waters. Thus perished the gallant De Soto, who had crossed a large part of the continent in search of gold, and found nothing so remarkable as his burial-place.

His dispirited followers, now reduced to near half of their original numbers, first attempted to cross the country to Mexico; but being compelled to again turn eastward, they constructed barks, sailed down the Mississippi, and following the coast of the Mexican Gulf, reached the Spanish settlements near the site of Tampico, in Mexico, in September, 1543. Thus terminated an expedition of more than four years, extraordinary in duration, and distinguished as being the first visit of Europeans to "the great father of waters." It was an expedition, wild and romantic in its conception, in fit keeping with that age of chivalrous adventure and visionary impulse.

EXPLORATIONS OF MARQUETTE AND LA SALLE.

JAMES MARQUETTE was one of the most zealous of that extraordinary class of men, the Jesuit Missionaries. In 1688, he repaired to St. Mary's, the outlet of Lake Superior, where he was employed in his holy calling. In his various excursions he was exposed to the inclemencies of nature and to the savage; he took his life in his hand and bade them defiance; waded through water and through snows, without the comfort of a fire; subsisted on pounded maize; was frequently without any other food than the unwholesome moss gathered from the rocks; traveled far and wide, but never without peril. Still, said he, life in the wilderness had its charms his heart swelled with rapture as he moved over the waters, transparent as the most limpid fountain.

While residing at St. Mary's he resolved to explore the Mississippi, of whose magnificence many tales had been told. The project was favored by Talon, the Intendant or Governor of New France, who wished to ascertain whether the Mississippi poured its mighty floods into the Pacific Ocean or into the Gulf of Mexico. On the 10th of June, 1673, he left an Indian village on Fox River, of Green Bay, beyond which the foot of a white man had never penetrated. His companions were Joliet, a French gentleman, five French voyageurs, and two Indian guides. They transported their two bark canoes on their shoulders, across the portage of Fox River, launched them on the Wisconsin, and passing down that stream, reached on the 7th of July the great "Father of Waters," which they entered with "a joy that could not be expressed," and raising their sails to new skies, and to unknown breezes, floated down this mighty river, between broad plains, garlanded with majestic forests, and checkered with illimitable prairies and island groves. They descended about one hundred and eighty miles when Marquette and Joliet landed, and followed an Indian trail about

six miles, to a village. They were met by four old men, bearing the pipe of peace, and "brilliant with many colored plumes." An aged chief received them at his cabin, and, with uplifted hands, exclaimed: "How beautiful is the sun, Frenchmen, when thou comest to visit us !-our whole village awaits thee-in peace thou shalt enter all our dwellings." Previous to their departure, an Indian chief selected a peace pipe from among his warriors, enbellished with gorgeous plumage, which he hung around the neck of Marquette, "the mysterious arbiter of peace and war-the sacred calumet-the white man's protection among savages."

On reaching their boats, the little group proceeded onward. "I did not," says Marquette, "fear death; I should have esteemed it the greatest happiness to have died for the glory of God." They passed the mouth of the Missouri, and the humble missionary resolved in his mind, one day, to ascend its mighty current, and ascertain its source; and descending from thence toward the West, published the gospel to a people of whom he had never heard.

Passing onward, they floated by the Ohio, then, and for a brief time after, called the Wabash, and continued their explorations as far south as the mouth of the Arkansas, where they were escorted to the Indian village of Arkansea.

Being now satisfied that the Mississippi entered the Gulf of Mexico, west of Florida and east of California, and having spoken to the Indians of God and the mysteries of the Catholic faith, Marquette and Joliet prepared to ascend the stream. They returned by the route of the Illinois River to Green Bay, where they arrived in August. Marquette remained to preach the gospel to the Miamies, near Chicago. Joliet, in person, conveyed the glad tidings of their discoveries to Quebec. They were received with enthusiastic delight. The bells were rung during the whole day, and all the clergy and dignitaries of the place went in procession to the Cathedral, where Te Deum was sung and high mass celebrated.

Expedition of La Salle.-Notwithstanding the great excitement produced by this event, it did not lead immediately to any farther undertakings. The good Father Marquette dying soon after, and Joliet being otherwise occupied, the great river remained unnoticed in the wilderness, and its discovery seemed almost forgotten, when attention to it was suddenly revived by another enterprising and enthusiastic Frenchman, Robert Cavalier de La Salle, who had belonged to the order of Jesuits. Courageous, enterprising, and persevering, he was precisely the man to complete the undertaking commenced by Marquette. By the advice of Frontenac, Governor of New France, he returned to France and obtained from Louis XIV, the needed assistance to explore the Mississippi to its mouth. A ship well armed and supplied was equipped, and Tonti, a brave Italian officer, having joined him in the enterprise, they set sail from Rochelle, June 14, 1678. La Salle had received from the king the command of Fort Frontenac, and a monopoly of the fur trade in all the countries he should discover. He was the first

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St. Bernard, where he erected Fort St. Louis, and took possession of Texas in the name of his king. He spent four months in a vain search for the Mississippi. Shortly after his return the colony was threatened with famine. La Salle, selecting a few men, started with the desperate resolution of finding Canada or perishing in the attempt, but was murdered by one of his companions when a short distance on the journey. The colonists left behind, soon after, were all massacred by the Indians, excepting a few children. The death of La Salle put an end, for a time, to all prospects of colonization. The peace of Ryswick, in 1697, gave France leisure to attend to her western possessions, and Iberville laid the foundation for permanent settlements at the mouth of the Mississippi.

