On Dec. 21, 1681, the party of 54 men in all crossed the lake in canoes to the mouth -of the Chicago to find that portage to the Illinois. The streams were frozen. The canoes were put on sledges and dragged over prairie and woodlands of the liver margin till they came to open water below lake Peoria. Thence they floated down the Illinois, and on Feb. 6, 1682, emerged on the Mississippi. Floating ice delayed them, but a week later, safely on its rapid current, they were borne toward the gulf. On the 24th they encamped near the third Chickasaw Bluffs, where they built fort Prudhomme. Then in the realms of spring they floated down the tortuous river, finding not only more genial skies but a kindlier and more intelligent race of Indians. La Salle, as usual, won their good-will and planted monuments in their villages to claim the new dominions for the king of France. On Mar. 31 they were at the mouth of the Red river; on April 6, at the divergence of the three mouths of the Mississippi; and April 9, 1682, he erected at the mouth of the river is monument and a cross bearing the arms of France, upon which, with all the ceremonies that could add to the impressiveness of the event, La Salle proclaimed the river and all the lands drained by it to be by right of discovery the dominions of Louis XIV., king of France.
In Sept. of that year the indefatigable explorer was back at Michilimackinac, then at the St. Joseph, and before winter set in was building a fort for the prbtection of the Illinois at Starved Rock, a natural castle rock that rises abruptly from the Illinois river not far from Peoria. The following year 20,060 Indians are said to have settled near it for protection. In the spring of 1683 it seemed that La Salle had conquered success. He had discovered the valley of the Mississippi. It is true De Soto had crossed it nearly a hundred years before near its month, and Joliet and Marquette had explored it at the north, but to La Salle belongs the glory of tracing the great river for the first time from source to sea, and determining the connection between the two discoveries. But his troubles thickened with his success. Frontenac, his determined and powerful friend, was no longer governor of Canada. An enemy was in his place, La Barre, who not only set the king against La Salle but authorized the Indians- to consider lihn.and his property as legitimate spoil, seized his forts, and ordered him to Quebec. The king wrote this curious letter to La Barre: " I am convinced, like you, that the discovery of the Sieur de la Salle is very useless, and that such enterprises ought to be prevented in future, as they tend only to debauch the inhabitants by the hope of gain, and to diminish the revenue from beaver skins"! La Salle went back to Quebec. where it does not appear that the gov ernor dared proceed further against him. He sailed for France to see the king—less king than he. At the luxurious court-of Louis XIV. this intrepid traveler on lonely coasts and northern snows, this denizen of savage huts, fresh from beds on the frozen ground of Michigan and in the malarious delta of Louisiana, had no difficulty in making powerful friends. Count Frontenac was one. The government reversed its policy, ordered the restoration of all his forts and privileges, and ordered four vessels and money to be placed at his disposal to make the voyage direct from France to the mouilt of the Mississippi. • The fleet, which sailed July', 1684, unluckily was placed under the command of one Beaujeu, a man filled with villainous pride of rank and envy of other authority. La Salle had supreme command of the expedition, but this captain, as the naval officer of the fleet, lost no opportunity to thwart and balk his plans. The
voyage was a series of misfortunes from this cause, and when last in the gulf of Mexico the mouths of the Mississippi were passed unobserved, and La Salle searched. vainly for them along the reefs and sandbars of the Texas coast, anchoring at last in Matagorda bay in the belief that there was the western mouth of the Mississippi known as bayou La Fourche, Beaujeu sailed back with all but one of the fleet, leaving the colony to its fate. On Feb. 16, 1085, the ship laden with stores for the colony foundered on the reefs at the entrance to the bay. "A lonely sea," says Parkman, - a wild and desolate shore, a weary waste of marsh and prairie; a rude redoubt of driftwood and the fragments of a wreck, a few tents and a few wooden houses; bales, boxes, casks, spars, dismounted cannon, Indian canoes, groups of dejected men and desponding home-sick women—this was the forlorn reality to which the air-blown fabric of au audacious enter prise had sunk. . .. The tall form and fixed, calm features of La Salle" were all that remained to stamp with dignity this essay to found an empire for France in the valley of the Mississippi. From this time forth successive misfortunes made La Salle's life but as a dirge anticipating death. He established his colony on the river Lavaca, and found by exploration of Matagorda bay that the great river at its e. end is not a part of the Mis sissippi. but of Texas. Summer and autumn passed in herculean labors without results except a fort and houses for those whom death had not kindly taken. He had resolved to traverse the continent to Canada on foot and again discover the Mississippi on his way, and get succor for his colony from Canada. On Nov. 1, 1685, he parted from the colony at the head of a party to search for the fatal river. At the end of Mar., 1686, with half the party lost or dead, he returned baffled. In the entangle ments of strange rivers and swamps, among Indians from whom he could learn little and who bad to be placated as he went, the months passed fruitlessly. Fever seized him on his return, from which unhappily he recovered. Again he set out to make the overland journey to Canada. Again in the cane-brakes of Louisiana he was forced to return with. the loss of eight men. Now out of 200 who had landed on that '6 ,desolate shore but 4 remained. After a sickness without sign of despair, having made every provision pos sible for the safety of the colony, on Jan. 7, 1687, this hero of misfortune again led a little forlorn hope to reach Canada. But desperate men in his little party organized a mutiny, murdered three of their companions while sleeping, and shot La Salle from as ambuscade as he went to face them down.
Thus ended a life under 44 years in length, which had covered half a continent with its explorations, with a record not surpassed in all history for indomitable will and great achievements. Yet ever as he reached out for their fruits lie grasped but the ashes of his hopes. Noble in aims, in character, in person, he was only too much elevated in natural capacity above those around him, too haughty and imperious, to attract the kindly good-will of average men; and his misfortunes were jointly the result of these qualities and of the network of warring interests with which the Jesuits of his time constantly beset his path. Sparks's Life of La Salle and Parkman's History of the Dia ear,ery of the Great Vest give vivid details of his life.