try very considerable services. M. de Tonti makes another of our company." After a tedious winter at Fort St. Joseph, he went to Mackinac in the spring for supplies. From there he writes a letter to a friend from the “fagg end of the world." But in his Voyages, he accords the place importance: "Michilimackinac, the place I am now in, is certainly a place of great importance," he says.12 "Here the Hurons and the Ottawas have, each of them, a village. In this place the Jesuits have a little house, or college adjoining to a part of a church, and inclosed with pales that separate it from the village of the Hurons. . . . The coureurs de bois have but a very small settlement here; though at the same time it is not inconsiderable, as being the staple of all the goods that they truck with the south and the west savages. . . . The skins which they import from these different places, must lie here some time before they are transported to the colony." He speaks of the security of the fort from attack by the Iroquois. Of the whitefish he speaks at length and with fervour. "You can scarce believe, Sir, what vast sholes of whitefish are catched about the middle of the channel, between the continent and the Isle of Michilimackinac. . . This sort of whitefish in my opinion, is the only one in all these lakes that can be called good; and indeed it goes beyond all other sorts of river fish. Above all, it has one singular property, that all sorts of sauces spoil it, so that 'tis always eat either boiled or broiled, without any manner of seasoning." He says the Indians catch trout "as high as one's thigh, with a sort of fishing-hook made in the form of an awl, and made fast to a piece of brass wire which is joined to the line that reaches to the bottom of the lake. This sort of fishing is carried 12 Thwaites, op. cit., I, 147.

on not only with hooks, but with nets, and that in winter, as well as in summer, for they make holes in the ice at a certain distance one from another, through which they conduct the nets with poles.'

A few months later, Lahontan was again at Michilimackinac and reports that he "found here M. de la Durantay, whom M. Denonville has invested with the commission of commander of the coureurs de bois that trade upon the lakes, and in the southern countries of Canada." 13

M. de la Durantaye, Commandant of Mackinac from 1683 to 1690, is typical of the early incumbents of that office; and an incident that occurred while he was at that post, is typical of one of the activities of a Mackinac commandant of this period. As related by Dr. Thwaites: 14 'Among the motley war party which Denonville had led to his assault on the insolent Iroquois, was a band of the 'far Indians' brought by their commandant La Durantaye, from the distant post of Mackinac. Sweeping down in a flotilla of birch bark canoes, La Durantaye had halted his savage forces at the head of the strait leading from Lake Huron to Lake St. Clair; and there, 'on the seventh of June, 1687, in the presence of the reverend Father Angeleran, Superior of the Mission of the Outaouas at Michilimackinac, of Ste. Marie du Sault, of the Miamis, of the Illinois, of the Baie des Puans, and of the Sioux, of M. de la Forest, late Commandant of the Fort at St. Louis at the Illinois, and of M. de Beauvais, our lieutenant of the Fort of St.

13 Thwaites, op. cit., I, 164.

14 Thwaites, op. cit., I, xiii. A contemporary biographical sketch of Durantaye runs thus: "In 1662, ensign; in 1665, captain; in 1663 [1683?], commandant over the Ottawa country by order of the Court; in 1689, captain on half pay in Canada; in 1694, captain enpied in that country, where he has settled. A good officer, an honest man; ready for any service; entitled to a company." Thwaites, op. cit., I, 125.

Joseph at the Strait of Lakes Huron and Erie,' had erected the arms of France and taken formal possession of this vast region in the name of the King."

Henri de Tonti, a brother of the Tonti mentioned by Lahontan, had come to Mackinac in 1679, on board the Griffin. He was a cousin of Du Lhut, the builder of Fort St. Joseph, whom we have seen guiding Hennepin to Mackinac in 1680. Tonti was a loyal and devoted friend to La Salle, and in 1687 made a long and fruitless search for the lost leader. La Salle, not usually enthusiastic in praise, says of him, writing to Prince Conti: 15 "His honourable character and his amiable disposition were well known to you, but perhaps you would not have thought him capable of doing things for which a strong constitution, an acquaintance with the country, and the use of both hands seemed absolutely necessary. Nevertheless, his energy and address make him equal to anything; and now, at a season when everybody is in fear of the ice, he is setting out to begin a new fort, two hundred leagues from this place."

Tonti was seven years younger than La Salle, his hero. He had served in the French army with distinction before he met La Salle in 1677, when the latter was in Paris seeking royal aid. He was directing the building of the Griffin at the time La Salle penned these words of praise. The reference to "both hands" recalls his loss of a hand in military service, which was replaced by an iron hand which he usually wore gloved. A man of action rather than a chronicler, he has left us no account of his stay at Michilimackinac. Indeed, his stay was brief. He followed La

15 Legler, Chevalier Henry de Tonty; His Exploits in the Valley of the Mississippi. (Parkman Club Publication, No. 3, pp. 38-39.) This is one of the best monographs on Tonty.