SUFFERINGS OF EARLY FRENCH MISSIONARIES,

UPON the founding of Quebec, in 1608, by Champlain, that energetic man saw, that to strengthen the dominion of the French in the West, it was essential to establish missions among the Indians; influenced also by religious zeal, he esteemed "the salvation of a soul worth more than the conquest of an empire." Up to this period, the “Far West" had been untrod by the foot of a white man. In 1616, four years previous to the landing of the Pilgrims on the rocks of Plymouth, Le Caron, a French Franciscan monk, had passed through the Iroquois and Wyandot nations to streams running into Lake Huron. Bound by his vows to the life of a beggar, he traveled on foot or paddled a bark canoe, and pursued his lonely way, taking alms of the savages. The final establishment of missions was intrusted solely to "the Society of Jesus." The Jesuits in Canada had been disciplined by the severity of a Canadian life in the wilderness, and resisted its horrors by an invincible passive courage and a deep internal tranquillity. Away from the amenities of life, away from the opportunities of vain glory, they became dead to the world, while the few who long survived the toils of their protracted missions, kindled with the power of apostolic zeal. Not a town of note was founded, not a river explored in French America, but a Jesuit led the way.

In 1634, the Jesuits, Breboeuf and Daniel, founded the mission of St. Joseph, the first on Lake Huron. Until late in the century, such was the enmity of the Iroquois Indians, excited by the English colonies, that the country south of the Lakes Ontario and Erie was unknown to the French, and the adventurous missionaries, in fear of death, were compelled to pass far to the north, through a region "horrible with forests," by the Ottawa and French Rivers of Canada West, suffering innumerable hardships, compelled to toil all day long at the oar, or drag their canoes around the waterfalls, their feet pierced with sharp stones, their garments torn; often having but scanty food, and their couch, the earth or rocks.

At St. Joseph, Brebeuf and Daniel erected their little chapel, and soon after, two new missions, St. Louis and St. Ignatius, bloomed among the Huron forests. There the Huron hunter, as he returned from his wide roamings, was taught to hope for eternal rest, and dusky warriors, in pious veneration, joining in the mystic rites of the Catholic Church, uttered prayers and vows in the Huron tongue.

Within thirteen years, this remote wilderness was visited by sixty missionaries; chosen men, ready to shed their blood for their faith. In 1641, Raymbault and Jogues visited the Indians at the falls of St. Mary, at the outlet of Lake Superior; this was five years before the New England Elliot had addressed the Indians that dwelt around Boston Harbor. Ere the close of the century, missionary stations had multiplied greatly upon the watercourses and lakes of the West. The missionaries themselves possessed the weakness and the virtues of their orders. For fifteen years enduring the infinite labors and perils of the Huron mission, and exhibiting, as it was said, "an absolute pattern of every religious virtue," Jean de Brebeuf, respecting even the nod of his distant superiors, lowered his mind and judgment in obedience. Beside the assiduous fatigues of his office, each day, and sometimes twice in the day, he applied himself to the lash; beneath a bristling hair shirt he wore an iron girdle, armed on all sides with projecting points; his fasts were frequent; almost always his pious vigils continued deep in the night. In vain for him did Nature assume its forms of beauty; his eye rested benignantly on divine things. Once, imparadised in a trance, he beheld the mother of Him whose cross he bore, surrounded by a crowd of virgins, in the beatitudes of heaven. Once, as he himself has recorded, while engaged in penance, he saw Christ unfold his arms to embrace him with the utmost love, promising oblivion for his sins. Once, late at night, while praying in silence, he had a vision of an infinite number of crosses, and with mighty heart he strove again and again to grasp them all. Often he saw the shapes of foul fiends, now appearing as madmen, now as raging beasts; and often he beheld the image of Death, a bloodless form, by the side of the stake, struggling with bonds, and at last, falling as a harmless specter at his feet. Having vowed to seek out suffering for the greater glory of God, he renewed that vow every day, at the moment of tasting the sacred water; and as his cupidity for martyrdom grew into a passion, he exclaimed, "What shall I render to thee, Jesus, my Lord, for all thy benefits? I will accept thy cup and invoke thy name;" and in sight of the Eternal Father and the Holy Spirit, of the Virgin Mary, most holy mother of Christ, before angels, saints, apostles, and martyrs, he made a vow never to decline the opportunity of martyrdom, and never to receive the death-blow but with joy.

The Jesuit missionaries suffered terribly from the Iroquois Indians, the hereditary enemies of the Hurons. Isaac Jogues, on his way to St. Mary's, was taken prisoner by the Mohawks, on