monopoly of the traffic in buffalo-skins, a commission for 1678. perfecting the discovery of the Great River. With Tonti, an Italian veteran, as his lieutenant, and a recruit of mechanics and mariners; with anchors, and sails, and cordage for rigging a ship, and stores of merchandise for traffic with the natives; with swelling hopes and a boundless ambition, La Salle, in the autumn of 1678, returned to Fort Frontenac. Before winter, " a wooden canoe" of ten tons, the first that ever sailed into Niagara River, bore a part of his company to the vicinity of the falls; at Niagara, a trading-house was established; in the mouth of Tonawanta Creek, the work of shipbuilding began; Tonti and the Franciscan Hennepin, venturing among the Senecas, established relations of amity,-while La Salle himself, skilled in the Indian dialects, was now urging forward the ship-builders, now gathering furs at his magazine, now gazing at the mighty cataract,-fittest emblem of eternity,-now sending forward a detach1679. ment into the country of the Illinois, to prepare the way for his reception.

Under the auspices of La Salle, Europeans first pitched a tent at Niagara; it was he who, in 1679, amidst the salvo from his little artillery, and the chanting of the Te Deum, and the astonished gaze of the Senecas, first launched a wooden vessel, a bark of sixty tons, on the upper Niagara river, and in the Griffin, freighted with the colony of fur-traders for the valley of the Mississippi, on the seventh day of August, unfurled a sail to the breezes of Lake Erie. Indifferent to the malignity of those who envied his genius, or were injured by his special privileges, La Salle, first of mariners, sailed over Lake Erie and between the verdant isles of the majestic Detroit; debated planting a colony on its banks; gave a name to Lake St. Clair, from the day on which he traversed its shallow waters; and, after escaping from storms on Lake Huron, and planting a trading-house at Mackinaw, he cast anchor in Green Bay. Here, having despatched his brig to Niagara River, with the richest cargo of furs, he himself, with his company in scattered groups, repaired in bark canoes to the head of Lake Michigan; and at the mouth of the St. Joseph's, in that peninsula where Alloüez had already gathered a village of Miamis, awaiting the return of the Griffin, he constructed the trading-house, with palisades, known as the Fort of the Miamis. It marks his careful

forethought, that he sounded the mouth of the St. Joseph's, and raised buoys to mark the channel. But of his vessel, on which his fortunes so much depended, no tidings came. Weary of delay, he resolved to penetrate Illinois, and, leaving ten men to guard the Fort of the Miamis, La Salle himself, with Hennepin and two other Franciscans, with Tonti and about thirty followers, ascended the St. Joseph's, and, by a short portage over bogs and swamps made dangerous by a snow-storm, entered the Kankakee. Descending its narrow stream before the end of December, the little company had reached the site of an Indian village on the Illinois, probably not far from Ottawa, in La Salle county. The tribe was absent, passing the

winter in the chase.

On the banks of Lake Peoria, Indians appeared: 1680. they were Illinois; and, desirous to obtain axes and fire-arms, they offered the calumet, and agreed to an alliance-if the Iroquois should renew their invasions, they would claim the French as allies. They heard with joy that colonies were to be established in their territory; they described the course of the Mississippi, and they were willing to guide the strangers to its mouth. The spirit and prudence of La Salle, who was the life of the enterprise, won the friendship of the natives. But clouds lowered over his path: the Griffin, it seemed certain, was wrecked, thus delaying his discoveries, as well as impairing his fortunes; his men began to despond: alone, of himself, he toiled to revive their courage-there could be no safety but in union; "None," he added, "shall stay after the spring, unless from choice." But fear and discontent pervaded the company, and when La Salle planned and began to build a fort on the banks of the Illinois, four days' journey, it is said, below Lake Peoria, thwarted by destiny, and almost despairing, he named the fort Crève

cœur.

Yet here the immense power of his will appeared. Dependent on himself, fifteen hundred miles from the nearest French settlement, impoverished, pursued by enemies at Quebec, and in the wilderness surrounded by uncertain nations, he inspired his men with resolution to saw trees into planks and prepare a bark; he despatched Louis Hennepin to explore the Upper Mississippi; he questioned the Illinois and their southern captives on the course of the Mississippi; he formed conjectures respecting

the Tennessee river; and then, as new recruits were needed, and sails and cordage for the bark, in the month of March, with a musket and a pouch of powder and shot, with a blanket for his protection, and skins of which to make mocassins, he, with three companions, set off on foot for Fort Frontenac, to trudge through thickets and forests, to wade through marshes and melting snows, having for his pathway the ridge of highlands which divide the basin of the Ohio from that of the lakes,without drink, except water from the brooks; without food, except supplies from the gun. Of his thoughts, on that long journey, no record exists.

During the absence of La Salle, Louis Hennepin, bearing the calumet, and accompanied by Du Gay and Michael d'Accault, as oarsmen, followed the Illinois to its junction with the Mississippi; and, invoking the guidance of St. Anthony of Padua, ascended the mighty stream far beyond the mouth of the Wisconsin-as he falsely held forth, far enough to discover its source. The great falls in the river, which he describes with reasonable accuracy, were named from the chosen patron of the expedition. On a tree, near the cataract, the Franciscan engraved the cross and the arms of France; and, after a summer's rambles, diversified by a short captivity among the Sioux, he and his companions returned, by way of the Wisconsin and Fox rivers, to the French mission at Green Bay.

