Few incidents marked the passage of the explorers through the countries of the Arkansas, Tensas[7] and Natchez nations, till the Frenchmen reached the neighborhood of the Quinipissas, when they were shot at from the canebrakes along the banks, though without receiving any hurt.
Knowing he was among a multitude of foes, La Salle prudently refrained from returning the fire.
On the 6th of April, the explorers found the river branching out before them in three streams. Which to take, they knew not. That there should be no mistake about it, La Salle took the westernmost himself, Tonty the middle, and another the eastern branch. Presently some one dipped up a cupful of water to drink. It proved to be brackish to the taste. La Salle knew now he was nearing his goal.
At last the canoes glided past the outermost point of low, reedy land, out upon the broad bosom of the Gulf.
Landing not far above the mouth of the river, La Salle caused the arms of France to be set up at that place, and then and there, on the ninth day of April, 1682, he took formal possession of the country watered by the Mississippi. It was in the name of Louis XIV. that he did so, in whose honor La Salle declared the name of this vast acquisition to be Louisiana.
Yet in no long time we find Louis writing with his own hands words like these: "Like you,"—he is addressing M. de La Barre,[8]—"I am persuaded that the discovery of the Sieur de La Salle is very useless; and it is necessary hereafter to prevent similar enterprises which can have no other result than to debauch the people by the hope of gain, and to diminish the revenue from the beaver."
FOOTNOTES
[1] Fort at Niagara, on the east side of Niagara River, "a little below the mountain-ridge of Lewiston;" came into possession of United States, 1796.
[2] Great Illinois Town. First known to the whites as Kaskaskia (see chapter "[Joliet and Marquette]"); its site corresponds with the village of Utica, on the Chicago and R. I. Railway, five miles east of La Salle.
[3] Caches, French for hiding-places. The word is naturalized in the West. A pit, or Indian barn, in which grain, etc., was stored. The custom, universal among the Indians, was adopted by white hunters and traders in their expeditions.