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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of France and England in North America. Part Third, The Discovery of the Great West, by Francis Parkman
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: France and England in North America, Part Third
+       The Discovery of the Great West
+
+Author: Francis Parkman
+
+Posting Date: November 15, 2011 [EBook #9997]
+Release Date: February, 2006
+First Posted: November 6, 2003
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK FRANCE, ENGLAND IN N. AMERICA ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Lee Dawei, Seth Hadley, and Project Gutenberg
+Distributed Proofreaders
+
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+
+
+FRANCE AND ENGLAND IN NORTH AMERICA,
+A SERIES OF HISTORICAL NARRATIVES, PART THIRD.
+
+THE DISCOVERY OF THE GREAT WEST
+
+BY FRANCIS PARKMAN
+
+1870
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+TO THE CLASS OF 1844,
+HARVARD COLLEGE,
+THIS BOOK IS CORDIALLY DEDICATED
+BY ONE OF THEIR NUMBER.
+
+
+
+
+PREFACE.
+
+
+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+wofully in need of interpretation from the unpublished documents which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 custodian 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 map contained in the book is a portion of the great 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
+
+
+
+
+INTRODUCTION
+
+
+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.
+
+
+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?
+
+
+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.--Michillimackinac.--
+Jesuits on Lake Michigan.--Allouez and Dablon.--The Jesuit
+Fur-Trade.
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+1667-1672.
+FRANCE TAKES POSSESSION OF THE WEST.
+
+Talon.--St. Lusson.--Perrot.--The Ceremony at Saut Ste. Marie.--
+The Speech of Allouez.--Count Frontenac.
+
+
+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.
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+1673-1678.
+LA SALLE AND FRONTENAC.
+
+Objects of La Salle.--His Difficulties.--Official Corruption in Canada.--
+The Governor of Montreal.--Projects of Frontenac.--Cataraqui.--
+Frontenac on Lake Ontario.--Fort Frontenac.--Success of La Salle.
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+1674-1678.
+LA SALLE AND THE JESUITS.
+
+The Abbé Fénelon.--He attacks the Governor.--The Enemies of La
+Salle.--Aims of the Jesuits.--Their Hostility to La Salle.
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+1678.
+PARTY STRIFE.
+
+La Salle and his Reporter.--Jesuit Ascendancy.--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.
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+1677-1678.
+THE GRAND ENTERPRISE.
+
+La Salle at Fort Frontenac.--La Salle at Court.--His Plans approved.--
+Henri de Tonty.--Preparation for Departure.
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+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.
+
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+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.
+
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+1679.
+LA SALLE ON THE UPPER LAKES.
+
+The Voyage of the "Griffin."--Detroit.--A Storm.--St. Ignace of
+Michillimackinac.--Rivals and Enemies--Lake Michigan.--Hardships.
+--A Threatened Fight.--Fort Miami.--Tonty's Misfortunes.--
+Forebodings.
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII.
+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 him.
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV.
+1680.
+FORT CRÈVECOEUR.
+
+Building of the Fort.--Loss of the "Griffin."--A Bold Resolution.--
+Another Vessel.--Hennepin sent to the Mississippi.--Departure of
+La Salle.
+
+
+CHAPTER XV.
+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.
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI.
+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.
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII.
+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.
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII.
+1680.
+THE ADVENTURES OF HENNEPIN.
+
+Hennepin an Impostor.--His Pretended Discovery.--His Actual Discovery.
+--Captured by the Sioux.--The Upper Mississippi.
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX.
+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.
+
+
+CHAPTER XX.
+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.
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI.
+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.
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII.
+1682-1683.
+ST. LOUIS OF THE ILLINOIS.
+
+Louisiana.--Illness of La Salle.--His Colony on the Illinois.--Fort St.
+Louis.--Recall of Frontenac.--Le Fèvre de la Barre.--Critical Position
+of La Salle.--Hostility of the New Governor.--Triumph of the Adverse
+Faction.--La Salle sails for France.
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII.
+1684.
+A NEW ENTERPRISE.
+
+La Salle at Court.--His Proposals.--Occupation of Louisiana.--Invasion of
+Mexico.--Royal Favor.--Preparation.--The Naval Commander.--His Jealousy of
+La Salle.--Dissensions.
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV.
+1684-1685.
+LA SALLE IN TEXAS.
+
+Departure.--Quarrels with Beaujeu.--St. Domingo.--La Salle attacked
+with Fever.--His Desperate Condition.--The Gulf of Mexico.--A Fatal
+Error.--Landing.--Wreck of the "Aimable."--Indian Attack.--Treachery
+of Beaujeu.--Omens of Disaster.
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV.
+1685-1687.
+ST. LOUIS OF TEXAS.
+
+The Fort.--Misery and Dejection.--Energy of La Salle.--His Journey
+of Exploration.--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.
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVI.
+1687.
+ASSASSINATION OF LA SALLE.
+
+His Followers.--Prairie Travelling.--A Hunter's Quarrel.--The Murder
+of Moranget.--The Conspiracy.--Death of La Salle.--His Character.
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVII.
+1687, 1688.
+THE INNOCENT AND THE GUILTY.
+
+Triumph of the Murderers.--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.
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVIII.
+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.
+
+
+APPENDIX.
+
+I. Early unpublished Maps of the Mississippi and the Great Lakes.
+II. The Eldorado of Mathieu Sâgean.
+
+
+INDEX
+
+
+[Illustration: LA SALLE'S COLONY on the Illinois FROM THE MAP OF
+FRANQUELIN, 1684.]
+
+
+
+
+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 dismal 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 and without beards, 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 or before the year 1639, 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. Possibly 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 improbable, but neither is sustained by sufficient evidence. Meanwhile,
+French Jesuits and fur-traders pushed deeper and deeper into the
+wilderness of the northern lakes. In 1641, Jogues and Raymbault preached
+the
+
+DISCOVERY OF THE GREAT WEST.
+
+
+
+
+
+THE DISCOVERY OF THE GREAT WEST.
+
+
+
+
+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. [Footnote: 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 Réné-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.] 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. [Footnote: 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.]
+
+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. [Footnote:
+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.]
+
+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.
+[Footnote: "The Jesuits in North America," c. xv.] 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 Courcelles, 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. [Footnote: _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.]
+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 seigneurs, built of
+stone, and pierced with loop-holes 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. [Footnote: 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.]
+
+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 a third of an acre, within the
+enclosure, for which he was to render to the young seigneur 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. [Footnote: 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.]
+
+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.
+[Footnote: _Papiers de Famille_, MSS. 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.] 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. [Footnote: 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.] 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.
+
+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 to his intended exploration. Few men were more skilled than he in
+the art of clear and plausible statement. Both the Governor, Courcelles,
+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. [Footnote:
+Talon, in his letter to the king, of 10 Oct. 1670, expresses himself as if
+the enterprise had originated with him.] 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 ironmonger, for twenty-eight hundred livres. [Footnote:
+Faillon, _Colonie Française en Canada_, iii. 288.] 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 North-west,
+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.
+
+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 uncommon bodily
+strength, of which he had given striking proofs in the campaign of
+Courcelles against the Iroquois, three years before. [Footnote: 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.] On
+going to Quebec, to procure the necessary outfit, he was urged by
+Courcelles 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.
+
+
+
+
+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. They fought their
+way upward against the perilous rapids of the St. Lawrence, then scarcely
+known to the voyager, threaded the romantic channels of the Thousand
+Islands, and issued on Lake Ontario. Thirty days of toil and exposure had
+told upon them so severely that not a man of the party, except the
+Indians, had escaped the attacks of disease in some form.
+
+Their guides led them directly to the great village of the Senecas, near
+the banks of the Genesee, flattering them with the hope that they would
+here find other guides, to conduct them to the Ohio; and, in truth, the
+Senecas had among them a prisoner of one of the western tribes, who would
+have answered their purpose. The chiefs met in council: but La Salle had
+not yet mastered the language sufficiently to serve as spokesman; and a
+Dutch interpreter, brought by the priests, could not explain himself in
+French. The Jesuit Fremin was stationed at the village, and his servant
+came to their aid: but, as the two priests thought, wilfully
+misinterpreted them; and they also conceived the suspicion, perhaps
+uncharitable, that the Jesuits, jealous of their enterprise, had tampered
+with the Senecas, to thwart it. Be this as it may, the Indians proved
+impracticable, evaded their request for a guide, burned before their eyes
+the unfortunate western prisoner, and assured them that if they went to
+the Ohio the people of those parts would put them to death. As there were
+many among the Senecas who 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 with brandy brought from Albany, the position of the French
+was very hazardous. They remained, however, for a month; still clinging to
+the hope of obtaining guides. At length, an Indian from a village called
+Ganastogué, a kind of Iroquois colony at the head of Lake Ontario, offered
+to conduct them thither, assuring them that they would find what they
+sought. They left the Seneca town; coasted the south shore of the lake;
+passed the mouth of the Niagara, where they heard the distant roar of the
+cataract; and, five days after, reached Ganastogué. The inhabitants proved
+friendly, and La Salle received the welcome present of a Shawnee prisoner,
+who told them that the Ohio could he 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. One of the strangers proved to
+be a man 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 pre-occupied 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.
+
+Since reaching the head of Lake Ontario, La Salle had been attacked by a
+violent fever, from which he was not yet recovered. 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.
+
+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 under a wild autumnal sky. 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."
+
+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. [Footnote: 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.] The two missionaries took
+this course, with the intention of proceeding to the Saut Sainte 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; [Footnote: "Jesuits in North
+America."] 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 Manatoulins, 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.
+[Footnote: Galinée appears to have made use of the map given him by
+Joliet. He says, in the narrative of his journey, that he has laid down on
+his own map nothing but what he had himself seen; but this is disproved by
+the map itself. Thus, he represents with minuteness the northern coast as
+far west as the islands at the mouth of Green Bay; but that he never went
+so far is evident not only from his own journal, but from the fact that he
+was ignorant of the existence of the Straits of Michillimackinac and the
+peninsula of Michigan; Lakes Huron and Michigan being by him merged into
+one, under the name of "Michigané, ou Mer Douce des Hurons." The map, of
+which a fac-simile is before me, measures four and a half feet by three
+and a half. It is covered with descriptive remarks, which, oddly enough,
+are all inverted, so that it must be turned with the north side down in
+order to read them. Faillon has engraved it, but on a small scale, with
+the omission of most of the inscriptions, and other changes. The well-
+known Jesuit map of Lake Superior appeared the year after.
+
+Besides making the map, Galinée wrote a very long and minute journal of
+the expedition, which is preserved in the Bibliothèque Impériale.
+
+Much of the substance of it is given by Faillon, _Colonie Française_, iii.
+chap, vii., and Margry, _Journal Général de l'Instruction Publique_, xxxi.
+No. 67. In the letters of Talon to Colbert are various allusions to the
+journey of Dollier and Galinée.]
+
+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; [Footnote: See Margry, in _Journal Général de
+l'Instruction Publique_, xxxi. 659.] beyond which time the most diligent
+inquiry has failed to trace them. The 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. [Footnote: Dollier de Casson alludes to
+this as "cette transmigration célèbre qui se fit de la Chine dans ces
+quartiers."] As for himself, the only distinct record of his movements is
+that contained in an unpublished 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. [Footnote: As no part of the
+memoir referred to has been published, I extract the passage relating to
+this journey. 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 4lme degré de latitude, trouva un sault
+qui tombe vers l'ouest dans un pays has, marescageux, tout couvert de
+vielles souches, don't il y en a quelquesunes qui sont encore sur pied. Il
+fut done 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 done 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 done
+seul a 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."] 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. [Footnote: Perrot, _Mèmoires_, 119, 120.]
+
+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
+Michillimackinac, 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. [Footnote: 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 trés-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
+sud-est, 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.]
+
+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.
+[Footnote: 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 ou elle tombe de fort haut dans de vastes
+marais, a la hauteur de 37 degrés, après avoir été grossie par une autre
+rivière fort large qui vient du nord; et toutes ces eaux se déchargent
+selon toutes les apparences dans le Golfe du Mexique."
+
+This "autre riviére," 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.] 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. [Footnote: 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 clans 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.] 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 biased
+in favor of La Salle and against Marquette and the Jesuits.
+
+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. [Footnote: _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.] 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. [Footnote: _Papiers de Famille_, MSS.; _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 trouve qu'elle
+se jettoit dans un grand fleuve appellé par ceux du pays Missisippi, c'est
+à dire _grande eau_, environ cent lieues audessous du fort qu'il venoit de
+construire." This fort was Fort Crêvecoeur, 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.] 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.
+[Footnote: 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." This, though brought forward to
+support the claim of discovery prior to Joliet, seems to indicate that La
+Salle had not reached the Mississippi, but only approached it, previous to
+1675.
+
+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.] 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.
+
+
+
+
+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.--MICHILLIMACKINAC.
+--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. [Footnote: See "The Jesuits
+in North America."] 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.
+
+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, stuffed 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 farther speaks of great copper boulders in the
+bed of the River Ontonagan.
+
+[Footnote: 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.]
+
+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, called by the French Sauteurs, 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, Assinneboins, 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 toils 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."
+[Footnote: _Lettre du Père Jacques Marquette au R. P. Supérieur des
+Missions_; in _Relation_, 1670, 87.]
+
+Marquette heard from the Illinois,--yearly visitors at La Pointe,--of the
+great river which they had crossed on their way, [Footnote: 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.] 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
+Michillimackinac, and the Ottawas at the Great Manatoulin Island. Two
+missions were now necessary to minister to the divided bands. That of
+Michillimackinac was assigned to Marquette, and that of the Manatoulin
+Island to Louis André. The former took post at Point St. Ignace, on the
+north shore of the straits of Michillimackinac, 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.
+
+Besides the Saut Ste. Marie and Michillimackinac,--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. [Footnote: The Baye des Puans of the early writers; or,
+more correctly, La Baye des Eaux Puantes. The Winnebago Indians, living
+near it, were called Lies 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.] 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."
+[Footnote: _Relation_, 1671, 43.]
+
+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. [Footnote: 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 "Jesuits in North America." The
+Miamis soon removed to the banks of the River St. Joseph, near Lake
+Michigan.] These two tribes lived together within the compass of the same
+inclosure 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 to wards 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.
+
+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 with 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." [Footnote: _Relation_, 1672, 42.] Most
+things human have their phases of the ludicrous; and the heroism of these
+untiring priests is no exception to the rule.
+
+The various missionary stations were much alike. They consisted of a
+chapel (commonly of logs) and one or more houses, with perhaps a
+storehouse 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. [Footnote: This charge was
+made from the first establishment of the missions. For remarks on it, see
+"Jesuits in North America."]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+1667-1672.
+FRANCE TAKES POSSESSION OF THE WEST.
+
+TALON.--ST. LUSSON.--PERROT.--THE CEREMONY AT SAUT STE. MARIE.--
+THE SPEECH OF ALLOUEZ.--COUNT FRONTENAC.
+
+
+Jean Talon, Intendant of Canada, was a man of no common stamp. Able,
+vigorous, and patriotic,--he was the worthy lieutenant and disciple of the
+great minister Colbert, the ill-requited founder of the prosperity of
+Louis XIV. He cherished high hopes for the future of New France, and
+labored strenuously to realize them. He urged upon the king a scheme
+which, could it have been accomplished, would have wrought strange changes
+on the American continent. This was, to gain possession of New York, by
+treaty or conquest; [Footnote: _Lettre de Talon à Colbert_, 27 _Oct_.
+1667. Twenty years after, the plan was again suggested by the Governor,
+Denonville.] thus giving to Canada a southern access to the ocean, open at
+all seasons, separating New England from Virginia, and controlling the
+Iroquois, the most formidable enemy of the French colony. Louis XIV. held
+the king of England in his pay; and, had the proposal been urged, the
+result could not have been foretold. The scheme failed, and Talon prepared
+to use his present advantages to the utmost. While laboring strenuously to
+develop the industrial resources of the colony, he addressed himself to
+discovering and occupying the interior of the continent; controlling the
+rivers, which were its only highways; and securing 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 hold 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. [Footnote: At all events, 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 Branssat,
+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.] When, in 1670, he ordered Daumont de St. 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.
+[Footnote: In his despatch of 2d Nov. 1671, Talon writes to the king that
+"St. Lusson's expedition will cost nothing, as he has received beaver
+enough from the Indians to pay him."]
+
+St. 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. [Footnote: _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.] 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. St. Lusson wintered at the Manatoulin 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. [Footnote: 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.] 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.
+[Footnote: Perrot, _Mémoires_, 127.]
+
+St. Lusson was here with his men, fifteen in number, among whom was Louis
+Joliet; [Footnote: _Procès Verbal de la Prise de Possession, etc._, 14
+_Juin_, 1671. The names are attached to this instrument.] 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, St. Lusson prepared to
+execute the commission with which he was charged.
+
+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, St. 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. [Footnote: Marquette is said to have been present; but
+the official act, just cited, proves the contrary. He was still at St.
+Esprit.] 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 St. Lusson's followers sang the _Exaudiat_ and one of the Jesuits
+uttered a prayer for the king. St. 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 Manatoulin, 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 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_." [Footnote: _Procès Verbal de la Prise
+de Possession_.]
+
+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.
+
+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, [Footnote: The
+Indian name of the Governor of Canada.] 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."
+[Footnote: A close translation of Dablon's report of the speech. See
+_Relation_, 1671, 27.] 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 St. 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. St. 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. [Footnote: _Lettre de Frontenac au Ministre_, 2 _Nov_. 1672, MS.
+In the Brodhead Collection, by a copyist's error, the name of the
+Chevalier de Grandfontaine is substituted for that of Talon.] 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, Courcelles. Both were able and public-
+spirited; 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. The Governor presided at the council, and held the military
+command; the Intendant directed affairs of justice, finance, and commerce.
+Each thought his functions encroached upon, and both asked for recall.
+[Footnote: Courcelles returned home on the plea of ill health. Talon
+remained a little longer; but soon asked leave to return to France, seeing
+that he should fare worse with the new governor than with the old.]
+Another governor succeeded; one who was to stamp his mark, broad, bold,
+and ineffaceable, on the most memorable page of French-American History.
+
+In the Church of Notre Dame, at Quebec, on a day in the early autumn of
+1672, the priests were singing _Te Deum_ for the safe arrival of him whom
+they were soon to wish beyond the sea again, or beneath it. Here you would
+have seen the new governor surrounded by officers, and by the chief
+inhabitants, anxious to pay their court; a tall man in the pompous garb of
+a military noble of that gorgeous reign, well advanced in middle life, but
+whose high keen features, full of intellect and fire, bespoke his prompt
+undaunted nature,--Louis de Buade, Count of Palluau and Frontenac. He
+belonged to the high nobility, had held important commands, and, if the
+song-writers of his time speak true, had anticipated the king in the
+favors of Madame de Montespan. [Footnote: See Brunet, in notes to
+_Correspondance de la Duchesse d'Orléans_; Paulin, in notes to the
+_Historiettes de Tallement des Reaux_; and Margry, in _Journal Général de
+I'Instruction Publique_.] His wife, who could not endure him--and the
+aversion seems to have been mutual--was a noted beauty of the court, and
+held great influence in its brilliant and corrupt society. [Footnote: St.
+Simon and Mademoiselle de Montpensier give very curious accounts of Madame
+de Frontenac, who is also mentioned in the _Lettres de Madame de Sevigné_.
+Her portrait will be found at Versailles.] Frontenac was full of faults;
+but it is not through these that his memory has survived him. He was
+domineering, arbitrary, intolerant of opposition, irascible, vehement in
+prejudice, often wayward, perverse, and jealous: a persecutor of those who
+crossed him; yet capable, by fits, of moderation, and a magnanimous
+lenity; and gifted with a rare charm--not always exerted--to win the
+attachment of men: versed in books, polished in courts and salons; without
+fear, incapable of repose, keen and broad of sight, clear in judgment,
+prompt in decision, fruitful in resources, unshaken when others despaired;
+a sure breeder of storms in time of peace, but in time of calamity and
+danger a tower of strength. His early career in America was beset with ire
+and enmity; but admiration and gratitude hailed him at its close: for it
+was he who saved the colony and led it triumphant from an abyss of ruin.
+[Footnote: In the Library of the Seminary of Quebec is preserved the
+funeral oration pronounced over the body of Frontenac by Olivier Goyer, a
+Récollet friar. It is a blind and wholesale panegyric, but it is
+interlined with notes and comments at great length, by some other
+ecclesiastic, a bitter enemy of the Governor. He is vindictive and
+acrimonious beyond measure; but, between the two, a good deal of truth is
+struck out. Charlevoix's estimate of Frontenac is admirably candid, when
+it is remembered that he writes of an enemy of his Order. The career of
+Frontenac, his letters, and those of his enemies,--of which many are
+preserved,--are, however, his best interpretation.]
+
+
+
+
+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. [Footnote: _Lettre
+de Frontenac au Ministre_, 2 _Nov_. 1672; Ibid 14 _Nov_. 1674. MSS]
+
+Louis Joliet was the son of a wagon-maker in the service of the Company of
+the Hundred Associates, [Footnote: See "Jesuits in North America."] then,
+owners of Canada. He was born at Quebec in 1645, was educated by the
+Jesuits; and, 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. [Footnote: "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_, MS.] 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.
+[Footnote: 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 I'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.]
+
+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.
+
+He passed up the lakes to Michillimackinac; 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."
+
+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."
+[Footnote: 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.] Their course was westward; and,
+plying their paddles, they passed the Straits of Michillimackinac, 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. [Footnote: 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.] 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 soon reached the mission at the head of Green Bay; entered
+the 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. [Footnote: 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
+the birds rose up in clouds from the wild-rice marshes.] 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, as Marquette says, he was "extremely consoled."
+
+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. [Footnote: The above
+traits of the scenery of the Wisconsin are taken from personal observation
+of the river during midsummer.]
+
+On the 17th 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.
+
+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 25th, 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. [Footnote: 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.] 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 with attention, 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 behooved 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.
+
+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. [Footnote: 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.] He confesses that at first they frightened him; and his
+imagination and that of his credulous companions were 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 any thing more terrific;" but they escaped
+with their fright, and held their way down the turbulent and swollen
+current of the now united rivers. [Footnote: 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.] 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. [Footnote: Called
+on Marquette's map, Ouabouskiaou. On some of the earliest maps, it is
+called Ouabache (Wabash).] 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.
+
+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.
+[Footnote: This village, called Mitchigamea, is represented on several
+contemporary maps.]
+
+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, [Footnote: A few years later, the
+Arkansas were all on the west side.] 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. [Footnote: 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.] 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.
+[Footnote: 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 out fait 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.]
+
+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. [Footnote: _Lettre de
+Frontenac au Ministre, Québec_, 14 _Nov._ 1674, MS.] 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." [Footnote: This letter is appended to Joliet's
+smaller map of his discoveries. See Appendix. Joliet applied for a grant
+of the countries he had visited, but failed to obtain it, because the king
+wished at this time to confine the inhabitants of Canada to productive
+industry within the limits of the colony, and to restrain their tendency
+to roam into the western wilderness. 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.]
+
+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, [Footnote: 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.] and the other a self-
+styled surgeon. They also visited Marquette, and befriended him to the
+best of their power.
+
+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 head of 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.
+
+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 Michillimackinac, 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 Michillimackinac, to bear the tidings to the priests at the mission of
+St. Ignace. [Footnote: 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.]
+
+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 Michillimackinac. 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. [Footnote: 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. The _voyageurs_ on Lake Michigan long continued to invoke the
+intercession of the departed missionary in time of danger.
+
+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 Michillimackinac. 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 Michillimackinac, 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 lard, and some biscuits,
+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
+Michillimackinac. 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.--HIS DIFFICULTIES.--OFFICIAL CORRUPTION IN CANADA.
+--THE GOVERNOR OF MONTREAL.--PROJECTS OF FRONTENAC.--CATARAQUI.--FRONTENAC
+ON LAKE ONTARIO.--FORT FRONTENAC.--SUCCESS OF LA SALLE.
+
+
+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 mediaeval saintship; the other, with feet
+firm planted on the hard earth, breathes the self-relying energies of
+modern practical enterprise. Nevertheless, La Salle was a man wedded to
+ideas, and urged by the steady and considerate enthusiasm, which is the
+life-spring of heroic natures. Three thoughts, rapidly developing in his
+mind, were mastering him, and engendering an invincible purpose. First, he
+would achieve that which Champlain had vainly attempted, and of which our
+own generation has but now seen the accomplishment,--the opening of a
+passage to India and China across the American continent. Next, he would
+occupy the Great West, develop its commercial resources, and anticipate
+the Spaniards and the English in the possession of it. Thirdly,--for he
+soon became convinced that the Mississippi discharged itself into the Gulf
+of Mexico,--he would establish a fortified post at its mouth, thus
+securing an outlet for the trade of the interior, checking the progress of
+the Spaniards, and forming a base, whence, in time of war, their northern
+provinces could be invaded and conquered.
+
+Here were vast projects, projects perhaps beyond the scope of private
+enterprise, conceived and nursed in the brain of a penniless young man.
+Two conditions were indispensable to their achievement. The first was the
+countenance of the Canadian authorities, and the second was money. There
+was but one mode of securing either, to appeal to the love of gain of
+those who could aid the enterprise. Count Frontenac had no money to give;
+but he had what was no less to the purpose, the resources of an arbitrary
+power, which he was always ready to use to the utmost. From the manner in
+which he mentions La Salle in his despatches, it seems that the latter
+succeeded in gaining his confidence very soon after he entered upon his
+government. There was a certain similarity between the two men. Both were
+able, resolute, and enterprising. The irascible and fiery pride of the
+noble found its match in the reserved and seemingly cold pride of the
+ambitious young burgher. Their temperaments were different, but the bases
+of their characters were alike, and each could perfectly comprehend the
+other. They had, moreover, strong prejudices and dislikes in common. With
+his ruined fortune, his habits of expenditure, the exigent demands of his
+rank and station, and the wretched pittance which he received from the
+king of three thousand francs a year, Frontenac was not the man to let
+slip any reasonable opportunity of bettering his condition. [Footnote:
+That he engaged in the fur-trade, was notorious. In a letter to the
+Minister Seignelay, 13 Oct. 1681, Duchesneau, Intendant of Canada,
+declares that Frontenac used all the authority of his office to favor
+those interested in trade with him, and that he would favor nobody else.
+The Intendant himself had a rival interest in the same trade.] La Salle
+seems to have laid his plans before him as far as he had at this time
+formed them, and a complete understanding was established between them.
+Here was a great point gained. The head of the colony was on his side. It
+remained to raise money, and this was a harder task. La Salle's relations
+were rich, evidently proud of him, and anxious for his advancement. As his
+schemes developed, they supplied him with means to pursue them, and one of
+them in particular, his cousin François Plet, became largely interested in
+his enterprises. [Footnote: _Papiers de Famille_, MSS.] Believing
+that his projects, if carried into effect, would prove a source of immense
+wealth to all concerned in them, and gifted with a rare power of
+persuasion when he chose to use it, La Salle addressed himself to various
+merchants and officials of the colony, and induced some of them to become
+partners in his adventure. But here we are anticipating. Clearly to
+understand his position, we must revert to the first year of Frontenac's
+government.
+
+No sooner had that astute official set foot in the colony than, with an
+eagle eye, he surveyed the situation, and quickly comprehended it. It was
+somewhat peculiar. Canada lived on the fur-trade, a species of commerce
+always liable to disorders, and which had produced, among other results, a
+lawless body of men known as _coureurs de bois_, who followed the Indians
+in their wanderings, and sometimes became as barbarous as their red
+associates. The order-loving king who swayed the destinies of France,
+taking umbrage at these irregularities, had issued mandates intended to
+repress the evil, by prohibiting the inhabitants of Canada from leaving
+the limits of the settled country; and requiring the trade to be carried
+on, not in the distant wilderness, but within the bounds of the colony.
+The civil and military officers of the crown, charged with the execution
+of these ordinances, showed a sufficient zeal in enforcing them against
+others, while they themselves habitually violated them; hence, a singular
+confusion, with abundant outcries, complaint, and recrimination. Prominent
+among these officials was Perrot, Governor of Montreal, who must not be
+confounded with Nicolas Perrot, the _voyageur_. The Governor of Montreal,
+though subordinate to the Governor-General, held great and arbitrary power
+within his own jurisdiction. Perrot had married a niece of Talon, the late
+Intendant, to whose influence he owed his place. Confiding in this
+powerful protection, he gave free rein to his headstrong-temper, and
+carried his government with a high hand, berating and abusing anybody who
+ventured to remonstrate. The grave fathers of St. Sulpice, owners of
+Montreal, were the more scandalized at the behavior of their military
+chief, by reason of a certain burlesque and gasconading vein which often
+appeared in him, and which they regarded as unseemly levity. [Footnote:
+Perrot received his appointment from the Seminary of St. Sulpice, on
+Talon's recommendation, but he afterwards applied for and gained a royal
+commission, which, as he thought, made him independent of the priests.]
+
+Perrot, through his wife's uncle, had obtained a grant of the Island above
+Montreal, which still bears his name. Here he established a trading house
+which he placed in charge of an agent, one Brucy, who, by a tempting
+display of merchandise and liquors, intercepted the Indians on their
+yearly descent to trade with the French, and thus got possession of their
+furs, in anticipation of the market of Montreal. Not satisfied with this,
+Perrot, in defiance of the royal order, sent men into the woods to trade
+with the Indians in their villages, and it is said even used his soldiers
+for this purpose, under cover of pretended desertion. [Footnote: The
+original papers relating to the accusations against Perrot are still
+preserved in the ancient records of Montreal.] The rage of the merchants
+of Montreal may readily be conceived, and when Frontenac heard of the
+behavior of his subordinate he was duly incensed.
+
+It seems, however, to have occurred, or to have been suggested to him,
+that he, the Governor-General might repeat the device of Perrot on a
+larger scale and with more profitable results. By establishing a fortified
+trading post on Lake Ontario, the whole trade of the upper country might
+be engrossed, with the exception of that portion of it which descended by
+the river Ottawa, and even this might in good part be diverted from its
+former channel. At the same time, a plan of a fort on Lake Ontario might
+be made to appear as of great importance to the welfare of the colony; and
+in fact, from one point of view, it actually was so. Courcelles, the late
+governor, had already pointed out its advantages. Such a fort would watch
+and hold in check the Iroquois, the worst enemy of Canada; and, with the
+aid of a few small vessels, it would intercept the trade which the upper
+Indians were carrying on through the Iroquois country with the English and
+Dutch of New York. Frontenac learned from La Salle that the English were
+intriguing both with the Iroquois and with the tribes of the Upper Lakes,
+to induce them to break the peace with the French, and bring their furs to
+New York. [Footnote: _Lettre de Frontenac à Colbert_, 13 _Nov_. 1678.]
+Hence the advantages, not to say the necessity, of a fort on Lake Ontario
+were obvious. But, while it would turn a stream of wealth from the English
+to the French colony, it was equally clear that the change might be made
+to inure, not to the profit of Canada at large, but solely to that of
+those who had control of the fort; or, in other words, that the new
+establishment might become an instrument of a grievous monopoly. This
+Frontenac and La Salle well understood, and there can be no reasonable
+doubt that they aimed at securing such a monopoly: but the merchants of
+Canada understood it, also; and hence they regarded with distrust any
+scheme of a fort on Lake Ontario.
+
+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.
+[Footnote: _Lettre de Frontenac à Colbert_, 13 _Nov_. 1673, MS. This
+rumor, it appears, originated with the Jesuit Dablon.--_Journal du Voyage
+du Comte de Frontenac au Lac Ontario_. MS. The Jesuits were greatly
+opposed to the establishment of forts and trading posts in the upper
+country, for reasons that will appear hereafter.]
+
+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. He now had with him about four hundred men, including Indians from
+the missions, and a hundred and twenty canoes, besides two large
+flatboats, 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 flatboats 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
+flatboats; 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.
+
+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 flatboats, 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.
+
+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
+flatboats, 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 storehouse 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.
+
+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, 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."
+[Footnote: _Lettre de Frontenac au Ministre_, 13 Nov. 1673.] 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
+scheme of La Salle; and we shall soon find him employed in executing it.
+
+It remained to determine what disposition should be made of the new fort.
+For some time it was uncertain whether the king would not order its
+demolition, as efforts had been made to influence him to that effect. It
+was resolved, however, that, being once constructed, it should be allowed
+to stand; and, after a considerable 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. [Footnote: 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 entrusted 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."] 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. [Footnote: _Mémoire pour l'entretien du
+Fort Frontenac, par le Sr. de la Salle, 1674. MS. Pétition du Sr. de la
+Salle au Roi, MS. 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, MS. Arrêt qui accepte les offres faites par Robert Cavelier Sr.
+de la Salle; à Compiègne le 13 Mai, 1675, MS. Lettres de noblesse pour le
+Sr. Cavelier de la Salle; données à Compiègne le 13 Mai, 1675, MS. Papiers
+de Famille; Mémoire au Roi, MS._]
+
+La Salle returned to Canada, proprietor of a seigniory, which, all things
+considered, was one of the most valuable in the colony. It was now that
+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 the broad
+ambition that urged his scheming brain.
+
+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.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+1674-1678.
+LA SALLE AND THE JESUITS.
+
+THE ABBÉ FÉNELON.--HE ATTACKS THE GOVERNOR.--THE ENEMIES OF
+LA SALLE.--AIMS OF THE JESUITS.--THEIR HOSTILITY TO LA SALLE.
+
+
+A curious incident occurred soon, after the building of the fort on Lake
+Ontario. A violent quarrel had taken place between Frontenac and 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, seigneurs 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.
+
+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. [Footnote: 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.]
+
+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. [Footnote: _Information faicte par nous, Charles
+Le Tardieu, Sieur de Tilly, et Nicolas Dupont, etc. etc., contre le Sr.
+Abbé de Fénelon_, MS. Tilly and Dupont were sent by Frontenac to inquire
+into the affair. Among the deponents is La Salle himself.]
+
+This indecent procedure of La Salle filled the priests with anxiety, for
+they had no doubt that the sermon would speedily be reported to Frontenac.
+Accordingly they made all haste to disavow it, and their letter to that
+effect was the first information which the Governor received of the
+affair. He summoned the offender to Quebec, to answer a charge of
+seditious language, before the Supreme Council. Fénelon appeared
+accordingly, but denied the jurisdiction of the Council; claiming that as
+an ecclesiastic it was his right to be tried by the Bishop. By way of
+asserting this right, he seated himself in presence of his judges, and put
+on his hat; and being rebuked by Frontenac, who presided, he pushed it on
+farther. [Footnote: The Council always held its session with hats on. It
+seems that a priest, summoned before it as a witness, was also entitled to
+wear his hat, and Fénelon maintained that it had no right to require him
+to appear before it in any other character.] He was placed under arrest,
+and soon after required to leave Canada; but the king accompanied the
+recall with a sharp word of admonition to his too strenuous lieutenant.
+[Footnote: _Lettre du Roi à Frontenac_, 22 _Avril_, 1675, MS.]
+
+This affair gives us a glimpse of the distracted state of the colony,
+racked by the discord of conflicting interests and passions. There were
+the quarrels of rival traders, the quarrels of priests among themselves,
+of priests with the civil authorities, and of the civil authorities among
+themselves. Prominent, if not paramount, among the occasions of strife,
+were the schemes of Cavelier de La Salle. All the traders not interested
+with him leagued together to oppose him; and this with an acrimony easily
+understood, when it is remembered that they depended for subsistence on
+the fur-trade, while La Salle had engrossed a great part of it, and
+threatened to engross far more. Duchesneau, Intendant of the colony, and
+in that capacity almost as a matter of course on ill terms with the
+Governor, was joined with this party of opposition, with whom he evidently
+had commercial interests in common. La Chesnaye, Le Moyne, and ultimately
+Le Ber, besides various others of more or less influence, were in the
+league against La Salle. Among them was Louis Joliet, whom his partisans
+put forward as a rival discoverer, and a foil to La Salle. Joliet, it will
+be remembered, had applied for a grant of land in the countries he had
+discovered, and had been refused. La Salle soon after made a similar
+application, and with a different result, as will presently appear. His
+adherents continually depreciated the merits of Joliet, and even expressed
+doubt of the reality, or at least the extent, of his discoveries.
+
+But there was another element of opposition to La Salle, 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.
+
+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
+[Footnote: This purpose is several times indicated in the _Relations_. For
+an instance, see "Jesuits in North America," 153.] 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, [Footnote: Compare Charlevoix, _Histoire de Paraguay_,
+with Robertson, _Letters on Paraguay_.] 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 ascendancy of their Order; or, as
+they would have expressed it, the ascendancy 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, settlement. The scope and vigor of
+his enterprises, and the powerful influence that aided them made him a
+stumbling-block in their path. As they would have put the case, it was the
+spirit of this world opposed to the spirit of religion; but I may perhaps
+be pardoned if I am constrained to think that the spirit which inspired
+these fathers was not uniformly celestial, notwithstanding the virtues
+which sometimes illustrated it.
+
+Frontenac, in his letters to the Court, is continually begging that more
+Récollet friars may be sent to Canada. [Footnote: The Récollets, ejected
+from Canada on the irruption of the English in 1629 (see "Pioneers of
+France in the New World"), had not been allowed to return until 1669, when
+their missions were begun anew.] Not that he had any peculiar fondness for
+ecclesiastics of any kind, regular or secular, white, black, or gray; but
+he wanted the Récollets to oppose to the Jesuits. He had no fear of these
+mendicant disciples of St. Francis. Far less able and less ambitious than
+the Jesuits, he knew that he could manage them, because they would need
+his support against their formidable rivals. La Salle, too, wanted more
+Récollets, and for the same reason; but in one point he differed from his
+patron. He was a man, not only of regulated life, but of strong religious
+feeling, and, bating his violent prepossession against the Jesuits, he
+respected the Church and its ministers, as his letters and his life
+attest. Thus, in replying to a charge of undue severity towards some of
+his followers, he alleges in his justification the profane language of the
+men in question, and adds, "I am a Christian; I will have no blasphemers
+in my camp." [Footnote: Letter of La Salle in the hands of M. Margry.]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+1678.
+PARTY STRIFE.
+
+LA SALLE AND HIS REPORTER.--JESUIT ASCENDANCY.--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.
+
+
+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,
+[Footnote: _Ante_, p. 11.] 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. [Footnote: Louis-Armand de Bourbon, second Prince de
+Conti. I am strongly inclined to think that this nobleman himself is
+author of the memoir.] 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. [Footnote: Extracts from this have already been given in connection
+with La Salle's supposed discovery of the Mississippi. _Ante_, p. 20.]
+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 in 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 certainty 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." [Footnote: "Tous ceux
+de mes amis qui l'ont vu luy trouve beaucoup d'esprit et un très grand
+sens; il ne parle guères que des choses sur lesquelles on l'interroge; il
+les dit en très-peu de mots et très-bien circonstanciés; 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 lui 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."]
+
+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;
+[Footnote: "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.] that he is not well inclined towards the
+Récollets, [Footnote: "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_.] 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; [Footnote: "Ils (les Jésuites) réfusent l'absolution a
+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-memes sans aucune
+difficulté ce mesme trafic quoique tout sorte de trafic soit interdit 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 moms; 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 chasse 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.] 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, [Footnote: 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.] 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. [Footnote: "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."]
+
+The memoir proceeds to affirm that they trade largely with the Sioux, at
+Ste. Marie, and with other tribes at Michillimackinac, and that they are
+masters of the trade of that region, where the forts are in their
+possession. [Footnote: These forts were built by them, and were necessary
+to the security of their missions.] 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. [Footnote: 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.] It is added that there exists in Quebec, under the auspices of
+the Jesuits, an association called the Sainte Famille, of which Madame
+Bourdon [Footnote: This Madame Bourdon was the widow of Bourdon, the
+engineer, (see "Jesuits in North America," 299). 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.] 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. [Footnote: "Il y a dans Québec une
+congrégation de femmes et de filles qu'ils [_les Jésuits_]
+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
+Boudon; 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 on 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 Mr. 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.
+
+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.
+
+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
+Mississipi. 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. [Footnote: Mention has been made
+of the report set on foot by the Jesuit Dablon, to prevent
+the building of the fort.] 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 him 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. [Footnote: This story is told at considerable length, and the
+advances of the lady particularly described.]
+
+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, the 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 the 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, the Abbé Cavelier saw fit, for some
+reason, to interfere, and prevented the alliance. [Footnote: Letter of La
+Salle in possession of M. Margry.]
+
+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 farther 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. [Footnote: 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, 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 fist la guerre aux
+Iroquois." See Thomassy, _Géologie Pratique de la Louisiane_, 203.] At
+this council they accused the two Jesuits, Bruyas and Pierron, [Footnote:
+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_, 1673-9, p. 140 (Shea). Bruyas was also for a
+long time among the Mohawks.] 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 Solycoeur, who confessed the crime. [Footnote: 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 Solycoeur. 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 aerés
+empoissonné 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 nominé Nicolas Perrot, autrement Solycoeur, 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_.] 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 the Prince de
+Conti, 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:
+
+"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 any one shared
+the suspicion which I felt, oblige me by undeceiving him." [Footnote: 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.]
+
+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. [Footnote: 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. MS. The Jesuits had a mission in the neighboring
+tribe of the Mohawks, and elsewhere in New York.] 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.
+
+He is also stated to have declared that Louis Joliet was an impostor,
+[Footnote: This agrees with expressions used by La Salle in a memoir
+addressed by him to Frontenac in November, 1680, and printed by Thomassy.
+In this he plainly intimates his belief that Joliet went but little below
+the mouth of the Illinois.] and a _donné_ of the Jesuits,--that is, a man
+who worked for them without pay; and, farther, 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,
+undoubtedly contains a great deal of truth.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+1677-1678.
+THE GRAND ENTERPRISE.
+
+LA SALLE AT FORT FRONTENAC.--LA SALLE AT COURT.--HIS PLANS APPROVED.
+--HENRI DE TONTY.--PREPARATION FOR DEPARTURE.
+
+
+When La Salle gained possession of Fort Frontenac, he secured a base for
+all his future enterprises. That he meant to make it a permanent one is
+clear from the pains he took to strengthen its defences. Within two years
+from the date of his grant he had replaced the hasty palisade fort of
+Count Frontenac by a regular work of hewn stone; of which, however, only
+two bastions, with their connecting curtains, were completed, the
+enclosure on the water side being formed of pickets. Within, there was a
+barrack, a well, a mill, and a bakery; while a wooden blockhouse guarded
+the gateway. [Footnote: Plan of Fort Frontenac, published by Faillon, from
+the original sent to France by Denonville, 1685.] Near the shore, south of
+the fort, was a cluster of small houses of French _habitans_; and farther,
+in the same direction, was the Indian village. Two officers and a surgeon,
+with half a score or more of 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 fort. [Footnote: _État de la dépense faite par Mr.
+de la Salle, Gouverneur du Fort Frontenac_, MS. When Frontenac was at the
+fort in September, 1677, he found only four _habitans_. It appears by the
+_Relation des Découvertes du Sr. 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_, MSS.] Besides
+these, there were two Récollet friars, Luc Buisset and Louis Hennepin; of
+whom the latter was but indifferently suited to his apostolic functions,
+as we shall soon discover. La Salle built a house for them, near the fort;
+and they turned a part of it into a chapel.
+
+Partly for trading on the lake, partly with a view to ulterior designs, he
+caused four small decked vessels to be built: but, for ordinary uses,
+canoes best served his purpose; and his followers became so skilful in
+managing them, that they were reputed the best canoe-men in America.
+[Footnote: _Relation des Découvertes_, MS. Hennepin repeats the
+statement.] Feudal lord of the forests around him, commander of a garrison
+raised and paid by himself, founder of the mission, patron of the church,
+La Salle reigned the autocrat of his lonely little empire.
+
+But he had no thought of resting here. He had gained what he sought, a
+fulcrum for bolder and broader action. His plans were ripened and his time
+was come. He was no longer a needy adventurer, disinherited of all but his
+fertile brain and his intrepid heart. He had won place, influence, credit,
+and potent friends. Now, at length, he might hope to find the long-sought
+path to China and Japan, and secure for France those boundless regions of
+the West, in whose watery highways he saw his road to wealth, renown, and
+power. Again he sailed for France, bearing, as before, letters from
+Frontenac, commending him to the king and the minister. We have seen that
+he was denounced in advance as a madman; but Colbert at length gave him a
+favoring ear, and granted his petition. Perhaps he read the man before
+him, living only in the conception and achievement of great designs, and
+armed with a courage that not the Fates nor the Furies themselves could
+appall.
+
+La Salle was empowered to pursue his proposed discoveries at his own
+expense, on condition of completing them within five years; to build forts
+in the new-found countries, and hold possession of them on terms similar
+to those already granted him in the case of Fort Frontenac; and to
+monopolize the trade in buffalo skins, a new branch of commerce, by which,
+as he urged, the plains of the Mississippi would become a source of
+copious wealth. But he was expressly forbidden to carry on trade with the
+Ottawas and other tribes of the Lakes, who were accustomed to bring their
+furs to Montreal. [Footnote: _Permission an Sr. de la Salle de découvrir
+la partie occidentals de la Nouvelle France_, 12 _May_, 1678, MS. Signed
+_Colbert_; not, as Charlevoix says, _Seignelay_.]
+
+Again La Salle's wealthy relatives came to his aid, and large advances of
+money were made to him. [Footnote: In the memorial which La Salle's
+relations presented to the king after his death, they say that, on this
+occasion, "ses frères et ses parents n'épargnèrent rien." It is added that
+between 1678 and 1683 his enterprises cost the family more than 500,000
+francs. By a memorandum of his cousin, François Plet, M.D., of Paris, it
+appears that La Salle gave him, on the 27th and 28th of June, 1678, two
+promissory notes of 9,805 francs and 1,676 francs respectively.] He bought
+supplies and engaged men; and in July, 1678, sailed again for Canada, with
+thirty followers,--sailors, carpenters, and laborers,--an abundant store
+of anchors, cables, and rigging; iron tools,--merchandise for trade, and
+all things necessary for his enterprise. There was one man of his party
+worth all the rest combined. The Prince de Conti had a _protégé_ in the
+person of Henri de Tonty, an Italian officer, one of whose hands had been
+blown off by a grenade in the Sicilian wars. His father, who had been
+Governor of Gaeta, but who had come to France in consequence of political
+convulsions in Naples, had earned no small reputation as a financier, and
+devised the form of life insurance known as the Tontine. The Prince de
+Conti recommended the son to La Salle; and, as the event proved, he could
+not have done him a better service. 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 any thing; 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." [Footnote: _Lettre de
+La Salle au Prince de Conti_, 31 _Oct_. 1678, MS. 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 Gallicised, 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 ascribes the
+loss of his hand to a sabre-cut received in a _sortie_ at Messina; but
+Tonty, in his _Mémoire_, says, as above, that it was blown off.]
+
+Besides Tonty, La Salle found another ally, though a less efficient one,
+in the person of the Sieur de la Motte; and at Quebec, where he was
+detained for a time, he found Father Louis Hennepin, who had come down
+from Fort Frontenac to meet him.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+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 chateau; 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. [Footnote: Hennepin,
+_Description de la Louisiane_ (1683), 19. Ibid., _Voyage Curieux_ (1704),
+66. Ribourde had lately arrived.] La Salle, Tonty, La Motte, and their
+party, who had left Quebec a few days after him, soon appeared at the
+fort; La Salle much fatigued and worn by the hardships of the way, or more
+probably by the labors and anxieties of preparation. He had no sooner
+arrived, than he sent fifteen men in canoes to Lake Michigan and the
+Illinois, to open a trade with the Indians and collect a store of
+provisions. There was a small vessel of ten tons in the harbor; and he
+ordered La Motte to sail in her for Niagara, accompanied by 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." [Footnote: Hennepin, _Nouvelle Découverte_ (1697), 8.] 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. [Footnote: Ibid., _Avant Propos_, 5.]
+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."
+[Footnote: Ibid., _Voyage Curieux_ (1704), 12.]
+
+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." [Footnote: Ibid., 13.]
+
+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.
+[Footnote: 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.]
+
+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 [Footnote: 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.] 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.
+[Footnote: Compare Brodhead in _Hist. Mag._, x. 268.]
+
+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." [Footnote: "Une entreprise capable
+d'épouvanter tout autre que moi."--Hennepin, _Voyage Curieux, Avant
+Propos_ (1704).] 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 every thing related in it." [Footnote: "Je vous
+proteste ici devant Dieu, que ma Relation est fidèle et sincère," etc.--
+Ibid., _Avis au Lecteur_.] 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. [Footnote: 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.]
+
+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 north-east;
+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, [Footnote: 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.] 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.
+
+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. [Footnote: 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," 143. 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.]
+
+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.
+
+It was La Salle's purpose to build a palisade fort at the mouth of the
+Niagara; and the work was now begun, though it was necessary to use hot
+water 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, south-east of the
+site of Rochester. [Footnote: 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.] 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 at
+the mouth 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.
+
+A few days after, Hennepin was near the shore of the lake, when he heard a
+well-known voice, and to his surprise saw La Salle approaching. This
+resolute child of misfortune had already begun to taste the bitterness of
+his destiny. Sailing with Tonty from Fort Frontenac, to bring supplies to
+the advanced party at Niagara, he had been detained by contrary winds when
+within a few hours of his destination. Anxious to reach it speedily, he
+left the vessel in charge of the pilot, who disobeyed his orders, and
+ended by wrecking it at a spot nine or ten leagues west of Niagara.
+[Footnote: Tonty, _Mémoire envoyé en 1693 sur la Découverte du Mississippi
+et des Nations voisines, par le Sieur de la Salle, en 1678, et depuis sa
+mort par le Sieur de Tonty_. The published work bearing Tonty's name is a
+compilation full of misstatements. He disowned its authorship. Its
+authority will not be relied on in this narrative. A copy of the true
+document from the original, signed by Tonty, in the Archives de la Marine,
+is before me.] The provisions and merchandise were lost, though the crew
+saved the anchors and cables destined for the vessel which La Salle
+proposed to build for the navigation of the Upper Lakes. He had had a
+meeting with the Senecas, before the disaster; and, more fortunate than La
+Motte,--for his influence over Indians was great,--had persuaded them to
+consent, for a time, to the execution of his plans. They required,
+however, that he should so far modify them as to content himself with a
+stockaded warehouse, in place of a fort, at the mouth of the Niagara.
+
+The loss of the vessel threw him into extreme perplexity, and, as Hennepin
+says, "would have made anybody but him give up the enterprise." [Footnote:
+_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.] The whole party
+were now gathered within the half-finished palisades of Niagara; a motley
+crew of French, Flemings, and Italians, all mutually jealous. Some of the
+men had been tampered with by La Salle's enemies. None of them seem to
+have had much heart for the enterprise. La Motte had gone back to Canada.
+He had been a soldier, and perhaps a good one; but he had already broken
+down under the hardships of these winter journeyings. La Salle, seldom
+happy in the choice of subordinates, had, perhaps, in all his company but
+one man in whom he could confidently 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.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+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.
+
+
+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
+advanced 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.
+[Footnote: 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.]
+
+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. [Footnote: 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 Maitre Moyse,
+appears as Moïse Hillaret, and the blacksmith, whom he calls La Forge, is
+mentioned as--(illegible) dit la Forge.] 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.
+
+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. [Footnote: "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.] 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, was making his way back on foot to Fort Frontenac, a
+distance of some two hundred and fifty miles, through the snow-encumbered
+forests of the Iroquois and over the ice of Lake Ontario. The wreck of his
+vessel made it necessary that fresh supplies should be sent to Niagara;
+and the condition of his affairs, embarrassed by the great expenses of the
+enterprise, demanded his presence at Fort Frontenac. 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.
+
+During his absence, Tonty finished the vessel, which was of about forty-
+five tons burden. [Footnote: 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.] 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.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+1679.
+LA SALLE ON THE UPPER LAKES.
+
+THE VOYAGE OF THE "GRIFFIN."--DETROIT.--A STORM.--ST. IGNACE OF
+MICHILLIMACKINAC.--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, the
+voyagers, thirty-four in all, 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, [Footnote: They named it Sainte Claire, of which the present name
+is a perversion.] and still sailed northward against the current, till
+now, sparkling in the sun, Lake Huron spread before them like a sea.
+
+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. [Footnote: Hennepin (1683), 58.] 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 Michillimackinac, 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. [Footnote: 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.] 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. [Footnote: Tonty, _Mémoire_, MS. He was
+overtaken at the Detroit by the "Griffin."] 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 Michillimackinac. 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.
+
+Early in September, long before Tonty had returned from Ste. Marie, La
+Salle set sail again, and, passing westward into Lake Michigan, [Footnote:
+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.] 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. [Footnote: "The Great Mountain," the
+Iroquois name for the Governor of Canada. It was borrowed by other tribes
+also.] Here, too, he found several of his advanced 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. [Footnote: 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 an Ministre_, 10 _Nov_. 1680, MS] She fired a
+parting shot, and, on the eighteenth of September, spread her sails for
+Niagara, in charge of the pilot, who had orders to return with her to the
+Illinois as soon as he had discharged his 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.
+
+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 much ado
+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 a 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 driftwood, 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. [Footnote: Hennepin (1683), 79.]
+
+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 hack 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.
+
+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.
+
+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 further,
+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 a new subject of anxiety. La Salle thought that he saw in it
+another device of his busy and unscrupulous enemies, intriguing among the
+Illinois 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 Michillimackinac, 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. [Footnote: Hennepin
+(1683), 112; Tonty, _Mémoire_, MS.]
+
+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 farther delay was impossible. He
+sent back two men to Michillimackinac 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.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII.
+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 HIM.
+
+
+On the third of December, the party re-embarked, thirty-three in all, in
+eight canoes, [Footnote: _Lettre de Duchesneau à_--, 10 _Nov_. 1680, MS.]
+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 snowflakes, 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 farther 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.
+
+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. They soon reached a spot where the oozy saturated soil
+quaked beneath their tread. All around were clumps of alderbushes, 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. [Footnote: 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. 835 (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."] 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.
+[Footnote: I remember to have seen an incident precisely similar, many
+years ago, on the Upper Arkansas. In this case, however, it was impossible
+to drag the bull from the mire. Though hopelessly entangled, he made
+furious plunges at his assailants before being shot.
+
+Hennepin's account of the buffalo, which he afterwards had every
+opportunity of seeing, is interesting and true.]
+
+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. [Footnote: The change is very
+recent. Within the memory of men still young, 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 farm-house 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 snow-drifts.]
+
+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, [Footnote:
+"Starved Rock." It will hold, hereafter, a conspicuous place in the
+narrative.] 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. [Footnote:
+_La Louisiane_, 137. Allouez (_Relation_, 1673-9) 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 de Père Marquette_, 98 (Lenox). Membré, who was here in 1680,
+says that it then contained seven or eight thousand souls.--Membré, in Le
+Clercq, _Premier Etablissement 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 Edifiantes_.
+
+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
+largest. 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.] 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.
+
+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
+twenty _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." [Footnote: "Les
+paroles les plus touchantes." Hennepin (1683), 139. The later editions add
+the modest qualification, "que je pus."] 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. Two 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. [Footnote: Peoria was the name of one of the tribes of
+the Illinois. Hennepin says that they crossed the lake four days after
+leaving the village, which last, as appears by a comparison of his
+narrative with that of Tonty, must have been on the thirtieth of
+December.] Here, as evening drew near, they saw a faint spire of smoke
+curling above the gray, wintry 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. [Footnote: 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.]
+
+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
+forth 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. [Footnote: Hennepin (1683), 142.] 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.
+
+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 their country, he would
+stand by the Illinois, 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.
+[Footnote: Hennepin (1683), 144-149. The later editions omit a part of the
+above.]
+
+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. 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 firebrand, Monso
+and his party left the camp in haste, dreading to be confronted with the
+object of their aspersions. [Footnote: Hennepin (1683), 151, (1704), 205.
+Le Clercq, ii. 157. _Mémoire du Voyage de M. de la Salle_, MS. 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. La Salle had a special distrust of this missionary, who, on his
+part, always shunned a meeting with him.
+
+In another memoir, addressed to Frontenac in 1680, La Salle states fully
+his conviction that Allouez, who was then, he says, among the Miamis, had
+induced them to send Monso on his sinister errand. See the memoir 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.]
+
+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 for ever.
+
+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?" [Footnote: The above is a paraphrase, with some condensation,
+from Hennepin, whose account is sustained by the other writers.] 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. [Footnote: Hennepin (1683), 162.--_Déclaration faite par
+Moyse Hillaret, charpentier de barque, cy devant au service du Sr. de la
+Salle_, MS.]
+
+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. [Footnote: The
+equally famous Brinvilliers was burned four years before. An account of
+both will be found in the Letters of Madame de Sevigné. 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.]
+
+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.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV.
+1680.
+FORT CRÈVECOEUR.
+
+BUILDING OF THE FORT.--LOSS OF THE "GRIFFIN."--A BOLD RESOLUTION.
+--ANOTHER VESSEL.--HENNEPIN SENT TO THE MISSISSIPPI.--DEPARTURE
+OF LA SALLE.
+
+
+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 little hill, or
+knoll, two hundred yards from the southern bank. On either side was a deep
+ravine, and, in front, a low ground, 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 men were lodged
+in huts, at the angles: in the middle there was a cabin of planks for La
+Salle and Tonty, and another for the three friars; while the blacksmith
+had his shed and forge in the rear.
+
+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. The spot may still be seen, a little below Peoria. 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. [Footnote:
+Charlevoix, i. 459; La Potherie, ii. 140; La Hontan, _Memoir on the Fur-
+Trade of Canada_, MS. 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.] 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. [Footnote:
+_Lettre de la Salle à La Barre, Chicagou,_ 4 _Juin_, 1683, MS. 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.]
+
+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. [Footnote: _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, MS. Hennepin gives a story which
+is not essentially different, except that he makes himself a conspicuous
+actor in it.]
+
+Here was one source of danger stopped; one motive to desert removed. La
+Salle again might feel a reasonable security that idleness would not breed
+mischief among his men. The chief purpose of his intended journey was to
+procure the equipment of a vessel, to be built at Fort Crèvecoeur; and he
+resolved that before he set out he would see her on the stocks. The pit-
+sawyers and some of the carpenters had deserted; but energy supplied the
+place of skill, and he and Tonty urged on the work with such vigor that
+within six weeks the hull was nearly finished. She was of forty tons
+burden, [Footnote: _Lettre de Duchesneau, à_--, 10 _Nov_. 1680, MS.] and
+built with high bulwarks to protect those within from the arrows of
+hostile Indians.
+
+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." [Footnote: "Tout autre que
+moi en auroit été fort ébranlé. Et en effet, je n'eusse pas été la duppe
+du Sieur de la Salle, qui m'exposait témérairement, si je n'eusse mis
+toute ma confiance en Dieu" (1704), 241.]
+
+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, [Footnote: An eminent
+writer has mistaken "Picard" for a personal name. Du Gay was called "Le
+Picard," because he came from the province of Picardy. Accau, and not
+Hennepin, was the real chief of the party.] 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." [Footnote: (1683), 188. This
+commendation is suppressed in the later editions.]
+
+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 second of March, [Footnote: Tonty erroneously places their
+departure on the twenty-second.] before the frost was yet out of the
+ground, when the forest was still leafless and gray, and the oozy prairie
+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: Hunaud, La Violette, Collin, and Dautray.
+[Footnote: _Déclaration faite par Moyse Hillaret, charpentier de barque,
+MS._] 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.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV.
+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.
+
+
+The winter had been a severe one. When La Salle and his five companions
+reached Peoria Lake, they found it sheeted from shore to shore with ice
+that stopped the progress of their canoes, but was too thin to bear the
+weight of a man.
+
+They dragged their light vessels up the bank and into the forest, where
+the city of Peoria now stands; made two rude sledges, placed the canoes
+and baggage upon them, and, toiling knee-deep in saturated snow, dragged
+them four leagues through the woods, till they reached a point where the
+motion of the current kept the water partially open. They were now on the
+river above the lake. Masses of drift ice, wedged together, but full of
+crevices and holes, soon barred the way again; and, carrying their canoes
+ashore, they dragged them two leagues over a frozen marsh. Rain fell in
+floods; and, when night came, they crouched for shelter 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. [Footnote: 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.]
+
+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 moccasons. 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. [Footnote: 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 Clercq, ii. 181.] 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. [Footnote: Tonty, _Mémoire_, MS. The order was sent by
+two Frenchmen whom La Salle met on Lake Michigan.]
+
+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. Each, besides his gun, carried a knife and
+a hatchet at his belt, a blanket strapped at his back, and a piece of
+dressed hide to make or mend his moccasons. A store of powder and lead,
+and a kettle, completed the outfit of the party. [Footnote: Hennepin
+(1683), 173.]
+
+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 Michillimackinac, in
+search of the "Griffin." [Footnote: _Déclaration de Moyse Hillaret_, MS.
+_Relation des Découvertes_, MS.] 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.
+
+They were detained till noon of the twenty-fifth, in making a raft to
+cross the St. Joseph. Then they resumed their march; and as they forced
+their way through the brambly thickets, their clothes were torn, and their
+faces so covered with blood, that, says the journal, they could hardly
+know each other. Game was very scarce, and they grew faint with hunger. In
+two or three days they reached a happier region. They shot deer, bears,
+and turkeys in the forest, and fared sumptuously. But the reports of their
+guns fell on hostile ears. This was a debatable ground, infested with war-
+parties of several adverse tribes, and none could venture here without
+risk of life. On the evening of the twenty-eighth, as they lay around
+their fire under the shelter of a forest by the border of a prairie, the
+man on guard shouted an alarm. They sprang to their feet; and each, gun in
+hand, took his stand behind a tree, while yells and howlings filled the
+surrounding darkness. A band of Indians were upon them; but, seeing them
+prepared, the cowardly assailants did not wait to exchange a shot.
+
+They crossed great meadows, overgrown with rank grass, and set it on fire
+to hide the traces of their passage. La Salle bethought him of a device to
+keep their skulking foes at a distance. On the trunks of trees from which
+he had stripped the bark, he drew with charcoal the marks of an Iroquois
+war-party, with the usual signs for prisoners, and for scalps, hoping to
+delude his pursuers with the belief that he and his men were a band of
+these dreaded warriors.
+
+Thus, over snowy prairies and half-frozen marshes; wading sometimes to
+their waists in mud, water, and bulrushes, they urged their way through
+the spongy, saturated wilderness. During three successive days they were
+aware that a party of savages was dogging their tracks. They dared, not
+make a fire at night, lest the light should betray them; but, hanging
+their wet clothes on the trees, they rolled themselves in their blankets,
+and slept together among piles of spruce and pine boughs. But the night of
+the second of April was excessively cold. Their clothes were hard frozen,
+and they were forced to kindle a fire to thaw and dry them. Scarcely had
+the light begun to glimmer through the gloom of evening, than it was
+greeted from the distance by mingled yells; and a troop of Mascoutin
+warriors rushed towards them. They were stopped by a deep stream, a
+hundred paces from the bivouac of the French, and La Salle went forward to
+meet them. No sooner did they see him, and learn that he was a Frenchman,
+than they cried that they were friends and brothers, who had mistaken him
+and his men for Iroquois; and, abandoning their hostile purpose, they
+peacefully withdrew. Thus his device to avert danger had well-nigh proved
+the destruction of the whole party.
+
+Two days after this adventure, two of the men fell ill from fatigue, and
+exposure, and sustained themselves with difficulty till they reached the
+banks of a river, 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.
+
+La Salle directed two of the men to make a canoe, and go to
+Michillimackinac, 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. [Footnote: 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.]
+
+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. [Footnote: Zenobe
+Membré in Le Clercq, ii. 202.] 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. 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 _habitans_ 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 Michillimackinac and Niagara, they
+now numbered twenty men. [Footnote: 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_, MS. 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.] They had destroyed the fort on the St. Joseph, seized a
+quantity of furs belonging to La Salle at Michillimackinac, 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.
+
+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. [Footnote: The story of La Salle's journey from Fort
+Crèvecoeur to Fort Frontenac, with his subsequent encounter with the
+mutineers, is given in great detail in the unpublished _Relation des
+Découvertes_. This and other portions of it are compiled, with little
+abridgment, from the letters of La Salle himself, some of which are still
+in existence. They give the particulars of each day with a cool and
+business-like simplicity, recounting facts without comment or the
+slightest attempt at rhetorical embellishment. This is the authority for
+the details of the journey: the general statement is confirmed by Membré,
+Hennepin, and Tonty. The _Mémoire_ of Tonty, though too concise, is
+excellent authority, and must by no means be confounded with the _Relation
+de la Louisiane_, to which his name is falsely affixed.]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI.
+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.
+
+
+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 toils 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 veiled 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,
+indeed, 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. [Footnote: _Robert Cavelier, Sr. de
+la Salle, à François Daupin, Sr. de la Forest,_ 10 _Juin, 1679,_ MS.] A
+surgeon, ship-carpenters, joiners, masons, soldiers, _voyageurs_, and
+laborers completed his company, twenty-five men in all, with every thing
+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
+Michillimackinac. 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, [Footnote: 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,--an
+impossibility.] 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. For some time past, rumors had
+been abroad that the Iroquois were preparing to invade the country of the
+Illinois, bent on expelling or destroying them. 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.
+
+When last he had passed here, all was solitude; but how 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; their horns
+splintered and their grim front scarred with battles, while their shaggy
+mane, like a gigantic lion, well-nigh swept the ground. [Footnote: I have
+a very vivid recollection of the appearance of an old buffalo bull under
+such circumstances. When I was within a hundred yards of him, he came
+towards me at a sharp trot as if to make a charge; but, as I remained
+motionless, he stopped thirty paces off and stared fixedly for a long
+time. At length, he slowly turned, and, in doing so, received a shot
+behind the shoulder, which killed him. It is useless to fire at the
+forehead of a buffalo bull, at least with an ordinary rifle, as the bullet
+flattens against his skull. A shot at close quarters, just above the nose,
+would probably turn him in a charge. The usual modes of hunting buffalo on
+foot are those mentioned above. They are commonly successful; but at times
+the animals are excessively shy and wary, while at other times they are
+stupid beyond measure, and can be easily approached and killed. The hunter
+must remain perfectly motionless after firing, as the wounded animal is
+apt to make a rush at him if he moves. The most agreeable mode of hunting
+buffalo is, however, on horseback, running alongside of them, and shooting
+them behind the shoulder with a pistol or a short gun. A bow and arrow are
+better for those who know how to use them; but white men very rarely have
+the skill. I have seen, on different occasions, several hundred buffalo
+killed with arrows, by Indians on horseback. This noble game, with the
+tribes who live on it, will soon disappear from the earth.] 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 bounteous 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.
+
+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. [Footnote: "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 avait des
+têtes de morts plantées et mangóes des corbeaux."--_Relation des
+Découvertes du Sr. de la Salle_, MS.] 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. [Footnote:
+"Beaucoup de carcasses à demi rongées par les loups, les sepulchres
+démolis, les os tirés de leurs fosses et épars par la campagne; ... enfin
+les loups et les corbeaux augmentoient par leurs hurlemens et par leurs
+cris l'horreur de ce spectacle."--_Ibid_.
+
+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.]
+
+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 storehouses 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, but none whatever of the presence of white
+men. 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, crouched around their camp-
+fire, La Salle and his companions kept their vigil. The howlings of the
+wolves filled the frosty air with a fierce and dreary dissonance. More
+deadly foes were not far off, for before nightfall they had seen fresh
+Indian tracks. The cold, however, forced them to make a fire; and while
+some tried to rest around it, the others stood on the watch. La Salle
+could not sleep. Anxiety, anguish, fears for his friend, doubts as to what
+course he should pursue, racked his firm mind with a painful indecision,
+and lent redoubled gloom to the terrors that encompassed him. [Footnote:
+_Relation des Découvertes_, MS.]
+
+During the afternoon, he had made a discovery which offered, as he
+thought, a possible clew to the fate of Tonty, and those with him. In one
+of the Illinois cornfields, near the river, were planted six posts painted
+red, on each of which was drawn in black a figure of a man with eyes
+bandaged. La Salle supposed them to represent six Frenchmen, prisoners in
+the hands of the Iroquois; and he resolved to push forward at all hazards,
+in the hope of learning more. When daylight at length returned, he told
+his followers that it was his purpose to descend the river, 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.
+
+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_ 19--
+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. [Footnote: "On ne
+sçàuroit 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_, MS.] 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. [Footnote: The distance is about two hundred and fifty miles.
+The _Relation des Découvertes_ says 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. Very probably, there is an error of
+date. In other particulars, this narrative is sustained by those of
+Tonty.]
+
+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. [Footnote: 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.]
+
+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 profusion, till the earth was deeply buried. So light and dry
+was it, that to walk on snow-shoes was impossible; and La Salle, after his
+custom, took the lead, to break the path and cheer on his followers.
+Despite his tall stature, he often waded through drifts to the waist,
+while the men toiled on behind; the snow, shaken from the burdened twigs,
+showering them as they passed. After excessive fatigue, 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.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII.
+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,
+housewrights, and soldiers, besides his servant l'Esperance 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 at 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 firebrand 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.
+
+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_." [Footnote: For the
+particulars of this desertion, Membré, in Le Clerc, ii. 171, _Relation des
+Découvertes_, MS.; Tonty, _Mémoire_, MS.; _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_, 17 _Aoust_, 1680, MS.
+
+Moyse Hillaret, the "Maitre Moyse" of Hennepin, was a ringleader 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.] The brave young Sieur de Boisrondet and the servant l'Esperance
+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.
+[Footnote: Two of the messengers, Laurent and Messier, arrived safely. The
+others seem to have deserted.] Besides the two just named, there now
+remained with him only three hired men 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.
+
+I have recounted the ferocious triumphs of the Iroquois in another volume.
+[Footnote: "The Jesuits in America."] Throughout a wide semicircle around
+their cantons they had made the forest a solitude,--destroyed the Hurons,
+exterminated the Neutrals and the Eries, reduced the formidable Andastes
+to a 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. [Footnote:
+Duchesneau, in _Paris Docs_., ix. 163.] These crafty savages would fain
+reduce all these regions to subjection, and draw from 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. [Footnote:
+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.]
+
+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. [Footnote: 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. Starved Rock, or the Rock of St. Louis, is the highest and
+steepest escarpment of the _long rocher_ above mentioned.] 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 space and breathing room, for many are in the fields. A squaw
+sits weaving a mat of rushes; a warrior, naked, except his moccasons, 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. [Footnote: The Illinois were an aggregation of
+distinct though kindred tribes, the Kaskaskias, the Peorias, the Cahokias,
+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.]
+
+This, or something like it, one may safely affirm, was the aspect of the
+Illinois village at noon of the tenth of September. [Footnote: This is
+Membré's date. The narratives differ as to the day, though all agree as to
+the month.] 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, and
+the two faithful men who had stood by their commander. 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.
+
+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,
+[Footnote: 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.] 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 firearms 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.
+
+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 was 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. [Footnote: 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 Decouvertes,_, MS. "Je rencontrai en
+chemin les pères Gabriel et Zenobe Membré, qui cherchoient de mes
+nonvelles."--Tonty _Mémoire_, MS. This was on his return from the
+Iroquois. The _Relation_ confirms the statement, as far as concerns
+Membré: "Il 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. Though this is not mentioned in the three
+authentic narratives, it is more than probable, as Tonty could not have
+known Iroquois enough to make himself understood.] 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. [Footnote: 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.] 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. [Footnote: "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, _Ménoire_, MS.]
+
+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 breezed up 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. Several times, he felt a hand at the back of his
+head, lifting up his hair, and, turning, saw a savage with a knife,
+standing as if ready to scalp him. [Footnote: "Il en avoit un derrière moi
+qui tenoit un couteau dans sa main, et qui de temps en temps me levoit les
+cheveux."--Tonty, _Mémoire_, MS. The _Dernières Découvertes_ adds, "Je me
+retournai vers lui et je vis bien à sa contenance et à sa mine que son
+dessein étoit de m'enlever la chevelure ... je le priai de vouloir du
+moins se donner un peu de patience, et d'attendre que ses Maitres eussent
+décidé de mon sort."] A Seneca chief demanded that he should be burned. 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.
+
+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 skin 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. [Footnote: 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_."] 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 skin, 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.
+
+Tonty, with an 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 farther 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 around 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. [Footnote: Tonty,
+_Mémoire_, MS. Membré in Le Clercq, 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.]
+
+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. [Footnote: "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 plantérent les têtes de ces
+cadavres à demi décharnés sur des pieux," etc.--_Relation des
+Découvertes_, MS.] 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. [Footnote: _Relation des Découvertes_, MS.
+Frontenac to the King, N.Y. _Col. Docs_., ix. 147. A memoir of Duchesneau
+makes the number twelve hundred.] Then followed that scene of torture, of
+which, some two weeks later, La Salle saw the revolting traces. [Footnote:
+"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. 196.] 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 firebrand; 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 Michillimackinac, 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
+they had much ado 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. It was the end of November before they found the
+Pottawattamies, and were warmly greeted by their chief, who had befriended
+La Salle the year before, and who, in his enthusiasm for the French, was
+wont to say that he knew but three great captains in the world, Frontenac,
+La Salle, and himself. [Footnote: Membré, in Le Clercq, ii. 199. Of the
+three, or rather four narratives, on which this chapter mainly rests, the
+best is that contained in the manuscript of 1681, entitled the _Relation
+des Découvertes_. This portion of it, which bears every evidence of
+accuracy, was certainly supplied by Tonty himself or one of his
+companions. The _Mémoire_ of Tonty is wholly distinct. It is a modest and
+simple statement, of which the chief fault is its brevity. He undoubtedly
+wrote another and more detailed narrative, which has been used by the
+editor of the _Dernières Découvertes_, printed with Tonty's name. The
+editor seems to have taken less liberties with his original in this part
+of the book than in many others. The narrative of Membré sustains that of
+Tonty, except in one or two unimportant points, where the writer's vanity
+seems to have gained the better of his veracity.]
+
+While Tonty rests at Green Bay, and La Salle at the fort on the St.
+Joseph, we will leave them for a time to trace the strange adventures of
+the errant friar, Father Louis Hennepin.
+
+
+
+
+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 farm-house; 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 farm-house 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.
+205, _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.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII.
+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, [Footnote: _Description de la Louisiane,
+nouvellement découverte, Paris_, 1683.] Fourteen years after, when La
+Salle was dead, he published another edition of his travels, [Footnote:
+_Nouvelle Découverte d'un très grand Pays situé dans l'Amérique, Utrecht_,
+1697] 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 has 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.
+
+"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 every thing 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."
+[Footnote: _Nouvelle Découverte_, 248, 250, 251.]
+
+He then proceeds to recount, at length, the particulars of his alleged
+exploration. The story was distrusted from the first. [Footnote: 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.] 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." [Footnote: _Description de la Louisiane_, 218.]
+
+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. [Footnote: 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.] 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 farther, 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. [Footnote: 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.]
+
+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 Clercq, published an account of the Récollet missions among
+the Indians, under the title of "Établissement de la Foi." This book was
+suppressed by the French government; but a few copies fortunately
+survived. 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. [Footnote: 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 Clercq'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 Clercq:
+Hennepin, 252, Le Clercq, 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. 283; 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 Clercq 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_.]
+
+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 allusions of Tonty, and other contemporary
+writers. [Footnote: 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.] For the details of the journey,
+we must look on Hennepin alone; whose account of the company and of the
+peculiar traits of its Indian occupation 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 north-western
+region. [Footnote: 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 _Wakansheclia_,
+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.
+
+A variety of 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.] Trusting, then, to his
+guidance in the absence of better, let us follow in the wake of his
+adventurous canoe.
+
+It was laden deeply; with goods belonging to La Salle, and meant by
+handing presents to Indians on the way, though the travelers, it appears,
+proposed to use them in trading of 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 [Footnote:
+Called Ako by Hennepin. In contemporary documents it is written Accau,
+Acau, D'Accau Dacau, Dacan, and d'Accault.] 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 St. 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, not without reason, prayed that it might be his
+fortune to meet them, not by night, but by day.
+
+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. [Footnote: 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.] 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.
+
+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 1863, 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, [Footnote: 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.] 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 peacepipe, 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. [Footnote: 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.]
+
+One night, they 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; and, the banquet over, 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 moccasons; 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 averse 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.
+
+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 be 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.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX.
+1680, 1681.
+HENNEPIN AMONG THE SIOUX.
+
+SIGNS OP 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 St. 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. [Footnote: 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 R. 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 Titonwan 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. Mr. Riggs, in 1852, placed it at about twenty-five
+thousand. Lake many other Indian tribes, they seem practically incapable
+of civilization.]
+
+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 relations 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.
+
+Seeing their new relative so enfeebled that he could scarcely stand, the
+Indians made for him one of their sweating baths, [Footnote: 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.] 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 St. 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 Ouasicoude, 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 several 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. 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
+deerskin 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, who 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.
+
+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 St. Anthony of
+Padua. [Footnote: 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.] As they were carrying their canoe by the
+cataract, they saw five or six Indians, who had gone before, 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. [Footnote: 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 every thing he had about him into the cataract
+as an offering to this deity.] 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, [Footnote: In the edition of 1683. In that of 1697 he has grown
+to seven or eight feet. The bank-swallows still make their nests in these
+cliffs, boring easily into the soft incohesive sandstone.] 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.
+
+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
+fish-hooks, 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. [Footnote: 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.] 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.
