angels, and to men;" but with the zeal of ancient martyrdom the Jesuits pressed on from the strongholds of Quebec, filling the ranks of the dead as one after another fell, advancing to the remote boundaries of the lake shores the cross and the lilies of the Bourbons.

During the month of August, 1654, two young fur-traders having joined a band of the Ottawas or Algonquins, in their bark canoes, upon an exploration of five hundred leagues, reappeared after two years before St. Louis with a fleet of fifty canoes. Describing the territory stretching around the great lakes in glowing colors, and the savage hordes which were then scattered through the forests, they sought to effect a wider extension of French commerce into that region. Their request was granted; and in 1656, Gabrielle Dreuillette and Leonard Gareau, former missionaries among the Hurons, were selected for the mission; but just below Montreal a band of Mohawks attacked their fleet, Gareau was mortally wounded, and the expedition prevented. The traders of the lakes, seeking the furs which abounded in those forests, and backed by the Western Indians, who desired a league by which they might resist the Iroquois, soon advanced to Green Bay, and in 1659 two of them passed the winter on the shores of Lake Superior. During the following year they returned to Quebec, escorted by sixty canoes, laden with peltry, and paddled by three hundred Algonquins.

The zeal of Francis de Laval, the bishop of Quebec, appears to have been kindled, by their accounts of the country, with a desire to enter upon the mission, but to Rene Mesnard was allotted this task, so full of hazard. Charged with the duty of exploring the territory around Green Bay and Lake Superior, and of establishing at some convenient point a place for the general assembly of the neighboring tribes, this aged man, in August, 1660, with but few preparations, departed on his mission, trusting, to use his own words, "in the Providence which feeds the little birds of the desert, and clothes the wild flowers of the forest." During the month of October he reached a bay on the south shore of Lake Superior, which he named St. Theresa; writing to a friend, "in three or four months you may add me to the memento of deaths." After a residence there of eight months, in the year 1661, he complied with the invitation of the Hurons, who had taken refuge in the isle of St. Michael, and, leaving his converts, advanced with one attendant to the Bay of Che-goi-me-gon. Lost in the forest, he was never afterward seen; and among the amulets of the Sioux were discovered his breviary and cassock.

But the rude missionary posts around the lakes struggled on, and were in danger of falling, when the Canadian colonies were re-enforced in 1665 by a royal regiment, with Tracy as viceroy, Courcelles, a veteran officer, as governor, and Talon, a man of business and perseverance, as intendant, and the representative of the King in civil matters. French enterprise now pressed forward to the West with increased vigor, and in August, 1665, Father Claude Allouez, following the old course of the Ottawa, on the 1st day of October reached the principal village of the Chippewas in the Bay of Che-goi-me-gon. A chapel dedicated to the Holy Spirit soon arose amid the green luxuriance of the forest, and the passions of the rough tribes were subdued by paintings which the missionary displayed of the horrors of hell and the terrors of the final judgment. The dwellers around St. Mary flocked to his station; the Hurons and Ottawas, upon the deserts north of Lake Superior, secured his presence at their wigwams; and the Pottowatomies, from the borders of Lake Michigan, invited him to their homes, while the Sacs and Foxes travelled from their villages, and the Illinois came to gather counsel and to describe the beauties of their quiet

river. The Sioux, also, from the west of Lake Superior, in a land of prairies, living on wild rice and skin-covered cabins, welcomed the stranger. After residing for nearly two years upon the southern margin of Lake Superior, in August of 1667 he returned to Quebec, and urged the establishment of permanent missions, to be accompanied by colonies of French emigrants upon the lakes; but in two days after reaching that post, with another priest, Louis Nicholas, he returned to the mission of Che-goime-gon.

