Meanwhile, the work was urged on. A large building was finished, constructed of timber, roofed with boards and raw hides, and divided into apartments, for lodging and other uses. La Salle gave to the new establishment his favorite name of Fort St. Louis, and the neighboring bay was also christened after the royal saint. [Footnote: The Bay of St. Louis, St. Bernard's Bay, or Matagorda Bay,—for it has borne all these names,—was also called Espiritu Santo Bay, by the Spaniards, in common with several other bays in the Gulf of Mexico. An adjoining bay still retains the name.] The scene was not without its charms. Towards the south-east stretched the bay with its bordering meadows; and on the north- east the Lavaca ran along the base of green declivities. Around, far and near, rolled a sea of prairie, with distant forests, dim in the summer haze. At times, it was dotted with the browsing buffalo, not yet scared from their wonted pastures; and the grassy swells were spangled with the bright flowers for which Texas is renowned, and which now form the gay ornaments of our gardens.
And now, the needful work accomplished, and the colony in some measure housed and fortified, its indefatigable chief prepared to renew his quest of the "fatal river," as Joutel repeatedly calls it. Before his departure, he made some preliminary explorations, in the course of which, according to the report of his brother the priest, he found evidence that the Spaniards had long before had a transient establishment at a spot about fifteen leagues from Fort St. Louis. [Footnote: Cavelier, in his report to the minister, says: "We reached a large village enclosed with a kind of wall made of clay and sand, and fortified with little towers at intervals, where we found the arms of Spain engraved on a plate of copper, with the date of 1588, attached to a stake. The inhabitants gave us a kind welcome, and showed us some hammers and an anvil, two small pieces of iron cannon, a small brass culverin, some pike-heads, some old sword-blades, and some books of Spanish comedy; and thence they guided us to a little hamlet of fishermen about two leagues distant, where they showed us a second stake, also with the arms of Spain, and a few old chimneys. All this convinced us that the Spaniards had formerly been here."—Cavelier, Relation du Voyage que mon frère entreprit pour découvrir l'embouchure du fleuve de Missisipy, MS. The above is translated from the original draft of Cavelier, which is in my possession. It was addressed to the colonial minister, after the death of La Salle. The statement concerning the Spaniards needs confirmation.]
It was the first of November, when La Salle set out on his great journey of exploration. His brother Cavelier, who had now recovered, accompanied him with thirty men, and five cannon-shot from the fort saluted them as they departed. They were lightly equipped, but La Salle had a wooden corselet as a protection against arrows. Descending the Lavaca, they pursued their course eastward on foot along the margin of the bay, while Joutel remained in command of the fort. It stood on a rising ground, two leagues above the mouth of the river. Between the palisades and the stream lay a narrow strip of marsh, the haunt of countless birds, and at a little distance it deepened into ponds full of fish. The buffalo and the deer were without number; and, in truth, all the surrounding region swarmed with game,—hares, turkeys, ducks, geese, swans, plover, snipe, and partridges. They shot them in abundance, after necessity and practice had taught them the art. The river supplied them with fish, and the bay with oysters. There were land-turtles and sea-turtles; and Joutel sometimes amused himself with shooting alligators, of which he says that he once killed one twenty feet long. He describes, too, with perfect accuracy, that curious native of the south-western prairies, the "horned frog," which, deceived by its uninviting aspect, he erroneously supposed to be venomous. [Footnote: Joutel devotes many pages to an account of the animals and plants of the country, most of which may readily be recognized from his description.]