+
+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
+blossoming 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; [Footnote: 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_.] 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 strange, 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.
+
+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 admirable address, and used it vigorously, as
+occasion required, to repress the gambols of three children, who, to
+Hennepin's great 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 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.
+
+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. [Footnote: 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, an example, which, if
+followed, would ruin the colony by diverting the sources of its support to
+its rival. Du Lhut built a trading fort on Lake Superior, called
+Cananistigoyan (La Houtan), 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 Clercq, 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 Marquiette, 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.]
+
+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. [Footnote: Abstracts of letters in
+_Memoir on the French Dominion in Canada, N. Y. Col. Docs_., ix. 781.] 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 a 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 it behooved him to conduct
+himself. 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.
+
+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. [Footnote: 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.] He is
+equally reticent with regard to the Jesuit mission at Michillimackinac,
+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. [Footnote: 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 lie all that a Christian ought to be"
+(1697), 433.] 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 Genessee, 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." [Footnote: (1697), 471.] 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.
+
+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.
+[Footnote: 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.
+
+The following is from a letter of La Salle, dated at Fort Frontenac, 22
+Aug. 1681. This, with one or two other passages of his letters, shows that
+he understood the friar's character, though he could scarcely have
+foreseen his scandalous attempts to defame him and rob him of his just
+honors. "J'ai cru qu'il étoit à propos de vous faire le narré des
+aventures de ce canot (du Picard et d'Accau) parce que je ne doute pas
+qu'on n'en parle; et si vous souhaitez en conférer avec le P. Louis Hempin
+(sic) Récollect qui est repassé en France, il faut un peu le connaitre,
+car il ne manquera pas d'exagérer toutes choses, c'est son caractère, et à
+moy mesme il m'a écrit comme s'il eust esté tout près d'estre brulé,
+quoiqu'il n'en ait pas esté seulement en danger; mais il croit qu'il lui
+est honorable de le faire de la sorte, et _il parle plus conformément à ce
+qu'il veut qu'à ce qu'il fait_." I am indebted for the above to M. Margry.
+
+In 1699, Hennepin 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.]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX.
+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 rear the fabric of a
+triumphant 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. The scheme was but a new
+feature, the result of new circumstances, added to the original plan of
+his great enterprise; and he addressed himself to its execution with his
+usual vigor, and with an address which never failed him in his dealings
+with Indians.
+
+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
+for 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 entrenched
+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 nineteen 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. [Footnote: _Relation des Découvertes_, MS. A
+valuable confirmation of Hennepin's narrative.]
+
+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. [Footnote: This seems to have been taken
+from the secret repositories, or _caches_, of the ruined town of the
+Illinois.] Meanwhile, he had rejoined La Forest, whom he now sent to
+Michillimackinac 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 a band of 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.
+
+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." [Footnote: "En ce genre, il étoit le
+plus grand orateur de l'Amerique Septentrionale."--_Relation des
+Découvertes_, MS.] 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 farther 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."
+[Footnote: Translated from the _Relation_, where these councils are
+reported at great length.]
+
+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; the ground
+was broken, and the seed sown. 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 successes were
+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 Michillimackinac 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." [Footnote: Membré, in Le Clercq, ii. 208. Tonty, in his
+unpublished memoir, 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.]
+
+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 disastrous 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, [Footnote: _Copie du testament du deffunt
+Sr. de la Salle, 11 Août_, 1681, MS. The relative was François Plet, M.D.,
+of Paris.] 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. [Footnote: "On apprendra à la fin de cette
+année, 1682, le suceès 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
+Déscouvertes_, so often cited, and of the excellent guidance of which we
+are henceforth deprived. It is a compilation made up from material
+supplied by the various members of La Salle's party, on their return to
+Canada, in 1681; and the greater portion is substantially the work of La
+Salle himself. It is a document of great interest and undoubted
+authority.]
+
+The summer was spent when 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.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI.
+1681-1682.
+SUCCESS OF LA SALLE.
+
+HIS FOLLOWERS.--THE CHICAGO PORTAGE.--DESCENT OP 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, "all well inured to
+war," as his companion Membré writes, and added them to the twenty-three
+Frenchmen who composed his party. They insisted on taking their women with
+them, to cook for them, and do other camp work. 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 twenty-first 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. [Footnote: La Salle, _Relation de la Découverte_, 1682, in
+Thomassy, _Géologie Pratique de la Louisiane_, 9; _Lettre du Père Zenoble_
+(Zenobe Membré), 14 Aoust, 1682, MS.; Membré, in Le Clercq, ii. 214;
+Tonty, _Mémoire_, MS.; _Procès Verbal de la Prise de Possession de la
+Louisiane_.
+
+The narrative ascribed to Membré, and published by Le Clercq, is based on
+the document preserved in the Archives Scientifiques de In 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. Membré's letter
+of August, 1682, is a brief and succinct statement made immediately after
+his return.] 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.
+
+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 forth on 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; [Footnote: Called by Membré the Ouabache (Wabash).] and, gliding by
+the wastes of bordering swamp, landed, on the twenty-fourth of February,
+near the Third Chickasaw Bluffs. [Footnote: La Salle, _Relation de la
+Découverte de I'Embouchure, etc._; Thomassy, 10 Membré gives the same
+date; but the _Procès Verbal_ makes it the twenty-sixth.] 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 [Footnote: 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, entrenched
+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."] 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 in to 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 [Footnote: La Salle,
+_Relation_; Thomassy, 11.] 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.
+
+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 inhabitants flocked about them with eager signs of welcome;
+built huts for them, brought them firewood, gave them corn, beans, and
+dried fruits, and feasted them without respite for three days. "They are a
+lively, civil, generous people," says Membré, "very different from the
+cold and taciturn Indians of the North." They showed, indeed, some slight
+traces of a tendency towards civilization; for domestic fowls and tame
+geese were wandering among their rude cabins of bark. [Footnote: Membré,
+in Le Clercq, ii. 224; Tonty, _Mémoire_, MS.]
+
+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 _Vice le Roi_;
+and La Salle, in the king's name, took formal possession of the country.
+[Footnote: _Procès Verbal de la Prise de Possession du Pays des Arkansas,
+14 Mars_, 1682, MS.] 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 acknowledgment of
+fealty to Louis XIV. [Footnote: 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.]
+
+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. [Footnote: 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.] 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 mulberrybark, 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. [Footnote: Tonty, _Mémoire_, MS. In the spurious narrative
+published in Tonty's name, the account is embellished and exaggerated.
+Compare Membré, in Le Clercq, ii. 227. La Salle's statements in the
+Relation of 1682 (Thomassy, 12) sustain those of Tonty.] 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.
+
+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." [Footnote: Membré, in Le Clercq, ii. 232.]
+
+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. [Footnote: 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 "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, 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.]
+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.
+
+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, [Footnote: In St. Charles County,
+on the left bank, not far above New Orleans.] 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. [Footnote: 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.]
+
+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 D'Autray 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 stood gazing 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,--
+
+"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 therein, from
+its source beyond the country of the Nadouessious ... 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." [Footnote: 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, Natches, 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
+Louisiana_, it would be set at rest by Le Clercq, 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 of the _Procès Verbal_ is before me. It bears the name of
+Jacques de la Métairie, Notary of Fort Frontenac, who was one of the
+party.]
+
+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 savannahs 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.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII.
+1682-1683.
+ST. LOUIS OF THE ILLINOIS.
+
+LOUISIANA.--ILLNESS OF LA SALLE.--HIS COLONY ON THE ILLINOIS.--
+TOUT ST. LOUIS.--RECALL OF FRONTENAC.--LE FÈVRE 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. [Footnote: 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 north-west, 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, north-west, and finally north along the range of the Rocky
+Mountains.]
+
+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. They next revisited
+the Natchez, 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. [Footnote: Tonty, _Mémoire_, MS.]
+
+And now, in a career of unwonted success and anticipated triumph, La Salle
+was sharply 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 Michillimackinac,
+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 the
+Miami, which he reached in about a month.
+
+His descent of the Mississippi had been successful as an exploration, and
+this was all. Could he have executed his original plan, have built a
+vessel on the Illinois and descended in her to the Gulf of Mexico, he
+would have been able to defray in some measure the costs of the
+enterprise, by means of a cargo of buffalo hides collected from Indians on
+the way, with which he would have sailed to the West Indies, or perhaps to
+France. With a fleet of canoes, this was of course impossible; and there
+was nothing to offset the enormous outlay which he and his family had
+made. He proposed, as we have seen, to found, on the banks of the
+Illinois, a colony of French and Indians, of which he should be the feudal
+lord, and which should answer the double purpose of a bulwark against the
+Iroquois and a depot for the furs of all the Western tribes; and he hoped,
+in the following spring, to secure an outlet for this colony, and for all
+the trade of the Mississippi and its tributaries, by occupying its mouth
+with a fort and a dependent colony. [Footnote: "Monsieur de la Salle se
+dispose de retourner sur ses pas à la mer au printemps prochain avec un
+plus grand nombre de gens, et des familles, pour y faire des
+établissemens." Membré, in Le Clercq, ii. 248. This was written in 1682,
+immediately after the return from the mouth of the Mississippi.] Thus he
+would control the valley of the great river of the West.
+
+He rejoined Tonty at Michillimaekinac in September. It was his purpose to
+go at once to France to provide means for establishing his projected post
+at the mouth of the Mississippi; and he ordered Tonty, meanwhile, to
+collect as many men as possible, return to the Illinois, build a fort, and
+lay the foundations of the colony, the plan of which had been determined
+the year before. La Salle was about to depart for Quebec, when news
+reached him that changed his plans, and caused him to postpone his voyage
+to France. He heard that those pests of the wilderness, the Iroquois, were
+about to renew their attacks on the western tribes, and especially on
+their former allies, the Miamis. [Footnote: _Lettre de La Barre au
+Ministre_, 14 Nov. 1682, MS.] This would ruin his projected colony. His
+presence was indispensable. He followed Tonty to the Illinois, and
+rejoined him near the site of the great town.
+
+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 oil 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 rugged 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 entrench themselves. They
+cut away the forest that crowned the rock, built storehouses and dwellings
+of its remains, dragged timber up the rugged pathway, and encircled the
+summit with a palisade. [Footnote: "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 rock fortified
+by La Salle stood, we are told, at the edge of the water; while Buffalo
+Rock is at some distance from the bank. 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 explains the Indian remains found here. He 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_, MS. 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_, p. 221.]
+
+Thus the winter was 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 around 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 aegis 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. [Footnote: 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 1,800; the Shawanoes, at 200; the
+Ouiatenons (Weas), at 500; the Peanqhichia (Piankishaw) band, at 150; the
+Pepikokia, at 160; the Kilatica, at 800; 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 Rook,
+and the Illinois village at the place where, as already mentioned, (see p.
+221), 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 Colonel 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.] 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 entrepot 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 Fèvre de la Barre
+reigned in his stead. [Footnote: La Barre had formerly held civil offices.
+He had been Maître de Requêtes, and afterwards Intendant of the
+Bourbonnais. He had gained no little reputation in the West Indies, as
+governor and lieutenant-general of Cayenne, which he recovered from the
+English, who had seized it, and whom he soon after defeated in a naval
+fight. Sixteen years had elapsed since these exploits, and meanwhile he
+had grown old.]
+
+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. Frontenac's absence was not
+to be permanent: dark days were in store for Canada. In her hour of need,
+she was to hail with delight the return of the haughty nobleman; and all
+his faults were to be forgotten in the splendor of his services to the
+colony and the crown. La Barre showed a weakness and an avarice for which
+his advanced 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.
+[Footnote: The royal instructions to La Barre, on his assuming the
+government, dated at Versailles, 10 May, 1682, require him to give no
+farther 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.]
+
+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; 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-south-west 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." [Footnote: _Lettre de la Salle à La Barre, Fort St.
+Louis, 2 Avril_, 1683, MS. The above is somewhat condensed from passages
+in the original.]
+
+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 night, and so prevent the Missouries 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
+Michillimackinac, 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." [Footnote: _Lettre de la Salle, à La
+Barre, Portage de Chicagou_, 4 _Juin_, 1683, MS. Portions of the above
+extracts are condensed in the rendering. A long 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.]
+
+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." [Footnote: _Lettre de La Barre au
+Ministre_, 14 _Nov_. 1682, MS.] 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. [Footnote: _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.]
+
+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. He is
+trying to build up an imaginary kingdom for himself by debauching all the
+bankrupts and idlers of this country." [Footnote: _N.Y. Col Docs_., ix.
+204. The letter is dated 4 Nov. 1683.] 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
+dimmish the revenue from beaver-skins." [Footnote: _Lettre du Roy à La
+Barre_, 5 _Aoûst_, 1683, MS.]
+
+In order to understand the posture of affairs at this time, it must be
+remembered that Dongan, the English Governor of New York, was 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. [Footnote: _Memoire
+pour rendre compte à Monseigneur le Marquis de Seignelay de l'Etat où le
+Sieur de Lasalle a laissé le Fort Frontenac pendant le temps de sa
+découverte,_ MS. The Marquis de Denonville, La Barre's successor in the
+government, says, in his memoir of Aug. 10, 1688, that La Barre had told
+the Iroquois to plunder La Salle's canoes.
+
+La Barre's course at this time was extremely indirect and equivocal. The
+memoir to Seignelay, cited above, declares--and other documents sustain
+it--that he was playing into the hands of the English, by sending furs, on
+his own account and that of his associates, to Albany, where he could sell
+them at a high rate, and at the same time avoid the payment of duties to
+the French farmers of the revenue.
+
+The merchants, La Chesnaye, Le Ber, and Le Moyne, were at the head of the
+faction with which La Barre had identified himself; and their hatred of La
+Salle knew no bounds. If we are to believe La Potherie, he himself had
+formerly, in defence of his monopolies, told the Iroquois that they might
+plunder the canoes of traders who had not a pass from him. The adverse
+faction now retorted by adding the permission of murder to the permission
+of pillage. Margry thinks that La Chesnaye was the prompter of this
+villany.]
+
+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. [Footnote: 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.] 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. [Footnote: These are the
+statements of the memorial, addressed in La Salle's behalf, to the
+minister Seignelay.]
+
+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 spent the winter
+harmoniously; and, 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. [Footnote: Tonty, Ménoire, MS.;
+Lettre de La Barre, au Ministre, 5 Juin, 1684; Ibid., 9 Juillet, 1684,
+MSS.]
+
+Meanwhile, La Salle had sailed for France, and thither we will follow him.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII.
+1684.
+A NEW ENTERPRISE.
+
+LA SALLE AT COURT.--HIS PROPOSALS.--OCCUPATION OF LOUISIANA.--INVASION
+OF MEXICO--ROYAL FAVOR.--PREPARATION.--THE NAVAL COMMANDER.--HIS
+JEALOUSY OF LA SALLE.--DISSENSIONS.
+
+
+From the wilds of the Illinois,--crag, forest, and prairie, squalid
+wigwams, and naked savages,--La Salle crossed the sea; and before him rose
+the sculptured wonders of Versailles, that world of gorgeous illusion and
+hollow splendor, where Louis the Magnificent held his court. Amid its pomp
+of weary ceremonial, its glittering masquerade of vice and folly, its
+carnival of vanity and pride, stood the man whose home for sixteen years
+had been the wilderness, his bed the earth, his roof the sky, and his
+companions a rude nature and ruder men. In all that throng of hereditary
+nobles, there was none of a prouder spirit than the son of the burgher of
+Rouen.
+
+He announced what he had achieved in words of energetic simplicity, more
+impressive than all the tinsel of rhetoric. [Footnote: Witness the
+following. He speaks of himself in the third person. "To acquit himself of
+the commission with which he was charged, he has neglected all his private
+affairs, because they were alien to his enterprise; he has omitted nothing
+that was needful to its success, notwithstanding dangerous illness, heavy
+losses, and all the other evils he has suffered, which would have overcome
+the courage of any one who had not the same zeal and devotion for the
+accomplishment of this purpose. During five years he has made five
+journeys, of more, in all, than five thousand leagues, for the most part
+on foot, with extreme fatigue, through snow and through water, without
+escort, without provisions, without bread, without wine, without
+recreation, and without repose. He has traversed more than six hundred
+leagues of country hitherto unknown, among savage and cannibal nations,
+against whom he must daily make fight, though accompanied only by thirty-
+six men, and consoled only by the hope of succeeding in an enterprise
+which he thought would be agreeable to his Majesty."
+
+See the original, as printed by Margry, _Journal Général de I'Instruction
+Publique,_ xxxi. 699.] He had friends near the court,--Count Frontenac was
+one of them,--and he gained the ear of the colonial minister. There was a
+wonderful change in the views of the court towards him. The great Colbert
+had lately died, bequeathing to his son Seignelay, his successor in the
+control of the Marine and Colonies, some of his talents, and all of his
+harshness and violence. Seignelay entered with vigor into the schemes of
+La Salle, and commended them to the king, his master. The memorial, in
+which these schemes are set forth, is still preserved, as well as another
+memorial designed to prepare the way for it; and the following is the
+substance of them. The preliminary document states that the late
+Monseigneur Colbert was of opinion that it was 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 crowns. He now proposes to return by way of the
+Gulf of Mexico 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
+accomplish 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." [Footnote: _Memoire du Sr.
+de la Salle, pour rendre compte a Monseigneur de Seignelay de la
+decouverte qu'il a faite par l'ordre de sa Majesté_, MS.]
+
+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 land 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
+[Footnote: 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.] (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 on the same day 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 he
+armed, paid, and maintained at the king's charge, for a term not exceeding
+a year, after which they will form a self-sustaining colony. And if a
+treaty of peace should prevent us from carrying our conquest into present
+execution, we shall place ourselves in a favorable position for effecting
+it on the outbreak of the next war with Spain. [Footnote: _Mémoire du Sr.
+de la Salle sur I'Entreprise qu'il a proposé à Monseigneur le Marquis de
+Seignelay sur une des provinces de Mexique_, MS.]
+
+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. [Footnote: 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.] That La Salle believed in
+the possibility of invading the Spanish province of New Biscay from the
+Red River, there can he 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 he proposed his plan of conquest with the serious
+intention of attempting to execute it at the time and in the manner which
+he indicates. He was a bold schemer, but neither a madman nor a fool. The
+project, as set forth in his memorial, bears all the indications of being
+drawn up with the view of producing a certain effect on the minds of the
+king and the minister. Ignorant as they were of the nature of the country
+and the character of its inhabitants, they could see nothing impracticable
+in the plan of mustering and keeping together an army of fifteen thousand
+Indians. [Footnote: 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,
+MS. 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.]
+
+La Salle's immediate necessity was to obtain from the court the means for
+establishing a fort and a colony within the mouth of the Mississippi. This
+was essential to his own commercial 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 needed a more glittering lure to attract the eyes of Louis and
+Seignelay; and thus, it would appear, 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 it was in accordance with the wily and
+politic element from which the iron nature of La Salle was not free, but
+which was often defeated in its aims by other elements of his character.
+
+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. The glittering project which he now unfolded found favor in the
+eyes of the king and the 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, he 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."
+[Footnote:_Lettre du Roy à la Barre, Versailles, 10 Avril, 1684,_ MS.]
+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. [Footnote:_Lettre du Roy à De Mettles, Versailles, 14 Avril, 1684._
+Selgnelay wrote to De Meules to the same effect.] Armed with this letter,
+La Forest sailed for Canada. [Footnote: On La Forest's mission,--_Memoire
+pour representer à Monseigneur le Marquis de Seignelay la nécessité
+d'envoyer le Sr. de la Forest en diligence à la Nouvelle France,_ MS.;
+_Lettre du Roy à la Barre, 14 Avril, 1684,_ MS.; _Ibid., 31 Oct. 1684,_
+MS.
+
+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.]
+
+La Salle had asked for two vessels, [Footnote: _Le Sieur de la Salle
+demande_, MS. This is the caption of the memorial, in which he states what
+is required; viz., a war vessel of thirty guns, pay and maintenance of two
+hundred men for a year at farthest, tools, munitions, cannon for the
+forts, a small vessel in pieces, the furniture of two chapels, a forge,
+with a supply of iron, weapons for his followers and allies, medicines,
+&c.] 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 Clercq. Including soldiers, sailors, and colonists of
+all classes, the number embarked was about two hundred and eighty. 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. In an evil hour, the naval command of the
+expedition was given to Beaujeu, a captain of the royal navy, who was
+subordinated to La Salle in every thing but the management of the vessels
+at sea. [Footnote: _Letter de Cachet a Mr. de la Salle, Versailles, 12
+Avril, 1684, signé, Louis_, MS.] He had his full share of the arrogant and
+scornful spirit which marked the naval service of Louis XIV., joined to
+the contempt for commerce which belonged to the _noblesse_ of France, but
+which did not always prevent them from dabbling in it when they could do
+so with secrecy and profit. He was unspeakably galled that a civilian
+should be placed over him, and he, too, a burgher recently ennobled. La
+Salle was far from being the man to soothe his ruffled spirit. Bent on his
+own designs, asking no counsel, and accepting none; detesting a divided
+authority, impatient of question, cold, reserved, and impenetrable,--he
+soon wrought his colleague to the highest pitch of exasperation. While the
+vessels still lay at Rochelle; while all was bustle and preparation; while
+stores, arms, and munitions were embarking; while faithless agents were
+gathering beggars and vagabonds from the streets to serve as soldiers and
+artisans,--Beaujeu was giving vent to his disgust in long letters to the
+minister.
+
+He complains that the vessels are provisioned only for six months, and
+that the voyage to the liver which La Salle claims to have discovered, and
+again back to France, cannot be made in that time. If La Salle had told
+him at the first what was to be done, he could have provided accordingly;
+but now it is too late. "He says," pursues the indignant commander, "that
+there are fourteen passengers, besides the Sieur Minet, [Footnote: One of
+the engineers of the expedition.] to sit at my table. I hope that a fund
+will be provided for them, and that I shall not be required to support
+them."
+
+"You have ordered me, Monseigneur," he continues, "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 any thing about it."
+[Footnote:_Lettre de Beaujau au Ministre, Rochelle_, 30 _Mai_, 1684, MS.]
+
+In another letter, he says: "He [La Salle] is so suspicious, and so
+fearful that somebody will penetrate his secrets, that I dare not ask him
+any thing." And, again, he complains of being placed in subordination to a
+man "who never commanded anybody but school-boys." [Footnote: "Qui n'a
+jamais commandé qu'a des écoliers."--_Lettre de Beaujeu au Ministre_, 21
+_Juin_, 1684, MS. It appears from Hennepin that La Salle was very
+sensitive to any allusion to a "_pédant_," or pedagogue.] "I pray," he
+continues, "that my orders may be distinct and explicit, that I may not be
+held answerable for what may happen in consequence of the Sieur de la
+Salle's exercising command."
+
+He soon fell into a dispute with him with respect to the division of
+command on board the "Joly," Beaujeu demanding, and it may be thought with
+good reason, that, when at sea, his authority should include all on board;
+while La Salle insisted that only the sailors, and not the soldiers,
+should be under his orders. "Though this is a very important matter,"
+writes Beaujeu, "we have not quarrelled, but have referred it to the
+Intendant." [Footnote: _Lettre de Beaujeu au Ministre_, 25 _Juin_, 1684,
+MS. Arnoult, the Intendant at Rochelle, had received the king's orders to
+aid the enterprise. In a letter to La Salle, dated 14 April, and enclosing
+his commission, the king tells him that Beaujeu is to command the working
+of the ship, _la manoeuvre_, subject to his direction. Louis XIV. seems to
+have taken no little interest in the enterprise. He tells La Barre in one
+of his letters that La Salle is a man whom he has taken under his special
+protection.]
+
+While these ill-omened bickerings went on, the various members of the
+expedition were mustering at Rochelle. Joutel, a fellow-townsman of La
+Salle, returning to his native Rouen, after sixteen years of service in
+the army, found all astir with the new project. His father had been
+gardener to La Salle's uncle, Henri Cavelier; [Footnote: At the modest
+wages of fifty francs a year and his maintenance.--Family papers found by
+Margry.] and, being of an adventurous spirit, he was induced to volunteer
+for the enterprise, of which he was to become the historian. With La
+Salle's brother, the priest, and two of his nephews, of whom one was a boy
+of fourteen, besides several others of his acquaintance, Joutel set out
+for Rochelle, where all were to embark together for their promised land.
+[Footnote: Joutel, _Journal Historique_, 12.]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV.
+1684-1685.
+LA SALLE IN TEXAS.
+
+DEPARTURE.--QUARRELS WITH BEAUJEU.--ST. DOMINGO.--LA SALLE ATTACKED
+WITH FEVER.--HIS DESPERATE CONDITION.--THE GULF OF MEXICO.--A FATAL
+ERROR.--LANDING.--WRECK OF THE "AIMABLE."--INDIAN ATTACK.--TREACHERY
+OF BEAUJEU.--OMENS OF DISASTER.
+
+
+The four ships sailed on the twenty-fourth of July; but the "Joly" soon
+broke her bowsprit, and they were forced to put back. [Footnote: La Salle
+believed that this mishap, which took place in good weather, was
+intentional.--_Mémoire autographe de l'Abbé Jean Cavelier sur la Voyage
+de_ 1684, MS. Compare Joutel, 15.] On the first of August, they again set
+sail. La Salle, with the principal persons of the expedition, and a crowd
+of soldiers, artisans, and women, the destined mothers of Louisiana, were
+all on board the "Joly." Beaujeu wished to touch at Madeira: La Salle, for
+excellent reasons, refused; and hence there was great indignation among
+passengers and crew. The surgeon of the ship spoke with insolence to La
+Salle, who rebuked him, whereupon Beaujeu took up the word in behalf of
+the offender, saying that the surgeon was, like himself, an officer of the
+king. [Footnote: "Le capitaine du batiment, qui avait en deux autres
+occasions assez fait connoitre qu'il étoit mécontent de ce que son
+autorité étoit partagée, prit la parole, disant au dit Sr. de la Salle que
+le chirurgien étoit officier du roi comme lui."--_Memoire autographe de
+l'Abbé Jean Cavelier,_ MS.] When they crossed the tropic, the sailors made
+ready a tub on deck to baptize the passengers, after the villanous
+practice of the time; but La Salle refused to permit it, to the
+disappointment and wrath of all the crew, who had expected to extort a
+bountiful ransom, in money and liquor, from their victims. There was an
+incessant chafing between the two commanders; and when at length, after a
+long and wretched voyage, they reached St. Domingo, Beaujeu showed clearly
+that he was, to say the least, utterly indifferent to the interests of the
+expedition. La Salle wished to stop at Port de Paix, where he was to meet
+the Marquis de St. Laurent, Lieutenant-General of the Islands; Begon, the
+Intendant; and De Cussy, Governor of the Island of La Tortue,--who had
+orders from the king to supply him with provisions, and give him all
+possible assistance. Beaujeu had consented to stop here; [Footnote: "C'est
+la (au Port de Paix) ou Mr. de Beaujeu était convenu de s'arreter."--
+_Memoire autographe de l'Abbé Jean Cavelier,_ Joutel says that this was
+resolved on at a council held on board the "Joly," and that a Procès
+Verbal to that effect was drawn up.--_Journal Historique,_ 22.] but he
+nevertheless ran by the place in the night, and, to the extreme vexation
+of La Salle, cast anchor on the twenty-seventh of September, at Petit
+Goave, on the other side of the island.
+
+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
+despatched a messenger to St. Laurent, Begon, and Cussy, begging them to
+join him, commissioned 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 the
+disastrous tidings that the third, the ketch "St. François," had been
+taken by the Spaniards. She was laden with munitions, tools, and other
+necessaries for the colony; and the loss was irreparable. Beaujeu was
+answerable for it; for, had he followed his instructions, and anchored at
+Port de Paix, it would not have occurred. The Lieutenant-General, with
+Begon and Cussy, who had arrived, on La Salle's request, plainly spoke
+their minds to him. [Footnote: Joutel, _Journal Historique_, 28.]
+
+Meanwhile, La Salle's illness rose to a violent fever. He lay delirious in
+a wretched garret in the town, 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 the 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 of the loss of the
+ketch "St. François;" and the consequence was a critical return of the
+disease. [Footnote: The above particulars are from the unpublished memoir
+of La Salle's brother, the Abbé Cavelier, already cited.]
+
+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.
+
+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 hoard; 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 any thing 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 his
+plans are not good."
+
+"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." [Footnote: "Si vous
+me permettez de dire mon sentiment, M. de la Salle devait se contenter
+d'avoir découvert sa riviére, sans se charger de conduire trois vaisseaux
+et des troupes à deux mille lieues au travers de tant de climats
+différents et par des mers qui lui étaient tout à fait inconnues. Je
+demeure d'accord qu'il est savant, qu'il a de la lecture, et même quelque
+teinture de la navigation. Mais il y a tant de différence entre la théorie
+et la pratique, qu'un homme qui n'aura que celle-là s'y trompera toujours.
+Il y a aussi bien de la difference entre conduire des canots sur des lacs
+et le long d'une rivière et mener des vaisseaux et des troupes dans des
+mers si éloignées."--_Lettre de Beaujeu au Ministre_, 20 _Oct_. 1684, MS.]
+
+It was near the end of November before La Salle could resume the voyage.
+Beaujeu had been heard to say, that he would wait no longer for the
+storeship "Amiable," and that she might follow as she could. [Footnote:
+_Mémoire autographe de l'Abbé Jean Cavelier_, MS.] La Salle feared that he
+would abandon her; and he therefore embarked in her himself, with his
+friend Joutel, 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 hunters 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, seeking sympathy from none. The feud of the two commanders still
+rankled beneath the veil of formal courtesy with which men of the world
+hide their dislikes and enmities.
+
+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. [Footnote: _Letter of Don Luis de Onis
+to the Secretary of State, American State Papers_, xii. 27, 31.] Not a man
+on board knew the secrets of its perilous navigation. Cautiously feeling
+their way, they held a northerly 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. At their
+right lay a low and sandy shore, washed by breakers, which made the
+landing dangerous. La Salle had taken the latitude of the mouth of the
+Mississippi, but could not determine the longitude. On the sixth of
+January, the "Aimable" seems to have been very near it; but his attempts
+to reconnoitre the shore were frustrated by the objections of the pilot of
+the vessel, to which, with a fatal facility, very unusual with him, he
+suffered himself to yield. [Footnote: Joutel, 45. He places the date on
+the tenth, but elsewhere corrects himself. La Salle himself says, "La
+hauteur nous a fait remarquer... que ce que nous avons vue, le sixième
+janvier, estoit en effet la principale entrée de la rivière que nous
+cherchions."--_Lettre de la Salle au Ministre_, 4 _Mars_, 1685.] Still
+convinced that the Mississippi was to the westward, he coasted the shores
+of Texas. As Joutel, with a boat's crew, was vainly trying to land, 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 wholly
+unknown to him. The coast began to trend southward. They saw that they had
+gone too far. Joutel again tried to land, but the surf that lashed the
+sand-bars deterred him. He approached as near as he dared, and, beyond the
+intervening breakers, saw vast plains and a dim expanse of forests; the
+shaggy buffalo running with their heavy gallop along the shore, and troops
+of deer grazing on the marshy meadows.
+
+A few days after, he succeeded in reaching the shore at a point not far
+south of Matagorda Bay. The aspect of the country was not cheering; sandy
+plains and shallow ponds of salt water, full of wild ducks and other fowl.
+The sand was thickly marked with, the hoof-prints of deer and buffalo; and
+they saw them in the distance, but could kill none. They had been for many
+days separated from the "Joly," when at length, to La Salle's great
+relief, she hove in sight; but his joy was of short duration. Beaujeu sent
+D'Aire, his lieutenant, on board the "Aimable," to charge La Salle with
+having deserted him. The desertion in fact was his own; for he had stood
+out to sea, instead of coasting the shore, according to the plan agreed
+on. Now ensued a discussion as to their position. Had they in fact passed
+the mouth of the Mississippi; and, granting that they had, how far had
+they left it behind? La Salle was confident that they had passed it on the
+sixth of January, and he urged Beaujeu to turn back with him in quest of
+it. Beaujeu replied that he had not provisions enough, and must return to
+France without delay, unless La Salle would supply him from his own
+stores. La Salle offered him provisions for fifteen days, which was more
+than enough for the additional time required; but Beaujeu remained
+perverse and impracticable, and would neither consent nor refuse. La
+Salle's men beguiled the time with hunting on shore; and he had the
+courtesy, very creditable under the circumstances, to send a share of the
+game to his colleague.
+
+Time wore on. La Salle grew impatient, and landed a party of men, under
+his nephew Moranget and his townsman Joutel, to explore the adjacent
+shores. They made their way on foot northward and eastward for several
+days, till they were stopped by a river too wide and deep to cross. They
+encamped, and were making a canoe, when, to their great joy, for they were
+famishing, they descried the ships, which had followed them along the
+coast. La Salle landed, and became convinced--his wish, no doubt,
+fathering the thought--that the river was no other than the stream now
+called Bayou Lafourche, which forms a western mouth of the Mississippi.
+[Footnote: La Salle dates his letter to Seignelay, of the fourth of March:
+"_A l'embouchure occidentals dufleuve Colbert_" (Mississippi). He says,
+"La saison étant très-avancée, et voyant qu'il me restoit fort peu de
+temps pour achever l'entreprise don't j'estois charge, je resolus de
+remonter ce canal du fleuve Colbert, plus tost que de retourner au plus
+considérable, éloigné de 25 à 30 lieues d'icy vers le nord-est, que nous
+avions remarqué dès le sixième janvier, mais que nous n'avions pu
+reconnoistre, croyant sur le rapport des pilotes du vaisseau de sa Majesté
+et des nostres, n'avoir pas encore passé la baye du Saint-Esprit" (Mobile
+Bay). He adds that the difficulty of returning to the principal mouth of
+the Mississippi had caused him "prendre le party de remonter le fleuve par
+icy." This fully explains the reason of La Salle's landing on the coast of
+Texas, which would otherwise have been a postponement, not to say an
+abandonment, of the main object of the enterprise. He believed himself at
+the western mouth of the Mississippi; and lie meant to ascend it, instead
+of going by sea to the principal mouth. About half the length of Bayou
+Lafourche is laid down on Franquelin's map of 1684; and this, together
+with La Salle's letter and the statements of Joutel, plainly shows the
+nature of his error.] He thought it easier to ascend by this passage than
+to retrace his course along the coast, against the winds, the currents,
+and the obstinacy of Beaujeu. Eager, moreover, to be rid of that
+refractory commander, he resolved to disembark his followers, and.
+despatch the "Joly" back to France.
+
+The Bay of St. Louis, now Matagorda Bay, [Footnote: The St. Bernard's Bay
+of old maps. La Salle, in his letter to Seignelay of 4 March, says, that
+it is in latitude twenty-eight degrees and eighteen or twenty minutes.
+This answers to the entrance of Matagorda Bay.
+
+In the Archives de la Marine is preserved a map made by an engineer of the
+expedition, inscribed _Minuty del_, and entitled _Entrée du lac où on a
+laissé le Sieur de la Salle_. It represents the entrance of Matagorda Bay,
+the camp of La Salle on the left, the Indian camps on the borders of the
+bay, the "Belle" lying safely at anchor within, the "Aimable" stranded
+near the island at the entrance, and the "Joly" anchored in the open sea.
+
+At Versailles, Salle des Marines, there is a good modern picture of the
+landing of La Salle in Texas.] 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. La Salle prepared to
+disembark on the western shore, near the place which now bears his name;
+and, to this end, the "Aimable" and the "Belle" must be brought over the
+bar. 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.
+
+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 a 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; 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, the ravenous waves were strewn with her
+treasures; and, 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.
+
+Those who have recorded the disaster of the "Aimable" affirm that she was
+wilfully wrecked, [Footnote: This is said by Joutel and Le Clercq, and by
+La Salle himself, in his letter to Seignelay, 4 March, 1685, as well as in
+the account of the wreck drawn up officially.--_Procès verbal du Sieur de
+la Salle sur le naufraqe de la flûte l'Aimable à l'embouchure du Fleuve
+Colbert_, MS. He charges it, as do also the others, upon Aigron, the pilot
+of the vessel, the same who had prevented him from exploring the mouth of
+the Mississippi on the sixth of January. The charges are supported by
+explicit statements, which render them probable. The loss was very great,
+including nearly all the beef and other provisions, 60 barrels of wine, 4
+pieces of cannon, 1,620 balls, 400 grenades, 4,000 pounds of iron, 5,000
+pounds of lead, most of the blacksmith's and carpenter's tools, a forge, a
+mill, cordage, boxes of arms, nearly all the medicines, most of the
+baggage of the soldiers and colonists, and a variety of miscellaneous
+goods.] an atrocious act of revenge against a man whose many talents often
+bore for him no other fruit than the deadly one of jealousy and hate.
+
+The neighboring Bracamos Indians still hovered about them, with very
+doubtful friendship: and, a few days after the wreck, the prairie was seen
+on fire. As the smoke and name 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.
+
+This untoward incident, joined to the loss of the store-ship, completed
+the discouragement of some among the colonists. Several of them, including
+one of the priests and the engineer Minet, declared their intention of
+returning home with Beaujeu, who apparently made no objection to receiving
+them. He now declared that since the Mississippi was found, his work was
+done, and he would return to France. La Salle desired that he would first
+send on shore the cannon-balls and stores embarked for the use of the
+colony. Beaujeu refused, on the ground that they were stowed so deep in
+the hold that to take them out would endanger the ship. The excuse is
+itself a confession of gross mismanagement. Remonstrance would have
+availed little. Beaujeu spread his sails and departed, and the wretched
+colony was left to its fate.
+
+Was Beaujeu deliberately a traitor, or was his conduct merely a result of
+jealousy and pique? There can be little doubt that he was guilty of
+premeditated bad faith. There is evidence that he knew the expedition to
+have passed the true mouth of the Mississippi, and that, after leaving La
+Salle, he sailed in search of it, found it, and caused a map to be made of
+it. [Footnote: This map, the work of the engineer Minet, bears the date of
+_May_, 1685. La Salle's last letter to the minister, which he sent home by
+Beaujeu, is dated March 4th. Hence, Beaujeu, in spite of his alleged want
+of provisions, seems to have remained some time in the Gulf. The
+significance of the map consists in two distinct sketches of the mouth of
+the Mississippi, which is styled "La Rivière du Sr. de la Salle." Against
+one of these sketches are written the words "Embouchure de la rivière
+comme M. de la Salle la marque dans sa carte." Against the other, "Costes
+et lacs par la hauteur de sa rivière, _comme nous les avons trouvés_." The
+italics are mine. Both sketches plainly represent the mouth of the
+Mississippi, and the river as high as New Orleans, with the Indian
+villages upon it. The coast line is also indicated as far east as Mobile
+Bay. My attention was first drawn to this map by M. Margry. It is in the
+Archives Scientifiques de la Marine.]
+
+A lonely sea, a wild and desolate shore, a weary waste of marsh and
+prairie; a rude redoubt of drift-wood, and the fragments of a wreck; a few
+tents, and a few wooden hovels; bales, boxes, casks, spars, dismounted
+cannon, Indian canoes, a pen for fowls and swine, groups of dejected men
+and desponding, homesick women,--this was the forlorn reality to which the
+air-blown fabric of an audacious enterprise had sunk. Here were the
+conquerors of New Biscay; they who were to hold for France a region as
+large as the half of Europe. Here was the tall form and the fixed calm
+features of La Salle. Here were his two nephews, the hot-headed Moranget,
+still suffering from his wound, and the younger Cavelier, a mere school-
+boy. Conspicuous only by his Franciscan garb was the small slight figure
+of Zenobe Membré. His brother friar, Anastase Douay; the trusty Joutel, a
+man of sense and observation; the Marquis de la Sablonnière, a debauched
+noble whose patrimony was his sword; and a few of less mark,--comprised
+the leaders of the infant colony. The rest were soldiers, recruited from
+the scum of Rochelle and Rochefort; and artisans, of whom the greater part
+knew nothing of their pretended 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 journey. He had made an ominous discovery; for
+he had at length become convinced that he was not, as he had fondly hoped,
+on an arm of the Mississippi. The wreck of the "Aimable" itself was not
+pregnant with consequences so disastrous. A deep gloom gathered around the
+colony. There was no hope but in the energies of its unconquerable chief.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV.
+1685-1687.
+ST. LOUIS OF TEXAS.
+
+THE FORT.--MISERY AND DEJECTION.--ENERGY OF LA SALLE.--HIS JOURNEY
+OF EXPLORATION.--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
+desperate 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, [Footnote:
+Called by Joutel Rivière aux Boeufs.] 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 remnant, 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 to receive him and his men. 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 Joutel and his men on board,
+together with the stores which had remained in their charge, and conveyed
+them to the site of the new fort on the Lavaca. Here Joutel 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 in
+the "Belle" to the first fort, 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. [Footnote: Joutel, 108.
+_Procès Verbal fait au poste de St. Louis le 18 Avril, 1686,_ MS.]
+
+Death, meanwhile, made a 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. [Footnote: Ibid.] Nearly
+all fell ill; and, before the summer had passed, the graveyard had more
+than thirty tenants. [Footnote: Joutel, 109. Le Clercq, who was not
+present, says a hundred.] 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 oil 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 to the new
+establishment his favorite name of Fort St. Louis, and the neighboring bay
+was also christened after the royal saint. [Footnote: 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.] The scene was not without its charms. Towards the
+south-east stretched the bay with its bordering meadows; and on the north-
+east 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
+bright flowers for which Texas is renowned, and which now form the gay
+ornaments of our gardens.
+
+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. [Footnote: 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_, MS. 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.]
+
+It was the first of November, when La Salle set out on his great journey
+of exploration. His brother Cavelier, who had now recovered, accompanied
+him with thirty men, and five cannon-shot from the fort saluted them as
+they departed. They were lightly equipped, but La Salle had a wooden
+corselet as a protection against 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 stood on a rising ground, two
+leagues above the mouth of the river. 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 ponds full of fish. The buffalo and the deer
+were without number; and, in truth, all the surrounding region swarmed
+with game,--hares, turkeys, ducks, geese, swans, plover, snipe, and
+partridges. They shot them in abundance, after necessity and practice had
+taught them the art. The river supplied them with fish, and the bay with
+oysters. There were land-turtles and sea-turtles; and Joutel sometimes
+amused himself with shooting alligators, of which he says that he once
+killed one twenty feet long. He describes, too, with perfect accuracy,
+that curious native of the south-western prairies, the "horned frog,"
+which, deceived by its uninviting aspect, he erroneously supposed to be
+venomous. [Footnote: Joutel devotes many pages to an account of the
+animals and plants of the country, most of which may readily be recognized
+from his description.]
+
+He suffered no man to be idle. Some hunted; some fished; some labored at
+the houses and defences. To the large building made by La Salle he added
+four lodging-houses for the men, and a fifth for the women, besides a
+small chapel. All were built with squared timber, and roofed like the
+first with boards and buffalo-hides; while a palisade and ditch, defended
+by eight pieces of cannon, enclosed the whole. [Footnote: Compare Joutel
+with the Spanish account in _Carta en que se da noticia de tin viaje hecho
+à la bahia de Espiritu Santo y de la poblacion que tenian ahi los
+Franceses: Coleccion de Varios Documentos_, 25.] Late one evening in
+January, when all were gathered in the principal building, conversing
+perhaps, or smoking, or playing at games of hazard, or dozing by the fire
+in homesick dreams of France, one of the men on guard came in to report
+that he had heard a voice in the distance without. All hastened into the
+open air; and Joutel, advancing towards the river whence the voice came,
+presently descried a man in a canoe, and saw that he was Duhaut, one of La
+Salle's chief followers, and perhaps the greatest villain of the company.
+La Salle had directed that none of his men should be admitted into the
+fort, unless he brought a pass from him; and it would have been well, had
+the order been obeyed to the letter. Duhaut, however, told a plausible and
+possibly a true story. He had stopped on the march to mend a shoe which
+needed repair, and on attempting to overtake the party had become
+bewildered on a prairie intersected with the paths of the buffalo. He
+fired his gun in vain, as a signal to his companions; saw no hope of
+rejoining them, and turned back, travelling only in the night, from fear
+of Indians, and lying hid by day. After a month of excessive hardship, he
+reached his destination; and, as the inmates of Fort St. Louis
+
+[Transcriber's note: missing page in original]
+
+worn and ragged. [Footnote: Joutel, 136, 137. The date of the return is
+from Cavelier.] Their story was a brief one. After losing Duhaut, 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 were, they were told, 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.
+[Footnote: Cavelier says that he actually reached the Mississippi; but, on
+the one hand, he did not know whether the river in question was the
+Mississippi or not; and, on the other, he is somewhat inclined to
+mendacity. Le Clercq says that La Salle thought he had found the river.
+Joutel says that he did not reach it.] 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. [Footnote: _Procès Verbal fait au poste de la Baie St. Louis, le_
+18 _Avril_, 1686, MS.] 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, 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 firmness and
+conduct of my brother, whose death each of us would have regarded as his
+own." [Footnote: Cavelier, _Relation du Voyage pour découvrir l'embouchure
+du Fleuve de Missisipy_, MS.]
+
+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,
+offered 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. [Footnote: Joutel, 140;
+Anastase Douay, in Le Clercq, ii. 303; Cavelier, _Relation_, MS. The date
+is from Douay. It does not appear from his narrative that they meant to go
+further 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.]
+
+It was but a few days after, when a cry of _Qui vive_, twice repeated, was
+heard from the river. Joutel went down to the bank, and saw a canoe full
+of men, among whom he recognized Chedeville, a priest attached to the
+expedition, the Marquis de la Sablonnière, and others of those who had
+embarked in the "Belle." His first greeting was an eager demand what had
+become of her, and the answer confirmed his worst fears. Chedeville and
+his companions were conducted within the fort, where they told their
+dismal story. The murder of the pilot and his boat's crew had been
+followed by another accident, no less disastrous. A boat which had gone
+ashore for water had been swamped in returning, and all on board were
+lost. Those who remained in the vessel, after great suffering from thirst,
+had left their moorings, contrary to the orders of La Salle, and
+endeavored to approach the fort. But they were few, weak, and unskilful. A
+wind rose, and the "Belle" was wrecked on a sand-bar at the farther side
+of the bay. All perished but eight men, who escaped on a raft, and, after
+long delay, 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.
+
+Thus clouds and darkness thickened around the hapless colonists, whose
+gloom was nevertheless lighted by a transient ray of hilarity. Among their
+leaders was the Sieur Barbier, a young man, who usually conducted the
+hunting-parties. 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, not only flatly refused, but, in the plenitude of
+his authority, forbade the lovers all farther intercourse. [Footnote:
+Joutel, 146, 147.]
+
+The Indians hovered about the fort with no good intent, sent a flight of
+arrows among Barbier's hunting-party, and prowled at night around the
+palisades. One of the friars was knocked down by a wounded buffalo, and
+narrowly escaped; another was detected in writing charges against La
+Salle. Joutel seized the paper, and burned it; but the clerical character
+of the reverend offender saved him from punishment. The colonists were
+beginning to murmur; and their discontent was fomented by Duhaut, who,
+with a view to some ulterior design, tried to ingratiate himself with the
+malcontents, and become their leader. Joutel detected the mischief, and,
+with a lenity which he afterwards deeply regretted, contented himself with
+a severe rebuke to the ring-leader, and words of reproof and exhortation
+to his dejected band. And, lest idleness should beget farther evil, he
+busied them in such superfluous tasks as mowing grass, that a better crop
+might spring up, and cutting down trees which obstructed the view. In the
+evening, he gathered them in the great hall, and encouraged them to forget
+their cares in songs and dances.
+
+On the seventeenth of October, [Footnote: This is Douay's date. Joutel
+places it in August, but this is evidently an error. He himself says that,
+having lost all his papers, he cannot be certain as to dates.] Joutel saw
+a band of men and horses, descending the opposite bank of the Lavaca, and
+heard the familiar voice of La Salle shouting across the water. He and his
+party were soon brought over in canoes, while the horses swam the river.
+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 rest, 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. The story of their adventures was soon
+told.
+
+After leaving the fort, they had journeyed towards the north-east, 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 arrested by a large
+river, apparently the Brazos. 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 canebrake, 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 an abyss of
+despair for the loss of their guardian angel, for so Douay calls La Salle.
+[Footnote: "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 Clercq, ii. 315.] 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 caries 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 beehives. 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. [Footnote:
+Douay, in Le Clercq, ii. 321; Cavelier, _Relation_, MS.] 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. [Footnote: Douay, in Le
+Clercq, ii. 324, 325.]
+
+Soon after leaving the Cenis villages, both La Salle and his nephew,
+Moranget, were attacked by a 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.
+
+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; and
+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 cheerfulness, his
+words of sympathy and of hope, were the breath of life to this forlorn
+company; for, self-contained and stern as was his nature, he could soften,
+in times of extremity, to a gentleness that strongly appealed to the
+hearts of those around him; and 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 courage
+touched, nevertheless, the drooping spirits of his followers. [Footnote:
+"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, 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 Clercq, ii. 327.]
+
+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. 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.
+
+On the morrow, the band of adventurers mustered for the fatal journey.
+[Footnote: 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.] 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; [Footnote: He
+had to be kept on short allowance, because he was in the habit of
+bargaining away every thing 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, MS.] the
+friars, Membré and Le Clercq, [Footnote: Maxime le Clercq, a relative of
+the author of _l'Etablissement de la Foi_.] and the priest, Chedeville,
+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. [Footnote: "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 Clercq, ii. 330.] 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. [Footnote: "Nous
+nous separâmes les uns des autres, d'une manière si tendre et si triste
+qu'il sembloit que nous avions tons le secret pressentiment que nous ne
+nous reverrions jamais."--Joutel, 158.] 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 had shut Fort St. Louis for ever from their sight.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVI.
+1687.
+ASSASSINATION OF LA SALLE.
+
+HIS FOLLOWERS.--PRAIRIE TRAVELLING.--A HUNTER'S QUARREL.--THE
+MURDER OF MORANGET.--THE CONSPIRACY.--DEATH OF LA SALLE.--HIS
+CHARACTER.
+
+
+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." [Footnote: Tonty also speaks of him as "un flibustier anglois." In
+another document he is called "James."] The Sieur de Marie; Teissier, a
+pilot; l'Archevêque, a servant of Duhaut; and others, to the number in all
+of about twenty,--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.
+
+It is impossible, as it would be needless, to follow the detail of their
+daily march. [Footnote: 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 is brief,
+but it agrees with that of Joutel in most essential points.] It was such
+an one, though, with unwonted hardships, 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 moccasons. The rivers,
+streams, and gulleys 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. [Footnote: Cavelier, _Relation,_ MS.]
+
+Holding a north-easterly 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.
+
+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, [Footnote: Called Lanquetot by
+Tonty.] 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 Marie, 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 nourished in his vindictive heart deadly
+designs, the execution of which was only hastened by the present outbreak.
+He, with his servant, l'Archevêque, Liotot, Hiens, and Teissier, took
+counsel apart, and resolved to kill Moranget that night. Nika, La
+Salle's devoted follower, and Saget, his faithful servant, must die
+with him. All 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 his
+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 Marie, 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.
+
+It was the nineteenth of March, and Moranget had been two days absent. La
+Salle began to show a great anxiety. Some bodings of the truth seem to
+have visited him; for he was heard to ask several of his men, if Duhaut,
+Liotot, and Hiens had not of late shown signs of discontent. Unable longer
+to endure his suspense, he left the camp in charge of Joutel, with a
+caution to stand well on his guard; and set out in search of his nephew,
+with the friar, Anastase Douay, and two Indians. "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," Douay continues, "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, however, on
+the farther side of a small river. Looking about him with the eye of a
+woodsman, La Salle saw two eagles, or, more probably, turkey-buzzards,
+circling in the air nearly over him, as if attracted by carcasses of
+beasts or men. He fired both his pistols, 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 along the river. 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 in an ecstasy of fright, unable to advance or
+to fly; when Duhaut, rising from his 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!" [Footnote: "Te voilà grand Bacha, te voilà!"--
+Joutel, 203.] 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." [Footnote: _Journal Historique_, 202.]
+
+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. His mind rose immeasurably
+above the range of the mere commercial speculator; and, in all the
+invective and abuse of rivals and enemies, it does not appear that his
+personal integrity ever found a challenger.
+
+He was capable of intrigue, but his reserve and his haughtiness were sure
+to rob him at last of the fruits of it. His schemes failed, partly because
+they were too vast, and partly because he did not conciliate the good-will
+of those whom he was compelled to trust. There were always traitors in his
+ranks, and his enemies were more in earnest than his friends. Yet he had
+friends; and there were times when out of his stern nature a stream of
+human emotion would gush, like water from the rock.
+
+In the pursuit of his purpose, he spared no man, and least of all himself.
+He bore the brunt of every hardship and every danger; but he seemed to
+expect from all beneath him a courage and endurance equal to his own,
+joined with an implicit deference to his authority. Most of his disasters
+may be ascribed, in some measure, to himself; and Fortune and his own
+fault seemed always in league to ruin him.
+
+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, and 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, cast in iron, she sees the heroic pioneer who
+guided her to the possession of her richest heritage. [Footnote: On the
+assassination of La Salle, the evidence is fourfold: 1st, The narrative of
+Douay, who was with him at the time. 2d, 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. 3d, A document
+preserved in the Archives de la Marine, entitled _"Relation de la Mort du
+Sr. de la Salle suivant le rapport d'un nominé 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 Français que M. Cavelier avoit laissé aux
+dits pays des Akansa, crainte qu'il ne gardât pas le secret,"_ 4th, 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 strictness and 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 were 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 XXVII.
+1687, 1688.
+THE INNOCENT AND THE GUILTY.
+
+TRIUMPH OF THE MURDERERS.--JOUTEL AMONG THE CENTS.--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 submitted without resistance; and Duhaut was
+lord of all.
+
+Joutel, at the moment, chanced to be absent; and l'Archevêque, who had a
+kindness for him, went quietly to seek him. He found him 011 a hillock,
+looking at the band of horses grazing on the meadow below. "I was
+petrified," says Joutel, "at the news, and knew not whether to fly or
+remain where I was; but at length, as I had neither powder, lead, nor any
+weapon, and as l'Archevêque assured me that my life would be safe if I
+kept quiet and said nothing, I abandoned myself to the care of Providence,
+and went back in silence to the camp. Duhaut, puffed up with the new
+authority which his crime had gained for him, no sooner saw me than he
+cried out that each ought to command in turn; to which I made no reply. We
+were all forced to smother our grief, and not permit it to be seen; for it
+was a question of life and death; but it may be imagined with what
+feelings the Abbé Cavelier and his nephew, Father Anastase, and I regarded
+these murderers, of whom we expected to be the victims every moment."
+[Footnote: _Journal Historique, 205._] They succeeded so well in their
+dissembling, that Duhaut and his accomplices seemed to lose all distrust
+of their intentions; and Joutel says that they might easily have avenged
+the death of La Salle by that of his murderers, had not the elder
+Cavelier, through scruple or cowardice, opposed the design.
+
+Meanwhile, Duhaut and Liotot seized upon all the money and goods of La
+Salle, even to his clothing, declaring that they had a right to them, in
+compensation for the losses in which they had been involved by the failure
+of his schemes. [Footnote: According to the _Relation de la Mart du Sr. de
+la Salle,_ the amount of property remaining was still very considerable.
+The same document states that Duhaut's interest in the expedition was half
+the freight of one of the four vessels, which was, of course, a dead loss
+to him.] They treated the elder Cavelier with great contempt, disregarding
+his claims to the property, which, indeed, he dared not urge; and
+compelling him to listen to the most violent invectives against his
+brother. Hiens, the buccaneer, was greatly enraged at these proceedings of
+his accomplices; and thus the seeds of a quarrel were already sown.
+
+On the second morning after the murder, the party broke up their camp,
+packed their horses, of which the number had been much increased by barter
+with the Indians, and began their march for the Cenis villages, amid a
+drenching rain. Thus they moved onward slowly till the twenty-eighth, when
+they reached the main stream of the Trinity, and encamped on its borders.
+Joutel, who, as well as his companions in misfortune, could not lie down
+to sleep with an assurance of waking in the morning, was now directed by
+his self-constituted chiefs to go in advance of the party to the great
+Cenis village for a supply of food. Liotot himself, with Hiens and
+Teissier, declared that they would go with him; and Duhaut graciously
+supplied him with goods for barter. Joutel thus found himself in the
+company of three murderers, who, as he strongly suspected, were contriving
+an opportunity to kill him; but, having no choice, he dissembled his
+doubts, and set out with his ill-omened companions. His suspicions seem,
+to have been groundless; and, after a ride of ten leagues, the travellers
+neared the Indian town, which, with its large thatched lodges, looked like
+a cluster of huge 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 and fringed 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 had much ado to 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, corncake, beans, and bread made of the meal of parched
+corn. 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 not
+far off, 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 fifteen families or more. 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 one sixty feet in diameter.
+[Footnote: 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.]
+
+It was in one of the largest that the four travellers were now lodged. A
+place was assigned to 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 Provencal, 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 Provencal, 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, in 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."
+
+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 made 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.
+
+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.
+
+Hiens and several others had gone, some time before, to the Cenis villages
+to purchase horses; and here they had been retained 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;" [Footnote: "Tu es un
+misérable. Tu as tué mon maistre."--Tonty, _Mémoire,_ MS. 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.] 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. [Footnote: Joutel, 248.]
+
+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
+same lodge in which 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. [Footnote: These are
+described by Joutel. Like nearly all the early observers of Indian
+manners, he speaks of the practice of cannibalism.]
+
+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 freebooter; for he gave them a good share of the plunder which
+he had won by his late crime, supplying them with hatchets, knives, heads,
+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 lie 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.
+
+Joutel's party consisted, besides himself, of the Caveliers, uncle and
+nephew, Anastase Douay, De Marie, 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 north-east, towards
+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, 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. [Footnote: 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.] 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.
+
+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 of Tonty's followers.
+
+That brave, loyal, and generous man, always vigilant and always active,
+beloved and feared alike by white men and by red, [Footnote: _Journal de
+St. Cosme_, 1699, MS. 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.] 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, [Footnote: In the autumn of 1685,
+Tonty made a journey from the Illinois to Michillimackinac, 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, and Mémoire de
+Tonty, MS._] than he prepared, on his own responsibility, and at his own
+cost, to go to his assistance. He collected twenty-five Frenchmen, and
+five Indians, and set out from his fortified rock on the thirteenth of
+February, 1686; [Footnote: The date is from the letter cited above. In the
+Mémoire, hastily written, long after, he falls into errors of date.]
+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. [Footnote:
+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.] 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. [Footnote: Tonty,
+_Mémoire,_ MS.; _Ibid., Lettre à Monseigneur de Ponchartraint,_ 1690, MS.;
+Joutel, 301.]
+
+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 a 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. With these, the
+travellers resumed their journey in a wooden canoe, about the first of
+August, [Footnote: 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 (see _ante_, p. 367). The
+account of the death of La Salle, taken from the lips of Couture
+(_ibid_.), 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.] 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 forth 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
+advantages which 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 he 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 storehouse, and a chapel. There were Indian lodges,
+too; for some of the red allies of the French made their abode with, them.
+[Footnote: 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.] 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 storehouse.
+
+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.
+[Footnote: Joutel adds that this was occasioned by "une espèce de
+conspiration qu'on a voulu faire contre les interests de Monsieur de la
+Salle."
+
+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 parles 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.
+
+How did the Jesuits learn that La Salle had missed the mouths of the
+Mississippi? He himself did not know it when Beaujeu left him; for he
+dated his last letter to the minister from the "Western Mouth of the
+Mississippi." I have given the proof that Beaujeu, after leaving him,
+found the true mouth of the river, and made a map of it (_ante,_ p. 380,
+_note_). Now Beaujeu was in close relations with the Jesuits, for he
+mentions in one of his letters that his wife was devotedly attached to
+them. These circumstances, taken together, may justify the suspicion that
+Jesuit influence had some connection with Beaujeu's treacherous desertion
+of La Salle; and that this complicity had some connection with the
+uneasiness of Allouez when told that La Salle was on his way to the
+Illinois.] 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.
+
+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. [Footnote: Tonty, Du
+Laut, and Durantaye came to the aid of Denonville with hundred and seventy
+Frenchmen, chiefly coureurs de bois, and three hundred Indians from the
+upper country. Their services were highly appreciated, and Tonty
+especially is mentioned in the despatches of Denonville with great
+praise.] 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, adding fraud to meanness, 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. [Footnote: "Monsieur Tonty,
+croyant M. de la Salle vivant, ne fit pas de diffiulté de Luy donner pour
+environ quatre mille liv. de pelleterie, de castors, loutres, un canot, et
+autres effets."--Joutel, 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
+recus comme si ç'avoit esté lui mesmo 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, doet 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.]
+
+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 Michillimackinac. 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.
+
+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. [Footnote: _Lettre du Roy
+à Dénonville_, 1 _Mai_, 1689, MS. 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, every thing 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.
+
+Soon after reaching France, 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, Francois 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 seignorial 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.] The wretched
+exiles of Texas were thought, it may be, already beyond the reach of
+succor.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVIII.
+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.
+
+
+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, he 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.
+[Footnote: Tonty, _Mémoire_, MS.]
+
+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, 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. [Footnote: 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.]
+
+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, [Footnote: Fort St. Louis of Texas
+is net to be confounded with Fort St. Louis of the Illinois.] 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. [Footnote: 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.] 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.
+[Footnote: May 1st. The Spaniards reached the fort April 22d.] 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, [Footnote: 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.] 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. [Footnote: _Derrotero de la
+Jornada que hizo el General Alonso de Leon para el descubrimiento de la
+Bahia del Esplritu Santo, y poblacion de Franceses. Año de_ 1689, MS. 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 Espiritu Santo
+y de la poblacion que tenian ahi Jos 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 Cronoldgico,_
+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 farther 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.]
+
+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. [Footnote: _Mémoire sur lequel on a
+interroge les deux Canadiens (Pierre et Jean Baptiste Talon) qui sont
+soldats dans la Compagnie de Feuguerolles, A Brest, 14 Fevrier,_ 1698, MS.
+
+_Interrogations faites à Pierre et Jean Baptiste Talon à leur arrivee de
+la Veracrux,_ MS. This paper, which differs in some of its details from
+the preceding, was sent by D'Iberville, the founder of Louisiana, to the
+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.] 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.
+
+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.
+
+
+
+
+APPENDIX.
+
+
+
+
+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
+of the Marine and Colonies, at Paris. Taken together, they exhibit the
+progress of western discovery, and illustrate the records of the
+explorers.
+
+
+THE MAP OF GALINÉE, 1670.
+
+
+This map 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'enuironnent 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 (see
+p. 19, _note_). 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 Genessee 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.
+
+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, on 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.
+
+About two years 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, but who seems to have been La Salle
+himself. 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. Glair 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 before the
+voyage of Joliet and Marquette, and after that voyage of La Salle, in
+which he discovered the Illinois, or at least the Des Plaines branch of
+it. It shows that the Mississippi was known to discharge itself into the
+Gulf before Joliet had explored it. The whole length of 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_, p.
+23, _note_.)
+
+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.
+
+Not long after Marquette's return from the Mississippi, another map was
+made by the Jesuits, with the following title: _Carte de la nouvelle
+decouverie que les peres Jesuites ont fait en l'année 1672, et continuée
+par le P. Jacques Marquette de la mesme Compagnie accompagné de quelques
+francois 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.
+
+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 "Riuuiere 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.
+
+Of far greater interest is the small map of Louis Joliet, made and
+presented to Count Frontenac immediately after the discoverer's return
+from the Mississippi. It is entitled _Carte de la decouuerte du Sr.
+Jolliet ou l'on voit La Communication du fleuue St. Laurens auec 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 Erie, 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_, p. 66), 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_, p. 23, _note_.)
+
+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, bearing his name, 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,_
+p. 59). This map, if really the work of Joliet, does more credit to his
+skill as a designer than to his geographical knowledge, which appears in
+some respects behind his time.
+
+A map made by Raudin, Count Frontenac's engineer, may be mentioned here.
+He calls the Mississippi "Riviere de Buade," from the family name of his
+patron, and christens all the adjoining region "Frontenacie," or
+"Frontenacia."
+
+In the Bibliothèque Impériale is the rude map of the Jesuit Raffeix, made
+at about the same time. It is chiefly interesting as marking out the
+course of Du Lhut on his journeys from the head of Lake Superior to the
+Mississippi, and as confirming a part of the narrative of Hennepin, who,
+Raffeix says in a note, was rescued by Du Lhut. It also marks out the
+journeys of La Salle in 1679, '80.
+
+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 St 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 north-westward 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'Amerique 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.
+
+The remarkable manuscript map of the Upper Mississippi, by Le Sueur,
+belongs to a period subsequent to the close of this narrative.
+
+
+
+
+APPENDIX 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 he Bibliothèque
+Impériale, and in 1863 it was printed by Mr. Shea. Sâgean underwent an
+examination, which resulted in his being sent to Biloxi, near the mouth of
+the Mississippi, with instructions from the minister that he should be
+supplied with the means of conducting a party of Canadians to the
+wonderful country which he had discovered; but, on his arrival, the
+officers in command, becoming satisfied that he was an impostor, suffered
+the order to remain unexecuted. His story was as follows:--
+
+He was born 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-south-west. 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 finger-nails 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
+Bieuville, chiefs of the colony, were obstinate in their unbelief; and
+Sâgean and his King Hagaren lapsed alike into oblivion.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of France and England in North America. Part Third, The Discovery of the Great West
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of France and England in North America. Part Third, The Discovery of the Great Westby Francis Parkman
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: France and England in North America, Part Third
+       The Discovery of the Great West
+
+Author: Francis Parkman
+
+Posting Date: November 15, 2011 [EBook #9997]
+Release Date: February, 2006
+First Posted: November 6, 2003
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK FRANCE, ENGLAND IN N. AMERICA ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Lee Dawei, Seth Hadley, and Project Gutenberg
+Distributed Proofreaders
+
+
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+
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+
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+
+
+
+
+FRANCE AND ENGLAND IN NORTH AMERICA,
+A SERIES OF HISTORICAL NARRATIVES, PART THIRD.
+
+THE DISCOVERY OF THE GREAT WEST
+
+BY FRANCIS PARKMAN
+
+1870
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+TO THE CLASS OF 1844,
+HARVARD COLLEGE,
+THIS BOOK IS CORDIALLY DEDICATED
+BY ONE OF THEIR NUMBER.
+
+
+
+
+PREFACE.
+
+
+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 custodian 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.
+
+Abbe Faillon, the learned author of "La Colonie Francaise 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. Gerin 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 map contained in the book is a portion of the great 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
+
+
+
+
+INTRODUCTION
+
+
+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.
+
+
+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?
+
+
+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.--Michillimackinac.--
+Jesuits on Lake Michigan.--Allouez and Dablon.--The Jesuit
+Fur-Trade.
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+1667-1672.
+FRANCE TAKES POSSESSION OF THE WEST.
+
+Talon.--St. Lusson.--Perrot.--The Ceremony at Saut Ste. Marie.--
+The Speech of Allouez.--Count Frontenac.
+
+
+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.
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+1673-1678.
+LA SALLE AND FRONTENAC.
+
+Objects of La Salle.--His Difficulties.--Official Corruption in Canada.--
+The Governor of Montreal.--Projects of Frontenac.--Cataraqui.--
+Frontenac on Lake Ontario.--Fort Frontenac.--Success of La Salle.
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+1674-1678.
+LA SALLE AND THE JESUITS.
+
+The Abbe Fenelon.--He attacks the Governor.--The Enemies of La
+Salle.--Aims of the Jesuits.--Their Hostility to La Salle.
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+1678.
+PARTY STRIFE.
+
+La Salle and his Reporter.--Jesuit Ascendancy.--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.
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+1677-1678.
+THE GRAND ENTERPRISE.
+
+La Salle at Fort Frontenac.--La Salle at Court.--His Plans approved.--
+Henri de Tonty.--Preparation for Departure.
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+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.
+
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+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.
+
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+1679.
+LA SALLE ON THE UPPER LAKES.
+
+The Voyage of the "Griffin."--Detroit.--A Storm.--St. Ignace of
+Michillimackinac.--Rivals and Enemies--Lake Michigan.--Hardships.
+--A Threatened Fight.--Fort Miami.--Tonty's Misfortunes.--
+Forebodings.
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII.
+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 him.
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV.
+1680.
+FORT CREVECOEUR.
+
+Building of the Fort.--Loss of the "Griffin."--A Bold Resolution.--
+Another Vessel.--Hennepin sent to the Mississippi.--Departure of
+La Salle.
+
+
+CHAPTER XV.
+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.
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI.
+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.
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII.
+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.
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII.
+1680.
+THE ADVENTURES OF HENNEPIN.
+
+Hennepin an Impostor.--His Pretended Discovery.--His Actual Discovery.
+--Captured by the Sioux.--The Upper Mississippi.
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX.
+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.
+
+
+CHAPTER XX.
+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.
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI.
+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.
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII.
+1682-1683.
+ST. LOUIS OF THE ILLINOIS.
+
+Louisiana.--Illness of La Salle.--His Colony on the Illinois.--Fort St.
+Louis.--Recall of Frontenac.--Le Fevre de la Barre.--Critical Position
+of La Salle.--Hostility of the New Governor.--Triumph of the Adverse
+Faction.--La Salle sails for France.
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII.
+1684.
+A NEW ENTERPRISE.
+
+La Salle at Court.--His Proposals.--Occupation of Louisiana.--Invasion of
+Mexico.--Royal Favor.--Preparation.--The Naval Commander.--His Jealousy of
+La Salle.--Dissensions.
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV.
+1684-1685.
+LA SALLE IN TEXAS.
+
+Departure.--Quarrels with Beaujeu.--St. Domingo.--La Salle attacked
+with Fever.--His Desperate Condition.--The Gulf of Mexico.--A Fatal
+Error.--Landing.--Wreck of the "Aimable."--Indian Attack.--Treachery
+of Beaujeu.--Omens of Disaster.
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV.
+1685-1687.
+ST. LOUIS OF TEXAS.
+
+The Fort.--Misery and Dejection.--Energy of La Salle.--His Journey
+of Exploration.--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.
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVI.
+1687.
+ASSASSINATION OF LA SALLE.
+
+His Followers.--Prairie Travelling.--A Hunter's Quarrel.--The Murder
+of Moranget.--The Conspiracy.--Death of La Salle.--His Character.
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVII.
+1687, 1688.
+THE INNOCENT AND THE GUILTY.
+
+Triumph of the Murderers.--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.
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVIII.
+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.
+
+
+APPENDIX.
+
+I. Early unpublished Maps of the Mississippi and the Great Lakes.
+II. The Eldorado of Mathieu Sagean.
+
+
+INDEX
+
+
+[Illustration: LA SALLE'S COLONY on the Illinois FROM THE MAP OF
+FRANQUELIN, 1684.]
+
+
+
+
+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 dismal 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 and without beards, 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 or before the year 1639, 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. Possibly 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 improbable, but neither is sustained by sufficient evidence. Meanwhile,
+French Jesuits and fur-traders pushed deeper and deeper into the
+wilderness of the northern lakes. In 1641, Jogues and Raymbault preached
+the
+
+DISCOVERY OF THE GREAT WEST.
+
+
+
+
+
+THE DISCOVERY OF THE GREAT WEST.
+
+
+
+
+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. [Footnote: The
+following is the _acte de naissance_, discovered by Margry in the
+_registres de l'etat civil_, Paroisse St. Herbland, Rouen. "Le vingt-
+deuxieme jour de novembre 1643, a ete baptise 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 Rene-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,
+Francois Marie Arouet, son of an ex-notary, received the name of Voltaire,
+which he made famous.] 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. [Footnote: Margry, after investigations at Rouen, is
+satisfied of its truth.--_Journal General de l'Instruction Publique_,
+xxxi. 571. Family papers of the Caveliers, examined by the Abbe 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.]
+
+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 Abbe 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. [Footnote:
+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.]
+
+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.
+[Footnote: "The Jesuits in North America," c. xv.] 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 Courcelles, 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. [Footnote: _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.]
+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 seigneurs, built of
+stone, and pierced with loop-holes 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 Hotel-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. [Footnote: 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.]
+
+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 a third of an acre, within the
+enclosure, for which he was to render to the young seigneur 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. [Footnote: The above particulars have been
+unearthed by the indefatigable Abbe Faillon. Some of La Salle's grants are
+still preserved in the ancient records of Montreal.]
+
+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.
+[Footnote: _Papiers de Famille_, MSS. 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.] 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. [Footnote: 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.] 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.
+
+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 to his intended exploration. Few men were more skilled than he in
+the art of clear and plausible statement. Both the Governor, Courcelles,
+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. [Footnote:
+Talon, in his letter to the king, of 10 Oct. 1670, expresses himself as if
+the enterprise had originated with him.] 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 ironmonger, for twenty-eight hundred livres. [Footnote:
+Faillon, _Colonie Francaise en Canada_, iii. 288.] 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 Quinte, on the north
+shore of Lake Ontario, in charge of two of their number, one of whom was
+the Abbe Fenelon, 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 North-west,
+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.
+
+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 uncommon bodily
+strength, of which he had given striking proofs in the campaign of
+Courcelles against the Iroquois, three years before. [Footnote: He was the
+author of the very curious and valuable _Histoire de Montreal_, preserved
+in the Bibliotheque Mazarine, of which a copy is in my possession. The
+Historical Society of Montreal has recently resolved to print it.] On
+going to Quebec, to procure the necessary outfit, he was urged by
+Courcelles 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, Galinee, 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.
+
+
+
+
+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. They fought their
+way upward against the perilous rapids of the St. Lawrence, then scarcely
+known to the voyager, threaded the romantic channels of the Thousand
+Islands, and issued on Lake Ontario. Thirty days of toil and exposure had
+told upon them so severely that not a man of the party, except the
+Indians, had escaped the attacks of disease in some form.
+
+Their guides led them directly to the great village of the Senecas, near
+the banks of the Genesee, flattering them with the hope that they would
+here find other guides, to conduct them to the Ohio; and, in truth, the
+Senecas had among them a prisoner of one of the western tribes, who would
+have answered their purpose. The chiefs met in council: but La Salle had
+not yet mastered the language sufficiently to serve as spokesman; and a
+Dutch interpreter, brought by the priests, could not explain himself in
+French. The Jesuit Fremin was stationed at the village, and his servant
+came to their aid: but, as the two priests thought, wilfully
+misinterpreted them; and they also conceived the suspicion, perhaps
+uncharitable, that the Jesuits, jealous of their enterprise, had tampered
+with the Senecas, to thwart it. Be this as it may, the Indians proved
+impracticable, evaded their request for a guide, burned before their eyes
+the unfortunate western prisoner, and assured them that if they went to
+the Ohio the people of those parts would put them to death. As there were
+many among the Senecas who 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 with brandy brought from Albany, the position of the French
+was very hazardous. They remained, however, for a month; still clinging to
+the hope of obtaining guides. At length, an Indian from a village called
+Ganastogue, a kind of Iroquois colony at the head of Lake Ontario, offered
+to conduct them thither, assuring them that they would find what they
+sought. They left the Seneca town; coasted the south shore of the lake;
+passed the mouth of the Niagara, where they heard the distant roar of the
+cataract; and, five days after, reached Ganastogue. The inhabitants proved
+friendly, and La Salle received the welcome present of a Shawnee prisoner,
+who told them that the Ohio could he 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. One of the strangers proved to
+be a man 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 pre-occupied 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.
+
+Since reaching the head of Lake Ontario, La Salle had been attacked by a
+violent fever, from which he was not yet recovered. 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.
+
+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 under a wild autumnal sky. 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 Pelee,
+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 Galinee, "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."
+
+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. [Footnote: 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.] The two missionaries took
+this course, with the intention of proceeding to the Saut Sainte 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; [Footnote: "Jesuits in North
+America."] 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 Manatoulins, 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. Galinee, 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 Galinee, after his
+arrival, made the earliest map of the Upper Lakes known to exist.
+[Footnote: Galinee appears to have made use of the map given him by
+Joliet. He says, in the narrative of his journey, that he has laid down on
+his own map nothing but what he had himself seen; but this is disproved by
+the map itself. Thus, he represents with minuteness the northern coast as
+far west as the islands at the mouth of Green Bay; but that he never went
+so far is evident not only from his own journal, but from the fact that he
+was ignorant of the existence of the Straits of Michillimackinac and the
+peninsula of Michigan; Lakes Huron and Michigan being by him merged into
+one, under the name of "Michigane, ou Mer Douce des Hurons." The map, of
+which a fac-simile is before me, measures four and a half feet by three
+and a half. It is covered with descriptive remarks, which, oddly enough,
+are all inverted, so that it must be turned with the north side down in
+order to read them. Faillon has engraved it, but on a small scale, with
+the omission of most of the inscriptions, and other changes. The well-
+known Jesuit map of Lake Superior appeared the year after.
+
+Besides making the map, Galinee wrote a very long and minute journal of
+the expedition, which is preserved in the Bibliotheque Imperiale.
+
+Much of the substance of it is given by Faillon, _Colonie Francaise_, iii.
+chap, vii., and Margry, _Journal General de l'Instruction Publique_, xxxi.
+No. 67. In the letters of Talon to Colbert are various allusions to the
+journey of Dollier and Galinee.]
