umber beneath the stars; and when in the morning
they embarked again, the mist hung on the river like a bridal veil;
then melted before the sun, till the glassy water and the languid woods
basked breathless in the sultry glare.

On the 17th of June, they saw on their right the broad meadows, bounded
in the distance by rugged hills, where now stand the town and fort of
Prairie du Chien. Before them, a wide and rapid current coursed athwart
their way, by the foot of lofty heights wrapped thick in forests. They
had found what they sought, and "with a joy," writes Marquette, "which
I cannot express," they steered forth their canoes on the eddies of the
Mississippi.

Turning southward, they paddled down the stream, through a solitude
unrelieved by the faintest trace of man. A large fish, apparently one
of the huge cat-fish of the Mississippi, blundered against Marquette's
canoe with a force which seems to have startled him; and once, as
they drew in their net, they caught a "spade-fish," whose eccentric
appearance greatly astonished them. At length, the buffalo began to
appear, grazing in herds on the great prairies which then bordered the
river; and Marquette describes the fierce and stupid look of the old
bulls, as they stared at the intruders through the tangled mane which
nearly blinded them.

* * * * *

=_John Gilmary Shea,[44] 1824-. _=

From "The History of Catholic Missions among the Indians."

=_147._= DIFFICULTIES OF THE ENTERPRISE.

The discovery of America, like every other event in the history of the
world, had, in the designs of God, the great object of the salvation of
mankind. In that event, more clearly, perhaps, than it is often given to
us here below, we can see and adore that Providence which thus gave to
millions, long sundered from the rest of man by pathless oceans, the
light of the gospel, and the proffered boon of redemption....

The field was one as yet unmatched for extent and difficulty. That
region now studded with cities and towns, traversed in every direction
by the panting steam-car or lightning telegraph, was then an almost
unbroken forest, save where the wide prairie rolled its billows of grass
towards the western mountains, or was lost in the sterile, salt, and
sandy plains of the southwest. No city raised to heaven spire, dome, or
minaret; no plough turned up the rich, alluvial soil; no metal dug from
the bowels of the earth had been fashioned into