The condition of Canada at that time was favorable to the progress of the missions of this portion of the West. The monopoly of the West India Company, organized for the purpose of prosecuting the fur-trade, had been yielded up. Peace was enjoyed, and a new recruit of missionaries had arrived from France. Aided by such advantages, Allouez, Claude Dablon, and James Marquette in 1668 repaired to the Chippewas and established the mission of St. Mary, the first settlement commenced by Europeans within the boundaries of Michigan. During the following years these missionaries were employed in strengthening the power of France over the possessions which she claimed, from Green Bay to the head of Lake Superior, and in collecting information respecting the region extending toward the Mississippi. They resolved in the year 1669 to attempt its exploration, and selected as a companion a young Illinois, for the purpose of becoming acquainted with the dialect of that tribe.

The commerce of the fur-trade between the Algonquins and the French secured the protection of their tribes and their deep attachment, while a desire of strengthening the power of France over the Western territory pervaded the mind of Louis of France and Colbert, his minister. Talon, the intendant-general, moreover, desired to advance the same object, and for this purpose despatched his agent, Nicholas Perrott, in order to call a general congress of the lake tribes at the Falls of St. Mary. Procuring at Green Bay a guard of Pottowatomies, he reached the settlement of the Miamis at Chicago, the first of civilized men who had ever visited that point.

The desired Congress of the Indian tribes convened at the falls of St. Mary in May of 1671, was composed of prominent delegates from the head waters of the St. Lawrence, the Mississippi, the lakes, and even the Red river; and of veteran officers from the armies of France, intermingled here and there with a Jesuit missionary. A cross having been raised, and also a cedar post marked with the French lilies, the representatives of the savage hordes were informed that they were under the protection of the French King. During that year Marquette gathered a branch of the Hurons at Point St. Ignace, upon the continent north of the peninsula of Michigan, an establishment that was long a convenient resting-place for the savages and the fur-trade.

In 1672, Allouez and Dablon, who were the active agents of the French Government in carrying the cross through the eastern part of Wisconsin and the north of Illinois, seeking by mild means to secure the good offices of the Kickapoos upon the Milwaukie and of the Miamis of Lake Michigan, explored the countries to the south of the village that had been thus founded by Marquette, and had even extended their explorations to the tribes of the Foxes, then scattered along the banks of the Fox river. But the power of the French in this quarter was mainly confined to the immediate shores of the lakes and their connecting waters. Beyond these was a river flowing thousands of miles into the sea, which had never been traced to its outlet, of which Allouez had reported the name to be Messipi, or the

B

Great river. This stream, long the object of curious inquiry, was now to be sought, in order that the French power might be spread along its banks. Thus labored Marquette, a solitary missionary upon the lakes, until 1673, when M. Talon, the intendant-general of the colony, ambitious to close his career in that region with something of honor, despatched M. Joliet, a citizen of Quebec, to this man, and unfolded, at the same time, a project for the exploration of the country along the line of the Michisepee, or the Great river, to its mouth, which current reports declared flowed into a large sea. Nor was Marquette unwilling to aid the enterprise. Upon the thirteenth of May, everything being ready, this adventurer, together with Joliet and five other Frenchmen, left Michilimackinac in two bark canoes, supplied with Indian corn and jerked meat, and commenced their voyage to the unknown country. They soon arrived at an Indian village which was familiar to Marquette, and made known to the savages their plan. These savages, however, seemed to be horror-struck at the boldness of the project to explore the great river. There were Indians in that quarter, they told the whites, who would destroy them; monsters who would swallow up them and their canoes; a demon who would ingulf all who ventured near his watery and boiling domain, and heats that would parch them. "I thanked them for their good advice," says Marquette, "but informed them I could not follow it, since the salvation of souls was at stake, for which I should be overjoyed to give my life."

