naked men and half-naked women, described by Joutel as of singular
+ugliness. They gave buffalo meat and dried porpoise to the unexpected
+guests, but La Salle, racked with anxiety, hastened to close the
+interview; and having without difficulty recovered the kidnapped men, he
+returned to the beach, leaving with the Indians, as usual, an impression
+of good-will and respect.
+
+When he reached the shore, he saw his worst fears realized. The
+"Aimable" lay careened over on the reef, hopelessly aground. Little
+remained but to endure the calamity with firmness, and to save, as far
+as might be, the vessel's cargo. This was no easy task. The boat which
+hung at her stern had been stove in,--it is said, by design. Beaujeu
+sent a boat from the "Joly," and one or more Indian pirogues were
+procured. La Salle urged on his men with stern and patient energy, and
+a quantity of gunpowder and flour was safely landed. But now the wind
+blew fresh from the sea; the waves began to rise; a storm came on; the
+vessel, rocking to and fro on the sand-bar, opened along her side, and
+the ravenous waves were strewn with her treasures. When the confusion
+was at its height, a troop of Indians came down to the shore, greedy for
+plunder. The drum was beat; the men were called to arms; La Salle set
+his trustiest followers to guard the gunpowder, in fear, not of the
+Indians alone, but of his own countrymen. On that lamentable night, the
+sentinels walked their rounds through the dreary bivouac among the
+casks, bales, and boxes which the sea had yielded up; and here, too,
+their fate-hunted chief held his drearier vigil, encompassed with
+treachery, darkness, and the storm.
+
+Not only La Salle, but Joutel and others of his party, believed that the
+wreck of the "Aimable" was intentional. Aigron, who commanded her, had
+disobeyed orders and disregarded signals. Though he had been directed to
+tow the vessel through the channel, he went in under sail; and though
+little else was saved from the wreck, his personal property, including
+even some preserved fruits, was all landed safely. He had long been on
+ill terms with La Salle.[296]
+
+All La Salle's company were now encamped on the sands at the left side
+of the inlet where the "Aimable" was wrecked.[297] "They were all," says
+the engineer Minet, "sick with nausea and dysentery. Five or six died
+every day, in consequence of brackish water and bad food. There was no
+grass, but plenty of rushes and plenty of oysters. There was nothing to
+make ovens, so that they had to eat flour saved from the wreck, boiled
+into messes of porridge with this brackish water. Along the shore were
+quantities of uprooted trees and rotten logs, thrown up by the sea and
+the lagoon." Of these, and fragments of the wreck, they made a sort of
+rampart to protect their camp; and here, among tents and hovels, bales,
+boxes, casks, spars, dismounted cannon, and pens for fowls and swine,
+were gathered the dejected men and homesick women who were to seize New
+Biscay, and hold for France a region large as half Europe. The
+Spaniards, whom they were to conquer, were they knew not where. They
+knew not where they were themselves; and for the fifteen thousand Indian
+allies who were to have joined them, they found two hundred squalid
+savages, more like enemies than friends.
+
+In fact, it was soon made plain that these their neighbors wished them
+no good. A few days after the wreck, the prairie was seen on fire. As
+the smoke and flame rolled towards them before the wind, La Salle caused
+all the grass about the camp to be cut and carried away, and especially
+around the spot where the powder was placed. The danger was averted; but
+it soon became known that the Indians had stolen a number of blankets
+and other articles, and carried them to their wigwams. Unwilling to
+leave his camp, La Salle sent his nephew Moranget and several other
+volunteers, with a party of men, to reclaim them. They went up the bay
+in a boat, landed at the Indian camp, and, with more mettle than
+discretion, marched into it, sword in hand. The Indians ran off, and the
+rash adventurers seized upon several canoes as an equivalent for the
+stolen goods. Not knowing how to manage them, they made slow progress on
+their way back, and were overtaken by night before reaching the French
+camp. They landed, made a fire, placed a sentinel, and lay down on the
+dry grass to sleep. The sentinel followed their example, when suddenly
+they were awakened by the war-whoop and a shower of arrows. Two
+volunteers, Oris and Desloges, were killed on the spot; a third, named
+Gayen, was severely wounded; and young Moranget received an arrow
+through the arm. He leaped up and fired his gun at the vociferous but
+invisible foe. Others of the party did the same, and the Indians fled.
+
+[Sidenote: BEAUJEU AND LA SALLE.]
+
+It was about this time that Beaujeu prepared to return to France. He had
+accomplished his mission, and landed his passengers at what La Salle
+assured him to be one of the mouths of the Mississippi. His ship was in
+danger on this exposed and perilous coast, and he was anxious to find
+shelter. For some time past, his relations with La Salle had been
+amicable, and it was agreed between them that Beaujeu should stop at
+Galveston Bay, the supposed chief mouth of the Mississippi; or, failing
+to find harborage here, that he should proceed to Mobile Bay, and wait
+there till April, to hear from his colleague. Two days before the wreck
+of the "Aimable," he wrote to La Salle: "I wish with all my heart that
+you would have more confidence in me. For my part, I will always make
+the first advances; and I will follow your counsel whenever I can do so
+without risking my ship. I will come back to this place, if you want to
+know the results of the voyage I am going to make. If you wish, I will
+go to Martinique for provisions and reinforcements. In fine, there is
+nothing I am not ready to do: you have only to speak."
+
+La Salle had begged him to send ashore a number of cannon and a quantity
+of iron, stowed in the "Joly," for the use of the colony; and Beaujeu
+replies: "I wish very much that I could give you your iron, but it is
+impossible except in a harbor; for it is on my ballast, and under your
+cannon, my spare anchors, and all my stowage. It would take three days
+to get it out, which cannot be done in this place, where the sea runs
+like mountains when the slightest wind blows outside. I would rather
+come back to give it to you, in case you do not send the 'Belle' to Baye
+du St. Esprit [Mobile Bay] to get it.... I beg you once more to consider
+the offer I make you to go to Martinique to get provisions for your
+people. I will ask the intendant for them in your name; and if they are
+refused, I will take them on my own account."[298]
+
+To this La Salle immediately replied: "I received with singular pleasure
+the letter you took the trouble to write me; for I found in it
+extraordinary proofs of kindness in the interest you take in the success
+of an affair which I have the more at heart, as it involves the glory of
+the King and the honor of Monseigneur de Seignelay. I have done my part
+towards a perfect understanding between us, and have never been wanting
+in confidence; but even if I could be so, the offers you make are so
+obliging that they would inspire complete trust." He nevertheless
+declines them,--assuring Beaujeu at the same time that he has reached
+the place he sought, and is in a fair way of success if he can but have
+the cannon, cannonballs, and iron stowed on board the "Joly."[299]
+
+Directly after he writes again, "I cannot help conjuring you once more
+to try to give us the iron." Beaujeu replies: "To show you how ardently
+I wish to contribute to the success of your undertaking, I have ordered
+your iron to be got out, in spite of my officers and sailors, who tell
+me that I endanger my ship by moving everything in the depth of the hold
+on a coast like this, where the seas are like mountains. I hesitated to
+disturb my stowage, not so much to save trouble as because no ballast is
+to be got hereabout; and I have therefore had six cannon, from my lower
+deck battery, let down into the hold to take the place of the iron." And
+he again urges La Salle to accept his offer to bring provisions to the
+colonists from Martinique.
+
+[Sidenote: DEPARTURE OF BEAUJEU.]
+
+On the next day, the "Aimable" was wrecked. Beaujeu remained a fortnight
+longer on the coast, and then told La Salle that being out of wood,
+water, and other necessaries, he must go to Mobile Bay to get them.
+Nevertheless, he lingered a week more, repeated his offer to bring
+supplies from Martinique, which La Salle again refused, and at last set
+sail on the twelfth of March, after a leave-taking which was courteous
+on both sides.[300]
+
+La Salle and his colonists were left alone. Several of them had lost
+heart, and embarked for home with Beaujeu. Among these was Minet the
+engineer, who had fallen out with La Salle, and who when he reached
+France was imprisoned for deserting him. Even his brother, the priest
+Jean Cavelier, had a mind to abandon the enterprise, but was persuaded
+at last to remain, along with his nephew the hot-headed Moranget, and
+the younger Cavelier, a mere school-boy. The two Récollet friars, Zenobe
+Membré and Anastase Douay, the trusty Joutel, a man of sense and
+observation, and the Marquis de la Sablonnière, a debauched noble whose
+patrimony was his sword, were now the chief persons of the forlorn
+company. The rest were soldiers, raw and undisciplined, and artisans,
+most of whom knew nothing of their vocation. Add to these the miserable
+families and the infatuated young women who had come to tempt fortune in
+the swamps and cane-brakes of the Mississippi.
+
+La Salle set out to explore the neighborhood. Joutel remained in command
+of the so-called fort. He was beset with wily enemies, and often at
+night the Indians would crawl in the grass around his feeble stockade,
+howling like wolves; but a few shots would put them to flight. A strict
+guard was kept; and a wooden horse was set in the enclosure, to punish
+the sentinel who should sleep at his post. They stood in daily fear of a
+more formidable foe, and once they saw a sail, which they doubted not
+was Spanish; but she happily passed without discovering them. They
+hunted on the prairies, and speared fish in the neighboring pools. On
+Easter Day, the Sieur le Gros, one of the chief men of the company,
+went out after the service to shoot snipes; but as he walked barefoot
+through the marsh, a snake bit him, and he soon after died. Two men
+deserted, to starve on the prairie, or to become savages among savages.
+Others tried to escape, but were caught; and one of them was hung. A
+knot of desperadoes conspired to kill Joutel; but one of them betrayed
+the secret, and the plot was crushed.
+
+La Salle returned from his exploration, but his return brought no cheer.
+He had been forced to renounce the illusion to which he had clung so
+long, and was convinced at last that he was not at the mouth of the
+Mississippi. The wreck of the "Aimable" itself was not pregnant with
+consequences so disastrous.
+
+[Sidenote: CONDUCT OF BEAUJEU.]
+
+Note.--The conduct of Beaujeu, hitherto judged chiefly by the printed
+narrative of Joutel, is set in a new and more favorable light by his
+correspondence with La Salle. Whatever may have been their mutual
+irritation, it is clear that the naval commander was anxious to
+discharge his duty in a manner to satisfy Seignelay, and that he may be
+wholly acquitted of any sinister design. When he left La Salle on the
+twelfth of March, he meant to sail in search of the Bay of Mobile (Baye
+du St. Esprit),--partly because he hoped to find it a safe harbor, where
+he could get La Salle's cannon out of the hold and find ballast to take
+their place; and partly to get a supply of wood and water, of which he
+was in extreme need. He told La Salle that he would wait there till the
+middle of April, in order that he (La Salle) might send the "Belle" to
+receive the cannon; but on this point there was no definite agreement
+between them. Beaujeu was ignorant of the position of the bay, which he
+thought much nearer than it actually was. After trying two days to reach
+it, the strong head-winds and the discontent of his crew induced him to
+bear away for Cuba; and after an encounter with pirates and various
+adventures, he reached France about the first of July. He was coldly
+received by Seignelay, who wrote to the intendant at Rochelle: "His
+Majesty has seen what you wrote about the idea of the Sieur de Beaujeu,
+that the Sieur de la Salle is not at the mouth of the Mississippi. He
+seems to found this belief on such weak conjectures that no great
+attention need be given to his account, especially as _this man_ has
+been prejudiced from the first against La Salle's enterprise." (_Lettre
+de Seignelay à Arnoul, 22 Juillet, 1685._ Margry, ii. 604.) The minister
+at the same time warns Beaujeu to say nothing in disparagement of the
+enterprise, under pain of the King's displeasure.
+
+The narrative of the engineer, Minet, sufficiently explains a curious
+map, made by him, as he says, not on the spot, but on the voyage
+homeward, and still preserved in the Archives Scientifiques de la
+Marine. This map includes two distinct sketches of the mouth of the
+Mississippi. The first, which corresponds to that made by Franquelin in
+1684, is entitled "Embouchure de la Rivière comme M. de la Salle la
+marque dans sa Carte." The second bears the words, "Costes et Lacs par
+la Hauteur de sa Rivière, comme nous les avons trouvés." These "Costes
+et Lacs" are a rude representation of the lagoons of Matagorda Bay and
+its neighborhood, into which the Mississippi is made to discharge, in
+accordance with the belief of La Salle. A portion of the coast-line is
+drawn from actual, though superficial observation. The rest is merely
+conjectural.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[293] _Relation de Minet; Lettre de Minet à Seignelay, 6 July, 1685_
+(Margry, ii. 591, 602).
+
+[294] Joutel, _Journal Historique_, 68; _Relation_ (Margry, iii.
+143-146) Compare _Journal d'Esmanville_ (Margry, ii. 510).
+
+[295] _Relation de Minet_ (Margry, ii. 591).
+
+[296] _Procès Verbal du Sieur de la Salle sur le Naufrage de la Flûte
+l'Aimable_; _Lettre de La Salle à Seignelay, 4 Mars, 1685_; _Lettre de
+Beaujeu à Seignelay, sans date_. Beaujeu did his best to save the cargo.
+The loss included nearly all the provisions, 60 barrels of wine, 4
+cannon, 1,620 balls, 400 grenades, 4,000 pounds of iron, 5,000 pounds of
+lead, most of the tools, a forge, a mill, cordage, boxes of arms, nearly
+all the medicines, and most of the baggage of the soldiers and
+colonists. Aigron returned to France in the "Joly," and was thrown into
+prison, "comme il paroist clairement que cet accident est arrivé par sa
+faute."--_Seignelay au Sieur Arnoul, 22 Juillet, 1685_ (Margry, ii.
+604).
+
+[297] A map, entitled _Entrée du Lac où on a laisse le Sr. de la
+Salle_, made by the engineer Minet, and preserved in the Archives de la
+Marine, represents the entrance of Matagorda Bay, the camp of La Salle
+on the left, Indian camps on the borders of the bay, the "Belle" at
+anchor within, the "Aimable" stranded at the entrance, and the "Joly"
+anchored in the open sea.
+
+[298] _Lettre de Beaujeu à La Salle, 18 Fév., 1685_ (Margry, ii. 542).
+
+[299] _Lettre de La Salle à Beaujeu, 18 Fév., 1685_ (Margry, ii. 546).
+
+[300] The whole of this correspondence between Beaujeu and La Salle will
+be found in Margry, ii.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVI.
+
+1685-1687.
+
+ST. LOUIS OF TEXAS.
+
+ The Fort.--Misery and Dejection.--Energy of La Salle: his Journey
+ of Exploration.--Adventures and Accidents.--The
+ Buffalo.--Duhaut.--Indian Massacre.--Return Of La Salle.--A New
+ Calamity.--A Desperate Resolution.--Departure for Canada.--Wreck of
+ the "Belle."--Marriage.--Sedition.--Adventures Of la Salle's
+ Party.--The Cenis.--The Camanches.--The Only Hope.--The Last
+ Farewell.
+
+
+Of what avail to plant a colony by the mouth of a petty Texan river? The
+Mississippi was the life of the enterprise, the condition of its growth
+and of its existence. Without it, all was futile and meaningless,--a
+folly and a ruin. Cost what it might, the Mississippi must be found.
+
+But the demands of the hour were imperative. The hapless colony, cast
+ashore like a wreck on the sands of Matagorda Bay, must gather up its
+shattered resources and recruit its exhausted strength, before it
+essayed anew its pilgrimage to the "fatal river." La Salle during his
+explorations had found a spot which he thought well fitted for a
+temporary establishment. It was on the river which he named the La
+Vache,[301] now the Lavaca, which enters the head of Matagorda Bay; and
+thither he ordered all the women and children, and most of the men, to
+remove; while the rest, thirty in number, remained with Joutel at the
+fort near the mouth of the bay. Here they spent their time in hunting,
+fishing, and squaring the logs of drift-wood which the sea washed up in
+abundance, and which La Salle proposed to use in building his new
+station on the Lavaca. Thus the time passed till midsummer, when Joutel
+received orders to abandon his post, and rejoin the main body of the
+colonists. To this end, the little frigate "Belle" was sent down the
+bay. She was a gift from the King to La Salle, who had brought her
+safely over the bar, and regarded her as a main-stay of his hopes. She
+now took on board the stores and some of the men, while Joutel with the
+rest followed along shore to the post on the Lavaca. Here he found a
+state of things that was far from cheering. Crops had been sown, but the
+drought and the cattle had nearly destroyed them. The colonists were
+lodged under tents and hovels; and the only solid structure was a small
+square enclosure of pickets, in which the gunpowder and the brandy were
+stored. The site was good, a rising ground by the river; but there was
+no wood within the distance of a league, and no horses or oxen to drag
+it. Their work must be done by men. Some felled and squared the timber;
+and others dragged it by main force over the matted grass of the
+prairie, under the scorching Texan sun. The gun-carriages served to make
+the task somewhat easier; yet the strongest men soon gave out under it.
+Joutel went down to the first fort, made a raft and brought up the
+timber collected there, which proved a most seasonable and useful
+supply. Palisades and buildings began to rise. The men labored without
+spirit, yet strenuously; for they labored under the eye of La Salle. The
+carpenters brought from Rochelle proved worthless; and he himself made
+the plans of the work, marked out the tenons and mortises, and directed
+the whole.[302]
+
+[Sidenote: MISERY AND DEJECTION.]
+
+Death, meanwhile, made withering havoc among his followers; and under
+the sheds and hovels that shielded them from the sun lay a score of
+wretches slowly wasting away with the diseases contracted at St.
+Domingo. Of the soldiers enlisted for the expedition by La Salle's
+agents, many are affirmed to have spent their lives in begging at the
+church doors of Rochefort, and were consequently incapable of
+discipline. It was impossible to prevent either them or the sailors from
+devouring persimmons and other wild fruits to a destructive excess.
+Nearly all fell ill; and before the summer had passed, the graveyard had
+more than thirty tenants.[303] The bearing of La Salle did not aid to
+raise the drooping spirits of his followers. The results of the
+enterprise had been far different from his hopes; and, after a season of
+flattering promise, he had entered again on those dark and obstructed
+paths which seemed his destined way of life. The present was beset with
+trouble; the future, thick with storms. The consciousness quickened his
+energies; but it made him stern, harsh, and often unjust to those
+beneath him.
+
+Joutel was returning to camp one afternoon with the master-carpenter,
+when they saw game; and the carpenter went after it. He was never seen
+again. Perhaps he was lost on the prairie, perhaps killed by Indians. He
+knew little of his trade, but they nevertheless had need of him. Le
+Gros, a man of character and intelligence, suffered more and more from
+the bite of the snake received in the marsh on Easter Day. The injured
+limb was amputated, and he died. La Salle's brother, the priest, lay
+ill; and several others among the chief persons of the colony were in
+the same condition.
+
+Meanwhile, the work was urged on. A large building was finished,
+constructed of timber, roofed with boards and raw hides, and divided
+into apartments for lodging and other uses. La Salle gave the new
+establishment his favorite name of Fort St. Louis, and the neighboring
+bay was also christened after the royal saint.[304] The scene was not
+without its charms. Towards the southeast stretched the bay with its
+bordering meadows; and on the northeast the Lavaca ran along the base of
+green declivities. Around, far and near, rolled a sea of prairie, with
+distant forests, dim in the summer haze. At times, it was dotted with
+the browsing buffalo, not yet scared from their wonted pastures; and the
+grassy swells were spangled with the flowers for which Texas is
+renowned, and which now form the gay ornaments of our gardens.
+
+[Sidenote: LA SALLE'S EXPLORATIONS.]
+
+And now, the needful work accomplished, and the colony in some measure
+housed and fortified, its indefatigable chief prepared to renew his
+quest of the "fatal river," as Joutel repeatedly calls it. Before his
+departure he made some preliminary explorations, in the course of which,
+according to the report of his brother the priest, he found evidence
+that the Spaniards had long before had a transient establishment at a
+spot about fifteen leagues from Fort St. Louis.[305]
+
+[Sidenote: LIFE AT THE FORT.]
+
+It was the last day of October when La Salle set out on his great
+journey of exploration. His brother Cavelier, who had now recovered,
+accompanied him with fifty men; and five cannon-shot from the fort
+saluted them as they departed. They were lightly equipped; but some of
+them wore corselets made of staves, to ward off arrows. Descending the
+Lavaca, they pursued their course eastward on foot along the margin of
+the bay, while Joutel remained in command of the fort. It was two
+leagues above the mouth of the river; and in it were thirty-four
+persons, including three Récollet friars, a number of women and girls
+from Paris, and two young orphan daughters of one Talon, a Canadian, who
+had lately died. Their live-stock consisted of some hogs and a litter of
+eight pigs, which, as Joutel does not forget to inform us, passed their
+time in wallowing in the ditch of the palisade; a cock and hen, with a
+young family; and a pair of goats, which, in a temporary dearth of fresh
+meat, were sacrificed to the needs of the invalid Abbé Cavelier. Joutel
+suffered no man to lie idle. The blacksmith, having no anvil, was
+supplied with a cannon as a substitute. Lodgings were built for the
+women and girls, and separate lodgings for the men. A small chapel was
+afterwards added, and the whole was fenced with a palisade. At the four
+corners of the house were mounted eight pieces of cannon, which, in the
+absence of balls, were loaded with bags of bullets.[306] Between the
+palisades and the stream lay a narrow strip of marsh, the haunt of
+countless birds; and at a little distance it deepened into pools full of
+fish. All the surrounding prairies swarmed with game,--buffalo, deer,
+hares, turkeys, ducks, geese, swans, plover, snipe, and grouse. The
+river supplied the colonists with turtles, and the bay with oysters. Of
+these last, they often found more than they wanted; for when in their
+excursions they shoved their log canoes into the water, wading shoeless
+through the deep, tenacious mud, the sharp shells would cut their feet
+like knives; "and what was worse," says Joutel, "the salt water came
+into the gashes, and made them smart atrociously."
+
+He sometimes amused himself with shooting alligators. "I never spared
+them when I met them near the house. One day I killed an extremely large
+one, which was nearly four feet and a half in girth, and about twenty
+feet long." He describes with accuracy that curious native of the
+southwestern plains, the "horned frog," which, deceived by its
+uninviting appearance, he erroneously supposed to be venomous. "We had
+some of our animals bitten by snakes; among the others, a bitch that had
+belonged to the deceased Sieur le Gros. She was bitten in the jaw when
+she was with me, as I was fishing by the shore of the bay. I gave her a
+little theriac [an antidote then in vogue], which cured her, as it did
+one of our sows, which came home one day with her head so swelled that
+she could hardly hold it up. Thinking it must be some snake that had
+bitten her, I gave her a dose of the theriac mixed with meal and water."
+The patient began to mend at once. "I killed a good many rattle-snakes
+by means of the aforesaid bitch, for when she saw one she would bark
+around him, sometimes for a half hour together, till I took my gun and
+shot him. I often found them in the bushes, making a noise with their
+tails. When I had killed them, our hogs ate them." He devotes many pages
+to the plants and animals of the neighborhood, most of which may easily
+be recognized from his description.
+
+[Sidenote: THE BUFFALO.]
+
+With the buffalo, which he calls "our daily bread," his experiences were
+many and strange. Being, like the rest of the party, a novice in the art
+of shooting them, he met with many disappointments. Once, having mounted
+to the roof of the large house in the fort, he saw a dark moving object
+on a swell of the prairie three miles off; and rightly thinking that it
+was a herd of buffalo, he set out with six or seven men to try to kill
+some of them. After a while, he discovered two bulls lying in a hollow;
+and signing to the rest of his party to keep quiet, he made his
+approach, gun in hand. The bulls presently jumped up, and stared
+through their manes at the intruder. Joutel fired. It was a close shot;
+but the bulls merely shook their shaggy heads, wheeled about, and
+galloped heavily away. The same luck attended him the next day. "We saw
+plenty of buffalo. I approached several bands of them, and fired again
+and again, but could not make one of them fall." He had not yet learned
+that a buffalo rarely falls at once, unless hit in the spine. He
+continues: "I was not discouraged; and after approaching several more
+bands,--which was hard work, because I had to crawl on the ground, so as
+not to be seen,--I found myself in a herd of five or six thousand, but,
+to my great vexation, I could not bring one of them down. They all ran
+off to the right and left. It was near night, and I had killed nothing.
+Though I was very tired, I tried again, approached another band, and
+fired a number of shots; but not a buffalo would fall. The skin was off
+my knees with crawling. At last, as I was going back to rejoin our men,
+I saw a buffalo lying on the ground. I went towards it, and saw that it
+was dead. I examined it, and found that the bullet had gone in near the
+shoulder. Then I found others dead like the first. I beckoned the men to
+come on, and we set to work to cut up the meat,--a task which was new to
+us all." It would be impossible to write a more true and characteristic
+sketch of the experience of a novice in shooting buffalo on foot. A few
+days after, he went out again, with Father Anastase Douay; approached a
+bull, fired, and broke his shoulder. The bull hobbled off on three legs.
+Douay ran in his cassock to head him back, while Joutel reloaded his
+gun; upon which the enraged beast butted at the missionary, and knocked
+him down. He very narrowly escaped with his life. "There was another
+missionary," pursues Joutel, "named Father Maxime Le Clerc, who was very
+well fitted for such an undertaking as ours, because he was equal to
+anything, even to butchering a buffalo; and as I said before that every
+one of us must lend a hand, because we were too few for anybody to be
+waited upon, I made the women, girls, and children do their part, as
+well as him; for as they all wanted to eat, it was fair that they all
+should work." He had a scaffolding built near the fort, and set them to
+smoking buffalo meat, against a day of scarcity.[307]
+
+[Sidenote: RETURN OF DUHAUT.]
+
+Thus the time passed till the middle of January; when late one evening,
+as all were gathered in the principal building, conversing perhaps, or
+smoking, or playing at cards, or dozing by the fire in homesick dreams
+of France, a man on guard came in to report that he had heard a voice
+from the river. They all went down to the bank, and descried a man in a
+canoe, who called out, "Dominic!" This was the name of the younger of
+the two brothers Duhaut, who was one of Joutel's followers. As the
+canoe approached, they recognized the elder, who had gone with La Salle
+on his journey of discovery, and who was perhaps the greatest villain of
+the company. Joutel was much perplexed. La Salle had ordered him to
+admit nobody into the fort without a pass and a watchword. Duhaut, when
+questioned, said that he had none, but told at the same time so
+plausible a story that Joutel no longer hesitated to receive him. As La
+Salle and his men were pursuing their march along the prairie, Duhaut,
+who was in the rear, had stopped to mend his moccasins, and when he
+tried to overtake the party, had lost his way, mistaking a buffalo-path
+for the trail of his companions. At night he fired his gun as a signal,
+but there was no answering shot. Seeing no hope of rejoining them, he
+turned back for the fort, found one of the canoes which La Salle had
+hidden at the shore, paddled by night and lay close by day, shot
+turkeys, deer, and buffalo for food, and, having no knife, cut the meat
+with a sharp flint, till after a month of excessive hardship he reached
+his destination. As the inmates of Fort St. Louis gathered about the
+weather-beaten wanderer, he told them dreary tidings. The pilot of the
+"Belle," such was his story, had gone with five men to sound along the
+shore, by order of La Salle, who was then encamped in the neighborhood
+with his party of explorers. The boat's crew, being overtaken by the
+night, had rashly bivouacked on the beach without setting a guard; and
+as they slept, a band of Indians had rushed in upon them, and butchered
+them all. La Salle, alarmed by their long absence, had searched along
+the shore, and at length found their bodies scattered about the sands
+and half-devoured by wolves.[308] Well would it have been, if Duhaut had
+shared their fate.
+
+Weeks and months dragged on, when, at the end of March, Joutel, chancing
+to mount on the roof of one of the buildings, saw seven or eight men
+approaching over the prairie. He went out to meet them with an equal
+number, well armed; and as he drew near recognized, with mixed joy and
+anxiety, La Salle and some of those who had gone with him. His brother
+Cavelier was at his side, with his cassock so tattered that, says
+Joutel, "there was hardly a piece left large enough to wrap a farthing's
+worth of salt. He had an old cap on his head, having lost his hat by the
+way. The rest were in no better plight, for their shirts were all in
+rags. Some of them carried loads of meat, because M. de la Salle was
+afraid that we might not have killed any buffalo. We met with great joy
+and many embraces. After our greetings were over, M. de la Salle, seeing
+Duhaut, asked me in an angry tone how it was that I had received this
+man who had abandoned him. I told him how it had happened, and repeated
+Duhaut's story. Duhaut defended himself, and M. de la Salle's anger was
+soon over. We went into the house, and refreshed ourselves with some
+bread and brandy, as there was no wine left."[309]
+
+[Sidenote: LA SALLE'S ADVENTURES.]
+
+La Salle and his companions told their story. They had wandered on
+through various savage tribes, with whom they had more than one
+encounter, scattering them like chaff by the terror of their fire-arms.
+At length they found a more friendly band, and learned much touching the
+Spaniards, who, they were told, were universally hated by the tribes of
+that country. It would be easy, said their informants, to gather a host
+of warriors and lead them over the Rio Grande; but La Salle was in no
+condition for attempting conquests, and the tribes in whose alliance he
+had trusted had, a few days before, been at blows with him. The invasion
+of New Biscay must be postponed to a more propitious day. Still
+advancing, he came to a large river, which he at first mistook for the
+Mississippi; and building a fort of palisades, he left here several of
+his men.[310] The fate of these unfortunates does not appear. He now
+retraced his steps towards Fort St. Louis, and, as he approached it,
+detached some of his men to look for his vessel, the "Belle," for whose
+safety, since the loss of her pilot, he had become very anxious.
+
+On the next day these men appeared at the fort, with downcast looks.
+They had not found the "Belle" at the place where she had been ordered
+to remain, nor were any tidings to be heard of her. From that hour, the
+conviction that she was lost possessed the mind of La Salle. Surrounded
+as he was, and had always been, with traitors, the belief now possessed
+him that her crew had abandoned the colony, and made sail for the West
+Indies or for France. The loss was incalculable. He had relied on this
+vessel to transport the colonists to the Mississippi, as soon as its
+exact position could be ascertained; and thinking her a safer place of
+deposit than the fort, he had put on board of her all his papers and
+personal baggage, besides a great quantity of stores, ammunition, and
+tools.[311] In truth, she was of the last necessity to the unhappy
+exiles, and their only resource for escape from a position which was
+fast becoming desperate.
+
+La Salle, as his brother tells us, now fell dangerously ill,--the
+fatigues of his journey, joined to the effects upon his mind of this
+last disaster, having overcome his strength, though not his fortitude.
+"In truth," writes the priest, "after the loss of the vessel which
+deprived us of our only means of returning to France, we had no resource
+but in the firm guidance of my brother, whose death each of us would
+have regarded as his own."[312]
+
+[Sidenote: DEPARTURE FOR CANADA.]
+
+La Salle no sooner recovered than he embraced a resolution which could
+be the offspring only of a desperate necessity. He determined to make
+his way by the Mississippi and the Illinois to Canada, whence he might
+bring succor to the colonists, and send a report of their condition to
+France. The attempt was beset with uncertainties and dangers. The
+Mississippi was first to be found, then followed through all the
+perilous monotony of its interminable windings to a goal which was to be
+but the starting-point of a new and not less arduous journey. Cavelier
+his brother, Moranget his nephew, the friar Anastase Douay, and others
+to the number of twenty, were chosen to accompany him. Every corner of
+the magazine was ransacked for an outfit. Joutel generously gave up the
+better part of his wardrobe to La Salle and his two relatives. Duhaut,
+who had saved his baggage from the wreck of the "Aimable," was
+required to contribute to the necessities of the party; and the
+scantily-furnished chests of those who had died were used to supply the
+wants of the living. Each man labored with needle and awl to patch his
+failing garments, or supply their place with buffalo or deer skins. On
+the twenty-second of April, after mass and prayers in the chapel, they
+issued from the gate, each bearing his pack and his weapons, some with
+kettles slung at their backs, some with axes, some with gifts for
+Indians. In this guise, they held their way in silence across the
+prairie; while anxious eyes followed them from the palisades of St.
+Louis, whose inmates, not excepting Joutel himself, seem to have been
+ignorant of the extent and difficulty of the undertaking.[313]
+
+[Sidenote: WRECK OF THE "BELLE."]
