THE FACT.-When the Elder refused them the bread and wine, they sat still in patience and quietness of soul. He could not keep them from approaching their Lord in prayer, and washing his feet with their tears. Though he could refuse them the elements of bread and wine, he could not keep from them that bread, whereof if a man eat, he shall live forever. He had the key of knowledge confided to him, and he would neither enter in himself, and those who were entering in, he hindered. But, praised be God! he could not lock up the gospel of glad tidings-he could not shut from their eyes the love of Jesus.

ART. X.-EARLY DISCOVERY IN THE MISSISSIPPI

VALLEY.-No. I.

The first European who penetrated to the Mississippi, was Fernando de Soto. Starting from Eastern Florida, he arrived on its banks in 1541, and having crossed and ascended to the North on its western shore, almost to the Missouri, and westward two hundred miles or more, he returned in 1542, to the Mississippi to die. His body was carried out, and at midnight sunk in its current. His death took place near the mouth of Red River, and with his death the soul that kept the enterprize of his followers alive, was gone. It was one of the most wonderful expeditions recorded in history, whether we regard the bold and enterprizing spirit with which it was planned, the amount of men and means engaged in it, or the skill and indomitable energy with which it was conducted. Until lately, the adventures of De Soto were known to few;-but the accounts given of them by Theodore Irving, and by Bancroft in his History of the United States, have made them generally familiar to the public.

After the death of Soto, more than a hundred and thirty years elapsed before another European is known to have looked on the Mississippi. The progress of western discovery was now from the north, on the line of the St. Lawrence and the Lakes. The earliest pioneers of the West were Catholic Priests, in whom the spirit of discovery was kindled

into still brighter flame, by zeal to convert the heathen. Of these men, than whom the world has known no travellers more bold, and prudent, and persevering, and no missionaries more self-devoted, little is known even by those who dwell on the very lands which they revealed to the eye of Europe. We propose in some successive numbers, to give some account of those who led the way in western discovery. The first who reached the Mississippi from the north, were,

P. MARQUETTE AND M. JOLIET.

Joliet was appointed by Count Frontenac, the Governor of Canada, to conduct the enterprize, or as it is expressed, "to discover a way into the South Sea." He brought back a journal and map of his voyage. But on his return, his canoe was overset in sight of Montreal, and his chest, and his two men were lost. He gave a brief account of all that he could remember; which account we find in a volume that contains Hennepin's journal.

His companion, Marquette, was a French Jesuit. He was a native of Laon in Picardy, where his family was one of distinguished rank. His journal is now before us. The English translation may be found in the volume of Hennepin, and the original French in Thevenot's "Receueil de Voyages," Paris 1681, and is entitled "Decourverte dans l'Amerique Septentrionale par le P. Marquette Jesuite." Their voyage commenced May 18, 1673. Before starting, however, they made as careful inquiries as possible of the Indian hunters as to the course best to be pursued. They were told of savages that dwelt in their way, who never spared a stranger's life, and from whom, as they roamed about in mutual wars, no one could escape,—of dreadful monsters filling the great river, and devouring men and canoes,-of a demon stopping the passage of the river, and sinking those who approached, and of heats so excessive towards its mouth as to make death inevitable. And these stories exerted great power over minds tinctured with the credulous faith of that age.

Missionary stations had already been established by the Catholics around the borders of Green Bay. Marquette describes this bay as cone-shaped, thirty leagues long, and eight broad at the base,—and imagined that he discovered a slight tide in its waters.

Passing up Green Bay, they entered the mouth of Fox river. As they ascended, they found it, first broad, then rocky, shallow, and its bottom covered with sharp flint-stones, which like razors, cut their canoes as they grazed upon

them.

Here they found an herb like gilly-flower, which chewed and applied to the wounded part, the savages considered an infallible remedy for the bite of serpents. At the head of Fox river, dwelt in a common village, the Miamies, Markoutens, and Kikabeux. Their village was situated on a hill, from which stretched far away on every side large prairies, sprinkled with groves and lofty trees. The soil was very fertile,-plums and grapes abounded, and the savages raised abundance of Indian corn. Here were the limits of French discovery.

They had a meeting with the old men of the tribe, and Marquette told them that M. Joliet was sent by the governor of Canada, while he himself was sent by God Almighty, to teach them the knowledge of their Creator, who being absolute master of all his creatures, would have all nations love and obey Him. At the conclusion of the conference, having made divers presents, they desired of the Indians two guides, which were granted. The next day, June 10, 1673, they embarked with their two guides, in sight of all the people of the village, who could not sufficiently admire, that seven Europeans should venture on so extraordinary and dangerous an enterprise. After passing by the aid of the guides three leagues through a network of morasses, and ponds, and wild rice, covering the swampy soil like a cornfield and almost hiding the river, and carrying their canoes over a portage of two and a half miles, they came to the Ouisconsin. Here they dismissed their guides, and were left alone in an unknown land. They stood on the borders of the Mississippi Valley. Their canoes were in a stream whose waters ran into untravelled and mysterious regions. No European had been here before. And ere they left the ridge from which they looked back on the territory where dwelt their friends, they made a solemn vow, and resolved to use some particular prayers every day to the virgin. Having recommended their persons and enterprize to her protection, they embarked.

