Their way lies directly across that wooded lake region, which has in our generation become the resort first of the lumberman, then of the tourist,—a rolling, wooded region of rare sylvan beauty, park-like forests interspersed with sky-colored lakes. Six weeks from the time they had left the Sault, Wisconsin River carried their canoe out on the swift eddies of a mighty river flowing south,—the Mississippi. For the first time the boat of a Canadian voyageur glided down its waters.
Each night as the explorers landed to sleep under the stars, the tilted canoe inverted with end on a log as roof in case of rain, Marquette fell to knees and invoked the Virgin's aid on the expedition; and each morning as Jolliet launched the boat out on the waters through the early mist, he headed closely along shore on the watch for sign or footprint of Indian.
The river gathered volume as it rolled southward, carving the clay cliffs of its banks in a thousand fantastic forms. Where the bank was broken, the prairies were seen in heaving seas of grass billowing to the wind like water, herds of countless buffalo pasturing knee-deep. To Marquette and Jolliet, burning with enthusiasm, it seemed as if they were finding a new world for France half as large as all Europe. For two weeks not a sail, not a canoe, not a soul did they see. Then the river carried them into the country of the Illinois, past Illinois Indians who wore French clothing, and pictured rocks where the Indians had painted their sign language. There was no doubt now in the explorers' minds,—the Mississippi did not lead to China but emptied in the Gulf of Mexico. A furious torrent of boiling muddy water pouring in on the right forewarned the Missouri; and in a few more days they passed on the left the clear current of Beautiful River,—the Ohio.
It was now midsummer. The heat was heavy and humid. Marquette's health began to suffer, and the two explorers spread an awning of sailcloth above the canoe as they glided with the current. Towards the Arkansas, Indians appeared on the banks, brandishing weapons of Spanish make. Though Jolliet, with a peace pipe from the Illinois Indians, succeeded in reassuring the hostiles, it was unsafe to go farther south. They had established the fact,—the Mississippi emptied into the Gulf of Mexico,—and on July 17 turned back. It was harder going against stream, which did not mend Marquette's health; so when the Illinois Indians offered to show them a shorter way to Lake Michigan, they followed up Illinois River and crossed the Chicago portage to Lake Michigan. Jolliet went on down to Quebec with his report. Marquette remained half ill to establish missions in Michigan. Here, traveling with his Indians in 1675, the priest died of the malady contracted in the Mississippi heat, and was buried in a lonely grave of the wildwood wilderness where he had wandered. Louis Jolliet married and settled down on his seigniory of Anticosti Island.
Though he had as yet little to show for the La Chine estate, which he had sacrificed, La Salle had not been idle, but was busy pushing French dominion by another route to the Mississippi.
Count Frontenac had come to New France as all the viceroys came—penniless, to mend his fortunes; and as the salary of the Governor did not exceed $3000 a year, the only way to wealth was by the fur trade; but which way to look for fur trade! Hudson Bay, thanks to Radisson, was in the hands of England. Taudoussac was farmed out to the King. The merchants of Quebec and Three Rivers and Montreal absorbed all the furs of the tribes from the Ottawa; and New England drained the Iroquois land. There remained but one avenue of new trade, and that was west of the Lakes, where Jolliet had been.
Taking only La Salle into his confidence, Frontenac issued a royal mandate commanding all the officers and people of New France to contribute a quota of men for the establishment of a fort on Lake Ontario. By June 28, 1673, the same year that Jolliet had been dispatched for the Mississippi, there had gathered at La Chine, La Salle's old seigniory near Montreal, four hundred armed men and one hundred and twenty canoes, which Frontenac ordered painted gaudily in red and blue. With these the Governor moved in stately array up the St. Lawrence, setting the leafy avenues of the Thousand Islands ringing with trumpet and bugle, and sweeping across Lake Ontario in martial lines to the measured stroke of a hundred paddles.
Long since, La Salle's scouts had scurried from canton to canton, rallying the Iroquois to the council of great "Onontio." At break of day, July 13, while the sunrise was just bursting up over the lake, Frontenac, with soldiers drawn up under arms, himself in velvet cloak laced with gold braid, met the chiefs of the Iroquois Confederacy at the place to be known for years as Fort Frontenac, now known as Kingston, a quiet little city at the entrance of Lake Ontario on the north shore.