+
+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; [Footnote: See Margry, in _Journal General de
+l'Instruction Publique_, xxxi. 659.] beyond which time the most diligent
+inquiry has failed to trace them. The Abbe 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. [Footnote: Dollier de Casson alludes to
+this as "cette transmigration celebre qui se fit de la Chine dans ces
+quartiers."] As for himself, the only distinct record of his movements is
+that contained in an unpublished 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. [Footnote: As no part of the
+memoir referred to has been published, I extract the passage relating to
+this journey. 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 Galinee and his party to the Saut Ste.
+Marie, where "les Jesuites les congedierent." It then proceeds as follows:
+"Cependant Mr. de la Salle continua son chemin par une riviere qui va de
+l'est a l'ouest; et passe a Onontaque (Onondaga), puis a six ou sept
+lieues au-dessous du Lac Erie; et estant parvenu jusqu'au 280me ou 83me
+degre de longitude, et jusqu'au 4lme degre de latitude, trouva un sault
+qui tombe vers l'ouest dans un pays has, marescageux, tout couvert de
+vielles souches, don't il y en a quelquesunes qui sont encore sur pied. Il
+fut done contraint de prendre terre, et suivant une hauteur qui le pouvoit
+mener loin, il trouva quelques sauvages qui luy dirent que fort loin de la
+le mesme fleuve qui se perdoit dans cette terre basse et vaste se
+reunnissoit en un lit. Il continua done son chemin, mais comme la fatigue
+estoit grande, 23 ou 24 hommes qu'il avoit menez jusques la le quitterent
+tous en une nuit, regagnerent le fleuve, et se sauverent, les uns a la
+Nouvelle Hollande et les autres a la Nouvelle Angleterre. Il se vit done
+seul a 400 lieues de chez luy, ou il ne laisse pas de revenir, remontant
+la riviere et vivant de chasse, d'herbes, et de ce que luy donnerent les
+sauvages qu'il rencontra en son chemin."] 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. [Footnote: Perrot, _Memoires_, 119, 120.]
+
+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
+Michillimackinac, 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. [Footnote: 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 tres-beau havre et au fond de ce havre un fleuve qui
+va de l'est a l'ouest. Il suivit ce fleuve, et estant parvenu
+jusqu'environ le 280me degre de longitude et le 39me de latitude, il
+trouva un autre fleuve qui se joignant au premier coulait du nordouest au
+sud-est, et il suivit ce fleuve jusqu'au 36me degre de latitude."
+
+The "tres-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.]
+
+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.
+[Footnote: The following are his words (he speaks of himself in the third
+person): "L'annee 1667, et les suivantes, il fit divers voyages avec
+beaucoup de depenses, dans lesquels il decouvrit le premier beaucoup de
+pays au sud des grands lacs, et _entre autres la grande riviere d'Ohio_;
+il la suivit jusqu'a un endroit ou elle tombe de fort haut dans de vastes
+marais, a la hauteur de 37 degres, apres avoir ete grossie par une autre
+riviere fort large qui vient du nord; et toutes ces eaux se dechargent
+selon toutes les apparences dans le Golfe du Mexique."
+
+This "autre riviere," 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.] 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. [Footnote: One of these maps is entitled _Carte
+de la decouverte 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, "Riviere par ou descendit le sieur de la Salle au sortir du lac
+Erie pour aller clans 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, "Riviere Ohio, ainsy appellee par les
+Iroquois a cause de sa beaute, par ou 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.] 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 biased
+in favor of La Salle and against Marquette and the Jesuits.
+
+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. [Footnote: _Lettre de Frontenac au Ministre_, 14
+_Nov_. 1674. He here speaks of "la grande riviere qu'il (Joliet) a
+trouvee, qui va du nord au sud, et qui est aussi large que celle du Saint-
+Laurent vis-a-vis de Quebec." 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.] 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. [Footnote: _Papiers de Famille_, MSS.; _Memoire presente au Roi_.
+The following is an extract: "Il parvient ... jusqu'a la riviere des
+Illinois. Il y construisit un fort situe a 350 lieues au-dela du fort de
+Frontenac, et suivant ensuite le cours de cette riviere, il trouve qu'elle
+se jettoit dans un grand fleuve appelle par ceux du pays Missisippi, c'est
+a dire _grande eau_, environ cent lieues audessous du fort qu'il venoit de
+construire." This fort was Fort Crevecoeur, 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.] 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.
+[Footnote: The following is an extract, given by Margry, from a letter of
+the aged Madeleine Cavelier, dated 21 Fevrier, 1756, and addressed to her
+nephew M. Le Baillif, who had applied for the papers in behalf of the
+minister, Silhouette: "J'ay cherche une occasion sure pour vous anvoye les
+papiers de M. de la Salle. Il y a des cartes que j'ay jointe a ces
+papiers, qui doivent prouver que, en 1675, M. de Lasalle avet deja 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 pres le fleuve de Mississipi." This, though brought forward to
+support the claim of discovery prior to Joliet, seems to indicate that La
+Salle had not reached the Mississippi, but only approached it, previous to
+1675.
+
+Margry, in a series of papers in the _Journal General 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.] 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.
+
+
+
+
+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.--MICHILLIMACKINAC.
+--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. [Footnote: See "The Jesuits
+in North America."] 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.
+
+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, stuffed 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 farther speaks of great copper boulders in the
+bed of the River Ontonagan.
+
+[Footnote: 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.]
+
+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 Galinee,--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, called by the French Sauteurs, 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, Assinneboins, 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 toils 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."
+[Footnote: _Lettre du Pere Jacques Marquette au R. P. Superieur des
+Missions_; in _Relation_, 1670, 87.]
+
+Marquette heard from the Illinois,--yearly visitors at La Pointe,--of the
+great river which they had crossed on their way, [Footnote: 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.] 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
+Michillimackinac, and the Ottawas at the Great Manatoulin Island. Two
+missions were now necessary to minister to the divided bands. That of
+Michillimackinac was assigned to Marquette, and that of the Manatoulin
+Island to Louis Andre. The former took post at Point St. Ignace, on the
+north shore of the straits of Michillimackinac, 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, Andre 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. Andre'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.
+
+Besides the Saut Ste. Marie and Michillimackinac,--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. [Footnote: The Baye des Puans of the early writers; or,
+more correctly, La Baye des Eaux Puantes. The Winnebago Indians, living
+near it, were called Lies 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.] 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. Francois 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."
+[Footnote: _Relation_, 1671, 43.]
+
+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 Galinee 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. [Footnote: 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 "Jesuits in North America." The
+Miamis soon removed to the banks of the River St. Joseph, near Lake
+Michigan.] These two tribes lived together within the compass of the same
+inclosure 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 to wards 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.
+
+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 with 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." [Footnote: _Relation_, 1672, 42.] Most
+things human have their phases of the ludicrous; and the heroism of these
+untiring priests is no exception to the rule.
+
+The various missionary stations were much alike. They consisted of a
+chapel (commonly of logs) and one or more houses, with perhaps a
+storehouse 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 _donnes_, or "given men." Of late, the number of these had much
+diminished; and they now relied chiefly on hired men, or _engages_. 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. [Footnote: This charge was
+made from the first establishment of the missions. For remarks on it, see
+"Jesuits in North America."]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+1667-1672.
+FRANCE TAKES POSSESSION OF THE WEST.
+
+TALON.--ST. LUSSON.--PERROT.--THE CEREMONY AT SAUT STE. MARIE.--
+THE SPEECH OF ALLOUEZ.--COUNT FRONTENAC.
+
+
+Jean Talon, Intendant of Canada, was a man of no common stamp. Able,
+vigorous, and patriotic,--he was the worthy lieutenant and disciple of the
+great minister Colbert, the ill-requited founder of the prosperity of
+Louis XIV. He cherished high hopes for the future of New France, and
+labored strenuously to realize them. He urged upon the king a scheme
+which, could it have been accomplished, would have wrought strange changes
+on the American continent. This was, to gain possession of New York, by
+treaty or conquest; [Footnote: _Lettre de Talon a Colbert_, 27 _Oct_.
+1667. Twenty years after, the plan was again suggested by the Governor,
+Denonville.] thus giving to Canada a southern access to the ocean, open at
+all seasons, separating New England from Virginia, and controlling the
+Iroquois, the most formidable enemy of the French colony. Louis XIV. held
+the king of England in his pay; and, had the proposal been urged, the
+result could not have been foretold. The scheme failed, and Talon prepared
+to use his present advantages to the utmost. While laboring strenuously to
+develop the industrial resources of the colony, he addressed himself to
+discovering and occupying the interior of the continent; controlling the
+rivers, which were its only highways; and securing 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 hold 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. [Footnote: At all events, 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 necessite," from Branssat,
+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.] When, in 1670, he ordered Daumont de St. 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.
+[Footnote: In his despatch of 2d Nov. 1671, Talon writes to the king that
+"St. Lusson's expedition will cost nothing, as he has received beaver
+enough from the Indians to pay him."]
+
+St. 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. [Footnote: _Moeurs, Coustumes, et Relligion
+des Sauvages de l'Amerique 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.] He was at this
+time twenty-six years old, and had formerly been an _engage_ 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. St. Lusson wintered at the Manatoulin 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. [Footnote: 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.] 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.
+[Footnote: Perrot, _Memoires_, 127.]
+
+St. Lusson was here with his men, fifteen in number, among whom was Louis
+Joliet; [Footnote: _Proces Verbal de la Prise de Possession, etc._, 14
+_Juin_, 1671. The names are attached to this instrument.] 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, Amikoues, Nipissings, and many more. When fourteen
+tribes, or their representatives, had arrived, St. Lusson prepared to
+execute the commission with which he was charged.
+
+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, St. 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 Andre. [Footnote: Marquette is said to have been present; but
+the official act, just cited, proves the contrary. He was still at St.
+Esprit.] 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 St. Lusson's followers sang the _Exaudiat_ and one of the Jesuits
+uttered a prayer for the king. St. 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 Manatoulin, 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 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_." [Footnote: _Proces Verbal de la Prise
+de Possession_.]
+
+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.
+
+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, [Footnote: The
+Indian name of the Governor of Canada.] 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."
+[Footnote: A close translation of Dablon's report of the speech. See
+_Relation_, 1671, 27.] 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 St. 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. St. 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. [Footnote: _Lettre de Frontenac au Ministre_, 2 _Nov_. 1672, MS.
+In the Brodhead Collection, by a copyist's error, the name of the
+Chevalier de Grandfontaine is substituted for that of Talon.] 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, Courcelles. Both were able and public-
+spirited; 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. The Governor presided at the council, and held the military
+command; the Intendant directed affairs of justice, finance, and commerce.
+Each thought his functions encroached upon, and both asked for recall.
+[Footnote: Courcelles returned home on the plea of ill health. Talon
+remained a little longer; but soon asked leave to return to France, seeing
+that he should fare worse with the new governor than with the old.]
+Another governor succeeded; one who was to stamp his mark, broad, bold,
+and ineffaceable, on the most memorable page of French-American History.
+
+In the Church of Notre Dame, at Quebec, on a day in the early autumn of
+1672, the priests were singing _Te Deum_ for the safe arrival of him whom
+they were soon to wish beyond the sea again, or beneath it. Here you would
+have seen the new governor surrounded by officers, and by the chief
+inhabitants, anxious to pay their court; a tall man in the pompous garb of
+a military noble of that gorgeous reign, well advanced in middle life, but
+whose high keen features, full of intellect and fire, bespoke his prompt
+undaunted nature,--Louis de Buade, Count of Palluau and Frontenac. He
+belonged to the high nobility, had held important commands, and, if the
+song-writers of his time speak true, had anticipated the king in the
+favors of Madame de Montespan. [Footnote: See Brunet, in notes to
+_Correspondance de la Duchesse d'Orleans_; Paulin, in notes to the
+_Historiettes de Tallement des Reaux_; and Margry, in _Journal General de
+I'Instruction Publique_.] His wife, who could not endure him--and the
+aversion seems to have been mutual--was a noted beauty of the court, and
+held great influence in its brilliant and corrupt society. [Footnote: St.
+Simon and Mademoiselle de Montpensier give very curious accounts of Madame
+de Frontenac, who is also mentioned in the _Lettres de Madame de Sevigne_.
+Her portrait will be found at Versailles.] Frontenac was full of faults;
+but it is not through these that his memory has survived him. He was
+domineering, arbitrary, intolerant of opposition, irascible, vehement in
+prejudice, often wayward, perverse, and jealous: a persecutor of those who
+crossed him; yet capable, by fits, of moderation, and a magnanimous
+lenity; and gifted with a rare charm--not always exerted--to win the
+attachment of men: versed in books, polished in courts and salons; without
+fear, incapable of repose, keen and broad of sight, clear in judgment,
+prompt in decision, fruitful in resources, unshaken when others despaired;
+a sure breeder of storms in time of peace, but in time of calamity and
+danger a tower of strength. His early career in America was beset with ire
+and enmity; but admiration and gratitude hailed him at its close: for it
+was he who saved the colony and led it triumphant from an abyss of ruin.
+[Footnote: In the Library of the Seminary of Quebec is preserved the
+funeral oration pronounced over the body of Frontenac by Olivier Goyer, a
+Recollet friar. It is a blind and wholesale panegyric, but it is
+interlined with notes and comments at great length, by some other
+ecclesiastic, a bitter enemy of the Governor. He is vindictive and
+acrimonious beyond measure; but, between the two, a good deal of truth is
+struck out. Charlevoix's estimate of Frontenac is admirably candid, when
+it is remembered that he writes of an enemy of his Order. The career of
+Frontenac, his letters, and those of his enemies,--of which many are
+preserved,--are, however, his best interpretation.]
+
+
+
+
+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. [Footnote: _Lettre
+de Frontenac au Ministre_, 2 _Nov_. 1672; Ibid 14 _Nov_. 1674. MSS]
+
+Louis Joliet was the son of a wagon-maker in the service of the Company of
+the Hundred Associates, [Footnote: See "Jesuits in North America."] then,
+owners of Canada. He was born at Quebec in 1645, was educated by the
+Jesuits; and, 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. [Footnote: "Le 2
+Juillet (1666) les premieres disputes de philosophie se font dans la
+congregation avec succes. Toutes les puissances s'y trouvent; M.
+l'Intendant entr'autres y a argumente tres-bien. M. Jolliet et Pierre
+Francheville y ont tres-bien repondu de toute la logique."--_Journal des
+Jesuites_, MS.] Not long after, he renounced his clerical vocation, and
+turned fur-trader. Talon sent him, with one Pere, 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.
+[Footnote: Nothing was known of Joliet till Shea investigated his history.
+Ferland, in his _Notes sur les Registres de Notre-Dame de Quebec_;
+Faillon, in his _Colonie Francaise en Canada_; and Margry, in a series of
+papers in the _Journal General de I'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.]
+
+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.
+
+He passed up the lakes to Michillimackinac; 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."
+
+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."
+[Footnote: 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.] Their course was westward; and,
+plying their paddles, they passed the Straits of Michillimackinac, 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. [Footnote: 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.] 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 soon reached the mission at the head of Green Bay; entered
+the 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. [Footnote: 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
+the birds rose up in clouds from the wild-rice marshes.] 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, as Marquette says, he was "extremely consoled."
+
+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. [Footnote: The above
+traits of the scenery of the Wisconsin are taken from personal observation
+of the river during midsummer.]
+
+On the 17th 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.
+
+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 25th, 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. [Footnote: 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.] 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 with attention, 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 behooved 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.
+
+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. [Footnote: 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.] He confesses that at first they frightened him; and his
+imagination and that of his credulous companions were 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 any thing more terrific;" but they escaped
+with their fright, and held their way down the turbulent and swollen
+current of the now united rivers. [Footnote: The Missouri is called
+Pekitanoui by Marquette. It also bears, on early French maps, the names of
+Riviere des Osages, and Riviere 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.] 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. [Footnote: Called
+on Marquette's map, Ouabouskiaou. On some of the earliest maps, it is
+called Ouabache (Wabash).] 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.
+
+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.
+[Footnote: This village, called Mitchigamea, is represented on several
+contemporary maps.]
+
+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, [Footnote: A few years later, the
+Arkansas were all on the west side.] 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. [Footnote: 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.] 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.
+[Footnote: 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 Inedites_, 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 Decouverte que les Peres Jesuites out fait en l'annee 1672,
+et continuee par le Pere 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 Bibliotheque Imperiale, 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.]
+
+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. [Footnote: _Lettre de
+Frontenac au Ministre, Quebec_, 14 _Nov._ 1674, MS.] 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." [Footnote: This letter is appended to Joliet's
+smaller map of his discoveries. See Appendix. Joliet applied for a grant
+of the countries he had visited, but failed to obtain it, because the king
+wished at this time to confine the inhabitants of Canada to productive
+industry within the limits of the colony, and to restrain their tendency
+to roam into the western wilderness. 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.]
+
+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, [Footnote: 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.] and the other a self-
+styled surgeon. They also visited Marquette, and befriended him to the
+best of their power.
+
+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 head of 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.
+
+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 Michillimackinac, 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 Michillimackinac, to bear the tidings to the priests at the mission of
+St. Ignace. [Footnote: 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.]
+
+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 Michillimackinac. 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. [Footnote: 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. The _voyageurs_ on Lake Michigan long continued to invoke the
+intercession of the departed missionary in time of danger.
+
+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 Michillimackinac. 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 Michillimackinac, 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 lard, and some biscuits,
+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
+Michillimackinac. 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.--HIS DIFFICULTIES.--OFFICIAL CORRUPTION IN CANADA.
+--THE GOVERNOR OF MONTREAL.--PROJECTS OF FRONTENAC.--CATARAQUI.--FRONTENAC
+ON LAKE ONTARIO.--FORT FRONTENAC.--SUCCESS OF LA SALLE.
+
+
+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 mediaeval saintship; the other, with feet
+firm planted on the hard earth, breathes the self-relying energies of
+modern practical enterprise. Nevertheless, La Salle was a man wedded to
+ideas, and urged by the steady and considerate enthusiasm, which is the
+life-spring of heroic natures. Three thoughts, rapidly developing in his
+mind, were mastering him, and engendering an invincible purpose. First, he
+would achieve that which Champlain had vainly attempted, and of which our
+own generation has but now seen the accomplishment,--the opening of a
+passage to India and China across the American continent. Next, he would
+occupy the Great West, develop its commercial resources, and anticipate
+the Spaniards and the English in the possession of it. Thirdly,--for he
+soon became convinced that the Mississippi discharged itself into the Gulf
+of Mexico,--he would establish a fortified post at its mouth, thus
+securing an outlet for the trade of the interior, checking the progress of
+the Spaniards, and forming a base, whence, in time of war, their northern
+provinces could be invaded and conquered.
+
+Here were vast projects, projects perhaps beyond the scope of private
+enterprise, conceived and nursed in the brain of a penniless young man.
+Two conditions were indispensable to their achievement. The first was the
+countenance of the Canadian authorities, and the second was money. There
+was but one mode of securing either, to appeal to the love of gain of
+those who could aid the enterprise. Count Frontenac had no money to give;
+but he had what was no less to the purpose, the resources of an arbitrary
+power, which he was always ready to use to the utmost. From the manner in
+which he mentions La Salle in his despatches, it seems that the latter
+succeeded in gaining his confidence very soon after he entered upon his
+government. There was a certain similarity between the two men. Both were
+able, resolute, and enterprising. The irascible and fiery pride of the
+noble found its match in the reserved and seemingly cold pride of the
+ambitious young burgher. Their temperaments were different, but the bases
+of their characters were alike, and each could perfectly comprehend the
+other. They had, moreover, strong prejudices and dislikes in common. With
+his ruined fortune, his habits of expenditure, the exigent demands of his
+rank and station, and the wretched pittance which he received from the
+king of three thousand francs a year, Frontenac was not the man to let
+slip any reasonable opportunity of bettering his condition. [Footnote:
+That he engaged in the fur-trade, was notorious. In a letter to the
+Minister Seignelay, 13 Oct. 1681, Duchesneau, Intendant of Canada,
+declares that Frontenac used all the authority of his office to favor
+those interested in trade with him, and that he would favor nobody else.
+The Intendant himself had a rival interest in the same trade.] La Salle
+seems to have laid his plans before him as far as he had at this time
+formed them, and a complete understanding was established between them.
+Here was a great point gained. The head of the colony was on his side. It
+remained to raise money, and this was a harder task. La Salle's relations
+were rich, evidently proud of him, and anxious for his advancement. As his
+schemes developed, they supplied him with means to pursue them, and one of
+them in particular, his cousin Francois Plet, became largely interested in
+his enterprises. [Footnote: _Papiers de Famille_, MSS.] Believing
+that his projects, if carried into effect, would prove a source of immense
+wealth to all concerned in them, and gifted with a rare power of
+persuasion when he chose to use it, La Salle addressed himself to various
+merchants and officials of the colony, and induced some of them to become
+partners in his adventure. But here we are anticipating. Clearly to
+understand his position, we must revert to the first year of Frontenac's
+government.
+
+No sooner had that astute official set foot in the colony than, with an
+eagle eye, he surveyed the situation, and quickly comprehended it. It was
+somewhat peculiar. Canada lived on the fur-trade, a species of commerce
+always liable to disorders, and which had produced, among other results, a
+lawless body of men known as _coureurs de bois_, who followed the Indians
+in their wanderings, and sometimes became as barbarous as their red
+associates. The order-loving king who swayed the destinies of France,
+taking umbrage at these irregularities, had issued mandates intended to
+repress the evil, by prohibiting the inhabitants of Canada from leaving
+the limits of the settled country; and requiring the trade to be carried
+on, not in the distant wilderness, but within the bounds of the colony.
+The civil and military officers of the crown, charged with the execution
+of these ordinances, showed a sufficient zeal in enforcing them against
+others, while they themselves habitually violated them; hence, a singular
+confusion, with abundant outcries, complaint, and recrimination. Prominent
+among these officials was Perrot, Governor of Montreal, who must not be
+confounded with Nicolas Perrot, the _voyageur_. The Governor of Montreal,
+though subordinate to the Governor-General, held great and arbitrary power
+within his own jurisdiction. Perrot had married a niece of Talon, the late
+Intendant, to whose influence he owed his place. Confiding in this
+powerful protection, he gave free rein to his headstrong-temper, and
+carried his government with a high hand, berating and abusing anybody who
+ventured to remonstrate. The grave fathers of St. Sulpice, owners of
+Montreal, were the more scandalized at the behavior of their military
+chief, by reason of a certain burlesque and gasconading vein which often
+appeared in him, and which they regarded as unseemly levity. [Footnote:
+Perrot received his appointment from the Seminary of St. Sulpice, on
+Talon's recommendation, but he afterwards applied for and gained a royal
+commission, which, as he thought, made him independent of the priests.]
+
+Perrot, through his wife's uncle, had obtained a grant of the Island above
+Montreal, which still bears his name. Here he established a trading house
+which he placed in charge of an agent, one Brucy, who, by a tempting
+display of merchandise and liquors, intercepted the Indians on their
+yearly descent to trade with the French, and thus got possession of their
+furs, in anticipation of the market of Montreal. Not satisfied with this,
+Perrot, in defiance of the royal order, sent men into the woods to trade
+with the Indians in their villages, and it is said even used his soldiers
+for this purpose, under cover of pretended desertion. [Footnote: The
+original papers relating to the accusations against Perrot are still
+preserved in the ancient records of Montreal.] The rage of the merchants
+of Montreal may readily be conceived, and when Frontenac heard of the
+behavior of his subordinate he was duly incensed.
+
+It seems, however, to have occurred, or to have been suggested to him,
+that he, the Governor-General might repeat the device of Perrot on a
+larger scale and with more profitable results. By establishing a fortified
+trading post on Lake Ontario, the whole trade of the upper country might
+be engrossed, with the exception of that portion of it which descended by
+the river Ottawa, and even this might in good part be diverted from its
+former channel. At the same time, a plan of a fort on Lake Ontario might
+be made to appear as of great importance to the welfare of the colony; and
+in fact, from one point of view, it actually was so. Courcelles, the late
+governor, had already pointed out its advantages. Such a fort would watch
+and hold in check the Iroquois, the worst enemy of Canada; and, with the
+aid of a few small vessels, it would intercept the trade which the upper
+Indians were carrying on through the Iroquois country with the English and
+Dutch of New York. Frontenac learned from La Salle that the English were
+intriguing both with the Iroquois and with the tribes of the Upper Lakes,
+to induce them to break the peace with the French, and bring their furs to
+New York. [Footnote: _Lettre de Frontenac a Colbert_, 13 _Nov_. 1678.]
+Hence the advantages, not to say the necessity, of a fort on Lake Ontario
+were obvious. But, while it would turn a stream of wealth from the English
+to the French colony, it was equally clear that the change might be made
+to inure, not to the profit of Canada at large, but solely to that of
+those who had control of the fort; or, in other words, that the new
+establishment might become an instrument of a grievous monopoly. This
+Frontenac and La Salle well understood, and there can be no reasonable
+doubt that they aimed at securing such a monopoly: but the merchants of
+Canada understood it, also; and hence they regarded with distrust any
+scheme of a fort on Lake Ontario.
+
+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 Quinte 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.
+[Footnote: _Lettre de Frontenac a Colbert_, 13 _Nov_. 1673, MS. This
+rumor, it appears, originated with the Jesuit Dablon.--_Journal du Voyage
+du Comte de Frontenac au Lac Ontario_. MS. The Jesuits were greatly
+opposed to the establishment of forts and trading posts in the upper
+country, for reasons that will appear hereafter.]
+
+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. He now had with him about four hundred men, including Indians from
+the missions, and a hundred and twenty canoes, besides two large
+flatboats, 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 flatboats 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
+flatboats; 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.
+
+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 flatboats, 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 Garakontie, 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.
+
+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
+flatboats, 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 storehouse 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.
+
+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, 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."
+[Footnote: _Lettre de Frontenac au Ministre_, 13 Nov. 1673.] 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
+scheme of La Salle; and we shall soon find him employed in executing it.
+
+It remained to determine what disposition should be made of the new fort.
+For some time it was uncertain whether the king would not order its
+demolition, as efforts had been made to influence him to that effect. It
+was resolved, however, that, being once constructed, it should be allowed
+to stand; and, after a considerable 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. [Footnote: 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 entrusted 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."] 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 Recollet 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. [Footnote: _Memoire pour l'entretien du
+Fort Frontenac, par le Sr. de la Salle, 1674. MS. Petition du Sr. de la
+Salle au Roi, MS. Lettres patentes de concession du Fort de Frontenac et
+terres adjacentes au profit du Sr. de la Salle; donnees a Compiegne le 13
+Mai, 1675, MS. Arret qui accepte les offres faites par Robert Cavelier Sr.
+de la Salle; a Compiegne le 13 Mai, 1675, MS. Lettres de noblesse pour le
+Sr. Cavelier de la Salle; donnees a Compiegne le 13 Mai, 1675, MS. Papiers
+de Famille; Memoire au Roi, MS._]
+
+La Salle returned to Canada, proprietor of a seigniory, which, all things
+considered, was one of the most valuable in the colony. It was now that
+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 the broad
+ambition that urged his scheming brain.
+
+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.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+1674-1678.
+LA SALLE AND THE JESUITS.
+
+THE ABBE FENELON.--HE ATTACKS THE GOVERNOR.--THE ENEMIES OF
+LA SALLE.--AIMS OF THE JESUITS.--THEIR HOSTILITY TO LA SALLE.
+
+
+A curious incident occurred soon, after the building of the fort on Lake
+Ontario. A violent quarrel had taken place between Frontenac and 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, seigneurs 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.
+
+The Abbe Fenelon, 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 Hotel-Dieu, which was crowded to the
+porch, all the chief persons of the settlement being present. The cure of
+the parish, whose name also was Perrot, said High Mass, assisted by La
+Salle's brother, Cavelier, and two other priests. Then Fenelon 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. [Footnote: Faillon, _Colonie
+Francaise_, 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 Abbes de Fenelon_, chap. vii.]
+
+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 Fenelon. Then meeting the eye of the cure, who
+sat beside the altar, he made the same signs to him, to which the cure
+replied by a deprecating shrug of the shoulders. Fenelon changed color,
+but continued his sermon. [Footnote: _Information faicte par nous, Charles
+Le Tardieu, Sieur de Tilly, et Nicolas Dupont, etc. etc., contre le Sr.
+Abbe de Fenelon_, MS. Tilly and Dupont were sent by Frontenac to inquire
+into the affair. Among the deponents is La Salle himself.]
+
+This indecent procedure of La Salle filled the priests with anxiety, for
+they had no doubt that the sermon would speedily be reported to Frontenac.
+Accordingly they made all haste to disavow it, and their letter to that
+effect was the first information which the Governor received of the
+affair. He summoned the offender to Quebec, to answer a charge of
+seditious language, before the Supreme Council. Fenelon appeared
+accordingly, but denied the jurisdiction of the Council; claiming that as
+an ecclesiastic it was his right to be tried by the Bishop. By way of
+asserting this right, he seated himself in presence of his judges, and put
+on his hat; and being rebuked by Frontenac, who presided, he pushed it on
+farther. [Footnote: The Council always held its session with hats on. It
+seems that a priest, summoned before it as a witness, was also entitled to
+wear his hat, and Fenelon maintained that it had no right to require him
+to appear before it in any other character.] He was placed under arrest,
+and soon after required to leave Canada; but the king accompanied the
+recall with a sharp word of admonition to his too strenuous lieutenant.
+[Footnote: _Lettre du Roi a Frontenac_, 22 _Avril_, 1675, MS.]
+
+This affair gives us a glimpse of the distracted state of the colony,
+racked by the discord of conflicting interests and passions. There were
+the quarrels of rival traders, the quarrels of priests among themselves,
+of priests with the civil authorities, and of the civil authorities among
+themselves. Prominent, if not paramount, among the occasions of strife,
+were the schemes of Cavelier de La Salle. All the traders not interested
+with him leagued together to oppose him; and this with an acrimony easily
+understood, when it is remembered that they depended for subsistence on
+the fur-trade, while La Salle had engrossed a great part of it, and
+threatened to engross far more. Duchesneau, Intendant of the colony, and
+in that capacity almost as a matter of course on ill terms with the
+Governor, was joined with this party of opposition, with whom he evidently
+had commercial interests in common. La Chesnaye, Le Moyne, and ultimately
+Le Ber, besides various others of more or less influence, were in the
+league against La Salle. Among them was Louis Joliet, whom his partisans
+put forward as a rival discoverer, and a foil to La Salle. Joliet, it will
+be remembered, had applied for a grant of land in the countries he had
+discovered, and had been refused. La Salle soon after made a similar
+application, and with a different result, as will presently appear. His
+adherents continually depreciated the merits of Joliet, and even expressed
+doubt of the reality, or at least the extent, of his discoveries.
+
+But there was another element of opposition to La Salle, 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 _protege_; but their opposition had
+another and a deeper root, for the plans of the daring young schemer
+jarred with their own.
+
+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
+[Footnote: This purpose is several times indicated in the _Relations_. For
+an instance, see "Jesuits in North America," 153.] 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, [Footnote: Compare Charlevoix, _Histoire de Paraguay_,
+with Robertson, _Letters on Paraguay_.] 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 ascendancy of their Order; or, as
+they would have expressed it, the ascendancy 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, settlement. The scope and vigor of
+his enterprises, and the powerful influence that aided them made him a
+stumbling-block in their path. As they would have put the case, it was the
+spirit of this world opposed to the spirit of religion; but I may perhaps
+be pardoned if I am constrained to think that the spirit which inspired
+these fathers was not uniformly celestial, notwithstanding the virtues
+which sometimes illustrated it.
+
+Frontenac, in his letters to the Court, is continually begging that more
+Recollet friars may be sent to Canada. [Footnote: The Recollets, ejected
+from Canada on the irruption of the English in 1629 (see "Pioneers of
+France in the New World"), had not been allowed to return until 1669, when
+their missions were begun anew.] Not that he had any peculiar fondness for
+ecclesiastics of any kind, regular or secular, white, black, or gray; but
+he wanted the Recollets to oppose to the Jesuits. He had no fear of these
+mendicant disciples of St. Francis. Far less able and less ambitious than
+the Jesuits, he knew that he could manage them, because they would need
+his support against their formidable rivals. La Salle, too, wanted more
+Recollets, and for the same reason; but in one point he differed from his
+patron. He was a man, not only of regulated life, but of strong religious
+feeling, and, bating his violent prepossession against the Jesuits, he
+respected the Church and its ministers, as his letters and his life
+attest. Thus, in replying to a charge of undue severity towards some of
+his followers, he alleges in his justification the profane language of the
+men in question, and adds, "I am a Christian; I will have no blasphemers
+in my camp." [Footnote: Letter of La Salle in the hands of M. Margry.]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+1678.
+PARTY STRIFE.
+
+LA SALLE AND HIS REPORTER.--JESUIT ASCENDANCY.--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.
+
+
+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 Galinee,
+[Footnote: _Ante_, p. 11.] 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. [Footnote: Louis-Armand de Bourbon, second Prince de
+Conti. I am strongly inclined to think that this nobleman himself is
+author of the memoir.] 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 "Memoire 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. [Footnote: Extracts from this have already been given in connection
+with La Salle's supposed discovery of the Mississippi. _Ante_, p. 20.]
+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 in 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 certainty 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." [Footnote: "Tous ceux
+de mes amis qui l'ont vu luy trouve beaucoup d'esprit et un tres grand
+sens; il ne parle gueres que des choses sur lesquelles on l'interroge; il
+les dit en tres-peu de mots et tres-bien circonstancies; il distingue
+parfaitement ce qu'il scait avec certitude, de ce qu'il scait avec quelque
+melange de doute. Il avoue sans aucune facon ne pas savoir ce qu'il ne
+scait pas, et quoyque je lui aye ouy dire plus de cinq ou six fois les
+mesme choses a l'occasion de quelques personnes qui ne les avaient point
+encore entendues, je les luy ay toujours ouy dire de la mesme maniere. En
+un mot je n'ay jamais ouy parler personne dont les paroles portassent plus
+de marques de verite."]
+
+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;
+[Footnote: "Il y a une autre chose qui me deplait, qui est l'entiere
+dependence dans laquelle les Pretres du Seminaire de Quebec et le Grand
+Vicaire de l'Eveque sont pour les Peres Jesuites, car il ne fait pas la
+moindre chose sans leur ordre; ce qui fait qu'indirectement ils sont les
+maitres de ce qui regarde le spirituel, qui, comme vous savez, est une
+grande machine pour remuer tout le reste."--_Lettre de Frontenac a
+Colbert_, 2 Nov. 1672.] that he is not well inclined towards the
+Recollets, [Footnote: "Ces religieux (les Recollets) sont fort proteges
+partout par le comte de Frontenac, gouverneur du pays, et a cause de cela
+assez maltraites par l'evesque, parceque la doctrine de l'evesque et des
+Jesuites est que les affaires de la Religion chrestienne n'iront point
+bien dans ce pays-la que quand le gouverneur sera creature des Jesuites,
+ou que l'evesque sera gouverneur."--_Memoire sur Mr. de la Salle_.] 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; [Footnote: "Ils (les Jesuites) refusent l'absolution a
+ceux qui ne veulent pas promettre de n'en plus vendre (de l'eau-de-vie),
+et s'ils meurent en cet etat, ils les privent de la sepulture
+ecclesiastique; au contraire ils se permettent a eux-memes sans aucune
+difficulte ce mesme trafic quoique tout sorte de trafic soit interdit a
+tous les ecclesiastiques 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 pretend qu'il
+ne l'est pas moms; qu' outre la notoriete il en a des preuves certaines,
+et qu'il les a surpris dans ce trafic, et qu'ils luy ont tendu des pieges
+pour l'y surprendre ... Ils ont chasse leur valet Robert a cause qu'il
+revela 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.] 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, [Footnote: 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.] 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. [Footnote: "Pour vous
+parler franchement, ils (les Jesuites) songent autant a la conversion du
+Castor qu'a celle des ames."--_Lettre de Frontenac a 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."]
+
+The memoir proceeds to affirm that they trade largely with the Sioux, at
+Ste. Marie, and with other tribes at Michillimackinac, and that they are
+masters of the trade of that region, where the forts are in their
+possession. [Footnote: These forts were built by them, and were necessary
+to the security of their missions.] 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. [Footnote: Francois 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.] It is added that there exists in Quebec, under the auspices of
+the Jesuits, an association called the Sainte Famille, of which Madame
+Bourdon [Footnote: This Madame Bourdon was the widow of Bourdon, the
+engineer, (see "Jesuits in North America," 299). 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.] 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. [Footnote: "Il y a dans Quebec une
+congregation de femmes et de filles qu'ils [_les Jesuits_]
+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 Superieure de cette compagnie s'appelle Madame
+Boudon; une Mde. D'Ailleboust est, je crois, l'assistante et une Mde.
+Charron, la Tresoriere. La Compagnie s'assemble tous les Jeudis dans la
+Cathedrale, a porte fermee, et la elles se disent les unes aux autres
+tout ce qu'elles on appris. C'est une espece d'Inquisition contre toutes
+les personnes qui ne sont pas unies avec les Jesuites. Ces personnes
+sont accusees 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."--_Memoire sur Mr. 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 Jesuites_] ont tous une si grande envie de savoir tout
+ce qui se fait dans les familles qu'ils ont des Inspecteurs a 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.
+
+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 Recollets
+and Sulpitians.
+
+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
+Mississipi. 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. [Footnote: Mention has been made
+of the report set on foot by the Jesuit Dablon, to prevent
+the building of the fort.] 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 him 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. [Footnote: This story is told at considerable length, and the
+advances of the lady particularly described.]
+
+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, the Abbe 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 Recollet 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 the Abbe 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, the Abbe Cavelier saw fit, for some
+reason, to interfere, and prevented the alliance. [Footnote: Letter of La
+Salle in possession of M. Margry.]
+
+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 farther 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. [Footnote: 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, 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 desir que
+l'on avoit que Monseigneur le Comte de Frontenac fist la guerre aux
+Iroquois." See Thomassy, _Geologie Pratique de la Louisiane_, 203.] At
+this council they accused the two Jesuits, Bruyas and Pierron, [Footnote:
+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 Jesuites_, 1673-9, p. 140 (Shea). Bruyas was also for a
+long time among the Mohawks.] 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 Solycoeur, who confessed the crime. [Footnote: 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 Solycoeur. 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 aeres
+empoissonne d'une salade dans laquelle on avoit mesle du cigue, qui est
+poison en ce pays la, et du verd de gris. Il en fut malade a l'extremite,
+vomissant presque continuellement 40 ou 50 jours apres, et il ne rechappa
+que par la force extreme de sa constitution. Celuy qui luy donna le poison
+fut un nomine Nicolas Perrot, autrement Solycoeur, l'un de ses
+domestiques.... Il pouvait faire mourir cet homme, qui a confesse son
+crime, mais il s'est contente de l'enfermer les fers aux pieds."--
+_Histoire de Mr. de la Salle_.] 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 the Prince de
+Conti, 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:
+
+"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 any one shared
+the suspicion which I felt, oblige me by undeceiving him." [Footnote: The
+following words are underlined in the original: "_Je suis pourtant oblige
+de leur rendre une justice, que le poison qu'on m'avoit donne n'estoit
+point de leur instigation_."--_Lettre de la Salle au Prince de Conti_, 31
+_Oct_. 1678.]
+
+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. [Footnote: 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. MS. The Jesuits had a mission in the neighboring
+tribe of the Mohawks, and elsewhere in New York.] 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.
+
+He is also stated to have declared that Louis Joliet was an impostor,
+[Footnote: This agrees with expressions used by La Salle in a memoir
+addressed by him to Frontenac in November, 1680, and printed by Thomassy.
+In this he plainly intimates his belief that Joliet went but little below
+the mouth of the Illinois.] and a _donne_ of the Jesuits,--that is, a man
+who worked for them without pay; and, farther, 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,
+undoubtedly contains a great deal of truth.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+1677-1678.
+THE GRAND ENTERPRISE.
+
+LA SALLE AT FORT FRONTENAC.--LA SALLE AT COURT.--HIS PLANS APPROVED.
+--HENRI DE TONTY.--PREPARATION FOR DEPARTURE.
+
+
+When La Salle gained possession of Fort Frontenac, he secured a base for
+all his future enterprises. That he meant to make it a permanent one is
+clear from the pains he took to strengthen its defences. Within two years
+from the date of his grant he had replaced the hasty palisade fort of
+Count Frontenac by a regular work of hewn stone; of which, however, only
+two bastions, with their connecting curtains, were completed, the
+enclosure on the water side being formed of pickets. Within, there was a
+barrack, a well, a mill, and a bakery; while a wooden blockhouse guarded
+the gateway. [Footnote: Plan of Fort Frontenac, published by Faillon, from
+the original sent to France by Denonville, 1685.] Near the shore, south of
+the fort, was a cluster of small houses of French _habitans_; and farther,
+in the same direction, was the Indian village. Two officers and a surgeon,
+with half a score or more of 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 fort. [Footnote: _Etat de la depense faite par Mr.
+de la Salle, Gouverneur du Fort Frontenac_, MS. When Frontenac was at the
+fort in September, 1677, he found only four _habitans_. It appears by the
+_Relation des Decouvertes du Sr. de la Salle_, that, three or four years
+later, there were thirteen or fourteen families. La Salle spent 34,426
+francs on the fort.--_Memoire au Roy, Papiers de Famille_, MSS.] Besides
+these, there were two Recollet friars, Luc Buisset and Louis Hennepin; of
+whom the latter was but indifferently suited to his apostolic functions,
+as we shall soon discover. La Salle built a house for them, near the fort;
+and they turned a part of it into a chapel.
+
+Partly for trading on the lake, partly with a view to ulterior designs, he
+caused four small decked vessels to be built: but, for ordinary uses,
+canoes best served his purpose; and his followers became so skilful in
+managing them, that they were reputed the best canoe-men in America.
+[Footnote: _Relation des Decouvertes_, MS. Hennepin repeats the
+statement.] Feudal lord of the forests around him, commander of a garrison
+raised and paid by himself, founder of the mission, patron of the church,
+La Salle reigned the autocrat of his lonely little empire.
+
+But he had no thought of resting here. He had gained what he sought, a
+fulcrum for bolder and broader action. His plans were ripened and his time
+was come. He was no longer a needy adventurer, disinherited of all but his
+fertile brain and his intrepid heart. He had won place, influence, credit,
+and potent friends. Now, at length, he might hope to find the long-sought
+path to China and Japan, and secure for France those boundless regions of
+the West, in whose watery highways he saw his road to wealth, renown, and
+power. Again he sailed for France, bearing, as before, letters from
+Frontenac, commending him to the king and the minister. We have seen that
+he was denounced in advance as a madman; but Colbert at length gave him a
+favoring ear, and granted his petition. Perhaps he read the man before
+him, living only in the conception and achievement of great designs, and
+armed with a courage that not the Fates nor the Furies themselves could
+appall.
+
+La Salle was empowered to pursue his proposed discoveries at his own
+expense, on condition of completing them within five years; to build forts
+in the new-found countries, and hold possession of them on terms similar
+to those already granted him in the case of Fort Frontenac; and to
+monopolize the trade in buffalo skins, a new branch of commerce, by which,
+as he urged, the plains of the Mississippi would become a source of
+copious wealth. But he was expressly forbidden to carry on trade with the
+Ottawas and other tribes of the Lakes, who were accustomed to bring their
+furs to Montreal. [Footnote: _Permission an Sr. de la Salle de decouvrir
+la partie occidentals de la Nouvelle France_, 12 _May_, 1678, MS. Signed
+_Colbert_; not, as Charlevoix says, _Seignelay_.]
+
+Again La Salle's wealthy relatives came to his aid, and large advances of
+money were made to him. [Footnote: In the memorial which La Salle's
+relations presented to the king after his death, they say that, on this
+occasion, "ses freres et ses parents n'epargnerent rien." It is added that
+between 1678 and 1683 his enterprises cost the family more than 500,000
+francs. By a memorandum of his cousin, Francois Plet, M.D., of Paris, it
+appears that La Salle gave him, on the 27th and 28th of June, 1678, two
+promissory notes of 9,805 francs and 1,676 francs respectively.] He bought
+supplies and engaged men; and in July, 1678, sailed again for Canada, with
+thirty followers,--sailors, carpenters, and laborers,--an abundant store
+of anchors, cables, and rigging; iron tools,--merchandise for trade, and
+all things necessary for his enterprise. There was one man of his party
+worth all the rest combined. The Prince de Conti had a _protege_ in the
+person of Henri de Tonty, an Italian officer, one of whose hands had been
+blown off by a grenade in the Sicilian wars. His father, who had been
+Governor of Gaeta, but who had come to France in consequence of political
+convulsions in Naples, had earned no small reputation as a financier, and
+devised the form of life insurance known as the Tontine. The Prince de
+Conti recommended the son to La Salle; and, as the event proved, he could
+not have done him a better service. 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 any thing; 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." [Footnote: _Lettre de
+La Salle au Prince de Conti_, 31 _Oct_. 1678, MS. 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 Gallicised, 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 ascribes the
+loss of his hand to a sabre-cut received in a _sortie_ at Messina; but
+Tonty, in his _Memoire_, says, as above, that it was blown off.]
+
+Besides Tonty, La Salle found another ally, though a less efficient one,
+in the person of the Sieur de la Motte; and at Quebec, where he was
+detained for a time, he found Father Louis Hennepin, who had come down
+from Fort Frontenac to meet him.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+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
+Fevre, containing the coveted permission. Whereupon, to prepare himself,
+he went into retreat, at the Recollet 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 chateau; 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. [Footnote: Hennepin,
+_Description de la Louisiane_ (1683), 19. Ibid., _Voyage Curieux_ (1704),
+66. Ribourde had lately arrived.] La Salle, Tonty, La Motte, and their
+party, who had left Quebec a few days after him, soon appeared at the
+fort; La Salle much fatigued and worn by the hardships of the way, or more
+probably by the labors and anxieties of preparation. He had no sooner
+arrived, than he sent fifteen men in canoes to Lake Michigan and the
+Illinois, to open a trade with the Indians and collect a store of
+provisions. There was a small vessel of ten tons in the harbor; and he
+ordered La Motte to sail in her for Niagara, accompanied by 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." [Footnote: Hennepin, _Nouvelle Decouverte_ (1697), 8.] 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. [Footnote: Ibid., _Avant Propos_, 5.]
+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."
+[Footnote: Ibid., _Voyage Curieux_ (1704), 12.]
+
+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." [Footnote: Ibid., 13.]
+
+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.
+[Footnote: 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.]
+
+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 [Footnote: This
+was the _Racines Agnieres_ 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.] 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.
+[Footnote: Compare Brodhead in _Hist. Mag._, x. 268.]
+
+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." [Footnote: "Une entreprise capable
+d'epouvanter tout autre que moi."--Hennepin, _Voyage Curieux, Avant
+Propos_ (1704).] 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 every thing related in it." [Footnote: "Je vous
+proteste ici devant Dieu, que ma Relation est fidele et sincere," etc.--
+Ibid., _Avis au Lecteur_.] 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. [Footnote: 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.]
+
+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 north-east;
+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, [Footnote: 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.] 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.
+
+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. [Footnote: 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," 143. 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 Nyagarah.]
+
+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.
+
+It was La Salle's purpose to build a palisade fort at the mouth of the
+Niagara; and the work was now begun, though it was necessary to use hot
+water 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, south-east of the
+site of Rochester. [Footnote: Near the town of Victor. It is laid down on
+the map of Galinee, and other unpublished maps. Compare Marshall,
+_Historical Sketches of the Niagara Frontier_, 14.] 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 at
+the mouth 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.
+
+A few days after, Hennepin was near the shore of the lake, when he heard a
+well-known voice, and to his surprise saw La Salle approaching. This
+resolute child of misfortune had already begun to taste the bitterness of
+his destiny. Sailing with Tonty from Fort Frontenac, to bring supplies to
+the advanced party at Niagara, he had been detained by contrary winds when
+within a few hours of his destination. Anxious to reach it speedily, he
+left the vessel in charge of the pilot, who disobeyed his orders, and
+ended by wrecking it at a spot nine or ten leagues west of Niagara.
+[Footnote: Tonty, _Memoire envoye en 1693 sur la Decouverte du Mississippi
+et des Nations voisines, par le Sieur de la Salle, en 1678, et depuis sa
+mort par le Sieur de Tonty_. The published work bearing Tonty's name is a
+compilation full of misstatements. He disowned its authorship. Its
+authority will not be relied on in this narrative. A copy of the true
+document from the original, signed by Tonty, in the Archives de la Marine,
+is before me.] The provisions and merchandise were lost, though the crew
+saved the anchors and cables destined for the vessel which La Salle
+proposed to build for the navigation of the Upper Lakes. He had had a
+meeting with the Senecas, before the disaster; and, more fortunate than La
+Motte,--for his influence over Indians was great,--had persuaded them to
+consent, for a time, to the execution of his plans. They required,
+however, that he should so far modify them as to content himself with a
+stockaded warehouse, in place of a fort, at the mouth of the Niagara.
+
+The loss of the vessel threw him into extreme perplexity, and, as Hennepin
+says, "would have made anybody but him give up the enterprise." [Footnote:
+_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.] The whole party
+were now gathered within the half-finished palisades of Niagara; a motley
+crew of French, Flemings, and Italians, all mutually jealous. Some of the
+men had been tampered with by La Salle's enemies. None of them seem to
+have had much heart for the enterprise. La Motte had gone back to Canada.
+He had been a soldier, and perhaps a good one; but he had already broken
+down under the hardships of these winter journeyings. La Salle, seldom
+happy in the choice of subordinates, had, perhaps, in all his company but
+one man in whom he could confidently 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.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+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.
+
+
+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
+advanced 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.
+[Footnote: 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
+(_riviere_) 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.]
+
+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. [Footnote: 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 Maitre Moyse,
+appears as Moise Hillaret, and the blacksmith, whom he calls La Forge, is
+mentioned as--(illegible) dit la Forge.] 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.
+
+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. [Footnote: "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 Fete Days and
+Sundays, after divine service." (1704), 98.] The Senecas refused to supply
+them with corn, and the frequent exhortations of the Recollet 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, was making his way back on foot to Fort Frontenac, a
+distance of some two hundred and fifty miles, through the snow-encumbered
+forests of the Iroquois and over the ice of Lake Ontario. The wreck of his
+vessel made it necessary that fresh supplies should be sent to Niagara;
+and the condition of his affairs, embarrassed by the great expenses of the
+enterprise, demanded his presence at Fort Frontenac. 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.
+
+During his absence, Tonty finished the vessel, which was of about forty-
+five tons burden. [Footnote: 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.] 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 Membre 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.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+1679.
+LA SALLE ON THE UPPER LAKES.
+
+THE VOYAGE OF THE "GRIFFIN."--DETROIT.--A STORM.--ST. IGNACE OF
+MICHILLIMACKINAC.--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, the
+voyagers, thirty-four in all, 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, [Footnote: They named it Sainte Claire, of which the present name
+is a perversion.] and still sailed northward against the current, till
+now, sparkling in the sun, Lake Huron spread before them like a sea.
+
+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. [Footnote: Hennepin (1683), 58.] 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 Michillimackinac, 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. [Footnote: 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.] 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
+Recollets, 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. [Footnote: Tonty, _Memoire_, MS. He was
+overtaken at the Detroit by the "Griffin."] 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 Michillimackinac. 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.
+
+Early in September, long before Tonty had returned from Ste. Marie, La
+Salle set sail again, and, passing westward into Lake Michigan, [Footnote:
+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. Membre, Douay, and others, call it Lac Dauphin.] 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. [Footnote: "The Great Mountain," the
+Iroquois name for the Governor of Canada. It was borrowed by other tribes
+also.] Here, too, he found several of his advanced 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. [Footnote: 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 an Ministre_, 10 _Nov_. 1680, MS] She fired a
+parting shot, and, on the eighteenth of September, spread her sails for
+Niagara, in charge of the pilot, who had orders to return with her to the
+Illinois as soon as he had discharged his 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.
+
+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 much ado
+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 a 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 driftwood, 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. [Footnote: Hennepin (1683), 79.]
+
+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 hack 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.
+
+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.
+
+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 further,
+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 a new subject of anxiety. La Salle thought that he saw in it
+another device of his busy and unscrupulous enemies, intriguing among the
+Illinois 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 Michillimackinac, 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. [Footnote: Hennepin
+(1683), 112; Tonty, _Memoire_, MS.]
+
+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 farther delay was impossible. He
+sent back two men to Michillimackinac 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.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII.
+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 HIM.
+
+
+On the third of December, the party re-embarked, thirty-three in all, in
+eight canoes, [Footnote: _Lettre de Duchesneau a_--, 10 _Nov_. 1680, MS.]
+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 snowflakes, 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 farther 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.
+
+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. They soon reached a spot where the oozy saturated soil
+quaked beneath their tread. All around were clumps of alderbushes, 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. [Footnote: 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 Riviere
+Seignelay, the Riviere des Macopins, and the Riviere Divine, or Riviere 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. 835 (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 "Riviere de la Divine ou l'Outrelaise."] 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.
+[Footnote: I remember to have seen an incident precisely similar, many
+years ago, on the Upper Arkansas. In this case, however, it was impossible
+to drag the bull from the mire. Though hopelessly entangled, he made
+furious plunges at his assailants before being shot.
+
+Hennepin's account of the buffalo, which he afterwards had every
+opportunity of seeing, is interesting and true.]
+
+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. [Footnote: The change is very
+recent. Within the memory of men still young, 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 farm-house 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 snow-drifts.]
+
+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, [Footnote:
+"Starved Rock." It will hold, hereafter, a conspicuous place in the
+narrative.] 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. [Footnote:
+_La Louisiane_, 137. Allouez (_Relation_, 1673-9) 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 de Pere Marquette_, 98 (Lenox). Membre, who was here in 1680,
+says that it then contained seven or eight thousand souls.--Membre, in Le
+Clercq, _Premier Etablissement 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 a son Frere in Lettres Edifiantes_.
+
+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
+largest. 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.] 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.
+
+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
+twenty _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." [Footnote: "Les
+paroles les plus touchantes." Hennepin (1683), 139. The later editions add
+the modest qualification, "que je pus."] 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. Two 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. [Footnote: Peoria was the name of one of the tribes of
+the Illinois. Hennepin says that they crossed the lake four days after
+leaving the village, which last, as appears by a comparison of his
+narrative with that of Tonty, must have been on the thirtieth of
+December.] Here, as evening drew near, they saw a faint spire of smoke
+curling above the gray, wintry 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. [Footnote: 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.]
+
+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
+forth 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. [Footnote: Hennepin (1683), 142.] 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.
+
+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 their country, he would
+stand by the Illinois, 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.
+[Footnote: Hennepin (1683), 144-149. The later editions omit a part of the
+above.]
+
+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. 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 firebrand, Monso
+and his party left the camp in haste, dreading to be confronted with the
+object of their aspersions. [Footnote: Hennepin (1683), 151, (1704), 205.
+Le Clercq, ii. 157. _Memoire du Voyage de M. de la Salle_, MS. 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. La Salle had a special distrust of this missionary, who, on his
+part, always shunned a meeting with him.
+
+In another memoir, addressed to Frontenac in 1680, La Salle states fully
+his conviction that Allouez, who was then, he says, among the Miamis, had
+induced them to send Monso on his sinister errand. See the memoir in
+Thomassy, _Geologie, Pratique de la Louisiane_, 203.
+
+The account of the affair of Monso in the spurious work bearing Tonty's
+name is mere romance.]
+
+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, Nicanope, 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 for ever.
+
+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?" [Footnote: The above is a paraphrase, with some condensation,
+from Hennepin, whose account is sustained by the other writers.] Nicanope
+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 Nicanope, 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. [Footnote: Hennepin (1683), 162.--_Declaration faite par
+Moyse Hillaret, charpentier de barque, cy devant au service du Sr. de la
+Salle_, MS.]
+
+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. [Footnote: The
+equally famous Brinvilliers was burned four years before. An account of
+both will be found in the Letters of Madame de Sevigne. 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.]
+
+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.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV.
+1680.
+FORT CREVECOEUR.
+
+BUILDING OF THE FORT.--LOSS OF THE "GRIFFIN."--A BOLD RESOLUTION.
+--ANOTHER VESSEL.--HENNEPIN SENT TO THE MISSISSIPPI.--DEPARTURE
+OF LA SALLE.
+
+
+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 little hill, or
+knoll, two hundred yards from the southern bank. On either side was a deep
+ravine, and, in front, a low ground, 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 men were lodged
+in huts, at the angles: in the middle there was a cabin of planks for La
+Salle and Tonty, and another for the three friars; while the blacksmith
+had his shed and forge in the rear.
+
+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 fete 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. The spot may still be seen, a little below Peoria. La
+Salle christened his new fort Fort Crevecoeur. 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
+Crevecoeur, 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. [Footnote:
+Charlevoix, i. 459; La Potherie, ii. 140; La Hontan, _Memoir on the Fur-
+Trade of Canada_, MS. 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.] 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. [Footnote:
+_Lettre de la Salle a La Barre, Chicagou,_ 4 _Juin_, 1683, MS. 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.]
+
+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. [Footnote: _Relation des Decouvertes et
+des Voyages du Sr. de la Salle, Seigneur et Gouverneur du Fort de
+Frontenac, au dela des grands Lacs de la Nouvelle France, faits par ordre
+de Monseigneur Colbert;_ 1679, 80 et 81, MS. Hennepin gives a story which
+is not essentially different, except that he makes himself a conspicuous
+actor in it.]
+
+Here was one source of danger stopped; one motive to desert removed. La
+Salle again might feel a reasonable security that idleness would not breed
+mischief among his men. The chief purpose of his intended journey was to
+procure the equipment of a vessel, to be built at Fort Crevecoeur; and he
+resolved that before he set out he would see her on the stocks. The pit-
+sawyers and some of the carpenters had deserted; but energy supplied the
+place of skill, and he and Tonty urged on the work with such vigor that
+within six weeks the hull was nearly finished. She was of forty tons
+burden, [Footnote: _Lettre de Duchesneau, a_--, 10 _Nov_. 1680, MS.] and
+built with high bulwarks to protect those within from the arrows of
+hostile Indians.
+
+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. Membre 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 Membre 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." [Footnote: "Tout autre que
+moi en auroit ete fort ebranle. Et en effet, je n'eusse pas ete la duppe
+du Sieur de la Salle, qui m'exposait temerairement, si je n'eusse mis
+toute ma confiance en Dieu" (1704), 241.]
+
+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, [Footnote: An eminent
+writer has mistaken "Picard" for a personal name. Du Gay was called "Le
+Picard," because he came from the province of Picardy. Accau, and not
+Hennepin, was the real chief of the party.] 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." [Footnote: (1683), 188. This
+commendation is suppressed in the later editions.]
+
+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 second of March, [Footnote: Tonty erroneously places their
+departure on the twenty-second.] before the frost was yet out of the
+ground, when the forest was still leafless and gray, and the oozy prairie
+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: Hunaud, La Violette, Collin, and Dautray.
+[Footnote: _Declaration faite par Moyse Hillaret, charpentier de barque,
+MS._] 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 Crevecoeur in his absence.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV.
+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.
+
+
+The winter had been a severe one. When La Salle and his five companions
+reached Peoria Lake, they found it sheeted from shore to shore with ice
+that stopped the progress of their canoes, but was too thin to bear the
+weight of a man.
+
+They dragged their light vessels up the bank and into the forest, where
+the city of Peoria now stands; made two rude sledges, placed the canoes
+and baggage upon them, and, toiling knee-deep in saturated snow, dragged
+them four leagues through the woods, till they reached a point where the
+motion of the current kept the water partially open. They were now on the
+river above the lake. Masses of drift ice, wedged together, but full of
+crevices and holes, soon barred the way again; and, carrying their canoes
+ashore, they dragged them two leagues over a frozen marsh. Rain fell in
+floods; and, when night came, they crouched for shelter 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. [Footnote: Membre 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 Crevecoeur.]
+
+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 moccasons. 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. [Footnote: The same whom Hennepin calls Chassagouasse. He was
+brother of the chief, Nicanope, who, in his absence, had feasted the
+French on the day after the nocturnal council with Monso. Chassagoac was
+afterwards baptized by Membre 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 Clercq, ii. 181.] 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 Crevecoeur.
+
+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. [Footnote: Tonty, _Memoire_, MS. The order was sent by
+two Frenchmen whom La Salle met on Lake Michigan.]
+
+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. Each, besides his gun, carried a knife and
+a hatchet at his belt, a blanket strapped at his back, and a piece of
+dressed hide to make or mend his moccasons. A store of powder and lead,
+and a kettle, completed the outfit of the party. [Footnote: Hennepin
+(1683), 173.]
+
+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 Michillimackinac, in
+search of the "Griffin." [Footnote: _Declaration de Moyse Hillaret_, MS.
+_Relation des Decouvertes_, MS.] 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 Crevecoeur;
+while he pushed onward with his party through the unknown wild of Southern
+Michigan.
+
+They were detained till noon of the twenty-fifth, in making a raft to
+cross the St. Joseph. Then they resumed their march; and as they forced
+their way through the brambly thickets, their clothes were torn, and their
+faces so covered with blood, that, says the journal, they could hardly
+know each other. Game was very scarce, and they grew faint with hunger. In
+two or three days they reached a happier region. They shot deer, bears,
+and turkeys in the forest, and fared sumptuously. But the reports of their
+guns fell on hostile ears. This was a debatable ground, infested with war-
+parties of several adverse tribes, and none could venture here without
+risk of life. On the evening of the twenty-eighth, as they lay around
+their fire under the shelter of a forest by the border of a prairie, the
+man on guard shouted an alarm. They sprang to their feet; and each, gun in
+hand, took his stand behind a tree, while yells and howlings filled the
+surrounding darkness. A band of Indians were upon them; but, seeing them
+prepared, the cowardly assailants did not wait to exchange a shot.
+
+They crossed great meadows, overgrown with rank grass, and set it on fire
+to hide the traces of their passage. La Salle bethought him of a device to
+keep their skulking foes at a distance. On the trunks of trees from which
+he had stripped the bark, he drew with charcoal the marks of an Iroquois
+war-party, with the usual signs for prisoners, and for scalps, hoping to
+delude his pursuers with the belief that he and his men were a band of
+these dreaded warriors.
+
+Thus, over snowy prairies and half-frozen marshes; wading sometimes to
+their waists in mud, water, and bulrushes, they urged their way through
+the spongy, saturated wilderness. During three successive days they were
+aware that a party of savages was dogging their tracks. They dared, not
+make a fire at night, lest the light should betray them; but, hanging
+their wet clothes on the trees, they rolled themselves in their blankets,
+and slept together among piles of spruce and pine boughs. But the night of
+the second of April was excessively cold. Their clothes were hard frozen,
+and they were forced to kindle a fire to thaw and dry them. Scarcely had
+the light begun to glimmer through the gloom of evening, than it was
+greeted from the distance by mingled yells; and a troop of Mascoutin
+warriors rushed towards them. They were stopped by a deep stream, a
+hundred paces from the bivouac of the French, and La Salle went forward to
+meet them. No sooner did they see him, and learn that he was a Frenchman,
+than they cried that they were friends and brothers, who had mistaken him
+and his men for Iroquois; and, abandoning their hostile purpose, they
+peacefully withdrew. Thus his device to avert danger had well-nigh proved
+the destruction of the whole party.
+
+Two days after this adventure, two of the men fell ill from fatigue, and
+exposure, and sustained themselves with difficulty till they reached the
+banks of a river, 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.
+
+La Salle directed two of the men to make a canoe, and go to
+Michillimackinac, 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 Pelee. 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. [Footnote: 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.]
+
+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. [Footnote: Zenobe
+Membre in Le Clercq, ii. 202.] 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. 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 Crevecoeur, 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 _habitans_ 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 Michillimackinac and Niagara, they
+now numbered twenty men. [Footnote: 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 Decouvertes_, MS. 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.] They had destroyed the fort on the St. Joseph, seized a
+quantity of furs belonging to La Salle at Michillimackinac, 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.
+
+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 Quinte, 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. [Footnote: The story of La Salle's journey from Fort
+Crevecoeur to Fort Frontenac, with his subsequent encounter with the
+mutineers, is given in great detail in the unpublished _Relation des
+Decouvertes_. This and other portions of it are compiled, with little
+abridgment, from the letters of La Salle himself, some of which are still
+in existence. They give the particulars of each day with a cool and
+business-like simplicity, recounting facts without comment or the
+slightest attempt at rhetorical embellishment. This is the authority for
+the details of the journey: the general statement is confirmed by Membre,
+Hennepin, and Tonty. The _Memoire_ of Tonty, though too concise, is
+excellent authority, and must by no means be confounded with the _Relation
+de la Louisiane_, to which his name is falsely affixed.]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI.
+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.
+
+
+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 toils 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 veiled 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,
+indeed, 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. [Footnote: _Robert Cavelier, Sr. de
+la Salle, a Francois Daupin, Sr. de la Forest,_ 10 _Juin, 1679,_ MS.] A
+surgeon, ship-carpenters, joiners, masons, soldiers, _voyageurs_, and
+laborers completed his company, twenty-five men in all, with every thing
+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
+Michillimackinac. 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, [Footnote: This date is from the _Relation_. Membre 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,--an
+impossibility.] 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. For some time past, rumors had
+been abroad that the Iroquois were preparing to invade the country of the
+Illinois, bent on expelling or destroying them. 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.
+
+When last he had passed here, all was solitude; but how 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; their horns
+splintered and their grim front scarred with battles, while their shaggy
+mane, like a gigantic lion, well-nigh swept the ground. [Footnote: I have
+a very vivid recollection of the appearance of an old buffalo bull under
+such circumstances. When I was within a hundred yards of him, he came
+towards me at a sharp trot as if to make a charge; but, as I remained
+motionless, he stopped thirty paces off and stared fixedly for a long
+time. At length, he slowly turned, and, in doing so, received a shot
+behind the shoulder, which killed him. It is useless to fire at the
+forehead of a buffalo bull, at least with an ordinary rifle, as the bullet
+flattens against his skull. A shot at close quarters, just above the nose,
+would probably turn him in a charge. The usual modes of hunting buffalo on
+foot are those mentioned above. They are commonly successful; but at times
+the animals are excessively shy and wary, while at other times they are
+stupid beyond measure, and can be easily approached and killed. The hunter
+must remain perfectly motionless after firing, as the wounded animal is
+apt to make a rush at him if he moves. The most agreeable mode of hunting
+buffalo is, however, on horseback, running alongside of them, and shooting
+them behind the shoulder with a pistol or a short gun. A bow and arrow are
+better for those who know how to use them; but white men very rarely have
+the skill. I have seen, on different occasions, several hundred buffalo
+killed with arrows, by Indians on horseback. This noble game, with the
+tribes who live on it, will soon disappear from the earth.] 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 bounteous 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.
+
+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. [Footnote: "Il ne
+restoit que quelques bouts de perches brulees qui montroient quelle avoit
+ete l'etendue du village, et sur la plupart desquelles il y avait des
+tetes de morts plantees et mangoes des corbeaux."--_Relation des
+Decouvertes du Sr. de la Salle_, MS.] 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. [Footnote:
+"Beaucoup de carcasses a demi rongees par les loups, les sepulchres
+demolis, les os tires de leurs fosses et epars par la campagne; ... enfin
+les loups et les corbeaux augmentoient par leurs hurlemens et par leurs
+cris l'horreur de ce spectacle."--_Ibid_.
+
+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.]
+
+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 storehouses 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, but none whatever of the presence of white
+men. 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, crouched around their camp-
+fire, La Salle and his companions kept their vigil. The howlings of the
+wolves filled the frosty air with a fierce and dreary dissonance. More
+deadly foes were not far off, for before nightfall they had seen fresh
+Indian tracks. The cold, however, forced them to make a fire; and while
+some tried to rest around it, the others stood on the watch. La Salle
+could not sleep. Anxiety, anguish, fears for his friend, doubts as to what
+course he should pursue, racked his firm mind with a painful indecision,
+and lent redoubled gloom to the terrors that encompassed him. [Footnote:
+_Relation des Decouvertes_, MS.]
+
+During the afternoon, he had made a discovery which offered, as he
+thought, a possible clew to the fate of Tonty, and those with him. In one
+of the Illinois cornfields, near the river, were planted six posts painted
+red, on each of which was drawn in black a figure of a man with eyes
+bandaged. La Salle supposed them to represent six Frenchmen, prisoners in
+the hands of the Iroquois; and he resolved to push forward at all hazards,
+in the hope of learning more. When daylight at length returned, he told
+his followers that it was his purpose to descend the river, 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.
+
+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
+Crevecoeur, 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_ 19--
+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. [Footnote: "On ne
+scauroit exprimer la rage de ces furieux ni les tourmens qu'ils avoient
+fait souffrir aux miserables Tamaroa (_a tribe of the Illinois_). Il y en
+avoit encore dans des chaudieres qu'ils avoient laissees pleines sur les
+feux, qui depuis s'etoient eteints," etc., etc.--_Relation des
+Decouvertes_, MS.] 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. [Footnote: The distance is about two hundred and fifty miles.
+The _Relation des Decouvertes_ says 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. Very probably, there is an error of
+date. In other particulars, this narrative is sustained by those of
+Tonty.]
+
+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. [Footnote: 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.]
+
+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 profusion, till the earth was deeply buried. So light and dry
+was it, that to walk on snow-shoes was impossible; and La Salle, after his
+custom, took the lead, to break the path and cheer on his followers.
+Despite his tall stature, he often waded through drifts to the waist,
+while the men toiled on behind; the snow, shaken from the burdened twigs,
+showering them as they passed. After excessive fatigue, 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 Crevecoeur.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII.
+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 Crevecoeur,--smiths, ship-carpenters,
+housewrights, and soldiers, besides his servant l'Esperance and the two
+friars Membre 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 at 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 firebrand 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.
+
+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_." [Footnote: For the
+particulars of this desertion, Membre, in Le Clerc, ii. 171, _Relation des
+Decouvertes_, MS.; Tonty, _Memoire_, MS.; _Declaration faite par devant le
+Sr. Duchesneau, Intendant en Canada, par Moyse Hillaret, charpentier de
+barque cy-devant au service du Sr. de la Salle_, 17 _Aoust_, 1680, MS.
+
+Moyse Hillaret, the "Maitre Moyse" of Hennepin, was a ringleader 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, Membre, and the
+_Relation des Decouvertes_. 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.] The brave young Sieur de Boisrondet and the servant l'Esperance
+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.
+[Footnote: Two of the messengers, Laurent and Messier, arrived safely. The
+others seem to have deserted.] Besides the two just named, there now
+remained with him only three hired men and the Recollet 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
+Membre, 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.
+
+I have recounted the ferocious triumphs of the Iroquois in another volume.
+[Footnote: "The Jesuits in America."] Throughout a wide semicircle around
+their cantons they had made the forest a solitude,--destroyed the Hurons,
+exterminated the Neutrals and the Eries, reduced the formidable Andastes
+to a 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. [Footnote:
+Duchesneau, in _Paris Docs_., ix. 163.] These crafty savages would fain
+reduce all these regions to subjection, and draw from 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. [Footnote:
+There had long been a rankling jealousy between the Miamis and the
+Illinois. According to Membre, 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.]
+
+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. [Footnote: The above is from
+notes made on the spot. The following is La Salle's description of the
+locality in the _Relation des Decouvertes_, written in 1681: "La rive
+gauche de la riviere, du cote du sud, est occupee par un long rocher, fort
+etroit et escarpe presque partout, a la reserve d'un endroit de plus d'une
+lieue de longueur, situe vis-a-vis du village, ou le terrain, tout couvert
+de beaux chenes, s'etend par une pente douce jusqu'au bord de la riviere.
+Au dela de cette hauteur est une vaste plaine, qui s'etend bien loin du
+cote du sud, et qui est traversee par la riviere Aramoni, dont les bords
+sont couverts d'une lisiere 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. Starved Rock, or the Rock of St. Louis, is the highest and
+steepest escarpment of the _long rocher_ above mentioned.] 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 space and breathing room, for many are in the fields. A squaw
+sits weaving a mat of rushes; a warrior, naked, except his moccasons, 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. [Footnote: The Illinois were an aggregation of
+distinct though kindred tribes, the Kaskaskias, the Peorias, the Cahokias,
+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.]
+
+This, or something like it, one may safely affirm, was the aspect of the
+Illinois village at noon of the tenth of September. [Footnote: This is
+Membre's date. The narratives differ as to the day, though all agree as to
+the month.] 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, and
+the two faithful men who had stood by their commander. The friars, Membre
+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.
+
+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,
+[Footnote: The _Relation des Decouvertes_ says, five hundred Iroquois and
+one hundred Shawanoes. Membre 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.] 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 firearms 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 Membre
+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.
+
+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 was 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. [Footnote: Membre says that he went with Tonty,
+"J'etois aussi a cote du Sieur de Tonty." This is an invention of the
+friar's vanity. "Les deux peres Recollets etoient alors dans une cabane a
+une lieue du village, ou ils s'etoient retires pour faire une espece de
+retraite, et ils ne furent avertis de l'arrivee des Iroquois que dans le
+temps du combat."--_Relation des Decouvertes,_, MS. "Je rencontrai en
+chemin les peres Gabriel et Zenobe Membre, qui cherchoient de mes
+nonvelles."--Tonty _Memoire_, MS. This was on his return from the
+Iroquois. The _Relation_ confirms the statement, as far as concerns
+Membre: "Il rencontra le Pere Zenobe (Membre), qui venoit pour le
+secourir, aiant ete averti du combat et de sa blessure."
+
+The perverted _Dernieres Decouvertes_, published without authority, under
+Tonty's name, says that he was attended by a slave whom the Illinois sent
+with him as interpreter. Though this is not mentioned in the three
+authentic narratives, it is more than probable, as Tonty could not have
+known Iroquois enough to make himself understood.] 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. [Footnote: 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.] 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. [Footnote: "Je leur fis connoistre que les Islinois etoient sous la
+protection du roy de France et du gouverneur du pays, que j'estois surpris
+qu'ils voulussent rompre avec les Francois et qu'ils voulussent _attendre_
+(sic) a une paix."--Tonty, _Menoire_, MS.]
+
+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 breezed up 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. Several times, he felt a hand at the back of his
+head, lifting up his hair, and, turning, saw a savage with a knife,
+standing as if ready to scalp him. [Footnote: "Il en avoit un derriere moi
+qui tenoit un couteau dans sa main, et qui de temps en temps me levoit les
+cheveux."--Tonty, _Memoire_, MS. The _Dernieres Decouvertes_ adds, "Je me
+retournai vers lui et je vis bien a sa contenance et a sa mine que son
+dessein etoit de m'enlever la chevelure ... je le priai de vouloir du
+moins se donner un peu de patience, et d'attendre que ses Maitres eussent
+decide de mon sort."] A Seneca chief demanded that he should be burned. 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 Membre, 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 Membre, 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.
+
+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 Membre to a council. Six packs
+of beaver skin 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 Membre, 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. [Footnote: 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 etoit beau," that is, that the weather was
+favorable for travelling,--is curiously misconceived by the editor of the
+_Dernieres Decouvertes_, who improves upon his original by substituting
+the words "par le cinquieme paquet _ils nous exhortoient a adorer le
+Soleil_."] 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 skin, 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.
+
+Tonty, with an 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 farther 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 Membre, 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 around 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. [Footnote: Tonty,
+_Memoire_, MS. Membre in Le Clercq, 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 Membre's account.]
+
+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. [Footnote: "Cependant les Iroquois, aussitot apres le
+depart du Sr. de Tonty, exercerent leur rage sur les corps morts des
+Ilinois, qu'ils deterrerent ou abbatterent de dessus les echafauds ou les
+Ilinois les laissent longtemps exposes avant que de les mettre en terre.
+Ils en brulerent la plus grande partie, ils en mangerent meme quelques
+uns, et jetterent le reste aux chiens. Ils planterent les tetes de ces
+cadavres a demi decharnes sur des pieux," etc.--_Relation des
+Decouvertes_, MS.] 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. [Footnote: _Relation des Decouvertes_, MS.
+Frontenac to the King, N.Y. _Col. Docs_., ix. 147. A memoir of Duchesneau
+makes the number twelve hundred.] Then followed that scene of torture, of
+which, some two weeks later, La Salle saw the revolting traces. [Footnote:
+"Ils [les Illinois] trouverent dans leur campement des carcasses de leurs
+enfans que ces anthropophages avoient mangez, ne voulant meme d'autre
+nourriture que la chair de ces infortunez."--La Potherie, ii. 145, 146.
+Compare _note_, _ante_, p. 196.] 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 firebrand; 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 Michillimackinac, 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
+they had much ado 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. It was the end of November before they found the
+Pottawattamies, and were warmly greeted by their chief, who had befriended
+La Salle the year before, and who, in his enthusiasm for the French, was
+wont to say that he knew but three great captains in the world, Frontenac,
+La Salle, and himself. [Footnote: Membre, in Le Clercq, ii. 199. Of the
+three, or rather four narratives, on which this chapter mainly rests, the
+best is that contained in the manuscript of 1681, entitled the _Relation
+des Decouvertes_. This portion of it, which bears every evidence of
+accuracy, was certainly supplied by Tonty himself or one of his
+companions. The _Memoire_ of Tonty is wholly distinct. It is a modest and
+simple statement, of which the chief fault is its brevity. He undoubtedly
+wrote another and more detailed narrative, which has been used by the
+editor of the _Dernieres Decouvertes_, printed with Tonty's name. The
+editor seems to have taken less liberties with his original in this part
+of the book than in many others. The narrative of Membre sustains that of
+Tonty, except in one or two unimportant points, where the writer's vanity
+seems to have gained the better of his veracity.]
