France and England in North America, Part III: La Salle, Discovery of The Great West
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,[340] than he prepared, on his own responsibility and at his
own cost, to go to his assistance. He collected twenty-five Frenchmen
and eleven Indians, and set out from his fortified rock on the
thirteenth of February, 1686;[341] 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.[342] 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.[343]
[Sidenote: A HOSPITABLE RECEPTION.]
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
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.
[Sidenote: THE MISSISSIPPI.]
With these, the travellers resumed their journey in a wooden canoe,
about the first of August,[344] 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 their canoe 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 advantage 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 La Salle 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 store-house, and a chapel. There were Indian lodges
too; for some of the red allies of the French made their abode with
them.[345] 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 store-house.
[Sidenote: THE JESUIT ALLOUEZ.]
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.[346] 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.
[Sidenote: CONDUCT OF CAVELIER.]
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.[347] 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 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.[348]
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 Michilimackinac. 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.
[Sidenote: THE COLONISTS ABANDONED.]
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.[349] Joutel was
disappointed. It had been his hope throughout that the King would send a
ship to the relief of the wretched band at Fort St. Louis of Texas. But
Louis XIV. hardened his heart, and left them to their fate.
FOOTNOTES:
[332] 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.
[333] _Journal Historique_, 237.
[334] "Tu es un misérable. Tu as tué mon maistre."--Tonty, _Mémoire_.
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.
[335] Joutel, _Relation_ (Margry, iii. 371).
[336] These are described by Joutel. Like nearly all the early observers
of Indian manners, he speaks of the practice of cannibalism.
[337] 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.
[338] Joutel, _Journal Historique_, 298.
[339] _Journal de St. Cosme_, 1699. 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.
[340] In the autumn of 1685, Tonty made a journey from the Illinois to
Michilimackinac, 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