incorporated into
friendly tribes in those apparently limitless realms.

Around the lovely shores of Lake Peoria there had been seventeen
flourishing Indian villages. These were all destroyed, in awful scenes
of conflagration and massacre. The survivors fled beyond the
Mississippi, six hundred miles from their desolated homes. And even to
these regions the ferocious Iroquois pursued them, thirsting for blood
and scalps.

La Salle was a Christian. He was interested in the religious welfare of
the poor Indians, as the only instrumentality by which they could
secure for themselves pleasant homes on earth, and happy homes in
heaven. He agreed with the missionaries, that if they wished to
establish missions in those parts, with any hope of seeing Christianity
make progress among the natives, they must secure them immunity from
the horrors of war. This could only be done by uniting the remaining
tribes in a firm union for a common defence.

At the mouth of the Chicago River, La Salle was, as he thought, by the
route he had taken, about one hundred and twenty miles from Lake
Peoria. He reached this point probably some time in January 1681. The
lake, for some distance from the shore, was encumbered with ice. Fierce
wintry storms swept the bleak prairies, and piled the snow in drifts.
It was almost impossible to journey, either by land or water. La Salle
and his party went into encampment upon the banks of the Chicago River,
to wait a few weeks until the severity of winter was over. At the same
time, though he knew not of it, the few remaining members of the
garrison which he had left at Crevecoeur were seeking shelter from
these piercing blasts, about a hundred miles north, in the wigwams of
the friendly Pottawattomies.

La Salle and his ecclesiastical companions improved these few weeks of
leisure in seeking interviews with the chiefs of the various tribes in
the vicinity, and in endeavoring to unite them in a strong confederacy.
He assured them that if they would thus be true to themselves, the
French would become their allies and send them efficient aid. It was
not until the 22d of May that he was able to launch his canoes upon the
lake. There was then a voyage of about two hundred and sixty miles
before him.

About the middle of June his fleet of canoes was seen, coming around a
point of land, as the boatmen rapidly paddled into the harbor at
Michilimackinac. Here La Salle met Lieutenant Tonti, Father Membre, and
the