+
+"On May Day," he writes, "at about two in the afternoon, as I was
+walking near the house, I heard a voice from the river below, crying out
+several times, _Qui vive?_ Knowing that the Sieur Barbier had gone that
+way with two canoes to hunt buffalo, I thought that it might be one of
+these canoes coming back with meat, and did not think much of the matter
+till I heard the same voice again. I answered, _Versailles_, which was
+the password I had given the Sieur Barbier, in case he should come back
+in the night. But, as I was going towards the bank, I heard other voices
+which I had not heard for a long time. I recognized among the rest that
+of M. Chefdeville, which made me fear that some disaster had happened. I
+ran down to the bank, and my first greeting was to ask what had become
+of the 'Belle.' They answered that she was wrecked on the other side of
+the bay, and that all on board were drowned except the six who were in
+the canoe; namely, the Sieur Chefdeville, the Marquis de la Sablonnière,
+the man named Teissier, a soldier, a girl, and a little boy."[314]
+
+From the young priest Chefdeville, Joutel learned the particulars of the
+disaster. Water had failed on board the "Belle"; a boat's crew of five
+men had gone in quest of it; the wind rose, their boat was swamped, and
+they were all drowned. Those who remained had now no means of going
+ashore; but if they had no water, they had wine and brandy in abundance,
+and Teissier, the master of the vessel, was drunk every day. After a
+while they left their moorings, and tried to reach the fort; but they
+were few, weak, and unskilful. A violent north wind drove them on a
+sand-bar. Some of them were drowned in trying to reach land on a raft.
+Others were more successful; and, after a long delay, they found a
+stranded canoe, in which they made their way to St. Louis, bringing with
+them some of La Salle's papers and baggage saved from the wreck.
+
+These multiplied disasters bore hard on the spirits of the colonists;
+and Joutel, like a good commander as he was, spared no pains to cheer
+them. "We did what we could to amuse ourselves and drive away care. I
+encouraged our people to dance and sing in the evenings; for when M. de
+la Salle was among us, pleasure was often banished. Now, there is no
+use in being melancholy on such occasions. It is true that M. de la
+Salle had no great cause for merry-making, after all his losses and
+disappointments; but his troubles made others suffer also. Though he had
+ordered me to allow to each person only a certain quantity of meat at
+every meal, I observed this rule only when meat was rare. The air here
+is very keen, and one has a great appetite. One must eat and act, if he
+wants good health and spirits. I speak from experience; for once, when I
+had ague chills, and was obliged to keep the house with nothing to do, I
+was dreary and down-hearted. On the contrary, if I was busy with hunting
+or anything else, I was not so dull by half. So I tried to keep the
+people as busy as possible. I set them to making a small cellar to keep
+meat fresh in hot weather; but when M. de la Salle came back, he said it
+was too small. As he always wanted to do everything on a grand scale, he
+prepared to make a large one, and marked out the plan." This plan of the
+large cellar, like more important undertakings of its unhappy projector,
+proved too extensive for execution, the colonists being engrossed by the
+daily care of keeping themselves alive.
+
+[Sidenote: MATRIMONY.]
+
+A gleam of hilarity shot for an instant out of the clouds. The young
+Canadian, Barbier, usually conducted the hunting-parties; and some of
+the women and girls often went out with them, to aid in cutting up the
+meat. Barbier became enamoured of one of the girls; and as his devotion
+to her was the subject of comment, he asked Joutel for leave to marry
+her. The commandant, after due counsel with the priests and friars,
+vouchsafed his consent, and the rite was duly solemnized; whereupon,
+fired by the example, the Marquis de la Sablonnière begged leave to
+marry another of the girls. Joutel, the gardener's son, concerned that a
+marquis should so abase himself, and anxious at the same time for the
+morals of the fort, which La Salle had especially commended to his care,
+not only flatly refused, but, in the plenitude of his authority, forbade
+the lovers all further intercourse.
+
+Father Zenobe Membré, superior of the mission, gave unwilling occasion
+for further merriment. These worthy friars were singularly unhappy in
+their dealings with the buffalo, one of which, it may be remembered, had
+already knocked down Father Anastase. Undeterred by his example, Father
+Zenobe one day went out with the hunters, carrying a gun like the rest.
+Joutel shot a buffalo, which was making off, badly wounded, when a
+second shot stopped it, and it presently lay down. The father superior
+thought it was dead; and, without heeding the warning shout of Joutel,
+he approached, and pushed it with the butt of his gun. The bull sprang
+up with an effort of expiring fury, and, in the words of Joutel,
+"trampled on the father, took the skin off his face in several places,
+and broke his gun, so that he could hardly manage to get away, and
+remained in an almost helpless state for more than three months. Bad as
+the accident was, he was laughed at nevertheless for his rashness."
+
+The mishaps of the friars did not end here. Father Maxime Le Clerc was
+set upon by a boar belonging to the colony. "I do not know," says
+Joutel, "what spite the beast had against him, whether for a beating or
+some other offence; but, however this may be, I saw the father running
+and crying for help, and the boar running after him. I went to the
+rescue, but could not come up in time. The father stooped as he ran, to
+gather up his cassock from about his legs; and the boar, which ran
+faster than he, struck him in the arm with his tusks, so that some of
+the nerves were torn. Thus, all three of our good Récollet fathers were
+near being the victims of animals."[315]
+
+In spite of his efforts to encourage them, the followers of Joutel were
+fast losing heart. Father Maxime Le Clerc kept a journal, in which he
+set down various charges against La Salle. Joutel got possession of the
+paper, and burned it on the urgent entreaty of the friars, who dreaded
+what might ensue, should the absent commander become aware of the
+aspersions cast upon him. The elder Duhaut fomented the rising
+discontent of the colonists, played the demagogue, told them that La
+Salle would never return, and tried to make himself their leader. Joutel
+detected the mischief, and, with a lenity which he afterwards deeply
+regretted, contented himself with a rebuke to the offender, and words
+of reproof and encouragement to the dejected band.
+
+[Sidenote: ADVENTURES OF THE TRAVELLERS.]
+
+He had caused the grass to be cut near the fort, so as to form a sort of
+playground; and here, one evening, he and some of the party were trying
+to amuse themselves, when they heard shouts from beyond the river, and
+Joutel recognized the voice of La Salle. Hastening to meet him in a
+wooden canoe, he brought him and his party to the fort. Twenty men had
+gone out with him, and eight had returned. Of the rest, four had
+deserted, one had been lost, one had been devoured by an alligator; and
+the others, giving out on the march, had probably perished in attempting
+to regain the fort. The travellers told of a rich country, a wild and
+beautiful landscape,--woods, rivers, groves, and prairies; but all
+availed nothing, and the acquisition of five horses was but an
+indifferent return for the loss of twelve men.
+
+After leaving the fort, they had journeyed towards the northeast, over
+plains green as an emerald with the young verdure of April, till at
+length they saw, far as the eye could reach, the boundless prairie alive
+with herds of buffalo. The animals were in one of their tame or stupid
+moods; and they killed nine or ten of them without the least difficulty,
+drying the best parts of the meat. They crossed the Colorado on a raft,
+and reached the banks of another river, where one of the party, named
+Hiens, a German of Würtemberg, and an old buccaneer, was mired and
+nearly suffocated in a mud-hole. Unfortunately, as will soon appear, he
+managed to crawl out; and, to console him, the river was christened with
+his name. The party made a bridge of felled trees, on which they crossed
+in safety. La Salle now changed their course, and journeyed eastward,
+when the travellers soon found themselves in the midst of a numerous
+Indian population, where they were feasted and caressed without measure.
+At another village they were less fortunate. The inhabitants were
+friendly by day and hostile by night. They came to attack the French in
+their camp, but withdrew, daunted by the menacing voice of La Salle, who
+had heard them approaching through the cane-brake.
+
+La Salle's favorite Shawanoe hunter, Nika, who had followed him from
+Canada to France, and from France to Texas, was bitten by a rattlesnake;
+and, though he recovered, the accident detained the party for several
+days. At length they resumed their journey, but were stopped by a river,
+called by Douay, "La Rivière des Malheurs." La Salle and Cavelier, with
+a few others, tried to cross on a raft, which, as it reached the
+channel, was caught by a current of marvellous swiftness. Douay and
+Moranget, watching the transit from the edge of the cane-brake, beheld
+their commander swept down the stream, and vanishing, as it were, in an
+instant. All that day they remained with their companions on the bank,
+lamenting in despair for the loss of their guardian angel, for so Douay
+calls La Salle.[316] It was fast growing dark, when, to their
+unspeakable relief, they saw him advancing with his party along the
+opposite bank, having succeeded, after great exertion, in guiding the
+raft to land. How to rejoin him was now the question. Douay and his
+companions, who had tasted no food that day, broke their fast on two
+young eagles which they knocked out of their nest, and then spent the
+night in rueful consultation as to the means of crossing the river. In
+the morning they waded into the marsh, the friar with his breviary in
+his hood to keep it dry, and hacked among the canes till they had
+gathered enough to make another raft; on which, profiting by La Salle's
+experience, they safely crossed, and rejoined him.
+
+Next, they became entangled in a cane-brake, where La Salle, as usual
+with him in such cases, took the lead, a hatchet in each hand, and hewed
+out a path for his followers. They soon reached the villages of the
+Cenis Indians, on and near the river Trinity,--a tribe then powerful,
+but long since extinct. Nothing could surpass the friendliness of their
+welcome. The chiefs came to meet them, bearing the calumet, and followed
+by warriors in shirts of embroidered deer-skin. Then the whole village
+swarmed out like bees, gathering around the visitors with offerings of
+food and all that was precious in their eyes. La Salle was lodged with
+the great chief; but he compelled his men to encamp at a distance, lest
+the ardor of their gallantry might give occasion of offence. The lodges
+of the Cenis, forty or fifty feet high, and covered with a thatch of
+meadow-grass, looked like huge bee-hives. Each held several families,
+whose fire was in the middle, and their beds around the circumference.
+The spoil of the Spaniards was to be seen on all sides,--silver lamps
+and spoons, swords, old muskets, money, clothing, and a bull of the Pope
+dispensing the Spanish colonists of New Mexico from fasting during
+summer.[317] These treasures, as well as their numerous horses, were
+obtained by the Cenis from their neighbors and allies the Camanches,
+that fierce prairie banditti who then, as now, scourged the Mexican
+border with their bloody forays. A party of these wild horsemen was in
+the village. Douay was edified at seeing them make the sign of the cross
+in imitation of the neophytes of one of the Spanish missions. They
+enacted, too, the ceremony of the mass; and one of them, in his rude
+way, drew a sketch of a picture he had seen in some church which he had
+pillaged, wherein the friar plainly recognized the Virgin weeping at the
+foot of the cross. They invited the French to join them on a raid into
+New Mexico; and they spoke with contempt, as their tribesmen will speak
+to this day, of the Spanish creoles, saying that it would be easy to
+conquer a nation of cowards who make people walk before them with fans
+to cool them in hot weather.[318]
+
+Soon after leaving the Cenis villages, both La Salle and his nephew
+Moranget were attacked by fever. This caused a delay of more than two
+months, during which the party seem to have remained encamped on the
+Neches, or possibly the Sabine. When at length the invalids had
+recovered sufficient strength to travel, the stock of ammunition was
+nearly spent, some of the men had deserted, and the condition of the
+travellers was such that there seemed no alternative but to return to
+Fort St. Louis. This they accordingly did, greatly aided in their march
+by the horses bought from the Cenis, and suffering no very serious
+accident by the way,--excepting the loss of La Salle's servant,
+Dumesnil, who was seized by an alligator while attempting to cross the
+Colorado.
+
+[Sidenote: DEJECTION.]
+
+The temporary excitement caused among the colonists by their return soon
+gave place to a dejection bordering on despair. "This pleasant land,"
+writes Cavelier, "seemed to us an abode of weariness and a perpetual
+prison." Flattering themselves with the delusion, common to exiles of
+every kind, that they were objects of solicitude at home, they watched
+daily, with straining eyes, for an approaching sail. Ships, indeed, had
+ranged the coast to seek them, but with no friendly intent. Their
+thoughts dwelt, with unspeakable yearning, on the France they had left
+behind, which, to their longing fancy, was pictured as an unattainable
+Eden. Well might they despond; for of a hundred and eighty colonists,
+besides the crew of the "Belle," less than forty-five remained. The
+weary precincts of Fort St. Louis, with its fence of rigid palisades,
+its area of trampled earth, its buildings of weather-stained timber, and
+its well-peopled graveyard without, were hateful to their sight. La
+Salle had a heavy task to save them from despair. His composure, his
+unfailing equanimity, his words of encouragement and cheer, were the
+breath of life to this forlorn company; for though he could not impart
+to minds of less adamantine temper the audacity of hope with which he
+still clung to the final accomplishment of his purposes, the contagion
+of his hardihood touched, nevertheless, the drooping spirits of his
+followers.[319]
+
+[Sidenote: TWELFTH NIGHT.]
+
+The journey to Canada was clearly their only hope; and, after a brief
+rest, La Salle prepared to renew the attempt. He proposed that Joutel
+should this time be of the party; and should proceed from Quebec to
+France, with his brother Cavelier, to solicit succors for the colony,
+while he himself returned to Texas. A new obstacle was presently
+interposed. La Salle, whose constitution seems to have suffered from his
+long course of hardships, was attacked in November with hernia. Joutel
+offered to conduct the party in his stead; but La Salle replied that his
+own presence was indispensable at the Illinois. He had the good fortune
+to recover, within four or five weeks, sufficiently to undertake the
+journey; and all in the fort busied themselves in preparing an outfit.
+In such straits were they for clothing, that the sails of the "Belle"
+were cut up to make coats for the adventurers. Christmas came, and was
+solemnly observed. There was a midnight mass in the chapel, where
+Membré, Cavelier, Douay, and their priestly brethren stood before the
+altar, in vestments strangely contrasting with the rude temple and the
+ruder garb of the worshippers. And as Membré elevated the consecrated
+wafer, and the lamps burned dim through the clouds of incense, the
+kneeling group drew from the daily miracle such consolation as true
+Catholics alone can know. When Twelfth Night came, all gathered in the
+hall, and cried, after the jovial old custom, "The King drinks," with
+hearts, perhaps, as cheerless as their cups, which were filled with cold
+water.
+
+[Sidenote: THE LAST FAREWELL.]
+
+On the morrow, the band of adventurers mustered for the fatal
+journey.[320] The five horses, bought by La Salle of the Indians, stood
+in the area of the fort, packed for the march; and here was gathered the
+wretched remnant of the colony,--those who were to go, and those who
+were to stay behind. These latter were about twenty in all,--Barbier,
+who was to command in the place of Joutel; Sablonnière, who, despite his
+title of marquis, was held in great contempt;[321] the friars, Membré
+and Le Clerc,[322] and the priest Chefdeville, besides a surgeon,
+soldiers, laborers, seven women and girls, and several children, doomed,
+in this deadly exile, to wait the issues of the journey, and the
+possible arrival of a tardy succor. La Salle had made them a last
+address, delivered, we are told, with that winning air which, though
+alien from his usual bearing, seems to have been at times a natural
+expression of this unhappy man.[323] It was a bitter parting, one of
+sighs, tears, and embracings,--the farewell of those on whose souls had
+sunk a heavy boding that they would never meet again.[324] Equipped and
+weaponed for the journey, the adventurers filed from the gate, crossed
+the river, and held their slow march over the prairies beyond, till
+intervening woods and hills shut Fort St. Louis forever from their
+sight.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[301] Called by Joutel, Rivière aux Boeufs.
+
+[302] Joutel, _Journal Historique_, 108; _Relation_ (Margry, iii. 174);
+_Procès Verbal fait au poste de St. Louis, le 18 Avril, 1686_.
+
+[303] Joutel, _Journal Historique_, 109. Le Clerc, who was not present,
+says a hundred.
+
+[304] The Bay of St. Louis, St. Bernard's Bay, or Matagorda Bay,--for it
+has borne all these names,--was also called Espiritu Santo Bay by the
+Spaniards, in common with several other bays in the Gulf of Mexico. An
+adjoining bay still retains the name.
+
+[305] Cavelier, in his report to the minister, says: "We reached a large
+village, enclosed with a kind of wall made of clay and sand, and
+fortified with little towers at intervals, where we found the arms of
+Spain engraved on a plate of copper, with the date of 1588, attached to
+a stake. The inhabitants gave us a kind welcome, and showed us some
+hammers and an anvil, two small pieces of iron cannon, a small brass
+culverin, some pike-heads, some old sword-blades, and some books of
+Spanish comedy; and thence they guided us to a little hamlet of
+fishermen, about two leagues distant, where they showed us a second
+stake, also with the arms of Spain, and a few old chimneys. All this
+convinced us that the Spaniards had formerly been here." (Cavelier,
+_Relation du Voyage que mon frère entreprit pour découvrir l'embouchure
+du fleuve de Missisipy_.) The above is translated from the original
+draft of Cavelier, which is in my possession. It was addressed to the
+colonial minister, after the death of La Salle. The statement concerning
+the Spaniards needs confirmation.
+
+[306] Compare Joutel with the Spanish account in _Carta en que se da
+noticia de un viaje hecho á la Bahia de Espíritu Santo y de la poblacion
+que tenian ahi los Franceses; Coleccion de Varios Documentos_, 25.
+
+[307] For the above incidents of life at Fort St. Louis, see Joutel,
+_Relation_ (Margry, iii. 185-218, _passim_). The printed condensation of
+the narrative omits most of these particulars.
+
+[308] Joutel, _Relation_ (Margry, iii. 206). Compare Le Clerc, ii. 296.
+Cavelier, always disposed to exaggerate, says that ten men were killed.
+La Salle had previously had encounters with the Indians, and punished
+them severely for the trouble they had given his men. Le Clerc says of
+the principal fight: "Several Indians were wounded, a few were killed,
+and others made prisoners,--one of whom, a girl of three or four years,
+was baptized, and died a few days after, as the first-fruit of this
+mission, and a sure conquest sent to heaven."
+
+[309] Joutel, _Relation_ (Margry, iii. 219).
+
+[310] Cavelier says that he actually reached the Mississippi; but, on
+the one hand, the abbé did not know whether the river in question was
+the Mississippi or not; and, on the other, he is somewhat inclined to
+mendacity. Le Clerc says that La Salle thought he had found the river.
+According to the _Procès Verbal_ of 18 April, 1686, "il y arriva le 13
+Février." Joutel says that La Salle told him "qu'il n'avoit point trouvé
+sa rivière."
+
+[311] _Procès Verbal fait au poste de St. Louis, le 18 Avril, 1686._
+
+[312] Cavelier, _Relation du Voyage pour découvrir l'Embouchure du
+Fleuve de Missisipy_.
+
+[313] Joutel, _Journal Historique_, 140; Anastase Douay in Le Clerc, ii.
+303; Cavelier, _Relation_. The date is from Douay. It does not appear,
+from his narrative, that they meant to go farther than the Illinois.
+Cavelier says that after resting here they were to go to Canada. Joutel
+supposed that they would go only to the Illinois. La Salle seems to have
+been even more reticent than usual.
+
+[314] Joutel, _Relation_ (Margry, iii. 226).
+
+[315] Joutel, _Relation_ (Margry, iii. 244, 246).
+
+[316] "Ce fût une desolation extrême pour nous tous qui desesperions de
+revoir jamais nostre Ange tutélaire, le Sieur de la Salle.... Tout le
+jour se passa en pleurs et en larmes."--_Douay in Le Clerc_, ii. 315.
+
+[317] Douay in Le Clerc, ii. 321; Cavelier, _Relation_.
+
+[318] Douay in Le Clerc, ii. 324, 325.
+
+[319] "L'égalité d'humeur du Chef rassuroit tout le monde; et il
+trouvoit des resources à tout par son esprit qui relevoit les espérances
+les plus abatues."--Joutel, _Journal Historique_, 152.
+
+"Il seroit difficile de trouver dans l'Histoire un courage plus
+intrepide et plus invincible que celuy du Sieur de la Salle dans les
+évenemens contraires; il ne fût jamais abatu, et il espéroit toujours
+avec le secours du Ciel de venir à bout de son entreprise malgré tous
+les obstacles qui se présentoient."--_Douay in Le Clerc_, ii. 327.
+
+[320] I follow Douay's date, who makes the day of departure the seventh
+of January, or the day after Twelfth Night. Joutel thinks it was the
+twelfth of January, but professes uncertainty as to all his dates at
+this time, as he lost his notes.
+
+[321] He had to be kept on short allowance, because he was in the habit
+of bargaining away everything given to him. He had squandered the little
+that belonged to him at St. Domingo, in amusements "indignes de sa
+naissance," and in consequence was suffering from diseases which
+disabled him from walking. (_Procès Verbal, 18 Avril, 1686._)
+
+[322] Maxime le Clerc was a relative of the author of _L'Établissement
+de la Foi_.
+
+[323] "Il fit une Harangue pleine d'éloquence et de cet air engageant
+qui luy estoit si naturel: toute la petite Colonie y estoit presente et
+en fût touchée jusques aux larmes, persuadée de la nécessité de son
+voyage et de la droiture de ses intentions."--_Douay in Le Clerc_, ii,
+330.
+
+[324] "Nous nous separâmes les uns des autres, d'une manière si tendre
+et si triste qu'il sembloit que nous avions tous le secret pressentiment
+que nous ne nous reverrions jamais."--Joutel, _Journal Historique_,
+158.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVII.
+
+1687.
+
+ASSASSINATION OF LA SALLE.
+
+ His Followers.--Prairie Travelling--A Hunters' Quarrel--The Murder
+ of Moranget.--The Conspiracy.--Death of La Salle: his Character.
+
+
+[Sidenote: LA SALLE'S FOLLOWERS.]
+
+The travellers were crossing a marshy prairie towards a distant belt of
+woods that followed the course of a little river. They led with them
+their five horses, laden with their scanty baggage, and, with what was
+of no less importance, their stock of presents for Indians. Some wore
+the remains of the clothing they had worn from France, eked out with
+deer-skins, dressed in the Indian manner; and some had coats of old
+sail-cloth. Here was La Salle, in whom one would have known, at a
+glance, the chief of the party; and the priest, Cavelier, who seems to
+have shared not one of the high traits of his younger brother. Here,
+too, were their nephews, Moranget and the boy Cavelier, now about
+seventeen years old; the trusty soldier Joutel; and the friar Anastase
+Douay. Duhaut followed, a man of respectable birth and education; and
+Liotot, the surgeon of the party. At home, they might perhaps have
+lived and died with a fair repute; but the wilderness is a rude
+touchstone, which often reveals traits that would have lain buried and
+unsuspected in civilized life. The German Hiens, the ex-buccaneer, was
+also of the number. He had probably sailed with an English crew; for he
+was sometimes known as _Gemme Anglais_, or "English Jem."[325] The Sieur
+de Marie; Teissier, a pilot; L'Archevêque, a servant of Duhaut; and
+others, to the number in all of seventeen,--made up the party; to which
+is to be added Nika, La Salle's Shawanoe hunter, who, as well as another
+Indian, had twice crossed the ocean with him, and still followed his
+fortunes with an admiring though undemonstrative fidelity.
+
+They passed the prairie, and neared the forest. Here they saw buffalo;
+and the hunters approached, and killed several of them. Then they
+traversed the woods; found and forded the shallow and rushy stream, and
+pushed through the forest beyond, till they again reached the open
+prairie. Heavy clouds gathered over them, and it rained all night; but
+they sheltered themselves under the fresh hides of the buffalo they had
+killed.
+
+[Sidenote: PRAIRIE TRAVELLING.]
+
+It is impossible, as it would be needless, to follow the detail of their
+daily march.[326] It was such an one, though with unwonted hardship, as
+is familiar to the memory of many a prairie traveller of our own time.
+They suffered greatly from the want of shoes, and found for a while no
+better substitute than a casing of raw buffalo-hide, which they were
+forced to keep always wet, as, when dry, it hardened about the foot like
+iron. At length they bought dressed deer-skin from the Indians, of which
+they made tolerable moccasins. The rivers, streams, and gullies filled
+with water were without number; and to cross them they made a boat of
+bull-hide, like the "bull boat" still used on the Upper Missouri. This
+did good service, as, with the help of their horses, they could carry it
+with them. Two or three men could cross in it at once, and the horses
+swam after them like dogs. Sometimes they traversed the sunny prairie;
+sometimes dived into the dark recesses of the forest, where the buffalo,
+descending daily from their pastures in long files to drink at the
+river, often made a broad and easy path for the travellers. When foul
+weather arrested them, they built huts of bark and long meadow-grass;
+and safely sheltered lounged away the day, while their horses, picketed
+near by, stood steaming in the rain. At night, they usually set a rude
+stockade about their camp; and here, by the grassy border of a brook,
+or at the edge of a grove where a spring bubbled up through the sands,
+they lay asleep around the embers of their fire, while the man on guard
+listened to the deep breathing of the slumbering horses, and the howling
+of the wolves that saluted the rising moon as it flooded the waste of
+prairie with pale mystic radiance.
+
+They met Indians almost daily,--sometimes a band of hunters, mounted or
+on foot, chasing buffalo on the plains; sometimes a party of fishermen;
+sometimes a winter camp, on the slope of a hill or under the sheltering
+border of a forest. They held intercourse with them in the distance by
+signs; often they disarmed their distrust, and attracted them into their
+camp; and often they visited them in their lodges, where, seated on
+buffalo-robes, they smoked with their entertainers, passing the pipe
+from hand to hand, after the custom still in use among the prairie
+tribes. Cavelier says that they once saw a band of a hundred and fifty
+mounted Indians attacking a herd of buffalo with lances pointed with
+sharpened bone. The old priest was delighted with the sport, which he
+pronounces "the most diverting thing in the world." On another occasion,
+when the party were encamped near the village of a tribe which Cavelier
+calls Sassory, he saw them catch an alligator about twelve feet long,
+which they proceeded to torture as if he were a human enemy,--first
+putting out his eyes, and then leading him to the neighboring prairie,
+where, having confined him by a number of stakes, they spent the entire
+day in tormenting him.[327]
+
+Holding a northerly course, the travellers crossed the Brazos, and
+reached the waters of the Trinity. The weather was unfavorable, and on
+one occasion they encamped in the rain during four or five days
+together. It was not an harmonious company. La Salle's cold and haughty
+reserve had returned, at least for those of his followers to whom he was
+not partial. Duhaut and the surgeon Liotot, both of whom were men of
+some property, had a large pecuniary stake in the enterprise, and were
+disappointed and incensed at its ruinous result. They had a quarrel with
+young Moranget, whose hot and hasty temper was as little fitted to
+conciliate as was the harsh reserve of his uncle. Already at Fort St.
+Louis, Duhaut had intrigued among the men; and the mild admonition of
+Joutel had not, it seems, sufficed to divert him from his sinister
+purposes. Liotot, it is said, had secretly sworn vengeance against La
+Salle, whom he charged with having caused the death of his brother, or,
+as some will have it, his nephew. On one of the former journeys this
+young man's strength had failed; and, La Salle having ordered him to
+return to the fort, he had been killed by Indians on the way.
+
+[Sidenote: MURDER OF MORANGET.]
+
+The party moved again as the weather improved, and on the fifteenth of
+March encamped within a few miles of a spot which La Salle had passed on
+his preceding journey, and where he had left a quantity of Indian corn
+and beans in _cache_; that is to say, hidden in the ground or in a
+hollow tree. As provisions were falling short, he sent a party from the
+camp to find it. These men were Duhaut, Liotot,[328] Hiens the
+buccaneer, Teissier, L'Archevêque, Nika the hunter, and La Salle's
+servant Saget. They opened the _cache_, and found the contents spoiled;
+but as they returned from their bootless errand they saw buffalo, and
+Nika shot two of them. They now encamped on the spot, and sent the
+servant to inform La Salle, in order that he might send horses to bring
+in the meat. Accordingly, on the next day, he directed Moranget and De
+Marle, with the necessary horses, to go with Saget to the hunters' camp.
+When they arrived, they found that Duhaut and his companions had already
+cut up the meat, and laid it upon scaffolds for smoking, though it was
+not yet so dry as, it seems, this process required. Duhaut and the
+others had also put by, for themselves, the marrow-bones and certain
+portions of the meat, to which, by woodland custom, they had a perfect
+right. Moranget, whose rashness and violence had once before caused a
+fatal catastrophe, fell into a most unreasonable fit of rage, berated
+and menaced Duhaut and his party, and ended by seizing upon the whole of
+the meat, including the reserved portions. This added fuel to the fire
+of Duhaut's old grudge against Moranget and his uncle. There is reason
+to think that he had harbored deadly designs, the execution of which
+was only hastened by the present outbreak. The surgeon also bore hatred
+against Moranget, whom he had nursed with constant attention when
+wounded by an Indian arrow, and who had since repaid him with abuse.
+These two now took counsel apart with Hiens, Teissier, and L'Archevêque;
+and it was resolved to kill Moranget that night. Nika, La Salle's
+devoted follower, and Saget, his faithful servant, must die with him.
+All of the five were of one mind except the pilot Teissier, who neither
+aided nor opposed the plot.
+
+Night came: the woods grew dark; the evening meal was finished, and the
+evening pipes were smoked. The order of the guard was arranged; and,
+doubtless by design, the first hour of the night was assigned to
+Moranget, the second to Saget, and the third to Nika. Gun in hand, each
+stood watch in turn over the silent but not sleeping forms around him,
+till, his time expiring, he called the man who was to relieve him,
+wrapped himself in his blanket, and was soon buried in a slumber that
+was to be his last. Now the assassins rose. Duhaut and Hiens stood with
+their guns cocked, ready to shoot down any one of the destined victims
+who should resist or fly. The surgeon, with an axe, stole towards the
+three sleepers, and struck a rapid blow at each in turn. Saget and Nika
+died with little movement; but Moranget started spasmodically into a
+sitting posture, gasping and unable to speak; and the murderers
+compelled De Marle, who was not in their plot, to compromise himself by
+despatching him.
+
+The floodgates of murder were open, and the torrent must have its way.
+Vengeance and safety alike demanded the death of La Salle. Hiens, or
+"English Jem," alone seems to have hesitated; for he was one of those to
+whom that stern commander had always been partial. Meanwhile, the
+intended victim was still at his camp, about six miles distant. It is
+easy to picture, with sufficient accuracy, the features of the
+scene,--the sheds of bark and branches, beneath which, among blankets
+and buffalo-robes, camp-utensils, pack-saddles, rude harness, guns,
+powder-horns, and bullet-pouches, the men lounged away the hour,
+sleeping or smoking, or talking among themselves; the blackened kettles
+that hung from tripods of poles over the fires; the Indians strolling
+about the place or lying, like dogs in the sun, with eyes half-shut, yet
+all observant; and, in the neighboring meadow, the horses grazing under
+the eye of a watchman.
+
+[Sidenote: SUSPENSE.]
+
+It was the eighteenth of March. Moranget and his companions had been
+expected to return the night before; but the whole day passed, and they
+did not appear. La Salle became very anxious. He resolved to go and look
+for them; but not well knowing the way, he told the Indians who were
+about the camp that he would give them a hatchet if they would guide
+him. One of them accepted the offer; and La Salle prepared to set out in
+the morning, at the same time directing Joutel to be ready to go with
+him. Joutel says: "That evening, while we were talking about what could
+have happened to the absent men, he seemed to have a presentiment of
+what was to take place. He asked me if I had heard of any machinations
+against them, or if I had noticed any bad design on the part of Duhaut
+and the rest. I answered that I had heard nothing, except that they
+sometimes complained of being found fault with so often; and that this
+was all I knew; besides which, as they were persuaded that I was in his
+interest, they would not have told me of any bad design they might have.
+We were very uneasy all the rest of the evening."
+
+[Sidenote: THE FATAL SHOT.]
+
+In the morning, La Salle set out with his Indian guide. He had changed
+his mind with regard to Joutel, whom he now directed to remain in charge
+of the camp and to keep a careful watch. He told the friar Anastase
+Douay to come with him instead of Joutel, whose gun, which was the best
+in the party, he borrowed for the occasion, as well as his pistol. The
+three proceeded on their way,--La Salle, the friar, and the Indian. "All
+the way," writes the friar, "he spoke to me of nothing but matters of
+piety, grace, and predestination; enlarging on the debt he owed to God,
+who had saved him from so many perils during more than twenty years of
+travel in America. Suddenly, I saw him overwhelmed with a profound
+sadness, for which he himself could not account. He was so much moved
+that I scarcely knew him." He soon recovered his usual calmness; and
+they walked on till they approached the camp of Duhaut, which was on the
+farther side of a small river. Looking about him with the eye of a
+woodsman, La Salle saw two eagles circling in the air nearly over him,
+as if attracted by carcasses of beasts or men. He fired his gun and his
+pistol, as a summons to any of his followers who might be within
+hearing. The shots reached the ears of the conspirators. Rightly
+conjecturing by whom they were fired, several of them, led by Duhaut,
+crossed the river at a little distance above, where trees or other
+intervening objects hid them from sight. Duhaut and the surgeon crouched
+like Indians in the long, dry, reed-like grass of the last summer's
+growth, while L'Archevêque stood in sight near the bank. La Salle,
+continuing to advance, soon saw him, and, calling to him, demanded where
+was Moranget. The man, without lifting his hat, or any show of respect,
+replied in an agitated and broken voice, but with a tone of studied
+insolence, that Moranget was strolling about somewhere. La Salle rebuked
+and menaced him. He rejoined with increased insolence, drawing back, as
+he spoke, towards the ambuscade, while the incensed commander advanced
+to chastise him. At that moment a shot was fired from the grass,
+instantly followed by another; and, pierced through the brain, La Salle
+dropped dead.