+
+While Tonty rests at Green Bay, and La Salle at the fort on the St.
+Joseph, we will leave them for a time to trace the strange adventures of
+the errant friar, Father Louis Hennepin.
+
+
+
+
+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 farm-house; 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 farm-house 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.
+205, _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.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII.
+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 Crevecoeur 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, [Footnote: _Description de la Louisiane,
+nouvellement decouverte, Paris_, 1683.] Fourteen years after, when La
+Salle was dead, he published another edition of his travels, [Footnote:
+_Nouvelle Decouverte d'un tres grand Pays situe dans l'Amerique, Utrecht_,
+1697] 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 has 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.
+
+"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 every thing 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."
+[Footnote: _Nouvelle Decouverte_, 248, 250, 251.]
+
+He then proceeds to recount, at length, the particulars of his alleged
+exploration. The story was distrusted from the first. [Footnote: 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.] 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." [Footnote: _Description de la Louisiane_, 218.]
+
+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. [Footnote: 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.] 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 farther, 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. [Footnote: 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.]
+
+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
+Chretien Le Clercq, published an account of the Recollet missions among
+the Indians, under the title of "Etablissement de la Foi." This book was
+suppressed by the French government; but a few copies fortunately
+survived. One of these is now before me. It contains the journal of Father
+Zenobe Membre, 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. [Footnote: Hennepin may have copied from the unpublished journal
+of Membre, which the latter had placed in the hands of his superior, or he
+may have compiled from Le Clercq'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 Membre 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 Decouverte_ with the corresponding pages of Le Clercq:
+Hennepin, 252, Le Clercq, 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. 283; 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 Clercq are not confined to the passages cited above; for, in his
+later editions, he stole largely from other parts of the suppressed
+_Etablissement de la Foi_.]
+
+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 allusions of Tonty, and other contemporary
+writers. [Footnote: 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 Decouvertes_, 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.] For the details of the journey,
+we must look on Hennepin alone; whose account of the company and of the
+peculiar traits of its Indian occupation 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 north-western
+region. [Footnote: 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"--_Ouackanche_. _Wakanshe_, or _Wakansheclia_,
+would express the same meaning in modern English spelling. He says
+elsewhere that they called the guns of his companions _Manzaouackanche_,
+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.
+
+A variety of 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.] Trusting, then, to his
+guidance in the absence of better, let us follow in the wake of his
+adventurous canoe.
+
+It was laden deeply; with goods belonging to La Salle, and meant by
+handing presents to Indians on the way, though the travelers, it appears,
+proposed to use them in trading of 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 [Footnote:
+Called Ako by Hennepin. In contemporary documents it is written Accau,
+Acau, D'Accau Dacau, Dacan, and d'Accault.] 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 St. 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, not without reason, prayed that it might be his
+fortune to meet them, not by night, but by day.
+
+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. [Footnote: 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.] 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.
+
+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 1863, 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, [Footnote: 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.] 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 peacepipe, 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. [Footnote: 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.]
+
+One night, they 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; and, the banquet over, 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 moccasons; 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 averse 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.
+
+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 be 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.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX.
+1680, 1681.
+HENNEPIN AMONG THE SIOUX.
+
+SIGNS OP 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 St. 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. [Footnote: 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 R. 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 Titonwan 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. Mr. Riggs, in 1852, placed it at about twenty-five
+thousand. Lake many other Indian tribes, they seem practically incapable
+of civilization.]
+
+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 relations 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.
+
+Seeing their new relative so enfeebled that he could scarcely stand, the
+Indians made for him one of their sweating baths, [Footnote: 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.] 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 St. 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 Ouasicoude, 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 several 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. 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
+deerskin 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, who 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.
+
+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 Ouasicoude, 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 St. Anthony of
+Padua. [Footnote: 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.] As they were carrying their canoe by the
+cataract, they saw five or six Indians, who had gone before, 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. [Footnote: 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 every thing he had about him into the cataract
+as an offering to this deity.] 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, [Footnote: In the edition of 1683. In that of 1697 he has grown
+to seven or eight feet. The bank-swallows still make their nests in these
+cliffs, boring easily into the soft incohesive sandstone.] 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.
+
+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
+fish-hooks, 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. [Footnote: 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.] 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.
+
+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
+blossoming 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; [Footnote: 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_.] 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 strange, 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.
+
+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 admirable address, and used it vigorously, as
+occasion required, to repress the gambols of three children, who, to
+Hennepin's great 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 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.
+
+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. [Footnote: 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, an example, which, if
+followed, would ruin the colony by diverting the sources of its support to
+its rival. Du Lhut built a trading fort on Lake Superior, called
+Cananistigoyan (La Houtan), 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'etait un tres-honnete homme." Other
+contemporaries speak to the same effect. "Mr. Dulhut, Gentilhomme
+Lionnois, qui a beaucoup de merite et de capacite."--La Hontan, i. 103
+(1703). "Le Sieur du Lut, homme d'esprit et d'experience."--Le Clercq, 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 Marquiette, 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 este chez les Sioux en
+1678, et a este proche la source du Mississippi, et ensuite vint retirer
+le P. Louis (_Hennepin_) qui avoit este fait prisonnier chez les Sioux."
+Du Lhut here appears as the deliverer of Hennepin.]
+
+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. [Footnote: Abstracts of letters in
+_Memoir on the French Dominion in Canada, N. Y. Col. Docs_., ix. 781.] 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 a 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 Ouasicoude, 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 it behooved him to conduct
+himself. 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.
+
+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. [Footnote: On the other hand, he sets down on his map of
+1683 a mission of the Recollets at a point north of the farthest sources
+of the Mississippi, to which no white man had ever penetrated.] He is
+equally reticent with regard to the Jesuit mission at Michillimackinac,
+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. [Footnote: 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 lie all that a Christian ought to be"
+(1697), 433.] 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 Genessee, 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 Recollet 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." [Footnote: (1697), 471.] 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.
+
+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.
+[Footnote: 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.
+
+The following is from a letter of La Salle, dated at Fort Frontenac, 22
+Aug. 1681. This, with one or two other passages of his letters, shows that
+he understood the friar's character, though he could scarcely have
+foreseen his scandalous attempts to defame him and rob him of his just
+honors. "J'ai cru qu'il etoit a propos de vous faire le narre des
+aventures de ce canot (du Picard et d'Accau) parce que je ne doute pas
+qu'on n'en parle; et si vous souhaitez en conferer avec le P. Louis Hempin
+(sic) Recollect qui est repasse en France, il faut un peu le connaitre,
+car il ne manquera pas d'exagerer toutes choses, c'est son caractere, et a
+moy mesme il m'a ecrit comme s'il eust este tout pres d'estre brule,
+quoiqu'il n'en ait pas este seulement en danger; mais il croit qu'il lui
+est honorable de le faire de la sorte, et _il parle plus conformement a ce
+qu'il veut qu'a ce qu'il fait_." I am indebted for the above to M. Margry.
+
+In 1699, Hennepin 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.]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX.
+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 rear the fabric of a
+triumphant 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. The scheme was but a new
+feature, the result of new circumstances, added to the original plan of
+his great enterprise; and he addressed himself to its execution with his
+usual vigor, and with an address which never failed him in his dealings
+with Indians.
+
+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
+for 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 entrenched
+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 nineteen 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. [Footnote: _Relation des Decouvertes_, MS. A
+valuable confirmation of Hennepin's narrative.]
+
+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. [Footnote: This seems to have been taken
+from the secret repositories, or _caches_, of the ruined town of the
+Illinois.] Meanwhile, he had rejoined La Forest, whom he now sent to
+Michillimackinac 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 a band of 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.
+
+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." [Footnote: "En ce genre, il etoit le
+plus grand orateur de l'Amerique Septentrionale."--_Relation des
+Decouvertes_, MS.] 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 farther 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."
+[Footnote: Translated from the _Relation_, where these councils are
+reported at great length.]
+
+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; the ground
+was broken, and the seed sown. 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 successes were
+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 Michillimackinac after a prosperous voyage. Here,
+to his great joy, he found Tonty and Zenobe Membre, 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. Membre 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." [Footnote: Membre, in Le Clercq, ii. 208. Tonty, in his
+unpublished memoir, 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.]
+
+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 disastrous 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, [Footnote: _Copie du testament du deffunt
+Sr. de la Salle, 11 Aout_, 1681, MS. The relative was Francois Plet, M.D.,
+of Paris.] 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. [Footnote: "On apprendra a la fin de cette
+annee, 1682, le sucees de la decouverte qu'il etoit resolu d'achever, au
+plus tard le printemps dernier, ou de perir en y travaillant. Tant de
+traverses et de malheurs toujours arrives en son absence l'ont fait
+resoudre a ne se fier plus a personne et a conduire lui-meme tout son
+monde, tout son equipage, et toute son entreprise, de laquelle il esperoit
+une heureuse conclusion."
+
+The above is a part of the closing paragraph of the _Relation des
+Descouvertes_, so often cited, and of the excellent guidance of which we
+are henceforth deprived. It is a compilation made up from material
+supplied by the various members of La Salle's party, on their return to
+Canada, in 1681; and the greater portion is substantially the work of La
+Salle himself. It is a document of great interest and undoubted
+authority.]
+
+The summer was spent when 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.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI.
+1681-1682.
+SUCCESS OF LA SALLE.
+
+HIS FOLLOWERS.--THE CHICAGO PORTAGE.--DESCENT OP 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, "all well inured to
+war," as his companion Membre writes, and added them to the twenty-three
+Frenchmen who composed his party. They insisted on taking their women with
+them, to cook for them, and do other camp work. 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 twenty-first of December, Tonty and Membre set out from Fort Miami
+with some of the party in six canoes, and crossed to the little river
+Chicago. [Footnote: La Salle, _Relation de la Decouverte_, 1682, in
+Thomassy, _Geologie Pratique de la Louisiane_, 9; _Lettre du Pere Zenoble_
+(Zenobe Membre), 14 Aoust, 1682, MS.; Membre, in Le Clercq, ii. 214;
+Tonty, _Memoire_, MS.; _Proces Verbal de la Prise de Possession de la
+Louisiane_.
+
+The narrative ascribed to Membre, and published by Le Clercq, is based on
+the document preserved in the Archives Scientifiques de In Marine,
+entitled _Relation de la Decouverte de l'Embouchure de la Riviere
+Mississippi faite par le Sieur de la Salle, l'annee passee_, 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 Decouverte_,
+though written in the third person, is the official report of the
+discovery made by La Salle; or perhaps for him, by Membre. Membre's letter
+of August, 1682, is a brief and succinct statement made immediately after
+his return.] 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.
+
+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 forth on 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; [Footnote: Called by Membre the Ouabache (Wabash).] and, gliding by
+the wastes of bordering swamp, landed, on the twenty-fourth of February,
+near the Third Chickasaw Bluffs. [Footnote: La Salle, _Relation de la
+Decouverte de I'Embouchure, etc._; Thomassy, 10 Membre gives the same
+date; but the _Proces Verbal_ makes it the twenty-sixth.] 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 [Footnote: 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, entrenched
+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."] 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 in to 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 [Footnote: La Salle,
+_Relation_; Thomassy, 11.] 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.
+
+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 inhabitants flocked about them with eager signs of welcome;
+built huts for them, brought them firewood, gave them corn, beans, and
+dried fruits, and feasted them without respite for three days. "They are a
+lively, civil, generous people," says Membre, "very different from the
+cold and taciturn Indians of the North." They showed, indeed, some slight
+traces of a tendency towards civilization; for domestic fowls and tame
+geese were wandering among their rude cabins of bark. [Footnote: Membre,
+in Le Clercq, ii. 224; Tonty, _Memoire_, MS.]
+
+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. Membre, in canonicals, sang a hymn; the men shouted _Vice le Roi_;
+and La Salle, in the king's name, took formal possession of the country.
+[Footnote: _Proces Verbal de la Prise de Possession du Pays des Arkansas,
+14 Mars_, 1682, MS.] 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 acknowledgment of
+fealty to Louis XIV. [Footnote: 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.]
+
+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. [Footnote: 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. Membre is much astonished that such monsters
+should be born of eggs, like chickens.] Here, as their two guides told
+them, was the path to the great town of the Taensas. Tonty and Membre 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 mulberrybark, 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. [Footnote: Tonty, _Memoire_, MS. In the spurious narrative
+published in Tonty's name, the account is embellished and exaggerated.
+Compare Membre, in Le Clercq, ii. 227. La Salle's statements in the
+Relation of 1682 (Thomassy, 12) sustain those of Tonty.] 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 Membre 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.
+
+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 Membre 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 Membre, "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." [Footnote: Membre, in Le Clercq, ii. 232.]
+
+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. [Footnote: 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 "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, 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.]
+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.
+
+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, [Footnote: In St. Charles County,
+on the left bank, not far above New Orleans.] 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. [Footnote: 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.]
+
+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 D'Autray 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, REGNE; LE NEUVIEME AVRIL,
+1682.
+
+The Frenchmen were mustered under arms; and, while the New-England Indians
+and their squaws stood gazing 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,--
+
+"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 therein, from
+its source beyond the country of the Nadouessious ... 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." [Footnote: 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, Natches, 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 _Proces Verbal de la Prise de Possession de la
+Louisiana_, it would be set at rest by Le Clercq, who says, "Le Sieur de
+la Salle prit au nom de sa Majeste possession de ce fleuve, _de toutes les
+rivieres 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 of the _Proces Verbal_ is before me. It bears the name of
+Jacques de la Metairie, Notary of Fort Frontenac, who was one of the
+party.]
+
+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 savannahs 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.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII.
+1682-1683.
+ST. LOUIS OF THE ILLINOIS.
+
+LOUISIANA.--ILLNESS OF LA SALLE.--HIS COLONY ON THE ILLINOIS.--
+TOUT ST. LOUIS.--RECALL OF FRONTENAC.--LE FEVRE 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. [Footnote: The boundaries are laid
+down on the great map of Franquelin, made in 1684, and preserved in the
+Depot 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 north-west, 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, north-west, and finally north along the range of the Rocky
+Mountains.]
+
+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. They next revisited
+the Natchez, 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. [Footnote: Tonty, _Memoire_, MS.]
+
+And now, in a career of unwonted success and anticipated triumph, La Salle
+was sharply 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 Michillimackinac,
+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 Membre attended him; and, at the end of July, he
+was once more in a condition to advance by slow movements towards the
+Miami, which he reached in about a month.
+
+His descent of the Mississippi had been successful as an exploration, and
+this was all. Could he have executed his original plan, have built a
+vessel on the Illinois and descended in her to the Gulf of Mexico, he
+would have been able to defray in some measure the costs of the
+enterprise, by means of a cargo of buffalo hides collected from Indians on
+the way, with which he would have sailed to the West Indies, or perhaps to
+France. With a fleet of canoes, this was of course impossible; and there
+was nothing to offset the enormous outlay which he and his family had
+made. He proposed, as we have seen, to found, on the banks of the
+Illinois, a colony of French and Indians, of which he should be the feudal
+lord, and which should answer the double purpose of a bulwark against the
+Iroquois and a depot for the furs of all the Western tribes; and he hoped,
+in the following spring, to secure an outlet for this colony, and for all
+the trade of the Mississippi and its tributaries, by occupying its mouth
+with a fort and a dependent colony. [Footnote: "Monsieur de la Salle se
+dispose de retourner sur ses pas a la mer au printemps prochain avec un
+plus grand nombre de gens, et des familles, pour y faire des
+etablissemens." Membre, in Le Clercq, ii. 248. This was written in 1682,
+immediately after the return from the mouth of the Mississippi.] Thus he
+would control the valley of the great river of the West.
+
+He rejoined Tonty at Michillimaekinac in September. It was his purpose to
+go at once to France to provide means for establishing his projected post
+at the mouth of the Mississippi; and he ordered Tonty, meanwhile, to
+collect as many men as possible, return to the Illinois, build a fort, and
+lay the foundations of the colony, the plan of which had been determined
+the year before. La Salle was about to depart for Quebec, when news
+reached him that changed his plans, and caused him to postpone his voyage
+to France. He heard that those pests of the wilderness, the Iroquois, were
+about to renew their attacks on the western tribes, and especially on
+their former allies, the Miamis. [Footnote: _Lettre de La Barre au
+Ministre_, 14 Nov. 1682, MS.] This would ruin his projected colony. His
+presence was indispensable. He followed Tonty to the Illinois, and
+rejoined him near the site of the great town.
+
+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 oil 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 rugged 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 entrench themselves. They
+cut away the forest that crowned the rock, built storehouses and dwellings
+of its remains, dragged timber up the rugged pathway, and encircled the
+summit with a palisade. [Footnote: "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 rock fortified
+by La Salle stood, we are told, at the edge of the water; while Buffalo
+Rock is at some distance from the bank. 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 explains the Indian remains found here. He 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_, MS. 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_, p. 221.]
+
+Thus the winter was 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 around 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 aegis 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. [Footnote: 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 1,800; the Shawanoes, at 200; the
+Ouiatenons (Weas), at 500; the Peanqhichia (Piankishaw) band, at 150; the
+Pepikokia, at 160; the Kilatica, at 800; 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 Rook,
+and the Illinois village at the place where, as already mentioned, (see p.
+221), 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 Colonel 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
+Musee 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.] 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 entrepot 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 Fevre de la Barre
+reigned in his stead. [Footnote: La Barre had formerly held civil offices.
+He had been Maitre de Requetes, and afterwards Intendant of the
+Bourbonnais. He had gained no little reputation in the West Indies, as
+governor and lieutenant-general of Cayenne, which he recovered from the
+English, who had seized it, and whom he soon after defeated in a naval
+fight. Sixteen years had elapsed since these exploits, and meanwhile he
+had grown old.]
+
+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. Frontenac's absence was not
+to be permanent: dark days were in store for Canada. In her hour of need,
+she was to hail with delight the return of the haughty nobleman; and all
+his faults were to be forgotten in the splendor of his services to the
+colony and the crown. La Barre showed a weakness and an avarice for which
+his advanced 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.
+[Footnote: The royal instructions to La Barre, on his assuming the
+government, dated at Versailles, 10 May, 1682, require him to give no
+farther 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.]
+
+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; 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-south-west 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." [Footnote: _Lettre de la Salle a La Barre, Fort St.
+Louis, 2 Avril_, 1683, MS. The above is somewhat condensed from passages
+in the original.]
+
+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 night, and so prevent the Missouries 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
+Michillimackinac, 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." [Footnote: _Lettre de la Salle, a La
+Barre, Portage de Chicagou_, 4 _Juin_, 1683, MS. Portions of the above
+extracts are condensed in the rendering. A long 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.]
+
+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." [Footnote: _Lettre de La Barre au
+Ministre_, 14 _Nov_. 1682, MS.] 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. [Footnote: _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.]
+
+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. He is
+trying to build up an imaginary kingdom for himself by debauching all the
+bankrupts and idlers of this country." [Footnote: _N.Y. Col Docs_., ix.
+204. The letter is dated 4 Nov. 1683.] 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
+dimmish the revenue from beaver-skins." [Footnote: _Lettre du Roy a La
+Barre_, 5 _Aoust_, 1683, MS.]
+
+In order to understand the posture of affairs at this time, it must be
+remembered that Dongan, the English Governor of New York, was 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. [Footnote: _Memoire
+pour rendre compte a Monseigneur le Marquis de Seignelay de l'Etat ou le
+Sieur de Lasalle a laisse le Fort Frontenac pendant le temps de sa
+decouverte,_ MS. The Marquis de Denonville, La Barre's successor in the
+government, says, in his memoir of Aug. 10, 1688, that La Barre had told
+the Iroquois to plunder La Salle's canoes.
+
+La Barre's course at this time was extremely indirect and equivocal. The
+memoir to Seignelay, cited above, declares--and other documents sustain
+it--that he was playing into the hands of the English, by sending furs, on
+his own account and that of his associates, to Albany, where he could sell
+them at a high rate, and at the same time avoid the payment of duties to
+the French farmers of the revenue.
+
+The merchants, La Chesnaye, Le Ber, and Le Moyne, were at the head of the
+faction with which La Barre had identified himself; and their hatred of La
+Salle knew no bounds. If we are to believe La Potherie, he himself had
+formerly, in defence of his monopolies, told the Iroquois that they might
+plunder the canoes of traders who had not a pass from him. The adverse
+faction now retorted by adding the permission of murder to the permission
+of pillage. Margry thinks that La Chesnaye was the prompter of this
+villany.]
+
+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. [Footnote: 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.] 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. [Footnote: These are the
+statements of the memorial, addressed in La Salle's behalf, to the
+minister Seignelay.]
+
+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 spent the winter
+harmoniously; and, 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. [Footnote: Tonty, Menoire, MS.;
+Lettre de La Barre, au Ministre, 5 Juin, 1684; Ibid., 9 Juillet, 1684,
+MSS.]
+
+Meanwhile, La Salle had sailed for France, and thither we will follow him.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII.
+1684.
+A NEW ENTERPRISE.
+
+LA SALLE AT COURT.--HIS PROPOSALS.--OCCUPATION OF LOUISIANA.--INVASION
+OF MEXICO--ROYAL FAVOR.--PREPARATION.--THE NAVAL COMMANDER.--HIS
+JEALOUSY OF LA SALLE.--DISSENSIONS.
+
+
+From the wilds of the Illinois,--crag, forest, and prairie, squalid
+wigwams, and naked savages,--La Salle crossed the sea; and before him rose
+the sculptured wonders of Versailles, that world of gorgeous illusion and
+hollow splendor, where Louis the Magnificent held his court. Amid its pomp
+of weary ceremonial, its glittering masquerade of vice and folly, its
+carnival of vanity and pride, stood the man whose home for sixteen years
+had been the wilderness, his bed the earth, his roof the sky, and his
+companions a rude nature and ruder men. In all that throng of hereditary
+nobles, there was none of a prouder spirit than the son of the burgher of
+Rouen.
+
+He announced what he had achieved in words of energetic simplicity, more
+impressive than all the tinsel of rhetoric. [Footnote: Witness the
+following. He speaks of himself in the third person. "To acquit himself of
+the commission with which he was charged, he has neglected all his private
+affairs, because they were alien to his enterprise; he has omitted nothing
+that was needful to its success, notwithstanding dangerous illness, heavy
+losses, and all the other evils he has suffered, which would have overcome
+the courage of any one who had not the same zeal and devotion for the
+accomplishment of this purpose. During five years he has made five
+journeys, of more, in all, than five thousand leagues, for the most part
+on foot, with extreme fatigue, through snow and through water, without
+escort, without provisions, without bread, without wine, without
+recreation, and without repose. He has traversed more than six hundred
+leagues of country hitherto unknown, among savage and cannibal nations,
+against whom he must daily make fight, though accompanied only by thirty-
+six men, and consoled only by the hope of succeeding in an enterprise
+which he thought would be agreeable to his Majesty."
+
+See the original, as printed by Margry, _Journal General de I'Instruction
+Publique,_ xxxi. 699.] He had friends near the court,--Count Frontenac was
+one of them,--and he gained the ear of the colonial minister. There was a
+wonderful change in the views of the court towards him. The great Colbert
+had lately died, bequeathing to his son Seignelay, his successor in the
+control of the Marine and Colonies, some of his talents, and all of his
+harshness and violence. Seignelay entered with vigor into the schemes of
+La Salle, and commended them to the king, his master. The memorial, in
+which these schemes are set forth, is still preserved, as well as another
+memorial designed to prepare the way for it; and the following is the
+substance of them. The preliminary document states that the late
+Monseigneur Colbert was of opinion that it was 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 crowns. He now proposes to return by way of the
+Gulf of Mexico 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
+accomplish 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." [Footnote: _Memoire du Sr.
+de la Salle, pour rendre compte a Monseigneur de Seignelay de la
+decouverte qu'il a faite par l'ordre de sa Majeste_, MS.]
+
+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 land 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
+[Footnote: 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.] (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 on the same day 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 he
+armed, paid, and maintained at the king's charge, for a term not exceeding
+a year, after which they will form a self-sustaining colony. And if a
+treaty of peace should prevent us from carrying our conquest into present
+execution, we shall place ourselves in a favorable position for effecting
+it on the outbreak of the next war with Spain. [Footnote: _Memoire du Sr.
+de la Salle sur I'Entreprise qu'il a propose a Monseigneur le Marquis de
+Seignelay sur une des provinces de Mexique_, MS.]
+
+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. [Footnote: 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.] That La Salle believed in
+the possibility of invading the Spanish province of New Biscay from the
+Red River, there can he 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 he proposed his plan of conquest with the serious
+intention of attempting to execute it at the time and in the manner which
+he indicates. He was a bold schemer, but neither a madman nor a fool. The
+project, as set forth in his memorial, bears all the indications of being
+drawn up with the view of producing a certain effect on the minds of the
+king and the minister. Ignorant as they were of the nature of the country
+and the character of its inhabitants, they could see nothing impracticable
+in the plan of mustering and keeping together an army of fifteen thousand
+Indians. [Footnote: 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,
+MS. 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.]
+
+La Salle's immediate necessity was to obtain from the court the means for
+establishing a fort and a colony within the mouth of the Mississippi. This
+was essential to his own commercial 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 needed a more glittering lure to attract the eyes of Louis and
+Seignelay; and thus, it would appear, 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 it was in accordance with the wily and
+politic element from which the iron nature of La Salle was not free, but
+which was often defeated in its aims by other elements of his character.
+
+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. The glittering project which he now unfolded found favor in the
+eyes of the king and the 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, he 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."
+[Footnote:_Lettre du Roy a la Barre, Versailles, 10 Avril, 1684,_ MS.]
+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. [Footnote:_Lettre du Roy a De Mettles, Versailles, 14 Avril, 1684._
+Selgnelay wrote to De Meules to the same effect.] Armed with this letter,
+La Forest sailed for Canada. [Footnote: On La Forest's mission,--_Memoire
+pour representer a Monseigneur le Marquis de Seignelay la necessite
+d'envoyer le Sr. de la Forest en diligence a la Nouvelle France,_ MS.;
+_Lettre du Roy a la Barre, 14 Avril, 1684,_ MS.; _Ibid., 31 Oct. 1684,_
+MS.
+
+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 preference_," out of any property of
+his, La Salle's, in France or Canada.]
+
+La Salle had asked for two vessels, [Footnote: _Le Sieur de la Salle
+demande_, MS. This is the caption of the memorial, in which he states what
+is required; viz., a war vessel of thirty guns, pay and maintenance of two
+hundred men for a year at farthest, tools, munitions, cannon for the
+forts, a small vessel in pieces, the furniture of two chapels, a forge,
+with a supply of iron, weapons for his followers and allies, medicines,
+&c.] 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
+Recollets were added: Zenobe Membre, who was then in France; Anastase
+Douay, and Maxime Le Clercq. Including soldiers, sailors, and colonists of
+all classes, the number embarked was about two hundred and eighty. 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. In an evil hour, the naval command of the
+expedition was given to Beaujeu, a captain of the royal navy, who was
+subordinated to La Salle in every thing but the management of the vessels
+at sea. [Footnote: _Letter de Cachet a Mr. de la Salle, Versailles, 12
+Avril, 1684, signe, Louis_, MS.] He had his full share of the arrogant and
+scornful spirit which marked the naval service of Louis XIV., joined to
+the contempt for commerce which belonged to the _noblesse_ of France, but
+which did not always prevent them from dabbling in it when they could do
+so with secrecy and profit. He was unspeakably galled that a civilian
+should be placed over him, and he, too, a burgher recently ennobled. La
+Salle was far from being the man to soothe his ruffled spirit. Bent on his
+own designs, asking no counsel, and accepting none; detesting a divided
+authority, impatient of question, cold, reserved, and impenetrable,--he
+soon wrought his colleague to the highest pitch of exasperation. While the
+vessels still lay at Rochelle; while all was bustle and preparation; while
+stores, arms, and munitions were embarking; while faithless agents were
+gathering beggars and vagabonds from the streets to serve as soldiers and
+artisans,--Beaujeu was giving vent to his disgust in long letters to the
+minister.
+
+He complains that the vessels are provisioned only for six months, and
+that the voyage to the liver which La Salle claims to have discovered, and
+again back to France, cannot be made in that time. If La Salle had told
+him at the first what was to be done, he could have provided accordingly;
+but now it is too late. "He says," pursues the indignant commander, "that
+there are fourteen passengers, besides the Sieur Minet, [Footnote: One of
+the engineers of the expedition.] to sit at my table. I hope that a fund
+will be provided for them, and that I shall not be required to support
+them."
+
+"You have ordered me, Monseigneur," he continues, "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 any thing about it."
+[Footnote:_Lettre de Beaujau au Ministre, Rochelle_, 30 _Mai_, 1684, MS.]
+
+In another letter, he says: "He [La Salle] is so suspicious, and so
+fearful that somebody will penetrate his secrets, that I dare not ask him
+any thing." And, again, he complains of being placed in subordination to a
+man "who never commanded anybody but school-boys." [Footnote: "Qui n'a
+jamais commande qu'a des ecoliers."--_Lettre de Beaujeu au Ministre_, 21
+_Juin_, 1684, MS. It appears from Hennepin that La Salle was very
+sensitive to any allusion to a "_pedant_," or pedagogue.] "I pray," he
+continues, "that my orders may be distinct and explicit, that I may not be
+held answerable for what may happen in consequence of the Sieur de la
+Salle's exercising command."
+
+He soon fell into a dispute with him with respect to the division of
+command on board the "Joly," Beaujeu demanding, and it may be thought with
+good reason, that, when at sea, his authority should include all on board;
+while La Salle insisted that only the sailors, and not the soldiers,
+should be under his orders. "Though this is a very important matter,"
+writes Beaujeu, "we have not quarrelled, but have referred it to the
+Intendant." [Footnote: _Lettre de Beaujeu au Ministre_, 25 _Juin_, 1684,
+MS. Arnoult, the Intendant at Rochelle, had received the king's orders to
+aid the enterprise. In a letter to La Salle, dated 14 April, and enclosing
+his commission, the king tells him that Beaujeu is to command the working
+of the ship, _la manoeuvre_, subject to his direction. Louis XIV. seems to
+have taken no little interest in the enterprise. He tells La Barre in one
+of his letters that La Salle is a man whom he has taken under his special
+protection.]
+
+While these ill-omened bickerings went on, the various members of the
+expedition were mustering at Rochelle. Joutel, a fellow-townsman of La
+Salle, returning to his native Rouen, after sixteen years of service in
+the army, found all astir with the new project. His father had been
+gardener to La Salle's uncle, Henri Cavelier; [Footnote: At the modest
+wages of fifty francs a year and his maintenance.--Family papers found by
+Margry.] and, being of an adventurous spirit, he was induced to volunteer
+for the enterprise, of which he was to become the historian. With La
+Salle's brother, the priest, and two of his nephews, of whom one was a boy
+of fourteen, besides several others of his acquaintance, Joutel set out
+for Rochelle, where all were to embark together for their promised land.
+[Footnote: Joutel, _Journal Historique_, 12.]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV.
+1684-1685.
+LA SALLE IN TEXAS.
+
+DEPARTURE.--QUARRELS WITH BEAUJEU.--ST. DOMINGO.--LA SALLE ATTACKED
+WITH FEVER.--HIS DESPERATE CONDITION.--THE GULF OF MEXICO.--A FATAL
+ERROR.--LANDING.--WRECK OF THE "AIMABLE."--INDIAN ATTACK.--TREACHERY
+OF BEAUJEU.--OMENS OF DISASTER.
+
+
+The four ships sailed on the twenty-fourth of July; but the "Joly" soon
+broke her bowsprit, and they were forced to put back. [Footnote: La Salle
+believed that this mishap, which took place in good weather, was
+intentional.--_Memoire autographe de l'Abbe Jean Cavelier sur la Voyage
+de_ 1684, MS. Compare Joutel, 15.] On the first of August, they again set
+sail. La Salle, with the principal persons of the expedition, and a crowd
+of soldiers, artisans, and women, the destined mothers of Louisiana, were
+all on board the "Joly." Beaujeu wished to touch at Madeira: La Salle, for
+excellent reasons, refused; and hence there was great indignation among
+passengers and crew. The surgeon of the ship spoke with insolence to La
+Salle, who rebuked him, whereupon Beaujeu took up the word in behalf of
+the offender, saying that the surgeon was, like himself, an officer of the
+king. [Footnote: "Le capitaine du batiment, qui avait en deux autres
+occasions assez fait connoitre qu'il etoit mecontent de ce que son
+autorite etoit partagee, prit la parole, disant au dit Sr. de la Salle que
+le chirurgien etoit officier du roi comme lui."--_Memoire autographe de
+l'Abbe Jean Cavelier,_ MS.] When they crossed the tropic, the sailors made
+ready a tub on deck to baptize the passengers, after the villanous
+practice of the time; but La Salle refused to permit it, to the
+disappointment and wrath of all the crew, who had expected to extort a
+bountiful ransom, in money and liquor, from their victims. There was an
+incessant chafing between the two commanders; and when at length, after a
+long and wretched voyage, they reached St. Domingo, Beaujeu showed clearly
+that he was, to say the least, utterly indifferent to the interests of the
+expedition. La Salle wished to stop at Port de Paix, where he was to meet
+the Marquis de St. Laurent, Lieutenant-General of the Islands; Begon, the
+Intendant; and De Cussy, Governor of the Island of La Tortue,--who had
+orders from the king to supply him with provisions, and give him all
+possible assistance. Beaujeu had consented to stop here; [Footnote: "C'est
+la (au Port de Paix) ou Mr. de Beaujeu etait convenu de s'arreter."--
+_Memoire autographe de l'Abbe Jean Cavelier,_ Joutel says that this was
+resolved on at a council held on board the "Joly," and that a Proces
+Verbal to that effect was drawn up.--_Journal Historique,_ 22.] but he
+nevertheless ran by the place in the night, and, to the extreme vexation
+of La Salle, cast anchor on the twenty-seventh of September, at Petit
+Goave, on the other side of the island.
+
+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
+despatched a messenger to St. Laurent, Begon, and Cussy, begging them to
+join him, commissioned 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 the
+disastrous tidings that the third, the ketch "St. Francois," had been
+taken by the Spaniards. She was laden with munitions, tools, and other
+necessaries for the colony; and the loss was irreparable. Beaujeu was
+answerable for it; for, had he followed his instructions, and anchored at
+Port de Paix, it would not have occurred. The Lieutenant-General, with
+Begon and Cussy, who had arrived, on La Salle's request, plainly spoke
+their minds to him. [Footnote: Joutel, _Journal Historique_, 28.]
+
+Meanwhile, La Salle's illness rose to a violent fever. He lay delirious in
+a wretched garret in the town, 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 the Abbe
+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 of the loss of the
+ketch "St. Francois;" and the consequence was a critical return of the
+disease. [Footnote: The above particulars are from the unpublished memoir
+of La Salle's brother, the Abbe Cavelier, already cited.]
+
+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.
+
+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 hoard; 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 any thing 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 his
+plans are not good."
+
+"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." [Footnote: "Si vous
+me permettez de dire mon sentiment, M. de la Salle devait se contenter
+d'avoir decouvert sa riviere, sans se charger de conduire trois vaisseaux
+et des troupes a deux mille lieues au travers de tant de climats
+differents et par des mers qui lui etaient tout a fait inconnues. Je
+demeure d'accord qu'il est savant, qu'il a de la lecture, et meme quelque
+teinture de la navigation. Mais il y a tant de difference entre la theorie
+et la pratique, qu'un homme qui n'aura que celle-la s'y trompera toujours.
+Il y a aussi bien de la difference entre conduire des canots sur des lacs
+et le long d'une riviere et mener des vaisseaux et des troupes dans des
+mers si eloignees."--_Lettre de Beaujeu au Ministre_, 20 _Oct_. 1684, MS.]
+
+It was near the end of November before La Salle could resume the voyage.
+Beaujeu had been heard to say, that he would wait no longer for the
+storeship "Amiable," and that she might follow as she could. [Footnote:
+_Memoire autographe de l'Abbe Jean Cavelier_, MS.] La Salle feared that he
+would abandon her; and he therefore embarked in her himself, with his
+friend Joutel, his brother Cavelier, Membre, 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 hunters 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, seeking sympathy from none. The feud of the two commanders still
+rankled beneath the veil of formal courtesy with which men of the world
+hide their dislikes and enmities.
+
+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. [Footnote: _Letter of Don Luis de Onis
+to the Secretary of State, American State Papers_, xii. 27, 31.] Not a man
+on board knew the secrets of its perilous navigation. Cautiously feeling
+their way, they held a northerly 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. At their
+right lay a low and sandy shore, washed by breakers, which made the
+landing dangerous. La Salle had taken the latitude of the mouth of the
+Mississippi, but could not determine the longitude. On the sixth of
+January, the "Aimable" seems to have been very near it; but his attempts
+to reconnoitre the shore were frustrated by the objections of the pilot of
+the vessel, to which, with a fatal facility, very unusual with him, he
+suffered himself to yield. [Footnote: Joutel, 45. He places the date on
+the tenth, but elsewhere corrects himself. La Salle himself says, "La
+hauteur nous a fait remarquer... que ce que nous avons vue, le sixieme
+janvier, estoit en effet la principale entree de la riviere que nous
+cherchions."--_Lettre de la Salle au Ministre_, 4 _Mars_, 1685.] Still
+convinced that the Mississippi was to the westward, he coasted the shores
+of Texas. As Joutel, with a boat's crew, was vainly trying to land, 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 wholly
+unknown to him. The coast began to trend southward. They saw that they had
+gone too far. Joutel again tried to land, but the surf that lashed the
+sand-bars deterred him. He approached as near as he dared, and, beyond the
+intervening breakers, saw vast plains and a dim expanse of forests; the
+shaggy buffalo running with their heavy gallop along the shore, and troops
+of deer grazing on the marshy meadows.
+
+A few days after, he succeeded in reaching the shore at a point not far
+south of Matagorda Bay. The aspect of the country was not cheering; sandy
+plains and shallow ponds of salt water, full of wild ducks and other fowl.
+The sand was thickly marked with, the hoof-prints of deer and buffalo; and
+they saw them in the distance, but could kill none. They had been for many
+days separated from the "Joly," when at length, to La Salle's great
+relief, she hove in sight; but his joy was of short duration. Beaujeu sent
+D'Aire, his lieutenant, on board the "Aimable," to charge La Salle with
+having deserted him. The desertion in fact was his own; for he had stood
+out to sea, instead of coasting the shore, according to the plan agreed
+on. Now ensued a discussion as to their position. Had they in fact passed
+the mouth of the Mississippi; and, granting that they had, how far had
+they left it behind? La Salle was confident that they had passed it on the
+sixth of January, and he urged Beaujeu to turn back with him in quest of
+it. Beaujeu replied that he had not provisions enough, and must return to
+France without delay, unless La Salle would supply him from his own
+stores. La Salle offered him provisions for fifteen days, which was more
+than enough for the additional time required; but Beaujeu remained
+perverse and impracticable, and would neither consent nor refuse. La
+Salle's men beguiled the time with hunting on shore; and he had the
+courtesy, very creditable under the circumstances, to send a share of the
+game to his colleague.
+
+Time wore on. La Salle grew impatient, and landed a party of men, under
+his nephew Moranget and his townsman Joutel, to explore the adjacent
+shores. They made their way on foot northward and eastward for several
+days, till they were stopped by a river too wide and deep to cross. They
+encamped, and were making a canoe, when, to their great joy, for they were
+famishing, they descried the ships, which had followed them along the
+coast. La Salle landed, and became convinced--his wish, no doubt,
+fathering the thought--that the river was no other than the stream now
+called Bayou Lafourche, which forms a western mouth of the Mississippi.
+[Footnote: La Salle dates his letter to Seignelay, of the fourth of March:
+"_A l'embouchure occidentals dufleuve Colbert_" (Mississippi). He says,
+"La saison etant tres-avancee, et voyant qu'il me restoit fort peu de
+temps pour achever l'entreprise don't j'estois charge, je resolus de
+remonter ce canal du fleuve Colbert, plus tost que de retourner au plus
+considerable, eloigne de 25 a 30 lieues d'icy vers le nord-est, que nous
+avions remarque des le sixieme janvier, mais que nous n'avions pu
+reconnoistre, croyant sur le rapport des pilotes du vaisseau de sa Majeste
+et des nostres, n'avoir pas encore passe la baye du Saint-Esprit" (Mobile
+Bay). He adds that the difficulty of returning to the principal mouth of
+the Mississippi had caused him "prendre le party de remonter le fleuve par
+icy." This fully explains the reason of La Salle's landing on the coast of
+Texas, which would otherwise have been a postponement, not to say an
+abandonment, of the main object of the enterprise. He believed himself at
+the western mouth of the Mississippi; and lie meant to ascend it, instead
+of going by sea to the principal mouth. About half the length of Bayou
+Lafourche is laid down on Franquelin's map of 1684; and this, together
+with La Salle's letter and the statements of Joutel, plainly shows the
+nature of his error.] He thought it easier to ascend by this passage than
+to retrace his course along the coast, against the winds, the currents,
+and the obstinacy of Beaujeu. Eager, moreover, to be rid of that
+refractory commander, he resolved to disembark his followers, and.
+despatch the "Joly" back to France.
+
+The Bay of St. Louis, now Matagorda Bay, [Footnote: The St. Bernard's Bay
+of old maps. La Salle, in his letter to Seignelay of 4 March, says, that
+it is in latitude twenty-eight degrees and eighteen or twenty minutes.
+This answers to the entrance of Matagorda Bay.
+
+In the Archives de la Marine is preserved a map made by an engineer of the
+expedition, inscribed _Minuty del_, and entitled _Entree du lac ou on a
+laisse le Sieur de la Salle_. It represents the entrance of Matagorda Bay,
+the camp of La Salle on the left, the Indian camps on the borders of the
+bay, the "Belle" lying safely at anchor within, the "Aimable" stranded
+near the island at the entrance, and the "Joly" anchored in the open sea.
+
+At Versailles, Salle des Marines, there is a good modern picture of the
+landing of La Salle in Texas.] 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. La Salle prepared to
+disembark on the western shore, near the place which now bears his name;
+and, to this end, the "Aimable" and the "Belle" must be brought over the
+bar. 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
+Sablonniere. 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.
+
+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 a 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; 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, the ravenous waves were strewn with her
+treasures; and, 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.
+
+Those who have recorded the disaster of the "Aimable" affirm that she was
+wilfully wrecked, [Footnote: This is said by Joutel and Le Clercq, and by
+La Salle himself, in his letter to Seignelay, 4 March, 1685, as well as in
+the account of the wreck drawn up officially.--_Proces verbal du Sieur de
+la Salle sur le naufraqe de la flute l'Aimable a l'embouchure du Fleuve
+Colbert_, MS. He charges it, as do also the others, upon Aigron, the pilot
+of the vessel, the same who had prevented him from exploring the mouth of
+the Mississippi on the sixth of January. The charges are supported by
+explicit statements, which render them probable. The loss was very great,
+including nearly all the beef and other provisions, 60 barrels of wine, 4
+pieces of cannon, 1,620 balls, 400 grenades, 4,000 pounds of iron, 5,000
+pounds of lead, most of the blacksmith's and carpenter's tools, a forge, a
+mill, cordage, boxes of arms, nearly all the medicines, most of the
+baggage of the soldiers and colonists, and a variety of miscellaneous
+goods.] an atrocious act of revenge against a man whose many talents often
+bore for him no other fruit than the deadly one of jealousy and hate.
+
+The neighboring Bracamos Indians still hovered about them, with very
+doubtful friendship: and, a few days after the wreck, the prairie was seen
+on fire. As the smoke and name 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.
+
+This untoward incident, joined to the loss of the store-ship, completed
+the discouragement of some among the colonists. Several of them, including
+one of the priests and the engineer Minet, declared their intention of
+returning home with Beaujeu, who apparently made no objection to receiving
+them. He now declared that since the Mississippi was found, his work was
+done, and he would return to France. La Salle desired that he would first
+send on shore the cannon-balls and stores embarked for the use of the
+colony. Beaujeu refused, on the ground that they were stowed so deep in
+the hold that to take them out would endanger the ship. The excuse is
+itself a confession of gross mismanagement. Remonstrance would have
+availed little. Beaujeu spread his sails and departed, and the wretched
+colony was left to its fate.
+
+Was Beaujeu deliberately a traitor, or was his conduct merely a result of
+jealousy and pique? There can be little doubt that he was guilty of
+premeditated bad faith. There is evidence that he knew the expedition to
+have passed the true mouth of the Mississippi, and that, after leaving La
+Salle, he sailed in search of it, found it, and caused a map to be made of
+it. [Footnote: This map, the work of the engineer Minet, bears the date of
+_May_, 1685. La Salle's last letter to the minister, which he sent home by
+Beaujeu, is dated March 4th. Hence, Beaujeu, in spite of his alleged want
+of provisions, seems to have remained some time in the Gulf. The
+significance of the map consists in two distinct sketches of the mouth of
+the Mississippi, which is styled "La Riviere du Sr. de la Salle." Against
+one of these sketches are written the words "Embouchure de la riviere
+comme M. de la Salle la marque dans sa carte." Against the other, "Costes
+et lacs par la hauteur de sa riviere, _comme nous les avons trouves_." The
+italics are mine. Both sketches plainly represent the mouth of the
+Mississippi, and the river as high as New Orleans, with the Indian
+villages upon it. The coast line is also indicated as far east as Mobile
+Bay. My attention was first drawn to this map by M. Margry. It is in the
+Archives Scientifiques de la Marine.]
+
+A lonely sea, a wild and desolate shore, a weary waste of marsh and
+prairie; a rude redoubt of drift-wood, and the fragments of a wreck; a few
+tents, and a few wooden hovels; bales, boxes, casks, spars, dismounted
+cannon, Indian canoes, a pen for fowls and swine, groups of dejected men
+and desponding, homesick women,--this was the forlorn reality to which the
+air-blown fabric of an audacious enterprise had sunk. Here were the
+conquerors of New Biscay; they who were to hold for France a region as
+large as the half of Europe. Here was the tall form and the fixed calm
+features of La Salle. Here were his two nephews, the hot-headed Moranget,
+still suffering from his wound, and the younger Cavelier, a mere school-
+boy. Conspicuous only by his Franciscan garb was the small slight figure
+of Zenobe Membre. His brother friar, Anastase Douay; the trusty Joutel, a
+man of sense and observation; the Marquis de la Sablonniere, a debauched
+noble whose patrimony was his sword; and a few of less mark,--comprised
+the leaders of the infant colony. The rest were soldiers, recruited from
+the scum of Rochelle and Rochefort; and artisans, of whom the greater part
+knew nothing of their pretended 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 journey. He had made an ominous discovery; for
+he had at length become convinced that he was not, as he had fondly hoped,
+on an arm of the Mississippi. The wreck of the "Aimable" itself was not
+pregnant with consequences so disastrous. A deep gloom gathered around the
+colony. There was no hope but in the energies of its unconquerable chief.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV.
+1685-1687.
+ST. LOUIS OF TEXAS.
+
+THE FORT.--MISERY AND DEJECTION.--ENERGY OF LA SALLE.--HIS JOURNEY
+OF EXPLORATION.--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
+desperate 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, [Footnote:
+Called by Joutel Riviere aux Boeufs.] 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 remnant, 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 to receive him and his men. 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 Joutel and his men on board,
+together with the stores which had remained in their charge, and conveyed
+them to the site of the new fort on the Lavaca. Here Joutel 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 in
+the "Belle" to the first fort, 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. [Footnote: Joutel, 108.
+_Proces Verbal fait au poste de St. Louis le 18 Avril, 1686,_ MS.]
+
+Death, meanwhile, made a 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. [Footnote: Ibid.] Nearly
+all fell ill; and, before the summer had passed, the graveyard had more
+than thirty tenants. [Footnote: Joutel, 109. Le Clercq, who was not
+present, says a hundred.] 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 oil 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 to the new
+establishment his favorite name of Fort St. Louis, and the neighboring bay
+was also christened after the royal saint. [Footnote: 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.] The scene was not without its charms. Towards the
+south-east stretched the bay with its bordering meadows; and on the north-
+east 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
+bright flowers for which Texas is renowned, and which now form the gay
+ornaments of our gardens.
+
+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. [Footnote: 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 frere entreprit pour decouvrir l'embouchure du fleuve de
+Missisipy_, MS. 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.]
+
+It was the first of November, when La Salle set out on his great journey
+of exploration. His brother Cavelier, who had now recovered, accompanied
+him with thirty men, and five cannon-shot from the fort saluted them as
+they departed. They were lightly equipped, but La Salle had a wooden
+corselet as a protection against 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 stood on a rising ground, two
+leagues above the mouth of the river. 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 ponds full of fish. The buffalo and the deer
+were without number; and, in truth, all the surrounding region swarmed
+with game,--hares, turkeys, ducks, geese, swans, plover, snipe, and
+partridges. They shot them in abundance, after necessity and practice had
+taught them the art. The river supplied them with fish, and the bay with
+oysters. There were land-turtles and sea-turtles; and Joutel sometimes
+amused himself with shooting alligators, of which he says that he once
+killed one twenty feet long. He describes, too, with perfect accuracy,
+that curious native of the south-western prairies, the "horned frog,"
+which, deceived by its uninviting aspect, he erroneously supposed to be
+venomous. [Footnote: Joutel devotes many pages to an account of the
+animals and plants of the country, most of which may readily be recognized
+from his description.]
+
+He suffered no man to be idle. Some hunted; some fished; some labored at
+the houses and defences. To the large building made by La Salle he added
+four lodging-houses for the men, and a fifth for the women, besides a
+small chapel. All were built with squared timber, and roofed like the
+first with boards and buffalo-hides; while a palisade and ditch, defended
+by eight pieces of cannon, enclosed the whole. [Footnote: Compare Joutel
+with the Spanish account in _Carta en que se da noticia de tin viaje hecho
+a la bahia de Espiritu Santo y de la poblacion que tenian ahi los
+Franceses: Coleccion de Varios Documentos_, 25.] Late one evening in
+January, when all were gathered in the principal building, conversing
+perhaps, or smoking, or playing at games of hazard, or dozing by the fire
+in homesick dreams of France, one of the men on guard came in to report
+that he had heard a voice in the distance without. All hastened into the
+open air; and Joutel, advancing towards the river whence the voice came,
+presently descried a man in a canoe, and saw that he was Duhaut, one of La
+Salle's chief followers, and perhaps the greatest villain of the company.
+La Salle had directed that none of his men should be admitted into the
+fort, unless he brought a pass from him; and it would have been well, had
+the order been obeyed to the letter. Duhaut, however, told a plausible and
+possibly a true story. He had stopped on the march to mend a shoe which
+needed repair, and on attempting to overtake the party had become
+bewildered on a prairie intersected with the paths of the buffalo. He
+fired his gun in vain, as a signal to his companions; saw no hope of
+rejoining them, and turned back, travelling only in the night, from fear
+of Indians, and lying hid by day. After a month of excessive hardship, he
+reached his destination; and, as the inmates of Fort St. Louis
+
+[Transcriber's note: missing page in original]
+
+worn and ragged. [Footnote: Joutel, 136, 137. The date of the return is
+from Cavelier.] Their story was a brief one. After losing Duhaut, 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 were, they were told, 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.
+[Footnote: Cavelier says that he actually reached the Mississippi; but, on
+the one hand, he did not know whether the river in question was the
+Mississippi or not; and, on the other, he is somewhat inclined to
+mendacity. Le Clercq says that La Salle thought he had found the river.
+Joutel says that he did not reach it.] 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. [Footnote: _Proces Verbal fait au poste de la Baie St. Louis, le_
+18 _Avril_, 1686, MS.] 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, 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 firmness and
+conduct of my brother, whose death each of us would have regarded as his
+own." [Footnote: Cavelier, _Relation du Voyage pour decouvrir l'embouchure
+du Fleuve de Missisipy_, MS.]
+
+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,
+offered 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. [Footnote: Joutel, 140;
+Anastase Douay, in Le Clercq, ii. 303; Cavelier, _Relation_, MS. The date
+is from Douay. It does not appear from his narrative that they meant to go
+further 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.]
+
+It was but a few days after, when a cry of _Qui vive_, twice repeated, was
+heard from the river. Joutel went down to the bank, and saw a canoe full
+of men, among whom he recognized Chedeville, a priest attached to the
+expedition, the Marquis de la Sablonniere, and others of those who had
+embarked in the "Belle." His first greeting was an eager demand what had
+become of her, and the answer confirmed his worst fears. Chedeville and
+his companions were conducted within the fort, where they told their
+dismal story. The murder of the pilot and his boat's crew had been
+followed by another accident, no less disastrous. A boat which had gone
+ashore for water had been swamped in returning, and all on board were
+lost. Those who remained in the vessel, after great suffering from thirst,
+had left their moorings, contrary to the orders of La Salle, and
+endeavored to approach the fort. But they were few, weak, and unskilful. A
+wind rose, and the "Belle" was wrecked on a sand-bar at the farther side
+of the bay. All perished but eight men, who escaped on a raft, and, after
+long delay, 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.
+
+Thus clouds and darkness thickened around the hapless colonists, whose
+gloom was nevertheless lighted by a transient ray of hilarity. Among their
+leaders was the Sieur Barbier, a young man, who usually conducted the
+hunting-parties. 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 Sablonniere 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, not only flatly refused, but, in the plenitude of
+his authority, forbade the lovers all farther intercourse. [Footnote:
+Joutel, 146, 147.]
+
+The Indians hovered about the fort with no good intent, sent a flight of
+arrows among Barbier's hunting-party, and prowled at night around the
+palisades. One of the friars was knocked down by a wounded buffalo, and
+narrowly escaped; another was detected in writing charges against La
+Salle. Joutel seized the paper, and burned it; but the clerical character
+of the reverend offender saved him from punishment. The colonists were
+beginning to murmur; and their discontent was fomented by Duhaut, who,
+with a view to some ulterior design, tried to ingratiate himself with the
+malcontents, and become their leader. Joutel detected the mischief, and,
+with a lenity which he afterwards deeply regretted, contented himself with
+a severe rebuke to the ring-leader, and words of reproof and exhortation
+to his dejected band. And, lest idleness should beget farther evil, he
+busied them in such superfluous tasks as mowing grass, that a better crop
+might spring up, and cutting down trees which obstructed the view. In the
+evening, he gathered them in the great hall, and encouraged them to forget
+their cares in songs and dances.
+
+On the seventeenth of October, [Footnote: This is Douay's date. Joutel
+places it in August, but this is evidently an error. He himself says that,
+having lost all his papers, he cannot be certain as to dates.] Joutel saw
+a band of men and horses, descending the opposite bank of the Lavaca, and
+heard the familiar voice of La Salle shouting across the water. He and his
+party were soon brought over in canoes, while the horses swam the river.
+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 rest, 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. The story of their adventures was soon
+told.
+
+After leaving the fort, they had journeyed towards the north-east, 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 Wuertemberg, 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 arrested by a large
+river, apparently the Brazos. 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 canebrake, 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 an abyss of
+despair for the loss of their guardian angel, for so Douay calls La Salle.
+[Footnote: "Ce fut une desolation extreme pour nous tous qui desesperions
+de revoir jamais nostre Ange tutelaire, le Sieur de la Salle... Tout le
+jour se passa en pleurs et en larmes."--Douay, in Le Clercq, ii. 315.] 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 caries 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 beehives. 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. [Footnote:
+Douay, in Le Clercq, ii. 321; Cavelier, _Relation_, MS.] 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. [Footnote: Douay, in Le
+Clercq, ii. 324, 325.]
+
+Soon after leaving the Cenis villages, both La Salle and his nephew,
+Moranget, were attacked by a 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.
+
+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; and
+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 cheerfulness, his
+words of sympathy and of hope, were the breath of life to this forlorn
+company; for, self-contained and stern as was his nature, he could soften,
+in times of extremity, to a gentleness that strongly appealed to the
+hearts of those around him; and 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 courage
+touched, nevertheless, the drooping spirits of his followers. [Footnote:
+"L'egalite d'humeur du Chef rassuroit tout le monde; et il trouvoit des
+resources a tout par son esprit qui relevoit les esperances les plus
+abatues."--Joutel, 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 evenemens
+contraires; il ne fut jamais abatu, et il esperoit toujours avec le
+secours du Ciel de venir a bout de son entreprise malgre tous les
+obstacles qui se presentoient."--Douay, in Le Clercq, ii. 327.]
+
+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. 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 Membre, 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 Membre 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.
+
+On the morrow, the band of adventurers mustered for the fatal journey.
+[Footnote: 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.] 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; Sablonniere, who,
+despite his title of Marquis, was held in great contempt; [Footnote: He
+had to be kept on short allowance, because he was in the habit of
+bargaining away every thing 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.--_Proces Verbal_, 18 _Avril_, 1686, MS.] the
+friars, Membre and Le Clercq, [Footnote: Maxime le Clercq, a relative of
+the author of _l'Etablissement de la Foi_.] and the priest, Chedeville,
+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. [Footnote: "Il fit une Harangue pleine
+d'eloquence et de cet air engageant qui luy estoit si naturel: toute la
+petite Colonie y estoit presente et en fut touchee jusques aux larmes,
+persuadee de la necessite de son voyage et de la droiture de ses
+intentions."--Douay, in Le Clercq, ii. 330.] 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. [Footnote: "Nous
+nous separames les uns des autres, d'une maniere si tendre et si triste
+qu'il sembloit que nous avions tons le secret pressentiment que nous ne
+nous reverrions jamais."--Joutel, 158.] 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 had shut Fort St. Louis for ever from their sight.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVI.
+1687.
+ASSASSINATION OF LA SALLE.
+
+HIS FOLLOWERS.--PRAIRIE TRAVELLING.--A HUNTER'S QUARREL.--THE
+MURDER OF MORANGET.--THE CONSPIRACY.--DEATH OF LA SALLE.--HIS
+CHARACTER.
+
+
+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." [Footnote: Tonty also speaks of him as "un flibustier anglois." In
+another document he is called "James."] The Sieur de Marie; Teissier, a
+pilot; l'Archeveque, a servant of Duhaut; and others, to the number in all
+of about twenty,--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.
+
+It is impossible, as it would be needless, to follow the detail of their
+daily march. [Footnote: 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 is brief,
+but it agrees with that of Joutel in most essential points.] It was such
+an one, though, with unwonted hardships, 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 moccasons. The rivers,
+streams, and gulleys 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. [Footnote: Cavelier, _Relation,_ MS.]
+
+Holding a north-easterly 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.
+
+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, [Footnote: Called Lanquetot by
+Tonty.] Hiens the buccaneer, Teissier, l'Archeveque, 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 Marie, 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 nourished in his vindictive heart deadly
+designs, the execution of which was only hastened by the present outbreak.
+He, with his servant, l'Archeveque, Liotot, Hiens, and Teissier, took
+counsel apart, and resolved to kill Moranget that night. Nika, La
+Salle's devoted follower, and Saget, his faithful servant, must die
+with him. All 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 his
+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 Marie, 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.
+
+It was the nineteenth of March, and Moranget had been two days absent. La
+Salle began to show a great anxiety. Some bodings of the truth seem to
+have visited him; for he was heard to ask several of his men, if Duhaut,
+Liotot, and Hiens had not of late shown signs of discontent. Unable longer
+to endure his suspense, he left the camp in charge of Joutel, with a
+caution to stand well on his guard; and set out in search of his nephew,
+with the friar, Anastase Douay, and two Indians. "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," Douay continues, "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, however, on
+the farther side of a small river. Looking about him with the eye of a
+woodsman, La Salle saw two eagles, or, more probably, turkey-buzzards,
+circling in the air nearly over him, as if attracted by carcasses of
+beasts or men. He fired both his pistols, 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'Archeveque 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 along the river. 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 in an ecstasy of fright, unable to advance or
+to fly; when Duhaut, rising from his 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!" [Footnote: "Te voila grand Bacha, te voila!"--
+Joutel, 203.] 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." [Footnote: _Journal Historique_, 202.]
+
+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. His mind rose immeasurably
+above the range of the mere commercial speculator; and, in all the
+invective and abuse of rivals and enemies, it does not appear that his
+personal integrity ever found a challenger.
+
+He was capable of intrigue, but his reserve and his haughtiness were sure
+to rob him at last of the fruits of it. His schemes failed, partly because
+they were too vast, and partly because he did not conciliate the good-will
+of those whom he was compelled to trust. There were always traitors in his
+ranks, and his enemies were more in earnest than his friends. Yet he had
+friends; and there were times when out of his stern nature a stream of
+human emotion would gush, like water from the rock.
+
+In the pursuit of his purpose, he spared no man, and least of all himself.
+He bore the brunt of every hardship and every danger; but he seemed to
+expect from all beneath him a courage and endurance equal to his own,
+joined with an implicit deference to his authority. Most of his disasters
+may be ascribed, in some measure, to himself; and Fortune and his own
+fault seemed always in league to ruin him.
+
+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, and 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, cast in iron, she sees the heroic pioneer who
+guided her to the possession of her richest heritage. [Footnote: On the
+assassination of La Salle, the evidence is fourfold: 1st, The narrative of
+Douay, who was with him at the time. 2d, 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. 3d, A document
+preserved in the Archives de la Marine, entitled _"Relation de la Mort du
+Sr. de la Salle suivant le rapport d'un nomine Couture a qui M. Cavelier
+l'apprit en passant au pays des Akansa, avec toutes les circonstances que
+le dit Couture a apprises d'un Francais que M. Cavelier avoit laisse aux
+dits pays des Akansa, crainte qu'il ne gardat pas le secret,"_ 4th, 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 honnete homme, et le
+seul de la troupe de M. de la Salle, sur qui ce celebre voyageur put
+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 "quantite 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 strictness and 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 were 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 XXVII.
+1687, 1688.
+THE INNOCENT AND THE GUILTY.
+
+TRIUMPH OF THE MURDERERS.--JOUTEL AMONG THE CENTS.--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 submitted without resistance; and Duhaut was
+lord of all.
+
+Joutel, at the moment, chanced to be absent; and l'Archeveque, who had a
+kindness for him, went quietly to seek him. He found him 011 a hillock,
+looking at the band of horses grazing on the meadow below. "I was
+petrified," says Joutel, "at the news, and knew not whether to fly or
+remain where I was; but at length, as I had neither powder, lead, nor any
+weapon, and as l'Archeveque assured me that my life would be safe if I
+kept quiet and said nothing, I abandoned myself to the care of Providence,
+and went back in silence to the camp. Duhaut, puffed up with the new
+authority which his crime had gained for him, no sooner saw me than he
+cried out that each ought to command in turn; to which I made no reply. We
+were all forced to smother our grief, and not permit it to be seen; for it
+was a question of life and death; but it may be imagined with what
+feelings the Abbe Cavelier and his nephew, Father Anastase, and I regarded
+these murderers, of whom we expected to be the victims every moment."
+[Footnote: _Journal Historique, 205._] They succeeded so well in their
+dissembling, that Duhaut and his accomplices seemed to lose all distrust
+of their intentions; and Joutel says that they might easily have avenged
+the death of La Salle by that of his murderers, had not the elder
+Cavelier, through scruple or cowardice, opposed the design.
+
+Meanwhile, Duhaut and Liotot seized upon all the money and goods of La
+Salle, even to his clothing, declaring that they had a right to them, in
+compensation for the losses in which they had been involved by the failure
+of his schemes. [Footnote: According to the _Relation de la Mart du Sr. de
+la Salle,_ the amount of property remaining was still very considerable.
+The same document states that Duhaut's interest in the expedition was half
+the freight of one of the four vessels, which was, of course, a dead loss
+to him.] They treated the elder Cavelier with great contempt, disregarding
+his claims to the property, which, indeed, he dared not urge; and
+compelling him to listen to the most violent invectives against his
+brother. Hiens, the buccaneer, was greatly enraged at these proceedings of
+his accomplices; and thus the seeds of a quarrel were already sown.
+
+On the second morning after the murder, the party broke up their camp,
+packed their horses, of which the number had been much increased by barter
+with the Indians, and began their march for the Cenis villages, amid a
+drenching rain. Thus they moved onward slowly till the twenty-eighth, when
+they reached the main stream of the Trinity, and encamped on its borders.
+Joutel, who, as well as his companions in misfortune, could not lie down
+to sleep with an assurance of waking in the morning, was now directed by
+his self-constituted chiefs to go in advance of the party to the great
+Cenis village for a supply of food. Liotot himself, with Hiens and
+Teissier, declared that they would go with him; and Duhaut graciously
+supplied him with goods for barter. Joutel thus found himself in the
+company of three murderers, who, as he strongly suspected, were contriving
+an opportunity to kill him; but, having no choice, he dissembled his
+doubts, and set out with his ill-omened companions. His suspicions seem,
+to have been groundless; and, after a ride of ten leagues, the travellers
+neared the Indian town, which, with its large thatched lodges, looked like
+a cluster of huge 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 and fringed 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 had much ado to 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, corncake, beans, and bread made of the meal of parched
+corn. 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 not
+far off, 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 fifteen families or more. 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 one sixty feet in diameter.
+[Footnote: 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.]
+
+It was in one of the largest that the four travellers were now lodged. A
+place was assigned to 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 Provencal, 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 Provencal, 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, in 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."
+
+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 made 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.
+
+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.
+
+Hiens and several others had gone, some time before, to the Cenis villages
+to purchase horses; and here they had been retained 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;" [Footnote: "Tu es un
+miserable. Tu as tue mon maistre."--Tonty, _Memoire,_ MS. 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.] 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'Archeveque, 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. [Footnote: Joutel, 248.]
+
+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
+same lodge in which 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. [Footnote: These are
+described by Joutel. Like nearly all the early observers of Indian
+manners, he speaks of the practice of cannibalism.]
+
+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 freebooter; for he gave them a good share of the plunder which
+he had won by his late crime, supplying them with hatchets, knives, heads,
+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 lie 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.
+
+Joutel's party consisted, besides himself, of the Caveliers, uncle and
+nephew, Anastase Douay, De Marie, 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 north-east, towards
+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, 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. [Footnote: 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.] 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.
+
+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 of Tonty's followers.
+
+That brave, loyal, and generous man, always vigilant and always active,
+beloved and feared alike by white men and by red, [Footnote: _Journal de
+St. Cosme_, 1699, MS. 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.] 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, [Footnote: In the autumn of 1685,
+Tonty made a journey from the Illinois to Michillimackinac, 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'esperance de lui donner
+secours."--_Lettre de Tonty au Ministre, 24 Aoust, 1686, and Memoire de
+Tonty, MS._] than he prepared, on his own responsibility, and at his own
+cost, to go to his assistance. He collected twenty-five Frenchmen, and
+five Indians, and set out from his fortified rock on the thirteenth of
+February, 1686; [Footnote: The date is from the letter cited above. In the
+Memoire, hastily written, long after, he falls into errors of date.]
+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. [Footnote:
+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.] 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. [Footnote: Tonty,
+_Memoire,_ MS.; _Ibid., Lettre a Monseigneur de Ponchartraint,_ 1690, MS.;
+Joutel, 301.]
+
+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 a 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. With these, the
+travellers resumed their journey in a wooden canoe, about the first of
+August, [Footnote: 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 (see _ante_, p. 367). The
+account of the death of La Salle, taken from the lips of Couture
+(_ibid_.), 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.] 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 forth 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
+advantages which 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 he 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 storehouse, and a chapel. There were Indian lodges,
+too; for some of the red allies of the French made their abode with, them.
+[Footnote: 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.] 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 storehouse.
+
+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.
+[Footnote: Joutel adds that this was occasioned by "une espece de
+conspiration qu'on a voulu faire contre les interests de Monsieur de la
+Salle."
+
+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, _Memoire sur la proposition a faire parles R. Peres
+Jesuites pour la decouverte des environs de la riviere du Mississipi et
+pour voir si elle est navigable jusqu'a 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.
+
+How did the Jesuits learn that La Salle had missed the mouths of the
+Mississippi? He himself did not know it when Beaujeu left him; for he
+dated his last letter to the minister from the "Western Mouth of the
+Mississippi." I have given the proof that Beaujeu, after leaving him,
+found the true mouth of the river, and made a map of it (_ante,_ p. 380,
+_note_). Now Beaujeu was in close relations with the Jesuits, for he
+mentions in one of his letters that his wife was devotedly attached to
+them. These circumstances, taken together, may justify the suspicion that
+Jesuit influence had some connection with Beaujeu's treacherous desertion
+of La Salle; and that this complicity had some connection with the
+uneasiness of Allouez when told that La Salle was on his way to the
+Illinois.] 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.
+
+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. [Footnote: Tonty, Du
+Laut, and Durantaye came to the aid of Denonville with hundred and seventy
+Frenchmen, chiefly coureurs de bois, and three hundred Indians from the
+upper country. Their services were highly appreciated, and Tonty
+especially is mentioned in the despatches of Denonville with great
+praise.] 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, adding fraud to meanness, 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. [Footnote: "Monsieur Tonty,
+croyant M. de la Salle vivant, ne fit pas de diffiulte de Luy donner pour
+environ quatre mille liv. de pelleterie, de castors, loutres, un canot, et
+autres effets."--Joutel, 349.
+
+Tonty himself does not make the amount so great: "Sur ce qu'ils
+m'assuroient qu'il etoit reste au golfe de Mexique en bonne sante, je les
+recus comme si c'avoit este lui mesmo et luy prestay (_a Cavelier_) plus
+de 700 francs."--Tonty, _Memoire._
+
+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 inseparablement attache aux interets du
+sieur de la Salle, doet nous luy avons cache la deplorable destinee."
+
+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.]
+
+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 Michillimackinac. 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 Recollet 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.
+
+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. [Footnote: _Lettre du Roy
+a Denonville_, 1 _Mai_, 1689, MS. 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, every thing 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.
+
+Soon after reaching France, 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 _epuise._ It is affirmed in a
+memorial of the heirs of his cousin, Francois 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 Abbe 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 seignorial 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.] The wretched
+exiles of Texas were thought, it may be, already beyond the reach of
+succor.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVIII.
+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.
+
+
+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, he 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.
+[Footnote: Tonty, _Memoire_, MS.]
+
+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, 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. [Footnote: 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.]
+
+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, [Footnote: Fort St. Louis of Texas
+is net to be confounded with Fort St. Louis of the Illinois.] 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. [Footnote: 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 Francais restez a la Baye St. Bernard ou
+St. Louis, apres la perte du vaisseau de Mr. de la Salle, en 1689."--
+Margry's collection.] 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.
+[Footnote: May 1st. The Spaniards reached the fort April 22d.] Their faces
+were smeared with paint, and they were wrapped in buffalo-robes like the
+rest; yet these seeming Indians were L'Archeveque, 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, [Footnote: 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.] 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 Membre, 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'Archeveque 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. [Footnote: _Derrotero de la
+Jornada que hizo el General Alonso de Leon para el descubrimiento de la
+Bahia del Esplritu Santo, y poblacion de Franceses. Ano de_ 1689, MS. 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 a la Bahia de Espiritu Santo
+y de la poblacion que tenian ahi Jos 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 Cronoldgico,_
+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 farther 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.]
+
+L'Archeveque 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. [Footnote: _Memoire sur lequel on a
+interroge les deux Canadiens (Pierre et Jean Baptiste Talon) qui sont
+soldats dans la Compagnie de Feuguerolles, A Brest, 14 Fevrier,_ 1698, MS.
+
+_Interrogations faites a Pierre et Jean Baptiste Talon a leur arrivee de
+la Veracrux,_ MS. This paper, which differs in some of its details from
+the preceding, was sent by D'Iberville, the founder of Louisiana, to the
+Abbe 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.] 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.
+
+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.
+
+
+
+
+APPENDIX.
+
+
+
+
+APPENDIX I.
+
+EARLY UNPUBLISHED MAPS OF THE MISSISSIPPI
+AND THE GREAT LAKES.
+
+
+Most of the maps described below are to be found in the Depot des Cartes
+of the Marine and Colonies, at Paris. Taken together, they exhibit the
+progress of western discovery, and illustrate the records of the
+explorers.
+
+
+THE MAP OF GALINEE, 1670.
+
+
+This map has a double title: _Carte du Canada et des Terres decouvertes
+vers le lac Derie_, and _Carte du Lac Ontario et des habitations qui
+l'enuironnent ensemble le pays que Messrs. Dolier et Galinee,
+missionnaires du seminaire de St. Sulpice, ont parcouru_. It professes to
+represent only the country actually visited by the two missionaries (see
+p. 19, _note_). 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. Galinee did not know the existence of the peninsula
+of Michigan, and merges Lakes Huron and Michigan into one, under the name
+of "Michigane, 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 Genessee 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 Galinee
+may be called the second.
+
+The map of Lake Superior, published in the Jesuit Relation of 1670, 1671,
+was made at about the same time with Galinee's map. Lake Superior is here
+styled "Lac Tracy, on Superieur." 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 Galinee, is
+represented in its proper place.
+
+About two years after Galinee made the map mentioned above, another,
+indicating a greatly increased knowledge of the country, was made by some
+person whose name does not appear, but who seems to have been La Salle
+himself. 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 ou le Lac Erie tombe dans le Lac
+Frontenac." Lake Erie is "Lac Teiocha-rontiong, dit communement Lac Erie."
+Lake St. Glair is "Tsiketo, ou Lac de la Chaudiere." Lake Huron is "Lac
+Huron, ou Mer Douce des Hurons." Lake Superior is "Lac Superieur." 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 before the
+voyage of Joliet and Marquette, and after that voyage of La Salle, in
+which he discovered the Illinois, or at least the Des Plaines branch of
+it. It shows that the Mississippi was known to discharge itself into the
+Gulf before Joliet had explored it. The whole length of 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_, p.
+23, _note_.)
+
+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 "Riviere 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,
+"esloignees 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.
+
+Not long after Marquette's return from the Mississippi, another map was
+made by the Jesuits, with the following title: _Carte de la nouvelle
+decouverie que les peres Jesuites ont fait en l'annee 1672, et continuee
+par le P. Jacques Marquette de la mesme Compagnie accompagne de quelques
+francois en l'annee_ 1673, _qu'on pourra nommer en francois 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 Riviere." 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.
+
+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 "Riuuiere 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.
+
+Of far greater interest is the small map of Louis Joliet, made and
+presented to Count Frontenac immediately after the discoverer's return
+from the Mississippi. It is entitled _Carte de la decouuerte du Sr.
+Jolliet ou l'on voit La Communication du fleuue St. Laurens auec les lacs
+frontenac, Erie, 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 Erie, 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 (Riviere 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 deg., and
+it ends in latitude 37 deg., a little below the mouth of the Ohio, the rest
+being apparently cut off to make room for Joliet's letter to Frontenac
+(_ante_, p. 66), 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_, p. 23, _note_.)
+
+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, bearing his name, 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,_
+p. 59). This map, if really the work of Joliet, does more credit to his
+skill as a designer than to his geographical knowledge, which appears in
+some respects behind his time.
+
+A map made by Raudin, Count Frontenac's engineer, may be mentioned here.
+He calls the Mississippi "Riviere de Buade," from the family name of his
+patron, and christens all the adjoining region "Frontenacie," or
+"Frontenacia."
+
+In the Bibliotheque Imperiale is the rude map of the Jesuit Raffeix, made
+at about the same time. It is chiefly interesting as marking out the
+course of Du Lhut on his journeys from the head of Lake Superior to the
+Mississippi, and as confirming a part of the narrative of Hennepin, who,
+Raffeix says in a note, was rescued by Du Lhut. It also marks out the
+journeys of La Salle in 1679, '80.
+
+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 St de la Salle et des pays qu'il a
+decouverts depuis la Nouvelle France jusqu'au Golfe Mexique les annees
+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 north-westward 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 Riviere Colbert;" the Missouri,
+"Grande Riviere des Emissourittes, ou Missourits;" the Illinois, "Riviere
+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, "Riviere des Acansea;" the Red River, "Riviere 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'Amerique Septentrionale, depuis le 25 jusq'au 65 degre de
+latitude et environ 140 et 235 degres 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.
+
+The remarkable manuscript map of the Upper Mississippi, by Le Sueur,
+belongs to a period subsequent to the close of this narrative.
+
+
+
+
+APPENDIX II.
+
+THE ELDORADO OF MATHIEU SAGEAN.
+
+
+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 Sagean 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 he Bibliotheque
+Imperiale, and in 1863 it was printed by Mr. Shea. Sagean underwent an
+examination, which resulted in his being sent to Biloxi, near the mouth of
+the Mississippi, with instructions from the minister that he should be
+supplied with the means of conducting a party of Canadians to the
+wonderful country which he had discovered; but, on his arrival, the
+officers in command, becoming satisfied that he was an impostor, suffered
+the order to remain unexecuted. His story was as follows:--
+
+He was born 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 Sagean 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-south-west. 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 Sagean,
+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 Sagean, 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
+Sagean 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 finger-nails 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 Sagean 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
+Sagean 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, Sagean, 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, Sagean 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
+Bieuville, chiefs of the colony, were obstinate in their unbelief; and
+Sagean and his King Hagaren lapsed alike into oblivion.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of France and England in North America. Part Third, The Discovery of the Great West
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of France and England in North America, a Series of Historical Narratives, Part Third
+by Francis Parkman
+
+Copyright laws are changing all over the world. Be sure to check the
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+Title: France and England in North America, a Series of Historical Narratives, Part Third
+
+Author: Francis Parkman
+
+Release Date: February, 2006  [EBook #9997]
+[This file was first posted on November 6, 2003]
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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, FRANCE AND ENGLAND IN NORTH AMERICA, A SERIES OF HISTORICAL NARRATIVES, PART THIRD ***
+
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+E-text prepared by Lee Dawei, Seth Hadley, and Project Gutenberg Distributed
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+
+FRANCE AND ENGLAND IN NORTH AMERICA,
+A SERIES OF HISTORICAL NARRATIVES, PART THIRD.
