reached the
settlements of Louisiana in safety, and sailed for France with four
thousand pounds of his worthless blue earth.[364] Repairing at once to
Versailles, he begged for help to continue his enterprise. His petition
seems to have been granted. After long delay, he sailed again for
Louisiana, fell ill on the voyage, and died soon after landing.[365]

Before 1700, the year when Le Sueur visited the St. Peter, little or
nothing was known of the country west of the Mississippi, except from
the report of Indians. The romances of La Hontan and Mathieu Sagean
were justly set down as impostures by all but the most credulous. In
this same year we find Le Moyne d'Iberville projecting journeys to the
upper Missouri, in hopes of finding a river flowing to the Western Sea.
In 1703, twenty Canadians tried to find their way from the Illinois to
New Mexico, in hope of opening trade with the Spaniards and discovering
mines.[366] In 1704 we find it reported that more than a hundred
Canadians are scattered in small parties along the Mississippi and the
Missouri;[367] and in 1705 one Laurain appeared at the Illinois,
declaring that he had been high up the Missouri and had visited many
tribes on its borders.[368] A few months later, two Canadians told
Bienville a similar story. In 1708 Nicolas de la Salle proposed an
expedition of a hundred men to explore the same mysterious river; and in
1717 one Hubert laid before the Council of Marine a scheme for following
the Missouri to its source, since, he says, "not only may we find the
mines worked by the Spaniards, but also discover the great river that is
said to rise in the mountains where the Missouri has its source, and is
believed to flow to the Western Sea." And he advises that a hundred and
fifty men be sent up the river in wooden canoes, since bark canoes
would be dangerous, by reason of the multitude of snags.[369]

In 1714 Juchereau de Saint-Denis was sent by La Mothe-Cadillac to
explore western Louisiana, and pushed up Red River to a point
sixty-eight leagues, as he reckons, above Natchitoches. In the next
year, journeying across country towards the Spanish settlements, with a
view to trade, he was seized near the Rio Grande and carried to the city
of Mexico. The Spaniards, jealous of French designs, now sent priests
and soldiers to occupy several points in Texas. Juchereau, however, was
well treated, and permitted to marry a Spanish girl with whom he had
fallen in love on the