In early days this Great River was almost unknown. A few savages had paddled their skiffs upon it. Curious tales were told about it. Monsters guarded it. Sorcerers lived in its caverns. Mystic creatures both good and bad swam through its rapids.
After the New World was discovered some daring French explorers longing for adventure traveled into those wilds to see if they could find the hidden waterway of Indian romance.
One of them, a bold trader of Canada, in his scarlet coat and three-cornered hat, ventured into the farthest-away channels. Only one of his companions, a boy, came back with him to present the map he drew of the southern reaches of the mighty stream.
Next, a gray-frocked Belgian friar, sandaled and shaven of crown, set down on parchment the northern trend of the same river. His goose quill wrote the name of his young oarsman who sang to appease their Indian captors as white men and red rode the waves together.
A nobleman of France in doublet and hose journeyed farther than all others into the wilderness of bayous and tributaries and wrote his tragic history in the foundations of the fortresses which he built and in the heart of a stripling who served him.
Wearing the armor of a knight and commanding a fleet of brigantines, another Canadian adventurer, half gentleman and half buccaneer, with a motley Old World crew—one of them a whistler—made a gallant defense of the river's mouth against the pirates of the Spanish Main.
And a wise young governor in robes and wig of state, whose favorite companion was a fiddler of famous name and title—so says a quaint old letter or two—began the battles which determined the reign of law and order upon the Mississippi.
All of these soldiers of fortune and their scribes, Joliet and Marquette, Accau and Hennepin, La Salle and Tonty, Iberville and Bienville, made notes of their voyages to please the king who sent them out.
From their records written in French long ago and almost forgotten are taken these stories of the boy who shared in so many of their dangers and successes.
The French discovered most of the Mississippi. They were not the very first to see it, but they explored it, colonized it, and began its prosperity.