+
+THE DISCOVERY OF THE GREAT WEST
+
+BY FRANCIS PARKMAN
+
+1870
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+TO THE CLASS OF 1844,
+HARVARD COLLEGE,
+THIS BOOK IS CORDIALLY DEDICATED
+BY ONE OF THEIR NUMBER.
+
+
+
+
+PREFACE.
+
+
+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 custodian 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.
+
+Abbe Faillon, the learned author of "La Colonie Francaise 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. Gerin 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 map contained in the book is a portion of the great 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
+
+
+
+
+INTRODUCTION
+
+
+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.
+
+
+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?
+
+
+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.--Michillimackinac.--
+Jesuits on Lake Michigan.--Allouez and Dablon.--The Jesuit
+Fur-Trade.
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+1667-1672.
+FRANCE TAKES POSSESSION OF THE WEST.
+
+Talon.--St. Lusson.--Perrot.--The Ceremony at Saut Ste. Marie.--
+The Speech of Allouez.--Count Frontenac.
+
+
+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.
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+1673-1678.
+LA SALLE AND FRONTENAC.
+
+Objects of La Salle.--His Difficulties.--Official Corruption in Canada.--
+The Governor of Montreal.--Projects of Frontenac.--Cataraqui.--
+Frontenac on Lake Ontario.--Fort Frontenac.--Success of La Salle.
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+1674-1678.
+LA SALLE AND THE JESUITS.
+
+The Abbe Fenelon.--He attacks the Governor.--The Enemies of La
+Salle.--Aims of the Jesuits.--Their Hostility to La Salle.
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+1678.
+PARTY STRIFE.
+
+La Salle and his Reporter.--Jesuit Ascendancy.--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.
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+1677-1678.
+THE GRAND ENTERPRISE.
+
+La Salle at Fort Frontenac.--La Salle at Court.--His Plans approved.--
+Henri de Tonty.--Preparation for Departure.
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+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.
+
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+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.
+
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+1679.
+LA SALLE ON THE UPPER LAKES.
+
+The Voyage of the "Griffin."--Detroit.--A Storm.--St. Ignace of
+Michillimackinac.--Rivals and Enemies--Lake Michigan.--Hardships.
+--A Threatened Fight.--Fort Miami.--Tonty's Misfortunes.--
+Forebodings.
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII.
+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 him.
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV.
+1680.
+FORT CREVECOEUR.
+
+Building of the Fort.--Loss of the "Griffin."--A Bold Resolution.--
+Another Vessel.--Hennepin sent to the Mississippi.--Departure of
+La Salle.
+
+
+CHAPTER XV.
+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.
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI.
+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.
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII.
+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.
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII.
+1680.
+THE ADVENTURES OF HENNEPIN.
+
+Hennepin an Impostor.--His Pretended Discovery.--His Actual Discovery.
+--Captured by the Sioux.--The Upper Mississippi.
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX.
+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.
+
+
+CHAPTER XX.
+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.
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI.
+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.
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII.
+1682-1683.
+ST. LOUIS OF THE ILLINOIS.
+
+Louisiana.--Illness of La Salle.--His Colony on the Illinois.--Fort St.
+Louis.--Recall of Frontenac.--Le Fevre de la Barre.--Critical Position
+of La Salle.--Hostility of the New Governor.--Triumph of the Adverse
+Faction.--La Salle sails for France.
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII.
+1684.
+A NEW ENTERPRISE.
+
+La Salle at Court.--His Proposals.--Occupation of Louisiana.--Invasion of
+Mexico.--Royal Favor.--Preparation.--The Naval Commander.--His Jealousy of
+La Salle.--Dissensions.
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV.
+1684-1685.
+LA SALLE IN TEXAS.
+
+Departure.--Quarrels with Beaujeu.--St. Domingo.--La Salle attacked
+with Fever.--His Desperate Condition.--The Gulf of Mexico.--A Fatal
+Error.--Landing.--Wreck of the "Aimable."--Indian Attack.--Treachery
+of Beaujeu.--Omens of Disaster.
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV.
+1685-1687.
+ST. LOUIS OF TEXAS.
+
+The Fort.--Misery and Dejection.--Energy of La Salle.--His Journey
+of Exploration.--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.
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVI.
+1687.
+ASSASSINATION OF LA SALLE.
+
+His Followers.--Prairie Travelling.--A Hunter's Quarrel.--The Murder
+of Moranget.--The Conspiracy.--Death of La Salle.--His Character.
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVII.
+1687, 1688.
+THE INNOCENT AND THE GUILTY.
+
+Triumph of the Murderers.--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.
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVIII.
+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.
+
+
+APPENDIX.
+
+I. Early unpublished Maps of the Mississippi and the Great Lakes.
+II. The Eldorado of Mathieu Sagean.
+
+
+INDEX
+
+
+[Illustration: LA SALLE'S COLONY on the Illinois FROM THE MAP OF
+FRANQUELIN, 1684.]
+
+
+
+
+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 dismal 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 and without beards, 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 or before the year 1639, 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. Possibly 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 improbable, but neither is sustained by sufficient evidence. Meanwhile,
+French Jesuits and fur-traders pushed deeper and deeper into the
+wilderness of the northern lakes. In 1641, Jogues and Raymbault preached
+the
+
+DISCOVERY OF THE GREAT WEST.
+
+
+
+
+
+THE DISCOVERY OF THE GREAT WEST.
+
+
+
+
+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. [Footnote: The
+following is the _acte de naissance_, discovered by Margry in the
+_registres de l'etat civil_, Paroisse St. Herbland, Rouen. "Le vingt-
+deuxieme jour de novembre 1643, a ete baptise 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 Rene-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,
+Francois Marie Arouet, son of an ex-notary, received the name of Voltaire,
+which he made famous.] 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. [Footnote: Margry, after investigations at Rouen, is
+satisfied of its truth.--_Journal General de l'Instruction Publique_,
+xxxi. 571. Family papers of the Caveliers, examined by the Abbe 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.]
+
+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 Abbe 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. [Footnote:
+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.]
+
+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.
+[Footnote: "The Jesuits in North America," c. xv.] 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 Courcelles, 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. [Footnote: _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.]
+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 seigneurs, built of
+stone, and pierced with loop-holes 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 Hotel-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. [Footnote: 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.]
+
+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 a third of an acre, within the
+enclosure, for which he was to render to the young seigneur 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. [Footnote: The above particulars have been
+unearthed by the indefatigable Abbe Faillon. Some of La Salle's grants are
+still preserved in the ancient records of Montreal.]
+
+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.
+[Footnote: _Papiers de Famille_, MSS. 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.] 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. [Footnote: 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.] 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.
+
+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 to his intended exploration. Few men were more skilled than he in
+the art of clear and plausible statement. Both the Governor, Courcelles,
+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. [Footnote:
+Talon, in his letter to the king, of 10 Oct. 1670, expresses himself as if
+the enterprise had originated with him.] 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 ironmonger, for twenty-eight hundred livres. [Footnote:
+Faillon, _Colonie Francaise en Canada_, iii. 288.] 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 Quinte, on the north
+shore of Lake Ontario, in charge of two of their number, one of whom was
+the Abbe Fenelon, 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 North-west,
+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.
+
+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 uncommon bodily
+strength, of which he had given striking proofs in the campaign of
+Courcelles against the Iroquois, three years before. [Footnote: He was the
+author of the very curious and valuable _Histoire de Montreal_, preserved
+in the Bibliotheque Mazarine, of which a copy is in my possession. The
+Historical Society of Montreal has recently resolved to print it.] On
+going to Quebec, to procure the necessary outfit, he was urged by
+Courcelles 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, Galinee, 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.
+
+
+
+
+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. They fought their
+way upward against the perilous rapids of the St. Lawrence, then scarcely
+known to the voyager, threaded the romantic channels of the Thousand
+Islands, and issued on Lake Ontario. Thirty days of toil and exposure had
+told upon them so severely that not a man of the party, except the
+Indians, had escaped the attacks of disease in some form.
+
+Their guides led them directly to the great village of the Senecas, near
+the banks of the Genesee, flattering them with the hope that they would
+here find other guides, to conduct them to the Ohio; and, in truth, the
+Senecas had among them a prisoner of one of the western tribes, who would
+have answered their purpose. The chiefs met in council: but La Salle had
+not yet mastered the language sufficiently to serve as spokesman; and a
+Dutch interpreter, brought by the priests, could not explain himself in
+French. The Jesuit Fremin was stationed at the village, and his servant
+came to their aid: but, as the two priests thought, wilfully
+misinterpreted them; and they also conceived the suspicion, perhaps
+uncharitable, that the Jesuits, jealous of their enterprise, had tampered
+with the Senecas, to thwart it. Be this as it may, the Indians proved
+impracticable, evaded their request for a guide, burned before their eyes
+the unfortunate western prisoner, and assured them that if they went to
+the Ohio the people of those parts would put them to death. As there were
+many among the Senecas who 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 with brandy brought from Albany, the position of the French
+was very hazardous. They remained, however, for a month; still clinging to
+the hope of obtaining guides. At length, an Indian from a village called
+Ganastogue, a kind of Iroquois colony at the head of Lake Ontario, offered
+to conduct them thither, assuring them that they would find what they
+sought. They left the Seneca town; coasted the south shore of the lake;
+passed the mouth of the Niagara, where they heard the distant roar of the
+cataract; and, five days after, reached Ganastogue. The inhabitants proved
+friendly, and La Salle received the welcome present of a Shawnee prisoner,
+who told them that the Ohio could he 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. One of the strangers proved to
+be a man 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 pre-occupied 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.
+
+Since reaching the head of Lake Ontario, La Salle had been attacked by a
+violent fever, from which he was not yet recovered. 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.
+
+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 under a wild autumnal sky. 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 Pelee,
+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 Galinee, "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."
+
+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. [Footnote: 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.] The two missionaries took
+this course, with the intention of proceeding to the Saut Sainte 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; [Footnote: "Jesuits in North
+America."] 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 Manatoulins, 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. Galinee, 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 Galinee, after his
+arrival, made the earliest map of the Upper Lakes known to exist.
+[Footnote: Galinee appears to have made use of the map given him by
+Joliet. He says, in the narrative of his journey, that he has laid down on
+his own map nothing but what he had himself seen; but this is disproved by
+the map itself. Thus, he represents with minuteness the northern coast as
+far west as the islands at the mouth of Green Bay; but that he never went
+so far is evident not only from his own journal, but from the fact that he
+was ignorant of the existence of the Straits of Michillimackinac and the
+peninsula of Michigan; Lakes Huron and Michigan being by him merged into
+one, under the name of "Michigane, ou Mer Douce des Hurons." The map, of
+which a fac-simile is before me, measures four and a half feet by three
+and a half. It is covered with descriptive remarks, which, oddly enough,
+are all inverted, so that it must be turned with the north side down in
+order to read them. Faillon has engraved it, but on a small scale, with
+the omission of most of the inscriptions, and other changes. The well-
+known Jesuit map of Lake Superior appeared the year after.
+
+Besides making the map, Galinee wrote a very long and minute journal of
+the expedition, which is preserved in the Bibliotheque Imperiale.
+
+Much of the substance of it is given by Faillon, _Colonie Francaise_, iii.
+chap, vii., and Margry, _Journal General de l'Instruction Publique_, xxxi.
+No. 67. In the letters of Talon to Colbert are various allusions to the
+journey of Dollier and Galinee.]
+
+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; [Footnote: See Margry, in _Journal General de
+l'Instruction Publique_, xxxi. 659.] beyond which time the most diligent
+inquiry has failed to trace them. The Abbe 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. [Footnote: Dollier de Casson alludes to
+this as "cette transmigration celebre qui se fit de la Chine dans ces
+quartiers."] As for himself, the only distinct record of his movements is
+that contained in an unpublished 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. [Footnote: As no part of the
+memoir referred to has been published, I extract the passage relating to
+this journey. 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 Galinee and his party to the Saut Ste.
+Marie, where "les Jesuites les congedierent." It then proceeds as follows:
+"Cependant Mr. de la Salle continua son chemin par une riviere qui va de
+l'est a l'ouest; et passe a Onontaque (Onondaga), puis a six ou sept
+lieues au-dessous du Lac Erie; et estant parvenu jusqu'au 280me ou 83me
+degre de longitude, et jusqu'au 4lme degre de latitude, trouva un sault
+qui tombe vers l'ouest dans un pays has, marescageux, tout couvert de
+vielles souches, don't il y en a quelquesunes qui sont encore sur pied. Il
+fut done contraint de prendre terre, et suivant une hauteur qui le pouvoit
+mener loin, il trouva quelques sauvages qui luy dirent que fort loin de la
+le mesme fleuve qui se perdoit dans cette terre basse et vaste se
+reunnissoit en un lit. Il continua done son chemin, mais comme la fatigue
+estoit grande, 23 ou 24 hommes qu'il avoit menez jusques la le quitterent
+tous en une nuit, regagnerent le fleuve, et se sauverent, les uns a la
+Nouvelle Hollande et les autres a la Nouvelle Angleterre. Il se vit done
+seul a 400 lieues de chez luy, ou il ne laisse pas de revenir, remontant
+la riviere et vivant de chasse, d'herbes, et de ce que luy donnerent les
+sauvages qu'il rencontra en son chemin."] 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. [Footnote: Perrot, _Memoires_, 119, 120.]
+
+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
+Michillimackinac, 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. [Footnote: 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 tres-beau havre et au fond de ce havre un fleuve qui
+va de l'est a l'ouest. Il suivit ce fleuve, et estant parvenu
+jusqu'environ le 280me degre de longitude et le 39me de latitude, il
+trouva un autre fleuve qui se joignant au premier coulait du nordouest au
+sud-est, et il suivit ce fleuve jusqu'au 36me degre de latitude."
+
+The "tres-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.]
+
+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.
+[Footnote: The following are his words (he speaks of himself in the third
+person): "L'annee 1667, et les suivantes, il fit divers voyages avec
+beaucoup de depenses, dans lesquels il decouvrit le premier beaucoup de
+pays au sud des grands lacs, et _entre autres la grande riviere d'Ohio_;
+il la suivit jusqu'a un endroit ou elle tombe de fort haut dans de vastes
+marais, a la hauteur de 37 degres, apres avoir ete grossie par une autre
+riviere fort large qui vient du nord; et toutes ces eaux se dechargent
+selon toutes les apparences dans le Golfe du Mexique."
+
+This "autre riviere," 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.] 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. [Footnote: One of these maps is entitled _Carte
+de la decouverte 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, "Riviere par ou descendit le sieur de la Salle au sortir du lac
+Erie pour aller clans 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, "Riviere Ohio, ainsy appellee par les
+Iroquois a cause de sa beaute, par ou 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.] 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 biased
+in favor of La Salle and against Marquette and the Jesuits.
+
+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. [Footnote: _Lettre de Frontenac au Ministre_, 14
+_Nov_. 1674. He here speaks of "la grande riviere qu'il (Joliet) a
+trouvee, qui va du nord au sud, et qui est aussi large que celle du Saint-
+Laurent vis-a-vis de Quebec." 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.] 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. [Footnote: _Papiers de Famille_, MSS.; _Memoire presente au Roi_.
+The following is an extract: "Il parvient ... jusqu'a la riviere des
+Illinois. Il y construisit un fort situe a 350 lieues au-dela du fort de
+Frontenac, et suivant ensuite le cours de cette riviere, il trouve qu'elle
+se jettoit dans un grand fleuve appelle par ceux du pays Missisippi, c'est
+a dire _grande eau_, environ cent lieues audessous du fort qu'il venoit de
+construire." This fort was Fort Crevecoeur, 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.] 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.
+[Footnote: The following is an extract, given by Margry, from a letter of
+the aged Madeleine Cavelier, dated 21 Fevrier, 1756, and addressed to her
+nephew M. Le Baillif, who had applied for the papers in behalf of the
+minister, Silhouette: "J'ay cherche une occasion sure pour vous anvoye les
+papiers de M. de la Salle. Il y a des cartes que j'ay jointe a ces
+papiers, qui doivent prouver que, en 1675, M. de Lasalle avet deja 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 pres le fleuve de Mississipi." This, though brought forward to
+support the claim of discovery prior to Joliet, seems to indicate that La
+Salle had not reached the Mississippi, but only approached it, previous to
+1675.
+
+Margry, in a series of papers in the _Journal General 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.] 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.
+
+
+
+
+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.--MICHILLIMACKINAC.
+--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. [Footnote: See "The Jesuits
+in North America."] 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.
+
+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, stuffed 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 farther speaks of great copper boulders in the
+bed of the River Ontonagan.
+
+[Footnote: 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.]
+
+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 Galinee,--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, called by the French Sauteurs, 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, Assinneboins, 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 toils 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."
+[Footnote: _Lettre du Pere Jacques Marquette au R. P. Superieur des
+Missions_; in _Relation_, 1670, 87.]
+
+Marquette heard from the Illinois,--yearly visitors at La Pointe,--of the
+great river which they had crossed on their way, [Footnote: 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.] 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
+Michillimackinac, and the Ottawas at the Great Manatoulin Island. Two
+missions were now necessary to minister to the divided bands. That of
+Michillimackinac was assigned to Marquette, and that of the Manatoulin
+Island to Louis Andre. The former took post at Point St. Ignace, on the
+north shore of the straits of Michillimackinac, 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, Andre 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. Andre'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.
+
+Besides the Saut Ste. Marie and Michillimackinac,--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. [Footnote: The Baye des Puans of the early writers; or,
+more correctly, La Baye des Eaux Puantes. The Winnebago Indians, living
+near it, were called Lies 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.] 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. Francois 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."
+[Footnote: _Relation_, 1671, 43.]
+
+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 Galinee 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. [Footnote: 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 "Jesuits in North America." The
+Miamis soon removed to the banks of the River St. Joseph, near Lake
+Michigan.] These two tribes lived together within the compass of the same
+inclosure 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 to wards 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.
+
+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 with 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." [Footnote: _Relation_, 1672, 42.] Most
+things human have their phases of the ludicrous; and the heroism of these
+untiring priests is no exception to the rule.
+
+The various missionary stations were much alike. They consisted of a
+chapel (commonly of logs) and one or more houses, with perhaps a
+storehouse 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 _donnes_, or "given men." Of late, the number of these had much
+diminished; and they now relied chiefly on hired men, or _engages_. 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. [Footnote: This charge was
+made from the first establishment of the missions. For remarks on it, see
+"Jesuits in North America."]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+1667-1672.
+FRANCE TAKES POSSESSION OF THE WEST.
+
+TALON.--ST. LUSSON.--PERROT.--THE CEREMONY AT SAUT STE. MARIE.--
+THE SPEECH OF ALLOUEZ.--COUNT FRONTENAC.
+
+
+Jean Talon, Intendant of Canada, was a man of no common stamp. Able,
+vigorous, and patriotic,--he was the worthy lieutenant and disciple of the
+great minister Colbert, the ill-requited founder of the prosperity of
+Louis XIV. He cherished high hopes for the future of New France, and
+labored strenuously to realize them. He urged upon the king a scheme
+which, could it have been accomplished, would have wrought strange changes
+on the American continent. This was, to gain possession of New York, by
+treaty or conquest; [Footnote: _Lettre de Talon a Colbert_, 27 _Oct_.
+1667. Twenty years after, the plan was again suggested by the Governor,
+Denonville.] thus giving to Canada a southern access to the ocean, open at
+all seasons, separating New England from Virginia, and controlling the
+Iroquois, the most formidable enemy of the French colony. Louis XIV. held
+the king of England in his pay; and, had the proposal been urged, the
+result could not have been foretold. The scheme failed, and Talon prepared
+to use his present advantages to the utmost. While laboring strenuously to
+develop the industrial resources of the colony, he addressed himself to
+discovering and occupying the interior of the continent; controlling the
+rivers, which were its only highways; and securing 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 hold 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. [Footnote: At all events, 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 necessite," from Branssat,
+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.] When, in 1670, he ordered Daumont de St. 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.
+[Footnote: In his despatch of 2d Nov. 1671, Talon writes to the king that
+"St. Lusson's expedition will cost nothing, as he has received beaver
+enough from the Indians to pay him."]
+
+St. 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. [Footnote: _Moeurs, Coustumes, et Relligion
+des Sauvages de l'Amerique 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.] He was at this
+time twenty-six years old, and had formerly been an _engage_ 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. St. Lusson wintered at the Manatoulin 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. [Footnote: 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.] 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.
+[Footnote: Perrot, _Memoires_, 127.]
+
+St. Lusson was here with his men, fifteen in number, among whom was Louis
+Joliet; [Footnote: _Proces Verbal de la Prise de Possession, etc._, 14
+_Juin_, 1671. The names are attached to this instrument.] 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, Amikoues, Nipissings, and many more. When fourteen
+tribes, or their representatives, had arrived, St. Lusson prepared to
+execute the commission with which he was charged.
+
+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, St. 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 Andre. [Footnote: Marquette is said to have been present; but
+the official act, just cited, proves the contrary. He was still at St.
+Esprit.] 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 St. Lusson's followers sang the _Exaudiat_ and one of the Jesuits
+uttered a prayer for the king. St. 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 Manatoulin, 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 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_." [Footnote: _Proces Verbal de la Prise
+de Possession_.]
+
+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.
+
+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, [Footnote: The
+Indian name of the Governor of Canada.] 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."
+[Footnote: A close translation of Dablon's report of the speech. See
+_Relation_, 1671, 27.] 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 St. 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. St. 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. [Footnote: _Lettre de Frontenac au Ministre_, 2 _Nov_. 1672, MS.
+In the Brodhead Collection, by a copyist's error, the name of the
+Chevalier de Grandfontaine is substituted for that of Talon.] 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, Courcelles. Both were able and public-
+spirited; 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. The Governor presided at the council, and held the military
+command; the Intendant directed affairs of justice, finance, and commerce.
+Each thought his functions encroached upon, and both asked for recall.
+[Footnote: Courcelles returned home on the plea of ill health. Talon
+remained a little longer; but soon asked leave to return to France, seeing
+that he should fare worse with the new governor than with the old.]
+Another governor succeeded; one who was to stamp his mark, broad, bold,
+and ineffaceable, on the most memorable page of French-American History.
+
+In the Church of Notre Dame, at Quebec, on a day in the early autumn of
+1672, the priests were singing _Te Deum_ for the safe arrival of him whom
+they were soon to wish beyond the sea again, or beneath it. Here you would
+have seen the new governor surrounded by officers, and by the chief
+inhabitants, anxious to pay their court; a tall man in the pompous garb of
+a military noble of that gorgeous reign, well advanced in middle life, but
+whose high keen features, full of intellect and fire, bespoke his prompt
+undaunted nature,--Louis de Buade, Count of Palluau and Frontenac. He
+belonged to the high nobility, had held important commands, and, if the
+song-writers of his time speak true, had anticipated the king in the
+favors of Madame de Montespan. [Footnote: See Brunet, in notes to
+_Correspondance de la Duchesse d'Orleans_; Paulin, in notes to the
+_Historiettes de Tallement des Reaux_; and Margry, in _Journal General de
+I'Instruction Publique_.] His wife, who could not endure him--and the
+aversion seems to have been mutual--was a noted beauty of the court, and
+held great influence in its brilliant and corrupt society. [Footnote: St.
+Simon and Mademoiselle de Montpensier give very curious accounts of Madame
+de Frontenac, who is also mentioned in the _Lettres de Madame de Sevigne_.
+Her portrait will be found at Versailles.] Frontenac was full of faults;
+but it is not through these that his memory has survived him. He was
+domineering, arbitrary, intolerant of opposition, irascible, vehement in
+prejudice, often wayward, perverse, and jealous: a persecutor of those who
+crossed him; yet capable, by fits, of moderation, and a magnanimous
+lenity; and gifted with a rare charm--not always exerted--to win the
+attachment of men: versed in books, polished in courts and salons; without
+fear, incapable of repose, keen and broad of sight, clear in judgment,
+prompt in decision, fruitful in resources, unshaken when others despaired;
+a sure breeder of storms in time of peace, but in time of calamity and
+danger a tower of strength. His early career in America was beset with ire
+and enmity; but admiration and gratitude hailed him at its close: for it
+was he who saved the colony and led it triumphant from an abyss of ruin.
+[Footnote: In the Library of the Seminary of Quebec is preserved the
+funeral oration pronounced over the body of Frontenac by Olivier Goyer, a
+Recollet friar. It is a blind and wholesale panegyric, but it is
+interlined with notes and comments at great length, by some other
+ecclesiastic, a bitter enemy of the Governor. He is vindictive and
+acrimonious beyond measure; but, between the two, a good deal of truth is
+struck out. Charlevoix's estimate of Frontenac is admirably candid, when
+it is remembered that he writes of an enemy of his Order. The career of
+Frontenac, his letters, and those of his enemies,--of which many are
+preserved,--are, however, his best interpretation.]
+
+
+
+
+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. [Footnote: _Lettre
+de Frontenac au Ministre_, 2 _Nov_. 1672; Ibid 14 _Nov_. 1674. MSS]
+
+Louis Joliet was the son of a wagon-maker in the service of the Company of
+the Hundred Associates, [Footnote: See "Jesuits in North America."] then,
+owners of Canada. He was born at Quebec in 1645, was educated by the
+Jesuits; and, 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. [Footnote: "Le 2
+Juillet (1666) les premieres disputes de philosophie se font dans la
+congregation avec succes. Toutes les puissances s'y trouvent; M.
+l'Intendant entr'autres y a argumente tres-bien. M. Jolliet et Pierre
+Francheville y ont tres-bien repondu de toute la logique."--_Journal des
+Jesuites_, MS.] Not long after, he renounced his clerical vocation, and
+turned fur-trader. Talon sent him, with one Pere, 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.
+[Footnote: Nothing was known of Joliet till Shea investigated his history.
+Ferland, in his _Notes sur les Registres de Notre-Dame de Quebec_;
+Faillon, in his _Colonie Francaise en Canada_; and Margry, in a series of
+papers in the _Journal General de I'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.]
+
+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.
+
+He passed up the lakes to Michillimackinac; 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."
+
+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."
+[Footnote: 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.] Their course was westward; and,
+plying their paddles, they passed the Straits of Michillimackinac, 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. [Footnote: 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.] 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 soon reached the mission at the head of Green Bay; entered
+the 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. [Footnote: 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
+the birds rose up in clouds from the wild-rice marshes.] 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, as Marquette says, he was "extremely consoled."
+
+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. [Footnote: The above
+traits of the scenery of the Wisconsin are taken from personal observation
+of the river during midsummer.]
+
+On the 17th 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.
+
+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 25th, 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. [Footnote: 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.] 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 with attention, 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 behooved 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.
+
+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. [Footnote: 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.] He confesses that at first they frightened him; and his
+imagination and that of his credulous companions were 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 any thing more terrific;" but they escaped
+with their fright, and held their way down the turbulent and swollen
+current of the now united rivers. [Footnote: The Missouri is called
+Pekitanoui by Marquette. It also bears, on early French maps, the names of
+Riviere des Osages, and Riviere 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.] 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. [Footnote: Called
+on Marquette's map, Ouabouskiaou. On some of the earliest maps, it is
+called Ouabache (Wabash).] 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.
+
+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.
+[Footnote: This village, called Mitchigamea, is represented on several
+contemporary maps.]
+
+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, [Footnote: A few years later, the
+Arkansas were all on the west side.] 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. [Footnote: 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.] 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.
+[Footnote: 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 Inedites_, 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 Decouverte que les Peres Jesuites out fait en l'annee 1672,
+et continuee par le Pere 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 Bibliotheque Imperiale, 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.]
+
+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. [Footnote: _Lettre de
+Frontenac au Ministre, Quebec_, 14 _Nov._ 1674, MS.] 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." [Footnote: This letter is appended to Joliet's
+smaller map of his discoveries. See Appendix. Joliet applied for a grant
+of the countries he had visited, but failed to obtain it, because the king
+wished at this time to confine the inhabitants of Canada to productive
+industry within the limits of the colony, and to restrain their tendency
+to roam into the western wilderness. 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.]
+
+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, [Footnote: 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.] and the other a self-
+styled surgeon. They also visited Marquette, and befriended him to the
+best of their power.
+
+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 head of 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.
+
+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 Michillimackinac, 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 Michillimackinac, to bear the tidings to the priests at the mission of
+St. Ignace. [Footnote: 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.]
+
+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 Michillimackinac. 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. [Footnote: 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. The _voyageurs_ on Lake Michigan long continued to invoke the
+intercession of the departed missionary in time of danger.
+
+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 Michillimackinac. 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 Michillimackinac, 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 lard, and some biscuits,
+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
+Michillimackinac. 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.--HIS DIFFICULTIES.--OFFICIAL CORRUPTION IN CANADA.
+--THE GOVERNOR OF MONTREAL.--PROJECTS OF FRONTENAC.--CATARAQUI.--FRONTENAC
+ON LAKE ONTARIO.--FORT FRONTENAC.--SUCCESS OF LA SALLE.
+
+
+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 mediaeval saintship; the other, with feet
+firm planted on the hard earth, breathes the self-relying energies of
+modern practical enterprise. Nevertheless, La Salle was a man wedded to
+ideas, and urged by the steady and considerate enthusiasm, which is the
+life-spring of heroic natures. Three thoughts, rapidly developing in his
+mind, were mastering him, and engendering an invincible purpose. First, he
+would achieve that which Champlain had vainly attempted, and of which our
+own generation has but now seen the accomplishment,--the opening of a
+passage to India and China across the American continent. Next, he would
+occupy the Great West, develop its commercial resources, and anticipate
+the Spaniards and the English in the possession of it. Thirdly,--for he
+soon became convinced that the Mississippi discharged itself into the Gulf
+of Mexico,--he would establish a fortified post at its mouth, thus
+securing an outlet for the trade of the interior, checking the progress of
+the Spaniards, and forming a base, whence, in time of war, their northern
+provinces could be invaded and conquered.
+
+Here were vast projects, projects perhaps beyond the scope of private
+enterprise, conceived and nursed in the brain of a penniless young man.
+Two conditions were indispensable to their achievement. The first was the
+countenance of the Canadian authorities, and the second was money. There
+was but one mode of securing either, to appeal to the love of gain of
+those who could aid the enterprise. Count Frontenac had no money to give;
+but he had what was no less to the purpose, the resources of an arbitrary
+power, which he was always ready to use to the utmost. From the manner in
+which he mentions La Salle in his despatches, it seems that the latter
+succeeded in gaining his confidence very soon after he entered upon his
+government. There was a certain similarity between the two men. Both were
+able, resolute, and enterprising. The irascible and fiery pride of the
+noble found its match in the reserved and seemingly cold pride of the
+ambitious young burgher. Their temperaments were different, but the bases
+of their characters were alike, and each could perfectly comprehend the
+other. They had, moreover, strong prejudices and dislikes in common. With
+his ruined fortune, his habits of expenditure, the exigent demands of his
+rank and station, and the wretched pittance which he received from the
+king of three thousand francs a year, Frontenac was not the man to let
+slip any reasonable opportunity of bettering his condition. [Footnote:
+That he engaged in the fur-trade, was notorious. In a letter to the
+Minister Seignelay, 13 Oct. 1681, Duchesneau, Intendant of Canada,
+declares that Frontenac used all the authority of his office to favor
+those interested in trade with him, and that he would favor nobody else.
+The Intendant himself had a rival interest in the same trade.] La Salle
+seems to have laid his plans before him as far as he had at this time
+formed them, and a complete understanding was established between them.
+Here was a great point gained. The head of the colony was on his side. It
+remained to raise money, and this was a harder task. La Salle's relations
+were rich, evidently proud of him, and anxious for his advancement. As his
+schemes developed, they supplied him with means to pursue them, and one of
+them in particular, his cousin Francois Plet, became largely interested in
+his enterprises. [Footnote: _Papiers de Famille_, MSS.] Believing
+that his projects, if carried into effect, would prove a source of immense
+wealth to all concerned in them, and gifted with a rare power of
+persuasion when he chose to use it, La Salle addressed himself to various
+merchants and officials of the colony, and induced some of them to become
+partners in his adventure. But here we are anticipating. Clearly to
+understand his position, we must revert to the first year of Frontenac's
+government.
+
+No sooner had that astute official set foot in the colony than, with an
+eagle eye, he surveyed the situation, and quickly comprehended it. It was
+somewhat peculiar. Canada lived on the fur-trade, a species of commerce
+always liable to disorders, and which had produced, among other results, a
+lawless body of men known as _coureurs de bois_, who followed the Indians
+in their wanderings, and sometimes became as barbarous as their red
+associates. The order-loving king who swayed the destinies of France,
+taking umbrage at these irregularities, had issued mandates intended to
+repress the evil, by prohibiting the inhabitants of Canada from leaving
+the limits of the settled country; and requiring the trade to be carried
+on, not in the distant wilderness, but within the bounds of the colony.
+The civil and military officers of the crown, charged with the execution
+of these ordinances, showed a sufficient zeal in enforcing them against
+others, while they themselves habitually violated them; hence, a singular
+confusion, with abundant outcries, complaint, and recrimination. Prominent
+among these officials was Perrot, Governor of Montreal, who must not be
+confounded with Nicolas Perrot, the _voyageur_. The Governor of Montreal,
+though subordinate to the Governor-General, held great and arbitrary power
+within his own jurisdiction. Perrot had married a niece of Talon, the late
+Intendant, to whose influence he owed his place. Confiding in this
+powerful protection, he gave free rein to his headstrong-temper, and
+carried his government with a high hand, berating and abusing anybody who
+ventured to remonstrate. The grave fathers of St. Sulpice, owners of
+Montreal, were the more scandalized at the behavior of their military
+chief, by reason of a certain burlesque and gasconading vein which often
+appeared in him, and which they regarded as unseemly levity. [Footnote:
+Perrot received his appointment from the Seminary of St. Sulpice, on
+Talon's recommendation, but he afterwards applied for and gained a royal
+commission, which, as he thought, made him independent of the priests.]
+
+Perrot, through his wife's uncle, had obtained a grant of the Island above
+Montreal, which still bears his name. Here he established a trading house
+which he placed in charge of an agent, one Brucy, who, by a tempting
+display of merchandise and liquors, intercepted the Indians on their
+yearly descent to trade with the French, and thus got possession of their
+furs, in anticipation of the market of Montreal. Not satisfied with this,
+Perrot, in defiance of the royal order, sent men into the woods to trade
+with the Indians in their villages, and it is said even used his soldiers
+for this purpose, under cover of pretended desertion. [Footnote: The
+original papers relating to the accusations against Perrot are still
+preserved in the ancient records of Montreal.] The rage of the merchants
+of Montreal may readily be conceived, and when Frontenac heard of the
+behavior of his subordinate he was duly incensed.
+
+It seems, however, to have occurred, or to have been suggested to him,
+that he, the Governor-General might repeat the device of Perrot on a
+larger scale and with more profitable results. By establishing a fortified
+trading post on Lake Ontario, the whole trade of the upper country might
+be engrossed, with the exception of that portion of it which descended by
+the river Ottawa, and even this might in good part be diverted from its
+former channel. At the same time, a plan of a fort on Lake Ontario might
+be made to appear as of great importance to the welfare of the colony; and
+in fact, from one point of view, it actually was so. Courcelles, the late
+governor, had already pointed out its advantages. Such a fort would watch
+and hold in check the Iroquois, the worst enemy of Canada; and, with the
+aid of a few small vessels, it would intercept the trade which the upper
+Indians were carrying on through the Iroquois country with the English and
+Dutch of New York. Frontenac learned from La Salle that the English were
+intriguing both with the Iroquois and with the tribes of the Upper Lakes,
+to induce them to break the peace with the French, and bring their furs to
+New York. [Footnote: _Lettre de Frontenac a Colbert_, 13 _Nov_. 1678.]
+Hence the advantages, not to say the necessity, of a fort on Lake Ontario
+were obvious. But, while it would turn a stream of wealth from the English
+to the French colony, it was equally clear that the change might be made
+to inure, not to the profit of Canada at large, but solely to that of
+those who had control of the fort; or, in other words, that the new
+establishment might become an instrument of a grievous monopoly. This
+Frontenac and La Salle well understood, and there can be no reasonable
+doubt that they aimed at securing such a monopoly: but the merchants of
+Canada understood it, also; and hence they regarded with distrust any
+scheme of a fort on Lake Ontario.
+
+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 Quinte 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.
+[Footnote: _Lettre de Frontenac a Colbert_, 13 _Nov_. 1673, MS. This
+rumor, it appears, originated with the Jesuit Dablon.--_Journal du Voyage
+du Comte de Frontenac au Lac Ontario_. MS. The Jesuits were greatly
+opposed to the establishment of forts and trading posts in the upper
+country, for reasons that will appear hereafter.]
+
+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. He now had with him about four hundred men, including Indians from
+the missions, and a hundred and twenty canoes, besides two large
+flatboats, 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 flatboats 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
+flatboats; 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.
+
+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 flatboats, 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 Garakontie, 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.
+
+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
+flatboats, 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 storehouse 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.
+
+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, 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."
+[Footnote: _Lettre de Frontenac au Ministre_, 13 Nov. 1673.] 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
+scheme of La Salle; and we shall soon find him employed in executing it.
+
+It remained to determine what disposition should be made of the new fort.
+For some time it was uncertain whether the king would not order its
+demolition, as efforts had been made to influence him to that effect. It
+was resolved, however, that, being once constructed, it should be allowed
+to stand; and, after a considerable 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. [Footnote: 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 entrusted 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."] 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 Recollet 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. [Footnote: _Memoire pour l'entretien du
+Fort Frontenac, par le Sr. de la Salle, 1674. MS. Petition du Sr. de la
+Salle au Roi, MS. Lettres patentes de concession du Fort de Frontenac et
+terres adjacentes au profit du Sr. de la Salle; donnees a Compiegne le 13
+Mai, 1675, MS. Arret qui accepte les offres faites par Robert Cavelier Sr.
+de la Salle; a Compiegne le 13 Mai, 1675, MS. Lettres de noblesse pour le
+Sr. Cavelier de la Salle; donnees a Compiegne le 13 Mai, 1675, MS. Papiers
+de Famille; Memoire au Roi, MS._]
+
+La Salle returned to Canada, proprietor of a seigniory, which, all things
+considered, was one of the most valuable in the colony. It was now that
+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 the broad
+ambition that urged his scheming brain.
+
+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.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+1674-1678.
+LA SALLE AND THE JESUITS.
+
+THE ABBE FENELON.--HE ATTACKS THE GOVERNOR.--THE ENEMIES OF
+LA SALLE.--AIMS OF THE JESUITS.--THEIR HOSTILITY TO LA SALLE.
+
+
+A curious incident occurred soon, after the building of the fort on Lake
+Ontario. A violent quarrel had taken place between Frontenac and 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, seigneurs 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.
+
+The Abbe Fenelon, 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 Hotel-Dieu, which was crowded to the
+porch, all the chief persons of the settlement being present. The cure of
+the parish, whose name also was Perrot, said High Mass, assisted by La
+Salle's brother, Cavelier, and two other priests. Then Fenelon 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. [Footnote: Faillon, _Colonie
+Francaise_, 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 Abbes de Fenelon_, chap. vii.]
+
+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 Fenelon. Then meeting the eye of the cure, who
+sat beside the altar, he made the same signs to him, to which the cure
+replied by a deprecating shrug of the shoulders. Fenelon changed color,
+but continued his sermon. [Footnote: _Information faicte par nous, Charles
+Le Tardieu, Sieur de Tilly, et Nicolas Dupont, etc. etc., contre le Sr.
+Abbe de Fenelon_, MS. Tilly and Dupont were sent by Frontenac to inquire
+into the affair. Among the deponents is La Salle himself.]
+
+This indecent procedure of La Salle filled the priests with anxiety, for
+they had no doubt that the sermon would speedily be reported to Frontenac.
+Accordingly they made all haste to disavow it, and their letter to that
+effect was the first information which the Governor received of the
+affair. He summoned the offender to Quebec, to answer a charge of
+seditious language, before the Supreme Council. Fenelon appeared
+accordingly, but denied the jurisdiction of the Council; claiming that as
+an ecclesiastic it was his right to be tried by the Bishop. By way of
+asserting this right, he seated himself in presence of his judges, and put
+on his hat; and being rebuked by Frontenac, who presided, he pushed it on
+farther. [Footnote: The Council always held its session with hats on. It
+seems that a priest, summoned before it as a witness, was also entitled to
+wear his hat, and Fenelon maintained that it had no right to require him
+to appear before it in any other character.] He was placed under arrest,
+and soon after required to leave Canada; but the king accompanied the
+recall with a sharp word of admonition to his too strenuous lieutenant.
+[Footnote: _Lettre du Roi a Frontenac_, 22 _Avril_, 1675, MS.]
+
+This affair gives us a glimpse of the distracted state of the colony,
+racked by the discord of conflicting interests and passions. There were
+the quarrels of rival traders, the quarrels of priests among themselves,
+of priests with the civil authorities, and of the civil authorities among
+themselves. Prominent, if not paramount, among the occasions of strife,
+were the schemes of Cavelier de La Salle. All the traders not interested
+with him leagued together to oppose him; and this with an acrimony easily
+understood, when it is remembered that they depended for subsistence on
+the fur-trade, while La Salle had engrossed a great part of it, and
+threatened to engross far more. Duchesneau, Intendant of the colony, and
+in that capacity almost as a matter of course on ill terms with the
+Governor, was joined with this party of opposition, with whom he evidently
+had commercial interests in common. La Chesnaye, Le Moyne, and ultimately
+Le Ber, besides various others of more or less influence, were in the
+league against La Salle. Among them was Louis Joliet, whom his partisans
+put forward as a rival discoverer, and a foil to La Salle. Joliet, it will
+be remembered, had applied for a grant of land in the countries he had
+discovered, and had been refused. La Salle soon after made a similar
+application, and with a different result, as will presently appear. His
+adherents continually depreciated the merits of Joliet, and even expressed
+doubt of the reality, or at least the extent, of his discoveries.
+
+But there was another element of opposition to La Salle, 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 _protege_; but their opposition had
+another and a deeper root, for the plans of the daring young schemer
+jarred with their own.
+
+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
+[Footnote: This purpose is several times indicated in the _Relations_. For
+an instance, see "Jesuits in North America," 153.] 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, [Footnote: Compare Charlevoix, _Histoire de Paraguay_,
+with Robertson, _Letters on Paraguay_.] 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 ascendancy of their Order; or, as
+they would have expressed it, the ascendancy 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, settlement. The scope and vigor of
+his enterprises, and the powerful influence that aided them made him a
+stumbling-block in their path. As they would have put the case, it was the
+spirit of this world opposed to the spirit of religion; but I may perhaps
+be pardoned if I am constrained to think that the spirit which inspired
+these fathers was not uniformly celestial, notwithstanding the virtues
+which sometimes illustrated it.
+
+Frontenac, in his letters to the Court, is continually begging that more
+Recollet friars may be sent to Canada. [Footnote: The Recollets, ejected
+from Canada on the irruption of the English in 1629 (see "Pioneers of
+France in the New World"), had not been allowed to return until 1669, when
+their missions were begun anew.] Not that he had any peculiar fondness for
+ecclesiastics of any kind, regular or secular, white, black, or gray; but
+he wanted the Recollets to oppose to the Jesuits. He had no fear of these
+mendicant disciples of St. Francis. Far less able and less ambitious than
+the Jesuits, he knew that he could manage them, because they would need
+his support against their formidable rivals. La Salle, too, wanted more
+Recollets, and for the same reason; but in one point he differed from his
+patron. He was a man, not only of regulated life, but of strong religious
+feeling, and, bating his violent prepossession against the Jesuits, he
+respected the Church and its ministers, as his letters and his life
+attest. Thus, in replying to a charge of undue severity towards some of
+his followers, he alleges in his justification the profane language of the
+men in question, and adds, "I am a Christian; I will have no blasphemers
+in my camp." [Footnote: Letter of La Salle in the hands of M. Margry.]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+1678.
+PARTY STRIFE.
+
+LA SALLE AND HIS REPORTER.--JESUIT ASCENDANCY.--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.
+
+
+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 Galinee,
+[Footnote: _Ante_, p. 11.] 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. [Footnote: Louis-Armand de Bourbon, second Prince de
+Conti. I am strongly inclined to think that this nobleman himself is
+author of the memoir.] 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 "Memoire 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. [Footnote: Extracts from this have already been given in connection
+with La Salle's supposed discovery of the Mississippi. _Ante_, p. 20.]
+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 in 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 certainty 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." [Footnote: "Tous ceux
+de mes amis qui l'ont vu luy trouve beaucoup d'esprit et un tres grand
+sens; il ne parle gueres que des choses sur lesquelles on l'interroge; il
+les dit en tres-peu de mots et tres-bien circonstancies; il distingue
+parfaitement ce qu'il scait avec certitude, de ce qu'il scait avec quelque
+melange de doute. Il avoue sans aucune facon ne pas savoir ce qu'il ne
+scait pas, et quoyque je lui aye ouy dire plus de cinq ou six fois les
+mesme choses a l'occasion de quelques personnes qui ne les avaient point
+encore entendues, je les luy ay toujours ouy dire de la mesme maniere. En
+un mot je n'ay jamais ouy parler personne dont les paroles portassent plus
+de marques de verite."]
+
+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;
+[Footnote: "Il y a une autre chose qui me deplait, qui est l'entiere
+dependence dans laquelle les Pretres du Seminaire de Quebec et le Grand
+Vicaire de l'Eveque sont pour les Peres Jesuites, car il ne fait pas la
+moindre chose sans leur ordre; ce qui fait qu'indirectement ils sont les
+maitres de ce qui regarde le spirituel, qui, comme vous savez, est une
+grande machine pour remuer tout le reste."--_Lettre de Frontenac a
+Colbert_, 2 Nov. 1672.] that he is not well inclined towards the
+Recollets, [Footnote: "Ces religieux (les Recollets) sont fort proteges
+partout par le comte de Frontenac, gouverneur du pays, et a cause de cela
+assez maltraites par l'evesque, parceque la doctrine de l'evesque et des
+Jesuites est que les affaires de la Religion chrestienne n'iront point
+bien dans ce pays-la que quand le gouverneur sera creature des Jesuites,
+ou que l'evesque sera gouverneur."--_Memoire sur Mr. de la Salle_.] 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; [Footnote: "Ils (les Jesuites) refusent l'absolution a
+ceux qui ne veulent pas promettre de n'en plus vendre (de l'eau-de-vie),
+et s'ils meurent en cet etat, ils les privent de la sepulture
+ecclesiastique; au contraire ils se permettent a eux-memes sans aucune
+difficulte ce mesme trafic quoique tout sorte de trafic soit interdit a
+tous les ecclesiastiques 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 pretend qu'il
+ne l'est pas moms; qu' outre la notoriete il en a des preuves certaines,
+et qu'il les a surpris dans ce trafic, et qu'ils luy ont tendu des pieges
+pour l'y surprendre ... Ils ont chasse leur valet Robert a cause qu'il
+revela 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.] 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, [Footnote: 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.] 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. [Footnote: "Pour vous
+parler franchement, ils (les Jesuites) songent autant a la conversion du
+Castor qu'a celle des ames."--_Lettre de Frontenac a 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."]
+
+The memoir proceeds to affirm that they trade largely with the Sioux, at
+Ste. Marie, and with other tribes at Michillimackinac, and that they are
+masters of the trade of that region, where the forts are in their
+possession. [Footnote: These forts were built by them, and were necessary
+to the security of their missions.] 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. [Footnote: Francois 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.] It is added that there exists in Quebec, under the auspices of
+the Jesuits, an association called the Sainte Famille, of which Madame
+Bourdon [Footnote: This Madame Bourdon was the widow of Bourdon, the
+engineer, (see "Jesuits in North America," 299). 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.] 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. [Footnote: "Il y a dans Quebec une
+congregation de femmes et de filles qu'ils [_les Jesuits_]
+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 Superieure de cette compagnie s'appelle Madame
+Boudon; une Mde. D'Ailleboust est, je crois, l'assistante et une Mde.
+Charron, la Tresoriere. La Compagnie s'assemble tous les Jeudis dans la
+Cathedrale, a porte fermee, et la elles se disent les unes aux autres
+tout ce qu'elles on appris. C'est une espece d'Inquisition contre toutes
+les personnes qui ne sont pas unies avec les Jesuites. Ces personnes
+sont accusees 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."--_Memoire sur Mr. 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 Jesuites_] ont tous une si grande envie de savoir tout
+ce qui se fait dans les familles qu'ils ont des Inspecteurs a 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.
+
+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 Recollets
+and Sulpitians.
+
+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
+Mississipi. 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. [Footnote: Mention has been made
+of the report set on foot by the Jesuit Dablon, to prevent
+the building of the fort.] 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 him 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. [Footnote: This story is told at considerable length, and the
+advances of the lady particularly described.]
+
+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, the Abbe 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 Recollet 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 the Abbe 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, the Abbe Cavelier saw fit, for some
+reason, to interfere, and prevented the alliance. [Footnote: Letter of La
+Salle in possession of M. Margry.]
+
+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 farther 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. [Footnote: 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, 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 desir que
+l'on avoit que Monseigneur le Comte de Frontenac fist la guerre aux
+Iroquois." See Thomassy, _Geologie Pratique de la Louisiane_, 203.] At
+this council they accused the two Jesuits, Bruyas and Pierron, [Footnote:
+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 Jesuites_, 1673-9, p. 140 (Shea). Bruyas was also for a
+long time among the Mohawks.] 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 Solycoeur, who confessed the crime. [Footnote: 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 Solycoeur. 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 aeres
+empoissonne d'une salade dans laquelle on avoit mesle du cigue, qui est
+poison en ce pays la, et du verd de gris. Il en fut malade a l'extremite,
+vomissant presque continuellement 40 ou 50 jours apres, et il ne rechappa
+que par la force extreme de sa constitution. Celuy qui luy donna le poison
+fut un nomine Nicolas Perrot, autrement Solycoeur, l'un de ses
+domestiques.... Il pouvait faire mourir cet homme, qui a confesse son
+crime, mais il s'est contente de l'enfermer les fers aux pieds."--
+_Histoire de Mr. de la Salle_.] 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 the Prince de
+Conti, 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:
+
+"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 any one shared
+the suspicion which I felt, oblige me by undeceiving him." [Footnote: The
+following words are underlined in the original: "_Je suis pourtant oblige
+de leur rendre une justice, que le poison qu'on m'avoit donne n'estoit
+point de leur instigation_."--_Lettre de la Salle au Prince de Conti_, 31
+_Oct_. 1678.]
+
+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. [Footnote: 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. MS. The Jesuits had a mission in the neighboring
+tribe of the Mohawks, and elsewhere in New York.] 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.
+
+He is also stated to have declared that Louis Joliet was an impostor,
+[Footnote: This agrees with expressions used by La Salle in a memoir
+addressed by him to Frontenac in November, 1680, and printed by Thomassy.
+In this he plainly intimates his belief that Joliet went but little below
+the mouth of the Illinois.] and a _donne_ of the Jesuits,--that is, a man
+who worked for them without pay; and, farther, 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,
+undoubtedly contains a great deal of truth.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+1677-1678.
+THE GRAND ENTERPRISE.
+
+LA SALLE AT FORT FRONTENAC.--LA SALLE AT COURT.--HIS PLANS APPROVED.
+--HENRI DE TONTY.--PREPARATION FOR DEPARTURE.
+
+
+When La Salle gained possession of Fort Frontenac, he secured a base for
+all his future enterprises. That he meant to make it a permanent one is
+clear from the pains he took to strengthen its defences. Within two years
+from the date of his grant he had replaced the hasty palisade fort of
+Count Frontenac by a regular work of hewn stone; of which, however, only
+two bastions, with their connecting curtains, were completed, the
+enclosure on the water side being formed of pickets. Within, there was a
+barrack, a well, a mill, and a bakery; while a wooden blockhouse guarded
+the gateway. [Footnote: Plan of Fort Frontenac, published by Faillon, from
+the original sent to France by Denonville, 1685.] Near the shore, south of
+the fort, was a cluster of small houses of French _habitans_; and farther,
+in the same direction, was the Indian village. Two officers and a surgeon,
+with half a score or more of 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 fort. [Footnote: _Etat de la depense faite par Mr.
+de la Salle, Gouverneur du Fort Frontenac_, MS. When Frontenac was at the
+fort in September, 1677, he found only four _habitans_. It appears by the
+_Relation des Decouvertes du Sr. de la Salle_, that, three or four years
+later, there were thirteen or fourteen families. La Salle spent 34,426
+francs on the fort.--_Memoire au Roy, Papiers de Famille_, MSS.] Besides
+these, there were two Recollet friars, Luc Buisset and Louis Hennepin; of
+whom the latter was but indifferently suited to his apostolic functions,
+as we shall soon discover. La Salle built a house for them, near the fort;
+and they turned a part of it into a chapel.
+
+Partly for trading on the lake, partly with a view to ulterior designs, he
+caused four small decked vessels to be built: but, for ordinary uses,
+canoes best served his purpose; and his followers became so skilful in
+managing them, that they were reputed the best canoe-men in America.
+[Footnote: _Relation des Decouvertes_, MS. Hennepin repeats the
+statement.] Feudal lord of the forests around him, commander of a garrison
+raised and paid by himself, founder of the mission, patron of the church,
+La Salle reigned the autocrat of his lonely little empire.
+
+But he had no thought of resting here. He had gained what he sought, a
+fulcrum for bolder and broader action. His plans were ripened and his time
+was come. He was no longer a needy adventurer, disinherited of all but his
+fertile brain and his intrepid heart. He had won place, influence, credit,
+and potent friends. Now, at length, he might hope to find the long-sought
+path to China and Japan, and secure for France those boundless regions of
+the West, in whose watery highways he saw his road to wealth, renown, and
+power. Again he sailed for France, bearing, as before, letters from
+Frontenac, commending him to the king and the minister. We have seen that
+he was denounced in advance as a madman; but Colbert at length gave him a
+favoring ear, and granted his petition. Perhaps he read the man before
+him, living only in the conception and achievement of great designs, and
+armed with a courage that not the Fates nor the Furies themselves could
+appall.
+
+La Salle was empowered to pursue his proposed discoveries at his own
+expense, on condition of completing them within five years; to build forts
+in the new-found countries, and hold possession of them on terms similar
+to those already granted him in the case of Fort Frontenac; and to
+monopolize the trade in buffalo skins, a new branch of commerce, by which,
+as he urged, the plains of the Mississippi would become a source of
+copious wealth. But he was expressly forbidden to carry on trade with the
+Ottawas and other tribes of the Lakes, who were accustomed to bring their
+furs to Montreal. [Footnote: _Permission an Sr. de la Salle de decouvrir
+la partie occidentals de la Nouvelle France_, 12 _May_, 1678, MS. Signed
+_Colbert_; not, as Charlevoix says, _Seignelay_.]
+
+Again La Salle's wealthy relatives came to his aid, and large advances of
+money were made to him. [Footnote: In the memorial which La Salle's
+relations presented to the king after his death, they say that, on this
+occasion, "ses freres et ses parents n'epargnerent rien." It is added that
+between 1678 and 1683 his enterprises cost the family more than 500,000
+francs. By a memorandum of his cousin, Francois Plet, M.D., of Paris, it
+appears that La Salle gave him, on the 27th and 28th of June, 1678, two
+promissory notes of 9,805 francs and 1,676 francs respectively.] He bought
+supplies and engaged men; and in July, 1678, sailed again for Canada, with
+thirty followers,--sailors, carpenters, and laborers,--an abundant store
+of anchors, cables, and rigging; iron tools,--merchandise for trade, and
+all things necessary for his enterprise. There was one man of his party
+worth all the rest combined. The Prince de Conti had a _protege_ in the
+person of Henri de Tonty, an Italian officer, one of whose hands had been
+blown off by a grenade in the Sicilian wars. His father, who had been
+Governor of Gaeta, but who had come to France in consequence of political
+convulsions in Naples, had earned no small reputation as a financier, and
+devised the form of life insurance known as the Tontine. The Prince de
+Conti recommended the son to La Salle; and, as the event proved, he could
+not have done him a better service. 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 any thing; 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." [Footnote: _Lettre de
+La Salle au Prince de Conti_, 31 _Oct_. 1678, MS. 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 Gallicised, 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 ascribes the
+loss of his hand to a sabre-cut received in a _sortie_ at Messina; but
+Tonty, in his _Memoire_, says, as above, that it was blown off.]
+
+Besides Tonty, La Salle found another ally, though a less efficient one,
+in the person of the Sieur de la Motte; and at Quebec, where he was
+detained for a time, he found Father Louis Hennepin, who had come down
+from Fort Frontenac to meet him.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+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
+Fevre, containing the coveted permission. Whereupon, to prepare himself,
+he went into retreat, at the Recollet 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 chateau; 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. [Footnote: Hennepin,
+_Description de la Louisiane_ (1683), 19. Ibid., _Voyage Curieux_ (1704),
+66. Ribourde had lately arrived.] La Salle, Tonty, La Motte, and their
+party, who had left Quebec a few days after him, soon appeared at the
+fort; La Salle much fatigued and worn by the hardships of the way, or more
+probably by the labors and anxieties of preparation. He had no sooner
+arrived, than he sent fifteen men in canoes to Lake Michigan and the
+Illinois, to open a trade with the Indians and collect a store of
+provisions. There was a small vessel of ten tons in the harbor; and he
+ordered La Motte to sail in her for Niagara, accompanied by 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." [Footnote: Hennepin, _Nouvelle Decouverte_ (1697), 8.] 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. [Footnote: Ibid., _Avant Propos_, 5.]
+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."
+[Footnote: Ibid., _Voyage Curieux_ (1704), 12.]
+
+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." [Footnote: Ibid., 13.]
+
+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.
+[Footnote: 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.]
+
+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 [Footnote: This
+was the _Racines Agnieres_ 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.] 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.
+[Footnote: Compare Brodhead in _Hist. Mag._, x. 268.]
+
+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." [Footnote: "Une entreprise capable
+d'epouvanter tout autre que moi."--Hennepin, _Voyage Curieux, Avant
+Propos_ (1704).] 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 every thing related in it." [Footnote: "Je vous
+proteste ici devant Dieu, que ma Relation est fidele et sincere," etc.--
+Ibid., _Avis au Lecteur_.] 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. [Footnote: 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.]
+
+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 north-east;
+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, [Footnote: 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.] 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.
+
+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. [Footnote: 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," 143. 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 Nyagarah.]
+
+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.
+
+It was La Salle's purpose to build a palisade fort at the mouth of the
+Niagara; and the work was now begun, though it was necessary to use hot
+water 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, south-east of the
+site of Rochester. [Footnote: Near the town of Victor. It is laid down on
+the map of Galinee, and other unpublished maps. Compare Marshall,
+_Historical Sketches of the Niagara Frontier_, 14.] 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 at
+the mouth 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.
+
+A few days after, Hennepin was near the shore of the lake, when he heard a
+well-known voice, and to his surprise saw La Salle approaching. This
+resolute child of misfortune had already begun to taste the bitterness of
+his destiny. Sailing with Tonty from Fort Frontenac, to bring supplies to
+the advanced party at Niagara, he had been detained by contrary winds when
+within a few hours of his destination. Anxious to reach it speedily, he
+left the vessel in charge of the pilot, who disobeyed his orders, and
+ended by wrecking it at a spot nine or ten leagues west of Niagara.
+[Footnote: Tonty, _Memoire envoye en 1693 sur la Decouverte du Mississippi
+et des Nations voisines, par le Sieur de la Salle, en 1678, et depuis sa
+mort par le Sieur de Tonty_. The published work bearing Tonty's name is a
+compilation full of misstatements. He disowned its authorship. Its
+authority will not be relied on in this narrative. A copy of the true
+document from the original, signed by Tonty, in the Archives de la Marine,
+is before me.] The provisions and merchandise were lost, though the crew
+saved the anchors and cables destined for the vessel which La Salle
+proposed to build for the navigation of the Upper Lakes. He had had a
+meeting with the Senecas, before the disaster; and, more fortunate than La
+Motte,--for his influence over Indians was great,--had persuaded them to
+consent, for a time, to the execution of his plans. They required,
+however, that he should so far modify them as to content himself with a
+stockaded warehouse, in place of a fort, at the mouth of the Niagara.
+
+The loss of the vessel threw him into extreme perplexity, and, as Hennepin
+says, "would have made anybody but him give up the enterprise." [Footnote:
+_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.] The whole party
+were now gathered within the half-finished palisades of Niagara; a motley
+crew of French, Flemings, and Italians, all mutually jealous. Some of the
+men had been tampered with by La Salle's enemies. None of them seem to
+have had much heart for the enterprise. La Motte had gone back to Canada.
+He had been a soldier, and perhaps a good one; but he had already broken
+down under the hardships of these winter journeyings. La Salle, seldom
+happy in the choice of subordinates, had, perhaps, in all his company but
+one man in whom he could confidently 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.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+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.
+
+
+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
+advanced 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.
+[Footnote: 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
+(_riviere_) 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.]
+
+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. [Footnote: 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 Maitre Moyse,
+appears as Moise Hillaret, and the blacksmith, whom he calls La Forge, is
+mentioned as--(illegible) dit la Forge.] 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.
+
+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. [Footnote: "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 Fete Days and
+Sundays, after divine service." (1704), 98.] The Senecas refused to supply
+them with corn, and the frequent exhortations of the Recollet 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, was making his way back on foot to Fort Frontenac, a
+distance of some two hundred and fifty miles, through the snow-encumbered
+forests of the Iroquois and over the ice of Lake Ontario. The wreck of his
+vessel made it necessary that fresh supplies should be sent to Niagara;
+and the condition of his affairs, embarrassed by the great expenses of the
+enterprise, demanded his presence at Fort Frontenac. 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.
+
+During his absence, Tonty finished the vessel, which was of about forty-
+five tons burden. [Footnote: 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.] 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 Membre 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.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+1679.
+LA SALLE ON THE UPPER LAKES.
+
+THE VOYAGE OF THE "GRIFFIN."--DETROIT.--A STORM.--ST. IGNACE OF
+MICHILLIMACKINAC.--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, the
+voyagers, thirty-four in all, 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, [Footnote: They named it Sainte Claire, of which the present name
+is a perversion.] and still sailed northward against the current, till
+now, sparkling in the sun, Lake Huron spread before them like a sea.
+
+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. [Footnote: Hennepin (1683), 58.] 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 Michillimackinac, 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. [Footnote: 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.] 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
+Recollets, 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. [Footnote: Tonty, _Memoire_, MS. He was
+overtaken at the Detroit by the "Griffin."] 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 Michillimackinac. 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.
+
+Early in September, long before Tonty had returned from Ste. Marie, La
+Salle set sail again, and, passing westward into Lake Michigan, [Footnote:
+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. Membre, Douay, and others, call it Lac Dauphin.] 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. [Footnote: "The Great Mountain," the
+Iroquois name for the Governor of Canada. It was borrowed by other tribes
+also.] Here, too, he found several of his advanced 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. [Footnote: 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 an Ministre_, 10 _Nov_. 1680, MS] She fired a
+parting shot, and, on the eighteenth of September, spread her sails for
+Niagara, in charge of the pilot, who had orders to return with her to the
+Illinois as soon as he had discharged his 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.
+
+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 much ado
+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 a 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 driftwood, 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. [Footnote: Hennepin (1683), 79.]
+
+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 hack 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.
+
+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.
+
+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 further,
+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 a new subject of anxiety. La Salle thought that he saw in it
+another device of his busy and unscrupulous enemies, intriguing among the
+Illinois 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 Michillimackinac, 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. [Footnote: Hennepin
+(1683), 112; Tonty, _Memoire_, MS.]
+
+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 farther delay was impossible. He
+sent back two men to Michillimackinac 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.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII.
+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 HIM.
+
+
+On the third of December, the party re-embarked, thirty-three in all, in
+eight canoes, [Footnote: _Lettre de Duchesneau a_--, 10 _Nov_. 1680, MS.]
+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 snowflakes, 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 farther 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.
+
+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. They soon reached a spot where the oozy saturated soil
+quaked beneath their tread. All around were clumps of alderbushes, 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. [Footnote: 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 Riviere
+Seignelay, the Riviere des Macopins, and the Riviere Divine, or Riviere 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. 835 (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 "Riviere de la Divine ou l'Outrelaise."] 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.
+[Footnote: I remember to have seen an incident precisely similar, many
+years ago, on the Upper Arkansas. In this case, however, it was impossible
+to drag the bull from the mire. Though hopelessly entangled, he made
+furious plunges at his assailants before being shot.
+
+Hennepin's account of the buffalo, which he afterwards had every
+opportunity of seeing, is interesting and true.]
+
+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. [Footnote: The change is very
+recent. Within the memory of men still young, 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 farm-house 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 snow-drifts.]
+
+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, [Footnote:
+"Starved Rock." It will hold, hereafter, a conspicuous place in the
+narrative.] 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. [Footnote:
+_La Louisiane_, 137. Allouez (_Relation_, 1673-9) 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 de Pere Marquette_, 98 (Lenox). Membre, who was here in 1680,
+says that it then contained seven or eight thousand souls.--Membre, in Le
+Clercq, _Premier Etablissement 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 a son Frere in Lettres Edifiantes_.
+
+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
+largest. 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.] 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.
+
+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
+twenty _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." [Footnote: "Les
+paroles les plus touchantes." Hennepin (1683), 139. The later editions add
+the modest qualification, "que je pus."] 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. Two 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. [Footnote: Peoria was the name of one of the tribes of
+the Illinois. Hennepin says that they crossed the lake four days after
+leaving the village, which last, as appears by a comparison of his
+narrative with that of Tonty, must have been on the thirtieth of
+December.] Here, as evening drew near, they saw a faint spire of smoke
+curling above the gray, wintry 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. [Footnote: 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.]
+
+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
+forth 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. [Footnote: Hennepin (1683), 142.] 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.
+
+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 their country, he would
+stand by the Illinois, 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.
+[Footnote: Hennepin (1683), 144-149. The later editions omit a part of the
+above.]
+
+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. 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 firebrand, Monso
+and his party left the camp in haste, dreading to be confronted with the
+object of their aspersions. [Footnote: Hennepin (1683), 151, (1704), 205.
+Le Clercq, ii. 157. _Memoire du Voyage de M. de la Salle_, MS. 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. La Salle had a special distrust of this missionary, who, on his
+part, always shunned a meeting with him.
+
+In another memoir, addressed to Frontenac in 1680, La Salle states fully
+his conviction that Allouez, who was then, he says, among the Miamis, had
+induced them to send Monso on his sinister errand. See the memoir in
+Thomassy, _Geologie, Pratique de la Louisiane_, 203.
+
+The account of the affair of Monso in the spurious work bearing Tonty's
+name is mere romance.]
+
+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, Nicanope, 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 for ever.
+
+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?" [Footnote: The above is a paraphrase, with some condensation,
+from Hennepin, whose account is sustained by the other writers.] Nicanope
+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 Nicanope, 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. [Footnote: Hennepin (1683), 162.--_Declaration faite par
+Moyse Hillaret, charpentier de barque, cy devant au service du Sr. de la
+Salle_, MS.]
+
+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. [Footnote: The
+equally famous Brinvilliers was burned four years before. An account of
+both will be found in the Letters of Madame de Sevigne. 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.]
+
+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.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV.
+1680.
+FORT CREVECOEUR.
+
+BUILDING OF THE FORT.--LOSS OF THE "GRIFFIN."--A BOLD RESOLUTION.
+--ANOTHER VESSEL.--HENNEPIN SENT TO THE MISSISSIPPI.--DEPARTURE
+OF LA SALLE.
+
+
+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 little hill, or
+knoll, two hundred yards from the southern bank. On either side was a deep
+ravine, and, in front, a low ground, 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 men were lodged
+in huts, at the angles: in the middle there was a cabin of planks for La
+Salle and Tonty, and another for the three friars; while the blacksmith
+had his shed and forge in the rear.
+
+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 fete 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. The spot may still be seen, a little below Peoria. La
+Salle christened his new fort Fort Crevecoeur. 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
+Crevecoeur, 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. [Footnote:
+Charlevoix, i. 459; La Potherie, ii. 140; La Hontan, _Memoir on the Fur-
+Trade of Canada_, MS. 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.] 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. [Footnote:
+_Lettre de la Salle a La Barre, Chicagou,_ 4 _Juin_, 1683, MS. 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.]
+
+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. [Footnote: _Relation des Decouvertes et
+des Voyages du Sr. de la Salle, Seigneur et Gouverneur du Fort de
+Frontenac, au dela des grands Lacs de la Nouvelle France, faits par ordre
+de Monseigneur Colbert;_ 1679, 80 et 81, MS. Hennepin gives a story which
+is not essentially different, except that he makes himself a conspicuous
+actor in it.]
+
+Here was one source of danger stopped; one motive to desert removed. La
+Salle again might feel a reasonable security that idleness would not breed
+mischief among his men. The chief purpose of his intended journey was to
+procure the equipment of a vessel, to be built at Fort Crevecoeur; and he
+resolved that before he set out he would see her on the stocks. The pit-
+sawyers and some of the carpenters had deserted; but energy supplied the
+place of skill, and he and Tonty urged on the work with such vigor that
+within six weeks the hull was nearly finished. She was of forty tons
+burden, [Footnote: _Lettre de Duchesneau, a_--, 10 _Nov_. 1680, MS.] and
+built with high bulwarks to protect those within from the arrows of
+hostile Indians.
+
+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. Membre 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 Membre 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." [Footnote: "Tout autre que
+moi en auroit ete fort ebranle. Et en effet, je n'eusse pas ete la duppe
+du Sieur de la Salle, qui m'exposait temerairement, si je n'eusse mis
+toute ma confiance en Dieu" (1704), 241.]
+
+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, [Footnote: An eminent
+writer has mistaken "Picard" for a personal name. Du Gay was called "Le
+Picard," because he came from the province of Picardy. Accau, and not
+Hennepin, was the real chief of the party.] 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." [Footnote: (1683), 188. This
+commendation is suppressed in the later editions.]
+
+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 second of March, [Footnote: Tonty erroneously places their
+departure on the twenty-second.] before the frost was yet out of the
+ground, when the forest was still leafless and gray, and the oozy prairie
+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: Hunaud, La Violette, Collin, and Dautray.
+[Footnote: _Declaration faite par Moyse Hillaret, charpentier de barque,
+MS._] 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 Crevecoeur in his absence.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV.
+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.
+
+
+The winter had been a severe one. When La Salle and his five companions
+reached Peoria Lake, they found it sheeted from shore to shore with ice
+that stopped the progress of their canoes, but was too thin to bear the
+weight of a man.
+
+They dragged their light vessels up the bank and into the forest, where
+the city of Peoria now stands; made two rude sledges, placed the canoes
+and baggage upon them, and, toiling knee-deep in saturated snow, dragged
+them four leagues through the woods, till they reached a point where the
+motion of the current kept the water partially open. They were now on the
+river above the lake. Masses of drift ice, wedged together, but full of
+crevices and holes, soon barred the way again; and, carrying their canoes
+ashore, they dragged them two leagues over a frozen marsh. Rain fell in
+floods; and, when night came, they crouched for shelter 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. [Footnote: Membre 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 Crevecoeur.]
+
+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 moccasons. 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. [Footnote: The same whom Hennepin calls Chassagouasse. He was
+brother of the chief, Nicanope, who, in his absence, had feasted the
+French on the day after the nocturnal council with Monso. Chassagoac was
+afterwards baptized by Membre 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 Clercq, ii. 181.] 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 Crevecoeur.
+
+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. [Footnote: Tonty, _Memoire_, MS. The order was sent by
+two Frenchmen whom La Salle met on Lake Michigan.]
+
+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. Each, besides his gun, carried a knife and
+a hatchet at his belt, a blanket strapped at his back, and a piece of
+dressed hide to make or mend his moccasons. A store of powder and lead,
+and a kettle, completed the outfit of the party. [Footnote: Hennepin
+(1683), 173.]
+
+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 Michillimackinac, in
+search of the "Griffin." [Footnote: _Declaration de Moyse Hillaret_, MS.
+_Relation des Decouvertes_, MS.] 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 Crevecoeur;
+while he pushed onward with his party through the unknown wild of Southern
+Michigan.
+
+They were detained till noon of the twenty-fifth, in making a raft to
+cross the St. Joseph. Then they resumed their march; and as they forced
+their way through the brambly thickets, their clothes were torn, and their
+faces so covered with blood, that, says the journal, they could hardly
+know each other. Game was very scarce, and they grew faint with hunger. In
+two or three days they reached a happier region. They shot deer, bears,
+and turkeys in the forest, and fared sumptuously. But the reports of their
+guns fell on hostile ears. This was a debatable ground, infested with war-
+parties of several adverse tribes, and none could venture here without
+risk of life. On the evening of the twenty-eighth, as they lay around
+their fire under the shelter of a forest by the border of a prairie, the
+man on guard shouted an alarm. They sprang to their feet; and each, gun in
+hand, took his stand behind a tree, while yells and howlings filled the
+surrounding darkness. A band of Indians were upon them; but, seeing them
+prepared, the cowardly assailants did not wait to exchange a shot.
+
+They crossed great meadows, overgrown with rank grass, and set it on fire
+to hide the traces of their passage. La Salle bethought him of a device to
+keep their skulking foes at a distance. On the trunks of trees from which
+he had stripped the bark, he drew with charcoal the marks of an Iroquois
+war-party, with the usual signs for prisoners, and for scalps, hoping to
+delude his pursuers with the belief that he and his men were a band of
+these dreaded warriors.
+
+Thus, over snowy prairies and half-frozen marshes; wading sometimes to
+their waists in mud, water, and bulrushes, they urged their way through
+the spongy, saturated wilderness. During three successive days they were
+aware that a party of savages was dogging their tracks. They dared, not
+make a fire at night, lest the light should betray them; but, hanging
+their wet clothes on the trees, they rolled themselves in their blankets,
+and slept together among piles of spruce and pine boughs. But the night of
+the second of April was excessively cold. Their clothes were hard frozen,
+and they were forced to kindle a fire to thaw and dry them. Scarcely had
+the light begun to glimmer through the gloom of evening, than it was
+greeted from the distance by mingled yells; and a troop of Mascoutin
+warriors rushed towards them. They were stopped by a deep stream, a
+hundred paces from the bivouac of the French, and La Salle went forward to
+meet them. No sooner did they see him, and learn that he was a Frenchman,
+than they cried that they were friends and brothers, who had mistaken him
+and his men for Iroquois; and, abandoning their hostile purpose, they
+peacefully withdrew. Thus his device to avert danger had well-nigh proved
+the destruction of the whole party.
+
+Two days after this adventure, two of the men fell ill from fatigue, and
+exposure, and sustained themselves with difficulty till they reached the
+banks of a river, 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.
+
+La Salle directed two of the men to make a canoe, and go to
+Michillimackinac, 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 Pelee. 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. [Footnote: 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.]
+
+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. [Footnote: Zenobe
+Membre in Le Clercq, ii. 202.] 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. 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 Crevecoeur, 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 _habitans_ 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 Michillimackinac and Niagara, they
+now numbered twenty men. [Footnote: 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 Decouvertes_, MS. 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.] They had destroyed the fort on the St. Joseph, seized a
+quantity of furs belonging to La Salle at Michillimackinac, 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.
+
+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 Quinte, 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. [Footnote: The story of La Salle's journey from Fort
+Crevecoeur to Fort Frontenac, with his subsequent encounter with the
+mutineers, is given in great detail in the unpublished _Relation des
+Decouvertes_. This and other portions of it are compiled, with little
+abridgment, from the letters of La Salle himself, some of which are still
+in existence. They give the particulars of each day with a cool and
+business-like simplicity, recounting facts without comment or the
+slightest attempt at rhetorical embellishment. This is the authority for
+the details of the journey: the general statement is confirmed by Membre,
+Hennepin, and Tonty. The _Memoire_ of Tonty, though too concise, is
+excellent authority, and must by no means be confounded with the _Relation
+de la Louisiane_, to which his name is falsely affixed.]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI.
+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.
+
+
+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 toils 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 veiled 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,
+indeed, 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. [Footnote: _Robert Cavelier, Sr. de
+la Salle, a Francois Daupin, Sr. de la Forest,_ 10 _Juin, 1679,_ MS.] A
+surgeon, ship-carpenters, joiners, masons, soldiers, _voyageurs_, and
+laborers completed his company, twenty-five men in all, with every thing
+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
+Michillimackinac. 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, [Footnote: This date is from the _Relation_. Membre 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,--an
+impossibility.] 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. For some time past, rumors had
+been abroad that the Iroquois were preparing to invade the country of the
+Illinois, bent on expelling or destroying them. 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.