The navigators now passed through Green Bay, from the mud of which there arose, says the voyager, "mischievous vapors, which cause the most grand and perpetual thunders I ever heard." They entered the Fox river, and, dragging their canoes through the rapids, and cutting their feet with the stones, they soon arrived at a village where there lived together a band of the Miamis, Mascoutens, and Kickapoos. Here they found a cross hung with skins, because the Great Spirit had given to the Indians a successful chase. Father Allouez had been here, and had taught them that the cross was the only visible emblem of the true religion. This village was at that time the remote boundary of western exploration, and beyond it no Frenchman had before gone. They were now journeying through a country before unknown to white men. On the 10th of July the adventurers left these savages amazed at the hardihood of the whites, and, aided by two guides, started for the stream, which was believed to run but three leagues distant from the Mississippi, and to flow into that river. The Indian guides, having conducted them to the portage without any mishap, left them "alone amid that unknown country, in the hand of God." Advancing with prayers, they soon arrived at the Wisconsin, a stream abounding with sandbars, but studded with islands and bordered by banks green with vegetation, and variegated by groves and pleasant slopes. Floating down the stream in their canoes, they arrived, on the 17th of June, at the Mississippi, "with joy," says Marquette, "that I cannot express."

The adventurers had now reached the main channel, which they were to explore to its mouth; and, after having admired the herds of buffalo and deer which roamed along its borders, and the swans which floated upon its surface, as well as some great fish which nearly dashed their canoes to atoms, they at length came to the footprints of human beings on the sand, and a trail leading to a meadow. Leaving their canoes in charge of the crew, Joliet and Marquette now advanced towards what seemed to them an Indian village, sufficiently near to hear the voice of the savages. With prayers they made known their presence by a loud cry, and were soon received by an embassy of four old men, who presented them the pipe of

peace, and informed them at the same time that they were in a village of the Illinois. The French voyagers were here entertained with a grand feast, accompanied with much smoking. The feast consisted of four courses; the first was of hominy, the second of fish, the third of dog, and the fourth of roasted buffalo. When the feast had been concluded, they were marched through the town with much ceremony; and, having passed the night quietly, they were escorted by six hundred Indians to their canoes. The Illinois, says Marquette, were handsome, kindly, and effeminate. They used guns, and were feared by the savages of the South and West, where they made many prisoners, and sold them as slaves.

Having left the Illinois, the voyagers passed the rocks on which were painted the monsters of whose existence they had heard at Lake Michigan, and reached the mouth of the Missouri. Leaving the Missouri, they encountered the demon against which they had been warned, that was nothing more than a great rock in the stream, and soon arrived at the Ohio. From the Ohio, although somewhat troubled by the mosquitoes, they passed in safety to the region of the Arkansas.

At this place they were attacked by a crowd of warriors, and would have been overpowered had not Marquette presented the pipe of peace, which softened the rough savages; for, says the Jesuit, "God touched their hearts." On the succeeding day they proceeded on their way, and were feasted by the hospitable savages upon corn and dogmeat cooked in earthenware, the Indians being amiable and ceremonious, passing the dish from one to another. Here the voyagers determined to return to the North, as they were now confident of the place where the Mississippi was discharged, that being the principal object of the expedition. In consequence, they left Akamsca on the 17th of July, retracing their track; and, amazed at the numbers of "grounds, meadows, woods, buffaloes, stags, deer, wildcats, bustards, swans, ducks, paroquets, and beavers" upon the Illinois river, they arrived at Green Bay in September of that year, where they reported what they had seen. Father Marquette returned to the Illinois, and performed his clerical offices by their request until the year 1675. On the 18th of May, as he was passing through Lake Michigan in his canoes, he proposed to land at the mouth of a small stream running from the peninsula to perform mass, and retired a little distance to pray. Not returning, his men went in pursuit of him, and soon discovered the missionary, but he was dead; and they made a grave and buried him in the sand, upon the western part of the peninsula of Michigan, on the borders of a stream which now bears his name, and where the place of his interment was recently to be seen. Thus passed away this quiet man in the wilderness, after a long life spent in doing good. Yet he left the impression of his virtues behind him, and his name the world has embalmed and will perpetuate.