+
+The friar at his side stood terror-stricken, unable to advance or to
+fly; when Duhaut, rising from the ambuscade, called out to him to take
+courage, for he had nothing to fear. The murderers now came forward, and
+with wild looks gathered about their victim. "There thou liest, great
+Bashaw! There thou liest!"[329] exclaimed the surgeon Liotot, in base
+exultation over the unconscious corpse. With mockery and insult, they
+stripped it naked, dragged it into the bushes, and left it there, a prey
+to the buzzards and the wolves.
+
+Thus in the vigor of his manhood, at the age of forty-three, died Robert
+Cavelier de la Salle, "one of the greatest men," writes Tonty, "of this
+age;" without question one of the most remarkable explorers whose names
+live in history. His faithful officer Joutel thus sketches his portrait:
+"His firmness, his courage, his great knowledge of the arts and
+sciences, which made him equal to every undertaking, and his untiring
+energy, which enabled him to surmount every obstacle, would have won at
+last a glorious success for his grand enterprise, had not all his fine
+qualities been counterbalanced by a haughtiness of manner which often
+made him insupportable, and by a harshness towards those under his
+command which drew upon him an implacable hatred, and was at last the
+cause of his death."[330]
+
+[Sidenote: HIS CHARACTER.]
+
+The enthusiasm of the disinterested and chivalrous Champlain was not
+the enthusiasm of La Salle; nor had he any part in the self-devoted zeal
+of the early Jesuit explorers. He belonged not to the age of the
+knight-errant and the saint, but to the modern world of practical study
+and practical action. He was the hero not of a principle nor of a faith,
+but simply of a fixed idea and a determined purpose. As often happens
+with concentred and energetic natures, his purpose was to him a passion
+and an inspiration; and he clung to it with a certain fanaticism of
+devotion. It was the offspring of an ambition vast and comprehensive,
+yet acting in the interest both of France and of civilization.
+
+Serious in all things, incapable of the lighter pleasures, incapable of
+repose, finding no joy but in the pursuit of great designs, too shy for
+society and too reserved for popularity, often unsympathetic and always
+seeming so, smothering emotions which he could not utter, schooled to
+universal distrust, stern to his followers and pitiless to himself,
+bearing the brunt of every hardship and every danger, demanding of
+others an equal constancy joined to an implicit deference, heeding no
+counsel but his own, attempting the impossible and grasping at what was
+too vast to hold,--he contained in his own complex and painful nature
+the chief springs of his triumphs, his failures, and his death.
+
+It is easy to reckon up his defects, but it is not easy to hide from
+sight the Roman virtues that redeemed them. Beset by a throng of
+enemies, he stands, like the King of Israel, head and shoulders above
+them all. He was a tower of adamant, against whose impregnable front
+hardship and danger, the rage of man and of the elements, the southern
+sun, the northern blast, fatigue, famine, disease, delay,
+disappointment, and deferred hope emptied their quivers in vain. That
+very pride which, Coriolanus-like, declared itself most sternly in the
+thickest press of foes, has in it something to challenge admiration.
+Never, under the impenetrable mail of paladin or crusader, beat a heart
+of more intrepid mettle than within the stoic panoply that armed the
+breast of La Salle. To estimate aright the marvels of his patient
+fortitude, one must follow on his track through the vast scene of his
+interminable journeyings,--those thousands of weary miles of forest,
+marsh, and river, where, again and again, in the bitterness of baffled
+striving, the untiring pilgrim pushed onward towards the goal which he
+was never to attain. America owes him an enduring memory; for in this
+masculine figure she sees the pioneer who guided her to the possession
+of her richest heritage.[331]
+
+[Sidenote: DOCUMENTARY EVIDENCE.]
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[325] Tonty also speaks of him as "un flibustier anglois." In another
+document, he is called "James."
+
+[326] Of the three narratives of this journey, those of Joutel,
+Cavelier, and Anastase Douay, the first is by far the best. That of
+Cavelier seems the work of a man of confused brain and indifferent
+memory. Some of his statements are irreconcilable with those of Joutel
+and Douay; and known facts of his history justify the suspicion of a
+wilful inaccuracy. Joutel's account is of a very different character,
+and seems to be the work of an honest and intelligent man. Douay's
+account if brief; but it agrees with that of Joutel, in most essential
+points.
+
+[327] Cavelier, _Relation_.
+
+[328] Called Lanquetot by Tonty.
+
+[329] "Te voilà, grand Bacha, te voilà!"--Joutel, _Journal Historique_,
+203.
+
+[330] _Ibid._
+
+[331] On the assassination of La Salle, the evidence is fourfold: 1. The
+narrative of Douay, who was with him at the time. 2. That of Joutel, who
+learned the facts, immediately after they took place, from Douay and
+others, and who parted from La Salle an hour or more before his death.
+3. A document preserved in the Archives de la Marine, entitled _Relation
+de la Mort du Sr. de la Salle, suivant le rapport d'un nommé Couture à
+qui M. Cavelier l'apprit en passant au pays des Akansa, avec toutes les
+circonstances que le dit Couture a apprises d'un François que M.
+Cavelier avoit laissé aux dits pays des Akansa, crainte qu'il ne gardât
+pas le secret_. 4. The authentic memoir of Tonty, of which a copy from
+the original is before me, and which has recently been printed by
+Margry.
+
+The narrative of Cavelier unfortunately fails us several weeks before
+the death of his brother, the remainder being lost. On a study of these
+various documents, it is impossible to resist the conclusion that
+neither Cavelier nor Douay always wrote honestly. Joutel, on the
+contrary, gives the impression of sense, intelligence, and candor
+throughout. Charlevoix, who knew him long after, says that he was "un
+fort honnête homme, et le seul de la troupe de M. de la Salle, sur qui
+ce célèbre voyageur pût compter." Tonty derived his information from the
+survivors of La Salle's party. Couture, whose statements are embodied in
+the _Relation de la Mort de M. de la Salle_, was one of Tonty's men,
+who, as will be seen hereafter, were left by him at the mouth of the
+Arkansas, and to whom Cavelier told the story of his brother's death.
+Couture also repeats the statements of one of La Salle's followers,
+undoubtedly a Parisian boy, named Barthelemy, who was violently
+prejudiced against his chief, whom he slanders to the utmost of his
+skill, saying that he was so enraged at his failures that he did not
+approach the sacraments for two years; that he nearly starved his
+brother Cavelier, allowing him only a handful of meal a day; that he
+killed with his own hand "quantité de personnes," who did not work to
+his liking; and that he killed the sick in their beds, without mercy,
+under the pretence that they were counterfeiting sickness in order to
+escape work. These assertions certainly have no other foundation than
+the undeniable rigor of La Salle's command. Douay says that he confessed
+and made his devotions on the morning of his death, while Cavelier
+always speaks of him as the hope and the staff of the colony.
+
+Douay declares that La Salle lived an hour after the fatal shot; that he
+gave him absolution, buried his body, and planted a cross on his grave.
+At the time, he told Joutel a different story; and the latter, with the
+best means of learning the facts, explicitly denies the friar's printed
+statement. Couture, on the authority of Cavelier himself, also says that
+neither he nor Douay was permitted to take any step for burying the
+body. Tonty says that Cavelier begged leave to do so, but was refused.
+Douay, unwilling to place upon record facts from which the inference
+might easily be drawn that he had been terrified from discharging his
+duty, no doubt invented the story of the burial, as well as that of the
+edifying behavior of Moranget, after he had been struck in the head with
+an axe.
+
+The locality of La Salle's assassination is sufficiently clear, from a
+comparison of the several narratives; and it is also indicated on a
+contemporary manuscript map, made on the return of the survivors of the
+party to France. The scene of the catastrophe is here placed on a
+southern branch of the Trinity.
+
+La Salle's debts, at the time of his death, according to a schedule
+presented in 1701 to Champigny, intendant of Canada, amounted to 106,831
+livres, without reckoning interest. This cannot be meant to include all,
+as items are given which raise the amount much higher. In 1678 and 1679
+alone, he contracted debts to the amount of 97,184 livres, of which
+46,000 were furnished by Branssac, fiscal attorney of the Seminary of
+Montreal. This was to be paid in beaver-skins. Frontenac, at the same
+time, became his surety for 13,623 livres. In 1684, he borrowed 34,825
+livres from the Sieur Pen, at Paris. These sums do not include the
+losses incurred by his family, which, in the memorial presented by them
+to the King, are set down at 500,000 livres for the expeditions between
+1678 and 1683, and 300,000 livres for the fatal Texan expedition of 1684
+These last figures are certainly exaggerated.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVIII.
+
+1687, 1688.
+
+THE INNOCENT AND THE GUILTY.
+
+ Triumph of the Murderers.--Danger of Joutel.--Joutel among the
+ Cenis.--White Savages.--Insolence of Duhaut and his
+ Accomplices.--Murder of Duhaut and Liotot.--Hiens, the
+ Buccaneer.--Joutel and his Party: their Escape; they reach the
+ Arkansas.--Bravery and Devotion of Tonty.--The Fugitives reach
+ the Illinois.--Unworthy Conduct of Cavelier.--He and his Companions
+ return to France.
+
+Father Anastase Douay returned to the camp, and, aghast with grief and
+terror, rushed into the hut of Cavelier. "My poor brother is dead!"
+cried the priest, instantly divining the catastrophe from the
+horror-stricken face of the messenger. Close behind came the murderers,
+Duhaut at their head. Cavelier, his young nephew, and Douay himself, all
+fell on their knees, expecting instant death. The priest begged
+piteously for half an hour to prepare for his end; but terror and
+submission sufficed, and no more blood was shed. The camp yielded
+without resistance; and Duhaut was lord of all. In truth, there were
+none to oppose him; for, except the assassins themselves, the party was
+now reduced to six persons,--Joutel, Douay, the elder Cavelier, his
+young nephew, and two other boys, the orphan Talon and a lad called
+Barthelemy.
+
+[Sidenote: DOUBT AND ANXIETY.]
+
+Joutel, for the moment, was absent; and L'Archevêque, who had a kindness
+for him, went quietly to seek him. He found him on a hillock, making a
+fire of dried grass in order that the smoke might guide La Salle on his
+return, and watching the horses grazing in the meadow below. "I was very
+much surprised," writes Joutel, "when I saw him approaching. When he
+came up to me he seemed all in confusion, or, rather, out of his wits.
+He began with saying that there was very bad news. I asked what it was.
+He answered that the Sieur de la Salle was dead, and also his nephew the
+Sieur de Moranget, his Indian hunter, and his servant. I was petrified,
+and did not know what to say; for I saw that they had been murdered. The
+man added that, at first, the murderers had sworn to kill me too. I
+easily believed it, for I had always been in the interest of M. de la
+Salle, and had commanded in his place; and it is hard to please
+everybody, or prevent some from being dissatisfied. I was greatly
+perplexed as to what I ought to do, and whether I had not better escape
+to the woods, whithersoever God should guide me; but, by bad or good
+luck, I had no gun and only one pistol, without balls or powder except
+what was in my powder-horn. To whatever side I turned, my life was in
+great peril. It is true that L'Archevêque assured me that they had
+changed their minds, and had agreed to murder nobody else, unless they
+met with resistance. So, being in no condition, as I just said, to go
+far, having neither arms nor powder, I abandoned myself to Providence,
+and went back to the camp, where I found that these wretched murderers
+had seized everything belonging to M. de la Salle, and even my personal
+effects. They had also taken possession of all the arms. The first words
+that Duhaut said to me were, that each should command in turn; to which
+I made no answer. I saw M. Cavelier praying in a corner, and Father
+Anastase in another. He did not dare to speak to me, nor did I dare to
+go towards him till I had seen the designs of the assassins. They were
+in furious excitement, but, nevertheless, very uneasy and embarrassed. I
+was some time without speaking, and, as it were, without moving, for
+fear of giving umbrage to our enemies.
+
+"They had cooked some meat, and when it was supper-time they distributed
+it as they saw fit, saying that formerly their share had been served out
+to them, but that it was they who would serve it out in future. They, no
+doubt, wanted me to say something that would give them a chance to make
+a noise; but I managed always to keep my mouth closed. When night came
+and it was time to stand guard, they were in perplexity, as they could
+not do it alone; therefore they said to M. Cavelier, Father Anastase,
+me, and the others who were not in the plot with them, that all we had
+to do was to stand guard as usual; that there was no use in thinking
+about what had happened,--that what was done was done; that they had
+been driven to it by despair, and that they were sorry for it, and meant
+no more harm to anybody. M. Cavelier took up the word, and told them
+that when they killed M. de la Salle they killed themselves, for there
+was nobody but him who could get us out of this country. At last, after
+a good deal of talk on both sides, they gave us our arms. So we stood
+guard; during which, M. Cavelier told me how they had come to the camp,
+entered his hut like so many madmen, and seized everything in it."
+
+Joutel, Douay, and the two Caveliers spent a sleepless night, consulting
+as to what they should do. They mutually pledged themselves to stand by
+each other to the last, and to escape as soon as they could from the
+company of the assassins. In the morning, Duhaut and his accomplices,
+after much discussion, resolved to go to the Cenis villages; and,
+accordingly, the whole party broke up their camp, packed their horses,
+and began their march. They went five leagues, and encamped at the edge
+of a grove. On the following day they advanced again till noon, when
+heavy rains began, and they were forced to stop by the banks of a river.
+"We passed the night and the next day there," says Joutel; "and during
+that time my mind was possessed with dark thoughts. It was hard to
+prevent ourselves from being in constant fear among such men, and we
+could not look at them without horror. When I thought of the cruel
+deeds they had committed, and the danger we were in from them, I longed
+to revenge the evil they had done us. This would have been easy while
+they were asleep; but M. Cavelier dissuaded us, saying that we ought to
+leave vengeance to God, and that he himself had more to revenge than we,
+having lost his brother and his nephew."
+
+[Sidenote: JOURNEY TO THE CENIS.]
+
+The comic alternated with the tragic. On the twenty-third, they reached
+the bank of a river too deep to ford. Those who knew how to swim crossed
+without difficulty, but Joutel, Cavelier, and Douay were not of the
+number. Accordingly, they launched a log of light, dry wood, embraced it
+with one arm, and struck out for the other bank with their legs and the
+arm that was left free. But the friar became frightened. "He only clung
+fast to the aforesaid log," says Joutel, "and did nothing to help us
+forward. While I was trying to swim, my body being stretched at full
+length, I hit him in the belly with my feet; on which he thought it was
+all over with him, and, I can answer for it, he invoked Saint Francis
+with might and main. I could not help laughing, though I was myself in
+danger of drowning." Some Indians who had joined the party swam to the
+rescue, and pushed the log across.
+
+The path to the Cenis villages was exceedingly faint, and but for the
+Indians they would have lost the way. They crossed the main stream of
+the Trinity in a boat of raw hides, and then, being short of
+provisions, held a council to determine what they should do. It was
+resolved that Joutel, with Hiens, Liotot, and Teissier, should go in
+advance to the villages and buy a supply of corn. Thus, Joutel found
+himself doomed to the company of three villains, who, he strongly
+suspected, were contriving an opportunity to kill him; but, as he had no
+choice, he dissembled his doubts, and set out with his sinister
+companions, Duhaut having first supplied him with goods for the intended
+barter.
+
+[Sidenote: JOUTEL AND THE CENIS.]
+
+They rode over hills and plains till night, encamped, supped on a wild
+turkey, and continued their journey till the afternoon of the next day,
+when they saw three men approaching on horseback, one of whom, to
+Joutel's alarm, was dressed like a Spaniard. He proved, however, to be a
+Cenis Indian, like the others. The three turned their horses' heads, and
+accompanied the Frenchmen on their way. At length they neared the Indian
+town, which, with its large thatched lodges, looked like a cluster of
+gigantic haystacks. Their approach had been made known, and they were
+received in solemn state. Twelve of the elders came to meet them in
+their dress of ceremony, each with his face daubed red or black, and his
+head adorned with painted plumes. From their shoulders hung deer-skins
+wrought with gay colors. Some carried war-clubs; some, bows and arrows;
+some, the blades of Spanish rapiers, attached to wooden handles
+decorated with hawk's bells and bunches of feathers. They stopped
+before the honored guests, and, raising their hands aloft, uttered howls
+so extraordinary that Joutel could hardly preserve the gravity which the
+occasion demanded. Having next embraced the Frenchmen, the elders
+conducted them into the village, attended by a crowd of warriors and
+young men; ushered them into their town-hall, a large lodge, devoted to
+councils, feasts, dances, and other public assemblies; seated them on
+mats, and squatted in a ring around them. Here they were regaled with
+sagamite or Indian porridge, corn-cake, beans, bread made of the meal of
+parched corn, and another kind of bread made of the kernels of nuts and
+the seed of sunflowers. Then the pipe was lighted, and all smoked
+together. The four Frenchmen proposed to open a traffic for provisions,
+and their entertainers grunted assent.
+
+Joutel found a Frenchman in the village. He was a young man from
+Provence, who had deserted from La Salle on his last journey, and was
+now, to all appearance, a savage like his adopted countrymen, being
+naked like them, and affecting to have forgotten his native language. He
+was very friendly, however, and invited the visitors to a neighboring
+village, where he lived, and where, as he told them, they would find a
+better supply of corn. They accordingly set out with him, escorted by a
+crowd of Indians. They saw lodges and clusters of lodges scattered along
+their path at intervals, each with its field of corn, beans, and
+pumpkins, rudely cultivated with a wooden hoe. Reaching their
+destination, which was four or five leagues distant, they were greeted
+with the same honors as at the first village, and, the ceremonial of
+welcome over, were lodged in the abode of the savage Frenchman. It is
+not to be supposed, however, that he and his squaws, of whom he had a
+considerable number, dwelt here alone; for these lodges of the Cenis
+often contained eight or ten families. They were made by firmly planting
+in a circle tall, straight young trees, such as grew in the swamps. The
+tops were then bent inward and lashed together; great numbers of
+cross-pieces were bound on; and the frame thus constructed was thickly
+covered with thatch, a hole being left at the top for the escape of the
+smoke. The inmates were ranged around the circumference of the
+structure, each family in a kind of stall, open in front, but separated
+from those adjoining it by partitions of mats. Here they placed their
+beds of cane, their painted robes of buffalo and deer-skin, their
+cooking utensils of pottery, and other household goods; and here, too,
+the head of the family hung his bow, quiver, lance, and shield. There
+was nothing in common but the fire, which burned in the middle of the
+lodge, and was never suffered to go out. These dwellings were of great
+size, and Joutel declares that he has seen some of them sixty feet in
+diameter.[332]
+
+It was in one of the largest that the four travellers were now lodged. A
+place was assigned them where to bestow their baggage; and they took
+possession of their quarters amid the silent stares of the whole
+community. They asked their renegade countryman, the Provençal, if they
+were safe. He replied that they were; but this did not wholly reassure
+them, and they spent a somewhat wakeful night. In the morning, they
+opened their budgets, and began a brisk trade in knives, awls, beads,
+and other trinkets, which they exchanged for corn and beans. Before
+evening, they had acquired a considerable stock; and Joutel's three
+companions declared their intention of returning with it to the camp,
+leaving him to continue the trade. They went, accordingly, in the
+morning; and Joutel was left alone. On the one hand, he was glad to be
+rid of them; on the other, he found his position among the Cenis very
+irksome, and, as he thought, insecure. Besides the Provençal, who had
+gone with Liotot and his companions, there were two other French
+deserters among this tribe, and Joutel was very desirous to see them,
+hoping that they could tell him the way to the Mississippi; for he was
+resolved to escape, at the first opportunity, from the company of Duhaut
+and his accomplices. He therefore made the present of a knife to a young
+Indian, whom he sent to find the two Frenchmen and invite them to come
+to the village. Meanwhile he continued his barter, but under many
+difficulties; for he could only explain himself by signs, and his
+customers, though friendly by day, pilfered his goods by night. This,
+joined to the fears and troubles which burdened his mind, almost
+deprived him of sleep, and, as he confesses, greatly depressed his
+spirits. Indeed, he had little cause for cheerfulness as to the past,
+present, or future. An old Indian, one of the patriarchs of the tribe,
+observing his dejection and anxious to relieve it, one evening brought
+him a young wife, saying that he made him a present of her. She seated
+herself at his side; "but," says Joutel, "as my head was full of other
+cares and anxieties, I said nothing to the poor girl. She waited for a
+little time; and then, finding that I did not speak a word, she went
+away."[333]
+
+[Sidenote: WHITE SAVAGES.]
+
+Late one night, he lay between sleeping and waking on the buffalo-robe
+that covered his bed of canes. All around the great lodge, its inmates
+were buried in sleep; and the fire that still burned in the midst cast
+ghostly gleams on the trophies of savage chivalry--the treasured
+scalp-locks, the spear and war-club, and shield of whitened
+bull-hide--that hung by each warrior's resting-place. Such was the
+weird scene that lingered on the dreamy eyes of Joutel, as he closed
+them at last in a troubled sleep. The sound of a footstep soon wakened
+him; and, turning, he saw at his side the figure of a naked savage,
+armed with a bow and arrows. Joutel spoke, but received no answer. Not
+knowing what to think, he reached out his hand for his pistols; on which
+the intruder withdrew, and seated himself by the fire. Thither Joutel
+followed; and as the light fell on his features, he looked at him
+closely. His face was tattooed, after the Cenis fashion, in lines drawn
+from the top of the forehead and converging to the chin; and his body
+was decorated with similar embellishments. Suddenly, this supposed
+Indian rose and threw his arms around Joutel's neck, making himself
+known, at the same time, as one of the Frenchmen who had deserted from
+La Salle and taken refuge among the Cenis. He was a Breton sailor named
+Ruter. His companion, named Grollet, also a sailor, had been afraid to
+come to the village lest he should meet La Salle. Ruter expressed
+surprise and regret when he heard of the death of his late commander. He
+had deserted him but a few months before. That brief interval had
+sufficed to transform him into a savage; and both he and his companion
+found their present reckless and ungoverned way of life greatly to their
+liking. He could tell nothing of the Mississippi; and on the next day he
+went home, carrying with him a present of beads for his wives, of which
+last he had made a large collection.
+
+In a few days he reappeared, bringing Grollet with him. Each wore a
+bunch of turkey-feathers dangling from his head, and each had wrapped
+his naked body in a blanket. Three men soon after arrived from Duhaut's
+camp, commissioned to receive the corn which Joutel had purchased. They
+told him that Duhaut and Liotot, the tyrants of the party, had resolved
+to return to Fort St. Louis, and build a vessel to escape to the West
+Indies,--"a visionary scheme," writes Joutel, "for our carpenters were
+all dead; and even if they had been alive, they were so ignorant that
+they would not have known how to go about the work; besides, we had no
+tools for it. Nevertheless, I was obliged to obey, and set out for the
+camp with the provisions."
+
+On arriving, he found a wretched state of affairs. Douay and the two
+Caveliers, who had been treated by Duhaut with great harshness and
+contempt, had been told to make their mess apart; and Joutel now joined
+them. This separation restored them their freedom of speech, of which
+they had hitherto been deprived; but it subjected them to incessant
+hunger, as they were allowed only food enough to keep them from
+famishing. Douay says that quarrels were rife among the assassins
+themselves,--the malcontents being headed by Hiens, who was enraged that
+Duhaut and Liotot should have engrossed all the plunder. Joutel was
+helpless, for he had none to back him but two priests and a boy.
+
+[Sidenote: SCHEMES OF ESCAPE.]
+
+He and his companions talked of nothing around their solitary camp-fire
+but the means of escaping from the villanous company into which they
+were thrown. They saw no resource but to find the Mississippi, and thus
+make their way to Canada,--a prodigious undertaking in their forlorn
+condition; nor was there any probability that the assassins would permit
+them to go. These, on their part, were beset with difficulties. They
+could not return to civilization without manifest peril of a halter; and
+their only safety was to turn buccaneers or savages. Duhaut, however,
+still held to his plan of going back to Fort St. Louis; and Joutel and
+his companions, who with good reason stood in daily fear of him, devised
+among themselves a simple artifice to escape from his company. The elder
+Cavelier was to tell him that they were too fatigued for the journey,
+and wished to stay among the Cenis; and to beg him to allow them a
+portion of the goods, for which Cavelier was to give his note of hand.
+The old priest, whom a sacrifice of truth even on less important
+occasions cost no great effort, accordingly opened the negotiation, and
+to his own astonishment and that of his companions, gained the assent of
+Duhaut. Their joy, however, was short; for Ruter, the French savage, to
+whom Joutel had betrayed his intention, when inquiring the way to the
+Mississippi, told it to Duhaut, who on this changed front and made the
+ominous declaration that he and his men would also go to Canada. Joutel
+and his companions were now filled with alarm; for there was no
+likelihood that the assassins would permit them, the witnesses of their
+crime, to reach the settlements alive. In the midst of their trouble,
+the sky was cleared as by the crash of a thunderbolt.
+
+[Sidenote: THE CRISIS.]
+
+Hiens and several others had gone, some time before, to the Cenis
+villages to purchase horses; and here they had been detained by the
+charms of the Indian women. During their stay, Hiens heard of Duhaut's
+new plan of going to Canada by the Mississippi; and he declared to those
+with him that he would not consent. On a morning early in May he
+appeared at Duhaut's camp, with Ruter and Grollet, the French savages,
+and about twenty Indians. Duhaut and Liotot, it is said, were passing
+the time by practising with bows and arrows in front of their hut. One
+of them called to Hiens, "Good-morning;" but the buccaneer returned a
+sullen answer. He then accosted Duhaut, telling him that he had no mind
+to go up the Mississippi with him, and demanding a share of the goods.
+Duhaut replied that the goods were his own, since La Salle had owed him
+money. "So you will not give them to me?" returned Hiens. "No," was the
+answer. "You are a wretch!" exclaimed Hiens; "you killed my
+master."[334] And drawing a pistol from his belt he fired at Duhaut,
+who staggered three or four paces and fell dead. Almost at the same
+instant Ruter fired his gun at Liotot, shot three balls into his body,
+and stretched him on the ground mortally wounded.
+
+Douay and the two Caveliers stood in extreme terror, thinking that their
+turn was to come next. Joutel, no less alarmed, snatched his gun to
+defend himself; but Hiens called to him to fear nothing, declaring that
+what he had done was only to avenge the death of La Salle,--to which,
+nevertheless, he had been privy, though not an active sharer in the
+crime. Liotot lived long enough to make his confession, after which
+Ruter killed him by exploding a pistol loaded with a blank charge of
+powder against his head. Duhaut's myrmidon, L'Archevêque, was absent,
+hunting, and Hiens was for killing him on his return; but the two
+priests and Joutel succeeded in dissuading him.
+
+The Indian spectators beheld these murders with undisguised amazement,
+and almost with horror. What manner of men were these who had pierced
+the secret places of the wilderness to riot in mutual slaughter? Their
+fiercest warriors might learn a lesson in ferocity from these heralds of
+civilization. Joutel and his companions, who could not dispense with the
+aid of the Cenis, were obliged to explain away, as they best might, the
+atrocity of what they had witnessed.[335]
+
+Hiens, and others of the French, had before promised to join the Cenis
+on an expedition against a neighboring tribe with whom they were at war;
+and the whole party having removed to the Indian village, the warriors
+and their allies prepared to depart. Six Frenchmen went with Hiens; and
+the rest, including Joutel, Douay, and the Caveliers, remained behind,
+in the lodge where Joutel had been domesticated, and where none were now
+left but women, children, and old men. Here they remained a week or
+more, watched closely by the Cenis, who would not let them leave the
+village; when news at length arrived of a great victory, and the
+warriors soon after returned with forty-eight scalps. It was the French
+guns that won the battle, but not the less did they glory in their
+prowess; and several days were spent in ceremonies and feasts of
+triumph.[336]
+
+When all this hubbub of rejoicing had subsided, Joutel and his
+companions broke to Hiens their plan of attempting to reach home by way
+of the Mississippi. As they had expected, he opposed it vehemently,
+declaring that for his own part he would not run such a risk of losing
+his head; but at length he consented to their departure, on condition
+that the elder Cavelier should give him a certificate of his entire
+innocence of the murder of La Salle, which the priest did not hesitate
+to do. For the rest, Hiens treated his departing fellow-travellers with
+the generosity of a successful free-booter; for he gave them a good
+share of the plunder he had won by his late crime, supplying them with
+hatchets, knives, beads, and other articles of trade, besides several
+horses. Meanwhile, adds Joutel, "we had the mortification and chagrin of
+seeing this scoundrel walking about the camp in a scarlet coat laced
+with gold which had belonged to the late Monsieur de la Salle, and which
+he had seized upon, as also upon all the rest of his property." A
+well-aimed shot would have avenged the wrong, but Joutel was clearly a
+mild and moderate person; and the elder Cavelier had constantly opposed
+all plans of violence. Therefore they stifled their emotions, and armed
+themselves with patience.
+
+[Sidenote: JOUTEL AND HIS PARTY.]
+
+Joutel's party consisted, besides himself, of the Caveliers (uncle and
+nephew), Anastase Douay, De Marle, Teissier, and a young Parisian named
+Barthelemy. Teissier, an accomplice in the murders of Moranget and La
+Salle, had obtained a pardon, in form, from the elder Cavelier. They had
+six horses and three Cenis guides. Hiens embraced them at parting, as
+did the ruffians who remained with him. Their course was northeast,
+toward the mouth of the Arkansas,--a distant goal, the way to which was
+beset with so many dangers that their chance of reaching it seemed
+small. It was early in June, and the forests and prairies were green
+with the verdure of opening summer.
+
+They soon reached the Assonis, a tribe near the Sabine, who received
+them well, and gave them guides to the nations dwelling towards Red
+River. On the twenty-third, they approached a village, the inhabitants
+of which, regarding them as curiosities of the first order, came out in
+a body to see them; and, eager to do them honor, they required them to
+mount on their backs, and thus make their entrance in procession.
+Joutel, being large and heavy, weighed down his bearer, insomuch that
+two of his countrymen were forced to sustain him, one on each side. On
+arriving, an old chief washed their faces with warm water from an
+earthen pan, and then invited them to mount on a scaffold of canes,
+where they sat in the hot sun listening to four successive speeches of
+welcome, of which they understood not a word.[337]
+
+At the village of another tribe, farther on their way, they met with a
+welcome still more oppressive. Cavelier, the unworthy successor of his
+brother, being represented as the chief of the party, became the
+principal victim of their attentions. They danced the calumet before
+him; while an Indian, taking him, with an air of great respect, by the
+shoulders as he sat, shook him in cadence with the thumping of the drum.
+They then placed two girls close beside him, as his wives; while, at the
+same time, an old chief tied a painted feather in his hair. These
+proceedings so scandalized him that, pretending to be ill, he broke off
+the ceremony; but they continued to sing all night, with so much zeal
+that several of them were reduced to a state of complete exhaustion.
+
+[Sidenote: ARRIVAL AT THE ARKANSAS.]
+
+At length, after a journey of about two months, during which they lost
+one of their number,--De Marle, accidentally drowned while bathing,--the
+travellers approached the river Arkansas, at a point not far above its
+junction with the Mississippi. Led by their Indian guides, they
+traversed a rich district of plains and woods, and stood at length on
+the borders of the stream. Nestled beneath the forests of the farther
+shore, they saw the lodges of a large Indian town; and here, as they
+gazed across the broad current, they presently descried an object which
+nerved their spent limbs, and thrilled their homesick hearts with joy.
+It was a tall, wooden cross; and near it was a small house, built
+evidently by Christian hands. With one accord they fell on their knees,
+and raised their hands to Heaven in thanksgiving. Two men, in European
+dress, issued from the door of the house and fired their guns to salute
+the excited travellers, who on their part replied with a volley. Canoes
+put out from the farther shore and ferried them to the town, where they
+were welcomed by Couture and De Launay, two followers of Henri de
+Tonty.[338]
+
+That brave, loyal, and generous man, always vigilant and always active,
+beloved and feared alike by white men and by red,[339] had been
+ejected, as we have seen, by the agent of the governor, La Barre, from
+the command of Fort St. Louis of the Illinois. An order from the King
+had reinstated him; and he no sooner heard the news of La Salle's
+landing on the shores of the Gulf, and of the disastrous beginnings of
+his colony,[340] than he prepared, on his own responsibility and at his
+own cost, to go to his assistance. He collected twenty-five Frenchmen
+and eleven Indians, and set out from his fortified rock on the
+thirteenth of February, 1686;[341] descended the Mississippi, and
+reached its mouth in Holy Week. All was solitude, a voiceless desolation
+of river, marsh, and sea. He despatched canoes to the east and to the
+west, searching the coast for some thirty leagues on either side.