+
+When last he had passed here, all was solitude; but how 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; their horns
+splintered and their grim front scarred with battles, while their shaggy
+mane, like a gigantic lion, well-nigh swept the ground. [Footnote: I have
+a very vivid recollection of the appearance of an old buffalo bull under
+such circumstances. When I was within a hundred yards of him, he came
+towards me at a sharp trot as if to make a charge; but, as I remained
+motionless, he stopped thirty paces off and stared fixedly for a long
+time. At length, he slowly turned, and, in doing so, received a shot
+behind the shoulder, which killed him. It is useless to fire at the
+forehead of a buffalo bull, at least with an ordinary rifle, as the bullet
+flattens against his skull. A shot at close quarters, just above the nose,
+would probably turn him in a charge. The usual modes of hunting buffalo on
+foot are those mentioned above. They are commonly successful; but at times
+the animals are excessively shy and wary, while at other times they are
+stupid beyond measure, and can be easily approached and killed. The hunter
+must remain perfectly motionless after firing, as the wounded animal is
+apt to make a rush at him if he moves. The most agreeable mode of hunting
+buffalo is, however, on horseback, running alongside of them, and shooting
+them behind the shoulder with a pistol or a short gun. A bow and arrow are
+better for those who know how to use them; but white men very rarely have
+the skill. I have seen, on different occasions, several hundred buffalo
+killed with arrows, by Indians on horseback. This noble game, with the
+tribes who live on it, will soon disappear from the earth.] 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 bounteous 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.
+
+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. [Footnote: "Il ne
+restoit que quelques bouts de perches brulees qui montroient quelle avoit
+ete l'etendue du village, et sur la plupart desquelles il y avait des
+tetes de morts plantees et mangoes des corbeaux."--_Relation des
+Decouvertes du Sr. de la Salle_, MS.] 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. [Footnote:
+"Beaucoup de carcasses a demi rongees par les loups, les sepulchres
+demolis, les os tires de leurs fosses et epars par la campagne; ... enfin
+les loups et les corbeaux augmentoient par leurs hurlemens et par leurs
+cris l'horreur de ce spectacle."--_Ibid_.
+
+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.]
+
+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 storehouses 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, but none whatever of the presence of white
+men. 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, crouched around their camp-
+fire, La Salle and his companions kept their vigil. The howlings of the
+wolves filled the frosty air with a fierce and dreary dissonance. More
+deadly foes were not far off, for before nightfall they had seen fresh
+Indian tracks. The cold, however, forced them to make a fire; and while
+some tried to rest around it, the others stood on the watch. La Salle
+could not sleep. Anxiety, anguish, fears for his friend, doubts as to what
+course he should pursue, racked his firm mind with a painful indecision,
+and lent redoubled gloom to the terrors that encompassed him. [Footnote:
+_Relation des Decouvertes_, MS.]
+
+During the afternoon, he had made a discovery which offered, as he
+thought, a possible clew to the fate of Tonty, and those with him. In one
+of the Illinois cornfields, near the river, were planted six posts painted
+red, on each of which was drawn in black a figure of a man with eyes
+bandaged. La Salle supposed them to represent six Frenchmen, prisoners in
+the hands of the Iroquois; and he resolved to push forward at all hazards,
+in the hope of learning more. When daylight at length returned, he told
+his followers that it was his purpose to descend the river, 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.
+
+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
+Crevecoeur, 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_ 19--
+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. [Footnote: "On ne
+scauroit exprimer la rage de ces furieux ni les tourmens qu'ils avoient
+fait souffrir aux miserables Tamaroa (_a tribe of the Illinois_). Il y en
+avoit encore dans des chaudieres qu'ils avoient laissees pleines sur les
+feux, qui depuis s'etoient eteints," etc., etc.--_Relation des
+Decouvertes_, MS.] 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. [Footnote: The distance is about two hundred and fifty miles.
+The _Relation des Decouvertes_ says 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. Very probably, there is an error of
+date. In other particulars, this narrative is sustained by those of
+Tonty.]
+
+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. [Footnote: 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.]
+
+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 profusion, till the earth was deeply buried. So light and dry
+was it, that to walk on snow-shoes was impossible; and La Salle, after his
+custom, took the lead, to break the path and cheer on his followers.
+Despite his tall stature, he often waded through drifts to the waist,
+while the men toiled on behind; the snow, shaken from the burdened twigs,
+showering them as they passed. After excessive fatigue, 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 Crevecoeur.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII.
+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 Crevecoeur,--smiths, ship-carpenters,
+housewrights, and soldiers, besides his servant l'Esperance and the two
+friars Membre 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 at 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 firebrand 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.
+
+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_." [Footnote: For the
+particulars of this desertion, Membre, in Le Clerc, ii. 171, _Relation des
+Decouvertes_, MS.; Tonty, _Memoire_, MS.; _Declaration faite par devant le
+Sr. Duchesneau, Intendant en Canada, par Moyse Hillaret, charpentier de
+barque cy-devant au service du Sr. de la Salle_, 17 _Aoust_, 1680, MS.
+
+Moyse Hillaret, the "Maitre Moyse" of Hennepin, was a ringleader 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, Membre, and the
+_Relation des Decouvertes_. 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.] The brave young Sieur de Boisrondet and the servant l'Esperance
+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.
+[Footnote: Two of the messengers, Laurent and Messier, arrived safely. The
+others seem to have deserted.] Besides the two just named, there now
+remained with him only three hired men and the Recollet 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
+Membre, 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.
+
+I have recounted the ferocious triumphs of the Iroquois in another volume.
+[Footnote: "The Jesuits in America."] Throughout a wide semicircle around
+their cantons they had made the forest a solitude,--destroyed the Hurons,
+exterminated the Neutrals and the Eries, reduced the formidable Andastes
+to a 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. [Footnote:
+Duchesneau, in _Paris Docs_., ix. 163.] These crafty savages would fain
+reduce all these regions to subjection, and draw from 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. [Footnote:
+There had long been a rankling jealousy between the Miamis and the
+Illinois. According to Membre, 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.]
+
+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. [Footnote: The above is from
+notes made on the spot. The following is La Salle's description of the
+locality in the _Relation des Decouvertes_, written in 1681: "La rive
+gauche de la riviere, du cote du sud, est occupee par un long rocher, fort
+etroit et escarpe presque partout, a la reserve d'un endroit de plus d'une
+lieue de longueur, situe vis-a-vis du village, ou le terrain, tout couvert
+de beaux chenes, s'etend par une pente douce jusqu'au bord de la riviere.
+Au dela de cette hauteur est une vaste plaine, qui s'etend bien loin du
+cote du sud, et qui est traversee par la riviere Aramoni, dont les bords
+sont couverts d'une lisiere 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. Starved Rock, or the Rock of St. Louis, is the highest and
+steepest escarpment of the _long rocher_ above mentioned.] 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 space and breathing room, for many are in the fields. A squaw
+sits weaving a mat of rushes; a warrior, naked, except his moccasons, 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. [Footnote: The Illinois were an aggregation of
+distinct though kindred tribes, the Kaskaskias, the Peorias, the Cahokias,
+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.]
+
+This, or something like it, one may safely affirm, was the aspect of the
+Illinois village at noon of the tenth of September. [Footnote: This is
+Membre's date. The narratives differ as to the day, though all agree as to
+the month.] 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, and
+the two faithful men who had stood by their commander. The friars, Membre
+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.
+
+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,
+[Footnote: The _Relation des Decouvertes_ says, five hundred Iroquois and
+one hundred Shawanoes. Membre 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.] 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 firearms 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 Membre
+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.
+
+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 was 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. [Footnote: Membre says that he went with Tonty,
+"J'etois aussi a cote du Sieur de Tonty." This is an invention of the
+friar's vanity. "Les deux peres Recollets etoient alors dans une cabane a
+une lieue du village, ou ils s'etoient retires pour faire une espece de
+retraite, et ils ne furent avertis de l'arrivee des Iroquois que dans le
+temps du combat."--_Relation des Decouvertes,_, MS. "Je rencontrai en
+chemin les peres Gabriel et Zenobe Membre, qui cherchoient de mes
+nonvelles."--Tonty _Memoire_, MS. This was on his return from the
+Iroquois. The _Relation_ confirms the statement, as far as concerns
+Membre: "Il rencontra le Pere Zenobe (Membre), qui venoit pour le
+secourir, aiant ete averti du combat et de sa blessure."
+
+The perverted _Dernieres Decouvertes_, published without authority, under
+Tonty's name, says that he was attended by a slave whom the Illinois sent
+with him as interpreter. Though this is not mentioned in the three
+authentic narratives, it is more than probable, as Tonty could not have
+known Iroquois enough to make himself understood.] 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. [Footnote: 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.] 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. [Footnote: "Je leur fis connoistre que les Islinois etoient sous la
+protection du roy de France et du gouverneur du pays, que j'estois surpris
+qu'ils voulussent rompre avec les Francois et qu'ils voulussent _attendre_
+(sic) a une paix."--Tonty, _Menoire_, MS.]
+
+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 breezed up 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. Several times, he felt a hand at the back of his
+head, lifting up his hair, and, turning, saw a savage with a knife,
+standing as if ready to scalp him. [Footnote: "Il en avoit un derriere moi
+qui tenoit un couteau dans sa main, et qui de temps en temps me levoit les
+cheveux."--Tonty, _Memoire_, MS. The _Dernieres Decouvertes_ adds, "Je me
+retournai vers lui et je vis bien a sa contenance et a sa mine que son
+dessein etoit de m'enlever la chevelure ... je le priai de vouloir du
+moins se donner un peu de patience, et d'attendre que ses Maitres eussent
+decide de mon sort."] A Seneca chief demanded that he should be burned. 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 Membre, 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 Membre, 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.
+
+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 Membre to a council. Six packs
+of beaver skin 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 Membre, 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. [Footnote: 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 etoit beau," that is, that the weather was
+favorable for travelling,--is curiously misconceived by the editor of the
+_Dernieres Decouvertes_, who improves upon his original by substituting
+the words "par le cinquieme paquet _ils nous exhortoient a adorer le
+Soleil_."] 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 skin, 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.
+
+Tonty, with an 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 farther 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 Membre, 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 around 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. [Footnote: Tonty,
+_Memoire_, MS. Membre in Le Clercq, 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 Membre's account.]
+
+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. [Footnote: "Cependant les Iroquois, aussitot apres le
+depart du Sr. de Tonty, exercerent leur rage sur les corps morts des
+Ilinois, qu'ils deterrerent ou abbatterent de dessus les echafauds ou les
+Ilinois les laissent longtemps exposes avant que de les mettre en terre.
+Ils en brulerent la plus grande partie, ils en mangerent meme quelques
+uns, et jetterent le reste aux chiens. Ils planterent les tetes de ces
+cadavres a demi decharnes sur des pieux," etc.--_Relation des
+Decouvertes_, MS.] 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. [Footnote: _Relation des Decouvertes_, MS.
+Frontenac to the King, N.Y. _Col. Docs_., ix. 147. A memoir of Duchesneau
+makes the number twelve hundred.] Then followed that scene of torture, of
+which, some two weeks later, La Salle saw the revolting traces. [Footnote:
+"Ils [les Illinois] trouverent dans leur campement des carcasses de leurs
+enfans que ces anthropophages avoient mangez, ne voulant meme d'autre
+nourriture que la chair de ces infortunez."--La Potherie, ii. 145, 146.
+Compare _note_, _ante_, p. 196.] 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 firebrand; 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 Michillimackinac, 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
+they had much ado 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. It was the end of November before they found the
+Pottawattamies, and were warmly greeted by their chief, who had befriended
+La Salle the year before, and who, in his enthusiasm for the French, was
+wont to say that he knew but three great captains in the world, Frontenac,
+La Salle, and himself. [Footnote: Membre, in Le Clercq, ii. 199. Of the
+three, or rather four narratives, on which this chapter mainly rests, the
+best is that contained in the manuscript of 1681, entitled the _Relation
+des Decouvertes_. This portion of it, which bears every evidence of
+accuracy, was certainly supplied by Tonty himself or one of his
+companions. The _Memoire_ of Tonty is wholly distinct. It is a modest and
+simple statement, of which the chief fault is its brevity. He undoubtedly
+wrote another and more detailed narrative, which has been used by the
+editor of the _Dernieres Decouvertes_, printed with Tonty's name. The
+editor seems to have taken less liberties with his original in this part
+of the book than in many others. The narrative of Membre sustains that of
+Tonty, except in one or two unimportant points, where the writer's vanity
+seems to have gained the better of his veracity.]
+
+While Tonty rests at Green Bay, and La Salle at the fort on the St.
+Joseph, we will leave them for a time to trace the strange adventures of
+the errant friar, Father Louis Hennepin.
+
+
+
+
+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 farm-house; 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 farm-house 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.
+205, _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.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII.
+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 Crevecoeur 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, [Footnote: _Description de la Louisiane,
+nouvellement decouverte, Paris_, 1683.] Fourteen years after, when La
+Salle was dead, he published another edition of his travels, [Footnote:
+_Nouvelle Decouverte d'un tres grand Pays situe dans l'Amerique, Utrecht_,
+1697] 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 has 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.
+
+"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 every thing 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."
+[Footnote: _Nouvelle Decouverte_, 248, 250, 251.]
+
+He then proceeds to recount, at length, the particulars of his alleged
+exploration. The story was distrusted from the first. [Footnote: 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.] 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." [Footnote: _Description de la Louisiane_, 218.]
+
+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. [Footnote: 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.] 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 farther, 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. [Footnote: 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.]
+
+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
+Chretien Le Clercq, published an account of the Recollet missions among
+the Indians, under the title of "Etablissement de la Foi." This book was
+suppressed by the French government; but a few copies fortunately
+survived. One of these is now before me. It contains the journal of Father
+Zenobe Membre, 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. [Footnote: Hennepin may have copied from the unpublished journal
+of Membre, which the latter had placed in the hands of his superior, or he
+may have compiled from Le Clercq'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 Membre 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 Decouverte_ with the corresponding pages of Le Clercq:
+Hennepin, 252, Le Clercq, 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. 283; 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 Clercq are not confined to the passages cited above; for, in his
+later editions, he stole largely from other parts of the suppressed
+_Etablissement de la Foi_.]
+
+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 allusions of Tonty, and other contemporary
+writers. [Footnote: 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 Decouvertes_, 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.] For the details of the journey,
+we must look on Hennepin alone; whose account of the company and of the
+peculiar traits of its Indian occupation 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 north-western
+region. [Footnote: 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"--_Ouackanche_. _Wakanshe_, or _Wakansheclia_,
+would express the same meaning in modern English spelling. He says
+elsewhere that they called the guns of his companions _Manzaouackanche_,
+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.
+
+A variety of 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.] Trusting, then, to his
+guidance in the absence of better, let us follow in the wake of his
+adventurous canoe.
+
+It was laden deeply; with goods belonging to La Salle, and meant by
+handing presents to Indians on the way, though the travelers, it appears,
+proposed to use them in trading of 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 [Footnote:
+Called Ako by Hennepin. In contemporary documents it is written Accau,
+Acau, D'Accau Dacau, Dacan, and d'Accault.] 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 St. 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, not without reason, prayed that it might be his
+fortune to meet them, not by night, but by day.
+
+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. [Footnote: 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.] 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.
+
+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 1863, 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, [Footnote: 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.] 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 peacepipe, 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. [Footnote: 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.]
+
+One night, they 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; and, the banquet over, 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 moccasons; 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 averse 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.
+
+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 be 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.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX.
+1680, 1681.
+HENNEPIN AMONG THE SIOUX.
+
+SIGNS OP 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 St. 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. [Footnote: 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 R. 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 Titonwan 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. Mr. Riggs, in 1852, placed it at about twenty-five
+thousand. Lake many other Indian tribes, they seem practically incapable
+of civilization.]
+
+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 relations 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.
+
+Seeing their new relative so enfeebled that he could scarcely stand, the
+Indians made for him one of their sweating baths, [Footnote: 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.] 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 St. 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 Ouasicoude, 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 several 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. 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
+deerskin 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, who 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.
+
+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 Ouasicoude, 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 St. Anthony of
+Padua. [Footnote: 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.] As they were carrying their canoe by the
+cataract, they saw five or six Indians, who had gone before, 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. [Footnote: 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 every thing he had about him into the cataract
+as an offering to this deity.] 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, [Footnote: In the edition of 1683. In that of 1697 he has grown
+to seven or eight feet. The bank-swallows still make their nests in these
+cliffs, boring easily into the soft incohesive sandstone.] 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.
+
+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
+fish-hooks, 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. [Footnote: 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.] 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.
+
+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
+blossoming 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; [Footnote: 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_.] 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 strange, 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.
+
+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 admirable address, and used it vigorously, as
+occasion required, to repress the gambols of three children, who, to
+Hennepin's great 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 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.
+
+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. [Footnote: 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, an example, which, if
+followed, would ruin the colony by diverting the sources of its support to
+its rival. Du Lhut built a trading fort on Lake Superior, called
+Cananistigoyan (La Houtan), 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'etait un tres-honnete homme." Other
+contemporaries speak to the same effect. "Mr. Dulhut, Gentilhomme
+Lionnois, qui a beaucoup de merite et de capacite."--La Hontan, i. 103
+(1703). "Le Sieur du Lut, homme d'esprit et d'experience."--Le Clercq, 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 Marquiette, 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 este chez les Sioux en
+1678, et a este proche la source du Mississippi, et ensuite vint retirer
+le P. Louis (_Hennepin_) qui avoit este fait prisonnier chez les Sioux."
+Du Lhut here appears as the deliverer of Hennepin.]
+
+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. [Footnote: Abstracts of letters in
+_Memoir on the French Dominion in Canada, N. Y. Col. Docs_., ix. 781.] 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 a 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 Ouasicoude, 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 it behooved him to conduct
+himself. 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.
+
+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. [Footnote: On the other hand, he sets down on his map of
+1683 a mission of the Recollets at a point north of the farthest sources
+of the Mississippi, to which no white man had ever penetrated.] He is
+equally reticent with regard to the Jesuit mission at Michillimackinac,
+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. [Footnote: 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 lie all that a Christian ought to be"
+(1697), 433.] 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 Genessee, 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 Recollet 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." [Footnote: (1697), 471.] 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.
+
+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.
+[Footnote: 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.
+
+The following is from a letter of La Salle, dated at Fort Frontenac, 22
+Aug. 1681. This, with one or two other passages of his letters, shows that
+he understood the friar's character, though he could scarcely have
+foreseen his scandalous attempts to defame him and rob him of his just
+honors. "J'ai cru qu'il etoit a propos de vous faire le narre des
+aventures de ce canot (du Picard et d'Accau) parce que je ne doute pas
+qu'on n'en parle; et si vous souhaitez en conferer avec le P. Louis Hempin
+(sic) Recollect qui est repasse en France, il faut un peu le connaitre,
+car il ne manquera pas d'exagerer toutes choses, c'est son caractere, et a
+moy mesme il m'a ecrit comme s'il eust este tout pres d'estre brule,
+quoiqu'il n'en ait pas este seulement en danger; mais il croit qu'il lui
+est honorable de le faire de la sorte, et _il parle plus conformement a ce
+qu'il veut qu'a ce qu'il fait_." I am indebted for the above to M. Margry.
+
+In 1699, Hennepin 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.]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX.
+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 rear the fabric of a
+triumphant 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. The scheme was but a new
+feature, the result of new circumstances, added to the original plan of
+his great enterprise; and he addressed himself to its execution with his
+usual vigor, and with an address which never failed him in his dealings
+with Indians.
+
+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
+for 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 entrenched
+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 nineteen 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. [Footnote: _Relation des Decouvertes_, MS. A
+valuable confirmation of Hennepin's narrative.]
+
+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. [Footnote: This seems to have been taken
+from the secret repositories, or _caches_, of the ruined town of the
+Illinois.] Meanwhile, he had rejoined La Forest, whom he now sent to
+Michillimackinac 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 a band of 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.
+
+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." [Footnote: "En ce genre, il etoit le
+plus grand orateur de l'Amerique Septentrionale."--_Relation des
+Decouvertes_, MS.] 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 farther 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."
+[Footnote: Translated from the _Relation_, where these councils are
+reported at great length.]
+
+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; the ground
+was broken, and the seed sown. 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 successes were
+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 Michillimackinac after a prosperous voyage. Here,
+to his great joy, he found Tonty and Zenobe Membre, 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. Membre 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." [Footnote: Membre, in Le Clercq, ii. 208. Tonty, in his
+unpublished memoir, 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.]
+
+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 disastrous 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, [Footnote: _Copie du testament du deffunt
+Sr. de la Salle, 11 Aout_, 1681, MS. The relative was Francois Plet, M.D.,
+of Paris.] 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. [Footnote: "On apprendra a la fin de cette
+annee, 1682, le sucees de la decouverte qu'il etoit resolu d'achever, au
+plus tard le printemps dernier, ou de perir en y travaillant. Tant de
+traverses et de malheurs toujours arrives en son absence l'ont fait
+resoudre a ne se fier plus a personne et a conduire lui-meme tout son
+monde, tout son equipage, et toute son entreprise, de laquelle il esperoit
+une heureuse conclusion."
+
+The above is a part of the closing paragraph of the _Relation des
+Descouvertes_, so often cited, and of the excellent guidance of which we
+are henceforth deprived. It is a compilation made up from material
+supplied by the various members of La Salle's party, on their return to
+Canada, in 1681; and the greater portion is substantially the work of La
+Salle himself. It is a document of great interest and undoubted
+authority.]
+
+The summer was spent when 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.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI.
+1681-1682.
+SUCCESS OF LA SALLE.
+
+HIS FOLLOWERS.--THE CHICAGO PORTAGE.--DESCENT OP 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, "all well inured to
+war," as his companion Membre writes, and added them to the twenty-three
+Frenchmen who composed his party. They insisted on taking their women with
+them, to cook for them, and do other camp work. 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 twenty-first of December, Tonty and Membre set out from Fort Miami
+with some of the party in six canoes, and crossed to the little river
+Chicago. [Footnote: La Salle, _Relation de la Decouverte_, 1682, in
+Thomassy, _Geologie Pratique de la Louisiane_, 9; _Lettre du Pere Zenoble_
+(Zenobe Membre), 14 Aoust, 1682, MS.; Membre, in Le Clercq, ii. 214;
+Tonty, _Memoire_, MS.; _Proces Verbal de la Prise de Possession de la
+Louisiane_.
+
+The narrative ascribed to Membre, and published by Le Clercq, is based on
+the document preserved in the Archives Scientifiques de In Marine,
+entitled _Relation de la Decouverte de l'Embouchure de la Riviere
+Mississippi faite par le Sieur de la Salle, l'annee passee_, 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 Decouverte_,
+though written in the third person, is the official report of the
+discovery made by La Salle; or perhaps for him, by Membre. Membre's letter
+of August, 1682, is a brief and succinct statement made immediately after
+his return.] 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.
+
+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 forth on 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; [Footnote: Called by Membre the Ouabache (Wabash).] and, gliding by
+the wastes of bordering swamp, landed, on the twenty-fourth of February,
+near the Third Chickasaw Bluffs. [Footnote: La Salle, _Relation de la
+Decouverte de I'Embouchure, etc._; Thomassy, 10 Membre gives the same
+date; but the _Proces Verbal_ makes it the twenty-sixth.] 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 [Footnote: 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, entrenched
+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."] 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 in to 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 [Footnote: La Salle,
+_Relation_; Thomassy, 11.] 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.
+
+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 inhabitants flocked about them with eager signs of welcome;
+built huts for them, brought them firewood, gave them corn, beans, and
+dried fruits, and feasted them without respite for three days. "They are a
+lively, civil, generous people," says Membre, "very different from the
+cold and taciturn Indians of the North." They showed, indeed, some slight
+traces of a tendency towards civilization; for domestic fowls and tame
+geese were wandering among their rude cabins of bark. [Footnote: Membre,
+in Le Clercq, ii. 224; Tonty, _Memoire_, MS.]
+
+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. Membre, in canonicals, sang a hymn; the men shouted _Vice le Roi_;
+and La Salle, in the king's name, took formal possession of the country.
+[Footnote: _Proces Verbal de la Prise de Possession du Pays des Arkansas,
+14 Mars_, 1682, MS.] 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 acknowledgment of
+fealty to Louis XIV. [Footnote: 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.]
+
+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. [Footnote: 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. Membre is much astonished that such monsters
+should be born of eggs, like chickens.] Here, as their two guides told
+them, was the path to the great town of the Taensas. Tonty and Membre 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 mulberrybark, 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. [Footnote: Tonty, _Memoire_, MS. In the spurious narrative
+published in Tonty's name, the account is embellished and exaggerated.
+Compare Membre, in Le Clercq, ii. 227. La Salle's statements in the
+Relation of 1682 (Thomassy, 12) sustain those of Tonty.] 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 Membre 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.
+
+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 Membre 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 Membre, "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." [Footnote: Membre, in Le Clercq, ii. 232.]
+
+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. [Footnote: 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 "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, 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.]
+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.
+
+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, [Footnote: In St. Charles County,
+on the left bank, not far above New Orleans.] 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. [Footnote: 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.]
+
+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 D'Autray 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, REGNE; LE NEUVIEME AVRIL,
+1682.
+
+The Frenchmen were mustered under arms; and, while the New-England Indians
+and their squaws stood gazing 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,--
+
+"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 therein, from
+its source beyond the country of the Nadouessious ... 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." [Footnote: 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, Natches, 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 _Proces Verbal de la Prise de Possession de la
+Louisiana_, it would be set at rest by Le Clercq, who says, "Le Sieur de
+la Salle prit au nom de sa Majeste possession de ce fleuve, _de toutes les
+rivieres 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 of the _Proces Verbal_ is before me. It bears the name of
+Jacques de la Metairie, Notary of Fort Frontenac, who was one of the
+party.]
+
+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 savannahs 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.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII.
+1682-1683.
+ST. LOUIS OF THE ILLINOIS.
+
+LOUISIANA.--ILLNESS OF LA SALLE.--HIS COLONY ON THE ILLINOIS.--
+TOUT ST. LOUIS.--RECALL OF FRONTENAC.--LE FEVRE 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. [Footnote: The boundaries are laid
+down on the great map of Franquelin, made in 1684, and preserved in the
+Depot 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 north-west, 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, north-west, and finally north along the range of the Rocky
+Mountains.]
+
+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. They next revisited
+the Natchez, 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. [Footnote: Tonty, _Memoire_, MS.]
+
+And now, in a career of unwonted success and anticipated triumph, La Salle
+was sharply 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 Michillimackinac,
+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 Membre attended him; and, at the end of July, he
+was once more in a condition to advance by slow movements towards the
+Miami, which he reached in about a month.
+
+His descent of the Mississippi had been successful as an exploration, and
+this was all. Could he have executed his original plan, have built a
+vessel on the Illinois and descended in her to the Gulf of Mexico, he
+would have been able to defray in some measure the costs of the
+enterprise, by means of a cargo of buffalo hides collected from Indians on
+the way, with which he would have sailed to the West Indies, or perhaps to
+France. With a fleet of canoes, this was of course impossible; and there
+was nothing to offset the enormous outlay which he and his family had
+made. He proposed, as we have seen, to found, on the banks of the
+Illinois, a colony of French and Indians, of which he should be the feudal
+lord, and which should answer the double purpose of a bulwark against the
+Iroquois and a depot for the furs of all the Western tribes; and he hoped,
+in the following spring, to secure an outlet for this colony, and for all
+the trade of the Mississippi and its tributaries, by occupying its mouth
+with a fort and a dependent colony. [Footnote: "Monsieur de la Salle se
+dispose de retourner sur ses pas a la mer au printemps prochain avec un
+plus grand nombre de gens, et des familles, pour y faire des
+etablissemens." Membre, in Le Clercq, ii. 248. This was written in 1682,
+immediately after the return from the mouth of the Mississippi.] Thus he
+would control the valley of the great river of the West.
+
+He rejoined Tonty at Michillimaekinac in September. It was his purpose to
+go at once to France to provide means for establishing his projected post
+at the mouth of the Mississippi; and he ordered Tonty, meanwhile, to
+collect as many men as possible, return to the Illinois, build a fort, and
+lay the foundations of the colony, the plan of which had been determined
+the year before. La Salle was about to depart for Quebec, when news
+reached him that changed his plans, and caused him to postpone his voyage
+to France. He heard that those pests of the wilderness, the Iroquois, were
+about to renew their attacks on the western tribes, and especially on
+their former allies, the Miamis. [Footnote: _Lettre de La Barre au
+Ministre_, 14 Nov. 1682, MS.] This would ruin his projected colony. His
+presence was indispensable. He followed Tonty to the Illinois, and
+rejoined him near the site of the great town.
+
+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 oil 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 rugged 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 entrench themselves. They
+cut away the forest that crowned the rock, built storehouses and dwellings
+of its remains, dragged timber up the rugged pathway, and encircled the
+summit with a palisade. [Footnote: "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 rock fortified
+by La Salle stood, we are told, at the edge of the water; while Buffalo
+Rock is at some distance from the bank. 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 explains the Indian remains found here. He 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_, MS. 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_, p. 221.]
+
+Thus the winter was 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 around 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 aegis 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. [Footnote: 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 1,800; the Shawanoes, at 200; the
+Ouiatenons (Weas), at 500; the Peanqhichia (Piankishaw) band, at 150; the
+Pepikokia, at 160; the Kilatica, at 800; 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 Rook,
+and the Illinois village at the place where, as already mentioned, (see p.
+221), 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 Colonel 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
+Musee 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.] 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 entrepot 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 Fevre de la Barre
+reigned in his stead. [Footnote: La Barre had formerly held civil offices.
+He had been Maitre de Requetes, and afterwards Intendant of the
+Bourbonnais. He had gained no little reputation in the West Indies, as
+governor and lieutenant-general of Cayenne, which he recovered from the
+English, who had seized it, and whom he soon after defeated in a naval
+fight. Sixteen years had elapsed since these exploits, and meanwhile he
+had grown old.]
+
+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. Frontenac's absence was not
+to be permanent: dark days were in store for Canada. In her hour of need,
+she was to hail with delight the return of the haughty nobleman; and all
+his faults were to be forgotten in the splendor of his services to the
+colony and the crown. La Barre showed a weakness and an avarice for which
+his advanced 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.
+[Footnote: The royal instructions to La Barre, on his assuming the
+government, dated at Versailles, 10 May, 1682, require him to give no
+farther 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.]
+
+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; 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-south-west 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." [Footnote: _Lettre de la Salle a La Barre, Fort St.
+Louis, 2 Avril_, 1683, MS. The above is somewhat condensed from passages
+in the original.]
+
+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 night, and so prevent the Missouries 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
+Michillimackinac, 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." [Footnote: _Lettre de la Salle, a La
+Barre, Portage de Chicagou_, 4 _Juin_, 1683, MS. Portions of the above
+extracts are condensed in the rendering. A long 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.]
+
+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." [Footnote: _Lettre de La Barre au
+Ministre_, 14 _Nov_. 1682, MS.] 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. [Footnote: _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.]
+
+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. He is
+trying to build up an imaginary kingdom for himself by debauching all the
+bankrupts and idlers of this country." [Footnote: _N.Y. Col Docs_., ix.
+204. The letter is dated 4 Nov. 1683.] 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
+dimmish the revenue from beaver-skins." [Footnote: _Lettre du Roy a La
+Barre_, 5 _Aoust_, 1683, MS.]
+
+In order to understand the posture of affairs at this time, it must be
+remembered that Dongan, the English Governor of New York, was 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. [Footnote: _Memoire
+pour rendre compte a Monseigneur le Marquis de Seignelay de l'Etat ou le
+Sieur de Lasalle a laisse le Fort Frontenac pendant le temps de sa
+decouverte,_ MS. The Marquis de Denonville, La Barre's successor in the
+government, says, in his memoir of Aug. 10, 1688, that La Barre had told
+the Iroquois to plunder La Salle's canoes.
+
+La Barre's course at this time was extremely indirect and equivocal. The
+memoir to Seignelay, cited above, declares--and other documents sustain
+it--that he was playing into the hands of the English, by sending furs, on
+his own account and that of his associates, to Albany, where he could sell
+them at a high rate, and at the same time avoid the payment of duties to
+the French farmers of the revenue.
+
+The merchants, La Chesnaye, Le Ber, and Le Moyne, were at the head of the
+faction with which La Barre had identified himself; and their hatred of La
+Salle knew no bounds. If we are to believe La Potherie, he himself had
+formerly, in defence of his monopolies, told the Iroquois that they might
+plunder the canoes of traders who had not a pass from him. The adverse
+faction now retorted by adding the permission of murder to the permission
+of pillage. Margry thinks that La Chesnaye was the prompter of this
+villany.]
+
+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. [Footnote: 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.] 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. [Footnote: These are the
+statements of the memorial, addressed in La Salle's behalf, to the
+minister Seignelay.]
+
+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 spent the winter
+harmoniously; and, 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. [Footnote: Tonty, Menoire, MS.;
+Lettre de La Barre, au Ministre, 5 Juin, 1684; Ibid., 9 Juillet, 1684,
+MSS.]
+
+Meanwhile, La Salle had sailed for France, and thither we will follow him.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII.
+1684.
+A NEW ENTERPRISE.
+
+LA SALLE AT COURT.--HIS PROPOSALS.--OCCUPATION OF LOUISIANA.--INVASION
+OF MEXICO--ROYAL FAVOR.--PREPARATION.--THE NAVAL COMMANDER.--HIS
+JEALOUSY OF LA SALLE.--DISSENSIONS.
+
+
+From the wilds of the Illinois,--crag, forest, and prairie, squalid
+wigwams, and naked savages,--La Salle crossed the sea; and before him rose
+the sculptured wonders of Versailles, that world of gorgeous illusion and
+hollow splendor, where Louis the Magnificent held his court. Amid its pomp
+of weary ceremonial, its glittering masquerade of vice and folly, its
+carnival of vanity and pride, stood the man whose home for sixteen years
+had been the wilderness, his bed the earth, his roof the sky, and his
+companions a rude nature and ruder men. In all that throng of hereditary
+nobles, there was none of a prouder spirit than the son of the burgher of
+Rouen.
+
+He announced what he had achieved in words of energetic simplicity, more
+impressive than all the tinsel of rhetoric. [Footnote: Witness the
+following. He speaks of himself in the third person. "To acquit himself of
+the commission with which he was charged, he has neglected all his private
+affairs, because they were alien to his enterprise; he has omitted nothing
+that was needful to its success, notwithstanding dangerous illness, heavy
+losses, and all the other evils he has suffered, which would have overcome
+the courage of any one who had not the same zeal and devotion for the
+accomplishment of this purpose. During five years he has made five
+journeys, of more, in all, than five thousand leagues, for the most part
+on foot, with extreme fatigue, through snow and through water, without
+escort, without provisions, without bread, without wine, without
+recreation, and without repose. He has traversed more than six hundred
+leagues of country hitherto unknown, among savage and cannibal nations,
+against whom he must daily make fight, though accompanied only by thirty-
+six men, and consoled only by the hope of succeeding in an enterprise
+which he thought would be agreeable to his Majesty."
+
+See the original, as printed by Margry, _Journal General de I'Instruction
+Publique,_ xxxi. 699.] He had friends near the court,--Count Frontenac was
+one of them,--and he gained the ear of the colonial minister. There was a
+wonderful change in the views of the court towards him. The great Colbert
+had lately died, bequeathing to his son Seignelay, his successor in the
+control of the Marine and Colonies, some of his talents, and all of his
+harshness and violence. Seignelay entered with vigor into the schemes of
+La Salle, and commended them to the king, his master. The memorial, in
+which these schemes are set forth, is still preserved, as well as another
+memorial designed to prepare the way for it; and the following is the
+substance of them. The preliminary document states that the late
+Monseigneur Colbert was of opinion that it was 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 crowns. He now proposes to return by way of the
+Gulf of Mexico 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
+accomplish 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." [Footnote: _Memoire du Sr.
+de la Salle, pour rendre compte a Monseigneur de Seignelay de la
+decouverte qu'il a faite par l'ordre de sa Majeste_, MS.]
+
+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 land 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
+[Footnote: 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.] (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 on the same day 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 he
+armed, paid, and maintained at the king's charge, for a term not exceeding
+a year, after which they will form a self-sustaining colony. And if a
+treaty of peace should prevent us from carrying our conquest into present
+execution, we shall place ourselves in a favorable position for effecting
+it on the outbreak of the next war with Spain. [Footnote: _Memoire du Sr.
+de la Salle sur I'Entreprise qu'il a propose a Monseigneur le Marquis de
+Seignelay sur une des provinces de Mexique_, MS.]
+
+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. [Footnote: 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.] That La Salle believed in
+the possibility of invading the Spanish province of New Biscay from the
+Red River, there can he 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 he proposed his plan of conquest with the serious
+intention of attempting to execute it at the time and in the manner which
+he indicates. He was a bold schemer, but neither a madman nor a fool. The
+project, as set forth in his memorial, bears all the indications of being
+drawn up with the view of producing a certain effect on the minds of the
+king and the minister. Ignorant as they were of the nature of the country
+and the character of its inhabitants, they could see nothing impracticable
+in the plan of mustering and keeping together an army of fifteen thousand
+Indians. [Footnote: 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,
+MS. 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.]
+
+La Salle's immediate necessity was to obtain from the court the means for
+establishing a fort and a colony within the mouth of the Mississippi. This
+was essential to his own commercial 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 needed a more glittering lure to attract the eyes of Louis and
+Seignelay; and thus, it would appear, 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 it was in accordance with the wily and
+politic element from which the iron nature of La Salle was not free, but
+which was often defeated in its aims by other elements of his character.
+
+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. The glittering project which he now unfolded found favor in the
+eyes of the king and the 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, he 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."
+[Footnote:_Lettre du Roy a la Barre, Versailles, 10 Avril, 1684,_ MS.]
+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. [Footnote:_Lettre du Roy a De Mettles, Versailles, 14 Avril, 1684._
+Selgnelay wrote to De Meules to the same effect.] Armed with this letter,
+La Forest sailed for Canada. [Footnote: On La Forest's mission,--_Memoire
+pour representer a Monseigneur le Marquis de Seignelay la necessite
+d'envoyer le Sr. de la Forest en diligence a la Nouvelle France,_ MS.;
+_Lettre du Roy a la Barre, 14 Avril, 1684,_ MS.; _Ibid., 31 Oct. 1684,_
+MS.
+
+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 preference_," out of any property of
+his, La Salle's, in France or Canada.]
+
+La Salle had asked for two vessels, [Footnote: _Le Sieur de la Salle
+demande_, MS. This is the caption of the memorial, in which he states what
+is required; viz., a war vessel of thirty guns, pay and maintenance of two
+hundred men for a year at farthest, tools, munitions, cannon for the
+forts, a small vessel in pieces, the furniture of two chapels, a forge,
+with a supply of iron, weapons for his followers and allies, medicines,
+&c.] 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
+Recollets were added: Zenobe Membre, who was then in France; Anastase
+Douay, and Maxime Le Clercq. Including soldiers, sailors, and colonists of
+all classes, the number embarked was about two hundred and eighty. 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. In an evil hour, the naval command of the
+expedition was given to Beaujeu, a captain of the royal navy, who was
+subordinated to La Salle in every thing but the management of the vessels
+at sea. [Footnote: _Letter de Cachet a Mr. de la Salle, Versailles, 12
+Avril, 1684, signe, Louis_, MS.] He had his full share of the arrogant and
+scornful spirit which marked the naval service of Louis XIV., joined to
+the contempt for commerce which belonged to the _noblesse_ of France, but
+which did not always prevent them from dabbling in it when they could do
+so with secrecy and profit. He was unspeakably galled that a civilian
+should be placed over him, and he, too, a burgher recently ennobled. La
+Salle was far from being the man to soothe his ruffled spirit. Bent on his
+own designs, asking no counsel, and accepting none; detesting a divided
+authority, impatient of question, cold, reserved, and impenetrable,--he
+soon wrought his colleague to the highest pitch of exasperation. While the
+vessels still lay at Rochelle; while all was bustle and preparation; while
+stores, arms, and munitions were embarking; while faithless agents were
+gathering beggars and vagabonds from the streets to serve as soldiers and
+artisans,--Beaujeu was giving vent to his disgust in long letters to the
+minister.
+
+He complains that the vessels are provisioned only for six months, and
+that the voyage to the liver which La Salle claims to have discovered, and
+again back to France, cannot be made in that time. If La Salle had told
+him at the first what was to be done, he could have provided accordingly;
+but now it is too late. "He says," pursues the indignant commander, "that
+there are fourteen passengers, besides the Sieur Minet, [Footnote: One of
+the engineers of the expedition.] to sit at my table. I hope that a fund
+will be provided for them, and that I shall not be required to support
+them."
+
+"You have ordered me, Monseigneur," he continues, "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 any thing about it."
+[Footnote:_Lettre de Beaujau au Ministre, Rochelle_, 30 _Mai_, 1684, MS.]
+
+In another letter, he says: "He [La Salle] is so suspicious, and so
+fearful that somebody will penetrate his secrets, that I dare not ask him
+any thing." And, again, he complains of being placed in subordination to a
+man "who never commanded anybody but school-boys." [Footnote: "Qui n'a
+jamais commande qu'a des ecoliers."--_Lettre de Beaujeu au Ministre_, 21
+_Juin_, 1684, MS. It appears from Hennepin that La Salle was very
+sensitive to any allusion to a "_pedant_," or pedagogue.] "I pray," he
+continues, "that my orders may be distinct and explicit, that I may not be
+held answerable for what may happen in consequence of the Sieur de la
+Salle's exercising command."
+
+He soon fell into a dispute with him with respect to the division of
+command on board the "Joly," Beaujeu demanding, and it may be thought with
+good reason, that, when at sea, his authority should include all on board;
+while La Salle insisted that only the sailors, and not the soldiers,
+should be under his orders. "Though this is a very important matter,"
+writes Beaujeu, "we have not quarrelled, but have referred it to the
+Intendant." [Footnote: _Lettre de Beaujeu au Ministre_, 25 _Juin_, 1684,
+MS. Arnoult, the Intendant at Rochelle, had received the king's orders to
+aid the enterprise. In a letter to La Salle, dated 14 April, and enclosing
+his commission, the king tells him that Beaujeu is to command the working
+of the ship, _la manoeuvre_, subject to his direction. Louis XIV. seems to
+have taken no little interest in the enterprise. He tells La Barre in one
+of his letters that La Salle is a man whom he has taken under his special
+protection.]
+
+While these ill-omened bickerings went on, the various members of the
+expedition were mustering at Rochelle. Joutel, a fellow-townsman of La
+Salle, returning to his native Rouen, after sixteen years of service in
+the army, found all astir with the new project. His father had been
+gardener to La Salle's uncle, Henri Cavelier; [Footnote: At the modest
+wages of fifty francs a year and his maintenance.--Family papers found by
+Margry.] and, being of an adventurous spirit, he was induced to volunteer
+for the enterprise, of which he was to become the historian. With La
+Salle's brother, the priest, and two of his nephews, of whom one was a boy
+of fourteen, besides several others of his acquaintance, Joutel set out
+for Rochelle, where all were to embark together for their promised land.
+[Footnote: Joutel, _Journal Historique_, 12.]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV.
+1684-1685.
+LA SALLE IN TEXAS.
+
+DEPARTURE.--QUARRELS WITH BEAUJEU.--ST. DOMINGO.--LA SALLE ATTACKED
+WITH FEVER.--HIS DESPERATE CONDITION.--THE GULF OF MEXICO.--A FATAL
+ERROR.--LANDING.--WRECK OF THE "AIMABLE."--INDIAN ATTACK.--TREACHERY
+OF BEAUJEU.--OMENS OF DISASTER.
+
+
+The four ships sailed on the twenty-fourth of July; but the "Joly" soon
+broke her bowsprit, and they were forced to put back. [Footnote: La Salle
+believed that this mishap, which took place in good weather, was
+intentional.--_Memoire autographe de l'Abbe Jean Cavelier sur la Voyage
+de_ 1684, MS. Compare Joutel, 15.] On the first of August, they again set
+sail. La Salle, with the principal persons of the expedition, and a crowd
+of soldiers, artisans, and women, the destined mothers of Louisiana, were
+all on board the "Joly." Beaujeu wished to touch at Madeira: La Salle, for
+excellent reasons, refused; and hence there was great indignation among
+passengers and crew. The surgeon of the ship spoke with insolence to La
+Salle, who rebuked him, whereupon Beaujeu took up the word in behalf of
+the offender, saying that the surgeon was, like himself, an officer of the
+king. [Footnote: "Le capitaine du batiment, qui avait en deux autres
+occasions assez fait connoitre qu'il etoit mecontent de ce que son
+autorite etoit partagee, prit la parole, disant au dit Sr. de la Salle que
+le chirurgien etoit officier du roi comme lui."--_Memoire autographe de
+l'Abbe Jean Cavelier,_ MS.] When they crossed the tropic, the sailors made
+ready a tub on deck to baptize the passengers, after the villanous
+practice of the time; but La Salle refused to permit it, to the
+disappointment and wrath of all the crew, who had expected to extort a
+bountiful ransom, in money and liquor, from their victims. There was an
+incessant chafing between the two commanders; and when at length, after a
+long and wretched voyage, they reached St. Domingo, Beaujeu showed clearly
+that he was, to say the least, utterly indifferent to the interests of the
+expedition. La Salle wished to stop at Port de Paix, where he was to meet
+the Marquis de St. Laurent, Lieutenant-General of the Islands; Begon, the
+Intendant; and De Cussy, Governor of the Island of La Tortue,--who had
+orders from the king to supply him with provisions, and give him all
+possible assistance. Beaujeu had consented to stop here; [Footnote: "C'est
+la (au Port de Paix) ou Mr. de Beaujeu etait convenu de s'arreter."--
+_Memoire autographe de l'Abbe Jean Cavelier,_ Joutel says that this was
+resolved on at a council held on board the "Joly," and that a Proces
+Verbal to that effect was drawn up.--_Journal Historique,_ 22.] but he
+nevertheless ran by the place in the night, and, to the extreme vexation
+of La Salle, cast anchor on the twenty-seventh of September, at Petit
+Goave, on the other side of the island.
+
+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
+despatched a messenger to St. Laurent, Begon, and Cussy, begging them to
+join him, commissioned 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 the
+disastrous tidings that the third, the ketch "St. Francois," had been
+taken by the Spaniards. She was laden with munitions, tools, and other
+necessaries for the colony; and the loss was irreparable. Beaujeu was
+answerable for it; for, had he followed his instructions, and anchored at
+Port de Paix, it would not have occurred. The Lieutenant-General, with
+Begon and Cussy, who had arrived, on La Salle's request, plainly spoke
+their minds to him. [Footnote: Joutel, _Journal Historique_, 28.]
+
+Meanwhile, La Salle's illness rose to a violent fever. He lay delirious in
+a wretched garret in the town, 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 the Abbe
+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 of the loss of the
+ketch "St. Francois;" and the consequence was a critical return of the
+disease. [Footnote: The above particulars are from the unpublished memoir
+of La Salle's brother, the Abbe Cavelier, already cited.]
+
+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.
+
+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 hoard; 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 any thing 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 his
+plans are not good."
+
+"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." [Footnote: "Si vous
+me permettez de dire mon sentiment, M. de la Salle devait se contenter
+d'avoir decouvert sa riviere, sans se charger de conduire trois vaisseaux
+et des troupes a deux mille lieues au travers de tant de climats
+differents et par des mers qui lui etaient tout a fait inconnues. Je
+demeure d'accord qu'il est savant, qu'il a de la lecture, et meme quelque
+teinture de la navigation. Mais il y a tant de difference entre la theorie
+et la pratique, qu'un homme qui n'aura que celle-la s'y trompera toujours.
+Il y a aussi bien de la difference entre conduire des canots sur des lacs
+et le long d'une riviere et mener des vaisseaux et des troupes dans des
+mers si eloignees."--_Lettre de Beaujeu au Ministre_, 20 _Oct_. 1684, MS.]
+
+It was near the end of November before La Salle could resume the voyage.
+Beaujeu had been heard to say, that he would wait no longer for the
+storeship "Amiable," and that she might follow as she could. [Footnote:
+_Memoire autographe de l'Abbe Jean Cavelier_, MS.] La Salle feared that he
+would abandon her; and he therefore embarked in her himself, with his
+friend Joutel, his brother Cavelier, Membre, 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 hunters 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, seeking sympathy from none. The feud of the two commanders still
+rankled beneath the veil of formal courtesy with which men of the world
+hide their dislikes and enmities.
+
+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. [Footnote: _Letter of Don Luis de Onis
+to the Secretary of State, American State Papers_, xii. 27, 31.] Not a man
+on board knew the secrets of its perilous navigation. Cautiously feeling
+their way, they held a northerly 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. At their
+right lay a low and sandy shore, washed by breakers, which made the
+landing dangerous. La Salle had taken the latitude of the mouth of the
+Mississippi, but could not determine the longitude. On the sixth of
+January, the "Aimable" seems to have been very near it; but his attempts
+to reconnoitre the shore were frustrated by the objections of the pilot of
+the vessel, to which, with a fatal facility, very unusual with him, he
+suffered himself to yield. [Footnote: Joutel, 45. He places the date on
+the tenth, but elsewhere corrects himself. La Salle himself says, "La
+hauteur nous a fait remarquer... que ce que nous avons vue, le sixieme
+janvier, estoit en effet la principale entree de la riviere que nous
+cherchions."--_Lettre de la Salle au Ministre_, 4 _Mars_, 1685.] Still
+convinced that the Mississippi was to the westward, he coasted the shores
+of Texas. As Joutel, with a boat's crew, was vainly trying to land, 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 wholly
+unknown to him. The coast began to trend southward. They saw that they had
+gone too far. Joutel again tried to land, but the surf that lashed the
+sand-bars deterred him. He approached as near as he dared, and, beyond the
+intervening breakers, saw vast plains and a dim expanse of forests; the
+shaggy buffalo running with their heavy gallop along the shore, and troops
+of deer grazing on the marshy meadows.
+
+A few days after, he succeeded in reaching the shore at a point not far
+south of Matagorda Bay. The aspect of the country was not cheering; sandy
+plains and shallow ponds of salt water, full of wild ducks and other fowl.
+The sand was thickly marked with, the hoof-prints of deer and buffalo; and
+they saw them in the distance, but could kill none. They had been for many
+days separated from the "Joly," when at length, to La Salle's great
+relief, she hove in sight; but his joy was of short duration. Beaujeu sent
+D'Aire, his lieutenant, on board the "Aimable," to charge La Salle with
+having deserted him. The desertion in fact was his own; for he had stood
+out to sea, instead of coasting the shore, according to the plan agreed
+on. Now ensued a discussion as to their position. Had they in fact passed
+the mouth of the Mississippi; and, granting that they had, how far had
+they left it behind? La Salle was confident that they had passed it on the
+sixth of January, and he urged Beaujeu to turn back with him in quest of
+it. Beaujeu replied that he had not provisions enough, and must return to
+France without delay, unless La Salle would supply him from his own
+stores. La Salle offered him provisions for fifteen days, which was more
+than enough for the additional time required; but Beaujeu remained
+perverse and impracticable, and would neither consent nor refuse. La
+Salle's men beguiled the time with hunting on shore; and he had the
+courtesy, very creditable under the circumstances, to send a share of the
+game to his colleague.
+
+Time wore on. La Salle grew impatient, and landed a party of men, under
+his nephew Moranget and his townsman Joutel, to explore the adjacent
+shores. They made their way on foot northward and eastward for several
+days, till they were stopped by a river too wide and deep to cross. They
+encamped, and were making a canoe, when, to their great joy, for they were
+famishing, they descried the ships, which had followed them along the
+coast. La Salle landed, and became convinced--his wish, no doubt,
+fathering the thought--that the river was no other than the stream now
+called Bayou Lafourche, which forms a western mouth of the Mississippi.
+[Footnote: La Salle dates his letter to Seignelay, of the fourth of March:
+"_A l'embouchure occidentals dufleuve Colbert_" (Mississippi). He says,
+"La saison etant tres-avancee, et voyant qu'il me restoit fort peu de
+temps pour achever l'entreprise don't j'estois charge, je resolus de
+remonter ce canal du fleuve Colbert, plus tost que de retourner au plus
+considerable, eloigne de 25 a 30 lieues d'icy vers le nord-est, que nous
+avions remarque des le sixieme janvier, mais que nous n'avions pu
+reconnoistre, croyant sur le rapport des pilotes du vaisseau de sa Majeste
+et des nostres, n'avoir pas encore passe la baye du Saint-Esprit" (Mobile
+Bay). He adds that the difficulty of returning to the principal mouth of
+the Mississippi had caused him "prendre le party de remonter le fleuve par
+icy." This fully explains the reason of La Salle's landing on the coast of
+Texas, which would otherwise have been a postponement, not to say an
+abandonment, of the main object of the enterprise. He believed himself at
+the western mouth of the Mississippi; and lie meant to ascend it, instead
+of going by sea to the principal mouth. About half the length of Bayou
+Lafourche is laid down on Franquelin's map of 1684; and this, together
+with La Salle's letter and the statements of Joutel, plainly shows the
+nature of his error.] He thought it easier to ascend by this passage than
+to retrace his course along the coast, against the winds, the currents,
+and the obstinacy of Beaujeu. Eager, moreover, to be rid of that
+refractory commander, he resolved to disembark his followers, and.
+despatch the "Joly" back to France.
+
+The Bay of St. Louis, now Matagorda Bay, [Footnote: The St. Bernard's Bay
+of old maps. La Salle, in his letter to Seignelay of 4 March, says, that
+it is in latitude twenty-eight degrees and eighteen or twenty minutes.
+This answers to the entrance of Matagorda Bay.
+
+In the Archives de la Marine is preserved a map made by an engineer of the
+expedition, inscribed _Minuty del_, and entitled _Entree du lac ou on a
+laisse le Sieur de la Salle_. It represents the entrance of Matagorda Bay,
+the camp of La Salle on the left, the Indian camps on the borders of the
+bay, the "Belle" lying safely at anchor within, the "Aimable" stranded
+near the island at the entrance, and the "Joly" anchored in the open sea.
+
+At Versailles, Salle des Marines, there is a good modern picture of the
+landing of La Salle in Texas.] 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. La Salle prepared to
+disembark on the western shore, near the place which now bears his name;
+and, to this end, the "Aimable" and the "Belle" must be brought over the
+bar. 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
+Sablonniere. 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.
+
+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 a 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; 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, the ravenous waves were strewn with her
+treasures; and, 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.
+
+Those who have recorded the disaster of the "Aimable" affirm that she was
+wilfully wrecked, [Footnote: This is said by Joutel and Le Clercq, and by
+La Salle himself, in his letter to Seignelay, 4 March, 1685, as well as in
+the account of the wreck drawn up officially.--_Proces verbal du Sieur de
+la Salle sur le naufraqe de la flute l'Aimable a l'embouchure du Fleuve
+Colbert_, MS. He charges it, as do also the others, upon Aigron, the pilot
+of the vessel, the same who had prevented him from exploring the mouth of
+the Mississippi on the sixth of January. The charges are supported by
+explicit statements, which render them probable. The loss was very great,
+including nearly all the beef and other provisions, 60 barrels of wine, 4
+pieces of cannon, 1,620 balls, 400 grenades, 4,000 pounds of iron, 5,000
+pounds of lead, most of the blacksmith's and carpenter's tools, a forge, a
+mill, cordage, boxes of arms, nearly all the medicines, most of the
+baggage of the soldiers and colonists, and a variety of miscellaneous
+goods.] an atrocious act of revenge against a man whose many talents often
+bore for him no other fruit than the deadly one of jealousy and hate.
+
+The neighboring Bracamos Indians still hovered about them, with very
+doubtful friendship: and, a few days after the wreck, the prairie was seen
+on fire. As the smoke and name 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.
+
+This untoward incident, joined to the loss of the store-ship, completed
+the discouragement of some among the colonists. Several of them, including
+one of the priests and the engineer Minet, declared their intention of
+returning home with Beaujeu, who apparently made no objection to receiving
+them. He now declared that since the Mississippi was found, his work was
+done, and he would return to France. La Salle desired that he would first
+send on shore the cannon-balls and stores embarked for the use of the
+colony. Beaujeu refused, on the ground that they were stowed so deep in
+the hold that to take them out would endanger the ship. The excuse is
+itself a confession of gross mismanagement. Remonstrance would have
+availed little. Beaujeu spread his sails and departed, and the wretched
+colony was left to its fate.
+
+Was Beaujeu deliberately a traitor, or was his conduct merely a result of
+jealousy and pique? There can be little doubt that he was guilty of
+premeditated bad faith. There is evidence that he knew the expedition to
+have passed the true mouth of the Mississippi, and that, after leaving La
+Salle, he sailed in search of it, found it, and caused a map to be made of
+it. [Footnote: This map, the work of the engineer Minet, bears the date of
+_May_, 1685. La Salle's last letter to the minister, which he sent home by
+Beaujeu, is dated March 4th. Hence, Beaujeu, in spite of his alleged want
+of provisions, seems to have remained some time in the Gulf. The
+significance of the map consists in two distinct sketches of the mouth of
+the Mississippi, which is styled "La Riviere du Sr. de la Salle." Against
+one of these sketches are written the words "Embouchure de la riviere
+comme M. de la Salle la marque dans sa carte." Against the other, "Costes
+et lacs par la hauteur de sa riviere, _comme nous les avons trouves_." The
+italics are mine. Both sketches plainly represent the mouth of the
+Mississippi, and the river as high as New Orleans, with the Indian
+villages upon it. The coast line is also indicated as far east as Mobile
+Bay. My attention was first drawn to this map by M. Margry. It is in the
+Archives Scientifiques de la Marine.]
+
+A lonely sea, a wild and desolate shore, a weary waste of marsh and
+prairie; a rude redoubt of drift-wood, and the fragments of a wreck; a few
+tents, and a few wooden hovels; bales, boxes, casks, spars, dismounted
+cannon, Indian canoes, a pen for fowls and swine, groups of dejected men
+and desponding, homesick women,--this was the forlorn reality to which the
+air-blown fabric of an audacious enterprise had sunk. Here were the
+conquerors of New Biscay; they who were to hold for France a region as
+large as the half of Europe. Here was the tall form and the fixed calm
+features of La Salle. Here were his two nephews, the hot-headed Moranget,
+still suffering from his wound, and the younger Cavelier, a mere school-
+boy. Conspicuous only by his Franciscan garb was the small slight figure
+of Zenobe Membre. His brother friar, Anastase Douay; the trusty Joutel, a
+man of sense and observation; the Marquis de la Sablonniere, a debauched
+noble whose patrimony was his sword; and a few of less mark,--comprised
+the leaders of the infant colony. The rest were soldiers, recruited from
+the scum of Rochelle and Rochefort; and artisans, of whom the greater part
+knew nothing of their pretended 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 journey. He had made an ominous discovery; for
+he had at length become convinced that he was not, as he had fondly hoped,
+on an arm of the Mississippi. The wreck of the "Aimable" itself was not
+pregnant with consequences so disastrous. A deep gloom gathered around the
+colony. There was no hope but in the energies of its unconquerable chief.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV.
+1685-1687.
+ST. LOUIS OF TEXAS.
+
+THE FORT.--MISERY AND DEJECTION.--ENERGY OF LA SALLE.--HIS JOURNEY
+OF EXPLORATION.--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
+desperate 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, [Footnote:
+Called by Joutel Riviere aux Boeufs.] 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 remnant, 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 to receive him and his men. 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 Joutel and his men on board,
+together with the stores which had remained in their charge, and conveyed
+them to the site of the new fort on the Lavaca. Here Joutel 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 in
+the "Belle" to the first fort, 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. [Footnote: Joutel, 108.
+_Proces Verbal fait au poste de St. Louis le 18 Avril, 1686,_ MS.]
+
+Death, meanwhile, made a 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. [Footnote: Ibid.] Nearly
+all fell ill; and, before the summer had passed, the graveyard had more
+than thirty tenants. [Footnote: Joutel, 109. Le Clercq, who was not
+present, says a hundred.] 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 oil 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 to the new
+establishment his favorite name of Fort St. Louis, and the neighboring bay
+was also christened after the royal saint. [Footnote: 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.] The scene was not without its charms. Towards the
+south-east stretched the bay with its bordering meadows; and on the north-
+east 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
+bright flowers for which Texas is renowned, and which now form the gay
+ornaments of our gardens.
+
+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. [Footnote: 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 frere entreprit pour decouvrir l'embouchure du fleuve de
+Missisipy_, MS. 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.]
+
+It was the first of November, when La Salle set out on his great journey
+of exploration. His brother Cavelier, who had now recovered, accompanied
+him with thirty men, and five cannon-shot from the fort saluted them as
+they departed. They were lightly equipped, but La Salle had a wooden
+corselet as a protection against 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 stood on a rising ground, two
+leagues above the mouth of the river. 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 ponds full of fish. The buffalo and the deer
+were without number; and, in truth, all the surrounding region swarmed
+with game,--hares, turkeys, ducks, geese, swans, plover, snipe, and
+partridges. They shot them in abundance, after necessity and practice had
+taught them the art. The river supplied them with fish, and the bay with
+oysters. There were land-turtles and sea-turtles; and Joutel sometimes
+amused himself with shooting alligators, of which he says that he once
+killed one twenty feet long. He describes, too, with perfect accuracy,
+that curious native of the south-western prairies, the "horned frog,"
+which, deceived by its uninviting aspect, he erroneously supposed to be
+venomous. [Footnote: Joutel devotes many pages to an account of the
+animals and plants of the country, most of which may readily be recognized
+from his description.]
+
+He suffered no man to be idle. Some hunted; some fished; some labored at
+the houses and defences. To the large building made by La Salle he added
+four lodging-houses for the men, and a fifth for the women, besides a
+small chapel. All were built with squared timber, and roofed like the
+first with boards and buffalo-hides; while a palisade and ditch, defended
+by eight pieces of cannon, enclosed the whole. [Footnote: Compare Joutel
+with the Spanish account in _Carta en que se da noticia de tin viaje hecho
+a la bahia de Espiritu Santo y de la poblacion que tenian ahi los
+Franceses: Coleccion de Varios Documentos_, 25.] Late one evening in
+January, when all were gathered in the principal building, conversing
+perhaps, or smoking, or playing at games of hazard, or dozing by the fire
+in homesick dreams of France, one of the men on guard came in to report
+that he had heard a voice in the distance without. All hastened into the
+open air; and Joutel, advancing towards the river whence the voice came,
+presently descried a man in a canoe, and saw that he was Duhaut, one of La
+Salle's chief followers, and perhaps the greatest villain of the company.
+La Salle had directed that none of his men should be admitted into the
+fort, unless he brought a pass from him; and it would have been well, had
+the order been obeyed to the letter. Duhaut, however, told a plausible and
+possibly a true story. He had stopped on the march to mend a shoe which
+needed repair, and on attempting to overtake the party had become
+bewildered on a prairie intersected with the paths of the buffalo. He
+fired his gun in vain, as a signal to his companions; saw no hope of
+rejoining them, and turned back, travelling only in the night, from fear
+of Indians, and lying hid by day. After a month of excessive hardship, he
+reached his destination; and, as the inmates of Fort St. Louis
+
+[Transcriber's note: missing page in original]
+
+worn and ragged. [Footnote: Joutel, 136, 137. The date of the return is
+from Cavelier.] Their story was a brief one. After losing Duhaut, 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 were, they were told, 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.
+[Footnote: Cavelier says that he actually reached the Mississippi; but, on
+the one hand, he did not know whether the river in question was the
+Mississippi or not; and, on the other, he is somewhat inclined to
+mendacity. Le Clercq says that La Salle thought he had found the river.
+Joutel says that he did not reach it.] 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. [Footnote: _Proces Verbal fait au poste de la Baie St. Louis, le_
+18 _Avril_, 1686, MS.] 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, 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 firmness and
+conduct of my brother, whose death each of us would have regarded as his
+own." [Footnote: Cavelier, _Relation du Voyage pour decouvrir l'embouchure
+du Fleuve de Missisipy_, MS.]
+
+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,
+offered 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. [Footnote: Joutel, 140;
+Anastase Douay, in Le Clercq, ii. 303; Cavelier, _Relation_, MS. The date
+is from Douay. It does not appear from his narrative that they meant to go
+further 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.]
+
+It was but a few days after, when a cry of _Qui vive_, twice repeated, was
+heard from the river. Joutel went down to the bank, and saw a canoe full
+of men, among whom he recognized Chedeville, a priest attached to the
+expedition, the Marquis de la Sablonniere, and others of those who had
+embarked in the "Belle." His first greeting was an eager demand what had
+become of her, and the answer confirmed his worst fears. Chedeville and
+his companions were conducted within the fort, where they told their
+dismal story. The murder of the pilot and his boat's crew had been
+followed by another accident, no less disastrous. A boat which had gone
+ashore for water had been swamped in returning, and all on board were
+lost. Those who remained in the vessel, after great suffering from thirst,
+had left their moorings, contrary to the orders of La Salle, and
+endeavored to approach the fort. But they were few, weak, and unskilful. A
+wind rose, and the "Belle" was wrecked on a sand-bar at the farther side
+of the bay. All perished but eight men, who escaped on a raft, and, after
+long delay, 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.
+
+Thus clouds and darkness thickened around the hapless colonists, whose
+gloom was nevertheless lighted by a transient ray of hilarity. Among their
+leaders was the Sieur Barbier, a young man, who usually conducted the
+hunting-parties. 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 Sablonniere 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, not only flatly refused, but, in the plenitude of
+his authority, forbade the lovers all farther intercourse. [Footnote:
+Joutel, 146, 147.]
+
+The Indians hovered about the fort with no good intent, sent a flight of
+arrows among Barbier's hunting-party, and prowled at night around the
+palisades. One of the friars was knocked down by a wounded buffalo, and
+narrowly escaped; another was detected in writing charges against La
+Salle. Joutel seized the paper, and burned it; but the clerical character
+of the reverend offender saved him from punishment. The colonists were
+beginning to murmur; and their discontent was fomented by Duhaut, who,
+with a view to some ulterior design, tried to ingratiate himself with the
+malcontents, and become their leader. Joutel detected the mischief, and,
+with a lenity which he afterwards deeply regretted, contented himself with
+a severe rebuke to the ring-leader, and words of reproof and exhortation
+to his dejected band. And, lest idleness should beget farther evil, he
+busied them in such superfluous tasks as mowing grass, that a better crop
+might spring up, and cutting down trees which obstructed the view. In the
+evening, he gathered them in the great hall, and encouraged them to forget
+their cares in songs and dances.
+
+On the seventeenth of October, [Footnote: This is Douay's date. Joutel
+places it in August, but this is evidently an error. He himself says that,
+having lost all his papers, he cannot be certain as to dates.] Joutel saw
+a band of men and horses, descending the opposite bank of the Lavaca, and
+heard the familiar voice of La Salle shouting across the water. He and his
+party were soon brought over in canoes, while the horses swam the river.
+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 rest, 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. The story of their adventures was soon
+told.
+
+After leaving the fort, they had journeyed towards the north-east, 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 Wuertemberg, 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 arrested by a large
+river, apparently the Brazos. 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 canebrake, 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 an abyss of
+despair for the loss of their guardian angel, for so Douay calls La Salle.
+[Footnote: "Ce fut une desolation extreme pour nous tous qui desesperions
+de revoir jamais nostre Ange tutelaire, le Sieur de la Salle... Tout le
+jour se passa en pleurs et en larmes."--Douay, in Le Clercq, ii. 315.] 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 caries 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 beehives. 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. [Footnote:
+Douay, in Le Clercq, ii. 321; Cavelier, _Relation_, MS.] 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. [Footnote: Douay, in Le
+Clercq, ii. 324, 325.]
+
+Soon after leaving the Cenis villages, both La Salle and his nephew,
+Moranget, were attacked by a 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.
+
+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; and
+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 cheerfulness, his
+words of sympathy and of hope, were the breath of life to this forlorn
+company; for, self-contained and stern as was his nature, he could soften,
+in times of extremity, to a gentleness that strongly appealed to the
+hearts of those around him; and 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 courage
+touched, nevertheless, the drooping spirits of his followers. [Footnote:
+"L'egalite d'humeur du Chef rassuroit tout le monde; et il trouvoit des
+resources a tout par son esprit qui relevoit les esperances les plus
+abatues."--Joutel, 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 evenemens
+contraires; il ne fut jamais abatu, et il esperoit toujours avec le
+secours du Ciel de venir a bout de son entreprise malgre tous les
+obstacles qui se presentoient."--Douay, in Le Clercq, ii. 327.]
+
+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. 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 Membre, 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 Membre 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.
+
+On the morrow, the band of adventurers mustered for the fatal journey.
+[Footnote: 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.] 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; Sablonniere, who,
+despite his title of Marquis, was held in great contempt; [Footnote: He
+had to be kept on short allowance, because he was in the habit of
+bargaining away every thing 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.--_Proces Verbal_, 18 _Avril_, 1686, MS.] the
+friars, Membre and Le Clercq, [Footnote: Maxime le Clercq, a relative of
+the author of _l'Etablissement de la Foi_.] and the priest, Chedeville,
+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. [Footnote: "Il fit une Harangue pleine
+d'eloquence et de cet air engageant qui luy estoit si naturel: toute la
+petite Colonie y estoit presente et en fut touchee jusques aux larmes,
+persuadee de la necessite de son voyage et de la droiture de ses
+intentions."--Douay, in Le Clercq, ii. 330.] 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. [Footnote: "Nous
+nous separames les uns des autres, d'une maniere si tendre et si triste
+qu'il sembloit que nous avions tons le secret pressentiment que nous ne
+nous reverrions jamais."--Joutel, 158.] 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 had shut Fort St. Louis for ever from their sight.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVI.
+1687.
+ASSASSINATION OF LA SALLE.
+
+HIS FOLLOWERS.--PRAIRIE TRAVELLING.--A HUNTER'S QUARREL.--THE
+MURDER OF MORANGET.--THE CONSPIRACY.--DEATH OF LA SALLE.--HIS
+CHARACTER.
+
+
+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." [Footnote: Tonty also speaks of him as "un flibustier anglois." In
+another document he is called "James."] The Sieur de Marie; Teissier, a
+pilot; l'Archeveque, a servant of Duhaut; and others, to the number in all
+of about twenty,--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.
+
+It is impossible, as it would be needless, to follow the detail of their
+daily march. [Footnote: 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 is brief,
+but it agrees with that of Joutel in most essential points.] It was such
+an one, though, with unwonted hardships, 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 moccasons. The rivers,
+streams, and gulleys 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. [Footnote: Cavelier, _Relation,_ MS.]
+
+Holding a north-easterly 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.
+
+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, [Footnote: Called Lanquetot by
+Tonty.] Hiens the buccaneer, Teissier, l'Archeveque, 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 Marie, 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 nourished in his vindictive heart deadly
+designs, the execution of which was only hastened by the present outbreak.
+He, with his servant, l'Archeveque, Liotot, Hiens, and Teissier, took
+counsel apart, and resolved to kill Moranget that night. Nika, La
+Salle's devoted follower, and Saget, his faithful servant, must die
+with him. All 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 his
+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 Marie, 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.
+
+It was the nineteenth of March, and Moranget had been two days absent. La
+Salle began to show a great anxiety. Some bodings of the truth seem to
+have visited him; for he was heard to ask several of his men, if Duhaut,
+Liotot, and Hiens had not of late shown signs of discontent. Unable longer
+to endure his suspense, he left the camp in charge of Joutel, with a
+caution to stand well on his guard; and set out in search of his nephew,
+with the friar, Anastase Douay, and two Indians. "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," Douay continues, "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, however, on
+the farther side of a small river. Looking about him with the eye of a
+woodsman, La Salle saw two eagles, or, more probably, turkey-buzzards,
+circling in the air nearly over him, as if attracted by carcasses of
+beasts or men. He fired both his pistols, 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'Archeveque 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 along the river. 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 in an ecstasy of fright, unable to advance or
+to fly; when Duhaut, rising from his 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!" [Footnote: "Te voila grand Bacha, te voila!"--
+Joutel, 203.] 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." [Footnote: _Journal Historique_, 202.]
+
+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. His mind rose immeasurably
+above the range of the mere commercial speculator; and, in all the
+invective and abuse of rivals and enemies, it does not appear that his
+personal integrity ever found a challenger.
+
+He was capable of intrigue, but his reserve and his haughtiness were sure
+to rob him at last of the fruits of it. His schemes failed, partly because
+they were too vast, and partly because he did not conciliate the good-will
+of those whom he was compelled to trust. There were always traitors in his
+ranks, and his enemies were more in earnest than his friends. Yet he had
+friends; and there were times when out of his stern nature a stream of
+human emotion would gush, like water from the rock.
+
+In the pursuit of his purpose, he spared no man, and least of all himself.
+He bore the brunt of every hardship and every danger; but he seemed to
+expect from all beneath him a courage and endurance equal to his own,
+joined with an implicit deference to his authority. Most of his disasters
+may be ascribed, in some measure, to himself; and Fortune and his own
+fault seemed always in league to ruin him.
+
+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, and 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, cast in iron, she sees the heroic pioneer who
+guided her to the possession of her richest heritage. [Footnote: On the
+assassination of La Salle, the evidence is fourfold: 1st, The narrative of
+Douay, who was with him at the time. 2d, 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. 3d, A document
+preserved in the Archives de la Marine, entitled _"Relation de la Mort du
+Sr. de la Salle suivant le rapport d'un nomine Couture a qui M. Cavelier
+l'apprit en passant au pays des Akansa, avec toutes les circonstances que
+le dit Couture a apprises d'un Francais que M. Cavelier avoit laisse aux
+dits pays des Akansa, crainte qu'il ne gardat pas le secret,"_ 4th, 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 honnete homme, et le
+seul de la troupe de M. de la Salle, sur qui ce celebre voyageur put
+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 "quantite 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 strictness and 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 were 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 XXVII.
+1687, 1688.
+THE INNOCENT AND THE GUILTY.
+
+TRIUMPH OF THE MURDERERS.--JOUTEL AMONG THE CENTS.--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 submitted without resistance; and Duhaut was
+lord of all.
+
+Joutel, at the moment, chanced to be absent; and l'Archeveque, who had a
+kindness for him, went quietly to seek him. He found him 011 a hillock,
+looking at the band of horses grazing on the meadow below. "I was
+petrified," says Joutel, "at the news, and knew not whether to fly or
+remain where I was; but at length, as I had neither powder, lead, nor any
+weapon, and as l'Archeveque assured me that my life would be safe if I
+kept quiet and said nothing, I abandoned myself to the care of Providence,
+and went back in silence to the camp. Duhaut, puffed up with the new
+authority which his crime had gained for him, no sooner saw me than he
+cried out that each ought to command in turn; to which I made no reply. We
+were all forced to smother our grief, and not permit it to be seen; for it
+was a question of life and death; but it may be imagined with what
+feelings the Abbe Cavelier and his nephew, Father Anastase, and I regarded
+these murderers, of whom we expected to be the victims every moment."
+[Footnote: _Journal Historique, 205._] They succeeded so well in their
+dissembling, that Duhaut and his accomplices seemed to lose all distrust
+of their intentions; and Joutel says that they might easily have avenged
+the death of La Salle by that of his murderers, had not the elder
+Cavelier, through scruple or cowardice, opposed the design.
+
+Meanwhile, Duhaut and Liotot seized upon all the money and goods of La
+Salle, even to his clothing, declaring that they had a right to them, in
+compensation for the losses in which they had been involved by the failure
+of his schemes. [Footnote: According to the _Relation de la Mart du Sr. de
+la Salle,_ the amount of property remaining was still very considerable.
+The same document states that Duhaut's interest in the expedition was half
+the freight of one of the four vessels, which was, of course, a dead loss
+to him.] They treated the elder Cavelier with great contempt, disregarding
+his claims to the property, which, indeed, he dared not urge; and
+compelling him to listen to the most violent invectives against his
+brother. Hiens, the buccaneer, was greatly enraged at these proceedings of
+his accomplices; and thus the seeds of a quarrel were already sown.
+
+On the second morning after the murder, the party broke up their camp,
+packed their horses, of which the number had been much increased by barter
+with the Indians, and began their march for the Cenis villages, amid a
+drenching rain. Thus they moved onward slowly till the twenty-eighth, when
+they reached the main stream of the Trinity, and encamped on its borders.
+Joutel, who, as well as his companions in misfortune, could not lie down
+to sleep with an assurance of waking in the morning, was now directed by
+his self-constituted chiefs to go in advance of the party to the great
+Cenis village for a supply of food. Liotot himself, with Hiens and
+Teissier, declared that they would go with him; and Duhaut graciously
+supplied him with goods for barter. Joutel thus found himself in the
+company of three murderers, who, as he strongly suspected, were contriving
+an opportunity to kill him; but, having no choice, he dissembled his
+doubts, and set out with his ill-omened companions. His suspicions seem,
+to have been groundless; and, after a ride of ten leagues, the travellers
+neared the Indian town, which, with its large thatched lodges, looked like
+a cluster of huge 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 and fringed 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 had much ado to 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, corncake, beans, and bread made of the meal of parched
+corn. 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 not
+far off, 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 fifteen families or more. 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 one sixty feet in diameter.
+[Footnote: 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.]
+
+It was in one of the largest that the four travellers were now lodged. A
+place was assigned to 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 Provencal, 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 Provencal, 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, in 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."
+
+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 made 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.
+
+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.