At length the enterprise of Robert de la Salle, a native of Normandy, in France, a young man of strong passions, but great energy, entered upon a project which had for its object the perpetuation of the power of France by the permanent colonization of the West. La Salle was, according to Charlevoix, brought up among the Jesuits, and, having lost his patrimony in France, and being of an adventurous and enterprising spirit, he turned his mind to the French colonies on this side of the Atlantic about the year 1670. Having arrived at the Canadian port, he occupied himself with a project, popular in that day, connected with a short passage to China, and had already planned an expedition across the great lakes to the banks of the Pacific when Father Marquette returned from the Mississippi. The highly colored views which this missionary gave of the country, and its extensive

channels of interior communication westward, kindled the sanguine mind of La Salle, and induced him to redouble his exertions to carry out his object. With that view he resorted to M. de Frontenac, then the governorgeneral of Canada, and at once laid before him the dim but gigantic outline of his project, having for its end the extension of the French power, by constructing a chain of fortifications at the most prominent points along the lakes and rivers of the West. The first step towards this favorite scheme was to rebuild Fort Frontenac, which lies on Lake Ontario, of stone; and the politic adventurer deemed this an important point to win the favor of the governor-general, as that fort was called after his name. Frontenac entered warmly into his views. Believing that the French power would be greatly strengthened by carrying out the design, he advised La Salle to apply directly to the King of France; and, to aid his application for royal patronage, he gave the adventurer letters to Seigneilay, who, as minister of marine, had succeeded his father, the well-known Colbert.

With glowing hopes, La Salle now resorted to the French King, and made known his wants. His plan was approved by the minister, who received his letter, and he was invested with the title of chevalier, and also with the seignory of Fort Frontenac, on the condition that he would rebuild it. From all the nobility of that country he received also assurances of full counte nance and aid. Encouraged by these assurances, La Salle, with his lieutenant, Tonti, an Italian, and thirty men, sailed from Rochelle on the 14th of July, 1678, reached Quebec on the 15th of September of the same year, and soon after proceeded to Fort Frontenac. Here he found laboring in the missionary cause Louis Hennepin, a friar of the Franciscan order, daring, vain, and determined, ambitious to reap the glory of discovery, and not too scrupulous as to the means. Hennepin had been appointed by his religious superiors acting missionary, to accompany the expedition of La Salle, and arrived at this point, in readiness to meet him, in October of 1678.

The chevalier having no means to carry out his project, and being at that time somewhat involved in debt, was obliged to cast about for money to advance his enterprise. He commenced operations, accordingly, by sending forward a party of his men along the shores of the lakes to collect skins, from which he might accumulate something to pay his winter expenses, for he had an exclusive right from the French monarch to trade in that region. The advantages of this course were two-fold: for, while the Frenchmen whom he should despatch were collecting the furs, they could, at the same time, prepare the minds of the Indians for his coming. In the first place it was made a part of his duty to alter and repair Fort Frontenac; Lake Ontario was to be navigated; a fort was to be built on Lake Erie, and a bark of extraordinary size for those inland seas was to be constructed. All these duties devolved upon himself; and, with the small funds which he had to accomplish them, they would, to a man of moderate soul, have appeared formidable. But to the stout heart of the French chevalier they were as nothing, for his perseverance was unconquerable, and his ambition looked forward to the time when his name should be covered with glory as the benefactor of France, and the Columbus of its colonies in the West.

Having despatched his men for the objects which have been mentioned, La Salle embarked upon Lake Ontario, with his followers, on the 18th of November, 1678, in a little vessel of ten tons, "the first ship that had ever sailed on that fresh-water sea." Against strong winds the vessel was finally, after having occupied four weeks in beating up from Kingston to Niagara, pushed as near the falls as could be done with safety, and the adventurers landed. Here some magazines were built with great difficulty, as the ground