+Finding no trace of his friend, who at that moment was ranging the
+prairies of Texas in no less fruitless search of his "fatal river,"
+Tonty wrote for him a letter, which he left in the charge of an Indian
+chief, who preserved it with reverential care, and gave it, fourteen
+years after, to Iberville, the founder of Louisiana.[342] Deeply
+disappointed at his failure, Tonty retraced his course, and ascended the
+Mississippi to the villages of the Arkansas, where some of his men
+volunteered to remain. He left six of them; and of this number were
+Couture and De Launay.[343]
+
+[Sidenote: A HOSPITABLE RECEPTION.]
+
+Cavelier and his companions, followed by a crowd of Indians, some
+carrying their baggage, some struggling for a view of the white
+strangers, entered the log cabin of their two hosts. Rude as it was,
+they found in it an earnest of peace and safety, and a foretaste of
+home. Couture and De Launay were moved even to tears by the story of
+their disasters, and of the catastrophe that crowned them. La Salle's
+death was carefully concealed from the Indians, many of whom had seen
+him on his descent of the Mississippi, and who regarded him with
+prodigious respect. They lavished all their hospitality on his
+followers; feasted them on corn-bread, dried buffalo meat, and
+watermelons, and danced the calumet before them, the most august of all
+their ceremonies. On this occasion, Cavelier's patience failed him
+again; and pretending, as before, to be ill, he called on his nephew to
+take his place. There were solemn dances, too, in which the
+warriors--some bedaubed with white clay, some with red, and some with
+both; some wearing feathers, and some the horns of buffalo; some naked,
+and some in painted shirts of deer-skin, fringed with scalp-locks,
+insomuch, says Joutel, that they looked like a troop of devils--leaped,
+stamped, and howled from sunset till dawn. All this was partly to do the
+travellers honor, and partly to extort presents. They made objections,
+however, when asked to furnish guides; and it was only by dint of great
+offers that four were at length procured.
+
+[Sidenote: THE MISSISSIPPI.]
+
+With these, the travellers resumed their journey in a wooden canoe,
+about the first of August,[344] descended the Arkansas, and soon reached
+the dark and inexorable river, so long the object of their search,
+rolling, like a destiny, through its realms of solitude and shade. They
+launched their canoe on its turbid bosom, plied their oars against the
+current, and slowly won their way upward, following the writhings of
+this watery monster through cane-brake, swamp, and fen. It was a hard
+and toilsome journey, under the sweltering sun of August,--now on the
+water, now knee-deep in mud, dragging their canoe through the
+unwholesome jungle. On the nineteenth, they passed the mouth of the
+Ohio; and their Indian guides made it an offering of buffalo meat. On
+the first of September, they passed the Missouri, and soon after saw
+Marquette's pictured rock, and the line of craggy heights on the east
+shore, marked on old French maps as "the Ruined Castles." Then, with a
+sense of relief, they turned from the great river into the peaceful
+current of the Illinois. They were eleven days in ascending it, in their
+large and heavy wooden canoe; when at length, on the afternoon of the
+fourteenth of September, they saw, towering above the forest and the
+river, the cliff crowned with the palisades of Fort St. Louis of the
+Illinois. As they drew near, a troop of Indians, headed by a Frenchman,
+descended from the rock, and fired their guns to salute them. They
+landed, and followed the forest path that led towards the fort, when
+they were met by Boisrondet, Tonty's comrade in the Iroquois war, and
+two other Frenchmen, who no sooner saw them than they called out,
+demanding where was La Salle. Cavelier, fearing lest he and his party
+would lose the advantage they might derive from his character of
+representative of his brother, was determined to conceal his death; and
+Joutel, as he himself confesses, took part in the deceit. Substituting
+equivocation for falsehood, they replied that La Salle had been with
+them nearly as far as the Cenis villages, and that, when they parted,
+he was in good health. This, so far as they were concerned, was,
+literally speaking, true; but Douay and Teissier, the one a witness and
+the other a sharer in his death, could not have said so much without a
+square falsehood, and therefore evaded the inquiry.
+
+Threading the forest path, and circling to the rear of the rock, they
+climbed the rugged height, and reached the top. Here they saw an area,
+encircled by the palisades that fenced the brink of the cliff, and by
+several dwellings, a store-house, and a chapel. There were Indian lodges
+too; for some of the red allies of the French made their abode with
+them.[345] Tonty was absent, fighting the Iroquois; but his lieutenant,
+Bellefontaine, received the travellers, and his little garrison of
+bush-rangers greeted them with a salute of musketry, mingled with the
+whooping of the Indians. A _Te Deum_ followed at the chapel; "and, with
+all our hearts," says Joutel, "we gave thanks to God, who had preserved
+and guided us." At length, the tired travellers were among countrymen
+and friends. Bellefontaine found a room for the two priests; while
+Joutel, Teissier, and young Cavelier were lodged in the store-house.
+
+[Sidenote: THE JESUIT ALLOUEZ.]
+
+The Jesuit Allouez was lying ill at the fort; and Joutel, Cavelier, and
+Douay went to visit him. He showed great anxiety when told that La Salle
+was alive, and on his way to the Illinois; asked many questions, and
+could not hide his agitation. When, some time after, he had partially
+recovered, he left St. Louis, as if to shun a meeting with the object of
+his alarm.[346] Once before, in 1679, Allouez had fled from the
+Illinois on hearing of the approach of La Salle.
+
+The season was late, and they were eager to hasten forward that they
+might reach Quebec in time to return to France in the autumn ships.
+There was not a day to lose. They bade farewell to Bellefontaine, from
+whom, as from all others, they had concealed the death of La Salle, and
+made their way across the country to Chicago. Here they were detained a
+week by a storm; and when at length they embarked in a canoe furnished
+by Bellefontaine, the tempest soon forced them to put back. On this,
+they abandoned their design, and returned to Fort St. Louis, to the
+astonishment of its inmates.
+
+[Sidenote: CONDUCT OF CAVELIER.]
+
+It was October when they arrived; and, meanwhile, Tonty had returned
+from the Iroquois war, where he had borne a conspicuous part in the
+famous attack on the Senecas by the Marquis de Denonville.[347] He
+listened with deep interest to the mournful story of his guests.
+Cavelier knew him well. He knew, so far as he was capable of knowing,
+his generous and disinterested character, his long and faithful
+attachment to La Salle, and the invaluable services he had rendered him.
+Tonty had every claim on his confidence and affection. Yet he did not
+hesitate to practise on him the same deceit which he had practised on
+Bellefontaine. He told him that he had left his brother in good health
+on the Gulf of Mexico, and drew upon him, in La Salle's name, for an
+amount stated by Joutel at about four thousand livres, in furs, besides
+a canoe and a quantity of other goods, all of which were delivered to
+him by the unsuspecting victim.[348]
+
+This was at the end of the winter, when the old priest and his
+companions had been living for months on Tonty's hospitality. They set
+out for Canada on the twenty-first of March, reached Chicago on the
+twenty-ninth, and thence proceeded to Michilimackinac. Here Cavelier
+sold some of Tonty's furs to a merchant, who gave him in payment a draft
+on Montreal, thus putting him in funds for his voyage home. The party
+continued their journey in canoes by way of French River and the Ottawa,
+and safely reached Montreal on the seventeenth of July. Here they
+procured the clothing of which they were wofully in need, and then
+descended the river to Quebec, where they took lodging,--some with the
+Récollet friars, and some with the priests of the Seminary,--in order to
+escape the questions of the curious. At the end of August they embarked
+for France, and early in October arrived safely at Rochelle. None of the
+party were men of especial energy or force of character; and yet, under
+the spur of a dire necessity, they had achieved one of the most
+adventurous journeys on record.
+
+[Sidenote: THE COLONISTS ABANDONED.]
+
+Now, at length, they disburdened themselves of their gloomy secret; but
+the sole result seems to have been an order from the King for the arrest
+of the murderers, should they appear in Canada.[349] Joutel was
+disappointed. It had been his hope throughout that the King would send a
+ship to the relief of the wretched band at Fort St. Louis of Texas. But
+Louis XIV. hardened his heart, and left them to their fate.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[332] The lodges of the Florida Indians were somewhat similar. The
+winter lodges of the now nearly extinct Mandans, though not so high in
+proportion to their width, and built of more solid materials, as the
+rigor of a northern climate requires, bear a general resemblance to
+those of the Cenis.
+
+The Cenis tattooed their faces and some parts of their bodies, by
+pricking powdered charcoal into the skin. The women tattooed the
+breasts; and this practice was general among them, notwithstanding the
+pain of the operation, as it was thought very ornamental. Their dress
+consisted of a sort of frock, or wrapper of skin, from the waist to the
+knees. The men, in summer, wore nothing but the waist-cloth.
+
+[333] _Journal Historique_, 237.
+
+[334] "Tu es un misérable. Tu as tué mon maistre."--Tonty, _Mémoire_.
+Tonty derived his information from some of those present. Douay and
+Joutel have each left an account of this murder. They agree in essential
+points; though Douay says that when it took place, Duhaut had moved his
+camp beyond the Cenis villages, which is contrary to Joutel's statement.
+
+[335] Joutel, _Relation_ (Margry, iii. 371).
+
+[336] These are described by Joutel. Like nearly all the early observers
+of Indian manners, he speaks of the practice of cannibalism.
+
+[337] These Indians were a portion of the Cadodaquis, or Caddoes, then
+living on Red River. The travellers afterwards visited other villages of
+the same people. Tonty was here two years afterwards, and mentions the
+curious custom of washing the faces of guests.
+
+[338] Joutel, _Journal Historique_, 298.
+
+[339] _Journal de St. Cosme_, 1699. This journal has been printed by Mr.
+Shea, from the copy in my possession. St. Cosme, who knew Tonty well,
+speaks of him in the warmest terms of praise.
+
+[340] In the autumn of 1685, Tonty made a journey from the Illinois to
+Michilimackinac, to seek news of La Salle. He there learned, by a letter
+of the new governor, Denonville, just arrived from France, of the
+landing of La Salle, and the loss of the "Aimable," as recounted by
+Beaujeu, on his return. He immediately went back on foot to Fort St.
+Louis of the Illinois, and prepared to descend the Mississippi, "dans
+l'espérance de lui donner secours." _Lettre de Tonty au Ministre, 24
+Aoust, 1686; Ibid., à Cabart de Villermont, même date_; _Mémoire de
+Tonty_; _Procès Verbal de Tonty, 13 Avril, 1686._
+
+[341] The date is from the _Procès Verbal_. In the _Mémoire_, hastily
+written long after, he falls into errors of date.
+
+[342] Iberville sent it to France, and Charlevoix gives a portion of it.
+(_Histoire de la Nouvelle France_, ii. 259.) Singularly enough, the
+date, as printed by him, is erroneous, being 20 April, 1685, instead of
+1686. There is no doubt whatever, from its relations with concurrent
+events, that this journey was in the latter year.
+
+[343] Tonty, _Mémoire; Ibid., Lettre à Monseigneur de Ponchartrain_,
+1690. Joutel, _Journal Historique_, 301.
+
+[344] Joutel says that the Parisian boy, Barthelemy, was left behind. It
+was this youth who afterwards uttered the ridiculous defamation of La
+Salle mentioned in a preceding note. The account of the death of La
+Salle, taken from the lips of Couture, was received by him from Cavelier
+and his companions, during their stay at the Arkansas. Couture was by
+trade a carpenter, and was a native of Rouen.
+
+[345] The condition of Fort St. Louis, at this time, may be gathered
+from several passages of Joutel. The houses, he says, were built at the
+brink of the cliff, forming, with the palisades, the circle of defence.
+The Indians lived in the area.
+
+[346] Joutel adds that this was occasioned by "une espèce de
+conspiration qu'on a voulu faire contre les interests de Monsieur de la
+Salle."--_Journal Historique_, 350.
+
+"Ce Père appréhendoit que le dit sieur ne l'y rencontrast, ... suivant
+ce que j'en ai pu apprendre, les Pères avoient avancé plusieurs choses
+pour contrebarrer l'entreprise et avoient voulu détacher plusieurs
+nations de Sauvages, lesquelles s'estoient données à M. de la Salle. Ils
+avoient esté mesme jusques à vouloir destruire le fort Saint-Louis, en
+ayant construit un à Chicago, où ils avoient attiré une partie des
+Sauvages, ne pouvant en quelque façon s'emparer du dit fort. Pour
+conclure, le bon Père ayant eu peur d'y estre trouvé, aima mieux se
+précautionner en prenant le devant.... Quoyque M. Cavelier eust dit au
+Père qu'il pouvoit rester, il partit quelques sept ou huit jours avant
+nous."--_Relation_ (Margry, iii. 500).
+
+La Salle always saw the influence of the Jesuits in the disasters that
+befell him. His repeated assertion, that they wished to establish
+themselves in the valley of the Mississippi, receives confirmation from
+a document entitled _Mémoire sur la proposition à faire par les R. Pères
+Jésuites pour la découverte des environs de la rivière du Mississipi et
+pour voir si elle est navigable jusqu'à la mer_. It is a memorandum of
+propositions to be made to the minister Seignelay, and was apparently
+put forward as a feeler, before making the propositions in form. It was
+written after the return of Beaujeu to France, and before La Salle's
+death became known. It intimates that the Jesuits were entitled to
+precedence in the valley of the Mississippi, as having first explored
+it. It affirms that _La Salle had made a blunder, and landed his colony,
+not at the mouth of the river, but at another place_; and it asks
+permission to continue the work in which he has failed. To this end, it
+petitions for means to build a vessel at St. Louis of the Illinois,
+together with canoes, arms, tents, tools, provisions, and merchandise
+for the Indians; and it also asks for La Salle's maps and papers, and
+for those of Beaujeu. On their part, it pursues, the Jesuits will engage
+to make a complete survey of the river, and return an exact account of
+its inhabitants, its plants, and its other productions.
+
+[347] Tonty, Du Lhut, and Durantaye came to the aid of Denonville with a
+hundred and eighty Frenchmen, chiefly _coureurs de bois_, and four
+hundred Indians from the upper country. Their services were highly
+appreciated; and Tonty especially is mentioned in the despatches of
+Denonville with great praise.
+
+[348] "Monsieur Tonty, croyant M. de la Salle vivant, ne fit pas de
+difficulté de luy donner pour environ quatre mille liv. de pelleterie,
+de castors, loutres, un canot, et autres effets."--Joutel, _Journal
+Historique_, 349.
+
+Tonty himself does not make the amount so great: "Sur ce qu'ils
+m'assuroient qu'il étoit resté au Golfe de Mexique en bonne santé, je
+les reçus comme si ç'avoit esté lui mesme et luy prestay [_à Cavelier_]
+plus de 700 francs."--Tonty, _Mémoire_.
+
+Cavelier must have known that La Salle was insolvent. Tonty had long
+served without pay. Douay says that he made the stay of the party at the
+fort very agreeable, and speaks of him, with some apparent compunction,
+as "ce brave gentilhomme, toujours inséparablement attaché aux intérêts
+du Sieur de la Salle, dont nous luy avons caché la déplorable destinée."
+
+Couture, from the Arkansas, brought word to Tonty, several months after,
+of La Salle's death, adding that Cavelier had concealed it, with no
+other purpose than that of gaining money or supplies from him (Tonty),
+in his brother's name. Cavelier had a letter from La Salle, desiring
+Tonty to give him supplies, and pay him 2,652 livres in beaver. If
+Cavelier is to be believed, this beaver belonged to La Salle.
+
+[349] _Lettre du Roy à Denonville, 1 Mai, 1689._ Joutel must have been a
+young man at the time of the Mississippi expedition; for Charlevoix saw
+him at Rouen, thirty-five years after. He speaks of him with emphatic
+praise; but it must be admitted that his connivance in the deception
+practised by Cavelier on Tonty leaves a shade on his character, as well
+as on that of Douay. In other respects, everything that appears
+concerning him is highly favorable, which is not the case with Douay,
+who, on one or two occasions, makes wilful misstatements.
+
+Douay says that the elder Cavelier made a report of the expedition to
+the minister Seignelay. This report remained unknown in an English
+collection of autographs and old manuscripts, whence I obtained it by
+purchase, in 1854, both the buyer and seller being at the time ignorant
+of its exact character. It proved, on examination, to be a portion of
+the first draft of Cavelier's report to Seignelay. It consists of
+twenty-six small folio pages, closely written in a clear hand, though in
+a few places obscured by the fading of the ink, as well as by occasional
+erasures and interlineations of the writer. It is, as already stated,
+confused and unsatisfactory in its statements; and all the latter part
+has been lost. On reaching France, he had the impudence to tell Abbé
+Tronson, Superior of St. Sulpice, "qu'il avait laissé M. de la Salle
+dans un très-beau pays avec M. de Chefdeville en bonne santé."--_Lettre
+de Tronson à Mad. Fauvel-Cavelier, 29 Nov., 1688._
+
+Cavelier addressed to the King a memorial on the importance of keeping
+possession of the Illinois. It closes with an earnest petition for money
+in compensation for his losses, as, according to his own statement, he
+was completely _épuisé_. It is affirmed in a memorial of the heirs of
+his cousin, François Plet, that he concealed the death of La Salle some
+time after his return to France, in order to get possession of property
+which would otherwise have been seized by the creditors of the deceased.
+The prudent abbé died rich and very old, at the house of a relative,
+having inherited a large estate after his return from America.
+Apparently, this did not satisfy him; for there is before me the copy of
+a petition, written about 1717, in which he asks, jointly with one of
+his nephews, to be given possession of the seigniorial property held by
+La Salle in America. The petition was refused.
+
+Young Cavelier, La Salle's nephew, died some years after, an officer in
+a regiment. He has been erroneously supposed to be the same with one De
+la Salle, whose name is appended to a letter giving an account of
+Louisiana, and dated at Toulon, 3 Sept., 1698. This person was the son
+of a naval official at Toulon, and was not related to the Caveliers.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIX.
+
+1688-1689.
+
+FATE OF THE TEXAN COLONY.
+
+ Tonty attempts to rescue the Colonists: his Difficulties and
+ Hardships.--Spanish Hostility.--Expedition of Alonzo de Leon: he
+ reaches Fort St. Louis.--A Scene of Havoc.--Destruction of the
+ French.--The End.
+
+
+[Sidenote: COURAGE OF TONTY.]
+
+Henri De Tonty, on his rock of St. Louis, was visited in September by
+Couture and two Indians from the Arkansas. Then, for the first time, he
+heard with grief and indignation of the death of La Salle, and the
+deceit practised by Cavelier. The chief whom he had served so well was
+beyond his help; but might not the unhappy colonists left on the shores
+of Texas still be rescued from destruction? Couture had confirmed what
+Cavelier and his party had already told him, that the tribes south of
+the Arkansas were eager to join the French in an invasion of northern
+Mexico; and he soon after received from the governor, Denonville, a
+letter informing him that war had again been declared against Spain. As
+bold and enterprising as La Salle himself, Tonty resolved on an effort
+to learn the condition of the few Frenchmen left on the borders of the
+Gulf, relieve their necessities, and, should it prove practicable, make
+them the nucleus of a war-party to cross the Rio Grande, and add a new
+province to the domain of France. It was the revival, on a small scale,
+of La Salle's scheme of Mexican invasion; and there is no doubt that,
+with a score of French musketeers, he could have gathered a formidable
+party of savage allies from the tribes of Red River, the Sabine, and the
+Trinity. This daring adventure and the rescue of his suffering
+countrymen divided his thoughts, and he prepared at once to execute the
+double purpose.[350]
+
+[Sidenote: TONTY MISREPRESENTED.]
+
+He left Fort St. Louis of the Illinois early in December, in a pirogue,
+or wooden canoe, with five Frenchmen, a Shawanoe warrior, and two Indian
+slaves; and, after a long and painful journey, he reached the villages
+of the Caddoes on Red River on the twenty-eighth of March. Here he was
+told that Hiens and his companions were at a village eighty leagues
+distant; and thither he was preparing to go in search of them, when all
+his men, excepting the Shawanoe and one Frenchman, declared themselves
+disgusted with the journey, and refused to follow him. Persuasion was
+useless, and there was no means of enforcing obedience. He found himself
+abandoned; but he still pushed on, with the two who remained faithful. A
+few days after, they lost nearly all their ammunition in crossing a
+river. Undeterred by this accident, Tonty made his way to the village
+where Hiens and those who had remained with him were said to be; but no
+trace of them appeared, and the demeanor of the Indians, when he
+inquired for them, convinced him that they had been put to death. He
+charged them with having killed the Frenchmen, whereupon the women of
+the village raised a wail of lamentation; "and I saw," he says, "that
+what I had said to them was true." They refused to give him guides; and
+this, with the loss of his ammunition, compelled him to forego his
+purpose of making his way to the colonists on the Bay of St. Louis. With
+bitter disappointment, he and his two companions retraced their course,
+and at length approached Red River. Here they found the whole country
+flooded. Sometimes they waded to the knees, sometimes to the neck,
+sometimes pushed their slow way on rafts. Night and day it rained
+without ceasing. They slept on logs placed side by side to raise them
+above the mud and water, and fought their way with hatchets through the
+inundated cane-brakes. They found no game but a bear, which had taken
+refuge on an island in the flood; and they were forced to eat their
+dogs. "I never in my life," writes Tonty, "suffered so much." In judging
+these intrepid exertions, it is to be remembered that he was not, at
+least in appearance, of a robust constitution, and that he had but one
+hand. They reached the Mississippi on the eleventh of July, and the
+Arkansas villages on the thirty-first. Here Tonty was detained by an
+attack of fever. He resumed his journey when it began to abate, and
+reached his fort of the Illinois in September.[351]
+
+[Sidenote: A SCENE OF HAVOC.]
+
+While the King of France abandoned the exiles of Texas to their fate, a
+power dark, ruthless, and terrible was hovering around the feeble colony
+on the Bay of St. Louis, searching with pitiless eye to discover and
+tear out that dying germ of civilization from the bosom of the
+wilderness in whose savage immensity it lay hidden. Spain claimed the
+Gulf of Mexico and all its coasts as her own of unanswerable right, and
+the viceroys of Mexico were strenuous to enforce her claim. The capture
+of one of La Salle's four vessels at St. Domingo had made known his
+designs, and in the course of the three succeeding years no less than
+four expeditions were sent out from Vera Cruz to find and destroy him.
+They scoured the whole extent of the coast, and found the wrecks of the
+"Aimable" and the "Belle;" but the colony of St. Louis,[352] inland and
+secluded, escaped their search. For a time, the jealousy of the
+Spaniards was lulled to sleep. They rested in the assurance that the
+intruders had perished, when fresh advices from the frontier province of
+New Leon caused the Viceroy, Galve, to order a strong force, under
+Alonzo de Leon, to march from Coahuila, and cross the Rio Grande. Guided
+by a French prisoner, probably one of the deserters from La Salle, they
+pushed their way across wild and arid plains, rivers, prairies, and
+forests, till at length they approached the Bay of St. Louis, and
+descried, far off, the harboring-place of the French.[353] As they drew
+near, no banner was displayed, no sentry challenged; and the silence of
+death reigned over the shattered palisades and neglected dwellings. The
+Spaniards spurred their reluctant horses through the gateway, and a
+scene of desolation met their sight. No living thing was stirring. Doors
+were torn from their hinges; broken boxes, staved barrels, and rusty
+kettles, mingled with a great number of stocks of arquebuses and
+muskets, were scattered about in confusion. Here, too, trampled in mud
+and soaked with rain, they saw more than two hundred books, many of
+which still retained the traces of costly bindings. On the adjacent
+prairie lay three dead bodies, one of which, from fragments of dress
+still clinging to the wasted remains, they saw to be that of a woman. It
+was in vain to question the imperturbable savages, who, wrapped to the
+throat in their buffalo-robes, stood gazing on the scene with looks of
+wooden immobility. Two strangers, however, at length arrived.[354] Their
+faces were smeared with paint, and they were wrapped in buffalo-robes
+like the rest; yet these seeming Indians were L'Archevêque, the tool of
+La Salle's murderer Duhaut, and Grollet, the companion of the white
+savage Ruter. The Spanish commander, learning that these two men were in
+the district of the tribe called Texas,[355] had sent to invite them to
+his camp under a pledge of good treatment; and they had resolved to
+trust Spanish clemency rather than endure longer a life that had become
+intolerable. From them the Spaniards learned nearly all that is known of
+the fate of Barbier, Zenobe Membré, and their companions. Three months
+before, a large band of Indians had approached the fort, the inmates of
+which had suffered severely from the ravages of the small-pox. From fear
+of treachery, they refused to admit their visitors, but received them at
+a cabin without the palisades. Here the French began a trade with them;
+when suddenly a band of warriors, yelling the war-whoop, rushed from an
+ambuscade under the bank of the river, and butchered the greater number.
+The children of one Talon, together with an Italian and a young man from
+Paris named Breman, were saved by the Indian women, who carried them off
+on their backs. L'Archevêque and Grollet, who with others of their stamp
+were domesticated in the Indian villages, came to the scene of
+slaughter, and, as they affirmed, buried fourteen dead bodies.[356]
+
+[Sidenote: THE SURVIVORS.]
+
+L'Archevêque and Grollet were sent to Spain, where, in spite of the
+pledge given them, they were thrown into prison, with the intention of
+sending them back to labor in the mines. The Indians, some time after De
+Leon's expedition, gave up their captives to the Spaniards. The Italian
+was imprisoned at Vera Cruz. Breman's fate is unknown. Pierre and Jean
+Baptiste Talon, who were now old enough to bear arms, were enrolled in
+the Spanish navy, and, being captured in 1696 by a French ship of war,
+regained their liberty; while their younger brothers and their sister
+were carried to Spain by the Viceroy.[357] With respect to the ruffian
+companions of Hiens, the conviction of Tonty that they had been put to
+death by the Indians may have been well founded; but the buccaneer
+himself is said to have been killed in a quarrel with his accomplice
+Ruter, the white savage; and thus in ignominy and darkness died the last
+embers of the doomed colony of La Salle.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+[Sidenote: FRUIT OF EXPLORATIONS.]
+
+Here ends the wild and mournful story of the explorers of the
+Mississippi. Of all their toil and sacrifice, no fruit remained but a
+great geographical discovery, and a grand type of incarnate energy and
+will. Where La Salle had ploughed, others were to sow the seed; and on
+the path which the undespairing Norman had hewn out, the Canadian
+D'Iberville was to win for France a vast though a transient dominion.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[350] Tonty, _Mémoire_.
+
+[351] Two causes have contributed to detract, most unjustly, from
+Tonty's reputation,--the publication, under his name, but without his
+authority, of a perverted account of the enterprises in which he took
+part; and the confounding him with his brother, Alphonse de Tonty, who
+long commanded at Detroit, where charges of peculation were brought
+against him. There are very few names in French-American history
+mentioned with such unanimity of praise as that of Henri de Tonty.
+Hennepin finds some fault with him; but his censure is commendation. The
+despatches of the governor, Denonville, speak in strong terms of his
+services in the Iroquois war, praise his character, and declare that he
+is fit for any bold enterprise, adding that he deserves reward from the
+King. The missionary, St. Cosme, who travelled under his escort in 1699,
+says of him: "He is beloved by all the _voyageurs_.... It was with deep
+regret that we parted from him: ... he is the man who best knows the
+country; ... he is loved and feared everywhere.... Your grace will, I
+doubt not, take pleasure in acknowledging the obligations we owe him."
+
+Tonty held the commission of captain; but, by a memoir which he
+addressed to Ponchartrain in 1690, it appears that he had never received
+any pay. Count Frontenac certifies the truth of the statement, and adds
+a recommendation of the writer. In consequence, probably, of this, the
+proprietorship of Fort St. Louis of the Illinois was granted in the same
+year to Tonty, jointly with La Forest, formerly La Salle's lieutenant.
+Here they carried on a trade in furs. In 1699, a royal declaration was
+launched against the _coureurs de bois_; but an express provision was
+added in favor of Tonty and La Forest, who were empowered to send up the
+country yearly two canoes, with twelve men, for the maintenance of this
+fort. With such a limitation, this fort and the trade carried on at it
+must have been very small. In 1702, we find a royal order, to the effect
+that La Forest is henceforth to reside in Canada, and Tonty on the
+Mississippi; and that the establishment at the Illinois is to be
+discontinued. In the same year, Tonty joined D'Iberville in Lower
+Louisiana, and was sent by that officer from Mobile to secure the
+Chickasaws in the French interest. His subsequent career and the time of
+his death do not appear. He seems never to have received the reward
+which his great merit deserved. Those intimate with the late lamented
+Dr. Sparks will remember his often-expressed wish that justice should be
+done to the memory of Tonty.
+
+Fort St. Louis of the Illinois was afterwards reoccupied by the French.
+In 1718, a number of them, chiefly traders, were living here; but three
+years later it was again deserted, and Charlevoix, passing the spot, saw
+only the remains of its palisades.
+
+[352] Fort St. Louis of Texas is not to be confounded with Fort St.
+Louis of the Illinois.
+
+[353] After crossing the Del Norte, they crossed in turn the Upper
+Nueces, the Hondo (Rio Frio), the De Leon (San Antonio), and the
+Guadalupe, and then, turning southward, descended to the Bay of St.
+Bernard.... Manuscript map of "Route que firent les Espagnols, pour
+venir enlever les Français restez à la Baye St. Bernard ou St. Louis,
+après la perte du vaisseau de Mr. de la Salle en 1689." (Margry's
+collection.)
+
+[354] May 1st. The Spaniards reached the fort April 22.
+
+[355] This is the first instance in which the name occurs. In a letter
+written by a member of De Leon's party, the Texan Indians are mentioned
+several times. (See _Coleccion de Varios Documentos_, 25.) They are
+described as an agricultural tribe, and were, to all appearance,
+identical with the Cenis. The name Tejas, or Texas, was first applied as
+a local designation to a spot on the river Neches, in the Cenis
+territory, whence it extended to the whole country. (See Yoakum,
+_History of Texas_, 52.)
+
+[356] _Derrotero de la Jornada que hizo el General Alonso de Leon para
+el descubrimiento de la Bahia del Espíritu Santo, y poblacion de
+Franceses. Ano de 1689._--This is the official journal of the
+expedition, signed by Alonzo de Leon. I am indebted to Colonel Thomas
+Aspinwall for the opportunity of examining it. The name of Espiritu
+Santo was, as before mentioned, given by the Spaniards to St. Louis, or
+Matagorda Bay, as well as to two other bays of the Gulf of Mexico.
+
+_Carta en que se da noticia de un viaje hecho à la Bahia de Espíritu
+Santo y de la poblacion que tenian ahi los Franceses. Coleccion de
+Varios Documentos para la Historia de la Florida_, 25.--This is a letter
+from a person accompanying the expedition of De Leon. It is dated May
+18, 1689, and agrees closely with the journal cited above, though
+evidently by another hand. Compare Barcia, _Ensayo Cronologico_, 294.
+Barcia's story has been doubted; but these authentic documents prove the
+correctness of his principal statements, though on minor points he seems
+to have indulged his fancy.
+
+The Viceroy of New Spain, in a report to the King, 1690, says that, in
+order to keep the Texas and other Indians of that region in obedience to
+his Majesty, he has resolved to establish eight missions among them. He
+adds that he has appointed as governor, or commander, in that province,
+Don Domingo Teran de los Rios, who will make a thorough exploration of
+it, carry out what De Leon has begun; prevent the further intrusion of
+foreigners like La Salle, and go in pursuit of the remnant of the
+French, who are said still to remain among the tribes of Red River. I
+owe this document to the kindness of Mr. Buckingham Smith.
+
+[357] _Mémoire sur lequel on a interrogé les deux Canadiens [Pierre et
+Jean Baptiste Talon] qui sont soldats dans la Compagnie de Feuguerolles.
+A Brest, 14 Février, 1698._
+
+_Interrogations faites à Pierre et Jean Baptiste Talon à leur arrivée de
+la Veracrux._--This paper, which differs in some of its details from the
+preceding, was sent by D'Iberville, the founder of Louisiana, to Abbé
+Cavelier. Appended to it is a letter from D'Iberville, written in May,
+1704, in which he confirms the chief statements of the Talons, by
+information obtained by him from a Spanish officer at Pensacola.
+
+
+
+
+APPENDIX.
+
+
+I.