+
+Hiens and several others had gone, some time before, to the Cenis villages
+to purchase horses; and here they had been retained 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;" [Footnote: "Tu es un
+miserable. Tu as tue mon maistre."--Tonty, _Memoire,_ MS. 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.] 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'Archeveque, 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. [Footnote: Joutel, 248.]
+
+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
+same lodge in which 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. [Footnote: These are
+described by Joutel. Like nearly all the early observers of Indian
+manners, he speaks of the practice of cannibalism.]
+
+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 freebooter; for he gave them a good share of the plunder which
+he had won by his late crime, supplying them with hatchets, knives, heads,
+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 lie 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.
+
+Joutel's party consisted, besides himself, of the Caveliers, uncle and
+nephew, Anastase Douay, De Marie, 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 north-east, towards
+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, 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. [Footnote: 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.] 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.
+
+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 of Tonty's followers.
+
+That brave, loyal, and generous man, always vigilant and always active,
+beloved and feared alike by white men and by red, [Footnote: _Journal de
+St. Cosme_, 1699, MS. 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.] 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, [Footnote: In the autumn of 1685,
+Tonty made a journey from the Illinois to Michillimackinac, 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'esperance de lui donner
+secours."--_Lettre de Tonty au Ministre, 24 Aoust, 1686, and Memoire de
+Tonty, MS._] than he prepared, on his own responsibility, and at his own
+cost, to go to his assistance. He collected twenty-five Frenchmen, and
+five Indians, and set out from his fortified rock on the thirteenth of
+February, 1686; [Footnote: The date is from the letter cited above. In the
+Memoire, hastily written, long after, he falls into errors of date.]
+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. [Footnote:
+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.] 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. [Footnote: Tonty,
+_Memoire,_ MS.; _Ibid., Lettre a Monseigneur de Ponchartraint,_ 1690, MS.;
+Joutel, 301.]
+
+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 a 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. With these, the
+travellers resumed their journey in a wooden canoe, about the first of
+August, [Footnote: 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 (see _ante_, p. 367). The
+account of the death of La Salle, taken from the lips of Couture
+(_ibid_.), 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.] 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 forth 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
+advantages which 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 he 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 storehouse, and a chapel. There were Indian lodges,
+too; for some of the red allies of the French made their abode with, them.
+[Footnote: 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.] 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 storehouse.
+
+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.
+[Footnote: Joutel adds that this was occasioned by "une espece de
+conspiration qu'on a voulu faire contre les interests de Monsieur de la
+Salle."
+
+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, _Memoire sur la proposition a faire parles R. Peres
+Jesuites pour la decouverte des environs de la riviere du Mississipi et
+pour voir si elle est navigable jusqu'a 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.
+
+How did the Jesuits learn that La Salle had missed the mouths of the
+Mississippi? He himself did not know it when Beaujeu left him; for he
+dated his last letter to the minister from the "Western Mouth of the
+Mississippi." I have given the proof that Beaujeu, after leaving him,
+found the true mouth of the river, and made a map of it (_ante,_ p. 380,
+_note_). Now Beaujeu was in close relations with the Jesuits, for he
+mentions in one of his letters that his wife was devotedly attached to
+them. These circumstances, taken together, may justify the suspicion that
+Jesuit influence had some connection with Beaujeu's treacherous desertion
+of La Salle; and that this complicity had some connection with the
+uneasiness of Allouez when told that La Salle was on his way to the
+Illinois.] 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.
+
+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. [Footnote: Tonty, Du
+Laut, and Durantaye came to the aid of Denonville with hundred and seventy
+Frenchmen, chiefly coureurs de bois, and three hundred Indians from the
+upper country. Their services were highly appreciated, and Tonty
+especially is mentioned in the despatches of Denonville with great
+praise.] 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, adding fraud to meanness, 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. [Footnote: "Monsieur Tonty,
+croyant M. de la Salle vivant, ne fit pas de diffiulte de Luy donner pour
+environ quatre mille liv. de pelleterie, de castors, loutres, un canot, et
+autres effets."--Joutel, 349.
+
+Tonty himself does not make the amount so great: "Sur ce qu'ils
+m'assuroient qu'il etoit reste au golfe de Mexique en bonne sante, je les
+recus comme si c'avoit este lui mesmo et luy prestay (_a Cavelier_) plus
+de 700 francs."--Tonty, _Memoire._
+
+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 inseparablement attache aux interets du
+sieur de la Salle, doet nous luy avons cache la deplorable destinee."
+
+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.]
+
+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 Michillimackinac. 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 Recollet 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.
+
+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. [Footnote: _Lettre du Roy
+a Denonville_, 1 _Mai_, 1689, MS. 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, every thing 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.
+
+Soon after reaching France, 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 _epuise._ It is affirmed in a
+memorial of the heirs of his cousin, Francois 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 Abbe 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 seignorial 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.] The wretched
+exiles of Texas were thought, it may be, already beyond the reach of
+succor.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVIII.
+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.
+
+
+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, he 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.
+[Footnote: Tonty, _Memoire_, MS.]
+
+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, 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. [Footnote: 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.]
+
+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, [Footnote: Fort St. Louis of Texas
+is net to be confounded with Fort St. Louis of the Illinois.] 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. [Footnote: 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 Francais restez a la Baye St. Bernard ou
+St. Louis, apres la perte du vaisseau de Mr. de la Salle, en 1689."--
+Margry's collection.] 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.
+[Footnote: May 1st. The Spaniards reached the fort April 22d.] Their faces
+were smeared with paint, and they were wrapped in buffalo-robes like the
+rest; yet these seeming Indians were L'Archeveque, 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, [Footnote: 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.] 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 Membre, 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'Archeveque 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. [Footnote: _Derrotero de la
+Jornada que hizo el General Alonso de Leon para el descubrimiento de la
+Bahia del Esplritu Santo, y poblacion de Franceses. Ano de_ 1689, MS. 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 a la Bahia de Espiritu Santo
+y de la poblacion que tenian ahi Jos 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 Cronoldgico,_
+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 farther 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.]
+
+L'Archeveque 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. [Footnote: _Memoire sur lequel on a
+interroge les deux Canadiens (Pierre et Jean Baptiste Talon) qui sont
+soldats dans la Compagnie de Feuguerolles, A Brest, 14 Fevrier,_ 1698, MS.
+
+_Interrogations faites a Pierre et Jean Baptiste Talon a leur arrivee de
+la Veracrux,_ MS. This paper, which differs in some of its details from
+the preceding, was sent by D'Iberville, the founder of Louisiana, to the
+Abbe 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.] 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.
+
+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.
+
+
+
+
+APPENDIX.
+
+
+
+
+APPENDIX I.
+
+EARLY UNPUBLISHED MAPS OF THE MISSISSIPPI
+AND THE GREAT LAKES.
+
+
+Most of the maps described below are to be found in the Depot des Cartes
+of the Marine and Colonies, at Paris. Taken together, they exhibit the
+progress of western discovery, and illustrate the records of the
+explorers.
+
+
+THE MAP OF GALINEE, 1670.
+
+
+This map has a double title: _Carte du Canada et des Terres decouvertes
+vers le lac Derie_, and _Carte du Lac Ontario et des habitations qui
+l'enuironnent ensemble le pays que Messrs. Dolier et Galinee,
+missionnaires du seminaire de St. Sulpice, ont parcouru_. It professes to
+represent only the country actually visited by the two missionaries (see
+p. 19, _note_). 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. Galinee did not know the existence of the peninsula
+of Michigan, and merges Lakes Huron and Michigan into one, under the name
+of "Michigane, 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 Genessee 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 Galinee
+may be called the second.
+
+The map of Lake Superior, published in the Jesuit Relation of 1670, 1671,
+was made at about the same time with Galinee's map. Lake Superior is here
+styled "Lac Tracy, on Superieur." 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 Galinee, is
+represented in its proper place.
+
+About two years after Galinee made the map mentioned above, another,
+indicating a greatly increased knowledge of the country, was made by some
+person whose name does not appear, but who seems to have been La Salle
+himself. 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 ou le Lac Erie tombe dans le Lac
+Frontenac." Lake Erie is "Lac Teiocha-rontiong, dit communement Lac Erie."
+Lake St. Glair is "Tsiketo, ou Lac de la Chaudiere." Lake Huron is "Lac
+Huron, ou Mer Douce des Hurons." Lake Superior is "Lac Superieur." 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 before the
+voyage of Joliet and Marquette, and after that voyage of La Salle, in
+which he discovered the Illinois, or at least the Des Plaines branch of
+it. It shows that the Mississippi was known to discharge itself into the
+Gulf before Joliet had explored it. The whole length of 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_, p.
+23, _note_.)
+
+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 "Riviere 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,
+"esloignees 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.
+
+Not long after Marquette's return from the Mississippi, another map was
+made by the Jesuits, with the following title: _Carte de la nouvelle
+decouverie que les peres Jesuites ont fait en l'annee 1672, et continuee
+par le P. Jacques Marquette de la mesme Compagnie accompagne de quelques
+francois en l'annee_ 1673, _qu'on pourra nommer en francois 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 Riviere." 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.
+
+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 "Riuuiere 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.
+
+Of far greater interest is the small map of Louis Joliet, made and
+presented to Count Frontenac immediately after the discoverer's return
+from the Mississippi. It is entitled _Carte de la decouuerte du Sr.
+Jolliet ou l'on voit La Communication du fleuue St. Laurens auec les lacs
+frontenac, Erie, 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 Erie, 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 (Riviere 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 deg., and
+it ends in latitude 37 deg., a little below the mouth of the Ohio, the rest
+being apparently cut off to make room for Joliet's letter to Frontenac
+(_ante_, p. 66), 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_, p. 23, _note_.)
+
+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, bearing his name, 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,_
+p. 59). This map, if really the work of Joliet, does more credit to his
+skill as a designer than to his geographical knowledge, which appears in
+some respects behind his time.
+
+A map made by Raudin, Count Frontenac's engineer, may be mentioned here.
+He calls the Mississippi "Riviere de Buade," from the family name of his
+patron, and christens all the adjoining region "Frontenacie," or
+"Frontenacia."
+
+In the Bibliotheque Imperiale is the rude map of the Jesuit Raffeix, made
+at about the same time. It is chiefly interesting as marking out the
+course of Du Lhut on his journeys from the head of Lake Superior to the
+Mississippi, and as confirming a part of the narrative of Hennepin, who,
+Raffeix says in a note, was rescued by Du Lhut. It also marks out the
+journeys of La Salle in 1679, '80.
+
+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 St de la Salle et des pays qu'il a
+decouverts depuis la Nouvelle France jusqu'au Golfe Mexique les annees
+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 north-westward 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 Riviere Colbert;" the Missouri,
+"Grande Riviere des Emissourittes, ou Missourits;" the Illinois, "Riviere
+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, "Riviere des Acansea;" the Red River, "Riviere 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'Amerique Septentrionale, depuis le 25 jusq'au 65 degre de
+latitude et environ 140 et 235 degres 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.
+
+The remarkable manuscript map of the Upper Mississippi, by Le Sueur,
+belongs to a period subsequent to the close of this narrative.
+
+
+
+
+APPENDIX II.
+
+THE ELDORADO OF MATHIEU SAGEAN.
+
+
+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 Sagean 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 he Bibliotheque
+Imperiale, and in 1863 it was printed by Mr. Shea. Sagean underwent an
+examination, which resulted in his being sent to Biloxi, near the mouth of
+the Mississippi, with instructions from the minister that he should be
+supplied with the means of conducting a party of Canadians to the
+wonderful country which he had discovered; but, on his arrival, the
+officers in command, becoming satisfied that he was an impostor, suffered
+the order to remain unexecuted. His story was as follows:--
+
+He was born 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 Sagean 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-south-west. 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 Sagean,
+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 Sagean, 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
+Sagean 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 finger-nails 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 Sagean 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
+Sagean 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, Sagean, 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, Sagean 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
+Bieuville, chiefs of the colony, were obstinate in their unbelief; and
+Sagean and his King Hagaren lapsed alike into oblivion.
+
+
+
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, FRANCE AND ENGLAND IN NORTH AMERICA, A SERIES OF HISTORICAL NARRATIVES, PART THIRD ***
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of France and England in North America, a Series of Historical Narratives, Part Third
+by Francis Parkman
+
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+Title: France and England in North America, a Series of Historical Narratives, Part Third
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+Author: Francis Parkman
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+Release Date: February, 2006  [EBook #9997]
+[This file was first posted on November 6, 2003]
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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, FRANCE AND ENGLAND IN NORTH AMERICA, A SERIES OF HISTORICAL NARRATIVES, PART THIRD ***
+
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+E-text prepared by Lee Dawei, Seth Hadley, and Project Gutenberg Distributed
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+
+
+FRANCE AND ENGLAND IN NORTH AMERICA,
+A SERIES OF HISTORICAL NARRATIVES, PART THIRD.
+
+THE DISCOVERY OF THE GREAT WEST
+
+BY FRANCIS PARKMAN
+
+1870
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+TO THE CLASS OF 1844,
+HARVARD COLLEGE,
+THIS BOOK IS CORDIALLY DEDICATED
+BY ONE OF THEIR NUMBER.
+
+
+
+
+PREFACE.
+
+
+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 custodian 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 map contained in the book is a portion of the great 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
+
+
+
+
+INTRODUCTION
+
+
+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.
+
+
+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?
+
+
+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.--Michillimackinac.--
+Jesuits on Lake Michigan.--Allouez and Dablon.--The Jesuit
+Fur-Trade.
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+1667-1672.
+FRANCE TAKES POSSESSION OF THE WEST.
+
+Talon.--St. Lusson.--Perrot.--The Ceremony at Saut Ste. Marie.--
+The Speech of Allouez.--Count Frontenac.
+
+
+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.
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+1673-1678.
+LA SALLE AND FRONTENAC.
+
+Objects of La Salle.--His Difficulties.--Official Corruption in Canada.--
+The Governor of Montreal.--Projects of Frontenac.--Cataraqui.--
+Frontenac on Lake Ontario.--Fort Frontenac.--Success of La Salle.
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+1674-1678.
+LA SALLE AND THE JESUITS.
+
+The Abbé Fénelon.--He attacks the Governor.--The Enemies of La
+Salle.--Aims of the Jesuits.--Their Hostility to La Salle.
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+1678.
+PARTY STRIFE.
+
+La Salle and his Reporter.--Jesuit Ascendancy.--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.
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+1677-1678.
+THE GRAND ENTERPRISE.
+
+La Salle at Fort Frontenac.--La Salle at Court.--His Plans approved.--
+Henri de Tonty.--Preparation for Departure.
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+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.
+
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+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.
+
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+1679.
+LA SALLE ON THE UPPER LAKES.
+
+The Voyage of the "Griffin."--Detroit.--A Storm.--St. Ignace of
+Michillimackinac.--Rivals and Enemies--Lake Michigan.--Hardships.
+--A Threatened Fight.--Fort Miami.--Tonty's Misfortunes.--
+Forebodings.
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII.
+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 him.
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV.
+1680.
+FORT CRÈVECOEUR.
+
+Building of the Fort.--Loss of the "Griffin."--A Bold Resolution.--
+Another Vessel.--Hennepin sent to the Mississippi.--Departure of
+La Salle.
+
+
+CHAPTER XV.
+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.
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI.
+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.
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII.
+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.
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII.
+1680.
+THE ADVENTURES OF HENNEPIN.
+
+Hennepin an Impostor.--His Pretended Discovery.--His Actual Discovery.
+--Captured by the Sioux.--The Upper Mississippi.
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX.
+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.
+
+
+CHAPTER XX.
+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.
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI.
+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.
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII.
+1682-1683.
+ST. LOUIS OF THE ILLINOIS.
+
+Louisiana.--Illness of La Salle.--His Colony on the Illinois.--Fort St.
+Louis.--Recall of Frontenac.--Le Fèvre de la Barre.--Critical Position
+of La Salle.--Hostility of the New Governor.--Triumph of the Adverse
+Faction.--La Salle sails for France.
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII.
+1684.
+A NEW ENTERPRISE.
+
+La Salle at Court.--His Proposals.--Occupation of Louisiana.--Invasion of
+Mexico.--Royal Favor.--Preparation.--The Naval Commander.--His Jealousy of
+La Salle.--Dissensions.
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV.
+1684-1685.
+LA SALLE IN TEXAS.
+
+Departure.--Quarrels with Beaujeu.--St. Domingo.--La Salle attacked
+with Fever.--His Desperate Condition.--The Gulf of Mexico.--A Fatal
+Error.--Landing.--Wreck of the "Aimable."--Indian Attack.--Treachery
+of Beaujeu.--Omens of Disaster.
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV.
+1685-1687.
+ST. LOUIS OF TEXAS.
+
+The Fort.--Misery and Dejection.--Energy of La Salle.--His Journey
+of Exploration.--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.
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVI.
+1687.
+ASSASSINATION OF LA SALLE.
+
+His Followers.--Prairie Travelling.--A Hunter's Quarrel.--The Murder
+of Moranget.--The Conspiracy.--Death of La Salle.--His Character.
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVII.
+1687, 1688.
+THE INNOCENT AND THE GUILTY.
+
+Triumph of the Murderers.--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.
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVIII.
+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.
+
+
+APPENDIX.
+
+I. Early unpublished Maps of the Mississippi and the Great Lakes.
+II. The Eldorado of Mathieu Sâgean.
+
+
+INDEX
+
+
+[Illustration: LA SALLE'S COLONY on the Illinois FROM THE MAP OF
+FRANQUELIN, 1684.]
+
+
+
+
+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 dismal 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 and without beards, 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 or before the year 1639, 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. Possibly 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 improbable, but neither is sustained by sufficient evidence. Meanwhile,
+French Jesuits and fur-traders pushed deeper and deeper into the
+wilderness of the northern lakes. In 1641, Jogues and Raymbault preached
+the
+
+DISCOVERY OF THE GREAT WEST.
+
+
+
+
+
+THE DISCOVERY OF THE GREAT WEST.
+
+
+
+
+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. [Footnote: 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 Réné-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.] 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. [Footnote: 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.]
+
+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. [Footnote:
+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.]
+
+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.
+[Footnote: "The Jesuits in North America," c. xv.] 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 Courcelles, 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. [Footnote: _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.]
+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 seigneurs, built of
+stone, and pierced with loop-holes 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. [Footnote: 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.]
+
+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 a third of an acre, within the
+enclosure, for which he was to render to the young seigneur 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. [Footnote: 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.]
+
+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.
+[Footnote: _Papiers de Famille_, MSS. 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.] 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. [Footnote: 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.] 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.
+
+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 to his intended exploration. Few men were more skilled than he in
+the art of clear and plausible statement. Both the Governor, Courcelles,
+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. [Footnote:
+Talon, in his letter to the king, of 10 Oct. 1670, expresses himself as if
+the enterprise had originated with him.] 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 ironmonger, for twenty-eight hundred livres. [Footnote:
+Faillon, _Colonie Française en Canada_, iii. 288.] 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 North-west,
+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.
+
+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 uncommon bodily
+strength, of which he had given striking proofs in the campaign of
+Courcelles against the Iroquois, three years before. [Footnote: 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.] On
+going to Quebec, to procure the necessary outfit, he was urged by
+Courcelles 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.
+
+
+
+
+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. They fought their
+way upward against the perilous rapids of the St. Lawrence, then scarcely
+known to the voyager, threaded the romantic channels of the Thousand
+Islands, and issued on Lake Ontario. Thirty days of toil and exposure had
+told upon them so severely that not a man of the party, except the
+Indians, had escaped the attacks of disease in some form.
+
+Their guides led them directly to the great village of the Senecas, near
+the banks of the Genesee, flattering them with the hope that they would
+here find other guides, to conduct them to the Ohio; and, in truth, the
+Senecas had among them a prisoner of one of the western tribes, who would
+have answered their purpose. The chiefs met in council: but La Salle had
+not yet mastered the language sufficiently to serve as spokesman; and a
+Dutch interpreter, brought by the priests, could not explain himself in
+French. The Jesuit Fremin was stationed at the village, and his servant
+came to their aid: but, as the two priests thought, wilfully
+misinterpreted them; and they also conceived the suspicion, perhaps
+uncharitable, that the Jesuits, jealous of their enterprise, had tampered
+with the Senecas, to thwart it. Be this as it may, the Indians proved
+impracticable, evaded their request for a guide, burned before their eyes
+the unfortunate western prisoner, and assured them that if they went to
+the Ohio the people of those parts would put them to death. As there were
+many among the Senecas who 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 with brandy brought from Albany, the position of the French
+was very hazardous. They remained, however, for a month; still clinging to
+the hope of obtaining guides. At length, an Indian from a village called
+Ganastogué, a kind of Iroquois colony at the head of Lake Ontario, offered
+to conduct them thither, assuring them that they would find what they
+sought. They left the Seneca town; coasted the south shore of the lake;
+passed the mouth of the Niagara, where they heard the distant roar of the
+cataract; and, five days after, reached Ganastogué. The inhabitants proved
+friendly, and La Salle received the welcome present of a Shawnee prisoner,
+who told them that the Ohio could he 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. One of the strangers proved to
+be a man 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 pre-occupied 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.
+
+Since reaching the head of Lake Ontario, La Salle had been attacked by a
+violent fever, from which he was not yet recovered. 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.
+
+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 under a wild autumnal sky. 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."
+
+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. [Footnote: 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.] The two missionaries took
+this course, with the intention of proceeding to the Saut Sainte 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; [Footnote: "Jesuits in North
+America."] 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 Manatoulins, 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.
+[Footnote: Galinée appears to have made use of the map given him by
+Joliet. He says, in the narrative of his journey, that he has laid down on
+his own map nothing but what he had himself seen; but this is disproved by
+the map itself. Thus, he represents with minuteness the northern coast as
+far west as the islands at the mouth of Green Bay; but that he never went
+so far is evident not only from his own journal, but from the fact that he
+was ignorant of the existence of the Straits of Michillimackinac and the
+peninsula of Michigan; Lakes Huron and Michigan being by him merged into
+one, under the name of "Michigané, ou Mer Douce des Hurons." The map, of
+which a fac-simile is before me, measures four and a half feet by three
+and a half. It is covered with descriptive remarks, which, oddly enough,
+are all inverted, so that it must be turned with the north side down in
+order to read them. Faillon has engraved it, but on a small scale, with
+the omission of most of the inscriptions, and other changes. The well-
+known Jesuit map of Lake Superior appeared the year after.
+
+Besides making the map, Galinée wrote a very long and minute journal of
+the expedition, which is preserved in the Bibliothèque Impériale.
+
+Much of the substance of it is given by Faillon, _Colonie Française_, iii.
+chap, vii., and Margry, _Journal Général de l'Instruction Publique_, xxxi.
+No. 67. In the letters of Talon to Colbert are various allusions to the
+journey of Dollier and Galinée.]
+
+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; [Footnote: See Margry, in _Journal Général de
+l'Instruction Publique_, xxxi. 659.] beyond which time the most diligent
+inquiry has failed to trace them. The 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. [Footnote: Dollier de Casson alludes to
+this as "cette transmigration célèbre qui se fit de la Chine dans ces
+quartiers."] As for himself, the only distinct record of his movements is
+that contained in an unpublished 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. [Footnote: As no part of the
+memoir referred to has been published, I extract the passage relating to
+this journey. 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 4lme degré de latitude, trouva un sault
+qui tombe vers l'ouest dans un pays has, marescageux, tout couvert de
+vielles souches, don't il y en a quelquesunes qui sont encore sur pied. Il
+fut done 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 done 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 done
+seul a 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."] 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. [Footnote: Perrot, _Mèmoires_, 119, 120.]
+
+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
+Michillimackinac, 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. [Footnote: 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 trés-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
+sud-est, 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.]
+
+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.
+[Footnote: 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 ou elle tombe de fort haut dans de vastes
+marais, a la hauteur de 37 degrés, après avoir été grossie par une autre
+rivière fort large qui vient du nord; et toutes ces eaux se déchargent
+selon toutes les apparences dans le Golfe du Mexique."
+
+This "autre riviére," 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.] 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. [Footnote: 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 clans 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.] 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 biased
+in favor of La Salle and against Marquette and the Jesuits.
+
+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. [Footnote: _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.] 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. [Footnote: _Papiers de Famille_, MSS.; _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 trouve qu'elle
+se jettoit dans un grand fleuve appellé par ceux du pays Missisippi, c'est
+à dire _grande eau_, environ cent lieues audessous du fort qu'il venoit de
+construire." This fort was Fort Crêvecoeur, 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.] 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.
+[Footnote: 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." This, though brought forward to
+support the claim of discovery prior to Joliet, seems to indicate that La
+Salle had not reached the Mississippi, but only approached it, previous to
+1675.
+
+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.] 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.
+
+
+
+
+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.--MICHILLIMACKINAC.
+--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. [Footnote: See "The Jesuits
+in North America."] 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.
+
+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, stuffed 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 farther speaks of great copper boulders in the
+bed of the River Ontonagan.
+
+[Footnote: 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.]
+
+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, called by the French Sauteurs, 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, Assinneboins, 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 toils 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."
+[Footnote: _Lettre du Père Jacques Marquette au R. P. Supérieur des
+Missions_; in _Relation_, 1670, 87.]
+
+Marquette heard from the Illinois,--yearly visitors at La Pointe,--of the
+great river which they had crossed on their way, [Footnote: 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.] 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
+Michillimackinac, and the Ottawas at the Great Manatoulin Island. Two
+missions were now necessary to minister to the divided bands. That of
+Michillimackinac was assigned to Marquette, and that of the Manatoulin
+Island to Louis André. The former took post at Point St. Ignace, on the
+north shore of the straits of Michillimackinac, 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.
+
+Besides the Saut Ste. Marie and Michillimackinac,--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. [Footnote: The Baye des Puans of the early writers; or,
+more correctly, La Baye des Eaux Puantes. The Winnebago Indians, living
+near it, were called Lies 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.] 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."
+[Footnote: _Relation_, 1671, 43.]
+
+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. [Footnote: 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 "Jesuits in North America." The
+Miamis soon removed to the banks of the River St. Joseph, near Lake
+Michigan.] These two tribes lived together within the compass of the same
+inclosure 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 to wards 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.
+
+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 with 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." [Footnote: _Relation_, 1672, 42.] Most
+things human have their phases of the ludicrous; and the heroism of these
+untiring priests is no exception to the rule.
+
+The various missionary stations were much alike. They consisted of a
+chapel (commonly of logs) and one or more houses, with perhaps a
+storehouse 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. [Footnote: This charge was
+made from the first establishment of the missions. For remarks on it, see
+"Jesuits in North America."]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+1667-1672.
+FRANCE TAKES POSSESSION OF THE WEST.
+
+TALON.--ST. LUSSON.--PERROT.--THE CEREMONY AT SAUT STE. MARIE.--
+THE SPEECH OF ALLOUEZ.--COUNT FRONTENAC.
+
+
+Jean Talon, Intendant of Canada, was a man of no common stamp. Able,
+vigorous, and patriotic,--he was the worthy lieutenant and disciple of the
+great minister Colbert, the ill-requited founder of the prosperity of
+Louis XIV. He cherished high hopes for the future of New France, and
+labored strenuously to realize them. He urged upon the king a scheme
+which, could it have been accomplished, would have wrought strange changes
+on the American continent. This was, to gain possession of New York, by
+treaty or conquest; [Footnote: _Lettre de Talon à Colbert_, 27 _Oct_.
+1667. Twenty years after, the plan was again suggested by the Governor,
+Denonville.] thus giving to Canada a southern access to the ocean, open at
+all seasons, separating New England from Virginia, and controlling the
+Iroquois, the most formidable enemy of the French colony. Louis XIV. held
+the king of England in his pay; and, had the proposal been urged, the
+result could not have been foretold. The scheme failed, and Talon prepared
+to use his present advantages to the utmost. While laboring strenuously to
+develop the industrial resources of the colony, he addressed himself to
+discovering and occupying the interior of the continent; controlling the
+rivers, which were its only highways; and securing 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 hold 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. [Footnote: At all events, 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 Branssat,
+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.] When, in 1670, he ordered Daumont de St. 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.
+[Footnote: In his despatch of 2d Nov. 1671, Talon writes to the king that
+"St. Lusson's expedition will cost nothing, as he has received beaver
+enough from the Indians to pay him."]
+
+St. 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. [Footnote: _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.] 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. St. Lusson wintered at the Manatoulin 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. [Footnote: 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.] 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.
+[Footnote: Perrot, _Mémoires_, 127.]
+
+St. Lusson was here with his men, fifteen in number, among whom was Louis
+Joliet; [Footnote: _Procès Verbal de la Prise de Possession, etc._, 14
+_Juin_, 1671. The names are attached to this instrument.] 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, St. Lusson prepared to
+execute the commission with which he was charged.
+
+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, St. 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. [Footnote: Marquette is said to have been present; but
+the official act, just cited, proves the contrary. He was still at St.
+Esprit.] 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 St. Lusson's followers sang the _Exaudiat_ and one of the Jesuits
+uttered a prayer for the king. St. 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 Manatoulin, 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 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_." [Footnote: _Procès Verbal de la Prise
+de Possession_.]
+
+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.
+
+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, [Footnote: The
+Indian name of the Governor of Canada.] 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."
+[Footnote: A close translation of Dablon's report of the speech. See
+_Relation_, 1671, 27.] 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 St. 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. St. 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. [Footnote: _Lettre de Frontenac au Ministre_, 2 _Nov_. 1672, MS.
+In the Brodhead Collection, by a copyist's error, the name of the
+Chevalier de Grandfontaine is substituted for that of Talon.] 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, Courcelles. Both were able and public-
+spirited; 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. The Governor presided at the council, and held the military
+command; the Intendant directed affairs of justice, finance, and commerce.
+Each thought his functions encroached upon, and both asked for recall.
+[Footnote: Courcelles returned home on the plea of ill health. Talon
+remained a little longer; but soon asked leave to return to France, seeing
+that he should fare worse with the new governor than with the old.]
+Another governor succeeded; one who was to stamp his mark, broad, bold,
+and ineffaceable, on the most memorable page of French-American History.
+
+In the Church of Notre Dame, at Quebec, on a day in the early autumn of
+1672, the priests were singing _Te Deum_ for the safe arrival of him whom
+they were soon to wish beyond the sea again, or beneath it. Here you would
+have seen the new governor surrounded by officers, and by the chief
+inhabitants, anxious to pay their court; a tall man in the pompous garb of
+a military noble of that gorgeous reign, well advanced in middle life, but
+whose high keen features, full of intellect and fire, bespoke his prompt
+undaunted nature,--Louis de Buade, Count of Palluau and Frontenac. He
+belonged to the high nobility, had held important commands, and, if the
+song-writers of his time speak true, had anticipated the king in the
+favors of Madame de Montespan. [Footnote: See Brunet, in notes to
+_Correspondance de la Duchesse d'Orléans_; Paulin, in notes to the
+_Historiettes de Tallement des Reaux_; and Margry, in _Journal Général de
+I'Instruction Publique_.] His wife, who could not endure him--and the
+aversion seems to have been mutual--was a noted beauty of the court, and
+held great influence in its brilliant and corrupt society. [Footnote: St.
+Simon and Mademoiselle de Montpensier give very curious accounts of Madame
+de Frontenac, who is also mentioned in the _Lettres de Madame de Sevigné_.
+Her portrait will be found at Versailles.] Frontenac was full of faults;
+but it is not through these that his memory has survived him. He was
+domineering, arbitrary, intolerant of opposition, irascible, vehement in
+prejudice, often wayward, perverse, and jealous: a persecutor of those who
+crossed him; yet capable, by fits, of moderation, and a magnanimous
+lenity; and gifted with a rare charm--not always exerted--to win the
+attachment of men: versed in books, polished in courts and salons; without
+fear, incapable of repose, keen and broad of sight, clear in judgment,
+prompt in decision, fruitful in resources, unshaken when others despaired;
+a sure breeder of storms in time of peace, but in time of calamity and
+danger a tower of strength. His early career in America was beset with ire
+and enmity; but admiration and gratitude hailed him at its close: for it
+was he who saved the colony and led it triumphant from an abyss of ruin.
+[Footnote: In the Library of the Seminary of Quebec is preserved the
+funeral oration pronounced over the body of Frontenac by Olivier Goyer, a
+Récollet friar. It is a blind and wholesale panegyric, but it is
+interlined with notes and comments at great length, by some other
+ecclesiastic, a bitter enemy of the Governor. He is vindictive and
+acrimonious beyond measure; but, between the two, a good deal of truth is
+struck out. Charlevoix's estimate of Frontenac is admirably candid, when
+it is remembered that he writes of an enemy of his Order. The career of
+Frontenac, his letters, and those of his enemies,--of which many are
+preserved,--are, however, his best interpretation.]
+
+
+
+
+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. [Footnote: _Lettre
+de Frontenac au Ministre_, 2 _Nov_. 1672; Ibid 14 _Nov_. 1674. MSS]
+
+Louis Joliet was the son of a wagon-maker in the service of the Company of
+the Hundred Associates, [Footnote: See "Jesuits in North America."] then,
+owners of Canada. He was born at Quebec in 1645, was educated by the
+Jesuits; and, 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. [Footnote: "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_, MS.] 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.
+[Footnote: 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 I'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.]
+
+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.
+
+He passed up the lakes to Michillimackinac; 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."
+
+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."
+[Footnote: 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.] Their course was westward; and,
+plying their paddles, they passed the Straits of Michillimackinac, 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. [Footnote: 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.] 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 soon reached the mission at the head of Green Bay; entered
+the 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. [Footnote: 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
+the birds rose up in clouds from the wild-rice marshes.] 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, as Marquette says, he was "extremely consoled."
+
+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. [Footnote: The above
+traits of the scenery of the Wisconsin are taken from personal observation
+of the river during midsummer.]
+
+On the 17th 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.
+
+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 25th, 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. [Footnote: 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.] 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 with attention, 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 behooved 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.
+
+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. [Footnote: 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.] He confesses that at first they frightened him; and his
+imagination and that of his credulous companions were 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 any thing more terrific;" but they escaped
+with their fright, and held their way down the turbulent and swollen
+current of the now united rivers. [Footnote: 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.] 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. [Footnote: Called
+on Marquette's map, Ouabouskiaou. On some of the earliest maps, it is
+called Ouabache (Wabash).] 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.
+
+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.
+[Footnote: This village, called Mitchigamea, is represented on several
+contemporary maps.]
+
+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, [Footnote: A few years later, the
+Arkansas were all on the west side.] 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. [Footnote: 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.] 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.
+[Footnote: 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 out fait 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.]
+
+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. [Footnote: _Lettre de
+Frontenac au Ministre, Québec_, 14 _Nov._ 1674, MS.] 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." [Footnote: This letter is appended to Joliet's
+smaller map of his discoveries. See Appendix. Joliet applied for a grant
+of the countries he had visited, but failed to obtain it, because the king
+wished at this time to confine the inhabitants of Canada to productive
+industry within the limits of the colony, and to restrain their tendency
+to roam into the western wilderness. 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.]
+
+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, [Footnote: 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.] and the other a self-
+styled surgeon. They also visited Marquette, and befriended him to the
+best of their power.
+
+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 head of 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.
+
+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 Michillimackinac, 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 Michillimackinac, to bear the tidings to the priests at the mission of
+St. Ignace. [Footnote: 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.]
+
+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 Michillimackinac. 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. [Footnote: 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. The _voyageurs_ on Lake Michigan long continued to invoke the
+intercession of the departed missionary in time of danger.
+
+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 Michillimackinac. 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 Michillimackinac, 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 lard, and some biscuits,
+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
+Michillimackinac. 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.--HIS DIFFICULTIES.--OFFICIAL CORRUPTION IN CANADA.
+--THE GOVERNOR OF MONTREAL.--PROJECTS OF FRONTENAC.--CATARAQUI.--FRONTENAC
+ON LAKE ONTARIO.--FORT FRONTENAC.--SUCCESS OF LA SALLE.
+
+
+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 mediaeval saintship; the other, with feet
+firm planted on the hard earth, breathes the self-relying energies of
+modern practical enterprise. Nevertheless, La Salle was a man wedded to
+ideas, and urged by the steady and considerate enthusiasm, which is the
+life-spring of heroic natures. Three thoughts, rapidly developing in his
+mind, were mastering him, and engendering an invincible purpose. First, he
+would achieve that which Champlain had vainly attempted, and of which our
+own generation has but now seen the accomplishment,--the opening of a
+passage to India and China across the American continent. Next, he would
+occupy the Great West, develop its commercial resources, and anticipate
+the Spaniards and the English in the possession of it. Thirdly,--for he
+soon became convinced that the Mississippi discharged itself into the Gulf
+of Mexico,--he would establish a fortified post at its mouth, thus
+securing an outlet for the trade of the interior, checking the progress of
+the Spaniards, and forming a base, whence, in time of war, their northern
+provinces could be invaded and conquered.
+
+Here were vast projects, projects perhaps beyond the scope of private
+enterprise, conceived and nursed in the brain of a penniless young man.
+Two conditions were indispensable to their achievement. The first was the
+countenance of the Canadian authorities, and the second was money. There
+was but one mode of securing either, to appeal to the love of gain of
+those who could aid the enterprise. Count Frontenac had no money to give;
+but he had what was no less to the purpose, the resources of an arbitrary
+power, which he was always ready to use to the utmost. From the manner in
+which he mentions La Salle in his despatches, it seems that the latter
+succeeded in gaining his confidence very soon after he entered upon his
+government. There was a certain similarity between the two men. Both were
+able, resolute, and enterprising. The irascible and fiery pride of the
+noble found its match in the reserved and seemingly cold pride of the
+ambitious young burgher. Their temperaments were different, but the bases
+of their characters were alike, and each could perfectly comprehend the
+other. They had, moreover, strong prejudices and dislikes in common. With
+his ruined fortune, his habits of expenditure, the exigent demands of his
+rank and station, and the wretched pittance which he received from the
+king of three thousand francs a year, Frontenac was not the man to let
+slip any reasonable opportunity of bettering his condition. [Footnote:
+That he engaged in the fur-trade, was notorious. In a letter to the
+Minister Seignelay, 13 Oct. 1681, Duchesneau, Intendant of Canada,
+declares that Frontenac used all the authority of his office to favor
+those interested in trade with him, and that he would favor nobody else.
+The Intendant himself had a rival interest in the same trade.] La Salle
+seems to have laid his plans before him as far as he had at this time
+formed them, and a complete understanding was established between them.
+Here was a great point gained. The head of the colony was on his side. It
+remained to raise money, and this was a harder task. La Salle's relations
+were rich, evidently proud of him, and anxious for his advancement. As his
+schemes developed, they supplied him with means to pursue them, and one of
+them in particular, his cousin François Plet, became largely interested in
+his enterprises. [Footnote: _Papiers de Famille_, MSS.] Believing
+that his projects, if carried into effect, would prove a source of immense
+wealth to all concerned in them, and gifted with a rare power of
+persuasion when he chose to use it, La Salle addressed himself to various
+merchants and officials of the colony, and induced some of them to become
+partners in his adventure. But here we are anticipating. Clearly to
+understand his position, we must revert to the first year of Frontenac's
+government.
+
+No sooner had that astute official set foot in the colony than, with an
+eagle eye, he surveyed the situation, and quickly comprehended it. It was
+somewhat peculiar. Canada lived on the fur-trade, a species of commerce
+always liable to disorders, and which had produced, among other results, a
+lawless body of men known as _coureurs de bois_, who followed the Indians
+in their wanderings, and sometimes became as barbarous as their red
+associates. The order-loving king who swayed the destinies of France,
+taking umbrage at these irregularities, had issued mandates intended to
+repress the evil, by prohibiting the inhabitants of Canada from leaving
+the limits of the settled country; and requiring the trade to be carried
+on, not in the distant wilderness, but within the bounds of the colony.
+The civil and military officers of the crown, charged with the execution
+of these ordinances, showed a sufficient zeal in enforcing them against
+others, while they themselves habitually violated them; hence, a singular
+confusion, with abundant outcries, complaint, and recrimination. Prominent
+among these officials was Perrot, Governor of Montreal, who must not be
+confounded with Nicolas Perrot, the _voyageur_. The Governor of Montreal,
+though subordinate to the Governor-General, held great and arbitrary power
+within his own jurisdiction. Perrot had married a niece of Talon, the late
+Intendant, to whose influence he owed his place. Confiding in this
+powerful protection, he gave free rein to his headstrong-temper, and
+carried his government with a high hand, berating and abusing anybody who
+ventured to remonstrate. The grave fathers of St. Sulpice, owners of
+Montreal, were the more scandalized at the behavior of their military
+chief, by reason of a certain burlesque and gasconading vein which often
+appeared in him, and which they regarded as unseemly levity. [Footnote:
+Perrot received his appointment from the Seminary of St. Sulpice, on
+Talon's recommendation, but he afterwards applied for and gained a royal
+commission, which, as he thought, made him independent of the priests.]
+
+Perrot, through his wife's uncle, had obtained a grant of the Island above
+Montreal, which still bears his name. Here he established a trading house
+which he placed in charge of an agent, one Brucy, who, by a tempting
+display of merchandise and liquors, intercepted the Indians on their
+yearly descent to trade with the French, and thus got possession of their
+furs, in anticipation of the market of Montreal. Not satisfied with this,
+Perrot, in defiance of the royal order, sent men into the woods to trade
+with the Indians in their villages, and it is said even used his soldiers
+for this purpose, under cover of pretended desertion. [Footnote: The
+original papers relating to the accusations against Perrot are still
+preserved in the ancient records of Montreal.] The rage of the merchants
+of Montreal may readily be conceived, and when Frontenac heard of the
+behavior of his subordinate he was duly incensed.
+
+It seems, however, to have occurred, or to have been suggested to him,
+that he, the Governor-General might repeat the device of Perrot on a
+larger scale and with more profitable results. By establishing a fortified
+trading post on Lake Ontario, the whole trade of the upper country might
+be engrossed, with the exception of that portion of it which descended by
+the river Ottawa, and even this might in good part be diverted from its
+former channel. At the same time, a plan of a fort on Lake Ontario might
+be made to appear as of great importance to the welfare of the colony; and
+in fact, from one point of view, it actually was so. Courcelles, the late
+governor, had already pointed out its advantages. Such a fort would watch
+and hold in check the Iroquois, the worst enemy of Canada; and, with the
+aid of a few small vessels, it would intercept the trade which the upper
+Indians were carrying on through the Iroquois country with the English and
+Dutch of New York. Frontenac learned from La Salle that the English were
+intriguing both with the Iroquois and with the tribes of the Upper Lakes,
+to induce them to break the peace with the French, and bring their furs to
+New York. [Footnote: _Lettre de Frontenac à Colbert_, 13 _Nov_. 1678.]
+Hence the advantages, not to say the necessity, of a fort on Lake Ontario
+were obvious. But, while it would turn a stream of wealth from the English
+to the French colony, it was equally clear that the change might be made
+to inure, not to the profit of Canada at large, but solely to that of
+those who had control of the fort; or, in other words, that the new
+establishment might become an instrument of a grievous monopoly. This
+Frontenac and La Salle well understood, and there can be no reasonable
+doubt that they aimed at securing such a monopoly: but the merchants of
+Canada understood it, also; and hence they regarded with distrust any
+scheme of a fort on Lake Ontario.
+
+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.
+[Footnote: _Lettre de Frontenac à Colbert_, 13 _Nov_. 1673, MS. This
+rumor, it appears, originated with the Jesuit Dablon.--_Journal du Voyage
+du Comte de Frontenac au Lac Ontario_. MS. The Jesuits were greatly
+opposed to the establishment of forts and trading posts in the upper
+country, for reasons that will appear hereafter.]
+
+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. He now had with him about four hundred men, including Indians from
+the missions, and a hundred and twenty canoes, besides two large
+flatboats, 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 flatboats 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
+flatboats; 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.
+
+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 flatboats, 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.
+
+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
+flatboats, 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 storehouse 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.
+
+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, 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."
+[Footnote: _Lettre de Frontenac au Ministre_, 13 Nov. 1673.] 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
+scheme of La Salle; and we shall soon find him employed in executing it.
+
+It remained to determine what disposition should be made of the new fort.
+For some time it was uncertain whether the king would not order its
+demolition, as efforts had been made to influence him to that effect. It
+was resolved, however, that, being once constructed, it should be allowed
+to stand; and, after a considerable 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. [Footnote: 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 entrusted 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."] 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. [Footnote: _Mémoire pour l'entretien du
+Fort Frontenac, par le Sr. de la Salle, 1674. MS. Pétition du Sr. de la
+Salle au Roi, MS. 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, MS. Arrêt qui accepte les offres faites par Robert Cavelier Sr.
+de la Salle; à Compiègne le 13 Mai, 1675, MS. Lettres de noblesse pour le
+Sr. Cavelier de la Salle; données à Compiègne le 13 Mai, 1675, MS. Papiers
+de Famille; Mémoire au Roi, MS._]
+
+La Salle returned to Canada, proprietor of a seigniory, which, all things
+considered, was one of the most valuable in the colony. It was now that
+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 the broad
+ambition that urged his scheming brain.
+
+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.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+1674-1678.
+LA SALLE AND THE JESUITS.
+
+THE ABBÉ FÉNELON.--HE ATTACKS THE GOVERNOR.--THE ENEMIES OF
+LA SALLE.--AIMS OF THE JESUITS.--THEIR HOSTILITY TO LA SALLE.
+
+
+A curious incident occurred soon, after the building of the fort on Lake
+Ontario. A violent quarrel had taken place between Frontenac and 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, seigneurs 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.
+
+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. [Footnote: 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.]
+
+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. [Footnote: _Information faicte par nous, Charles
+Le Tardieu, Sieur de Tilly, et Nicolas Dupont, etc. etc., contre le Sr.
+Abbé de Fénelon_, MS. Tilly and Dupont were sent by Frontenac to inquire
+into the affair. Among the deponents is La Salle himself.]
+
+This indecent procedure of La Salle filled the priests with anxiety, for
+they had no doubt that the sermon would speedily be reported to Frontenac.
+Accordingly they made all haste to disavow it, and their letter to that
+effect was the first information which the Governor received of the
+affair. He summoned the offender to Quebec, to answer a charge of
+seditious language, before the Supreme Council. Fénelon appeared
+accordingly, but denied the jurisdiction of the Council; claiming that as
+an ecclesiastic it was his right to be tried by the Bishop. By way of
+asserting this right, he seated himself in presence of his judges, and put
+on his hat; and being rebuked by Frontenac, who presided, he pushed it on
+farther. [Footnote: The Council always held its session with hats on. It
+seems that a priest, summoned before it as a witness, was also entitled to
+wear his hat, and Fénelon maintained that it had no right to require him
+to appear before it in any other character.] He was placed under arrest,
+and soon after required to leave Canada; but the king accompanied the
+recall with a sharp word of admonition to his too strenuous lieutenant.
+[Footnote: _Lettre du Roi à Frontenac_, 22 _Avril_, 1675, MS.]
+
+This affair gives us a glimpse of the distracted state of the colony,
+racked by the discord of conflicting interests and passions. There were
+the quarrels of rival traders, the quarrels of priests among themselves,
+of priests with the civil authorities, and of the civil authorities among
+themselves. Prominent, if not paramount, among the occasions of strife,
+were the schemes of Cavelier de La Salle. All the traders not interested
+with him leagued together to oppose him; and this with an acrimony easily
+understood, when it is remembered that they depended for subsistence on
+the fur-trade, while La Salle had engrossed a great part of it, and
+threatened to engross far more. Duchesneau, Intendant of the colony, and
+in that capacity almost as a matter of course on ill terms with the
+Governor, was joined with this party of opposition, with whom he evidently
+had commercial interests in common. La Chesnaye, Le Moyne, and ultimately
+Le Ber, besides various others of more or less influence, were in the
+league against La Salle. Among them was Louis Joliet, whom his partisans
+put forward as a rival discoverer, and a foil to La Salle. Joliet, it will
+be remembered, had applied for a grant of land in the countries he had
+discovered, and had been refused. La Salle soon after made a similar
+application, and with a different result, as will presently appear. His
+adherents continually depreciated the merits of Joliet, and even expressed
+doubt of the reality, or at least the extent, of his discoveries.
+
+But there was another element of opposition to La Salle, 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.
+
+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
+[Footnote: This purpose is several times indicated in the _Relations_. For
+an instance, see "Jesuits in North America," 153.] 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, [Footnote: Compare Charlevoix, _Histoire de Paraguay_,
+with Robertson, _Letters on Paraguay_.] 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 ascendancy of their Order; or, as
+they would have expressed it, the ascendancy 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, settlement. The scope and vigor of
+his enterprises, and the powerful influence that aided them made him a
+stumbling-block in their path. As they would have put the case, it was the
+spirit of this world opposed to the spirit of religion; but I may perhaps
+be pardoned if I am constrained to think that the spirit which inspired
+these fathers was not uniformly celestial, notwithstanding the virtues
+which sometimes illustrated it.
+
+Frontenac, in his letters to the Court, is continually begging that more
+Récollet friars may be sent to Canada. [Footnote: The Récollets, ejected
+from Canada on the irruption of the English in 1629 (see "Pioneers of
+France in the New World"), had not been allowed to return until 1669, when
+their missions were begun anew.] Not that he had any peculiar fondness for
+ecclesiastics of any kind, regular or secular, white, black, or gray; but
+he wanted the Récollets to oppose to the Jesuits. He had no fear of these
+mendicant disciples of St. Francis. Far less able and less ambitious than
+the Jesuits, he knew that he could manage them, because they would need
+his support against their formidable rivals. La Salle, too, wanted more
+Récollets, and for the same reason; but in one point he differed from his
+patron. He was a man, not only of regulated life, but of strong religious
+feeling, and, bating his violent prepossession against the Jesuits, he
+respected the Church and its ministers, as his letters and his life
+attest. Thus, in replying to a charge of undue severity towards some of
+his followers, he alleges in his justification the profane language of the
+men in question, and adds, "I am a Christian; I will have no blasphemers
+in my camp." [Footnote: Letter of La Salle in the hands of M. Margry.]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+1678.
+PARTY STRIFE.
+
+LA SALLE AND HIS REPORTER.--JESUIT ASCENDANCY.--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.
+
+
+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,
+[Footnote: _Ante_, p. 11.] 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. [Footnote: Louis-Armand de Bourbon, second Prince de
+Conti. I am strongly inclined to think that this nobleman himself is
+author of the memoir.] 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. [Footnote: Extracts from this have already been given in connection
+with La Salle's supposed discovery of the Mississippi. _Ante_, p. 20.]
+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 in 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 certainty 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." [Footnote: "Tous ceux
+de mes amis qui l'ont vu luy trouve beaucoup d'esprit et un très grand
+sens; il ne parle guères que des choses sur lesquelles on l'interroge; il
+les dit en très-peu de mots et très-bien circonstanciés; 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 lui 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."]
+
+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;
+[Footnote: "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.] that he is not well inclined towards the
+Récollets, [Footnote: "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_.] 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; [Footnote: "Ils (les Jésuites) réfusent l'absolution a
+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-memes sans aucune
+difficulté ce mesme trafic quoique tout sorte de trafic soit interdit 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 moms; 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 chasse 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.] 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, [Footnote: 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.] 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. [Footnote: "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."]
+
+The memoir proceeds to affirm that they trade largely with the Sioux, at
+Ste. Marie, and with other tribes at Michillimackinac, and that they are
+masters of the trade of that region, where the forts are in their
+possession. [Footnote: These forts were built by them, and were necessary
+to the security of their missions.] 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. [Footnote: 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.] It is added that there exists in Quebec, under the auspices of
+the Jesuits, an association called the Sainte Famille, of which Madame
+Bourdon [Footnote: This Madame Bourdon was the widow of Bourdon, the
+engineer, (see "Jesuits in North America," 299). 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.] 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. [Footnote: "Il y a dans Québec une
+congrégation de femmes et de filles qu'ils [_les Jésuits_]
+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
+Boudon; 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 on 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 Mr. 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.
+
+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.
+
+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
+Mississipi. 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. [Footnote: Mention has been made
+of the report set on foot by the Jesuit Dablon, to prevent
+the building of the fort.] 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 him 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. [Footnote: This story is told at considerable length, and the
+advances of the lady particularly described.]
+
+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, the 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 the 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, the Abbé Cavelier saw fit, for some
+reason, to interfere, and prevented the alliance. [Footnote: Letter of La
+Salle in possession of M. Margry.]
+
+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 farther 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. [Footnote: 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, 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 fist la guerre aux
+Iroquois." See Thomassy, _Géologie Pratique de la Louisiane_, 203.] At
+this council they accused the two Jesuits, Bruyas and Pierron, [Footnote:
+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_, 1673-9, p. 140 (Shea). Bruyas was also for a
+long time among the Mohawks.] 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 Solycoeur, who confessed the crime. [Footnote: 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 Solycoeur. 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 aerés
+empoissonné 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 nominé Nicolas Perrot, autrement Solycoeur, 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_.] 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 the Prince de
+Conti, 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:
+
+"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 any one shared
+the suspicion which I felt, oblige me by undeceiving him." [Footnote: 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.]
+
+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. [Footnote: 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. MS. The Jesuits had a mission in the neighboring
+tribe of the Mohawks, and elsewhere in New York.] 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.
+
+He is also stated to have declared that Louis Joliet was an impostor,
+[Footnote: This agrees with expressions used by La Salle in a memoir
+addressed by him to Frontenac in November, 1680, and printed by Thomassy.
+In this he plainly intimates his belief that Joliet went but little below
+the mouth of the Illinois.] and a _donné_ of the Jesuits,--that is, a man
+who worked for them without pay; and, farther, 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,
+undoubtedly contains a great deal of truth.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+1677-1678.
+THE GRAND ENTERPRISE.
+
+LA SALLE AT FORT FRONTENAC.--LA SALLE AT COURT.--HIS PLANS APPROVED.
+--HENRI DE TONTY.--PREPARATION FOR DEPARTURE.
+
+
+When La Salle gained possession of Fort Frontenac, he secured a base for
+all his future enterprises. That he meant to make it a permanent one is
+clear from the pains he took to strengthen its defences. Within two years
+from the date of his grant he had replaced the hasty palisade fort of
+Count Frontenac by a regular work of hewn stone; of which, however, only
+two bastions, with their connecting curtains, were completed, the
+enclosure on the water side being formed of pickets. Within, there was a
+barrack, a well, a mill, and a bakery; while a wooden blockhouse guarded
+the gateway. [Footnote: Plan of Fort Frontenac, published by Faillon, from
+the original sent to France by Denonville, 1685.] Near the shore, south of
+the fort, was a cluster of small houses of French _habitans_; and farther,
+in the same direction, was the Indian village. Two officers and a surgeon,
+with half a score or more of 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 fort. [Footnote: _État de la dépense faite par Mr.
+de la Salle, Gouverneur du Fort Frontenac_, MS. When Frontenac was at the
+fort in September, 1677, he found only four _habitans_. It appears by the
+_Relation des Découvertes du Sr. 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_, MSS.] Besides
+these, there were two Récollet friars, Luc Buisset and Louis Hennepin; of
+whom the latter was but indifferently suited to his apostolic functions,
+as we shall soon discover. La Salle built a house for them, near the fort;
+and they turned a part of it into a chapel.
+
+Partly for trading on the lake, partly with a view to ulterior designs, he
+caused four small decked vessels to be built: but, for ordinary uses,
+canoes best served his purpose; and his followers became so skilful in
+managing them, that they were reputed the best canoe-men in America.
+[Footnote: _Relation des Découvertes_, MS. Hennepin repeats the
+statement.] Feudal lord of the forests around him, commander of a garrison
+raised and paid by himself, founder of the mission, patron of the church,
+La Salle reigned the autocrat of his lonely little empire.
+
+But he had no thought of resting here. He had gained what he sought, a
+fulcrum for bolder and broader action. His plans were ripened and his time
+was come. He was no longer a needy adventurer, disinherited of all but his
+fertile brain and his intrepid heart. He had won place, influence, credit,
+and potent friends. Now, at length, he might hope to find the long-sought
+path to China and Japan, and secure for France those boundless regions of
+the West, in whose watery highways he saw his road to wealth, renown, and
+power. Again he sailed for France, bearing, as before, letters from
+Frontenac, commending him to the king and the minister. We have seen that
+he was denounced in advance as a madman; but Colbert at length gave him a
+favoring ear, and granted his petition. Perhaps he read the man before
+him, living only in the conception and achievement of great designs, and
+armed with a courage that not the Fates nor the Furies themselves could
+appall.
+
+La Salle was empowered to pursue his proposed discoveries at his own
+expense, on condition of completing them within five years; to build forts
+in the new-found countries, and hold possession of them on terms similar
+to those already granted him in the case of Fort Frontenac; and to
+monopolize the trade in buffalo skins, a new branch of commerce, by which,
+as he urged, the plains of the Mississippi would become a source of
+copious wealth. But he was expressly forbidden to carry on trade with the
+Ottawas and other tribes of the Lakes, who were accustomed to bring their
+furs to Montreal. [Footnote: _Permission an Sr. de la Salle de découvrir
+la partie occidentals de la Nouvelle France_, 12 _May_, 1678, MS. Signed
+_Colbert_; not, as Charlevoix says, _Seignelay_.]
+
+Again La Salle's wealthy relatives came to his aid, and large advances of
+money were made to him. [Footnote: In the memorial which La Salle's
+relations presented to the king after his death, they say that, on this
+occasion, "ses frères et ses parents n'épargnèrent rien." It is added that
+between 1678 and 1683 his enterprises cost the family more than 500,000
+francs. By a memorandum of his cousin, François Plet, M.D., of Paris, it
+appears that La Salle gave him, on the 27th and 28th of June, 1678, two
+promissory notes of 9,805 francs and 1,676 francs respectively.] He bought
+supplies and engaged men; and in July, 1678, sailed again for Canada, with
+thirty followers,--sailors, carpenters, and laborers,--an abundant store
+of anchors, cables, and rigging; iron tools,--merchandise for trade, and
+all things necessary for his enterprise. There was one man of his party
+worth all the rest combined. The Prince de Conti had a _protégé_ in the
+person of Henri de Tonty, an Italian officer, one of whose hands had been
+blown off by a grenade in the Sicilian wars. His father, who had been
+Governor of Gaeta, but who had come to France in consequence of political
+convulsions in Naples, had earned no small reputation as a financier, and
+devised the form of life insurance known as the Tontine. The Prince de
+Conti recommended the son to La Salle; and, as the event proved, he could
+not have done him a better service. 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 any thing; 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." [Footnote: _Lettre de
+La Salle au Prince de Conti_, 31 _Oct_. 1678, MS. 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 Gallicised, 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 ascribes the
+loss of his hand to a sabre-cut received in a _sortie_ at Messina; but
+Tonty, in his _Mémoire_, says, as above, that it was blown off.]
+
+Besides Tonty, La Salle found another ally, though a less efficient one,
+in the person of the Sieur de la Motte; and at Quebec, where he was
+detained for a time, he found Father Louis Hennepin, who had come down
+from Fort Frontenac to meet him.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+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 chateau; 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. [Footnote: Hennepin,
+_Description de la Louisiane_ (1683), 19. Ibid., _Voyage Curieux_ (1704),
+66. Ribourde had lately arrived.] La Salle, Tonty, La Motte, and their
+party, who had left Quebec a few days after him, soon appeared at the
+fort; La Salle much fatigued and worn by the hardships of the way, or more
+probably by the labors and anxieties of preparation. He had no sooner
+arrived, than he sent fifteen men in canoes to Lake Michigan and the
+Illinois, to open a trade with the Indians and collect a store of
+provisions. There was a small vessel of ten tons in the harbor; and he
+ordered La Motte to sail in her for Niagara, accompanied by 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." [Footnote: Hennepin, _Nouvelle Découverte_ (1697), 8.] 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. [Footnote: Ibid., _Avant Propos_, 5.]
+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."
+[Footnote: Ibid., _Voyage Curieux_ (1704), 12.]
+
+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." [Footnote: Ibid., 13.]
+
+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.
+[Footnote: 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.]
+
+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 [Footnote: 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.] 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.
+[Footnote: Compare Brodhead in _Hist. Mag._, x. 268.]
+
+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." [Footnote: "Une entreprise capable
+d'épouvanter tout autre que moi."--Hennepin, _Voyage Curieux, Avant
+Propos_ (1704).] 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 every thing related in it." [Footnote: "Je vous
+proteste ici devant Dieu, que ma Relation est fidèle et sincère," etc.--
+Ibid., _Avis au Lecteur_.] 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. [Footnote: 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.]
+
+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 north-east;
+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, [Footnote: 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.] 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.
+
+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. [Footnote: 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," 143. 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.]
+
+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.
+
+It was La Salle's purpose to build a palisade fort at the mouth of the
+Niagara; and the work was now begun, though it was necessary to use hot
+water 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, south-east of the
+site of Rochester. [Footnote: 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.] 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 at
+the mouth 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.
+
+A few days after, Hennepin was near the shore of the lake, when he heard a
+well-known voice, and to his surprise saw La Salle approaching. This
+resolute child of misfortune had already begun to taste the bitterness of
+his destiny. Sailing with Tonty from Fort Frontenac, to bring supplies to
+the advanced party at Niagara, he had been detained by contrary winds when
+within a few hours of his destination. Anxious to reach it speedily, he
+left the vessel in charge of the pilot, who disobeyed his orders, and
+ended by wrecking it at a spot nine or ten leagues west of Niagara.
+[Footnote: Tonty, _Mémoire envoyé en 1693 sur la Découverte du Mississippi
+et des Nations voisines, par le Sieur de la Salle, en 1678, et depuis sa
+mort par le Sieur de Tonty_. The published work bearing Tonty's name is a
+compilation full of misstatements. He disowned its authorship. Its
+authority will not be relied on in this narrative. A copy of the true
+document from the original, signed by Tonty, in the Archives de la Marine,
+is before me.] The provisions and merchandise were lost, though the crew
+saved the anchors and cables destined for the vessel which La Salle
+proposed to build for the navigation of the Upper Lakes. He had had a
+meeting with the Senecas, before the disaster; and, more fortunate than La
+Motte,--for his influence over Indians was great,--had persuaded them to
+consent, for a time, to the execution of his plans. They required,
+however, that he should so far modify them as to content himself with a
+stockaded warehouse, in place of a fort, at the mouth of the Niagara.
+
+The loss of the vessel threw him into extreme perplexity, and, as Hennepin
+says, "would have made anybody but him give up the enterprise." [Footnote:
+_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.] The whole party
+were now gathered within the half-finished palisades of Niagara; a motley
+crew of French, Flemings, and Italians, all mutually jealous. Some of the
+men had been tampered with by La Salle's enemies. None of them seem to
+have had much heart for the enterprise. La Motte had gone back to Canada.
+He had been a soldier, and perhaps a good one; but he had already broken
+down under the hardships of these winter journeyings. La Salle, seldom
+happy in the choice of subordinates, had, perhaps, in all his company but
+one man in whom he could confidently 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.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+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.
+
+
+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
+advanced 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.
+[Footnote: 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.]
+
+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. [Footnote: 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 Maitre Moyse,
+appears as Moïse Hillaret, and the blacksmith, whom he calls La Forge, is
+mentioned as--(illegible) dit la Forge.] 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.
+
+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. [Footnote: "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.] 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, was making his way back on foot to Fort Frontenac, a
+distance of some two hundred and fifty miles, through the snow-encumbered
+forests of the Iroquois and over the ice of Lake Ontario. The wreck of his
+vessel made it necessary that fresh supplies should be sent to Niagara;
+and the condition of his affairs, embarrassed by the great expenses of the
+enterprise, demanded his presence at Fort Frontenac. 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.
+
+During his absence, Tonty finished the vessel, which was of about forty-
+five tons burden. [Footnote: 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.] 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.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+1679.
+LA SALLE ON THE UPPER LAKES.
+
+THE VOYAGE OF THE "GRIFFIN."--DETROIT.--A STORM.--ST. IGNACE OF
+MICHILLIMACKINAC.--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, the
+voyagers, thirty-four in all, 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, [Footnote: They named it Sainte Claire, of which the present name
+is a perversion.] and still sailed northward against the current, till
+now, sparkling in the sun, Lake Huron spread before them like a sea.
+
+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. [Footnote: Hennepin (1683), 58.] 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 Michillimackinac, 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. [Footnote: 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.] 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. [Footnote: Tonty, _Mémoire_, MS. He was
+overtaken at the Detroit by the "Griffin."] 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 Michillimackinac. 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.
+
+Early in September, long before Tonty had returned from Ste. Marie, La
+Salle set sail again, and, passing westward into Lake Michigan, [Footnote:
+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.] 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. [Footnote: "The Great Mountain," the
+Iroquois name for the Governor of Canada. It was borrowed by other tribes
+also.] Here, too, he found several of his advanced 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. [Footnote: 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 an Ministre_, 10 _Nov_. 1680, MS] She fired a
+parting shot, and, on the eighteenth of September, spread her sails for
+Niagara, in charge of the pilot, who had orders to return with her to the
+Illinois as soon as he had discharged his 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.
+
+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 much ado
+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 a 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 driftwood, 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. [Footnote: Hennepin (1683), 79.]
+
+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 hack 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.
+
+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.
+
+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 further,
+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 a new subject of anxiety. La Salle thought that he saw in it
+another device of his busy and unscrupulous enemies, intriguing among the
+Illinois 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 Michillimackinac, 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. [Footnote: Hennepin
+(1683), 112; Tonty, _Mémoire_, MS.]
+
+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 farther delay was impossible. He
+sent back two men to Michillimackinac 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.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII.
+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 HIM.
+
+
+On the third of December, the party re-embarked, thirty-three in all, in
+eight canoes, [Footnote: _Lettre de Duchesneau à_--, 10 _Nov_. 1680, MS.]
+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 snowflakes, 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 farther 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.
+
+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. They soon reached a spot where the oozy saturated soil
+quaked beneath their tread. All around were clumps of alderbushes, 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. [Footnote: 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. 835 (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."] 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.
+[Footnote: I remember to have seen an incident precisely similar, many
+years ago, on the Upper Arkansas. In this case, however, it was impossible
+to drag the bull from the mire. Though hopelessly entangled, he made
+furious plunges at his assailants before being shot.
+
+Hennepin's account of the buffalo, which he afterwards had every
+opportunity of seeing, is interesting and true.]
+
+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. [Footnote: The change is very
+recent. Within the memory of men still young, 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 farm-house 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 snow-drifts.]
+
+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, [Footnote:
+"Starved Rock." It will hold, hereafter, a conspicuous place in the
+narrative.] 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. [Footnote:
+_La Louisiane_, 137. Allouez (_Relation_, 1673-9) 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 de Père Marquette_, 98 (Lenox). Membré, who was here in 1680,
+says that it then contained seven or eight thousand souls.--Membré, in Le
+Clercq, _Premier Etablissement 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 Edifiantes_.
+
+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
+largest. 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.] 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.
+
+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
+twenty _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." [Footnote: "Les
+paroles les plus touchantes." Hennepin (1683), 139. The later editions add
+the modest qualification, "que je pus."] 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. Two 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. [Footnote: Peoria was the name of one of the tribes of
+the Illinois. Hennepin says that they crossed the lake four days after
+leaving the village, which last, as appears by a comparison of his
+narrative with that of Tonty, must have been on the thirtieth of
+December.] Here, as evening drew near, they saw a faint spire of smoke
+curling above the gray, wintry 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. [Footnote: 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.]
+
+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
+forth 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. [Footnote: Hennepin (1683), 142.] 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.
+
+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 their country, he would
+stand by the Illinois, 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.
+[Footnote: Hennepin (1683), 144-149. The later editions omit a part of the
+above.]
+
+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. 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 firebrand, Monso
+and his party left the camp in haste, dreading to be confronted with the
+object of their aspersions. [Footnote: Hennepin (1683), 151, (1704), 205.
+Le Clercq, ii. 157. _Mémoire du Voyage de M. de la Salle_, MS. 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. La Salle had a special distrust of this missionary, who, on his
+part, always shunned a meeting with him.
+
+In another memoir, addressed to Frontenac in 1680, La Salle states fully
+his conviction that Allouez, who was then, he says, among the Miamis, had
+induced them to send Monso on his sinister errand. See the memoir 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.]
+
+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 for ever.
+
+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?" [Footnote: The above is a paraphrase, with some condensation,
+from Hennepin, whose account is sustained by the other writers.] 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. [Footnote: Hennepin (1683), 162.--_Déclaration faite par
+Moyse Hillaret, charpentier de barque, cy devant au service du Sr. de la
+Salle_, MS.]
+
+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. [Footnote: The
+equally famous Brinvilliers was burned four years before. An account of
+both will be found in the Letters of Madame de Sevigné. 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.]
+
+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.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV.
+1680.
+FORT CRÈVECOEUR.
+
+BUILDING OF THE FORT.--LOSS OF THE "GRIFFIN."--A BOLD RESOLUTION.
+--ANOTHER VESSEL.--HENNEPIN SENT TO THE MISSISSIPPI.--DEPARTURE
+OF LA SALLE.
+
+
+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 little hill, or
+knoll, two hundred yards from the southern bank. On either side was a deep
+ravine, and, in front, a low ground, 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 men were lodged
+in huts, at the angles: in the middle there was a cabin of planks for La
+Salle and Tonty, and another for the three friars; while the blacksmith
+had his shed and forge in the rear.
+
+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. The spot may still be seen, a little below Peoria. 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. [Footnote:
+Charlevoix, i. 459; La Potherie, ii. 140; La Hontan, _Memoir on the Fur-
+Trade of Canada_, MS. 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.] 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. [Footnote:
+_Lettre de la Salle à La Barre, Chicagou,_ 4 _Juin_, 1683, MS. 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.]
+
+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. [Footnote: _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, MS. Hennepin gives a story which
+is not essentially different, except that he makes himself a conspicuous
+actor in it.]
+
+Here was one source of danger stopped; one motive to desert removed. La
+Salle again might feel a reasonable security that idleness would not breed
+mischief among his men. The chief purpose of his intended journey was to
+procure the equipment of a vessel, to be built at Fort Crèvecoeur; and he
+resolved that before he set out he would see her on the stocks. The pit-
+sawyers and some of the carpenters had deserted; but energy supplied the
+place of skill, and he and Tonty urged on the work with such vigor that
+within six weeks the hull was nearly finished. She was of forty tons
+burden, [Footnote: _Lettre de Duchesneau, à_--, 10 _Nov_. 1680, MS.] and
+built with high bulwarks to protect those within from the arrows of
+hostile Indians.
+
+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." [Footnote: "Tout autre que
+moi en auroit été fort ébranlé. Et en effet, je n'eusse pas été la duppe
+du Sieur de la Salle, qui m'exposait témérairement, si je n'eusse mis
+toute ma confiance en Dieu" (1704), 241.]
+
+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, [Footnote: An eminent
+writer has mistaken "Picard" for a personal name. Du Gay was called "Le
+Picard," because he came from the province of Picardy. Accau, and not
+Hennepin, was the real chief of the party.] 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." [Footnote: (1683), 188. This
+commendation is suppressed in the later editions.]
+
+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 second of March, [Footnote: Tonty erroneously places their
+departure on the twenty-second.] before the frost was yet out of the
+ground, when the forest was still leafless and gray, and the oozy prairie
+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: Hunaud, La Violette, Collin, and Dautray.
+[Footnote: _Déclaration faite par Moyse Hillaret, charpentier de barque,
+MS._] 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.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV.
+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.
+
+
+The winter had been a severe one. When La Salle and his five companions
+reached Peoria Lake, they found it sheeted from shore to shore with ice
+that stopped the progress of their canoes, but was too thin to bear the
+weight of a man.
+
+They dragged their light vessels up the bank and into the forest, where
+the city of Peoria now stands; made two rude sledges, placed the canoes
+and baggage upon them, and, toiling knee-deep in saturated snow, dragged
+them four leagues through the woods, till they reached a point where the
+motion of the current kept the water partially open. They were now on the
+river above the lake. Masses of drift ice, wedged together, but full of
+crevices and holes, soon barred the way again; and, carrying their canoes
+ashore, they dragged them two leagues over a frozen marsh. Rain fell in
+floods; and, when night came, they crouched for shelter 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. [Footnote: 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.]
+
+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 moccasons. 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. [Footnote: 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 Clercq, ii. 181.] 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. [Footnote: Tonty, _Mémoire_, MS. The order was sent by
+two Frenchmen whom La Salle met on Lake Michigan.]
+
+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. Each, besides his gun, carried a knife and
+a hatchet at his belt, a blanket strapped at his back, and a piece of
+dressed hide to make or mend his moccasons. A store of powder and lead,
+and a kettle, completed the outfit of the party. [Footnote: Hennepin
+(1683), 173.]
+
+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 Michillimackinac, in
+search of the "Griffin." [Footnote: _Déclaration de Moyse Hillaret_, MS.
+_Relation des Découvertes_, MS.] 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.
+
+They were detained till noon of the twenty-fifth, in making a raft to
+cross the St. Joseph. Then they resumed their march; and as they forced
+their way through the brambly thickets, their clothes were torn, and their
+faces so covered with blood, that, says the journal, they could hardly
+know each other. Game was very scarce, and they grew faint with hunger. In
+two or three days they reached a happier region. They shot deer, bears,
+and turkeys in the forest, and fared sumptuously. But the reports of their
+guns fell on hostile ears. This was a debatable ground, infested with war-
+parties of several adverse tribes, and none could venture here without
+risk of life. On the evening of the twenty-eighth, as they lay around
+their fire under the shelter of a forest by the border of a prairie, the
+man on guard shouted an alarm. They sprang to their feet; and each, gun in
+hand, took his stand behind a tree, while yells and howlings filled the
+surrounding darkness. A band of Indians were upon them; but, seeing them
+prepared, the cowardly assailants did not wait to exchange a shot.
+
+They crossed great meadows, overgrown with rank grass, and set it on fire
+to hide the traces of their passage. La Salle bethought him of a device to
+keep their skulking foes at a distance. On the trunks of trees from which
+he had stripped the bark, he drew with charcoal the marks of an Iroquois
+war-party, with the usual signs for prisoners, and for scalps, hoping to
+delude his pursuers with the belief that he and his men were a band of
+these dreaded warriors.
+
+Thus, over snowy prairies and half-frozen marshes; wading sometimes to
+their waists in mud, water, and bulrushes, they urged their way through
+the spongy, saturated wilderness. During three successive days they were
+aware that a party of savages was dogging their tracks. They dared, not
+make a fire at night, lest the light should betray them; but, hanging
+their wet clothes on the trees, they rolled themselves in their blankets,
+and slept together among piles of spruce and pine boughs. But the night of
+the second of April was excessively cold. Their clothes were hard frozen,
+and they were forced to kindle a fire to thaw and dry them. Scarcely had
+the light begun to glimmer through the gloom of evening, than it was
+greeted from the distance by mingled yells; and a troop of Mascoutin
+warriors rushed towards them. They were stopped by a deep stream, a
+hundred paces from the bivouac of the French, and La Salle went forward to
+meet them. No sooner did they see him, and learn that he was a Frenchman,
+than they cried that they were friends and brothers, who had mistaken him
+and his men for Iroquois; and, abandoning their hostile purpose, they
+peacefully withdrew. Thus his device to avert danger had well-nigh proved
+the destruction of the whole party.
+
+Two days after this adventure, two of the men fell ill from fatigue, and
+exposure, and sustained themselves with difficulty till they reached the
+banks of a river, 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.
+
+La Salle directed two of the men to make a canoe, and go to
+Michillimackinac, 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. [Footnote: 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.]
+
+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. [Footnote: Zenobe
+Membré in Le Clercq, ii. 202.] 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. 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 _habitans_ 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 Michillimackinac and Niagara, they
+now numbered twenty men. [Footnote: 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_, MS. 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.] They had destroyed the fort on the St. Joseph, seized a
+quantity of furs belonging to La Salle at Michillimackinac, 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.
+
+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. [Footnote: The story of La Salle's journey from Fort
+Crèvecoeur to Fort Frontenac, with his subsequent encounter with the
+mutineers, is given in great detail in the unpublished _Relation des
+Découvertes_. This and other portions of it are compiled, with little
+abridgment, from the letters of La Salle himself, some of which are still
+in existence. They give the particulars of each day with a cool and
+business-like simplicity, recounting facts without comment or the
+slightest attempt at rhetorical embellishment. This is the authority for
+the details of the journey: the general statement is confirmed by Membré,
+Hennepin, and Tonty. The _Mémoire_ of Tonty, though too concise, is
+excellent authority, and must by no means be confounded with the _Relation
+de la Louisiane_, to which his name is falsely affixed.]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI.
+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.
+
+
+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 toils 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 veiled 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,
+indeed, 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. [Footnote: _Robert Cavelier, Sr. de
+la Salle, à François Daupin, Sr. de la Forest,_ 10 _Juin, 1679,_ MS.] A
+surgeon, ship-carpenters, joiners, masons, soldiers, _voyageurs_, and
+laborers completed his company, twenty-five men in all, with every thing
+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
+Michillimackinac. 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, [Footnote: 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,--an
+impossibility.] 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. For some time past, rumors had
+been abroad that the Iroquois were preparing to invade the country of the
+Illinois, bent on expelling or destroying them. 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.
