e Ontario and Lake Erie, he could portage overland
to the Beautiful River,--Ohio,--which would carry him down to the
Mississippi.

The Sulpicians had been encouraged by Talon in order to eclipse and hold
in check the Jesuits. They were eager to send their missionaries to the
new realm of this Great River, and hurried Dollier de Casson down to
Quebec to obtain Intendant Talon's permission.

There, curiously enough, Dollier de Casson met Cavalier de La Salle, the
shy young seigneur of La Chine, intent on almost the same aim,--to
explore the Great River. Where the Sulpicians had granted him his
seigniory above Montreal he had built a fort, which soon won the nickname
of La Chine,--China,--because its young master was continually
entertaining Iroquois Indians within the walls, to question them of the
Great River, which might lead to China.

Governor Courcelle and Intendant Talon ordered the priest and young
seigneur to set out together on their explorations. The Sulpicians were
to bear all expenses, buying back La Salle's lands to enable him to
outfit canoes with the money. Father Galinee, who understood map making,
accompanied Dollier de Casson, and the expedition of seven birch canoes,
with three white men in each, and two dugouts with Seneca Indians, who
had been visiting La Salle, set out from Montreal on July 6, 1669. Not a
leader in the party was over thirty-five years of age. Dollier de
Casson, the big priest, was only thirty-three and La Salle barely
twenty-six. Corn meal was carried as food. For the rest, they were to
depend on chance shots. With {129} numerous portages, keeping to the
south shore of the St. Lawrence because that was best known to the Seneca
guides, the canoes passed up Lake St. Louis and Lake St. Francis and
glided through the sylvan fairyland of the Thousand Islands, coming out
in August on Lake Ontario, "which," says Galinee, "appeared to us like a
great sea." Striking south, they appealed to the Seneca Iroquois for
guides to the Ohio, but the Senecas were so intent on torturing some
prisoners recently captured, that they paid no heed to the appeal. A
month was wasted, and the white men proceeded with Indian slaves for
guides, still along the south shore of the lake.

[Illustration: GALINEE'S MAP OF THE GREAT LAKES, 1669 (The next oldest
chart to that of Champlain)]

At the mouth of Niagara River they could hear the far roar of the famous
falls, which Indian legend said "fell ov