+
+EARLY UNPUBLISHED MAPS OF THE MISSISSIPPI AND THE GREAT LAKES.
+
+ Most of the maps described below are to be found in the Dépôt des
+ Cartes de la Marine et des Colonies, at Paris. Taken together, they
+ exhibit the progress of western discovery, and illustrate the
+ records of the explorers.
+
+1. The map of Galinée, 1670, has a double title,--_Carte du Canada et
+des Terres découvertes vers le lac Derié, and Carte du Lac Ontario et
+des habitations qui l'environnent ensemble le pays que Messrs. Dolier
+et Galinée, missionnaires du seminaire de St. Sulpice, ont parcouru_. It
+professes to represent only the country actually visited by the two
+missionaries. Beginning with Montreal, it gives the course of the Upper
+St. Lawrence and the shores of Lake Ontario, the river Niagara, the
+north shore of Lake Erie, the Strait of Detroit, and the eastern and
+northern shores of Lake Huron. Galinée did not know the existence of the
+peninsula of Michigan, and merges Lakes Huron and Michigan into one,
+under the name of "Michigané, ou Mer Douce des Hurons." He was also
+entirely ignorant of the south shore of Lake Erie. He represents the
+outlet of Lake Superior as far as the Saut Ste. Marie, and lays down
+the river Ottawa in great detail, having descended it on his return. The
+Falls of the Genesee are indicated, as also the Falls of Niagara, with
+the inscription, "Sault qui tombe au rapport des sauvages de plus de 200
+pieds de haut." Had the Jesuits been disposed to aid him, they could
+have given him much additional information, and corrected his most
+serious errors; as, for example, the omission of the peninsula of
+Michigan. The first attempt to map out the Great Lakes was that of
+Champlain, in 1632. This of Galinée may be called the second.
+
+2. The map of Lake Superior, published in the Jesuit Relation of 1670,
+1671, was made at about the same time with Galinée's map. Lake Superior
+is here styled "Lac Tracy, ou Supérieur." Though not so exact as it has
+been represented, this map indicates that the Jesuits had explored every
+part of this fresh-water ocean, and that they had a thorough knowledge
+of the straits connecting the three Upper Lakes, and of the adjacent
+bays, inlets, and shores. The peninsula of Michigan, ignored by Galinée,
+is represented in its proper place.
+
+3. Three years or more after Galinée made the map mentioned above,
+another, indicating a greatly increased knowledge of the country, was
+made by some person whose name does not appear. This map, which is
+somewhat more than four feet long and about two feet and a half wide,
+has no title. All the Great Lakes, through their entire extent, are laid
+down on it with considerable accuracy. Lake Ontario is called "Lac
+Ontario, ou de Frontenac." Fort Frontenac is indicated, as well as the
+Iroquois colonies of the north shore. Niagara is "Chute haute de 120
+toises par où le Lac Erié tombe dans le Lac Frontenac." Lake Erie is
+"Lac Teiocha-rontiong, dit communément Lac Erié." Lake St. Clair is
+"Tsiketo, ou Lac de la Chaudière." Lake Huron is "Lac Huron, ou Mer
+Douce des Hurons." Lake Superior is "Lac Supérieur." Lake Michigan is
+"Lac Mitchiganong, ou des Illinois." On Lake Michigan, immediately
+opposite the site of Chicago, are written the words, of which the
+following is the literal translation: "The largest vessels can come to
+this place from the outlet of Lake Erie, where it discharges into Lake
+Frontenac [Ontario]; and from this marsh into which they can enter there
+is only a distance of a thousand paces to the River La Divine [Des
+Plaines], which can lead them to the River Colbert [Mississippi], and
+thence to the Gulf of Mexico." This map was evidently made after that
+voyage of La Salle in which he discovered the Illinois, or at least the
+Des Plaines branch of it. The Ohio is laid down with the inscription,
+"River Ohio, so called by the Iroquois on account of its beauty, which
+the Sieur de la Salle descended." (_Ante_, 32, _note_.)
+
+4. We now come to the map of Marquette, which is a rude sketch of a
+portion of Lakes Superior and Michigan, and of the route pursued by him
+and Joliet up the Fox River of Green Bay, down the Wisconsin, and thence
+down the Mississippi as far as the Arkansas. The river Illinois is also
+laid down, as it was by this course that he returned to Lake Michigan
+after his memorable voyage. He gives no name to the Wisconsin. The
+Mississippi is called "Rivière de la Conception;" the Missouri, the
+Pekitanoui; and the Ohio, the Ouabouskiaou, though La Salle, its
+discoverer, had previously given it its present name, borrowed from the
+Iroquois. The Illinois is nameless, like the Wisconsin. At the mouth of
+a river, perhaps the Des Moines, Marquette places the three villages of
+the Peoria Indians visited by him. These, with the Kaskaskias, Maroas,
+and others, on the map, were merely sub-tribes of the aggregation of
+savages known as the Illinois. On or near the Missouri he places the
+Ouchage (Osages), the Oumessourit (Missouris), the Kansa (Kanzas), the
+Paniassa (Pawnees), the Maha (Omahas), and the Pahoutet (Pah-Utahs?).
+The names of many other tribes, "esloignées dans les terres," are also
+given along the course of the Arkansas, a river which is nameless on the
+map. Most of these tribes are now indistinguishable. This map has
+recently been engraved and published.
+
+5. Not long after Marquette's return from the Mississippi, another map
+was made by the Jesuits, with the following title: _Carte de la nouvelle
+decouverte que les peres Iesuites ont fait en l'année 1672, et continuée
+par le P. Iacques Marquette de la mesme Compagnie accompagné de quelques
+françois en l'année 1673, qu'on pourra nommer en françois la
+Manitoumie_. This title is very elaborately decorated with figures drawn
+with a pen, and representing Jesuits instructing Indians. The map is the
+same published by Thevenot, not without considerable variations, in
+1681. It represents the Mississippi from a little above the Wisconsin to
+the Gulf of Mexico, the part below the Arkansas being drawn from
+conjecture. The river is named "Mitchisipi, ou grande Rivière." The
+Wisconsin, the Illinois, the Ohio, the Des Moines(?), the Missouri, and
+the Arkansas are all represented, but in a very rude manner. Marquette's
+route, in going and returning, is marked by lines; but the return route
+is incorrect. The whole map is so crude and careless, and based on
+information so inexact, that it is of little interest.
+
+6. The Jesuits made also another map, without title, of the four Upper
+Lakes and the Mississippi to a little below the Arkansas. The
+Mississippi is called "Riuiere Colbert." The map is remarkable as
+including the earliest representation of the Upper Mississippi, based,
+perhaps, on the reports of Indians. The Falls of St. Anthony are
+indicated by the word "Saut." It is possible that the map may be of
+later date than at first appears, and that it may have been drawn in the
+interval between the return of Hennepin from the Upper Mississippi and
+that of La Salle from his discovery of the mouth of the river. The
+various temporary and permanent stations of the Jesuits are marked by
+crosses.
+
+7. Of far greater interest is the small map of Louis Joliet made and
+presented to Count Frontenac after the discoverer's return from the
+Mississippi. It is entitled _Carte de la decouverte du Sr. Jolliet ou
+l'on voit La Communication du fleuve St. Laurens avec les lacs
+frontenac, Erié, Lac des Hurons et Ilinois_. Then succeeds the
+following, written in the same antiquated French, as if it were a part
+of the title: "Lake Frontenac [Ontario] is separated by a fall of half a
+league from Lake Erié, from which one enters that of the Hurons, and by
+the same navigation, into that of the Illinois [Michigan], from the head
+of which one crosses to the Divine River [Rivière Divine; _i. e._, the
+Des Plaines branch of the river Illinois], by a portage of a thousand
+paces. This river falls into the river Colbert [Mississippi], which
+discharges itself into the Gulf of Mexico." A part of this map is based
+on the Jesuit map of Lake Superior, the legends being here for the most
+part identical, though the shape of the lake is better given by Joliet.
+The Mississippi, or "Riuiere Colbert," is made to flow from three lakes
+in latitude 47°; and it ends in latitude 37°, a little below the mouth
+of the Ohio, the rest being apparently cut off to make room for Joliet's
+letter to Frontenac (_ante_, 76), which is written on the lower part of
+the map. The valley of the Mississippi is called on the map "Colbertie,
+ou Amerique Occidentale." The Missouri is represented without name, and
+against it is a legend, of which the following is the literal
+translation: "By one of these great rivers which come from the west and
+discharge themselves into the river Colbert, one will find a way to
+enter the Vermilion Sea (Gulf of California). I have seen a village
+which was not more than twenty days' journey by land from a nation which
+has commerce with those of California. If I had come two days sooner, I
+should have spoken with those who had come from thence, and had brought
+four hatchets as a present." The Ohio has no name, but a legend over it
+states that La Salle had descended it. (See _ante_, 32, _note_).
+
+8. Joliet, at about the same time, made another map, larger than that
+just mentioned, but not essentially different. The letter to Frontenac
+is written upon both. There is a third map, of which the following is
+the title: _Carte generalle de la France septentrionale contenant la
+descouuerte du pays des Illinois, faite par le Sr. Jolliet_. This
+map, which is inscribed with a dedication by the Intendant Duchesneau to
+the minister Colbert, was made some time after the voyage of Joliet and
+Marquette. It is an elaborate piece of work, but very inaccurate. It
+represents the continent from Hudson's Strait to Mexico and California,
+with the whole of the Atlantic and a part of the Pacific coast. An open
+sea is made to extend from Hudson's Strait westward to the Pacific. The
+St. Lawrence and all the Great Lakes are laid down with tolerable
+correctness, as also is the Gulf of Mexico. The Mississippi, called
+"Messasipi," flows into the Gulf, from which it extends northward nearly
+to the "Mer du Nord." Along its course, above the Wisconsin, which is
+called "Miskous," is a long list of Indian tribes, most of which cannot
+now be recognized, though several are clearly sub-tribes of the Sioux.
+The Ohio is called "Ouaboustikou." The whole map is decorated with
+numerous figures of animals, natives of the country, or supposed to be
+so. Among them are camels, ostriches, and a giraffe, which are placed on
+the plains west of the Mississippi. But the most curious figure is that
+which represents one of the monsters seen by Joliet and Marquette,
+painted on a rock by the Indians. It corresponds with Marquette's
+description (_ante_, 68). This map, which is an early effort of the
+engineer Franquelin, does more credit to his skill as a designer than to
+his geographical knowledge, which appears in some respects behind his
+time.
+
+9. _Carte de l'Amérique Septentrionale depuis l'embouchure de la Rivière
+St. Laurens jusques au Sein Mexique._ On this curious little map, the
+Mississippi is called "Riuiere Buade" (the family name of Frontenac);
+and the neighboring country is "La Frontenacie." The Illinois is
+"Riuiere de la Diuine ou Loutrelaise," and the Arkansas is "Riuiere
+Bazire." The Mississippi is made to head in three lakes, and to
+discharge itself into "B. du S. Esprit" (Mobile Bay). Some of the
+legends and the orthography of various Indian names are clearly borrowed
+from Marquette. This map appears to be the work of Raudin, Frontenac's
+engineer. I owe a tracing of it to the kindness of Henry Harrisse, Esq.
+
+10. _Carte des Parties les plus occidentales du Canada, par le Père
+Pierre Raffeix_, S. J. This rude map shows the course of Du Lhut from
+the head of Lake Superior to the Mississippi, and partly confirms the
+story of Hennepin, who, Raffeix says in a note, was rescued by Du Lhut.
+The course of Joliet and Marquette is given, with the legend "Voyage et
+première descouverte du Mississipy faite par le P. Marquette et Mr.
+Joliet en 1672." The route of La Salle in 1679, 1680, is also laid down.
+
+11. In the Dépôt des Cartes de la Marine is another map of the Upper
+Mississippi, which seems to have been made by or for Du Lhut. Lac Buade,
+the "Issatis," the "Tintons," the "Houelbatons," the "Poualacs," and
+other tribes of this region appear upon it. This is the map numbered
+208 in the _Cartographie_ of Harrisse.
+
+12. Another map deserving mention is a large and fine one, entitled
+_Carte de l'Amérique Septentrionale et partie de la Meridionale ... avec
+les nouvelles découvertes de la Rivière Missisipi, ou Colbert_. It
+appears to have been made in 1682 or 1683, before the descent of La
+Salle to the mouth of the Mississippi was known to the maker, who seems
+to have been Franquelin. The lower Mississippi is omitted, but its upper
+portions are elaborately laid down; and the name _La Louisiane_ appears
+in large gold letters along its west side. The Falls of St. Anthony are
+shown, and above them is written "Armes du Roy gravées sur cet arbre
+l'an 1679." This refers to the _acte de prise de possession_ of Du Lhut
+in July of that year, and this part of the map seems made from data
+supplied by him.
+
+13. We now come to the great map of Franquelin, the most remarkable of
+all the early maps of the interior of North America, though hitherto
+completely ignored by both American and Canadian writers. It is entitled
+_Carte de la Louisiane ou des Voyages du Sr. de la Salle et des pays
+qu'il a découverts depuis la Nouvelle France jusqu'au Golfe Mexique les
+années 1679, 80, 81, et 82, par Jean Baptiste Louis Franquelin, l'an
+1684. Paris._ Franquelin was a young engineer, who held the post of
+hydrographer to the King, at Quebec, in which Joliet succeeded him.
+Several of his maps are preserved, including one made in 1681, in which
+he lays down the course of the Mississippi,--the lower part from
+conjecture,--making it discharge itself into Mobile Bay. It appears from
+a letter of the governor, La Barre, that Franquelin was at Quebec in
+1683, engaged on a map which was probably that of which the title is
+given above, though had La Barre known that it was to be called a map of
+the journeys of his victim La Salle, he would have been more sparing of
+his praises. "He" (Franquelin), writes the governor, "is as skilful as
+any in France, but extremely poor and in need of a little aid from his
+Majesty as an Engineer; he is at work on a very correct map of the
+country, which I shall send you next year in his name; meanwhile, I
+shall support him with some little assistance."--_Colonial Documents of
+New York_, IX. 205.
+
+The map is very elaborately executed, and is six feet long and four and
+a half wide. It exhibits the political divisions of the continent, as
+the French then understood them; that is to say, all the regions drained
+by streams flowing into the St. Lawrence and the Mississippi are claimed
+as belonging to France, and this vast domain is separated into two grand
+divisions, La Nouvelle France and La Louisiane. The boundary line of the
+former, New France, is drawn from the Penobscot to the southern
+extremity of Lake Champlain, and thence to the Mohawk, which it crosses
+a little above Schenectady, in order to make French subjects of the
+Mohawk Indians. Thence it passes by the sources of the Susquehanna and
+the Alleghany, along the southern shore of Lake Erie, across Southern
+Michigan, and by the head of Lake Michigan, whence it sweeps
+northwestward to the sources of the Mississippi. Louisiana includes the
+entire valley of the Mississippi and the Ohio, besides the whole of
+Texas. The Spanish province of Florida comprises the peninsula and the
+country east of the Bay of Mobile, drained by streams flowing into the
+Gulf; while Carolina, Virginia, and the other English provinces, form a
+narrow strip between the Alleghanies and the Atlantic.
+
+The Mississippi is called "Missisipi, ou Rivière Colbert;" the Missouri,
+"Grande Rivière des Emissourittes, ou Missourits;" the Illinois,
+"Rivière des Ilinois, ou Macopins;" the Ohio, which La Salle had before
+called by its present name, "Fleuve St. Louis, ou Chucagoa, ou
+Casquinampogamou;" one of its principal branches is "Ohio, ou Olighin"
+(Alleghany); the Arkansas, "Rivière des Acansea;" the Red River,
+"Rivière Seignelay," a name which had once been given to the Illinois.
+Many smaller streams are designated by names which have been entirely
+forgotten.
+
+The nomenclature differs materially from that of Coronelli's map,
+published four years later. Here the whole of the French territory is
+laid down as "Canada, ou La Nouvelle France," of which "La Louisiane"
+forms an integral part. The map of Homannus, like that of Franquelin,
+makes two distinct provinces, of which one is styled "Canada" and the
+other "La Louisiane," the latter including Michigan and the greater part
+of New York. Franquelin gives the shape of Hudson's Bay, and of all the
+Great Lakes, with remarkable accuracy. He makes the Mississippi bend
+much too far to the West. The peculiar sinuosities of its course are
+indicated; and some of its bends--as, for example, that at New
+Orleans--are easily recognized. Its mouths are represented with great
+minuteness; and it may be inferred from the map that, since La Salle's
+time, they have advanced considerably into the sea.
+
+Perhaps the most interesting feature in Franquelin's map is his sketch
+of La Salle's evanescent colony on the Illinois, engraved for this
+volume. He reproduced the map in 1688, for presentation to the King,
+with the title _Carte de l'Amérique Septentrionale, depuis le 25 jusq'au
+65 degré de latitude et environ 140 et 235 degrés de longitude, etc._ In
+this map, Franquelin corrects various errors in that which preceded. One
+of these corrections consists in the removal of a branch of the river
+Illinois which he had marked on his first map,--as will be seen by
+referring to the portion of it in this book,--but which does not in fact
+exist. On this second map, La Salle's colony appears in much diminished
+proportions, his Indian settlements having in good measure dispersed.
+
+Two later maps of New France and Louisiana, both bearing Franquelin's
+name, are preserved in the Dépôt des Cartes de la Marine, as well as a
+number of smaller maps and sketches, also by him. They all have more or
+less of the features of the great map of 1684, which surpasses them all
+in interest and completeness.
+
+The remarkable manuscript map of the Upper Mississippi by Le Sueur
+belongs to a period later than the close of this narrative.
+
+These various maps, joined to contemporary documents, show that the
+Valley of the Mississippi received, at an early date, the several names
+of Manitoumie, Frontenacie, Colbertie, and La Louisiane. This last name,
+which it long retained, is due to La Salle. The first use of it which I
+have observed is in a conveyance of the Island of Belleisle made by him
+to his lieutenant, La Forest, in 1679.
+
+
+II.
+
+THE ELDORADO OF MATHIEU SÂGEAN.
+
+Father Hennepin had among his contemporaries two rivals in the
+fabrication of new discoveries. The first was the noted La Hontan, whose
+book, like his own, had a wide circulation and proved a great success.
+La Hontan had seen much, and portions of his story have a substantial
+value; but his account of his pretended voyage up the "Long River" is a
+sheer fabrication. His "Long River" corresponds in position with the
+St. Peter, but it corresponds in nothing else; and the populous nations
+whom he found on it--the Eokoros, the Esanapes, and the Gnacsitares, no
+less than their neighbors the Mozeemlek and the Tahuglauk--are as real
+as the nations visited by Captain Gulliver. But La Hontan did not, like
+Hennepin, add slander and plagiarism to mendacity, or seek to
+appropriate to himself the credit of genuine discoveries made by others.
+
+Mathieu Sâgean is a personage less known than Hennepin or La Hontan; for
+though he surpassed them both in fertility of invention, he was
+illiterate, and never made a book. In 1701, being then a soldier in a
+company of marines at Brest, he revealed a secret which he declared that
+he had locked within his breast for twenty years, having been unwilling
+to impart it to the Dutch and English, in whose service he had been
+during the whole period. His story was written down from his dictation,
+and sent to the minister Ponchartrain. It is preserved in the
+Bibliothèque Nationale, and in 1863 it was printed by Mr. Shea.
+
+He was born, he declares, at La Chine in Canada, and engaged in the
+service of La Salle about twenty years before the revelation of his
+secret; that is, in 1681. Hence, he would have been, at the utmost, only
+fourteen years old, as La Chine did not exist before 1667. He was with
+La Salle at the building of Fort St. Louis of the Illinois, and was left
+here as one of a hundred men under command of Tonty. Tonty, it is to be
+observed, had but a small fraction of this number; and Sâgean describes
+the fort in a manner which shows that he never saw it. Being desirous of
+making some new discovery, he obtained leave from Tonty, and set out
+with eleven other Frenchmen and two Mohegan Indians. They ascended the
+Mississippi a hundred and fifty leagues, carried their canoes by a
+cataract, went forty leagues farther, and stopped a month to hunt.
+While thus employed, they found another river, fourteen leagues distant,
+flowing south-southwest. They carried their canoes thither, meeting on
+the way many lions, leopards, and tigers, which did them no harm; then
+they embarked, paddled a hundred and fifty leagues farther, and found
+themselves in the midst of the great nation of the Acanibas, dwelling in
+many fortified towns, and governed by King Hagaren, who claimed descent
+from Montezuma. The King, like his subjects, was clothed with the skins
+of men. Nevertheless, he and they were civilized and polished in their
+manners. They worshipped certain frightful idols of gold in the royal
+palace. One of them represented the ancestor of their monarch armed with
+lance, bow, and quiver, and in the act of mounting his horse; while in
+his mouth he held a jewel as large as a goose's egg, which shone like
+fire, and which, in the opinion of Sâgean, was a carbuncle. Another of
+these images was that of a woman mounted on a golden unicorn, with a
+horn more than a fathom long. After passing, pursues the story, between
+these idols, which stand on platforms of gold, each thirty feet square,
+one enters a magnificent vestibule, conducting to the apartment of the
+King. At the four corners of this vestibule are stationed bands of
+music, which, to the taste of Sâgean, was of very poor quality. The
+palace is of vast extent, and the private apartment of the King is
+twenty-eight or thirty feet square; the walls, to the height of eighteen
+feet, being of bricks of solid gold, and the pavement of the same. Here
+the King dwells alone, served only by his wives, of whom he takes a new
+one every day. The Frenchmen alone had the privilege of entering, and
+were graciously received.
+
+These people carry on a great trade in gold with a nation, believed by
+Sâgean to be the Japanese, as the journey to them lasts six months. He
+saw the departure of one of the caravans, which consisted of more than
+three thousand oxen, laden with gold, and an equal number of horsemen,
+armed with lances, bows, and daggers. They receive iron and steel in
+exchange for their gold. The King has an army of a hundred thousand men,
+of whom three fourths are cavalry. They have golden trumpets, with which
+they make very indifferent music; and also golden drums, which, as well
+as the drummer, are carried on the backs of oxen. The troops are
+practised once a week in shooting at a target with arrows; and the King
+rewards the victor with one of his wives, or with some honorable
+employment.
+
+These people are of a dark complexion and hideous to look upon, because
+their faces are made long and narrow by pressing their heads between two
+boards in infancy. The women, however, are as fair as in Europe; though,
+in common with the men, their ears are enormously large. All persons of
+distinction among the Acanibas wear their fingernails very long. They
+are polygamists, and each man takes as many wives as he wants. They are
+of a joyous disposition, moderate drinkers, but great smokers. They
+entertained Sâgean and his followers during five months with the fat of
+the land; and any woman who refused a Frenchman was ordered to be
+killed. Six girls were put to death with daggers for this breach of
+hospitality. The King, being anxious to retain his visitors in his
+service, offered Sâgean one of his daughters, aged fourteen years, in
+marriage; and when he saw him resolved to depart, promised to keep her
+for him till he should return.
+
+The climate is delightful, and summer reigns throughout the year. The
+plains are full of birds and animals of all kinds, among which are many
+parrots and monkeys, besides the wild cattle, with humps like camels,
+which these people use as beasts of burden.
+
+King Hagaren would not let the Frenchmen go till they had sworn by the
+sky, which is the customary oath of the Acanibas, that they would return
+in thirty-six moons, and bring him a supply of beads and other trinkets
+from Canada. As gold was to be had for the asking, each of the eleven
+Frenchmen took away with him sixty small bars, weighing about four
+pounds each. The King ordered two hundred horsemen to escort them, and
+carry the gold to their canoes; which they did, and then bade them
+farewell with terrific howlings, meant, doubtless, to do them honor.
+
+After many adventures, wherein nearly all his companions came to a
+bloody end, Sâgean, and the few others who survived, had the ill luck to
+be captured by English pirates, at the mouth of the St. Lawrence. He
+spent many years among them in the East and West Indies, but would not
+reveal the secret of his Eldorado to these heretical foreigners.
+
+Such was the story, which so far imposed on the credulity of the
+minister Ponchartrain as to persuade him that the matter was worth
+serious examination. Accordingly, Sâgean was sent to Louisiana, then in
+its earliest infancy as a French colony. Here he met various persons who
+had known him in Canada, who denied that he had ever been on the
+Mississippi, and contradicted his account of his parentage.
+Nevertheless, he held fast to his story, and declared that the gold
+mines of the Acanibas could be reached without difficulty by the river
+Missouri. But Sauvolle and Bienville, chiefs of the colony, were
+obstinate in their unbelief; and Sâgean and his King Hagaren lapsed
+alike into oblivion.
+
+
+
+
+INDEX.
+
+
+Abenakis, the, 285, 295, 316, 346.
+
+Acanibas, the, great nation of,
+ description of, 487-489;
+ gold mines of, 489.
+
+"Acansea" (Arkansas) River, the, 484.
+
+Accau, Michel, 186, 187, 249, 251, 253, 261, 265, 266, 273.
+
+African travel, history of, 198.
+
+Agniers (Mohawks), the, 136.
+
+Aigron, Captain, on ill-terms with La Salle, 372, 382, 383.
+
+Ailleboust, Madame d', 111.
+
+"Aimable," La Salle's store-ship, 372, 373, 374, 375, 379, 380,
+ 381, 405, 454, 468.
+
+Aire, Beaujeu's lieutenant, 375.
+
+Akanseas, nation of the, 300. See also _Arkansas Indians, the_.
+
+Albanel,
+ prominent among the Jesuit explorers, 109;
+ his journey up the Saguenay to Hudson's Bay, 109.
+
+Albany, 118, 200, 220.
+
+Algonquin Indians, the,
+ Jean Nicollet among, 3;
+ at Ste. Marie du Saut, 39;
+ the Iroquois spread desolation among, 219.
+
+Alkansas, nation of the, 300. See also _Arkansas Indians, the_.
+
+Alleghany Mountains, the, 84, 308, 309, 483.
+
+Alleghany River, the, 307, 483, 484.
+
+Allouez, Father Claude,
+ explores a part of Lake Superior, 6;
+ name of Lake Michigan, 42, 155;
+ sent to Green Bay to found a mission, 43;
+ joined by Dablon, 43;
+ among the Mascoutins and the Miamis, 44;
+ among the Foxes, 45;
+ at Saut Ste. Marie, 51;
+ addresses the Indians at Saut Ste. Marie, 53;
+ population of the Illinois Valley, 169;
+ intrigues against La Salle, 175, 238;
+ at Fort St. Louis of the Illinois, 458;
+ his fear of La Salle, 459.
+
+Allumette Island, 3.
+
+Alton, city of, 68.
+
+America,
+ debt due La Salle from, 432.
+
+"Amerique Occidentale" (Mississippi Valley), 479.
+
+Amikoués, the,
+ at Saut Ste. Marie, 51.
+
+Andastes,
+ reduced to helpless insignificance by the Iroquois, 219.
+
+André, Louis,
+ mission of the Manitoulin Island assigned to, 41;
+ makes a missionary tour among the Nipissings, 41;
+ his experiences among them, 42;
+ at Saut Ste. Marie, 51.
+
+Anthony, St., of Padua, the patron of La Salle's great
+ enterprise, 152, 250, 259.
+
+Anticosti, great island of,
+ granted to Joliet, 76.
+
+Appalache, Bay of, 373.
+
+Aquipaguetin, Chief, 254;
+ plots against Hennepin, 255, 261, 262, 264, 271, 272.
+
+Aramoni River, the, 221, 225, 239.
+
+Arctic travel,
+ history of, 198.
+
+Arkansas Indians, the,
+ Joliet and Marquette among, 72, 184;
+ La Salle among, 299;
+ various names of, 300;
+ tallest and best-formed Indians in America, 300, 308;
+ villages of, 466.
+
+Arkansas River, the, 71;
+ Joutel's arrival at, 453;
+ Joutel descends, 456; 478, 484.
+
+Arnoul, Sieur, 383, 390.
+
+Arouet, François Marie, see _Voltaire_.
+
+Aspinwall, Col. Thomas, 471.
+
+Assiniboins, the,
+ at the Jesuit mission of St. Esprit, 40, 261;
+ Du Lhut among, 276.
+
+Assonis, the,
+ Joutel among, 451;
+ Tonty among, 452.
+
+Atlantic coast, the, 480.
+
+Atlantic Ocean, the, 74.
+
+Auguel, Antoine, 186.
+ See also _Du Gay, Picard_.
+
+Autray, Sieur d', 200.
+
+
+Bancroft, 75.
+
+Barbier, Sieur, 406;
+ marriage of, 408, 418;
+ fate of, 470.
+
+Barcia, 244, 471.
+
+Barrois, secretary of Count Frontenac, 293.
+
+Barthelemy, 433, 451, 456.
+
+Baugis, Chevalier de, 326, 327.
+
+Bazire, 101.
+
+Beauharnois, forest of, 14.
+
+Beaujeu, Madame de,
+ devotion to the Jesuits, 361.
+
+Beaujeu, Sieur de,
+ divides with La Salle the command of the new enterprise, 353;
+ lack of harmony between La Salle and, 354-361;
+ letters to Seignelay, 354-356;
+ letters to Cabart de Villermont, 357-360;
+ sails from Rochelle, 366;
+ disputes with La Salle, 366;
+ the voyage, 368;
+ complaints of, 370;
+ La Salle waiting for, 374;
+ meeting with La Salle, 375;
+ in Texas, 381;
+ makes friendly advances to La Salle, 385;
+ departure of, 387;
+ conduct of, 389;
+ coldly received by Seignelay, 389, 454.
+
+"Beautiful River" (Ohio), the, 70.
+
+Bégon, the intendant, 367, 368.
+
+"Belle," La Salle's frigate, 372, 373, 374, 379, 383, 386, 389,
+ 392, 401, 404, 406, 407, 416, 417, 468.
+
+Bellefontaine, Tonty's lieutenant, 458, 460.
+
+Belle Isle, 203.
+
+Belleisle, Island of, 485.
+
+Bellinzani, 129.
+
+Bernon, Abbé,
+ on the character of La Salle, 342.
+
+Bibliothèque Mazarine, the, 17.
+
+Bienville, 489.
+
+Big Vermilion River, the, 221, 239, 241.
+
+Bissot, Claire,
+ her marriage to Louis Joliet, 76.
+
+Black Rock, 149.
+
+Boeufs, Rivière aux, 392.
+
+Bois Blanc, Island of, 153.
+
+Boisrondet, Sieur de, 218, 223, 227, 233, 236, 457.
+
+Boisseau, 101.
+
+Bolton, Captain,
+ reaches the Mississippi, 5.
+
+Boston, 5;
+ rumored that the Dutch fleet had captured, 88.
+
+Boughton Hill, 21.
+
+Bourbon, Louis Armand de, see, _Conti, Prince de_.
+
+Bourdon, the engineer, 111.
+
+Bourdon, Jean, 200.
+ See also _Dautray_.
+
+Bourdon, Madame, superior of the Sainte Famille, 111.
+
+Bowman, W. E., 317.
+
+Branssac,
+ loans merchandise to La Salle, 49, 434.
+
+Brazos River, the, 424.
+
+Breman,
+ fate of, 471, 472.
+
+Brest, 486.
+
+Brinvilliers,
+ burned alive, 179.
+
+British territories, the, 309.
+
+Brodhead, 136.
+
+Bruyas, the Jesuit, 115;
+ among the Onondagas and the Mohawks, 115, 135;
+ the "Racines Agnières" of, 136.
+
+Buade, Lake, 257, 262, 481.
+
+Buade, Louis de, see _Frontenac, Count_.
+
+Buade, Rivière (Mississippi), 481.
+
+Buffalo, the, 205, 398.
+
+Buffalo Rock, 169, 314;
+ occupied by the Miami village, 314;
+ described by Charlevoix, 314.
+
+Buisset, Luc, the Récollet, 121;
+ at Fort Frontenac, 132, 135, 137, 280.
+
+Bull River, 272.
+
+Burnt Wood River, the, 277.
+
+
+Caddoes, the, 452;
+ villages of, 465.
+
+Cadodaquis, the, 452.
+
+California, Gulf of, 15, 31, 41, 63, 74, 84, 480.
+
+California, State of, 480.
+
+Camanches, the, 414.
+
+Cambray, Archbishop of, 16.
+
+Canada, 10;
+ Frontenac's treaty with the Indians confers an inestimable
+ blessing on all, 95;
+ no longer merely a mission, 104, 484.
+
+Canadian Parliament, Library of, the, 13.
+
+Cananistigoyan, 275.
+
+Carignan, regiment of, 12, 91.
+
+Carolina, 483.
+
+Carver, 62, 267.
+
+"Casquinampogamou" (St. Louis) River, the, 484.