The navigation of the Ouisconsin they found obstructed by sand-banks, and made still more difficult by islands covered with wild vines;-but the country through which it passed was a beautiful one, with intermingled prairies and little hills, sprinkled with groves of walnut and oak, and various other trees, while scattered around, they saw an abundance of wild goats and wild bulls. Having sailed thirty leagues, they found appearances of iron mines, not more than three feet deep; and one of their number, who had been familiar with such mines, pronounced the ore good and abundant. Having sailed ten leagues farther, they arrived at the mouth of the

river, in latitude 42°;—and on the 17th June, says Marquette, "we entered happily the Mississippi with a joy I cannot express.' "Behold us in this renowned river," says the venerable voyager, "whose singularities I have endeavored carefully

to mark."

We have not room to trace in full the course of these solitary travellers, as they sailed in their birch canoe down this river of the wilderness, between silent forests, through unknown tribes. A thousand vague terrors haunted them,--of lurking savages, and strange monsters. For a hundred leagues they saw nothing but beasts and birds, but were always on their guard, especially at night. At night they landed to dress their supper, making but a little fire, and having cooked it they re-embarked, and watched in turn. Marquette describes the shores of the Mississippi as sometimes rising in steep bold bluffs, here covered by forests that stooped to its waters, and there opening into wide prairies, where herds of buffaloes, sometimes containing four hundred, were seen grazing. Everything is new and strange, and on every side they look around with opened-eyed wonder. Sometimes they met monstrous fishes, one of which, that run against their canoe, was so large as almost like a tree, to break it in pieces.

They stopped at a village of the Illinois, containing three hundred cabins, where they were hospitably entertained. The Indians had never seen a Frenchman before, and, as they passed from the village first entered to the principal one, says Marquette, "the Indians ceased not looking on us,-some lay on the grass by the road-side, others went before us, and then returned to see us again. All this they did without noise and with marks of the great respect which they had for us. On leaving the village, the chief, with six hundred persons, conducted the French to their canoe. He describes their mode of living, and their customs at length, but we cannot give the details of his descriptions of their feastings, their domestic customs, their war-laws, their habitations, their skill in medicine, the calumet, their juggleries, and solemn dances, and their combats in pantomine, closed with speeches of formal solemnity. As they proceeded on, they discovered what had given rise to the account of monsters threatening the descending voyagers. Passing by high and frightful rocks, they saw two monsters painted thereon, which at first terrified them, and on which the boldest of the savages dared not look. As they approached these monsters, sailing calmly, in calm clear water, they heard the noise of a rapid, into which they were going to fall. It was near the mouth of a river which they

called the Pekitanoni, whose rushing waters came down loaded with mud and drift-wood, and even large trees. Through this river, Marquette thought that one of the chief objects of all the first French travellers who visited the Mississippi, might be accomplished. This object was, to cross the continent to China and Japan, which they thought must border closely on the American shore. From the information communicated by the savages to Marquette, he supposed that, after ascending the Pekitanoni (probably, the Missouri,) a great distance, they would arrive at a prairie twenty or thirty leagues wide. Having carried their canoes across this table land, they would arrive at the source of a river which ran south-west, and emptied into the Vermillion sea, or Gulf of California. Near the mouth of the Ouabouskigou (probably Chio,) they found the dreaded demon. It was a little pile of rocks about twenty feet high, where the river, pressing through a narrower channel, was more than usually loud and rapid. The fear of the Indians had converted this pile of rocks into a Manitou. As they descended farther, they were annoyed by gnats, and blistered with the sun. Here they found savages armed with muskets. On entering their cabins, they found hatchets, hoes, knives, razors, and glass bottles, which the Indians, according to their own account, had bought of Europeans on the eastern coast. Prairies now gave place to forests, in which the vast size of the cotton tree and white wood, excited their admirátion. The Indians grew more numerous, and Marquette conveyed to them all the religious instruction he could by signs. At length the savages appeared hostile, and having already descended to the mouth of the Arkansas, and knowing that the Mississippi must now empty into the Gulf of Mexico, and not into the Atlantic or Pacific Ocean, and being fearful of the Spaniards of New Mexico, who sometimes penetrated to these regions, they resolved to return. They began to ascend July 17,-and returned by the way of the Illinois river to Lake Michigan, and arrived at Green Bay near the close of September 1673. The banks of the Illinois Marquette describes as the most beautiful in the world. Its rich meadows were covered with game, strange and beautiful birds flitted through the trees, and wild fowl thronged the river. The concluding paragraph of Marquette's journal is a melancholy comment on the success of Missionary labors among the Indians.

"Should my journey" he says "but bring salvation to one soul, I should think my pains rewarded. And so much I hope. For, having preached to the Illinois of Perouacca for three