+
+When last he had passed here, all was solitude; but how 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; their horns
+splintered and their grim front scarred with battles, while their shaggy
+mane, like a gigantic lion, well-nigh swept the ground. [Footnote: I have
+a very vivid recollection of the appearance of an old buffalo bull under
+such circumstances. When I was within a hundred yards of him, he came
+towards me at a sharp trot as if to make a charge; but, as I remained
+motionless, he stopped thirty paces off and stared fixedly for a long
+time. At length, he slowly turned, and, in doing so, received a shot
+behind the shoulder, which killed him. It is useless to fire at the
+forehead of a buffalo bull, at least with an ordinary rifle, as the bullet
+flattens against his skull. A shot at close quarters, just above the nose,
+would probably turn him in a charge. The usual modes of hunting buffalo on
+foot are those mentioned above. They are commonly successful; but at times
+the animals are excessively shy and wary, while at other times they are
+stupid beyond measure, and can be easily approached and killed. The hunter
+must remain perfectly motionless after firing, as the wounded animal is
+apt to make a rush at him if he moves. The most agreeable mode of hunting
+buffalo is, however, on horseback, running alongside of them, and shooting
+them behind the shoulder with a pistol or a short gun. A bow and arrow are
+better for those who know how to use them; but white men very rarely have
+the skill. I have seen, on different occasions, several hundred buffalo
+killed with arrows, by Indians on horseback. This noble game, with the
+tribes who live on it, will soon disappear from the earth.] 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 bounteous 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.
+
+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. [Footnote: "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 avait des
+têtes de morts plantées et mangóes des corbeaux."--_Relation des
+Découvertes du Sr. de la Salle_, MS.] 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. [Footnote:
+"Beaucoup de carcasses à demi rongées par les loups, les sepulchres
+démolis, les os tirés de leurs fosses et épars par la campagne; ... enfin
+les loups et les corbeaux augmentoient par leurs hurlemens et par leurs
+cris l'horreur de ce spectacle."--_Ibid_.
+
+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.]
+
+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 storehouses 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, but none whatever of the presence of white
+men. 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, crouched around their camp-
+fire, La Salle and his companions kept their vigil. The howlings of the
+wolves filled the frosty air with a fierce and dreary dissonance. More
+deadly foes were not far off, for before nightfall they had seen fresh
+Indian tracks. The cold, however, forced them to make a fire; and while
+some tried to rest around it, the others stood on the watch. La Salle
+could not sleep. Anxiety, anguish, fears for his friend, doubts as to what
+course he should pursue, racked his firm mind with a painful indecision,
+and lent redoubled gloom to the terrors that encompassed him. [Footnote:
+_Relation des Découvertes_, MS.]
+
+During the afternoon, he had made a discovery which offered, as he
+thought, a possible clew to the fate of Tonty, and those with him. In one
+of the Illinois cornfields, near the river, were planted six posts painted
+red, on each of which was drawn in black a figure of a man with eyes
+bandaged. La Salle supposed them to represent six Frenchmen, prisoners in
+the hands of the Iroquois; and he resolved to push forward at all hazards,
+in the hope of learning more. When daylight at length returned, he told
+his followers that it was his purpose to descend the river, 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.
+
+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_ 19--
+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. [Footnote: "On ne
+sçàuroit 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_, MS.] 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. [Footnote: The distance is about two hundred and fifty miles.
+The _Relation des Découvertes_ says 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. Very probably, there is an error of
+date. In other particulars, this narrative is sustained by those of
+Tonty.]
+
+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. [Footnote: 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.]
+
+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 profusion, till the earth was deeply buried. So light and dry
+was it, that to walk on snow-shoes was impossible; and La Salle, after his
+custom, took the lead, to break the path and cheer on his followers.
+Despite his tall stature, he often waded through drifts to the waist,
+while the men toiled on behind; the snow, shaken from the burdened twigs,
+showering them as they passed. After excessive fatigue, 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.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII.
+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,
+housewrights, and soldiers, besides his servant l'Esperance 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 at 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 firebrand 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.
+
+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_." [Footnote: For the
+particulars of this desertion, Membré, in Le Clerc, ii. 171, _Relation des
+Découvertes_, MS.; Tonty, _Mémoire_, MS.; _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_, 17 _Aoust_, 1680, MS.
+
+Moyse Hillaret, the "Maitre Moyse" of Hennepin, was a ringleader 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.] The brave young Sieur de Boisrondet and the servant l'Esperance
+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.
+[Footnote: Two of the messengers, Laurent and Messier, arrived safely. The
+others seem to have deserted.] Besides the two just named, there now
+remained with him only three hired men 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.
+
+I have recounted the ferocious triumphs of the Iroquois in another volume.
+[Footnote: "The Jesuits in America."] Throughout a wide semicircle around
+their cantons they had made the forest a solitude,--destroyed the Hurons,
+exterminated the Neutrals and the Eries, reduced the formidable Andastes
+to a 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. [Footnote:
+Duchesneau, in _Paris Docs_., ix. 163.] These crafty savages would fain
+reduce all these regions to subjection, and draw from 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. [Footnote:
+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.]
+
+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. [Footnote: 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. Starved Rock, or the Rock of St. Louis, is the highest and
+steepest escarpment of the _long rocher_ above mentioned.] 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 space and breathing room, for many are in the fields. A squaw
+sits weaving a mat of rushes; a warrior, naked, except his moccasons, 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. [Footnote: The Illinois were an aggregation of
+distinct though kindred tribes, the Kaskaskias, the Peorias, the Cahokias,
+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.]
+
+This, or something like it, one may safely affirm, was the aspect of the
+Illinois village at noon of the tenth of September. [Footnote: This is
+Membré's date. The narratives differ as to the day, though all agree as to
+the month.] 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, and
+the two faithful men who had stood by their commander. 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.
+
+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,
+[Footnote: 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.] 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 firearms 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.
+
+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 was 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. [Footnote: 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 Decouvertes,_, MS. "Je rencontrai en
+chemin les pères Gabriel et Zenobe Membré, qui cherchoient de mes
+nonvelles."--Tonty _Mémoire_, MS. This was on his return from the
+Iroquois. The _Relation_ confirms the statement, as far as concerns
+Membré: "Il 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. Though this is not mentioned in the three
+authentic narratives, it is more than probable, as Tonty could not have
+known Iroquois enough to make himself understood.] 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. [Footnote: 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.] 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. [Footnote: "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, _Ménoire_, MS.]
+
+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 breezed up 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. Several times, he felt a hand at the back of his
+head, lifting up his hair, and, turning, saw a savage with a knife,
+standing as if ready to scalp him. [Footnote: "Il en avoit un derrière moi
+qui tenoit un couteau dans sa main, et qui de temps en temps me levoit les
+cheveux."--Tonty, _Mémoire_, MS. The _Dernières Découvertes_ adds, "Je me
+retournai vers lui et je vis bien à sa contenance et à sa mine que son
+dessein étoit de m'enlever la chevelure ... je le priai de vouloir du
+moins se donner un peu de patience, et d'attendre que ses Maitres eussent
+décidé de mon sort."] A Seneca chief demanded that he should be burned. 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.
+
+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 skin 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. [Footnote: 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_."] 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 skin, 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.
+
+Tonty, with an 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 farther 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 around 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. [Footnote: Tonty,
+_Mémoire_, MS. Membré in Le Clercq, 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.]
+
+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. [Footnote: "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 plantérent les têtes de ces
+cadavres à demi décharnés sur des pieux," etc.--_Relation des
+Découvertes_, MS.] 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. [Footnote: _Relation des Découvertes_, MS.
+Frontenac to the King, N.Y. _Col. Docs_., ix. 147. A memoir of Duchesneau
+makes the number twelve hundred.] Then followed that scene of torture, of
+which, some two weeks later, La Salle saw the revolting traces. [Footnote:
+"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. 196.] 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 firebrand; 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 Michillimackinac, 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
+they had much ado 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. It was the end of November before they found the
+Pottawattamies, and were warmly greeted by their chief, who had befriended
+La Salle the year before, and who, in his enthusiasm for the French, was
+wont to say that he knew but three great captains in the world, Frontenac,
+La Salle, and himself. [Footnote: Membré, in Le Clercq, ii. 199. Of the
+three, or rather four narratives, on which this chapter mainly rests, the
+best is that contained in the manuscript of 1681, entitled the _Relation
+des Découvertes_. This portion of it, which bears every evidence of
+accuracy, was certainly supplied by Tonty himself or one of his
+companions. The _Mémoire_ of Tonty is wholly distinct. It is a modest and
+simple statement, of which the chief fault is its brevity. He undoubtedly
+wrote another and more detailed narrative, which has been used by the
+editor of the _Dernières Découvertes_, printed with Tonty's name. The
+editor seems to have taken less liberties with his original in this part
+of the book than in many others. The narrative of Membré sustains that of
+Tonty, except in one or two unimportant points, where the writer's vanity
+seems to have gained the better of his veracity.]
+
+While Tonty rests at Green Bay, and La Salle at the fort on the St.
+Joseph, we will leave them for a time to trace the strange adventures of
+the errant friar, Father Louis Hennepin.
+
+
+
+
+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 farm-house; 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 farm-house 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.
+205, _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.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII.
+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, [Footnote: _Description de la Louisiane,
+nouvellement découverte, Paris_, 1683.] Fourteen years after, when La
+Salle was dead, he published another edition of his travels, [Footnote:
+_Nouvelle Découverte d'un très grand Pays situé dans l'Amérique, Utrecht_,
+1697] 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 has 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.
+
+"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 every thing 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."
+[Footnote: _Nouvelle Découverte_, 248, 250, 251.]
+
+He then proceeds to recount, at length, the particulars of his alleged
+exploration. The story was distrusted from the first. [Footnote: 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.] 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." [Footnote: _Description de la Louisiane_, 218.]
+
+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. [Footnote: 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.] 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 farther, 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. [Footnote: 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.]
+
+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 Clercq, published an account of the Récollet missions among
+the Indians, under the title of "Établissement de la Foi." This book was
+suppressed by the French government; but a few copies fortunately
+survived. 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. [Footnote: 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 Clercq'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 Clercq:
+Hennepin, 252, Le Clercq, 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. 283; 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 Clercq 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_.]
+
+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 allusions of Tonty, and other contemporary
+writers. [Footnote: 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.] For the details of the journey,
+we must look on Hennepin alone; whose account of the company and of the
+peculiar traits of its Indian occupation 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 north-western
+region. [Footnote: 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 _Wakansheclia_,
+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.
+
+A variety of 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.] Trusting, then, to his
+guidance in the absence of better, let us follow in the wake of his
+adventurous canoe.
+
+It was laden deeply; with goods belonging to La Salle, and meant by
+handing presents to Indians on the way, though the travelers, it appears,
+proposed to use them in trading of 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 [Footnote:
+Called Ako by Hennepin. In contemporary documents it is written Accau,
+Acau, D'Accau Dacau, Dacan, and d'Accault.] 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 St. 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, not without reason, prayed that it might be his
+fortune to meet them, not by night, but by day.
+
+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. [Footnote: 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.] 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.
+
+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 1863, 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, [Footnote: 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.] 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 peacepipe, 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. [Footnote: 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.]
+
+One night, they 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; and, the banquet over, 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 moccasons; 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 averse 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.
+
+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 be 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.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX.
+1680, 1681.
+HENNEPIN AMONG THE SIOUX.
+
+SIGNS OP 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 St. 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. [Footnote: 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 R. 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 Titonwan 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. Mr. Riggs, in 1852, placed it at about twenty-five
+thousand. Lake many other Indian tribes, they seem practically incapable
+of civilization.]
+
+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 relations 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.
+
+Seeing their new relative so enfeebled that he could scarcely stand, the
+Indians made for him one of their sweating baths, [Footnote: 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.] 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 St. 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 Ouasicoude, 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 several 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. 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
+deerskin 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, who 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.
+
+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 St. Anthony of
+Padua. [Footnote: 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.] As they were carrying their canoe by the
+cataract, they saw five or six Indians, who had gone before, 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. [Footnote: 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 every thing he had about him into the cataract
+as an offering to this deity.] 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, [Footnote: In the edition of 1683. In that of 1697 he has grown
+to seven or eight feet. The bank-swallows still make their nests in these
+cliffs, boring easily into the soft incohesive sandstone.] 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.
+
+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
+fish-hooks, 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. [Footnote: 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.] 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.
+
+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
+blossoming 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; [Footnote: 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_.] 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 strange, 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.
+
+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 admirable address, and used it vigorously, as
+occasion required, to repress the gambols of three children, who, to
+Hennepin's great 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 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.
+
+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. [Footnote: 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, an example, which, if
+followed, would ruin the colony by diverting the sources of its support to
+its rival. Du Lhut built a trading fort on Lake Superior, called
+Cananistigoyan (La Houtan), 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 Clercq, 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 Marquiette, 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.]
+
+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. [Footnote: Abstracts of letters in
+_Memoir on the French Dominion in Canada, N. Y. Col. Docs_., ix. 781.] 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 a 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 it behooved him to conduct
+himself. 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.
+
+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. [Footnote: 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.] He is
+equally reticent with regard to the Jesuit mission at Michillimackinac,
+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. [Footnote: 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 lie all that a Christian ought to be"
+(1697), 433.] 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 Genessee, 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." [Footnote: (1697), 471.] 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.
+
+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.
+[Footnote: 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.
+
+The following is from a letter of La Salle, dated at Fort Frontenac, 22
+Aug. 1681. This, with one or two other passages of his letters, shows that
+he understood the friar's character, though he could scarcely have
+foreseen his scandalous attempts to defame him and rob him of his just
+honors. "J'ai cru qu'il étoit à propos de vous faire le narré des
+aventures de ce canot (du Picard et d'Accau) parce que je ne doute pas
+qu'on n'en parle; et si vous souhaitez en conférer avec le P. Louis Hempin
+(sic) Récollect qui est repassé en France, il faut un peu le connaitre,
+car il ne manquera pas d'exagérer toutes choses, c'est son caractère, et à
+moy mesme il m'a écrit comme s'il eust esté tout près d'estre brulé,
+quoiqu'il n'en ait pas esté seulement en danger; mais il croit qu'il lui
+est honorable de le faire de la sorte, et _il parle plus conformément à ce
+qu'il veut qu'à ce qu'il fait_." I am indebted for the above to M. Margry.
+
+In 1699, Hennepin 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.]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX.
+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 rear the fabric of a
+triumphant 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. The scheme was but a new
+feature, the result of new circumstances, added to the original plan of
+his great enterprise; and he addressed himself to its execution with his
+usual vigor, and with an address which never failed him in his dealings
+with Indians.
+
+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
+for 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 entrenched
+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 nineteen 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. [Footnote: _Relation des Découvertes_, MS. A
+valuable confirmation of Hennepin's narrative.]
+
+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. [Footnote: This seems to have been taken
+from the secret repositories, or _caches_, of the ruined town of the
+Illinois.] Meanwhile, he had rejoined La Forest, whom he now sent to
+Michillimackinac 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 a band of 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.
+
+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." [Footnote: "En ce genre, il étoit le
+plus grand orateur de l'Amerique Septentrionale."--_Relation des
+Découvertes_, MS.] 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 farther 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."
+[Footnote: Translated from the _Relation_, where these councils are
+reported at great length.]
+
+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; the ground
+was broken, and the seed sown. 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 successes were
+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 Michillimackinac 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." [Footnote: Membré, in Le Clercq, ii. 208. Tonty, in his
+unpublished memoir, 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.]
+
+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 disastrous 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, [Footnote: _Copie du testament du deffunt
+Sr. de la Salle, 11 Août_, 1681, MS. The relative was François Plet, M.D.,
+of Paris.] 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. [Footnote: "On apprendra à la fin de cette
+année, 1682, le suceès 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
+Déscouvertes_, so often cited, and of the excellent guidance of which we
+are henceforth deprived. It is a compilation made up from material
+supplied by the various members of La Salle's party, on their return to
+Canada, in 1681; and the greater portion is substantially the work of La
+Salle himself. It is a document of great interest and undoubted
+authority.]
+
+The summer was spent when 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.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI.
+1681-1682.
+SUCCESS OF LA SALLE.
+
+HIS FOLLOWERS.--THE CHICAGO PORTAGE.--DESCENT OP 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, "all well inured to
+war," as his companion Membré writes, and added them to the twenty-three
+Frenchmen who composed his party. They insisted on taking their women with
+them, to cook for them, and do other camp work. 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 twenty-first 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. [Footnote: La Salle, _Relation de la Découverte_, 1682, in
+Thomassy, _Géologie Pratique de la Louisiane_, 9; _Lettre du Père Zenoble_
+(Zenobe Membré), 14 Aoust, 1682, MS.; Membré, in Le Clercq, ii. 214;
+Tonty, _Mémoire_, MS.; _Procès Verbal de la Prise de Possession de la
+Louisiane_.
+
+The narrative ascribed to Membré, and published by Le Clercq, is based on
+the document preserved in the Archives Scientifiques de In 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. Membré's letter
+of August, 1682, is a brief and succinct statement made immediately after
+his return.] 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.
+
+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 forth on 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; [Footnote: Called by Membré the Ouabache (Wabash).] and, gliding by
+the wastes of bordering swamp, landed, on the twenty-fourth of February,
+near the Third Chickasaw Bluffs. [Footnote: La Salle, _Relation de la
+Découverte de I'Embouchure, etc._; Thomassy, 10 Membré gives the same
+date; but the _Procès Verbal_ makes it the twenty-sixth.] 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 [Footnote: 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, entrenched
+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."] 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 in to 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 [Footnote: La Salle,
+_Relation_; Thomassy, 11.] 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.
+
+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 inhabitants flocked about them with eager signs of welcome;
+built huts for them, brought them firewood, gave them corn, beans, and
+dried fruits, and feasted them without respite for three days. "They are a
+lively, civil, generous people," says Membré, "very different from the
+cold and taciturn Indians of the North." They showed, indeed, some slight
+traces of a tendency towards civilization; for domestic fowls and tame
+geese were wandering among their rude cabins of bark. [Footnote: Membré,
+in Le Clercq, ii. 224; Tonty, _Mémoire_, MS.]
+
+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 _Vice le Roi_;
+and La Salle, in the king's name, took formal possession of the country.
+[Footnote: _Procès Verbal de la Prise de Possession du Pays des Arkansas,
+14 Mars_, 1682, MS.] 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 acknowledgment of
+fealty to Louis XIV. [Footnote: 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.]
+
+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. [Footnote: 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.] 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 mulberrybark, 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. [Footnote: Tonty, _Mémoire_, MS. In the spurious narrative
+published in Tonty's name, the account is embellished and exaggerated.
+Compare Membré, in Le Clercq, ii. 227. La Salle's statements in the
+Relation of 1682 (Thomassy, 12) sustain those of Tonty.] 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.
+
+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." [Footnote: Membré, in Le Clercq, ii. 232.]
+
+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. [Footnote: 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 "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, 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.]
+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.
+
+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, [Footnote: In St. Charles County,
+on the left bank, not far above New Orleans.] 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. [Footnote: 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.]
+
+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 D'Autray 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 stood gazing 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,--
+
+"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 therein, from
+its source beyond the country of the Nadouessious ... 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." [Footnote: 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, Natches, 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
+Louisiana_, it would be set at rest by Le Clercq, 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 of the _Procès Verbal_ is before me. It bears the name of
+Jacques de la Métairie, Notary of Fort Frontenac, who was one of the
+party.]
+
+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 savannahs 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.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII.
+1682-1683.
+ST. LOUIS OF THE ILLINOIS.
+
+LOUISIANA.--ILLNESS OF LA SALLE.--HIS COLONY ON THE ILLINOIS.--
+TOUT ST. LOUIS.--RECALL OF FRONTENAC.--LE FÈVRE 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. [Footnote: 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 north-west, 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, north-west, and finally north along the range of the Rocky
+Mountains.]
+
+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. They next revisited
+the Natchez, 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. [Footnote: Tonty, _Mémoire_, MS.]
+
+And now, in a career of unwonted success and anticipated triumph, La Salle
+was sharply 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 Michillimackinac,
+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 the
+Miami, which he reached in about a month.
+
+His descent of the Mississippi had been successful as an exploration, and
+this was all. Could he have executed his original plan, have built a
+vessel on the Illinois and descended in her to the Gulf of Mexico, he
+would have been able to defray in some measure the costs of the
+enterprise, by means of a cargo of buffalo hides collected from Indians on
+the way, with which he would have sailed to the West Indies, or perhaps to
+France. With a fleet of canoes, this was of course impossible; and there
+was nothing to offset the enormous outlay which he and his family had
+made. He proposed, as we have seen, to found, on the banks of the
+Illinois, a colony of French and Indians, of which he should be the feudal
+lord, and which should answer the double purpose of a bulwark against the
+Iroquois and a depot for the furs of all the Western tribes; and he hoped,
+in the following spring, to secure an outlet for this colony, and for all
+the trade of the Mississippi and its tributaries, by occupying its mouth
+with a fort and a dependent colony. [Footnote: "Monsieur de la Salle se
+dispose de retourner sur ses pas à la mer au printemps prochain avec un
+plus grand nombre de gens, et des familles, pour y faire des
+établissemens." Membré, in Le Clercq, ii. 248. This was written in 1682,
+immediately after the return from the mouth of the Mississippi.] Thus he
+would control the valley of the great river of the West.
+
+He rejoined Tonty at Michillimaekinac in September. It was his purpose to
+go at once to France to provide means for establishing his projected post
+at the mouth of the Mississippi; and he ordered Tonty, meanwhile, to
+collect as many men as possible, return to the Illinois, build a fort, and
+lay the foundations of the colony, the plan of which had been determined
+the year before. La Salle was about to depart for Quebec, when news
+reached him that changed his plans, and caused him to postpone his voyage
+to France. He heard that those pests of the wilderness, the Iroquois, were
+about to renew their attacks on the western tribes, and especially on
+their former allies, the Miamis. [Footnote: _Lettre de La Barre au
+Ministre_, 14 Nov. 1682, MS.] This would ruin his projected colony. His
+presence was indispensable. He followed Tonty to the Illinois, and
+rejoined him near the site of the great town.
+
+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 oil 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 rugged 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 entrench themselves. They
+cut away the forest that crowned the rock, built storehouses and dwellings
+of its remains, dragged timber up the rugged pathway, and encircled the
+summit with a palisade. [Footnote: "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 rock fortified
+by La Salle stood, we are told, at the edge of the water; while Buffalo
+Rock is at some distance from the bank. 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 explains the Indian remains found here. He 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_, MS. 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_, p. 221.]
+
+Thus the winter was 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 around 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 aegis 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. [Footnote: 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 1,800; the Shawanoes, at 200; the
+Ouiatenons (Weas), at 500; the Peanqhichia (Piankishaw) band, at 150; the
+Pepikokia, at 160; the Kilatica, at 800; 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 Rook,
+and the Illinois village at the place where, as already mentioned, (see p.
+221), 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 Colonel 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.] 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 entrepot 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 Fèvre de la Barre
+reigned in his stead. [Footnote: La Barre had formerly held civil offices.
+He had been Maître de Requêtes, and afterwards Intendant of the
+Bourbonnais. He had gained no little reputation in the West Indies, as
+governor and lieutenant-general of Cayenne, which he recovered from the
+English, who had seized it, and whom he soon after defeated in a naval
+fight. Sixteen years had elapsed since these exploits, and meanwhile he
+had grown old.]
+
+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. Frontenac's absence was not
+to be permanent: dark days were in store for Canada. In her hour of need,
+she was to hail with delight the return of the haughty nobleman; and all
+his faults were to be forgotten in the splendor of his services to the
+colony and the crown. La Barre showed a weakness and an avarice for which
+his advanced 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.
+[Footnote: The royal instructions to La Barre, on his assuming the
+government, dated at Versailles, 10 May, 1682, require him to give no
+farther 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.]
+
+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; 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-south-west 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." [Footnote: _Lettre de la Salle à La Barre, Fort St.
+Louis, 2 Avril_, 1683, MS. The above is somewhat condensed from passages
+in the original.]
+
+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 night, and so prevent the Missouries 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
+Michillimackinac, 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." [Footnote: _Lettre de la Salle, à La
+Barre, Portage de Chicagou_, 4 _Juin_, 1683, MS. Portions of the above
+extracts are condensed in the rendering. A long 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.]
+
+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." [Footnote: _Lettre de La Barre au
+Ministre_, 14 _Nov_. 1682, MS.] 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. [Footnote: _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.]
+
+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. He is
+trying to build up an imaginary kingdom for himself by debauching all the
+bankrupts and idlers of this country." [Footnote: _N.Y. Col Docs_., ix.
+204. The letter is dated 4 Nov. 1683.] 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
+dimmish the revenue from beaver-skins." [Footnote: _Lettre du Roy à La
+Barre_, 5 _Aoûst_, 1683, MS.]
+
+In order to understand the posture of affairs at this time, it must be
+remembered that Dongan, the English Governor of New York, was 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. [Footnote: _Memoire
+pour rendre compte à Monseigneur le Marquis de Seignelay de l'Etat où le
+Sieur de Lasalle a laissé le Fort Frontenac pendant le temps de sa
+découverte,_ MS. The Marquis de Denonville, La Barre's successor in the
+government, says, in his memoir of Aug. 10, 1688, that La Barre had told
+the Iroquois to plunder La Salle's canoes.
+
+La Barre's course at this time was extremely indirect and equivocal. The
+memoir to Seignelay, cited above, declares--and other documents sustain
+it--that he was playing into the hands of the English, by sending furs, on
+his own account and that of his associates, to Albany, where he could sell
+them at a high rate, and at the same time avoid the payment of duties to
+the French farmers of the revenue.
+
+The merchants, La Chesnaye, Le Ber, and Le Moyne, were at the head of the
+faction with which La Barre had identified himself; and their hatred of La
+Salle knew no bounds. If we are to believe La Potherie, he himself had
+formerly, in defence of his monopolies, told the Iroquois that they might
+plunder the canoes of traders who had not a pass from him. The adverse
+faction now retorted by adding the permission of murder to the permission
+of pillage. Margry thinks that La Chesnaye was the prompter of this
+villany.]
+
+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. [Footnote: 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.] 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. [Footnote: These are the
+statements of the memorial, addressed in La Salle's behalf, to the
+minister Seignelay.]
+
+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 spent the winter
+harmoniously; and, 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. [Footnote: Tonty, Ménoire, MS.;
+Lettre de La Barre, au Ministre, 5 Juin, 1684; Ibid., 9 Juillet, 1684,
+MSS.]
+
+Meanwhile, La Salle had sailed for France, and thither we will follow him.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII.
+1684.
+A NEW ENTERPRISE.
+
+LA SALLE AT COURT.--HIS PROPOSALS.--OCCUPATION OF LOUISIANA.--INVASION
+OF MEXICO--ROYAL FAVOR.--PREPARATION.--THE NAVAL COMMANDER.--HIS
+JEALOUSY OF LA SALLE.--DISSENSIONS.
+
+
+From the wilds of the Illinois,--crag, forest, and prairie, squalid
+wigwams, and naked savages,--La Salle crossed the sea; and before him rose
+the sculptured wonders of Versailles, that world of gorgeous illusion and
+hollow splendor, where Louis the Magnificent held his court. Amid its pomp
+of weary ceremonial, its glittering masquerade of vice and folly, its
+carnival of vanity and pride, stood the man whose home for sixteen years
+had been the wilderness, his bed the earth, his roof the sky, and his
+companions a rude nature and ruder men. In all that throng of hereditary
+nobles, there was none of a prouder spirit than the son of the burgher of
+Rouen.
+
+He announced what he had achieved in words of energetic simplicity, more
+impressive than all the tinsel of rhetoric. [Footnote: Witness the
+following. He speaks of himself in the third person. "To acquit himself of
+the commission with which he was charged, he has neglected all his private
+affairs, because they were alien to his enterprise; he has omitted nothing
+that was needful to its success, notwithstanding dangerous illness, heavy
+losses, and all the other evils he has suffered, which would have overcome
+the courage of any one who had not the same zeal and devotion for the
+accomplishment of this purpose. During five years he has made five
+journeys, of more, in all, than five thousand leagues, for the most part
+on foot, with extreme fatigue, through snow and through water, without
+escort, without provisions, without bread, without wine, without
+recreation, and without repose. He has traversed more than six hundred
+leagues of country hitherto unknown, among savage and cannibal nations,
+against whom he must daily make fight, though accompanied only by thirty-
+six men, and consoled only by the hope of succeeding in an enterprise
+which he thought would be agreeable to his Majesty."
+
+See the original, as printed by Margry, _Journal Général de I'Instruction
+Publique,_ xxxi. 699.] He had friends near the court,--Count Frontenac was
+one of them,--and he gained the ear of the colonial minister. There was a
+wonderful change in the views of the court towards him. The great Colbert
+had lately died, bequeathing to his son Seignelay, his successor in the
+control of the Marine and Colonies, some of his talents, and all of his
+harshness and violence. Seignelay entered with vigor into the schemes of
+La Salle, and commended them to the king, his master. The memorial, in
+which these schemes are set forth, is still preserved, as well as another
+memorial designed to prepare the way for it; and the following is the
+substance of them. The preliminary document states that the late
+Monseigneur Colbert was of opinion that it was 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 crowns. He now proposes to return by way of the
+Gulf of Mexico 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
+accomplish 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." [Footnote: _Memoire du Sr.
+de la Salle, pour rendre compte a Monseigneur de Seignelay de la
+decouverte qu'il a faite par l'ordre de sa Majesté_, MS.]
+
+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 land 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
+[Footnote: 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.] (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 on the same day 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 he
+armed, paid, and maintained at the king's charge, for a term not exceeding
+a year, after which they will form a self-sustaining colony. And if a
+treaty of peace should prevent us from carrying our conquest into present
+execution, we shall place ourselves in a favorable position for effecting
+it on the outbreak of the next war with Spain. [Footnote: _Mémoire du Sr.
+de la Salle sur I'Entreprise qu'il a proposé à Monseigneur le Marquis de
+Seignelay sur une des provinces de Mexique_, MS.]
+
+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. [Footnote: 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.] That La Salle believed in
+the possibility of invading the Spanish province of New Biscay from the
+Red River, there can he 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 he proposed his plan of conquest with the serious
+intention of attempting to execute it at the time and in the manner which
+he indicates. He was a bold schemer, but neither a madman nor a fool. The
+project, as set forth in his memorial, bears all the indications of being
+drawn up with the view of producing a certain effect on the minds of the
+king and the minister. Ignorant as they were of the nature of the country
+and the character of its inhabitants, they could see nothing impracticable
+in the plan of mustering and keeping together an army of fifteen thousand
+Indians. [Footnote: 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,
+MS. 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.]
+
+La Salle's immediate necessity was to obtain from the court the means for
+establishing a fort and a colony within the mouth of the Mississippi. This
+was essential to his own commercial 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 needed a more glittering lure to attract the eyes of Louis and
+Seignelay; and thus, it would appear, 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 it was in accordance with the wily and
+politic element from which the iron nature of La Salle was not free, but
+which was often defeated in its aims by other elements of his character.
+
+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. The glittering project which he now unfolded found favor in the
+eyes of the king and the 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, he 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."
+[Footnote:_Lettre du Roy à la Barre, Versailles, 10 Avril, 1684,_ MS.]
+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. [Footnote:_Lettre du Roy à De Mettles, Versailles, 14 Avril, 1684._
+Selgnelay wrote to De Meules to the same effect.] Armed with this letter,
+La Forest sailed for Canada. [Footnote: On La Forest's mission,--_Memoire
+pour representer à Monseigneur le Marquis de Seignelay la nécessité
+d'envoyer le Sr. de la Forest en diligence à la Nouvelle France,_ MS.;
+_Lettre du Roy à la Barre, 14 Avril, 1684,_ MS.; _Ibid., 31 Oct. 1684,_
+MS.
+
+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.]
+
+La Salle had asked for two vessels, [Footnote: _Le Sieur de la Salle
+demande_, MS. This is the caption of the memorial, in which he states what
+is required; viz., a war vessel of thirty guns, pay and maintenance of two
+hundred men for a year at farthest, tools, munitions, cannon for the
+forts, a small vessel in pieces, the furniture of two chapels, a forge,
+with a supply of iron, weapons for his followers and allies, medicines,
+&c.] 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 Clercq. Including soldiers, sailors, and colonists of
+all classes, the number embarked was about two hundred and eighty. 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. In an evil hour, the naval command of the
+expedition was given to Beaujeu, a captain of the royal navy, who was
+subordinated to La Salle in every thing but the management of the vessels
+at sea. [Footnote: _Letter de Cachet a Mr. de la Salle, Versailles, 12
+Avril, 1684, signé, Louis_, MS.] He had his full share of the arrogant and
+scornful spirit which marked the naval service of Louis XIV., joined to
+the contempt for commerce which belonged to the _noblesse_ of France, but
+which did not always prevent them from dabbling in it when they could do
+so with secrecy and profit. He was unspeakably galled that a civilian
+should be placed over him, and he, too, a burgher recently ennobled. La
+Salle was far from being the man to soothe his ruffled spirit. Bent on his
+own designs, asking no counsel, and accepting none; detesting a divided
+authority, impatient of question, cold, reserved, and impenetrable,--he
+soon wrought his colleague to the highest pitch of exasperation. While the
+vessels still lay at Rochelle; while all was bustle and preparation; while
+stores, arms, and munitions were embarking; while faithless agents were
+gathering beggars and vagabonds from the streets to serve as soldiers and
+artisans,--Beaujeu was giving vent to his disgust in long letters to the
+minister.
+
+He complains that the vessels are provisioned only for six months, and
+that the voyage to the liver which La Salle claims to have discovered, and
+again back to France, cannot be made in that time. If La Salle had told
+him at the first what was to be done, he could have provided accordingly;
+but now it is too late. "He says," pursues the indignant commander, "that
+there are fourteen passengers, besides the Sieur Minet, [Footnote: One of
+the engineers of the expedition.] to sit at my table. I hope that a fund
+will be provided for them, and that I shall not be required to support
+them."
+
+"You have ordered me, Monseigneur," he continues, "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 any thing about it."
+[Footnote:_Lettre de Beaujau au Ministre, Rochelle_, 30 _Mai_, 1684, MS.]
+
+In another letter, he says: "He [La Salle] is so suspicious, and so
+fearful that somebody will penetrate his secrets, that I dare not ask him
+any thing." And, again, he complains of being placed in subordination to a
+man "who never commanded anybody but school-boys." [Footnote: "Qui n'a
+jamais commandé qu'a des écoliers."--_Lettre de Beaujeu au Ministre_, 21
+_Juin_, 1684, MS. It appears from Hennepin that La Salle was very
+sensitive to any allusion to a "_pédant_," or pedagogue.] "I pray," he
+continues, "that my orders may be distinct and explicit, that I may not be
+held answerable for what may happen in consequence of the Sieur de la
+Salle's exercising command."
+
+He soon fell into a dispute with him with respect to the division of
+command on board the "Joly," Beaujeu demanding, and it may be thought with
+good reason, that, when at sea, his authority should include all on board;
+while La Salle insisted that only the sailors, and not the soldiers,
+should be under his orders. "Though this is a very important matter,"
+writes Beaujeu, "we have not quarrelled, but have referred it to the
+Intendant." [Footnote: _Lettre de Beaujeu au Ministre_, 25 _Juin_, 1684,
+MS. Arnoult, the Intendant at Rochelle, had received the king's orders to
+aid the enterprise. In a letter to La Salle, dated 14 April, and enclosing
+his commission, the king tells him that Beaujeu is to command the working
+of the ship, _la manoeuvre_, subject to his direction. Louis XIV. seems to
+have taken no little interest in the enterprise. He tells La Barre in one
+of his letters that La Salle is a man whom he has taken under his special
+protection.]
+
+While these ill-omened bickerings went on, the various members of the
+expedition were mustering at Rochelle. Joutel, a fellow-townsman of La
+Salle, returning to his native Rouen, after sixteen years of service in
+the army, found all astir with the new project. His father had been
+gardener to La Salle's uncle, Henri Cavelier; [Footnote: At the modest
+wages of fifty francs a year and his maintenance.--Family papers found by
+Margry.] and, being of an adventurous spirit, he was induced to volunteer
+for the enterprise, of which he was to become the historian. With La
+Salle's brother, the priest, and two of his nephews, of whom one was a boy
+of fourteen, besides several others of his acquaintance, Joutel set out
+for Rochelle, where all were to embark together for their promised land.
+[Footnote: Joutel, _Journal Historique_, 12.]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV.
+1684-1685.
+LA SALLE IN TEXAS.
+
+DEPARTURE.--QUARRELS WITH BEAUJEU.--ST. DOMINGO.--LA SALLE ATTACKED
+WITH FEVER.--HIS DESPERATE CONDITION.--THE GULF OF MEXICO.--A FATAL
+ERROR.--LANDING.--WRECK OF THE "AIMABLE."--INDIAN ATTACK.--TREACHERY
+OF BEAUJEU.--OMENS OF DISASTER.
+
+
+The four ships sailed on the twenty-fourth of July; but the "Joly" soon
+broke her bowsprit, and they were forced to put back. [Footnote: La Salle
+believed that this mishap, which took place in good weather, was
+intentional.--_Mémoire autographe de l'Abbé Jean Cavelier sur la Voyage
+de_ 1684, MS. Compare Joutel, 15.] On the first of August, they again set
+sail. La Salle, with the principal persons of the expedition, and a crowd
+of soldiers, artisans, and women, the destined mothers of Louisiana, were
+all on board the "Joly." Beaujeu wished to touch at Madeira: La Salle, for
+excellent reasons, refused; and hence there was great indignation among
+passengers and crew. The surgeon of the ship spoke with insolence to La
+Salle, who rebuked him, whereupon Beaujeu took up the word in behalf of
+the offender, saying that the surgeon was, like himself, an officer of the
+king. [Footnote: "Le capitaine du batiment, qui avait en deux autres
+occasions assez fait connoitre qu'il étoit mécontent de ce que son
+autorité étoit partagée, prit la parole, disant au dit Sr. de la Salle que
+le chirurgien étoit officier du roi comme lui."--_Memoire autographe de
+l'Abbé Jean Cavelier,_ MS.] When they crossed the tropic, the sailors made
+ready a tub on deck to baptize the passengers, after the villanous
+practice of the time; but La Salle refused to permit it, to the
+disappointment and wrath of all the crew, who had expected to extort a
+bountiful ransom, in money and liquor, from their victims. There was an
+incessant chafing between the two commanders; and when at length, after a
+long and wretched voyage, they reached St. Domingo, Beaujeu showed clearly
+that he was, to say the least, utterly indifferent to the interests of the
+expedition. La Salle wished to stop at Port de Paix, where he was to meet
+the Marquis de St. Laurent, Lieutenant-General of the Islands; Begon, the
+Intendant; and De Cussy, Governor of the Island of La Tortue,--who had
+orders from the king to supply him with provisions, and give him all
+possible assistance. Beaujeu had consented to stop here; [Footnote: "C'est
+la (au Port de Paix) ou Mr. de Beaujeu était convenu de s'arreter."--
+_Memoire autographe de l'Abbé Jean Cavelier,_ Joutel says that this was
+resolved on at a council held on board the "Joly," and that a Procès
+Verbal to that effect was drawn up.--_Journal Historique,_ 22.] but he
+nevertheless ran by the place in the night, and, to the extreme vexation
+of La Salle, cast anchor on the twenty-seventh of September, at Petit
+Goave, on the other side of the island.
+
+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
+despatched a messenger to St. Laurent, Begon, and Cussy, begging them to
+join him, commissioned 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 the
+disastrous tidings that the third, the ketch "St. François," had been
+taken by the Spaniards. She was laden with munitions, tools, and other
+necessaries for the colony; and the loss was irreparable. Beaujeu was
+answerable for it; for, had he followed his instructions, and anchored at
+Port de Paix, it would not have occurred. The Lieutenant-General, with
+Begon and Cussy, who had arrived, on La Salle's request, plainly spoke
+their minds to him. [Footnote: Joutel, _Journal Historique_, 28.]
+
+Meanwhile, La Salle's illness rose to a violent fever. He lay delirious in
+a wretched garret in the town, 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 the 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 of the loss of the
+ketch "St. François;" and the consequence was a critical return of the
+disease. [Footnote: The above particulars are from the unpublished memoir
+of La Salle's brother, the Abbé Cavelier, already cited.]
+
+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.
+
+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 hoard; 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 any thing 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 his
+plans are not good."
+
+"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." [Footnote: "Si vous
+me permettez de dire mon sentiment, M. de la Salle devait se contenter
+d'avoir découvert sa riviére, sans se charger de conduire trois vaisseaux
+et des troupes à deux mille lieues au travers de tant de climats
+différents et par des mers qui lui étaient tout à fait inconnues. Je
+demeure d'accord qu'il est savant, qu'il a de la lecture, et même quelque
+teinture de la navigation. Mais il y a tant de différence entre la théorie
+et la pratique, qu'un homme qui n'aura que celle-là s'y trompera toujours.
+Il y a aussi bien de la difference entre conduire des canots sur des lacs
+et le long d'une rivière et mener des vaisseaux et des troupes dans des
+mers si éloignées."--_Lettre de Beaujeu au Ministre_, 20 _Oct_. 1684, MS.]
+
+It was near the end of November before La Salle could resume the voyage.
+Beaujeu had been heard to say, that he would wait no longer for the
+storeship "Amiable," and that she might follow as she could. [Footnote:
+_Mémoire autographe de l'Abbé Jean Cavelier_, MS.] La Salle feared that he
+would abandon her; and he therefore embarked in her himself, with his
+friend Joutel, 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 hunters 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, seeking sympathy from none. The feud of the two commanders still
+rankled beneath the veil of formal courtesy with which men of the world
+hide their dislikes and enmities.
+
+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. [Footnote: _Letter of Don Luis de Onis
+to the Secretary of State, American State Papers_, xii. 27, 31.] Not a man
+on board knew the secrets of its perilous navigation. Cautiously feeling
+their way, they held a northerly 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. At their
+right lay a low and sandy shore, washed by breakers, which made the
+landing dangerous. La Salle had taken the latitude of the mouth of the
+Mississippi, but could not determine the longitude. On the sixth of
+January, the "Aimable" seems to have been very near it; but his attempts
+to reconnoitre the shore were frustrated by the objections of the pilot of
+the vessel, to which, with a fatal facility, very unusual with him, he
+suffered himself to yield. [Footnote: Joutel, 45. He places the date on
+the tenth, but elsewhere corrects himself. La Salle himself says, "La
+hauteur nous a fait remarquer... que ce que nous avons vue, le sixième
+janvier, estoit en effet la principale entrée de la rivière que nous
+cherchions."--_Lettre de la Salle au Ministre_, 4 _Mars_, 1685.] Still
+convinced that the Mississippi was to the westward, he coasted the shores
+of Texas. As Joutel, with a boat's crew, was vainly trying to land, 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 wholly
+unknown to him. The coast began to trend southward. They saw that they had
+gone too far. Joutel again tried to land, but the surf that lashed the
+sand-bars deterred him. He approached as near as he dared, and, beyond the
+intervening breakers, saw vast plains and a dim expanse of forests; the
+shaggy buffalo running with their heavy gallop along the shore, and troops
+of deer grazing on the marshy meadows.
+
+A few days after, he succeeded in reaching the shore at a point not far
+south of Matagorda Bay. The aspect of the country was not cheering; sandy
+plains and shallow ponds of salt water, full of wild ducks and other fowl.
+The sand was thickly marked with, the hoof-prints of deer and buffalo; and
+they saw them in the distance, but could kill none. They had been for many
+days separated from the "Joly," when at length, to La Salle's great
+relief, she hove in sight; but his joy was of short duration. Beaujeu sent
+D'Aire, his lieutenant, on board the "Aimable," to charge La Salle with
+having deserted him. The desertion in fact was his own; for he had stood
+out to sea, instead of coasting the shore, according to the plan agreed
+on. Now ensued a discussion as to their position. Had they in fact passed
+the mouth of the Mississippi; and, granting that they had, how far had
+they left it behind? La Salle was confident that they had passed it on the
+sixth of January, and he urged Beaujeu to turn back with him in quest of
+it. Beaujeu replied that he had not provisions enough, and must return to
+France without delay, unless La Salle would supply him from his own
+stores. La Salle offered him provisions for fifteen days, which was more
+than enough for the additional time required; but Beaujeu remained
+perverse and impracticable, and would neither consent nor refuse. La
+Salle's men beguiled the time with hunting on shore; and he had the
+courtesy, very creditable under the circumstances, to send a share of the
+game to his colleague.
+
+Time wore on. La Salle grew impatient, and landed a party of men, under
+his nephew Moranget and his townsman Joutel, to explore the adjacent
+shores. They made their way on foot northward and eastward for several
+days, till they were stopped by a river too wide and deep to cross. They
+encamped, and were making a canoe, when, to their great joy, for they were
+famishing, they descried the ships, which had followed them along the
+coast. La Salle landed, and became convinced--his wish, no doubt,
+fathering the thought--that the river was no other than the stream now
+called Bayou Lafourche, which forms a western mouth of the Mississippi.
+[Footnote: La Salle dates his letter to Seignelay, of the fourth of March:
+"_A l'embouchure occidentals dufleuve Colbert_" (Mississippi). He says,
+"La saison étant très-avancée, et voyant qu'il me restoit fort peu de
+temps pour achever l'entreprise don't j'estois charge, je resolus de
+remonter ce canal du fleuve Colbert, plus tost que de retourner au plus
+considérable, éloigné de 25 à 30 lieues d'icy vers le nord-est, que nous
+avions remarqué dès le sixième janvier, mais que nous n'avions pu
+reconnoistre, croyant sur le rapport des pilotes du vaisseau de sa Majesté
+et des nostres, n'avoir pas encore passé la baye du Saint-Esprit" (Mobile
+Bay). He adds that the difficulty of returning to the principal mouth of
+the Mississippi had caused him "prendre le party de remonter le fleuve par
+icy." This fully explains the reason of La Salle's landing on the coast of
+Texas, which would otherwise have been a postponement, not to say an
+abandonment, of the main object of the enterprise. He believed himself at
+the western mouth of the Mississippi; and lie meant to ascend it, instead
+of going by sea to the principal mouth. About half the length of Bayou
+Lafourche is laid down on Franquelin's map of 1684; and this, together
+with La Salle's letter and the statements of Joutel, plainly shows the
+nature of his error.] He thought it easier to ascend by this passage than
+to retrace his course along the coast, against the winds, the currents,
+and the obstinacy of Beaujeu. Eager, moreover, to be rid of that
+refractory commander, he resolved to disembark his followers, and.
+despatch the "Joly" back to France.
+
+The Bay of St. Louis, now Matagorda Bay, [Footnote: The St. Bernard's Bay
+of old maps. La Salle, in his letter to Seignelay of 4 March, says, that
+it is in latitude twenty-eight degrees and eighteen or twenty minutes.
+This answers to the entrance of Matagorda Bay.
+
+In the Archives de la Marine is preserved a map made by an engineer of the
+expedition, inscribed _Minuty del_, and entitled _Entrée du lac où on a
+laissé le Sieur de la Salle_. It represents the entrance of Matagorda Bay,
+the camp of La Salle on the left, the Indian camps on the borders of the
+bay, the "Belle" lying safely at anchor within, the "Aimable" stranded
+near the island at the entrance, and the "Joly" anchored in the open sea.
+
+At Versailles, Salle des Marines, there is a good modern picture of the
+landing of La Salle in Texas.] 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. La Salle prepared to
+disembark on the western shore, near the place which now bears his name;
+and, to this end, the "Aimable" and the "Belle" must be brought over the
+bar. 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.
+
+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 a 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; 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, the ravenous waves were strewn with her
+treasures; and, 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.
+
+Those who have recorded the disaster of the "Aimable" affirm that she was
+wilfully wrecked, [Footnote: This is said by Joutel and Le Clercq, and by
+La Salle himself, in his letter to Seignelay, 4 March, 1685, as well as in
+the account of the wreck drawn up officially.--_Procès verbal du Sieur de
+la Salle sur le naufraqe de la flûte l'Aimable à l'embouchure du Fleuve
+Colbert_, MS. He charges it, as do also the others, upon Aigron, the pilot
+of the vessel, the same who had prevented him from exploring the mouth of
+the Mississippi on the sixth of January. The charges are supported by
+explicit statements, which render them probable. The loss was very great,
+including nearly all the beef and other provisions, 60 barrels of wine, 4
+pieces of cannon, 1,620 balls, 400 grenades, 4,000 pounds of iron, 5,000
+pounds of lead, most of the blacksmith's and carpenter's tools, a forge, a
+mill, cordage, boxes of arms, nearly all the medicines, most of the
+baggage of the soldiers and colonists, and a variety of miscellaneous
+goods.] an atrocious act of revenge against a man whose many talents often
+bore for him no other fruit than the deadly one of jealousy and hate.
+
+The neighboring Bracamos Indians still hovered about them, with very
+doubtful friendship: and, a few days after the wreck, the prairie was seen
+on fire. As the smoke and name 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.
+
+This untoward incident, joined to the loss of the store-ship, completed
+the discouragement of some among the colonists. Several of them, including
+one of the priests and the engineer Minet, declared their intention of
+returning home with Beaujeu, who apparently made no objection to receiving
+them. He now declared that since the Mississippi was found, his work was
+done, and he would return to France. La Salle desired that he would first
+send on shore the cannon-balls and stores embarked for the use of the
+colony. Beaujeu refused, on the ground that they were stowed so deep in
+the hold that to take them out would endanger the ship. The excuse is
+itself a confession of gross mismanagement. Remonstrance would have
+availed little. Beaujeu spread his sails and departed, and the wretched
+colony was left to its fate.
+
+Was Beaujeu deliberately a traitor, or was his conduct merely a result of
+jealousy and pique? There can be little doubt that he was guilty of
+premeditated bad faith. There is evidence that he knew the expedition to
+have passed the true mouth of the Mississippi, and that, after leaving La
+Salle, he sailed in search of it, found it, and caused a map to be made of
+it. [Footnote: This map, the work of the engineer Minet, bears the date of
+_May_, 1685. La Salle's last letter to the minister, which he sent home by
+Beaujeu, is dated March 4th. Hence, Beaujeu, in spite of his alleged want
+of provisions, seems to have remained some time in the Gulf. The
+significance of the map consists in two distinct sketches of the mouth of
+the Mississippi, which is styled "La Rivière du Sr. de la Salle." Against
+one of these sketches are written the words "Embouchure de la rivière
+comme M. de la Salle la marque dans sa carte." Against the other, "Costes
+et lacs par la hauteur de sa rivière, _comme nous les avons trouvés_." The
+italics are mine. Both sketches plainly represent the mouth of the
+Mississippi, and the river as high as New Orleans, with the Indian
+villages upon it. The coast line is also indicated as far east as Mobile
+Bay. My attention was first drawn to this map by M. Margry. It is in the
+Archives Scientifiques de la Marine.]
+
+A lonely sea, a wild and desolate shore, a weary waste of marsh and
+prairie; a rude redoubt of drift-wood, and the fragments of a wreck; a few
+tents, and a few wooden hovels; bales, boxes, casks, spars, dismounted
+cannon, Indian canoes, a pen for fowls and swine, groups of dejected men
+and desponding, homesick women,--this was the forlorn reality to which the
+air-blown fabric of an audacious enterprise had sunk. Here were the
+conquerors of New Biscay; they who were to hold for France a region as
+large as the half of Europe. Here was the tall form and the fixed calm
+features of La Salle. Here were his two nephews, the hot-headed Moranget,
+still suffering from his wound, and the younger Cavelier, a mere school-
+boy. Conspicuous only by his Franciscan garb was the small slight figure
+of Zenobe Membré. His brother friar, Anastase Douay; the trusty Joutel, a
+man of sense and observation; the Marquis de la Sablonnière, a debauched
+noble whose patrimony was his sword; and a few of less mark,--comprised
+the leaders of the infant colony. The rest were soldiers, recruited from
+the scum of Rochelle and Rochefort; and artisans, of whom the greater part
+knew nothing of their pretended 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 journey. He had made an ominous discovery; for
+he had at length become convinced that he was not, as he had fondly hoped,
+on an arm of the Mississippi. The wreck of the "Aimable" itself was not
+pregnant with consequences so disastrous. A deep gloom gathered around the
+colony. There was no hope but in the energies of its unconquerable chief.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV.
+1685-1687.
+ST. LOUIS OF TEXAS.
+
+THE FORT.--MISERY AND DEJECTION.--ENERGY OF LA SALLE.--HIS JOURNEY
+OF EXPLORATION.--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
+desperate 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, [Footnote:
+Called by Joutel Rivière aux Boeufs.] 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 remnant, 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 to receive him and his men. 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 Joutel and his men on board,
+together with the stores which had remained in their charge, and conveyed
+them to the site of the new fort on the Lavaca. Here Joutel 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 in
+the "Belle" to the first fort, 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. [Footnote: Joutel, 108.
+_Procès Verbal fait au poste de St. Louis le 18 Avril, 1686,_ MS.]
+
+Death, meanwhile, made a 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. [Footnote: Ibid.] Nearly
+all fell ill; and, before the summer had passed, the graveyard had more
+than thirty tenants. [Footnote: Joutel, 109. Le Clercq, who was not
+present, says a hundred.] 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 oil 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 to the new
+establishment his favorite name of Fort St. Louis, and the neighboring bay
+was also christened after the royal saint. [Footnote: 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.] The scene was not without its charms. Towards the
+south-east stretched the bay with its bordering meadows; and on the north-
+east 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
+bright flowers for which Texas is renowned, and which now form the gay
+ornaments of our gardens.
+
+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. [Footnote: 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_, MS. 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.]
+
+It was the first of November, when La Salle set out on his great journey
+of exploration. His brother Cavelier, who had now recovered, accompanied
+him with thirty men, and five cannon-shot from the fort saluted them as
+they departed. They were lightly equipped, but La Salle had a wooden
+corselet as a protection against 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 stood on a rising ground, two
+leagues above the mouth of the river. 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 ponds full of fish. The buffalo and the deer
+were without number; and, in truth, all the surrounding region swarmed
+with game,--hares, turkeys, ducks, geese, swans, plover, snipe, and
+partridges. They shot them in abundance, after necessity and practice had
+taught them the art. The river supplied them with fish, and the bay with
+oysters. There were land-turtles and sea-turtles; and Joutel sometimes
+amused himself with shooting alligators, of which he says that he once
+killed one twenty feet long. He describes, too, with perfect accuracy,
+that curious native of the south-western prairies, the "horned frog,"
+which, deceived by its uninviting aspect, he erroneously supposed to be
+venomous. [Footnote: Joutel devotes many pages to an account of the
+animals and plants of the country, most of which may readily be recognized
+from his description.]
+
+He suffered no man to be idle. Some hunted; some fished; some labored at
+the houses and defences. To the large building made by La Salle he added
+four lodging-houses for the men, and a fifth for the women, besides a
+small chapel. All were built with squared timber, and roofed like the
+first with boards and buffalo-hides; while a palisade and ditch, defended
+by eight pieces of cannon, enclosed the whole. [Footnote: Compare Joutel
+with the Spanish account in _Carta en que se da noticia de tin viaje hecho
+à la bahia de Espiritu Santo y de la poblacion que tenian ahi los
+Franceses: Coleccion de Varios Documentos_, 25.] Late one evening in
+January, when all were gathered in the principal building, conversing
+perhaps, or smoking, or playing at games of hazard, or dozing by the fire
+in homesick dreams of France, one of the men on guard came in to report
+that he had heard a voice in the distance without. All hastened into the
+open air; and Joutel, advancing towards the river whence the voice came,
+presently descried a man in a canoe, and saw that he was Duhaut, one of La
+Salle's chief followers, and perhaps the greatest villain of the company.
+La Salle had directed that none of his men should be admitted into the
+fort, unless he brought a pass from him; and it would have been well, had
+the order been obeyed to the letter. Duhaut, however, told a plausible and
+possibly a true story. He had stopped on the march to mend a shoe which
+needed repair, and on attempting to overtake the party had become
+bewildered on a prairie intersected with the paths of the buffalo. He
+fired his gun in vain, as a signal to his companions; saw no hope of
+rejoining them, and turned back, travelling only in the night, from fear
+of Indians, and lying hid by day. After a month of excessive hardship, he
+reached his destination; and, as the inmates of Fort St. Louis
+
+[Transcriber's note: missing page in original]
+
+worn and ragged. [Footnote: Joutel, 136, 137. The date of the return is
+from Cavelier.] Their story was a brief one. After losing Duhaut, 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 were, they were told, 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.
+[Footnote: Cavelier says that he actually reached the Mississippi; but, on
+the one hand, he did not know whether the river in question was the
+Mississippi or not; and, on the other, he is somewhat inclined to
+mendacity. Le Clercq says that La Salle thought he had found the river.
+Joutel says that he did not reach it.] 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. [Footnote: _Procès Verbal fait au poste de la Baie St. Louis, le_
+18 _Avril_, 1686, MS.] 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, 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 firmness and
+conduct of my brother, whose death each of us would have regarded as his
+own." [Footnote: Cavelier, _Relation du Voyage pour découvrir l'embouchure
+du Fleuve de Missisipy_, MS.]
+
+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,
+offered 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. [Footnote: Joutel, 140;
+Anastase Douay, in Le Clercq, ii. 303; Cavelier, _Relation_, MS. The date
+is from Douay. It does not appear from his narrative that they meant to go
+further 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.]
+
+It was but a few days after, when a cry of _Qui vive_, twice repeated, was
+heard from the river. Joutel went down to the bank, and saw a canoe full
+of men, among whom he recognized Chedeville, a priest attached to the
+expedition, the Marquis de la Sablonnière, and others of those who had
+embarked in the "Belle." His first greeting was an eager demand what had
+become of her, and the answer confirmed his worst fears. Chedeville and
+his companions were conducted within the fort, where they told their
+dismal story. The murder of the pilot and his boat's crew had been
+followed by another accident, no less disastrous. A boat which had gone
+ashore for water had been swamped in returning, and all on board were
+lost. Those who remained in the vessel, after great suffering from thirst,
+had left their moorings, contrary to the orders of La Salle, and
+endeavored to approach the fort. But they were few, weak, and unskilful. A
+wind rose, and the "Belle" was wrecked on a sand-bar at the farther side
+of the bay. All perished but eight men, who escaped on a raft, and, after
+long delay, 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.
+
+Thus clouds and darkness thickened around the hapless colonists, whose
+gloom was nevertheless lighted by a transient ray of hilarity. Among their
+leaders was the Sieur Barbier, a young man, who usually conducted the
+hunting-parties. 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, not only flatly refused, but, in the plenitude of
+his authority, forbade the lovers all farther intercourse. [Footnote:
+Joutel, 146, 147.]
+
+The Indians hovered about the fort with no good intent, sent a flight of
+arrows among Barbier's hunting-party, and prowled at night around the
+palisades. One of the friars was knocked down by a wounded buffalo, and
+narrowly escaped; another was detected in writing charges against La
+Salle. Joutel seized the paper, and burned it; but the clerical character
+of the reverend offender saved him from punishment. The colonists were
+beginning to murmur; and their discontent was fomented by Duhaut, who,
+with a view to some ulterior design, tried to ingratiate himself with the
+malcontents, and become their leader. Joutel detected the mischief, and,
+with a lenity which he afterwards deeply regretted, contented himself with
+a severe rebuke to the ring-leader, and words of reproof and exhortation
+to his dejected band. And, lest idleness should beget farther evil, he
+busied them in such superfluous tasks as mowing grass, that a better crop
+might spring up, and cutting down trees which obstructed the view. In the
+evening, he gathered them in the great hall, and encouraged them to forget
+their cares in songs and dances.
+
+On the seventeenth of October, [Footnote: This is Douay's date. Joutel
+places it in August, but this is evidently an error. He himself says that,
+having lost all his papers, he cannot be certain as to dates.] Joutel saw
+a band of men and horses, descending the opposite bank of the Lavaca, and
+heard the familiar voice of La Salle shouting across the water. He and his
+party were soon brought over in canoes, while the horses swam the river.
+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 rest, 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. The story of their adventures was soon
+told.
+
+After leaving the fort, they had journeyed towards the north-east, 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 arrested by a large
+river, apparently the Brazos. 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 canebrake, 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 an abyss of
+despair for the loss of their guardian angel, for so Douay calls La Salle.
+[Footnote: "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 Clercq, ii. 315.] 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 caries 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 beehives. 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. [Footnote:
+Douay, in Le Clercq, ii. 321; Cavelier, _Relation_, MS.] 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. [Footnote: Douay, in Le
+Clercq, ii. 324, 325.]
+
+Soon after leaving the Cenis villages, both La Salle and his nephew,
+Moranget, were attacked by a 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.
+
+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; and
+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 cheerfulness, his
+words of sympathy and of hope, were the breath of life to this forlorn
+company; for, self-contained and stern as was his nature, he could soften,
+in times of extremity, to a gentleness that strongly appealed to the
+hearts of those around him; and 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 courage
+touched, nevertheless, the drooping spirits of his followers. [Footnote:
+"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, 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 Clercq, ii. 327.]
+
+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. 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.
+
+On the morrow, the band of adventurers mustered for the fatal journey.
+[Footnote: 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.] 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; [Footnote: He
+had to be kept on short allowance, because he was in the habit of
+bargaining away every thing 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, MS.] the
+friars, Membré and Le Clercq, [Footnote: Maxime le Clercq, a relative of
+the author of _l'Etablissement de la Foi_.] and the priest, Chedeville,
+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. [Footnote: "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 Clercq, ii. 330.] 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. [Footnote: "Nous
+nous separâmes les uns des autres, d'une manière si tendre et si triste
+qu'il sembloit que nous avions tons le secret pressentiment que nous ne
+nous reverrions jamais."--Joutel, 158.] 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 had shut Fort St. Louis for ever from their sight.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVI.
+1687.
+ASSASSINATION OF LA SALLE.
+
+HIS FOLLOWERS.--PRAIRIE TRAVELLING.--A HUNTER'S QUARREL.--THE
+MURDER OF MORANGET.--THE CONSPIRACY.--DEATH OF LA SALLE.--HIS
+CHARACTER.
+
+
+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." [Footnote: Tonty also speaks of him as "un flibustier anglois." In
+another document he is called "James."] The Sieur de Marie; Teissier, a
+pilot; l'Archevêque, a servant of Duhaut; and others, to the number in all
+of about twenty,--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.
+
+It is impossible, as it would be needless, to follow the detail of their
+daily march. [Footnote: 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 is brief,
+but it agrees with that of Joutel in most essential points.] It was such
+an one, though, with unwonted hardships, 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 moccasons. The rivers,
+streams, and gulleys 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. [Footnote: Cavelier, _Relation,_ MS.]
+
+Holding a north-easterly 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.
+
+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, [Footnote: Called Lanquetot by
+Tonty.] 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 Marie, 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 nourished in his vindictive heart deadly
+designs, the execution of which was only hastened by the present outbreak.
+He, with his servant, l'Archevêque, Liotot, Hiens, and Teissier, took
+counsel apart, and resolved to kill Moranget that night. Nika, La
+Salle's devoted follower, and Saget, his faithful servant, must die
+with him. All 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 his
+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 Marie, 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.
+
+It was the nineteenth of March, and Moranget had been two days absent. La
+Salle began to show a great anxiety. Some bodings of the truth seem to
+have visited him; for he was heard to ask several of his men, if Duhaut,
+Liotot, and Hiens had not of late shown signs of discontent. Unable longer
+to endure his suspense, he left the camp in charge of Joutel, with a
+caution to stand well on his guard; and set out in search of his nephew,
+with the friar, Anastase Douay, and two Indians. "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," Douay continues, "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, however, on
+the farther side of a small river. Looking about him with the eye of a
+woodsman, La Salle saw two eagles, or, more probably, turkey-buzzards,
+circling in the air nearly over him, as if attracted by carcasses of
+beasts or men. He fired both his pistols, 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 along the river. 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 in an ecstasy of fright, unable to advance or
+to fly; when Duhaut, rising from his 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!" [Footnote: "Te voilà grand Bacha, te voilà!"--
+Joutel, 203.] 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." [Footnote: _Journal Historique_, 202.]
+
+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. His mind rose immeasurably
+above the range of the mere commercial speculator; and, in all the
+invective and abuse of rivals and enemies, it does not appear that his
+personal integrity ever found a challenger.
+
+He was capable of intrigue, but his reserve and his haughtiness were sure
+to rob him at last of the fruits of it. His schemes failed, partly because
+they were too vast, and partly because he did not conciliate the good-will
+of those whom he was compelled to trust. There were always traitors in his
+ranks, and his enemies were more in earnest than his friends. Yet he had
+friends; and there were times when out of his stern nature a stream of
+human emotion would gush, like water from the rock.
+
+In the pursuit of his purpose, he spared no man, and least of all himself.
+He bore the brunt of every hardship and every danger; but he seemed to
+expect from all beneath him a courage and endurance equal to his own,
+joined with an implicit deference to his authority. Most of his disasters
+may be ascribed, in some measure, to himself; and Fortune and his own
+fault seemed always in league to ruin him.
+
+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, and 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, cast in iron, she sees the heroic pioneer who
+guided her to the possession of her richest heritage. [Footnote: On the
+assassination of La Salle, the evidence is fourfold: 1st, The narrative of
+Douay, who was with him at the time. 2d, 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. 3d, A document
+preserved in the Archives de la Marine, entitled _"Relation de la Mort du
+Sr. de la Salle suivant le rapport d'un nominé 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 Français que M. Cavelier avoit laissé aux
+dits pays des Akansa, crainte qu'il ne gardât pas le secret,"_ 4th, 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 strictness and 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 were 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 XXVII.
+1687, 1688.
+THE INNOCENT AND THE GUILTY.
+
+TRIUMPH OF THE MURDERERS.--JOUTEL AMONG THE CENTS.--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 submitted without resistance; and Duhaut was
+lord of all.
+
+Joutel, at the moment, chanced to be absent; and l'Archevêque, who had a
+kindness for him, went quietly to seek him. He found him 011 a hillock,
+looking at the band of horses grazing on the meadow below. "I was
+petrified," says Joutel, "at the news, and knew not whether to fly or
+remain where I was; but at length, as I had neither powder, lead, nor any
+weapon, and as l'Archevêque assured me that my life would be safe if I
+kept quiet and said nothing, I abandoned myself to the care of Providence,
+and went back in silence to the camp. Duhaut, puffed up with the new
+authority which his crime had gained for him, no sooner saw me than he
+cried out that each ought to command in turn; to which I made no reply. We
+were all forced to smother our grief, and not permit it to be seen; for it
+was a question of life and death; but it may be imagined with what
+feelings the Abbé Cavelier and his nephew, Father Anastase, and I regarded
+these murderers, of whom we expected to be the victims every moment."
+[Footnote: _Journal Historique, 205._] They succeeded so well in their
+dissembling, that Duhaut and his accomplices seemed to lose all distrust
+of their intentions; and Joutel says that they might easily have avenged
+the death of La Salle by that of his murderers, had not the elder
+Cavelier, through scruple or cowardice, opposed the design.
+
+Meanwhile, Duhaut and Liotot seized upon all the money and goods of La
+Salle, even to his clothing, declaring that they had a right to them, in
+compensation for the losses in which they had been involved by the failure
+of his schemes. [Footnote: According to the _Relation de la Mart du Sr. de
+la Salle,_ the amount of property remaining was still very considerable.
+The same document states that Duhaut's interest in the expedition was half
+the freight of one of the four vessels, which was, of course, a dead loss
+to him.] They treated the elder Cavelier with great contempt, disregarding
+his claims to the property, which, indeed, he dared not urge; and
+compelling him to listen to the most violent invectives against his
+brother. Hiens, the buccaneer, was greatly enraged at these proceedings of
+his accomplices; and thus the seeds of a quarrel were already sown.
+
+On the second morning after the murder, the party broke up their camp,
+packed their horses, of which the number had been much increased by barter
+with the Indians, and began their march for the Cenis villages, amid a
+drenching rain. Thus they moved onward slowly till the twenty-eighth, when
+they reached the main stream of the Trinity, and encamped on its borders.
+Joutel, who, as well as his companions in misfortune, could not lie down
+to sleep with an assurance of waking in the morning, was now directed by
+his self-constituted chiefs to go in advance of the party to the great
+Cenis village for a supply of food. Liotot himself, with Hiens and
+Teissier, declared that they would go with him; and Duhaut graciously
+supplied him with goods for barter. Joutel thus found himself in the
+company of three murderers, who, as he strongly suspected, were contriving
+an opportunity to kill him; but, having no choice, he dissembled his
+doubts, and set out with his ill-omened companions. His suspicions seem,
+to have been groundless; and, after a ride of ten leagues, the travellers
+neared the Indian town, which, with its large thatched lodges, looked like
+a cluster of huge 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 and fringed 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 had much ado to 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, corncake, beans, and bread made of the meal of parched
+corn. 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 not
+far off, 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 fifteen families or more. 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 one sixty feet in diameter.
+[Footnote: 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.]
+
+It was in one of the largest that the four travellers were now lodged. A
+place was assigned to 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 Provencal, 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 Provencal, 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, in 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."
+
+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 made 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.
+
+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.
+
+Hiens and several others had gone, some time before, to the Cenis villages
+to purchase horses; and here they had been retained 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;" [Footnote: "Tu es un
+misérable. Tu as tué mon maistre."--Tonty, _Mémoire,_ MS. 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.] 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. [Footnote: Joutel, 248.]
+
+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
+same lodge in which 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. [Footnote: These are
+described by Joutel. Like nearly all the early observers of Indian
+manners, he speaks of the practice of cannibalism.]
+
+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 freebooter; for he gave them a good share of the plunder which
+he had won by his late crime, supplying them with hatchets, knives, heads,
+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 lie 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.
+
+Joutel's party consisted, besides himself, of the Caveliers, uncle and
+nephew, Anastase Douay, De Marie, 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 north-east, towards
+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, 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. [Footnote: 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.] 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.
+
+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 of Tonty's followers.
+
+That brave, loyal, and generous man, always vigilant and always active,
+beloved and feared alike by white men and by red, [Footnote: _Journal de
+St. Cosme_, 1699, MS. 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.] 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, [Footnote: In the autumn of 1685,
+Tonty made a journey from the Illinois to Michillimackinac, 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, and Mémoire de
+Tonty, MS._] than he prepared, on his own responsibility, and at his own
+cost, to go to his assistance. He collected twenty-five Frenchmen, and
+five Indians, and set out from his fortified rock on the thirteenth of
+February, 1686; [Footnote: The date is from the letter cited above. In the
+Mémoire, hastily written, long after, he falls into errors of date.]
+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. [Footnote:
+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.] 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. [Footnote: Tonty,
+_Mémoire,_ MS.; _Ibid., Lettre à Monseigneur de Ponchartraint,_ 1690, MS.;
+Joutel, 301.]
+
+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 a 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. With these, the
+travellers resumed their journey in a wooden canoe, about the first of
+August, [Footnote: 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 (see _ante_, p. 367). The
+account of the death of La Salle, taken from the lips of Couture
+(_ibid_.), 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.] 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 forth 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
+advantages which 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 he 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 storehouse, and a chapel. There were Indian lodges,
+too; for some of the red allies of the French made their abode with, them.
+[Footnote: 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.] 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 storehouse.
+
+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.
+[Footnote: Joutel adds that this was occasioned by "une espèce de
+conspiration qu'on a voulu faire contre les interests de Monsieur de la
+Salle."
+
+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 parles 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.
+
+How did the Jesuits learn that La Salle had missed the mouths of the
+Mississippi? He himself did not know it when Beaujeu left him; for he
+dated his last letter to the minister from the "Western Mouth of the
+Mississippi." I have given the proof that Beaujeu, after leaving him,
+found the true mouth of the river, and made a map of it (_ante,_ p. 380,
+_note_). Now Beaujeu was in close relations with the Jesuits, for he
+mentions in one of his letters that his wife was devotedly attached to
+them. These circumstances, taken together, may justify the suspicion that
+Jesuit influence had some connection with Beaujeu's treacherous desertion
+of La Salle; and that this complicity had some connection with the
+uneasiness of Allouez when told that La Salle was on his way to the
+Illinois.] 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.
+
+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. [Footnote: Tonty, Du
+Laut, and Durantaye came to the aid of Denonville with hundred and seventy
+Frenchmen, chiefly coureurs de bois, and three hundred Indians from the
+upper country. Their services were highly appreciated, and Tonty
+especially is mentioned in the despatches of Denonville with great
+praise.] 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, adding fraud to meanness, 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. [Footnote: "Monsieur Tonty,
+croyant M. de la Salle vivant, ne fit pas de diffiulté de Luy donner pour
+environ quatre mille liv. de pelleterie, de castors, loutres, un canot, et
+autres effets."--Joutel, 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
+recus comme si ç'avoit esté lui mesmo 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, doet 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.]
+
+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 Michillimackinac. 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.
+
+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. [Footnote: _Lettre du Roy
+à Dénonville_, 1 _Mai_, 1689, MS. 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, every thing 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.
+
+Soon after reaching France, 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, Francois 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 seignorial 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.] The wretched
+exiles of Texas were thought, it may be, already beyond the reach of
+succor.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVIII.
+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.
+
+
+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, he 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.
+[Footnote: Tonty, _Mémoire_, MS.]
+
+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, 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. [Footnote: 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.]
+
+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, [Footnote: Fort St. Louis of Texas
+is net to be confounded with Fort St. Louis of the Illinois.] 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. [Footnote: 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.] 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.
+[Footnote: May 1st. The Spaniards reached the fort April 22d.] 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, [Footnote: 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.] 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. [Footnote: _Derrotero de la
+Jornada que hizo el General Alonso de Leon para el descubrimiento de la
+Bahia del Esplritu Santo, y poblacion de Franceses. Año de_ 1689, MS. 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 Espiritu Santo
+y de la poblacion que tenian ahi Jos 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 Cronoldgico,_
+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 farther 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.]
+
+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. [Footnote: _Mémoire sur lequel on a
+interroge les deux Canadiens (Pierre et Jean Baptiste Talon) qui sont
+soldats dans la Compagnie de Feuguerolles, A Brest, 14 Fevrier,_ 1698, MS.
+
+_Interrogations faites à Pierre et Jean Baptiste Talon à leur arrivee de
+la Veracrux,_ MS. This paper, which differs in some of its details from
+the preceding, was sent by D'Iberville, the founder of Louisiana, to the
+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.] 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.
+
+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.
+
+
+
+
+APPENDIX.
+
+
+
+
+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
+of the Marine and Colonies, at Paris. Taken together, they exhibit the
+progress of western discovery, and illustrate the records of the
+explorers.
+
+
+THE MAP OF GALINÉE, 1670.
+
+
+This map 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'enuironnent 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 (see
+p. 19, _note_). 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 Genessee 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.
+
+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, on 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.
+
+About two years 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, but who seems to have been La Salle
+himself. 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. Glair 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 before the
+voyage of Joliet and Marquette, and after that voyage of La Salle, in
+which he discovered the Illinois, or at least the Des Plaines branch of
+it. It shows that the Mississippi was known to discharge itself into the
+Gulf before Joliet had explored it. The whole length of 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_, p.
+23, _note_.)
+
+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.
+
+Not long after Marquette's return from the Mississippi, another map was
+made by the Jesuits, with the following title: _Carte de la nouvelle
+decouverie que les peres Jesuites ont fait en l'année 1672, et continuée
+par le P. Jacques Marquette de la mesme Compagnie accompagné de quelques
+francois 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.
+
+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 "Riuuiere 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.
+
+Of far greater interest is the small map of Louis Joliet, made and
+presented to Count Frontenac immediately after the discoverer's return
+from the Mississippi. It is entitled _Carte de la decouuerte du Sr.
+Jolliet ou l'on voit La Communication du fleuue St. Laurens auec 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 Erie, 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_, p. 66), 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_, p. 23, _note_.)
+
+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, bearing his name, 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,_
+p. 59). This map, if really the work of Joliet, does more credit to his
+skill as a designer than to his geographical knowledge, which appears in
+some respects behind his time.
+
+A map made by Raudin, Count Frontenac's engineer, may be mentioned here.
+He calls the Mississippi "Riviere de Buade," from the family name of his
+patron, and christens all the adjoining region "Frontenacie," or
+"Frontenacia."
+
+In the Bibliothèque Impériale is the rude map of the Jesuit Raffeix, made
+at about the same time. It is chiefly interesting as marking out the
+course of Du Lhut on his journeys from the head of Lake Superior to the
+Mississippi, and as confirming a part of the narrative of Hennepin, who,
+Raffeix says in a note, was rescued by Du Lhut. It also marks out the
+journeys of La Salle in 1679, '80.
+
+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 St 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 north-westward 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'Amerique 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.
+
+The remarkable manuscript map of the Upper Mississippi, by Le Sueur,
+belongs to a period subsequent to the close of this narrative.
+
+
+
+
+APPENDIX 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 he Bibliothèque
+Impériale, and in 1863 it was printed by Mr. Shea. Sâgean underwent an
+examination, which resulted in his being sent to Biloxi, near the mouth of
+the Mississippi, with instructions from the minister that he should be
+supplied with the means of conducting a party of Canadians to the
+wonderful country which he had discovered; but, on his arrival, the
+officers in command, becoming satisfied that he was an impostor, suffered
+the order to remain unexecuted. His story was as follows:--
+
+He was born 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-south-west. 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 finger-nails 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
+Bieuville, chiefs of the colony, were obstinate in their unbelief; and
+Sâgean and his King Hagaren lapsed alike into oblivion.
+
+
+
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, FRANCE AND ENGLAND IN NORTH AMERICA, A SERIES OF HISTORICAL NARRATIVES, PART THIRD ***
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