+
+Casson, Dollier de, 15;
+ among the Nipissings, 16;
+ leads an expedition of conversion, 16;
+ combines his expedition with that of La Salle, 17;
+ journey of, 19, 20;
+ _belles paroles_ of La Salle, 25;
+ discoveries of La Salle, 29, 475.
+
+Cataraqui Bridge, the, 90.
+
+Cataraqui River, the, 87;
+ Frontenac at, 90;
+ fort built on the banks of, 92.
+
+Cavelier, nephew of La Salle, 420, 435, 438, 446, 449, 451, 458, 463.
+
+Cavelier, Henri, uncle of La Salle, 7, 363.
+
+Cavelier, Jean, father of La Salle, 7.
+
+Cavelier, Abbé Jean, brother of La Salle, 9;
+ at Montreal, 98;
+ La Salle defamed to, 113;
+ causes La Salle no little annoyance, 114, 333, 353, 367, 369, 370,
+ 371, 372, 374, 376, 388, 394, 396, 402, 405, 406, 412, 415, 416,
+ 417, 420, 421, 423;
+ unreliable in his writings, 433, 435, 436;
+ doubt and anxiety, 437, 438, 446;
+ plans to escape, 447;
+ the murder of Duhaut, 449;
+ sets out for home, 450, 451;
+ among the Assonis, 452, 453;
+ on the Arkansas, 455;
+ at Fort St. Louis of the Illinois, 457;
+ visit to Father Allouez, 459;
+ conceals La Salle's death, 460;
+ reaches Montreal, 462;
+ embarks for France, 462;
+ his report to Seignelay, 462, 463;
+ his memorial to the King, 463, 464.
+
+Cavelier, Madeleine, 28, 34.
+
+Cavelier, René Robert, see _La Salle, Sieur de_.
+
+Cayuga Creek, 145, 146.
+
+Cayugas, the,
+ Frontenac's address to, 91.
+
+Cenis, the,
+ La Salle among, 413;
+ villages of, 415;
+ Duhaut's journey to, 438;
+ Joutel among, 440-445;
+ customs of, 443;
+ joined by Hiens on a war-expedition, 450.
+
+Champigny, Intendant of Canada, 434.
+
+Champlain, Lake, 483.
+
+Champlain, Samuel de,
+ dreams of the South Sea, 14;
+ map of, 139;
+ his enthusiasm compared with that of La Salle, 431;
+ first to map out the Great Lakes, 476.
+
+Chaouanons (Shawanoes), the, 307, 317.
+
+Charlevoix, 50;
+ death of Marquette, 82; 103;
+ the names of the Illinois River, 167;
+ the loss of the "Griffin," 182;
+ the Illinois Indians, 223;
+ doubted veracity of Hennepin, 244;
+ the Iroquois virgin, Tegahkouita, 275;
+ the Arkansas nation, 300;
+ visits the Natchez Indians, 304;
+ describes "Starved Rock" and Buffalo Rock, 314;
+ speaks of "Le Rocher," 314;
+ character of La Salle, 433, 454;
+ the remains of Fort St. Louis of the Illinois, 468.
+
+Charon, creditor of La Salle, 150.
+
+Charron, Madame, 111.
+
+Chartier, Martin, 337.
+
+Chassagoac, chief of the Illinois,
+ meeting with La Salle, 192.
+
+Chassagouasse, Chief, 192.
+
+Chateauguay, forest of, 14.
+
+"Chaudière, Lac de la" (Lake St. Clair), 476.
+
+Chaumonot, the Jesuit,
+ founds the association of the Sainte Famille, 111.
+
+Chefdeville, M. de, 406, 407, 418, 463.
+
+Cheruel, 167.
+
+Chicago, 50, 236, 460, 462, 477.
+
+Chicago Portage, the, 320.
+
+Chicago River, the, 31;
+ Marquette on, 78, 296.
+
+Chickasaw Bluffs, the, 311.
+
+Chickasaw Indians, the, 184, 296, 307, 320, 468.
+
+Chikachas (Chickasaws), the, 307.
+
+China, 6, 14, 29.
+
+China, Sea of, 38, 83.
+
+Chippewa Creek, 139, 145.
+
+Chippeway River, the, 272.
+
+"Chucagoa" (St. Louis) River, the, 484.
+
+Chukagoua (Ohio) River, the, 307.
+
+Clark, James, 169, 170;
+ the site of the Great Illinois Town, 239.
+
+Coahuila, 469.
+
+Colbert, the minister,
+ Joliet's discovery of the Mississippi announced to, 34;
+ Frontenac's despatch, recommending La Salle, 99;
+ La Salle defamed to, 119;
+ a memorial of La Salle laid before, 122, 344, 345, 480.
+
+Colbert River (Mississippi), the, 35, 244, 307, 346, 376, 477, 479, 482.
+
+"Colbertie" (Mississippi Valley), 479.
+
+Collin, 187.
+
+Colorado River, the, 411, 415.
+
+Comet of 1680, the Great, 213.
+
+"Conception, Rivière de la" (Mississippi River), 477.
+
+Conti, Fort, 128;
+ location of, 129, 148.
+
+Conti, Lac de (Lake Erie), 129.
+
+Conti, Prince de (second),
+ patron of La Salle, 106;
+ letter from La Salle, 118.
+
+Copper mines of Lake Superior, 23;
+ Joliet attempts to discover, 23;
+ the Jesuits labor to explore, 38;
+ Indian legends concerning, 39;
+ Saint-Lusson sets out to discover, 49.
+
+Coroas, the,
+ visited by the French, 305, 310.
+
+Coronelli, map made by, 221, 484.
+
+Corpus Christi Bay, 375.
+
+Cosme, St., 69, 314, 454;
+ commendation of Tonty, 467.
+
+Courcelle, Governor, 11, 15, 17, 35;
+ quarrel with Talon, 56;
+ schemes to protect French trade in Canada, 85.
+
+Couture,
+ the assassination of La Salle, 433;
+ welcomes Joutel, 453, 455, 456, 461, 464.
+
+Creeks, the, 304.
+
+Crees, the,
+ at Saut Ste. Marie, 51.
+
+Crèvecoeur, Fort, 34;
+ built by La Salle, 180;
+ La Salle at, 180-188;
+ destroyed by the mutineers, 199;
+ La Salle finds the ruins of, 211.
+
+Crow Indians, the,
+ make war upon the dead, 207.
+
+Cuba, 372, 389.
+
+Cussy, De, governor of La Tortue, 367, 368.
+
+
+Dablon, Father Claude the Jesuit,
+ at Ste. Marie du Saut, 27, 51;
+ reports the discovery of copper, 38;
+ the location of the Illinois Indians, 41;
+ the name of Lake Michigan, 42;
+ joins Father Allouez at the Green Bay Mission, 43;
+ among the Mascoutins and the Miamis, 44;
+ the Cross among the Foxes, 45;
+ the authority and state of the Miami chief, 50;
+ Allouez's harangue at Saut Ste. Marie, 55;
+ rumors of the Dutch fleet, 88, 112.
+
+Dacotah (Sioux) Indians, the, 260.
+
+Dauphin, Fort, 128;
+ location of, 129.
+
+Dauphin, Lac (Lake Michigan), 155.
+
+Daupin, François, 203.
+
+Dautray, 187, 199, 210, 306.
+
+De Launay, see _Launay, De_.
+
+De Leon, see _Leon, Alonzo de_.
+
+De Leon (San Antonio), the, 469.
+
+Del Norte, the, 469.
+
+De Marle, see _Marle, De_.
+
+Denonville, Marquis de, 21, 121, 275, 454;
+ in the Iroquois War, 460;
+ announces war against Spain, 464;
+ commendation of Tonty, 467.
+
+Des Groseilliers, Médard Chouart,
+ reaches the Mississippi, 5.
+
+Deslauriers, 118.
+
+Desloges, 384.
+
+Des Moines, 65.
+
+Des Moines River, the, 477, 478.
+
+De Soto, Hernando,
+ buried in the Mississippi, 3.
+
+Des Plaines River, the, 79, 477, 479.
+
+Detroit, 26.
+
+Detroit River, the, 31, 197, 279.
+
+Detroit, the Strait of,
+ first recorded passage of white men through, 26;
+ the "Griffin" in, 151;
+ Du Lhut ordered to fortify, 275, 475.
+
+Divine, the Rivière de la, 167, 479.
+
+Dollier, see _Casson, Dollier de_.
+
+Douay, Anastase, 69, 155;
+ joins La Salle's new enterprise, 353, 372;
+ in Texas, 388;
+ at Fort St. Louis, 399, 405, 406, 412, 413, 414, 415, 416,
+ 417, 418, 420, 421, 422, 428;
+ the assassination of La Salle, 432;
+ unreliable in his writings, 433, 435;
+ doubt and anxiety, 437, 446;
+ the murder of Duhaut, 448, 449;
+ sets out for home, 451, 458;
+ visit to Father Allouez, 459;
+ character of, 462.
+
+Druilletes, Gabriel,
+ at Saut Ste. Marie, 51;
+ teaches Marquette the Montagnais language, 59.
+
+Duchesneau, the intendant, 69, 78, 101, 102, 125, 126, 138, 156,
+ 164, 197, 217, 218, 219, 235, 274, 275, 480.
+
+Du Gay, Picard, 186, 187, 250, 251, 253;
+ among the Sioux, 259, 261, 265, 266, 268, 269, 270, 272, 273.
+
+Duhaut, the brothers, 368, 400.
+
+Duhaut, the elder,
+ return of, 401;
+ at Fort St. Louis, 405;
+ plots against La Salle, 410, 420, 424;
+ quarrel with Moranget, 425;
+ murders Moranget, Saget, and Nika, 426;
+ assassinates La Salle, 429;
+ triumph of, 435;
+ journey to the Cenis villages, 438;
+ resolves to return to Fort St. Louis, 446;
+ quarrel with Hiens, 446;
+ plans to go to Canada, 448;
+ murder of, 448.
+
+Du Lhut, Daniel Greysolon, 182;
+ meeting with Hennepin, 273;
+ sketch of, 274;
+ exploits of, 275, 276;
+ route of, 276;
+ explorations of, 276-278;
+ among the Assiniboins and the Sioux, 276;
+ joined by Hennepin, 278;
+ reaches the Green Bay Mission, 279, 322;
+ in the Iroquois War, 460, 481, 482.
+
+Dumesnil, La Salle's servant, 415.
+
+Dumont,
+ La Salle borrows money from, 127.
+
+Duplessis,
+ attempts to murder La Salle, 166.
+
+Dupont, Nicolas, 99.
+
+Du Pratz,
+ customs of the Natchez, 304.
+
+Durango, 350.
+
+Durantaye, 275;
+ in the Iroquois War, 460.
+
+Dutch, the,
+ trade with the Indians, 219;
+ encourage the Iroquois to fight, 324.
+
+Dutch fleet, the,
+ rumored to have captured Boston, 88.
+
+
+East Indies, the, 489.
+
+Eastman, Mrs., legend of Winona, 271.
+
+"Emissourites, Rivière des" (Missouri), 70.
+
+English, the,
+ hold out great inducements to Joliet to join them, 76;
+ French company formed to compete at Hudson's Bay with, 76;
+ trade with the Indians, 219;
+ encourage the Iroquois to fight, 324.
+
+"English Jem," 421.
+
+Eokoros, the, 486.
+
+Erie, Lake, 23, 25, 26, 29, 31, 96, 124, 141, 146, 151, 196, 197,
+ 275, 279, 309, 333, 475, 476, 477, 479, 483.
+
+Eries, the,
+ exterminated by the Iroquois, 219.
+
+Esanapes, the, 486.
+
+Esmanville, the priest, 375, 379.
+
+Espiritu Santo Bay, 394, 471.
+
+Estrées, Count d', 344.
+
+
+Faillon, Abbé,
+ connection of La Salle with the Jesuits, 8;
+ the seigniory of La Salle, 12, 13;
+ detailed plan of Montreal, 13;
+ La Salle's discoveries, 29;
+ La Salle in need of money, 49;
+ throws much light on the life of, 58, 98;
+ on the establishment of the association of the Sainte Famille, 112;
+ plan of Fort Frontenac, 121.
+
+Fauvel-Cavelier, Mme., 463.
+
+Fénelon, Abbé, 16;
+ attempts to mediate between Frontenac and Perrot, 97;
+ preaches against Frontenac at Montreal, 98.
+
+Ferland,
+ throws much light on the life of Joliet, 58.
+
+Fire Nation, the, 44.
+
+Five Nations, the, 11.
+
+Florida, 483.
+
+Florida Indians, the,
+ lodges of, 442.
+
+Folles-Avoines, Nation des, 61.
+
+Forked River (Mississippi), the, 5.
+
+Fox River, the, 4, 43, 50, 62, 477.
+
+Foxes, the
+ at the Jesuit mission of St. Esprit, 40;
+ location of, 43;
+ Father Allouez among, 45;
+ incensed against the French, 45;
+ the Cross among, 45, 287.
+
+France,
+ takes possession of the West, 52;
+ receives on parchment a stupendous accession, 308.
+
+Francheville, Pierre, 58.
+
+Francis, St., 249.
+
+Franciscans, the, 133.
+
+Franquelin, Jean Baptiste Louis,
+ manuscript map made by, 169, 221,
+ 309, 316, 317, 347, 390, 481, 482, 483, 484, 485.
+
+Fremin, the Jesuit, 21.
+
+French, the,
+ Hurons the allies of, 4;
+ in western New York, 19-23;
+ the Iroquois felt the power of, 42;
+ the Foxes incensed against, 45;
+ the Jesuits seek to embroil the Iroquois with, 115;
+ seeking to secure a monopoly of the furs of the north and west, 219;
+ in Texas, 348;
+ reoccupy Fort St. Louis of the Illinois, 468.
+
+French River, 28, 462.
+
+Frontenac, Count,
+ La Salle addresses a memorial to, 32;
+ announces Joliet's discovery of the Mississippi to Colbert, 34;
+ speaks slightingly of Joliet, 34;
+ succeeds Courcelle as governor, 56, 57, 60, 67;
+ letter from Joliet to, 76;
+ favorably disposed to La Salle, 85;
+ comes to Canada a ruined man, 85;
+ schemes of, 86;
+ at Montreal, 87;
+ his journey to Lake Ontario, 88;
+ faculty for managing the Indians, 89;
+ reaches Lake Ontario, 89;
+ at Cataraqui, 90;
+ addresses the Indians, 91;
+ admirable dealing with the Indians, 92, 93;
+ his enterprise a complete success, 95;
+ confers an inestimable benefit on all Canada, 95;
+ his plan to command the Upper Lakes, 96;
+ quarrel with Perrot, 96;
+ arrests Perrot, 96;
+ has Montreal well in hand, 96;
+ the Abbé Fénelon attempts to mediate between Perrot and, 97;
+ the Abbé Fénelon preaches against, 98;
+ championed by La Salle, 99;
+ recommends La Salle to Colbert, 99;
+ expects to share in profits of La Salle's new post, 101;
+ hatred of the Jesuits, 102;
+ protects the Récollets, 109;
+ intrigues of the Jesuits, 118, 125, 201, 232, 235, 238, 274;
+ entertains Father Hennepin, 280, 292;
+ recalled to France, 318;
+ obligations of La Salle to, 434;
+ commendation of Tonty, 467, 479, 480, 481.
+
+Frontenac, Fort, 34;
+ granted to La Salle, 100;
+ rebuilt by La Salle, 101, 112;
+ La Salle at, 120;
+ plan of, 121;
+ not established for commercial gain alone, 122, 148, 203, 292;
+ La Barre takes possession of, 325;
+ restored to La Salle by the King, 351, 476.
+
+Frontenac (Ontario), Lake, 128, 476, 477, 479.
+
+Frontenac, Madame de, 167.
+
+"Frontenacie, La," 481.
+
+Fur-trade, the,
+ the Jesuits accused of taking part in, 109, 110;
+ the Jesuits seek to establish a monopoly in, 114.
+
+
+Gabriel, Father, 158, 159, 227, 237.
+
+Gaeta, 128.
+
+Galinée, Father, 17;
+ recounts the journey of La Salle and the Sulpitians, 19, 20, 26;
+ cruelty of the Senecas, 22;
+ the work of the Jesuits, 28;
+ makes the earliest map of the Upper Lakes, 28, 106, 140, 475.
+
+Galve, Viceroy, 469.
+
+Galveston Bay, 374, 376, 385.
+
+Garakontié, Chief, 91.
+
+Garnier, Julien, 59;
+ among the Senecas, 141.
+
+Gayen, 384.
+
+Geest, Catherine
+ mother of La Salle, 7;
+ La Salle's farewell to, 364.
+
+Geest, Nicolas, 7.
+
+Gendron, 139.
+
+Genesee, the Falls of the, 476.
+
+Genesee River, the, 140, 142, 279.
+
+Georgian Bay of Lake Huron, 27, 203.
+
+Giton,
+ La Salle borrows money from, 150.
+
+Gnacsitares, the, 486.
+
+Gould, Dr. B. A.,
+ on the "Great Comet of 1680," 213.
+
+Grandfontaine, Chevalier de, 56.
+
+Grand Gulf, 300.
+
+Grand River, 23, 25.
+
+Gravier, 244, 297;
+ the Arkansas nation, 300.
+
+Great Lakes, the, 4;
+ Joliet makes a map of the region of, 32;
+ early unpublished maps of, 475-485;
+ Champlain makes the first attempt to map out, 476.
+
+Great Manitoulin Island, the, 41.
+
+"Great Mountain," the Indian name for the governor of Canada, 156.
+
+Green Bay of Lake Michigan, the, 4, 31, 42, 43, 75;
+ La Salle at, 155; 236.
+
+Green Bay Mission, the,
+ Father Allouez sent to found, 43;
+ Marquette at, 62;
+ Father Hennepin and Du Lhut reach, 279.
+
+"Griffin," the,
+ building of, 144-148;
+ finished, 149;
+ voyage of, 151-153;
+ at St. Ignace of Michilimackinac, 154;
+ set sail for Niagara laden with furs, 156;
+ La Salle's forebodings concerning, 163;
+ loss of, 181, 322.
+
+Grollet, 445, 446, 448, 470, 471;
+ sent to Spain, 472.
+
+Guadalupe, the, 469.
+
+Gulliver, Captain, 486.
+
+
+Hagaren, King of the Acanibas, 487-489.
+
+Hamilton, town of, 23.
+
+Harrisse, Henry, 76, 481, 482.
+
+Haukiki (Marest) River, the, 167.
+
+Hennepin, Louis,
+ connection of La Salle with the Jesuits, 8;
+ at Fort Frontenac, 121;
+ meets La Salle on his return to Canada, 130;
+ receives permission to join La Salle, 131;
+ his journey to Fort Frontenac, 132;
+ sets out with La Motte for Niagara, 132;
+ portrait of, 133;
+ his past life, 133;
+ sails for Canada, 134;
+ relations with La Salle, 134, 135;
+ work among the Indians, 135;
+ the most impudent of liars, 136;
+ daring of, 137;
+ embarks on the journey, 137;
+ reaches the Niagara, 138;
+ account of the falls and river of Niagara, 139;
+ among the Senecas, 140, 141;
+ at the Niagara Portage, 145-147;
+ the launch of the "Griffin," 148, 149;
+ on board the "Griffin," 151;
+ St. Anthony of Padua the patron saint of La Salle's great
+ enterprise, 152;
+ the departure of the "Griffin" for Niagara, 157;
+ La Salle's encounter with the Outagamies, 161;
+ La Salle rejoined by Tonty, 163;
+ La Salle's forebodings concerning the "Griffin," 163;
+ population of the Illinois Valley, 169;
+ among the Illinois, 173, 174;
+ the story of Monso, 177;
+ La Salle's men desert him, 178;
+ at Fort Crèvecoeur, 181;
+ sent to the Mississippi, 185;
+ the journey from Fort Crèvecoeur, 201;
+ the mutineers at Fort Crèvecoeur, 218; 234;
+ sets out to explore the Illinois River, 242;
+ his claims to the discovery of the Mississippi, 243;
+ doubted veracity of, 244;
+ captured by the Sioux, 245;
+ proved an impostor, 245;
+ steals passages from Membré and Le Clerc, 247;
+ his journey northward, 249;
+ suspected of sorcery, 253;
+ plots against, 255;
+ a hard journey, 257;
+ among the Sioux, 259-282;
+ adopted as a son by the Sioux, 261;
+ sets out for the Wisconsin, 266;
+ notice of the Falls of St. Anthony, 267;
+ rejoins the Indians, 273;
+ meeting with Du Lhut, 273;
+ joins Du Lhut, 278;
+ reaches the Green Bay Mission, 279;
+ reaches Fort Frontenac, 280;
+ goes to Montreal, 280;
+ entertained by Frontenac, 280;
+ returns to Europe, 280;
+ dies in obscurity, 281;
+ Louis XIV. orders the arrest of, 282;
+ various editions of the travels of, 282;
+ finds fault with Tonty, 467, 479, 481;
+ rivals of, 485, 486.
+
+Hiens, the German, 411, 421, 425;
+ murders Moranget, Saget, and Nika, 426;
+ quarrel with Duhaut and Liotot, 446;
+ murders Duhaut, 448;
+ joins the Cenis on a war expedition, 450, 465;
+ fate of, 472.
+
+Hillaret Moïse, 147, 178, 187, 193, 217, 218.
+
+Hitt, Col. D. F., 317.
+
+Hohays, the, 261.
+
+Homannus,
+ map made by, 484.
+
+Hondo (Rio Frio), the, 469.
+
+Horse Shoe Fall, the, 139.
+
+Hôtel-Dieu at Montreal, the, 13, 98.
+
+Hudson's Bay,
+ Joliet's voyage to, 76;
+ Albanel's journey to, 109, 346, 484.
+
+Hudson's Strait, 480.
+
+Humber River, the, 138, 203.
+
+Hunaut, 187, 210, 287.
+
+Hundred Associates, Company of the, 57.
+
+Huron Indians, the,
+ quarrel with the Winnebagoes, 4;
+ allies of the French, 4;
+ at the Jesuit mission of St. Esprit, 40;
+ Marquette among, 40;
+ terrified by the Sioux, 41;
+ destroyed by the Iroquois, 219.
+
+Huron, Lake, 26, 27, 31;
+ the Jesuits on, 37, 41;
+ Saint-Lusson takes possession for France of, 52;
+ La Salle on, 152, 475, 476, 479.
+
+Huron Mission, the, 27.
+
+Huron River, the, 196.
+
+"Hyacinth, confection of," 159.
+
+
+Iberville, the founder of Louisiana, 455;
+ joined by Tonty, 467, 472, 473.
+
+Ignatius, Saint, 78.
+
+Illinois, Great Town of the, 170;
+ deserted, 191;
+ La Salle at, 205;
+ description of, 221;
+ Tonty in, 223;
+ abandoned to the Iroquois, 230;
+ site of, 239.
+
+Illinois Indians, the,
+ at the Jesuit mission of St. Esprit, 40;
+ location of, 40, 41, 60;
+ Joliet and Marquette among, 66, 77, 78, 154, 155, 161;
+ La Salle among, 171-173;
+ hospitality of, 173;
+ deep-rooted jealousy of the Osages, 174, 203;
+ war with the Iroquois, 210, 220;
+ the Miamis join the Iroquois against, 220;
+ rankling jealousy between the Miamis and, 220;
+ an aggregation of kindred tribes, 223;
+ characteristics of, 223;
+ Tonty intercedes for, 228;
+ treaty made with the Iroquois, 231;
+ attacked by the Iroquois, 235;
+ become allies of La Salle, 287, 307;
+ at "Starved Rock," 314;
+ join La Salle's colony, 315, 316;
+ very capricious and uncertain, 322, 477.
+
+Illinois, Lake of the (Lake Michigan), 42, 75, 155, 477, 479.
+
+Illinois River, the, 31, 33, 34;
+ discovered by La Salle, 35;
+ Joliet and Marquette on, 74, 132;
+ La Salle on, 168;
+ various names of, 16, 204;
+ ravaged granaries of, 213, 220;
+ Father Hennepin sets out to explore, 242, 245, 296;
+ La Salle's projected colony on the banks of, 313, 315, 316, 405, 406;
+ Joutel on, 457, 477, 478, 481, 484.
+
+Illinois, State of,
+ first civilized occupation of, 181.
+
+Illinois, Valley of the, population of, 169.
+
+Immaculate Conception, the, doctrine of,
+ a favorite tenet of the
+ Jesuits, 61.
+
+Immaculate Conception, Mission of the,
+ Marquette sets out to found, 77.
+
+Incarnation, Marie de l', 111.
+
+Indians, the,
+ Father Jogues and Raymbault preach among, 5;
+ ferocity of, 11;
+ manitous of, 26, 44, 68;
+ their game of la crosse, 50;
+ the tribes meet at Saut Ste. Marie to confer with
+ Saint-Lusson, 51-56;
+ reception to Joliet and Marquette, 63;
+ lodges of, 75;
+ reception to Frontenac, 90;
+ Frontenac's admirable dealing with, 92, 93;
+ Alphabetical list of tribes referred to:--
+ Abenakis,
+ Acanibas,
+ Agniers,
+ Akanseas,
+ Algonquins,
+ Alkansas,
+ Amikoués,
+ Andastes,
+ Arkansas,
+ Assiniboins,
+ Assonis,
+ Caddoes,
+ Cadodaquis,
+ Camanches,
+ Cenis,
+ Chaouanons,
+ Chickasaws,
+ Chikachas,
+ Coroas,
+ Creeks,
+ Crees,
+ Crows,
+ Dacotah,
+ Eries,
+ Fire Nation,
+ Five Nations,
+ Floridas,
+ Foxes,
+ Hohays,
+ Hurons,
+ Illinois,
+ Iroquois,
+ Issanti,
+ Issanyati,
+ Issati,
+ Kahokias,
+ Kanzas,
+ Kappas,
+ Kaskaskias,
+ Kickapoos,
+ Kilatica,
+ Kious,
+ Kiskakon Ottawas,
+ Knisteneaux,
+ Koroas,
+ Malhoumines,
+ Malouminek,
+ Mandans,
+ Maroas,
+ Mascoutins,
+ Meddewakantonwan,
+ Menomonies,
+ Miamis,
+ Mitchigamias,
+ Mohawks,
+ Mohegans,
+ Moingona,
+ Monsonis,
+ Motantees,
+ Nadouessioux,
+ Natchez,
+ Nation des Folles-Avoines,
+ Nation of the Prairie,
+ Neutrals,
+ Nipissings,
+ Ojibwas,
+ Omahas,
+ Oneidas,
+ Onondagas,
+ Osages,
+ Osotouoy,
+ Ottawas,
+ Ouabona,
+ Ouiatenons,
+ Oumalouminek,
+ Oumas,
+ Outagamies,
+ Pah-Utahs,
+ Pawnees,
+ Peanqhichia,
+ Peorias,
+ Pepikokia,
+ Piankishaws,
+ Pottawattamies,
+ Quapaws,
+ Quinipissas,
+ Sacs,
+ Sauteurs,
+ Sauthouis,
+ Senecas,
+ Shawanoes,
+ Sioux,
+ Sokokis,
+ Taensas,
+ Tamaroas,
+ Tangibao,
+ Terliquiquimechi,
+ Tetons,
+ Texas,
+ Tintonwans,
+ Tongengas,
+ Topingas,
+ Torimans,
+ Wapoos,
+ Weas,
+ Wild-rice,
+ Winnebagoes,
+ Yankton Sioux.
+
+Irondequoit Bay, 20.
+
+Iroquois Indians, the, 11;
+ alone remain, 37;
+ felt the power of the French, 42;
+ the "Beautiful River," 70;
+ Onondaga the political centre of, 87;
+ the Jesuits seek to embroil them with the French, 115;
+ ferocious character of, 207;
+ war with the Illinois, 210;
+ ferocious triumphs of, 219;
+ break into war, 219;
+ trade with the Dutch and the English, 219;
+ jealous of La Salle, 219;
+ joined by the Miamis against the Illinois, 220;
+ attack on the Illinois village, 225;
+ grant a truce to Tonty, 230;
+ take possession of the Illinois village, 230;
+ make a treaty with the Illinois, 231;
+ treachery of, 231;
+ Tonty departs from, 233;
+ attack on the dead, 234;
+ attack on the Illinois, 235, 320;
+ encouraged to fight by the Dutch and English traders, 324;
+ attack Fort St. Louis, 327.
+
+Iroquois War, the,
+ havoc and desolation of, 5, 219;
+ a war of commercial advantage, 219;
+ the French in, 460.
+
+Isle of Pines, the, 372.
+
+Issanti, the, 260.
+
+Issanyati, the, 260.
+
+Issati, the, 260.
+
+"Issatis," the, 481.
+
+
+Jacques, companion of Marquette, 78, 80.
+
+Jansenists, the, 110.
+
+Japan, 6, 14.
+
+Japanese, the, 487.
+
+Jesuitism,
+ no diminution in the vital force of, 103.
+
+Jesuits, the,
+ their thoughts dwell on the Mississippi, 6;
+ La Salle's connection with, 8;
+ La Salle parts with, 9;
+ influence exercised by, 16;
+ want no help from the Sulpitians, 27;
+ a change of spirit, 36, 37;
+ their best hopes in the North and West, 37;
+ on the Lakes, 37;
+ labor to explore the copper mines of Lake Superior, 38;
+ a mixture of fanaticism, 38;
+ claimed a monopoly of conversion, 38;
+ make a map of Lake Superior, 38;
+ the missionary stations, 46;
+ trading with the Indians, 47;
+ doctrine of the Immaculate Conception a favorite tenet of, 61;
+ greatly opposed to the establishment of forts and trading-posts
+ in the upper country, 88;
+ opposition to Frontenac and La Salle, 102;
+ Frontenac's hatred of, 102;
+ turn their eyes towards the Valley of the Mississippi, 103;
+ no longer supreme in Canada, 104;
+ La Salle their most dangerous rival for the control of the West, 104;
+ masters at Quebec, 108;
+ accused of selling brandy to the Indians, 109;
+ accused of carrying on a fur-trade, 109, 110;
+ comparison between the Récollets and Sulpitians and, 112;
+ seek to establish a monopoly in the fur-trade, 114;
+ intrigues against La Salle, 115;
+ seek to embroil the Iroquois with the French, 115;
+ exculpated by La Salle from the attempt to poison him, 116;
+ induce men to desert from La Salle, 118;
+ have a mission among the Mohawks, 118;
+ plan against La Salle, 459;
+ maps made by, 478.
+
+Jesus, Order of, 37.
+
+Jesus, Society of, see _Society of Jesus_.
+
+Jogues, Father Isaac,
+ preaches among the Indians, 5, 59.
+
+Joliet, Louis,
+ destined to hold a conspicuous place in history of
+ western discovery, 23;
+ early life of, 23;
+ sent to discover the copper mines of Lake Superior, 23, 58;
+ his failure, 23;
+ meeting with La Salle and the Sulpitians, 23;
+ passage through the Strait of Detroit, 27;
+ makes maps of the region of the Mississippi and the Great Lakes, 32;
+ claims the discovery of the Mississippi, 33;
+ Frontenac speaks slightingly of, 34;
+ at Saut Ste. Marie, 51;
+ sent by Talon to discover the Mississippi, 56;
+ early history of, 57;
+ characteristics of, 58;
+ Shea first to discover history of, 58;
+ Ferland, Faillon, and Margry throw much light on the life of, 58;
+ Marquette chosen to accompany him on his search for the
+ Mississippi, 59;
+ the departure, 60;
+ the Mississippi at last, 64;
+ on the Mississippi, 65;
+ meeting with the Illinois, 66;
+ at the mouth of the Missouri, 69;
+ on the lower Mississippi, 71;
+ among the Arkansas Indians, 72;
+ determines that the Mississippi discharges into the Gulf of
+ Mexico, 74;
+ resolves to return to Canada, 74;
+ serious accident to, 75;
+ letter to Frontenac, 76;
+ smaller map of his discoveries, 76;
+ marriage to Claire Bissot, 76;
+ journey to Hudson's Bay, 76;
+ the English hold out great inducements to, 76;
+ receives grants of land, 76;
+ engages in fisheries, 76;
+ makes a chart of the St. Lawrence, 77;
+ Sir William Phips makes a descent on the establishment of, 77;
+ explores the coast of Labrador, 77;
+ made royal pilot for the St. Lawrence by Frontenac, 77;
+ appointed hydrographer at Quebec, 77;
+ death of, 77;
+ said to be an impostor, 118;
+ refused permission to plant a trading station in the Valley of the
+ Mississippi, 126, 477;
+ maps made by, 479, 480, 481, 482.
+
+Joliet, town of, 193.
