France and England in North America, Part III: La Salle, Discovery of The Great West
At length they were afloat again; but their prosperity was brief. On the
twenty-eighth, a fierce squall drove them to a point of rocks covered
with bushes, where they consumed the little that remained of their
provisions. On the first of October they paddled about thirty miles,
without food, when they came to a village of Pottawattamies, who ran
down to the shore to help them to land; but La Salle, fearing that some
of his men would steal the merchandise and desert to the Indians,
insisted on going three leagues farther, to the great indignation of his
followers. The lake, swept by an easterly gale, was rolling its waves
against the beach, like the ocean in a storm. In the attempt to land, La
Salle's canoe was nearly swamped. He and his three canoe-men leaped into
the water, and in spite of the surf, which nearly drowned them, dragged
their vessel ashore with all its load. He then went to the rescue of
Hennepin, who with his awkward companion was in woful need of succor.
Father Gabriel, with his sixty-four years, was no match for the surf and
the violent undertow. Hennepin, finding himself safe, waded to his
relief, and carried him ashore on his sturdy shoulders; while the old
friar, though drenched to the skin, laughed gayly under his cowl as his
brother missionary staggered with him up the beach.[137]
When all were safe ashore, La Salle, who distrusted the Indians they had
passed, took post on a hill, and ordered his followers to prepare their
guns for action. Nevertheless, as they were starving, an effort must be
risked to gain a supply of food; and he sent three men back to the
village to purchase it. Well armed, but faint with toil and famine, they
made their way through the stormy forest bearing a pipe of peace, but on
arriving saw that the scared inhabitants had fled. They found, however,
a stock of corn, of which they took a portion, leaving goods in
exchange, and then set out on their return.
Meanwhile, about twenty of the warriors, armed with bows and arrows,
approached the camp of the French to reconnoitre. La Salle went to meet
them with some of his men, opened a parley with them, and kept them
seated at the foot of the hill till his three messengers returned, when
on seeing the peace-pipe the warriors set up a cry of joy. In the
morning they brought more corn to the camp, with a supply of fresh
venison, not a little cheering to the exhausted Frenchmen, who, in dread
of treachery, had stood under arms all night.
[Sidenote: HARDSHIPS.]
This was no journey of pleasure. The lake was ruffled with almost
ceaseless storms; clouds big with rain above, a turmoil of gray and
gloomy waves beneath. Every night the canoes must be shouldered through
the breakers and dragged up the steep banks, which, as they neared the
site of Milwaukee, became almost insurmountable. The men paddled all
day, with no other food than a handful of Indian corn. They were spent
with toil, sick with the haws and wild berries which they ravenously
devoured, and dejected at the prospect before them. Father Gabriel's
good spirits began to fail. He fainted several times from famine and
fatigue, but was revived by a certain "confection of Hyacinth"
administered by Hennepin, who had a small box of this precious specific.
At length they descried at a distance, on the stormy shore, two or three
eagles among a busy congregation of crows or turkey buzzards. They
paddled in all haste to the spot. The feasters took flight; and the
starved travellers found the mangled body of a deer, lately killed by
the wolves. This good luck proved the inauguration of plenty. As they
approached the head of the lake, game grew abundant; and, with the aid
of the Mohegan, there was no lack of bear's meat and venison. They found
wild grapes, too, in the woods, and gathered them by cutting down the
trees to which the vines clung.
[Sidenote: ENCOUNTER WITH INDIANS.]
While thus employed, they were startled by a sight often so fearful in
the waste and the wilderness,--the print of a human foot. It was clear
that Indians were not far off. A strict watch was kept, not, as it
proved, without cause; for that night, while the sentry thought of
little but screening himself and his gun from the floods of rain, a
party of Outagamies crept under the bank, where they lurked for some
time before he discovered them. Being challenged, they came forward,
professing great friendship, and pretending to have mistaken the French
for Iroquois. In the morning, however, there was an outcry from La
Salle's servant, who declared that the visitors had stolen his coat from
under the inverted canoe where he had placed it; while some of the
carpenters also complained of being robbed. La Salle well knew that if
the theft were left unpunished, worse would come of it. First, he posted
his men at the woody point of a peninsula, whose sandy neck was
interposed between them and the main forest. Then he went forth, pistol
in hand, met a young Outagami, seized him, and led him prisoner to his
camp. This done, he again set out, and soon found an Outagami
chief,--for the wigwams were not far distant,--to whom he told what he
had done, adding that unless the stolen goods were restored, the
prisoner should be killed. The Indians were in perplexity, for they had
cut the coat to pieces and divided it. In this dilemma they resolved,
being strong in numbers, to rescue their comrade by force. Accordingly,
they came down to the edge of the forest, or posted themselves behind
fallen trees on the banks, while La Salle's men in their stronghold
braced their nerves for the fight. Here three Flemish friars with their
rosaries, and eleven Frenchmen with their guns, confronted a hundred and
twenty screeching Outagamies. Hennepin, who had seen service, and who
had always an exhortation at his tongue's end, busied himself to inspire
the rest with a courage equal to his own. Neither party, however, had an
appetite for the fray. A parley ensued: full compensation was made for
the stolen goods, and the aggrieved Frenchmen were farther propitiated
with a gift of beaver-skins.