In Illinois, Tonti was less fortunate. The quick perception of La Salle had selected, as the fit centre of his colony, Rock Fort, near a village of the Illinois—a cliff rising two hundred feet above the river that flows at its base, in the centre of a lovely country of verdant prairies, bordered by distant slopes, richly tufted with oak and black walnut, and the noblest trees of the American forest. This rock Tonti was to fortify; and, during the attempt, men at Crèvecœur deserted. Besides, the enemies of La Salle had instigated the Iroquois to hostility, and, in September, a large party of them, descending the river, threatened ruin to his enterprise. After a parley, Tonti and the few men that remained with him, excepting the aged Franciscan, Gabriel de la Ribourde, fled to Lake Michigan, where they found shelter with the Potawatomies. On the authority of a legend made up in Paris from the adventures of Tonti-a legend full of geographical contradictions, of confused dates, and manifest fiction

some have placed this attack of the Iroquois on the Illinois in 1681. The narrative of Hennepin, the whole of which was printed in 1682, proves conclusively that it happened in 1680, as Frontenac, the governor of Canada, related at the time.

When, therefore, La Salle returned to Illinois, with large supplies of men and stores for rigging a brigantine, he found

the post in Illinois deserted. Hence came the delay 1681. of another year, which was occupied in visiting Green Bay, and conducting traffic there; in finding Tonti and his men, and perfecting a capacious barge. At last, in the early part of 1682, La Salle and his company descended the Mississippi to the sea. His sagacious eye

discerned the magnificent resources of the country. 1682. As he floated down its flood; as he framed a cabin on the first Chickasa bluff; as he raised the cross by the Arkansas; as he planted the arms of France near the Gulf of Mexico;-he anticipated the future affluence of emigrants, and heard in the distance the footsteps of the advancing multitude that were coming to take possession of the valley. Meantime, he claimed the territory for France, and gave it the name of Louisiana. The year of the descent has been unnecessarily made a question; its accomplishment was known in Paris before the end of 1682.

This was the period of the proudest successes and largest ambition of Louis XIV. La Salle will return, it was said, to give to the court an ample account of the terrestrial paradise of America ;-there the king will at once call into being a flourishing empire. And, in fact,

La Salle, remaining in the west till his exclusive 1683. privilege had expired, returned to Quebec to embark

for France.

Colbert, whose genius had awakened a national spirit in behalf of French industry, and who yet had rested his system of commerce and manufactures on no firmer basis than that of monopoly, was no more; but Seignelay, his son, the minister for maritime affairs, listened confidingly to the expected messenger from the land which was regarded with pride as "the delight of the New World."

In the early months of 1684, the preparations for 1684. colonizing Louisiana were perfected, and in July the fleet left Rochelle. Four vessels were destined for the Mississippi, bearing two hundred and eighty persons, to

take possession of the valley. Of these, one hundred were soldiers-an ill omen, for successful colonists always defend themselves: about thirty were volunteers, two of whom, young Cavalier, and the rash, passionate Moranget, were nephews to La Salle; of ecclesiastics, there were three Franciscans, and three of St. Sulpice, one of them being brother to La Salle; there were, moreover, mechanics of various skill; and the presence of young women proved the design of permanent colonization. But the mechanics were poor workmen, ill versed in their art; the soldiers, though they had for their commander Joutel, a man of courage and truth, and afterwards the historian of the grand enterprise, were themselves spiritless vagabonds, without discipline and without experience; the volunteers were restless with indefinite expectations; and, worst of all, the naval commander, Beaujeu, was deficient in judgment, incapable of sympathy with the magnanimous heroism of La Salle, envious, self-willed, and foolishly proud.

Disasters lowered on the voyage at its commencement: a mast breaks; they return: the voyage begins anew, amidst variances between La Salle and the naval commander. In every instance on the record, the judgment of La Salle was right.

1685.

At St. Domingo, La Salle, delayed and cruelly thwarted by Beaujeu, saw already the shadow of his coming misfortunes. On leaving the island, they were more at variance than ever. They double Cape Antonio; they discover land on the continent; aware of the easterly direction of the Gulf Stream, they sail slowly in the opposite course. On the tenth day of January, 1685, they must have been near the mouth of the Mississippi; but La Salle thought not, and the fleet sailed by. Presently he perceived his error, and desired to return; but Beaujeu refused; and thus they sailed to the west, and still to the west, till they reached the Bay of Matagorda. Weary of differences with Beaujeu,believing the streams that had their outlet in the bay might be either branches from the Mississippi, or lead to its vicinity, La Salle resolved to disembark. While he was busy in providing for the safety of his men, his storeship, on entering the harbour, was wrecked by the careless pilot. Others gazed listlessly; La Salle, calming the terrible energy of his grief at the sudden ruin of his