+
+"Joly," the vessel, 353, 366, 367, 372, 373, 374, 375, 377, 381,
+ 383, 385.
+
+Jolycoeur (Nicolas Perrot), 116.
+
+Joutel, Henri, 69, 314, 363, 367, 368, 372, 374, 375, 377, 379,
+ 380, 382, 388, 389, 392, 393, 395, 396, 397, 399, 400, 401, 402,
+ 403, 406, 407, 409, 410, 411, 416, 417, 418, 419, 420, 421, 422, 428;
+ sketches the portrait of La Salle, 430;
+ the assassination of La Salle, 432, 433;
+ danger of, 436; friendship of L'Archevêque for, 436;
+ doubt and anxiety, 437, 438;
+ among the Cenis Indians, 440-445;
+ plans to escape, 445-447;
+ the murder of Duhaut, 448, 449;
+ sets out for home, 450;
+ his party, 451;
+ among the Assonis, 451-453;
+ arrival at the Arkansas, 453;
+ friendly reception, 455;
+ descends the Arkansas, 456;
+ on the Illinois, 457;
+ at Fort St. Louis of the Illinois, 457;
+ visit to Father Allouez, 459;
+ reaches Montreal, 462;
+ embarks for France, 462;
+ character of, 462.
+
+
+Kahokias, the, 223.
+
+Kalm, 244.
+
+Kamalastigouia, 275.
+
+Kankakee,
+ the sources of, 167, 204, 288, 316.
+
+Kansa (Kanzas), the, 478.
+
+Kanzas, the, 478.
+
+Kappa band, the, of the Arkansas, 299.
+
+"Kaskaskia,"
+ Illinois village of, 74;
+ the mission at, 79.
+
+Kaskaskias, the, 223, 477.
+
+Kiakiki River, the, 167.
+
+Kickapoos, the,
+ location of 43;
+ join the Mascoutins and Miamis, 62;
+ murder Father Ribourde, 233.
+
+Kilatica, the,
+ join La Salle's colony, 316.
+
+King Philip's War, 285.
+
+Kingston, 87, 90.
+
+Kious (Sioux), the, 307.
+
+Kiskakon Ottawas, the, 81, 237.
+
+Knisteneaux, the,
+ at the Jesuit mission of St. Esprit, 40.
+
+Koroas, the, 308.
+
+
+La Barre, Le Febvre de, 182;
+ succeeds Frontenac as governor, 318;
+ weakness and avarice of, 318;
+ royal instructions to, 319;
+ letters from La Salle, 319-322;
+ defames La Salle to Seignelay, 322-324;
+ plots against La Salle, 325;
+ takes possession of Fort Frontenac and Fort St. Louis, 325-327;
+ ordered by the King to make restitution, 351, 482.
+
+Labrador, coasts of, 58;
+ explored by Joliet, 77.
+
+La Chapelle, 193;
+ takes false reports of La Salle to Fort Crèvecoeur, 217.
+
+La Chesnaye, 102, 326.
+
+La Chine,
+ the seigniory of La Salle at, 12;
+ La Salle lays the rude beginnings of a settlement at, 13;
+ La Salle and the Sulpitians set out from, 19;
+ origin of the name, 29, 88, 486.
+
+La Chine Rapids, the, 75.
+
+La Crosse, Indian game of, 50.
+
+La Divine River, the (Des Plaines River), 477, 481.
+
+La Forest, La Salle's lieutenant, 101, 143, 203, 204, 208, 215, 236,
+ 286, 287, 292, 326, 333, 351, 352, 467, 485.
+
+La Forge, 147, 218.
+
+La Harpe, 255.
+
+La Hontan, 145, 153;
+ loss of the "Griffin," 182, 275, 276, 485, 486.
+
+Lakes, Upper, 24, 27;
+ Galinée, makes the earliest map of, 28, 38;
+ Jesuit missions on, 39;
+ Marquette on, 59, 85;
+ Frontenac's plan to command, 96;
+ first vessel on, 145;
+ La Salle on, 151-163.
+
+Lalemant, 139.
+
+La Metairie, Jacques de, 308.
+
+La Motte, see _Lussière, La Motte de_.
+
+Lanquetot, see _Liotot_.
+
+Laon, 59.
+
+La Pointe, Jesuit mission of St. Esprit at, 40.
+
+La Potherie, 49;
+ reception of Saint-Lusson by the Miamis, 50;
+ Henri de Tonty's iron hand, 129;
+ loss of the "Griffin," 182;
+ the Iroquois attack on the Illinois, 235.
+
+L'Archevêque, 421, 425;
+ murders Moranget, Saget, and Nika, 426;
+ the assassination of La Salle, 429;
+ friendship for Joutel, 436;
+ danger of, 449, 470, 471;
+ sent to Spain, 472.
+
+La Sablonnière, Marquis de, 380, 388, 407, 409, 418.
+
+La Salle, Sieur de, birth of, 7;
+ origin of his name, 7;
+ connection with the Jesuits, 8;
+ characteristics of, 9;
+ parts with the Jesuits, 9;
+ sails for Canada, 10;
+ at Montreal, 10;
+ schemes of, 11;
+ his seigniory at La Chine, 12;
+ begins to study Indian languages, 14;
+ plans of discovery, 14, 15;
+ sells his seigniory, 16;
+ joins his expedition to that of the seminary priests, 17;
+ sets out from La Chine, 19;
+ journey of, 19, 20;
+ hospitality of the Senecas, 21;
+ fears for his safety, 22;
+ meeting with Joliet, 23;
+ _belles paroles_ of, 25;
+ parts with the Sulpitians, 25;
+ obscurity of his subsequent work, 28;
+ goes to Onondaga, 29;
+ deserted by his men, 30;
+ meeting with Perrot, 30;
+ reported movements of, 31;
+ Talon claims to have sent him to explore, 31;
+ affirms that he discovered the Ohio, 32;
+ discovery of the Mississippi, 33;
+ discovered the Illinois River, 35;
+ pays the expenses of his expeditions, 49;
+ in great need of money, 49;
+ borrows merchandise from the Seminary, 49;
+ contrasted with Marquette, 83;
+ called a visionary, 83;
+ projects of, 84;
+ Frontenac favorably disposed towards, 85;
+ faculty for managing the Indians, 89;
+ at Montreal, 97;
+ champions Frontenac, 99;
+ goes to France, 99; recommended to Colbert by Frontenac, 99;
+ petitions for a patent of nobility and a grant of Fort
+ Frontenac, 100;
+ his petition granted, 100;
+ returns to Canada, 101;
+ oppressed by the merchants of Canada, 101;
+ Le Ber becomes the bitter enemy of, 101;
+ aims at the control of the valleys of the Ohio and the
+ Mississippi, 102;
+ opposed by the Jesuits, 102;
+ the most dangerous rival of the Jesuits for the control of
+ the West, 104;
+ the Prince de Conti the patron of, 106;
+ the Abbé Renaudot's memoir of, 106, 107;
+ account of, 107;
+ not well inclined towards the Récollets, 108;
+ plots against, 113;
+ caused no little annoyance by his brother, 114;
+ Jesuit intrigues against, 115;
+ attempt to poison, 116;
+ exculpates the Jesuits, 116;
+ letter to the Prince de Conti, 118;
+ the Jesuits induce men to desert from, 118;
+ defamed to Colbert, 119;
+ at Fort Frontenac, 120;
+ sails again for France, 122;
+ his memorial laid before Colbert, 122;
+ urges the planting of colonies in the West, 123;
+ receives a patent from Louis XIV., 124;
+ forbidden to trade with the Ottawas, 125;
+ given the monopoly of buffalo-hides, 126;
+ makes plans to carry out his designs, 126;
+ assistance received from his friends, 127;
+ invaluable aid received from Henri de Tonty, 127;
+ joined by La Motte de Lussière, 129;
+ sails for Canada, 129;
+ makes a league with the Canadian merchants, 129;
+ met by Father Hennepin on his return to Canada, 130;
+ joined by Father Hennepin, 131;
+ relations with Father Hennepin, 134, 135;
+ sets out to join La Motte, 141;
+ almost wrecked, 142;
+ treachery of his pilot, 142;
+ pacifies the Senecas, 142;
+ delayed by jealousies, 143;
+ returns to Fort Frontenac, 143;
+ unfortunate in the choice of subordinates, 143;
+ builds a vessel above the Niagara cataract, 144;
+ jealousy and discontent, 147;
+ lays foundation for blockhouses at Niagara, 148;
+ the launch of the "Griffin," 149;
+ his property attached by his creditors, 150;
+ on Lake Huron, 152;
+ commends his great enterprise to St. Anthony of Padua, 152;
+ at St. Ignace of Michilimackinac, 153;
+ rivals and enemies, 154;
+ on Lake Michigan, 155;
+ at Green Bay, 155;
+ finds the Pottawattamies friendly, 155;
+ sends the "Griffin" back to Niagara laden with furs, 156;
+ trades with the Ottawas, 156;
+ hardships, 158;
+ encounter with the Outagamies, 160, 161;
+ rejoined by Tonty, 162;
+ forebodings concerning the "Griffin," 163;
+ on the St. Joseph, 164;
+ lost in the forest, 165;
+ on the Illinois, 166;
+ Duplessis attempts to murder, 166;
+ the Illinois town, 169, 170;
+ hunger relieved, 171;
+ Illinois hospitality, 173;
+ still followed by the intrigues of his enemies, 175;
+ harangues the Indians, 177;
+ deserted by his men, 178;
+ another attempt to poison, 178;
+ builds Fort Crèvecoeur, 180;
+ loss of the "Griffin," 181;
+ anxieties of, 183;
+ a happy artifice, 184;
+ builds another vessel, 185;
+ sends Hennepin to the Mississippi, 185;
+ parting with Tonty, 188;
+ hardihood of, 189-201;
+ his winter journey to Fort Frontenac, 189;
+ the deserted town of the Illinois, 191;
+ meeting with Chief Chassagoac, 192;
+ "Starved Rock," 192;
+ Lake Michigan, 193;
+ the wilderness, 193, 194;
+ Indian alarms, 195;
+ reaches Niagara, 197;
+ man and nature in arms against, 198;
+ mutineers at Fort Crèvecoeur, 199;
+ chastisement of the mutineers, 201;
+ strength in the face of adversity, 202;
+ his best hope in Tonty, 202;
+ sets out to succor Tonty, 203;
+ kills buffalo, 205;
+ a night of horror, 207;
+ fears for Tonty, 209;
+ finds the ruins of Fort Crèvecoeur, 211;
+ beholds the Mississippi, 212;
+ beholds the "Great Comet of 1680," 213;
+ returns to Fort Miami, 215;
+ jealousy of the Iroquois of, 219, 238;
+ route of, 276;
+ Margry brings to light the letters of, 281;
+ begins anew, 283;
+ plans for a defensive league, 284;
+ Indian friends, 285;
+ hears good news of Tonty, 287;
+ Illinois allies, 287;
+ calls the Indians to a grand council, 289;
+ his power of oratory, 289;
+ his harangue, 289;
+ the reply of the chiefs, 291;
+ finds Tonty, 292;
+ parts with a portion of his monopolies, 293;
+ at Toronto, 293;
+ reaches Lake Huron, 294;
+ at Fort Miami, 294;
+ on the Mississippi, 297;
+ among the Arkansas Indians, 299;
+ takes formal possession of the Arkansas country, 300;
+ visited by the chief of the Taensas, 302;
+ visits the Coroas, 305;
+ hostility, 305;
+ the mouth of the Mississippi, 306;
+ takes possession of the Great West for France, 306;
+ bestows the name of "Louisiana" on the new domain, 309;
+ attacked by the Quinipissas, 310;
+ revisits the Coroas, 310;
+ seized by a dangerous illness, 310;
+ rejoins Tonty at Michilimackinac, 311;
+ his projected colony on the banks of the Illinois, 313;
+ intrenches himself at "Starved Rock," 313;
+ gathers his Indian allies at Fort St. Louis, 315;
+ his colony on the Illinois, 316;
+ success of his colony, 318;
+ letters to La Barre, 319-322;
+ defamed by La Barre to Seignelay, 322-324;
+ La Barre plots against, 325;
+ La Barre takes possession of Fort Frontenac and Fort
+ St. Louis, 325-327;
+ sails for France, 327;
+ painted by himself, 328-342;
+ difficulty of knowing him, 328;
+ his detractors, 329;
+ his letters, 329-331;
+ vexations of his position, 331;
+ his unfitness for trade, 332;
+ risks of correspondence, 332;
+ his reported marriage, 334;
+ alleged ostentation, 335;
+ motives of actions, 335;
+ charges of harshness, 336;
+ intrigues against him, 337;
+ unpopular manners, 337, 338;
+ a strange confession, 339;
+ his strength and his weakness, 340, 341;
+ contrasts of his character, 341, 342;
+ at court, 343;
+ received by the King, 344;
+ new proposals of, 345-347;
+ small knowledge of Mexican geography, 348;
+ plans of, 349;
+ his petitions granted, 350;
+ Forts Frontenac and St. Louis restored by the King to, 351;
+ preparations for his new enterprise, 353;
+ divides his command with Beaujeu, 353;
+ lack of harmony between Beaujeu and, 354-361;
+ indiscretion of, 361;
+ overwrought brain of, 362;
+ farewell to his mother, 364;
+ sails from Rochelle, 366;
+ disputes with Beaujeu, 366;
+ the voyage, 368;
+ his illness, 368;
+ Beaujeu's complaints of, 370;
+ resumes his journey, 372;
+ enters the Gulf of Mexico, 373;
+ waiting for Beaujeu, 374;
+ coasts the shores of Texas, 374;
+ meeting with Beaujeu, 375;
+ perplexity of, 375-377;
+ lands in Texas, 379;
+ attacked by the Indians, 380;
+ wreck of the "Aimable," 381;
+ forlorn position of, 383;
+ Indian neighbors, 384;
+ Beaujeu makes friendly advances to, 385;
+ departure of Beaujeu, 387;
+ at Matagorda Bay, 391;
+ misery and dejection, 393;
+ the new Fort St. Louis, 394;
+ explorations of, 395;
+ adventures of, 402;
+ again falls ill, 404;
+ departure for Canada, 405;
+ wreck of the "Belle," 407;
+ Maxime Le Clerc makes charges against, 410;
+ Duhaut plots against, 410;
+ return to Fort St. Louis, 411;
+ account of his adventures, 411-413;
+ among the Cenis Indians, 413;
+ attacked with hernia, 417;
+ Twelfth Night at Fort St. Louis, 417;
+ his last farewell, 418;
+ followers of, 420;
+ prairie travelling, 423;
+ Liotot swears vengeance against, 424;
+ the murder of Moranget, Saget, and Nika, 426;
+ his premonition of disaster, 428;
+ murdered by Duhaut, 429;
+ character of, 430;
+ his enthusiasm compared with that of Champlain, 431;
+ his defects, 431;
+ America owes him an enduring memory, 432;
+ the marvels of his patient fortitude, 432;
+ evidences of his assassination, 432;
+ undeniable rigor of his command, 433;
+ locality of his assassination, 434;
+ his debts, 434;
+ Tonty's plan to assist, 453-455;
+ fear of Father Allouez for, 459;
+ Jesuit plans against, 459, 477, 479, 480, 481, 482, 483, 484,
+ 485, 486.
+
+La Salle, village of, 146, 167.
+
+La Taupine (Pierre Moreau), 78.
+
+La Tortue, 367.
+
+Launay, De, 453, 455.
+
+Laurent, 199, 218.
+
+Lavaca River, the, 392, 395, 396.
+
+La Vache River, the, 392.
+
+Laval-Montmorency, François Xavier de,
+ first bishop of Quebec, 110;
+ accused of harshness and intolerance, 110;
+ encourages the establishment of the association of
+ the Sainte Famille, 111.
+
+La Violette, 187.
+
+La Voisin,
+ burned alive at Paris, 179.
+
+Le Baillif, M., 34.
+
+Le Ber, Jacques, 97;
+ becomes La Salle's bitter enemy, 101, 326.
+
+Leblanc, 193;
+ takes false reports of La Salle to Fort Crèvecoeur, 217, 218.
+
+Le Clerc, Father Chrétien, 169, 175, 192, 198, 217, 234, 238;
+ his account of the Récollet missions among the Indians, 246;
+ Hennepin steals passages from, 247;
+ character of Du Lhut, 276;
+ energy of La Salle, 292, 296;
+ Louis XIV. becomes the sovereign of the Great West, 308;
+ misery and dejection at Matagorda Bay, 393, 403, 406, 413, 414,
+ 415, 416, 417.
+
+Le Clerc, Maxime,
+ joins La Salle's new enterprise, 353;
+ in Texas, 400;
+ adventure with a boar, 410;
+ makes charges against La Salle, 410, 418.
+
+Le Fèvre, Father, 131.
+
+Le Gros, Simon, 388, 394, 398.
+
+Le Meilleur, 218.
+
+Le Moyne, 102.
+
+Lenox, Mr.,
+ the Journal of Marquette, 75;
+ death of Marquette, 81, 169.
+
+Leon, Alonzo de, 469, 471.
+
+Le Petit,
+ customs of the Natchez, 304.
+
+L'Espérance, 216, 218, 223.
+
+Le Sueur, map made by, 225, 485.
+
+Le Tardieu, Charles, 99.
+
+Lewiston, mountain ridge of, 138, 143;
+ rapids at, 144.
+
+Liotot,
+ La Salle's surgeon, 420;
+ swears vengeance against La Salle, 424, 425;
+ murders Moranget, Saget, and Nika, 426;
+ the assassination of La Salle, 429, 430;
+ resolves to return to Fort St. Louis, 446;
+ quarrels with Hiens, 446;
+ murder of, 449.
+
+Long Point, 25;
+ the Sulpitians spend the winter at, 25.
+
+"Long River," the, 485.
+
+Long Saut, the, 89.
+
+Louis XIV.
+ becomes the sovereign of the Great West, 308;
+ misery and dejection at Matagorda Bay, 393, 403, 406, 413, 414, 415,
+ 416, 417.
+
+Louis XIV., of France, 26, 52, 115;
+ grants a patent to La Salle, 124;
+ orders the arrest of Hennepin, 282;
+ proclaimed by La Salle the sovereign of the Great West, 306;
+ receives La Salle, 344;
+ irritated against the Spaniards, 344;
+ grants La Salle's petitions, 350;
+ abandons the colonists, 463;
+ Cavelier's memorial to, 463.
+
+Louisiana, country of, 307;
+ name bestowed by La Salle, 309;
+ vast extent of, 309;
+ boundaries of, 309;
+ Iberville the founder of, 455, 483, 484, 485, 489.
+
+Louisville, 29, 32.
+
+Louvigny, Sieur de, 274, 349.
+
+"Lover's leap," the, 271.
+
+Loyola, Disciples of,
+ losing ground in Canada, 104.
+
+Lussière, La Motte de,
+ joins La Salle, 129, 132;
+ embarks on the journey, 137;
+ reaches the Niagara, 138;
+ begins to build fortifications, 140;
+ jealousy of the Senecas, 140;
+ seeks to conciliate the Senecas, 140, 141;
+ fidelity to La Salle doubtful, 143.
+
+
+Machaut-Rougemont, 365.
+
+Mackinaw, La Salle at, 325.
+
+Mackinaw, Island of, 153.
+
+Macopins, Rivière des (Illinois River), 167, 483.
+
+Madeira, 366.
+
+Maha (Omahas), the, 478.
+
+"Maiden's Rock," the, 271.
+
+"Malheurs, La Rivière des," 402.
+
+Malhoumines, the, 61.
+
+Malouminek, the, 61.
+
+Manabozho, the Algonquin deity, 267.
+
+Mance, Mlle., 112.
+
+Mandans, the,
+ winter lodges of, 442.
+
+Manitoulin Island,
+ Mission of, 41;
+ assigned to André, 41.
+
+Manitoulin Islands,
+ Saint-Lusson winters at, 50;
+ Saint-Lusson takes possession for France of, 52, 153, 203.
+
+Manitoulins, the, 27.
+
+Manitoumie (Mississippi Valley), 485.
+
+Manitous, 26, 44, 68.
+
+Maps,
+ Champlain's map (the first) of the Great Lakes, 476;
+ Coronelli's map, 221, 484;
+ manuscript map of Franquelin, 169, 221, 316, 317, 347, 390, 481,
+ 482, 483, 484, 485;
+ map of Galinée, 475;
+ map of Lake Superior, 476;
+ map of the Great Lakes, 476;
+ map of Marquette, 477;
+ maps of the Jesuits, 478;
+ small maps of Joliet, 479, 480;
+ Raudin's map, 481;
+ rude map of Father Raffeix, 481;
+ Franquelin's map of Louisiana, 482;
+ the great map of Franquelin, 482;
+ map of Le Sueur, 481, 485;
+ map of Homannus, 484.
+
+Margry,
+ birth of La Salle, 7;
+ La Salle's connection with the Jesuits, 8;
+ La Salle sells his seigniory, 16;
+ La Salle's claims to the discovery of the Mississippi, 34, 35;
+ throws much light on the life of Joliet, 58, 77;
+ La Salle's marriage prevented by his brother, 114;
+ La Salle at Fort Frontenac, 121;
+ assistance given to La Salle, 127;
+ Henri de Tonty, 128, 130, 132;
+ La Motte at Niagara, 140;
+ La Salle pacifies the Senecas, 142;
+ La Salle at Niagara, 148;
+ La Salle attached by his creditors, 150;
+ the names of the Illinois, 167;
+ intrigues against La Salle, 175;
+ brings to light the letters of La Salle, 281, 296, 342;
+ letters of Beaujeu to Seignelay and to Cabart de Villermont, 365;
+ La Salle's disputes with Beaujeu, 366;
+ illness of La Salle, 368;
+ La Salle resumes his voyage, 372;
+ La Salle lands in Texas, 379;
+ Beaujeu makes friendly advances to La Salle, 386, 387;
+ misery and dejection at Matagorda Bay, 393;
+ life at Fort St. Louis, 400;
+ the murder of Duhaut and Liotot, 449;
+ Allouez's fear of La Salle, 459.
+
+Marle, Sieur de, 421;
+ murders Moranget, 427;
+ sets out for home, 451;
+ drowned, 453.
+
+Maroas, the, 477.
+
+Marquette, Jacques, the Jesuit,
+ at Ste. Marie du Saut, 27;
+ voyage of, 32;
+ discovery of the Mississippi, 33;
+ among the Hurons and the Ottawas, 40;
+ at the Jesuit mission of St. Esprit, 40;
+ the mission of Michilimackinac assigned to, 41, 51;
+ chosen to accompany Joliet in his search for the Mississippi, 59;
+ early life of, 59;
+ on the Upper Lakes, 59;
+ great talents as a linguist, 59;
+ traits of character, 59;
+ journal of his voyage to the Mississippi, 60;
+ especially devoted to the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception, 61;
+ at the Green Bay Mission, 62;
+ among the Mascoutins and Miamis, 62;
+ on the Wisconsin River, 63;
+ the Mississippi at last, 64; on the Mississippi, 65;
+ map drawn by, 65;
+ meeting with the Illinois, 66;
+ affrighted by the Indian manitous, 68;
+ at the mouth of the Missouri, 69;
+ on the lower Mississippi, 71;
+ among the Arkansas Indians, 72;
+ determines that the Mississippi discharges into the
+ Gulf of Mexico, 74;
+ resolves to return to Canada, 74;
+ illness of, 74;
+ remains at Green Bay, 75;
+ journal of, 75;
+ true map of, 75;
+ sets out to found the mission of the Immaculate Conception, 77;
+ gives the name of "Immaculate Conception" to the Mississippi, 77;
+ on the Chicago River, 78;
+ return of his illness, 78;
+ founds the mission at the village "Kaskaskia," 79;
+ peaceful death of, 80;
+ burial of, 81;
+ his bones removed to St. Ignace of Michilimackinac, 81;
+ miracle at the burial of, 81;
+ tradition of the death of, 82;
+ contrasted with La Salle, 83; 169, 223;
+ route of, 276;
+ pictured rock of, 457;
+ maps made by, 477, 478, 480, 481.
+
+Marshall, O. H., 140, 146.
+
+Martin, 75; death of Marquette, 81.
+
+Martin, Father Felix,
+ connection of La Salle with the Jesuits, 8.
+
+Martinique, 385, 386, 387.
+
+Mascoutins, the,
+ location of, 43;
+ Fathers Allouez and Dablon among, 44;
+ joined by the Kickapoos, 62;
+ visited by Marquette, 62;
+ La Salle falls in with, 195.
+
+Matagorda Bay, 376, 379, 383, 391, 471.
+ See also _St. Louis, Bay of._
+
+Matagorda Island, 375, 379.
+
+Mather, Increase, 213.
+
+Mazarin, Cardinal, 129.
+
+Meddewakantonwan, the, 260.
+
+Medrano, Sebastian Fernandez de, 244.
+
+Membré, Father Zenobe, 150, 155, 169, 185, 191, 192, 198, 201, 204, 216;
+ the mutineers at Fort Crèvecoeur, 217, 218;
+ intrigues of La Salle's enemies, 220, 223, 224;
+ the Iroquois attack on the Illinois village, 225, 227, 230, 231, 233;
+ the Iroquois attack on the dead, 234, 238;
+ his journal on his descent of the Mississippi with La Salle, 246;
+ Hennepin steals passages from, 247;
+ meeting with La Salle, 292;
+ sets out from Fort Miami, 296;
+ among the Arkansas Indians, 299;
+ visits the Taensas, 301;
+ attends La Salle during his illness, 311;
+ joins La Salle's new enterprise, 353;
+ on the "Joly," 372;
+ in Texas, 388;
+ adventure with a buffalo, 409, 417, 418;
+ fate of, 470.
+
+Ménard, the Jesuit,
+ attempts to plant a mission on southern shore of Lake Superior, 6.
+
+Menomonie River, the, 51.
+
+Menomonies, the,
+ at the Jesuit mission of St. Esprit, 40;
+ location of, 42;
+ at Saut Ste. Marie, 51;
+ village of, 61.
+
+"Mer Douce des Hurons" (Lake Huron), 476.
+
+"Mer du Nord," the, 480.
+
+"Messasipi" (Mississippi River), the, 480.
+
+Messier, 199, 218.
+
+"Messipi" River, the, 6.
+
+Meules, De, the Intendant of Canada, 319, 351.
+
+Mexico, 5, 6, 32, 117, 125, 126, 129, 346, 348;
+ Spaniards in, 349; 464, 480.
+
+Mexico, Gulf of, 31, 32, 38, 48, 63, 70, 74, 84, 245, 306, 309, 311,
+ 312, 344, 345, 358, 371, 373, 394;
+ claimed by Spain, 468, 471, 477, 478, 479, 481, 482, 483.
+
+Mexican mines, the, 349.
+
+Miami, Fort, 162, 163; La Salle
+ returns to, 215, 283, 284, 286, 288, 292, 294, 296, 311.
+
+Miami River, the, 32.
+
+Miamis, the,
+ location of, 43, 44;
+ Fathers Allouez and Dablon among, 44;
+ receive Saint-Lusson, 50;
+ authority and state of the chief of, 50;
+ joined by the Kickapoos, 62;
+ visited by Marquette, 62;
+ join the Iroquois against the Illinois, 220;
+ rankling jealousy between the Illinois and, 220, 223, 251, 286;
+ village of, 288;
+ called by La Salle to a grand council, 289;
+ at Buffalo Rock, 314;
+ join La Salle's colony, 316;
+ afraid of the Iroquois, 320.
+
+Miamis, Le Fort des (Buffalo Rock), 314.
+
+Miamis River (St. Joseph), 162.
+
+Michigan,
+ shores of, 31;
+ forest wastes of, 153;
+ peninsula of, 475, 476, 483, 484.
+
+Michigan, Lake, 4, 31;
+ the Jesuits on, 37;
+ the name of, 42, 61, 75, 77, 132;
+ La Salle on, 155, 162, 193, 236, 309, 475, 477, 479.
+
+Michilimackinac,
+ mission of, 41;
+ assigned to Marquette, 41, 279, 311.
+
+Michilimackinac, Straits of, 31, 41, 42, 59, 61, 80, 110, 197, 203,
+ 236, 288, 292.
+
+Migeon, 150.
+
+Mignan, islands of,
+ granted to Joliet, 76.
+
+Mille Lac, 257, 265, 277.
+
+Milot, Jean, 16.
+
+Milwaukee, 159.
+
+Minet, La Salle's engineer, 373, 378, 379, 383, 387, 390.
+
+Minneapolis, city of, 267.
+
+Minong, Isle, 38.
+
+"Miskous" (Wisconsin), the, 480.
+
+Missions, early,
+ decline in the religious exaltation of, 103.
+
+Mississaquenk, 54.
+
+Mississippi River, the,
+ discovered by the Spaniards, 3;
+ De Soto buried in, 3;
+ Jean Nicollet reaches, 3;
+ Colonel Wood reaches, 5;
+ Captain Bolton reaches, 5;
+ Radisson and Des Groseilliers reach, 5;
+ the thoughts of the Jesuits dwell on, 6;
+ speculations concerning, 6; 30, 31;
+ Joliet makes a map of the region of, 32; 45, 46;
+ Talon resolves to find, 56;
+ Joliet selected to find, 56;
+ Marquette chosen to accompany Joliet, 59;
+ the discovery by Joliet and Marquette, 64;
+ its outlet into the Gulf of Mexico determined by Joliet and
+ Marquette, 74;
+ Marquette gives the name of "Immaculate Conception" to, 77;
+ La Salle's plans to control, 84;
+ Hennepin sent to, 185;
+ La Salle beholds, 212;
+ claims of Hennepin to the discovery of, 243;
+ Membré's journal on his descent of, 246;
+ La Salle on, 297, 307, 310, 311, 312, 345, 346, 352, 371, 373,
+ 374, 376, 389, 390, 391, 403, 404, 405, 457, 459, 466;
+ early unpublished maps of, 475-486.
+
+Mississippi, Valley of the,
+ La Salle aims at the control of, 102;
+ the Jesuits turn their eyes towards, 103; 479;
+ various names given to, 485.
+
+Missouri River, the, 6;
+ Joliet and Marquette at the mouth of, 69, 297, 457, 477, 478, 479,
+ 483, 489.
+
+Missouris, the, 279, 320.
+
+"Mitchigamea," village of, 72.
+
+Mitchigamias, the, 308.
+
+"Mitchiganong, Lac" (Lake Michigan), 477.
+
+Mobile Bay, 129, 385, 386, 387, 389, 481, 482, 483.
+
+Mobile, city of, 309, 467.
+
+Mohawk River, the, 483.
+
+Mohawks, the, 91;
+ Bruyas among, 115;
+ Jesuit mission among, 118;
+ Father Hennepin among, 135, 136, 483.
+
+Mohegan Indians, the, 285, 295, 486.
+
+Moingona, the, 223.
+
+Moingouena (Peoria), 65.
+
+Monso, the Mascoutin chief,
+ plots against La Salle, 174, 177, 192.
+
+Monsonis, the, at Saut Ste. Marie, 51.
+
+Montagnais, the, 59.
+
+Montezuma, 487.
+
+Montreal, La Salle at, 10;
+ the most dangerous place in Canada, 10;
+ detailed plan of, 13;
+ Frontenac at, 87;
+ Frontenac has it well in hand, 96;
+ Joutel and Cavelier reach, 462, 475.
+
+Montreal, Historical Society of, 17.
+
+Moranget, La Salle's nephew, 379, 384, 385, 405, 412, 415, 420, 424;
+ quarrel with Duhaut, 425;
+ murder of, 426, 433.
+
+Moreau, Pierre, 78.
+
+Morel, M., 360.
+
+Morice, Marguerite, 7.
+
+Motantees (?), the, 307.
+
+Moyse, Maître, 147, 217.
+
+Mozeemlek, the, 486.
+
+Mustang Island, 375.
+
+
+Nadouessious (Sioux), the, 307.
+
+Nadouessioux, the country of, 307.
+
+Natchez, the,
+ village of, 303;
+ differ from other Indians, 304;
+ customs of, 304, 308.
+
+Natchez, city of, 304.
+
+Neches River, the, 415, 470.
+
+Neenah (Fox) River, the, 44.
+
+Neutrals, the,
+ exterminated by the Iroquois, 219.
+
+New Biscay, province of, 346, 348, 352, 383, 403.
+
+New England, 5, 346.
+
+New England Indians, the, 285.
+
+New France, 483, 484, 485.
+
+New Leon, province of, 468.
+
+New Mexico, 5, 350;
+ Spanish colonists of, 414.
+
+New Orleans, 484.
+
+New York, the French in western, 19-23, 288, 484.
+
+Niagara, name of, 139;
+ the key to the four great lakes above, 140, 197, 198, 279.