He suffered no man to be idle. Some hunted; some fished; some labored at the houses and defences. To the large building made by La Salle he added four lodging-houses for the men, and a fifth for the women, besides a small chapel. All were built with squared timber, and roofed like the first with boards and buffalo-hides; while a palisade and ditch, defended by eight pieces of cannon, enclosed the whole. [Footnote: Compare Joutel with the Spanish account in Carta en que se da noticia de tin viaje hecho à la bahia de Espiritu Santo y de la poblacion que tenian ahi los Franceses: Coleccion de Varios Documentos, 25.] Late one evening in January, when all were gathered in the principal building, conversing perhaps, or smoking, or playing at games of hazard, or dozing by the fire in homesick dreams of France, one of the men on guard came in to report that he had heard a voice in the distance without. All hastened into the open air; and Joutel, advancing towards the river whence the voice came, presently descried a man in a canoe, and saw that he was Duhaut, one of La Salle's chief followers, and perhaps the greatest villain of the company. La Salle had directed that none of his men should be admitted into the fort, unless he brought a pass from him; and it would have been well, had the order been obeyed to the letter. Duhaut, however, told a plausible and possibly a true story. He had stopped on the march to mend a shoe which needed repair, and on attempting to overtake the party had become bewildered on a prairie intersected with the paths of the buffalo. He fired his gun in vain, as a signal to his companions; saw no hope of rejoining them, and turned back, travelling only in the night, from fear of Indians, and lying hid by day. After a month of excessive hardship, he reached his destination; and, as the inmates of Fort St. Louis
[Transcriber's note: missing page in original]
worn and ragged. [Footnote: Joutel, 136, 137. The date of the return is from Cavelier.] Their story was a brief one. After losing Duhaut, they had wandered on through various savage tribes, with whom they had more than one encounter, scattering them like chaff by the terror of their fire-arms. At length, they found a more friendly band, and learned much touching the Spaniards, who were, they were told, universally hated by the tribes of that country. It would be easy, said their informants, to gather a host of warriors and lead them over the Rio Grande; but La Salle was in no condition for attempting conquests, and the tribes in whose alliance he had trusted had, a few days before, been at blows with him. The invasion of New Biscay must be postponed to a more propitious day. Still advancing, he came to a large river, which he at first mistook for the Mississippi; and, building a fort of palisades, he left here several of his men. [Footnote: Cavelier says that he actually reached the Mississippi; but, on the one hand, he did not know whether the river in question was the Mississippi or not; and, on the other, he is somewhat inclined to mendacity. Le Clercq says that La Salle thought he had found the river. Joutel says that he did not reach it.] The fate of these unfortunates does not appear. He now retraced his steps towards Fort St. Louis; and, as he approached it, detached some of his men to look for his vessel, the "Belle," for whose safety, since the loss of her pilot, he had become very anxious.
On the next day, these men appeared at the fort, with downcast looks. They had not found the "Belle" at the place where she had been ordered to remain, nor were any tidings to be heard of her. From that hour, the conviction that she was lost possessed the mind of La Salle.
Surrounded as he was, and had always been, with traitors, the belief now possessed him that her crew had abandoned the colony, and made sail for the West Indies or for France. The loss was incalculable. He had relied on this vessel to transport the colonists to the Mississippi, as soon as its exact position could be ascertained; and, thinking her a safer place of deposit than the fort, he had put on board of her all his papers and personal baggage, besides a great quantity of stores, ammunition, and tools. [Footnote: Procès Verbal fait au poste de la Baie St. Louis, le 18 Avril, 1686, MS.] In truth, she was of the last necessity to the unhappy exiles, and their only resource for escape from a position which was fast becoming desperate.
La Salle, as his brother tells us, fell dangerously ill; the fatigues of his journey, joined to the effects upon his mind of this last disaster, having overcome his strength though not his fortitude. "In truth," writes the priest, "after the loss of the vessel, which deprived us of our only means of returning to France, we had no resource but in the firmness and conduct of my brother, whose death each of us would have regarded as his own." [Footnote: Cavelier, Relation du Voyage pour découvrir l'embouchure du Fleuve de Missisipy, MS.]
La Salle no sooner recovered than he embraced a resolution which could be the offspring only of a desperate necessity. He determined to make his way by the Mississippi and the Illinois to Canada, whence he might bring succor to the colonists, and send a report of their condition to France. The attempt was beset with uncertainties and dangers. The Mississippi was first to be found; then followed through all the perilous monotony of its interminable windings to a goal which was to be but the starting-point of a new and not less arduous journey. Cavelier, his brother, Moranget, his nephew, the friar, Anastase Douay, and others, to the number of twenty, offered to accompany him. Every corner of the magazine was ransacked for an outfit. Joutel generously gave up the better part of his wardrobe to La Salle and his two relatives. Duhaut, who had saved his baggage from the wreck of the "Aimable," was required to contribute to the necessities of the party; and the scantily furnished chests of those who had died were used to supply the wants of the living. Each man labored with needle and awl to patch his failing garments, or supply their place with buffalo or deer skins. On the twenty-second of April, after mass and prayers in the chapel, they issued from the gate, each bearing his pack and his weapons; some with kettles slung at their backs, some with axes, some with gifts for Indians. In this guise, they held their way in silence across the prairie while anxious eyes followed them from the palisades of St. Louis, whose inmates, not excepting Joutel himself, seem to have been ignorant of the extent and difficulty of the undertaking. [Footnote: Joutel, 140; Anastase Douay, in Le Clercq, ii. 303; Cavelier, Relation, MS. The date is from Douay. It does not appear from his narrative that they meant to go further than the Illinois. Cavelier says that after resting here they were to go to Canada. Joutel supposed that they would go only to the Illinois. La Salle seems to have been even more reticent than usual.]