Their late enemies, now become friends, spent the next day in dances,
feasts, and speeches. They entreated La Salle not to advance farther,
since the Illinois, through whose country he must pass, would be sure to
kill him; for, added these friendly counsellors, they hated the French
because they had been instigating the Iroquois to invade their country,
Here was another subject of anxiety. La Salle was confirmed in his
belief that his busy and unscrupulous enemies were intriguing for his
destruction.
He pushed on, however, circling around the southern shore of Lake
Michigan, till he reached the mouth of the St. Joseph, called by him the
Miamis. Here Tonty was to have rejoined him with twenty men, making his
way from Michilimackinac along the eastern shore of the lake; but the
rendezvous was a solitude,--Tonty was nowhere to be seen. It was the
first of November; winter was at hand, and the streams would soon be
frozen. The men clamored to go forward, urging that they should starve
if they could not reach the villages of the Illinois before the tribe
scattered for the winter hunt. La Salle was inexorable. If they should
all desert, he said, he, with his Mohegan hunter and the three friars,
would still remain and wait for Tonty. The men grumbled, but obeyed;
and, to divert their thoughts, he set them at building a fort of timber
on a rising ground at the mouth of the river.
They had spent twenty days at this task, and their work was well
advanced, when at length Tonty appeared. He brought with him only half
of his men. Provisions had failed; and the rest of his party had been
left thirty leagues behind, to sustain themselves by hunting. La Salle
told him to return and hasten them forward. He set out with two men. A
violent north wind arose. He tried to run his canoe ashore through the
breakers. The two men could not manage their vessel, and he with his one
hand could not help them. She swamped, rolling over in the surf. Guns,
baggage, and provisions were lost; and the three voyagers returned to
the Miamis, subsisting on acorns by the way. Happily, the men left
behind, excepting two deserters, succeeded, a few days after, in
rejoining the party.[138]
[Sidenote: FOREBODINGS.]
Thus was one heavy load lifted from the heart of La Salle. But where was
the "Griffin"? Time enough, and more than enough, had passed for her
voyage to Niagara and back again. He scanned the dreary horizon with an
anxious eye. No returning sail gladdened the watery solitude, and a dark
foreboding gathered on his heart. Yet further delay was impossible. He
sent back two men to Michilimackinac to meet her, if she still existed,
and pilot her to his new fort of the Miamis, and then prepared to ascend
the river, whose weedy edges were already glassed with thin flakes of
ice.[139]
FOOTNOTES:
[130] They named it Sainte Claire, of which the present name is a
perversion.
[131] Hennepin (1683), 58.
[132] There is a rude plan of the establishment in La Hontan, though in
several editions its value is destroyed by the reversal of the plate.
[133] _Relation de Tonty, 1684; Ibid., 1693_. He was overtaken at the
Detroit by the "Griffin."
[134] Then usually known as Lac des Illinois, because it gave access to
the country of the tribes so called. Three years before, Allouez gave it
the name of Lac St. Joseph, by which it is often designated by the early
writers. Membré, Douay, and others, call it Lac Dauphin.
[135] "The Great Mountain," the Iroquois name for the governor of
Canada. It was borrowed by other tribes also.
[136] In the license of discovery granted to La Salle, he is expressly
prohibited from trading with the Ottawas and others who brought furs to
Montreal. This traffic on the lakes was, therefore, illicit. His enemy,
the Intendant Duchesneau, afterwards used this against him. _Lettre de
Duchesneau au Ministre, 10 Nov., 1680._
[137] Hennepin (1683), 79.
[138] Hennepin (1683), 112; _Relation de Tonty_, 1693.
[139] The official account of this journey is given at length in the
_Relation des Découvertes et des Voyages du Sieur de la Salle_,
1679-1681. This valuable document, compiled from letters and diaries of
La Salle, early in the year 1682, was known to Hennepin, who evidently
had a copy of it before him when he wrote his book, in which he
incorporated many passages from it.
CHAPTER XII.
1679, 1680.
LA SALLE ON THE ILLINOIS.
The St. Joseph.--Adventure of La Salle.--The
Prairies.--Famine.--The Great Town of the
Illinois.--Indians.--Intrigues.--Difficulties.--Policy of la
Salle.--Desertion.--Another Attempt to poison La Salle.
[Sidenote: LA SALLE'S ADVENTURE.]
On the third of December the party re-embarked, thirty-three in all, in
eight canoes,[140] and ascended the chill current of the St. Joseph,
bordered with dreary meadows and bare gray forests. When they approached
the site of the present village of South Bend, they looked anxiously
along the shore on their right to find the portage or path leading to
the headquarters of the Illinois. The Mohegan was absent, hunting; and,
unaided by his practised eye, they passed the path without seeing it. La
Salle landed to search the woods. Hours passed, and he did not return.
Hennepin and Tonty grew uneasy, disembarked, bivouacked, ordered guns to
be fired, and sent out men to scour the country. Night came, but not
their lost leader. Muffled in their blankets and powdered by the
thick-falling snow-flakes, they sat ruefully speculating as to what had
befallen him; nor was it till four o'clock of the next afternoon that
they saw him approaching along the margin of the river. His face and