+
+Niagara Falls, 23;
+ Father Hennepin's account of, 139;
+ Hennepin's exaggerations respecting, 248, 476.
+
+Niagara, Fort, 129, 138, 148.
+
+Niagara Portage, the, 144, 145.
+
+Niagara River, the, 23, 96;
+ Father Hennepin's account of, 139, 475.
+
+Nicanopé, 175, 177, 178, 192.
+
+Nicollet, Jean,
+ reaches the Mississippi, 3;
+ among the Indians, 3;
+ sent to make peace between the Winnebagoes and the Hurons, 4;
+ descends the Wisconsin, 5.
+
+Nika, La Salle's favorite Shawanoe hunter, 412, 421, 425;
+ murder of, 426.
+
+Nipissing, Lake, 28.
+
+Nipissings, the,
+ Jean Nicollet among, 3;
+ Dollier de Casson among, 16;
+ André makes a missionary tour among, 41;
+ at Saut Ste. Marie, 51.
+
+Noiseux, M., Grand Vicar of Quebec, 82.
+
+North Sea, the, 38.
+
+Nueces, the upper, 469.
+
+
+Oanktayhee, principal deity of the Sioux, 267.
+
+O'Callaghan, Dr., 139.
+
+Ohio River, the, 15, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 29, 32;
+ La Salle affirms that he discovered, 32;
+ the "Beautiful River," 70, 297, 307, 457, 477, 478, 479, 480,
+ 483, 484.
+
+Ohio, Valley of the,
+ La Salle aims at the control of, 102.
+
+Ojibwas, the, at Ste. Marie du Saut, 39.
+
+Olighin (Alleghany) River, the, 307.
+
+"Olighin" (Alleghany) River, the, 484.
+
+Omahas, the, 478.
+
+Omawha, Chief, 175.
+
+Oneida Indians, the, 18, 91, 135.
+
+Ongiara (Niagara), 139.
+
+Onguiaahra (Niagara), 139.
+
+Onis, Luis de, 373.
+
+Onondaga,
+ La Salle goes to, 29;
+ the political centre of the Iroquois, 87;
+ Hennepin reaches, 135.
+
+Onondaga Indians, the, 91;
+ Bruyas among, 115.
+
+"Onontio," the governor of Canada, 54.
+
+Ontario, Lake, 16;
+ discovered, 20, 23, 58, 85, 87;
+ Frontenac reaches, 89, 96, 99, 128, 135, 147, 200, 279, 475, 476, 479.
+
+Ontonagan River, the, 39.
+
+Orange, settlement of (Albany), 136.
+
+Oris, 384.
+
+Osages, the, 174;
+ deep-rooted jealousy of the Illinois for, 174, 184, 477.
+
+"Osages, Rivière des" (Missouri), 70.
+
+Osotouoy, the, 300.
+
+Otinawatawa, 22, 23.
+
+Ottawa, town of, 75, 169, 193.
+
+Ottawa River, the, 27, 30, 462, 476.
+
+Ottawas, the, 27;
+ Marquette among, 40;
+ terrified by the Sioux, 41;
+ La Salle forbidden to trade with, 125;
+ La Salle trades with, 156, 182.
+
+"Ouabache" (Wabash), River, the, 70, 297.
+
+Ouabona, the,
+ join La Salle's colony, 316.
+
+"Ouabouskiaou" (Ohio) River, the, 70, 477.
+
+"Ouaboustikou" (Ohio), the, 480.
+
+Ouasicoudé, principal chief of the Sioux, 264;
+ friendship for Hennepin, 266, 277.
+
+Ouchage (Osages), the, 477.
+
+Ouiatnoens (Weas), the,
+ join La Salle's colony, 316.
+
+Oumalouminek, the, 61.
+
+Oumas, the, 305.
+
+Oumessourit (Missouris), the, 478.
+
+"Oumessourits, Rivière des" (Missouri), 70.
+
+Outagamies (Foxes), the,
+ location of, 43.
+
+Outagamies, the,
+ encounter with La Salle, 160, 161, 287.
+
+Outrelaise, Mademoiselle d', 167.
+
+Outrelaise, the Rivière del', 167.
+
+
+Pacific coast, the, 480.
+
+Pacific Ocean, 84.
+
+Paget, 366.
+
+Pahoutet (Pah-Utahs?), the, 478.
+
+Pah-Utahs (?), the, 478.
+
+Palluau, Count of, see _Frontenac, Count_.
+
+Palms, the River of, 307.
+
+Paniassa (Pawnees), the, 478.
+
+Panuco, Spanish town of, 350.
+
+Paraguay,
+ the old and the new, 102, 103, 104, 117.
+
+Parassy, M. de, 356.
+
+Patron, 274.
+
+Paul, Dr. John, 317.
+
+Pawnees, the, 478.
+
+Peanqhichia (Piankishaw), the,
+ join La Salle's colony, 316.
+
+"Pekitanouï" River (Missouri), the, 69, 477.
+
+Pelée, Point, 26, 197.
+
+Pelican Island, 379.
+
+Peloquin, 150.
+
+Pen, Sieur,
+ obligations of La Salle to, 434.
+
+Peñalossa, Count, 350.
+
+Penicaut,
+ customs of the Natchez, 304.
+
+Pennsylvania, State of, 346.
+
+Penobscot River, the, 483.
+
+Pensacola, 472.
+
+Peoria, city of, 34, 171.
+
+Peoria Indians, the,
+ villages of, 171, 223, 477.
+
+Peoria Lake, 171, 190, 211, 296.
+
+Peouaria (Peoria), 65.
+
+Pepikokia, the,
+ join La Salle's colony, 316.
+
+Pepin, 276.
+
+Pepin Lake, 256, 271, 272.
+
+Péré, 58.
+
+Perrot, the curé, 98.
+
+Pérrot, Nicolas,
+ meeting with La Salle, 30;
+ accompanies Saint-Lusson in search of copper mines on Lake
+ Superior, 49;
+ conspicuous among Canadian voyageurs, 49;
+ characteristics of, 50;
+ marvellous account of the authority and state of the Miami chief, 50;
+ at Saut Ste. Marie, 51;
+ local governor of Montreal, 87;
+ quarrel with Frontenac, 96;
+ arrested by Frontenac, 96;
+ the Abbé Fénelon attempts to mediate between Frontenac and, 97;
+ attempts to poison La Salle, 116.
+
+Peru, 350.
+
+Petit Goave, 367, 372.
+
+Philip, King, 288.
+
+Philip II. of Spain, 373.
+
+Phips, Sir William,
+ makes a descent on Joliet's establishment, 77.
+
+Piankishaws, the, 223;
+ join La Salle's colony, 316.
+
+"Picard, Le" (Du Gay), 186.
+
+Pierre, companion of Marquette, 78, 80.
+
+Pierron, the Jesuit, 115;
+ among the Senecas, 115.
+
+Pierson, the Jesuit, 279.
+
+Pimitoui River, the, 171.
+
+Platte, the, 207.
+
+Plet, François, 127, 293, 463.
+
+Poisoning, the epoch of, 179.
+
+Ponchartrain, the minister, 133, 276, 455, 467, 486, 489.
+
+Pontiac,
+ assassination of, 314.
+
+Port de Paix, 367, 368.
+
+Pottawattamies, the,
+ in grievous need of spiritual succor, 24;
+ the Sulpitians determine to visit, 24;
+ at the Jesuit mission of St. Esprit, 40;
+ location of, 42, 50, 77;
+ friendly to La Salle, 155, 182, 236, 237, 238;
+ Tonty among, 287;
+ at "Starved Rock," 314.
+
+"Poualacs," the, 481.
+
+Prairie du Chien, Fort, 64.
+
+Prairie, Nation of the, 44.
+
+Provence, 441.
+
+Prudhomme, Fort, 297;
+ La Salle ill at, 311.
+
+Prudhomme, Pierre, 297, 298.
+
+Puants, les (Winnebagoes), 42.
+
+Puants, La Baye des (Green Bay), 31, 42.
+
+
+Quapaws, the, 300.
+
+Quebec, 15;
+ the Jesuits masters at, 108, 311, 460, 462, 482.
+
+Queenstown Heights, 138.
+
+Queylus, Superior of the Seminary of St. Sulpice, 11, 16.
+
+Quinipissas, the, 305;
+ attack La Salle, 310.
+
+Quinté,
+ Jesuit Mission at, 16.
+
+Quinté, Bay of, 87, 142, 200.
+
+
+Radisson, Pierre Esprit,
+ reaches the Mississippi, 5.
+
+Raffeix, Father Pierre, the Jesuit,
+ manuscript map of, 75;
+ among the Senecas, 141, 276, 481.
+
+Raoul, 126.
+
+Rasle, 170.
+
+Raudin, Frontenac's engineer, 92, 167, 481.
+
+Raymbault,----,
+ preaches among the Indians, 5.
+
+Récollet Missions,
+ Le Clerc's account of, 246.
+
+Récollets, the,
+ La Salle not well inclined towards, 108;
+ protected by Frontenac, 109;
+ comparison between the Sulpitians and the Jesuits and, 112, 218.
+
+Red River, 305, 347, 348, 451, 465, 466, 471, 484.
+
+Renaudot, Abbé,
+ memoir of La Salle, 106, 107;
+ assists La Salle, 127, 133, 339, 360, 361.
+
+Renault, Étienne, 223, 237.
+
+Rhode Island, State of, 288.
+
+Ribourde, Gabriel,
+ at Fort Frontenac, 132, 137;
+ at Niagara, 150;
+ at Fort Crèvecoeur, 185, 187, 192, 216, 224, 229;
+ murder of, 233.
+
+Riggs, Rev. Stephen R.,
+ divisions of the Sioux, 261.
+
+Rio Bravo,
+ French colony proposed at the mouth of, 350.
+
+Rio Frio, the, 469.
+
+Rio Grande River, the, 309, 376, 403, 465, 469.
+
+Rios, Domingo Teran de los, 471.
+
+Robertson, 103.
+
+Rochefort, 352, 366, 393.
+
+Rochelle, 129, 364, 393, 462.
+
+"Rocher, Le," 314;
+ Charlevoix speaks of, 314.
+
+Rochester, 140.
+
+Rocky Mountains, the, 260, 308, 309.
+
+Rouen, 7.
+
+Royale, Isle, 38.
+
+"Ruined Castles," the, 68, 457.
+
+Rum River, 265.
+
+Ruter, 445, 446, 447, 448;
+ murders Liotot, 449, 470, 472.
+
+
+Sabine River, the, 415, 451, 465.
+
+Saco Indians, the, 227.
+
+Sacs, the,
+ location of, 43;
+ at Saut Ste. Marie, 51.
+
+Sâgean, Mathieu,
+ the Eldorado of, 485-489;
+ sketch of, 486;
+
+Saget,
+ La Salle's servant, 425;
+ murder of, 426.
+
+Saguenay River, the, 76;
+ Albanel's journey up, 109.
+
+St. Anthony, city of, 267.
+
+St. Anthony, the falls of, 267;
+ Hennepin's notice of, 267, 478, 482.
+
+St. Antoine Cape, 372.
+
+St. Bernard's Bay, 394, 469.
+
+St. Clair, Lake, 476.
+
+St. Claire, Lake, 152.
+
+St. Croix River, the, 277.
+
+St. Domingo, 347, 350, 367, 370, 393, 418, 468.
+
+St. Esprit, Bay of (Mobile Bay), 129, 386, 389, 481.
+
+St. Esprit,
+ Jesuit mission of, 40;
+ Indians at, 40.
+
+St. Francis, Order of, 133.
+
+St. Francis River, the, 265.
+
+"St. François," the ketch, 368;
+ loss of, 369.
+
+St. François Xavier,
+ council of congregated tribes held at, 43.
+
+St. Ignace, Point, 41, 59;
+ Jesuit chapel at, 82.
+
+St. Ignace of Michilimackinac, 81;
+ La Salle reaches, 153;
+ inhabitants of, 153.
+
+"St. Joseph," the ship, 330.
+
+St. Joseph, Lac (Lake Michigan), 155.
+
+St. Joseph River, the, 44, 162, 163;
+ La Salle on, 164, 203;
+ La Forest on, 236, 283, 288.
+
+Saint-Laurent, Marquis de, 367, 368.
+
+St. Lawrence River, the, 3, 12, 13, 15, 34, 63, 89, 122, 197, 198,
+ 219, 475, 480, 481, 483, 489.
+
+St. Louis, city of, 70.
+
+St. Louis, Bay of (Matagorda Bay), 376, 379, 394, 466, 468, 469, 471.
+
+St. Louis, Castle of, 87.
+
+St. Louis, Fort, of the Illinois, 241;
+ location of, 314;
+ La Salle's Indian allies gather at, 315;
+ location of, 316;
+ total number of Indians around, 317;
+ the Indians protected at, 320;
+ La Barre takes possession of, 327;
+ attacked by the Iroquois, 327, 347;
+ restored to La Salle by the King, 351;
+ Tonty returns to, 454;
+ Joutel at, 457;
+ condition of, 458;
+ Joutel's return to, 460;
+ Tonty leaves, 465;
+ reoccupied by the French, 468, 486.
+
+St. Louis, Fort, of Texas, 394, 395;
+ life at, 397;
+ La Salle returns to, 411, 415;
+ Twelfth Night at, 417;
+ Duhaut resolves to return to, 446;
+ abandoned by Louis XIV., 463;
+ the Spaniards at, 469;
+ desolation of, 469.
+
+St. Louis, Lake of, 13, 14, 19.
+
+St. Louis, Rock of, see "_Starved Rock_."
+
+St. Louis River, the, 307, 484.
+
+Saint-Lusson, Daumont de,
+ sent out by Talon to discover copper mines on Lake Superior, 49;
+ winters at the Manitoulin Islands, 50;
+ received by the Miamis, 50;
+ at Saut Ste. Marie, 51;
+ takes possession of the West for France, 52;
+ proceeds to Lake Superior, 56;
+ returns to Quebec, 56.
+
+St. Malo, 5.
+
+St. Paul, site of, 257.
+
+St. Peter, the Valley of the,
+ unprovoked massacre by the Sioux
+ in, 254, 260.
+
+St. Peter River, the, 486.
+
+Saint-Simon, 343.
+
+St. Simon, mission of, 41, 42.
+
+St. Sulpice, Seminary of, 10;
+ buys back a part of La Salle's seigniory, 16;
+ plan an expedition of discovery, 16.
+
+Ste. Barbe, mines of, 348.
+
+Sainte Claire, 152.
+
+Sainte-Famille, the, association of,
+ a sort of female inquisition, 111;
+ founded by Chaumonot, 111;
+ encouraged by Laval, 111.
+
+Ste. Marie, Falls of, 155.
+
+Ste. Marie du Saut,
+ the Sulpitians arrive at, 27;
+ Jesuit mission at, 39;
+ a noted fishing-place, 39;
+ Saint-Lusson takes possession for France of, 52.
+
+San Antonio, the, 469.
+
+Sanson, map of, 139.
+
+Santa Barbara, 348.
+
+Sargent, Winthrop, 182.
+
+Sassory tribe, the, 423.
+
+Sauteurs, the, 39;
+ the village of, 51.
+
+Sauthouis, the, 300.
+
+Saut Ste. Marie, the, 27;
+ a noted fishing-place, 42;
+ gathering of the tribes at, 51, 475.
+
+Sauvolle, 489.
+
+Schenectady, 483.
+
+Schoolcraft, the Falls of St. Anthony, 267.
+
+Scioto River, the, 32.
+
+Scortas, the Huron, 238.
+
+Seignelay, Marquis de,
+ memorials presented to, 35, 120, 274, 342;
+ La Barre defames La Salle to, 322, 344;
+ object of La Salle's mission, 352;
+ letters of Beaujeu to, 354-356;
+ complaints of Beaujeu, 370;
+ complaint of Minet, 378;
+ receives Beaujeu coldly, 389;
+ Jesuit petitions to, 459;
+ Cavelier's report to, 462, 463.
+
+Seignelay River (Red River), the, 167, 347, 348, 484.
+
+Seneca Indians, the, 14, 19, 20;
+ villages of, 21;
+ their hospitality to La Salle, 21;
+ cruelty of, 22, 29, 91;
+ Pierron among, 115;
+ village of, 138;
+ jealous of La Motte, 140;
+ La Motte seeks to conciliate, 140, 141;
+ pacified by La Salle, 142;
+ the great town of, 279;
+ Denonville's attack on, 460.
+
+Seneff,
+ bloody fight of, 134.
+
+Severn River, the, 203.
+
+Sévigné, 343.
+
+Sévigné, Madame de, letters of, 179.
+
+Shawanoes, the, 23, 225, 285, 307;
+ join La Salle's colony, 316, 320.
+
+Shea, J. G.,
+ first to discover the history of Joliet, 58;
+ the journal of Marquette, 75;
+ death of Marquette, 81, 82, 115;
+ the "Racines Agnières" of Bruyas, 136;
+ the veracity of Hennepin, 244;
+ critical examination of Hennepin's works, 247;
+ Tonty and La Barre, 454;
+ story of Mathieu Sâgean, 486.
+
+Silhouette, the minister, 34.
+
+Simcoe, Lake, 203, 293.
+
+Simon, St., memoirs of, 167.
+
+Simonnet, 126.
+
+Sioux Indians, the, 6;
+ at the Jesuit mission of St. Esprit, 40;
+ break into open war, 41;
+ the Jesuits trade with, 110, 182, 207, 228;
+ capture Father Hennepin, 245, 250;
+ suspect Father Hennepin of sorcery, 253;
+ unprovoked massacres in the valley of the St. Peter, 254;
+ Hennepin among, 259-282;
+ divisions of, 260;
+ meaning of the word, 260;
+ total number of, 261;
+ use of the sweating-bath among, 263;
+ Du Lhut among, 276, 307, 480.
+
+Sipou (Ohio) River, the, 307.
+
+"Sleeping Bear," the, promontory of, 81.
+
+Smith, Buckingham, 471.
+
+Society of Jesus, the,
+ a powerful attraction for La Salle, 8;
+ an image of regulated power, 8.
+
+Sokokis Indians, the, 227.
+
+Soto, De, Hernando, see, _De Soto, Hernando_.
+
+South Bend, village of, 164.
+
+Southey, the poet, 182.
+
+South Sea, the, 6, 14, 38, 46, 52, 63, 70.
+
+Spain,
+ war declared against, 464;
+ claims the Gulf of Mexico, 468.
+
+Spaniards, the,
+ discover the Mississippi, 3;
+ Talon's plans to keep them in check, 48;
+ Louis XIV. irritated against, 344;
+ in Mexico, 349;
+ at Fort St. Louis of Texas, 469.
+
+Spanish Inquisition, the, 350.
+
+Spanish missions, the, 414, 471.
+
+Sparks,
+ exposes the plagiarism of Hennepin, 247, 468.
+
+"Starved Rock," 169;
+ attracts the attention of La Salle, 192;
+ Tonty sent to examine, 192, 205, 217, 221, 239;
+ description of, 313;
+ La Salle and Tonty intrench themselves at, 313;
+ described by Charlevoix, 314;
+ origin of the name, 314.
+
+"Sturgeon Cove," 77.
+
+Sulpice, St., 9.
+
+Sulpitians, the,
+ plan an expedition of discovery, 16;
+ join forces with La Salle, 17;
+ set out from La Chine, 19;
+ journey of, 19, 20;
+ meeting with Joliet, 23;
+ determine to visit the Pottawattamies, 24;
+ La Salle parts with, 25;
+ spends the winter at Long Point, 25;
+ resume their voyage, 26;
+ the storm, 26;
+ decide to return to Montreal, 26;
+ pass through the Strait of Detroit, 26;
+ arrive at Ste. Marie du Saut, 27;
+ the Jesuits want no help from, 27;
+ comparison between the Récollets and, 112.
+
+Superior, Lake, 5;
+ Ménard attempts to plant a mission on southern shore of, 6;
+ Allouez explores a part of, 6;
+ Joliet attempts to discover the copper mines of, 23, 27;
+ the Jesuits on, 37;
+ the Jesuits make a map of, 38;
+ Saint-Lusson sets out to find the copper mines of, 49;
+ Saint-Lusson takes possession for France of, 52, 273, 276, 475;
+ map of, 476, 477, 479, 481.
+
+Susquehanna River, the, 483.
+
+Sweating-baths, Indian, 262.
+
+
+Table Rock, 139.
+
+Tadoussac, 59.
+
+Taensas, the, great town of, 301;
+ visited by Membrè and Tonty, 301;
+ differ from other Indians, 304.
+
+Tahuglauk, the, 486.
+
+Taiaiagon, Indian town of, 138.
+
+Tailhan, Father, 35, 49.
+
+Talon, 15.
+
+Talon,
+ among the Texan colonists, 471.
+
+Talon, Jean, Intendant of Canada,
+ sends Joliet to discover the copper
+ mines of Lake Superior, 23;
+ claims to have sent La Salle to explore, 31;
+ full of projects for the colony, 48;
+ his singular economy of the King's purse, 48;
+ sends Saint-Lusson to discover copper mines on Lake Superior, 49;
+ resolves to find the Mississippi, 56;
+ makes choice of Joliet, 56;
+ quarrels with Courcelle, 56;
+ returns to France, 57, 60, 109.
+
+Talon, Jean Baptiste, 472.
+
+Talon, Pierre, 472.
+
+Tamaroas, the, 223, 235, 286, 297.
+
+Tangibao, the, 305.
+
+Tears, the Lake of, 256.
+
+Tegahkouita, Catharine, the Iroquois saint, 275, 276.
+
+"Teiocha-rontiong, Lac" (Lake Erie), 476.
+
+Teissier, a pilot, 407, 421, 425, 451, 458.
+
+Tejas (Texas), 470.
+
+Terliquiquimechi, the, 348.
+
+Tetons, the, 260.
+
+Texan colony, the, fate of, 464-473.
+
+Texan expedition, La Salle's, 391-419, 434.
+
+Texan Indians, the, 470.
+
+Texas,
+ fertile plains of, 308;
+ French in, 348;
+ shores of, 374;
+ La Salle lands in, 379;
+ application of the name, 470, 483.
+
+Theakiki, the, 167.
+
+Thevenot,
+ on the journal of Marquette, 75;
+ map made by, 478.
+
+Third Chickasaw Bluffs, the, 297.
+
+Thomassy, 115, 175, 296, 298, 302, 308.
+
+Thouret, 201, 238, 333, 342.
+
+Thousand Islands, the, 89.
+
+Three Rivers, 3, 86, 90.
+
+Thunder Bay, 275.
+
+Tilly, Sieur de, 99.
+
+"Tintons," the, 481.
+
+Tintonwans, the, 260.
+
+Tongengas, the, 300.
+
+Tonty, Alphonse de, 467.
+
+Tonty, Henri de, 127;
+ renders assistance to La Salle, 128;
+ in Canada, 129;
+ La Motte at Niagara, 140;
+ sets out to join La Motte, 141;
+ almost wrecked, 142;
+ at the Niagara Portage, 144-147;
+ the building of the "Griffin," 144-148;
+ the launch, 149; 154, 155;
+ rejoins La Salle, 162;
+ among the Illinois, 172;
+ the attempt to poison La Salle, 179;
+ Hennepin sent to the Mississippi, 187;
+ La Salle's parting with, 188;
+ sent to examine "Starved Rock," 192; 194;
+ deserted by his men, 199, 217;
+ the journey from Fort Crèvecoeur, 201;
+ La Salle's best hope in, 202;
+ La Salle sets out to succor, 203;
+ La Salle has fears for the safety of, 209;
+ sets out to examine "Starved Rock," 217;
+ in the Illinois village, 223;
+ attacked by the Iroquois, 225;
+ intercedes for the Illinois, 228;
+ peril of, 229;
+ a truce granted to, 229;
+ departs from the Iroquois, 233;
+ falls ill, 236;
+ friends in need, 237;
+ La Salle hears good news of, 287;
+ meeting with La Salle, 292;
+ sets out from Fort Miami, 296;
+ among the Arkansas Indians, 300;
+ visits the Taensas, 301;
+ illness of La Salle, 310;
+ sent to Michilimackinac, 311;
+ intrenches himself at "Starved Rock," 313;
+ left in charge of Fort St. Louis, 326, 334, 337;
+ attempts to attack the Spaniards of Mexico, 349, 355, 361, 421, 425;
+ the assassination of La Salle, 430, 433;
+ the murder of Duhaut, 448;
+ among the Assonis, 452;
+ plans to assist La Salle, 453-455;
+ his journey, seeking news of La Salle, 454, 455, 458;
+ in the Iroquois War, 460;
+ Cavelier conceals La Salle's death from, 461;
+ learns of La Salle's death, 464;
+ revives La Salle's scheme of Mexican invasion, 465;
+ sets out from Fort St. Louis of the Illinois, 465;
+ deserted by his men, 465;
+ courage of, 465;
+ difficulties and hardships, 466;
+ attacked by fever, 467;
+ misrepresented, 467;
+ praises of, 467;
+ joins Iberville in Lower Louisiana, 467, 486.
+
+Topingas, the, 300.
+
+Torimans, the, 300.
+
+Toronto, 27, 138.
+
+Toronto Portage, the, 293.
+
+Toulon, 463.
+
+"Tracy, Lac" (Lake Superior), 476.
+
+Trinity River, the, 413, 424, 434, 439, 465.
+
+Tronson, Abbé, 344, 463.
+
+"Tsiketo, Lac" (Lake St. Clair), 220.
+
+Turenne, 17.
+
+Two Mountains, Lake of, 82.
+
+
+Upper Lakes, the, see _Lakes, Upper_.
+
+Ursulines, the, 95.
+
+Utica, village of, 79, 169, 170, 220, 239.
+
+
+Vaudreuil, 276.
+
+Vera Cruz, 468, 472.
+
+Vermilion River, the, 221, 225, 226.
+ See also _Big Vermilion River, the_.
+
+"Vermilion Sea" (Gulf of California), the, 15, 38, 74, 480.
+
+"Vermilion Woods," the, 241.
+
+Verreau, H., 98.
+
+Vicksburg, 300.
+
+Victor, town of, 21, 140.
+
+"Vieux, Fort Le," 314.
+
+Villermont, Cabart de,
+ letters of Beaujeu to, 357-360;
+ letter of Tonty to, 454.
+
+Virginia, 288, 346, 483.
+
+"Virginia, Sea of," 6, 74.
+
+Voltaire, 7.
+
+
+Watteau, Melithon, 150.
+
+Weas, the, join La Salle's colony, 316.
+
+West Indies, the, 181, 404, 446, 489.
+
+Wild Rice Indians (Menomonies), the, 61.
+
+William, Fort, 275.
+
+William III. of England, 282.
+
+Winnebago Lake, 43, 44, 62.
+
+Winnebagoes, the,
+ Jean Nicollet sent to, 4;
+ quarrel with the Hurons, 4;
+ location of, 42;
+ at Saut Ste. Marie, 51.
+
+Winona, legend of, 271.
+
+Winthrop, 213.
+
+Wisconsin, shores of, 157.
+
+Wisconsin River, the, 5, 63, 245, 265, 266, 272, 278, 477, 478, 480.
+
+Wood, Colonel,
+ reaches the Mississippi, 5.
+
+
+Yanktons, the, 260.
+
+Yoakum, 470.
+
+You, 210.
+
+Zenobe (Membré), Father, 181.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+FRANCIS PARKMAN'S WORKS.
+
+NEW LIBRARY EDITION.
+
+
+Printed from entirely new plates, in clear and beautiful type,
+upon a choice laid paper. Illustrated with twenty-six photogravure
+plates executed by Goupil from historical portraits, and
+from original drawings and paintings by Howard Pyle, De Cost
+Smith, Thule de Thulstrup, Frederic Remington, Orson Lowell,
+Adrien Moreau, and other artists.
+
+_Thirteen volumes, medium octavo, cloth, gilt top, price, $26.00;
+half calf, extra, gilt top, $58.50; half crushed Levant morocco,
+extra, gilt top, $78.00; half morocco, gilt top, $58.50. Any
+work separately in cloth, $2.00 per volume._
+
+
+ LIST OF VOLUMES.
+
+ PIONEERS OF FRANCE IN THE NEW WORLD 1 vol.
+ THE JESUITS IN NORTH AMERICA 1 vol.
+ LA SALLE AND THE DISCOVERY OF THE GREAT WEST 1 vol.
+ THE OLD RÉGIME IN CANADA 1 vol.
+ COUNT FRONTENAC AND NEW FRANCE UNDER LOUIS XIV. 1 vol.
+ A HALF CENTURY OF CONFLICT 2 vols.
+ MONTCALM AND WOLFE 2 vols.
+ THE CONSPIRACY OF PONTIAC AND THE INDIAN WAR AFTER
+ THE CONQUEST OF CANADA 2 vols.
+ THE OREGON TRAIL 1 vol.
+ LIFE OF PARKMAN. By Charles Haight Farnham 1 vol.
+
+
+ILLUSTRATIONS.
+
+1. Portrait of Francis Parkman.
+
+2. Jacques Cartier. From the painting at St. Malo.
+
+3. Madame de la Peltrie. From the painting in the Convent des
+Ursulines.
+
+4. Father Jogues Haranguing the Mohawks. From the picture
+by Thule de Thulstrup.
+
+5. Father Hennepin Celebrating Mass. From the picture by Howard
+Pyle.
+
+6. La Salle Presenting a Petition to Louis XIV. From the painting
+by Adrien Moreau.
+
+7. Jean Baptiste Colbert. From a painting by Claude Lefèvbre at
+Versailles.
+
+8. Jean Guyon before Bouillé. From a picture by Orson Lowell.
+
+9. Madame de Frontenac. From the painting at Versailles.
+
+10. Entry of Sir William Phips into the Quebec Basin. From
+a picture by L. Rossi.
+
+11. The Sacs and Foxes. From the picture by Charles Bodmer.
+
+12. The Return from Deerfield. From the painting by Howard Pyle.
+
+13. Sir William Pepperrell. From the painting by Smibert.
+
+14. Marquis de Beauharnois, Governor of Canada. From the
+painting by Tonnières in the Musée de Grenoble.
+
+15. Marquis de Montcalm. From the original painting in the possession
+of the present Marquis de Montcalm.
+
+16. Marquis de Vaudreuil. From the painting in the possession of the
+Countess de Clermont Tonnerre.
+
+17. General Wolfe. From the original painting by Highmore.
+
+18. The Fall of Montcalm. From the painting by Howard Pyle.
+
+19. View of the Taking of Quebec. From the early engraving of a
+drawing made on the spot by Captain Hervey Smyth, Wolfe's aid-de-camp.
+
+20. Col. Henry Bouquet. From the original painting by Benjamin West.
+
+21. The Death of Pontiac. From the picture by De Cost Smith.
+
+22. Sir William Johnson. From a Mezzotint engraving.
+
+23. Half Sliding, Half Plunging. From a drawing by Frederic
+Remington.
+
+24. The Thunder Fighters. From the picture by Frederic Remington.
+
+25. Francis Parkman. From a miniature taken about 1844.
+
+26. Francis Parkman. From a photograph taken in 1882.
+
+It is hardly necessary to quote here from the innumerable tributes to so
+famous an American author as Francis Parkman. Among writers who
+have bestowed the highest praise upon his writings are such names as James
+Russell Lowell, Dr. John Fisk, President Charles W. Eliot of Harvard
+University, George William Curtis, Edward Eggleston, W. D. Howells,
+James Schouler, and Dr. Conan Doyle, as well as many prominent critics in
+the United States, in Canada, and in England.
+
+In two respects Francis Parkman was exceptionally fortunate. He chose
+a theme of the closest interest to his countrymen,--the colonization of the
+American Continent and the wars for its possession,--and he lived through
+fifty years of toil to complete his great historical series.
+
+The text of the New Library Edition is that of the latest issue of each
+work prepared for the press by the distinguished author. He carefully
+revised and added to several of his works, not through change of views,
+but in the light of new documentary evidence which his patient research
+and untiring zeal extracted from the hidden archives of the past. Thus he
+rewrote and enlarged "The Conspiracy of Pontiac"; the new edition of
+"La Salle and the Discovery of the Great West" (1878), and the 1885
+edition of "Pioneers of France" included very important additions; and a
+short time before his death he added to "The Old Régime" fifty pages,
+under the title of "The Feudal Chiefs of Acadia." The New Library Edition
+therefore includes each work in its final state as perfected by the
+historian. The indexes have been entirely remade.
+
+ LITTLE, BROWN, & CO., Publishers,
+ 254 Washington Street. Boston.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of La Salle and the Discovery of the
+Great West, by Francis Parkman
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 40143 ***
generated by cgit v1.2.3 (git 2.25.1) at 2026-01-03 04:50:00 +0000