It was a relief for the adventurers when, after having toiled up the river for ten days, they at last arrived at the village of the Bayagoulas.  There they found a letter of Tonty to La Salle, dated in 1685.  The letter, or rather that “speaking bark” as the Indians called it, had been preserved with great reverence.  Tonty, having been informed that La Salle was coming with a fleet from France to settle a colony on the banks of the Mississippi, had not hesitated to set off from the northern lakes, with twenty Canadians and thirty Indians, and to come down to the Balize to meet his friend, who had failed to make out the mouth of the Mississippi, and had been landed by Beaujeu on the shores of Texas.  After having waited for some time, and ignorant of what had happened, Tonty, with the same indifference to fatigues and dangers of an appalling nature, retraced his way back, leaving a letter to La Salle to inform him of his disappointment.  Is there not something extremely romantic in the characters of the men of that epoch?  Here is Tonty undertaking, with the most heroic unconcern, a journey of nearly three thousand miles, through such difficulties as it is easy for us to imagine, and leaving a letter to La Salle, as a proof of his visit, in the same way that one would, in these degenerate days of effeminacy, leave a card at a neighbor’s house.

The French extended their explorations up to the mouth of the Red River.  On their return the two brothers separated when they arrived at Bayou Manchac.  Bienville was ordered to go down the river to the French fleet, to give information of what they had seen and heard.  Iberville went through Bayou Manchac to those lakes which are known under the names of Pontchartrain and Maurepas.  Louisiana had been named from a king:  was it not in keeping that those lakes should be called after ministers?

From the Bay of St. Louis, Ibervile returned to his fleet, where, after consultation, he determined to make a settlement at the Bay of Biloxi.  On the east side, at the mouth of the bay, as it were, there is a slight swelling of the shore, about four acres square, sloping gently to the woods in the background, and on the bay.  Thus this position was fortified by nature, and the French skilfully availed themselves of these advantages.  The weakest point, which was on the side of the forest, they strengthened with more care than the rest, by connecting with a strong intrenchment the two ravines, which ran to the bay in a parallel line to each other.  The fort was constructed with four bastions, and was armed with twelve pieces of artillery....

A few huts having been erected round the fort, the settlers began to clear the land, in order to bring it into cultivation.  Iberville having furnished them with all the necessary provisions, utensils, and other supplies, prepared to sail for France....  As the country had been ordered to be explored, Sauvolle availed himself of that circumstance to refresh the minds of his men by the excitement of an expedition into the interior of the continent.  He therefore hastened to dispatch most of them with Bienville, who, with a chief of the Bayagoulas for his guide, went to visit the Colapissas.  They inhabited the northern shore of Lake Pontchartrain, and their domains embraced the sites now occupied by Lewisburg, Mandeville, and Fontainebleau....