its exit into the ocean[1] as well as to acquaint himself with its resources, and its savage inhabitants. When he reached his fort at the Miami in October, he found there some of his new Indian allies from the East, and with 18 of them and 23 of his own Frenchmen, started for the headwaters of the Illinois—dragging their canoes and baggage on sledges, as the streams were frozen. They reached the Mississippi on the 6th of February, launched their little fleet of canoes, and—delayed a few days by floating ice—resumed their course, passing successively the mouths of the Missouri, the Ohio, and the Arkansas rivers, and making visits to many tribes along their course, by whom they were well received. As they reached the end of their journey, on the 6th of April, sixty-two days from the time of entering the river, they saw that the river divided into three broad channels, or mouths, of which La Salle followed the western one, Dautray the eastern, and Tonti the middle one.
After La Salle had located, in his canoe, the nearby borders of the great sea, or gulf (of Mexico) which spread before them, the three parties reassembled (April 9th,
- ↑ For, it must be remembered, the fact of the existence of this great river was known to the European world long before La Salle's time. Its three mouths are shown in the edition of Ptolomy, printed at Venice in 1513—wherein the delta of the Mississippi is traced with more accuracy than in the maps of the next century. Dr. J. G. Shea, in the Introduction (pp. x-lxxv) to the volume of this series (The Discovery and Exploration of the Mississippi Valley, 1903) has very carefully and clearly epitomized the results of the earliest explorations down to those of La Salle, viz., that of Garay (1578); of De Vaca (); of Friar Mark (1539); and of De Soto (1539); of Muscoso (1539-43); of De Luna (1557); of other missionary efforts (1580); and of others of less account, which all kept alive the knowledge of the great river of the North American continent called by the Spanish Rio del Espiritu Santo. Then early in the seventeenth century, came the French explorers; Champlain and the Jesuits (1608); Nicolet (1639); Jogues (1641); Allouez (1669); Dablon (1670); Marquette (1673), and Joliet—all of whom, by observation or report, confirmed the existence of the Mississippi. All of these were influenced in their labors by greed, by the spirit of commercialism and adventure, or by a sublime faith and religious zeal. It was reserved for La Salle to enter this region with the distinct idea of colonization, and of making it a source of revenue and a glory to the land which he represented.
