proclamation of the sovereignty of King Louis XIV of
France and Navarre. Below a tall cross was erected a great shield
bearing the arms of France. Father Allouez addressed the Indians in
the Algonkin language, and told them of the all-powerful Louis XIV,
who "had ten thousand commanders and captains, each as great as the
Governor of Quebec". He reminded them how the troops of this king had
beaten the unconquerable Iroquois, of how he possessed innumerable
soldiers and uncountable ships; that at times the ground of France
shook with the discharge of cannon, while the blaze of musketry was
like the lightning. He pictured the king covered with the blood of his
enemies and riding in the middle of his cavalry, and ordering so many
of his enemies to be slain that no account could be kept of the number
of their scalps, whilst their blood flowed in rivers. The Amerindians
being what they were, addicted to warfare, and only recognizing the
right of the strongest, it may be that this gospel of force was not
quite so shocking and unchristian as it reads to us nearly 250 years
afterwards, though it jars very much as coming from the lips of a
missionary of Christianity. However, it must be remembered that but
for the valour of the French soldiers in the awful period between 1648
and 1666 (when the Mohawks received a thorough and well-deserved
thrashing) many of the tribes addressed on this occasion by the Jesuit
missionaries would have been completely exterminated; the Iroquois
would have depopulated much of north-eastern America. It is obvious,
indeed, from our study of the conditions of life amongst the
Amerindians, that one reason why the New World was so poorly populated
at the time of its discovery by Europeans was the wars of
extermination between tribe and tribe; for America between the Arctic
regions and Tierra del Fuego is marvellously well supplied with
natural food products--game, fish, fruits, nuts, roots, and
grain--much more so than any area of similar extent in the Old World.

[Footnote 8: Born at Quebec in 1645.]

Jolliet was to be accompanied on his westward expedition by Father
JACQUES MARQUETTE,[9] a Jesuit missionary who had become well
acquainted with the tribes visiting Lake Superior, and had learnt the
Siou dialect of the Illinois people. On May 17, 1673, Jolliet and
Marquette started from the Straits of Michili-Makinak with only two
bark canoes and five Amerindians. They coasted along the north coast
of La