companions, in their flight, had been obliged to abandon an unsafe canoe, which had carried them half-way, and to continue their journey on foot.  Such a series of misfortunes would have discouraged any other than La Salle; on the contrary, he made Tonti and Father Membre retrace their steps.  Arriving with them at the Miami fort, he reinforced his little troop by twenty-three Frenchmen and eighteen Indians, and reached Fort Crevecoeur.  On February 6th, 1682, he reached the mouth of the Illinois, and then descended the Mississippi.  Towards the end of this same month the bold explorers stopped at the juncture of the Ohio with the Father of Rivers, and erected there Fort Prudhomme.  On what is Fame dependent?  A poor and unknown man, a modest collaborator with La Salle, had the honour of giving his name to this little fort because he had been lost in the neighbourhood and had reached camp nine days later.

Providence was finally about to reward so much bravery and perseverance.  The sailor who from the yards of Christopher Columbus’s caravel, uttered the triumphant cry of “Land! land!” did not cause more joy to the illustrious Genoese navigator than La Salle received from the sight of the sea so ardently sought.  On April 9th La Salle and his comrades could at length admire the immense blue sheet of the Gulf of Mexico.  Like Christopher Columbus, who made it his first duty on touching the soil of the New World to fall upon his knees to return thanks to Heaven, La Salle’s first business was to raise a cross upon the shore.  Father Membre intoned the Te Deum.  They then raised the arms of the King of France, in whose name La Salle took possession of the Mississippi, and of all the territories watered by the tributaries of the great river.

Their trials were not over:  the risks to be run in traversing so many regions inhabited by barbarians were as great and as numerous after success as before.  La Salle was, moreover, delayed for forty days by a serious illness, but God in His goodness did not wish to deprive the valiant discoverers of the fruits of their efforts, and all arrived safe and sound at the place whence they had started.  After having passed a year in establishing trading-posts among the Illinois, La Salle appointed M. de Tonti his representative for the time being, and betook himself to France with the intention of giving an account of his journey to the most Christian monarch.  His enemies had already forestalled him at the court; we have to seek the real cause of this hatred in the jealousy of traders who feared to find in the future colonists of the western and southern country competitors in their traffic.  But far from listening to them, the son of Colbert, Seignelay, then minister of commerce, highly praised the valiant explorer, and sent, in 1684, four ships with two hundred and eighty colonists to people Louisiana, this new gem in the crown of France.  But La Salle has not yet finally drained the cup of disappointment,