alsehood which was long ago exposed by historical
writers. His history of having reached the Gulf of Mexico is as
visionary as the traveller's tales of Norumbega. Indeed, he could not
even claim a gift of fertile invention in this case, as the very
account of his alleged discovery was obviously plagiarised from Father
Membre's narrative of La Salle's voyage of 1682, which appears in Le
Clercq's _Premier Etablissement de la Foy_.

{188}

When La Salle was again able to venture into the west he found the
villages of the Illinois only blackened heaps of ruins--sure evidence
of the Iroquois having been on the warpath. During the winter of 1681
he remained at a post he had built on the banks of the St. Joseph in
the Miami country, and heard no news of his faithful Tonty. It was not
until the spring, whilst on his way to Canada for men and supplies,
that he discovered his friend at Mackinac, after having passed through
some critical experiences among the Iroquois, who, in conjunction with
the Miamis, had destroyed the villages of the Illinois, and killed a
number of those Indians with their customary ferocity. Tonty had
finally found rest and security in a village of the Pottawattomies at
the head of Green Bay.

On the 6th of February, 1682, La Salle passed down the swift current of
the Mississippi on that memorable voyage which led him to the Gulf of
Mexico. He was accompanied by Tonty, and Father Membre, one of the
Recollet order, whom he always preferred to the Jesuits. The Indians
of the expedition were Abenakis and Mohegans, who had left the far-off
Atlantic coast and Acadian rivers, and wandered into the great west
after the unsuccessful war in New England, which was waged by the
Sachem Metacomet, better known as King Philip, and only ended with his
death in 1676, and the destruction of many settlements in the colony of
Plymouth.

They met with a kindly reception from the Indians encamped by the side
of the river, and, for the first time, saw the villages of the Taensas
and {189} Natchez, who were worshippers of the sun. At last on the 6th
of April, La Salle, Tonty, and Dautray, went separately in canoes
through the three channels of the Mississippi, and emerged on the bosom
of the great Gulf. Not far from the mouth of the river where the
ground was relatively high and dry, a column was raised with the
inscription:

"_Louis le Grand, roy de France et de Navarre,
regne; le neuviesme Avril, 1682._"