Samuel Adams Drake

"True History, henceforth charged with the education of the People, will study the successive movements of humanity."—Victor Hugo.

I.
THE SPANIARDS.

---

AN HISTORIC ERA.

"And from America the golden fleece

That yearly stuffs old Philip's treasury."

Marlowe's Faustus.

The story we have to tell was the problem of the sixteenth century, and is no less the marvel of the nineteenth. Put in the simplest possible form, the riddle to be solved in every palace of Christendom was, "How is the discovery of a new world going to affect mankind?"

SPANISH ARMS.

To make the whole story clear, from beginning to end, calls for an effort to first put ourselves in relation with that remote time,—its thought, its interests, its aims and civilization. Let us try to do this now, at this time, when from our standpoint of achieved success we may calmly look back over the field, and see clearly the causes which have led up to it in orderly succession.

In the very beginning we see three rival civilizations. We see different nations, each of which is putting forth efforts to grasp dominion in, or stamp its own civilization upon, the New World in despite of the other. We see civilization apparently engaged in defeating its own ends. Naturally, then, our first interest centres in the combatants themselves. Who and what are these Old World gladiators, who, in making choice of the New for their arena, have stripped for the encounter?

SHIP OF THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY.

Great affairs were engaging the attention of the civilized world, so great that nearly all Europe was up in arms. It was the era of unsettled conditions,—of old jealousies and animosities revived, of new opportunities and new adjustments created by them. But among the nations of Europe power was very differently distributed from what we see it to-day. Spain, not England, was acknowledged mistress of the seas. Not yet had England wrested that proud title from her ancient rival in the greatest naval battle of the century. Drake and Frobisher had not been born. Hawkins was a lad, strolling about the quays of his native seaport. Who, then, should dispute with Spain dominion of the seas?

The royal standard of Spain had indeed floated very far at sea. Columbus had borne it even in sight of the shores of Mexico; but, though he had given to Spain a new world, he, the man of his century, did not succeed in finding his long-sought strait to India, and so had died without seeing the one great purpose of his life accomplished.

ISABELLA OF SPAIN.

Yet Columbus, so to speak, was a lever of Archimedes,[1] for with the greatness of his idea he had moved both the Old World and the New. The Old was thrown into commotion because of his discoveries and what they implied to mankind, the New thrilled with the new life that stirred in her bosom. Spain at once stepped forward into the front rank of nations. How strange and striking are the events that have flowed from this one idea working in one man's brain! And where, in all the history of the world, shall we look for their equal?

By the time Columbus had returned to Spain, the Portuguese mariner, Diaz, had also discovered the Cape of Good Hope. Upon this these two proud and powerful nations, Spain and Portugal, agreed to divide between themselves all the unknown lands and seas to the east and to the west of a meridian line which should be drawn from pole to pole, one hundred and seventy leagues west of the Azores. All other nations were thus to be excluded from the New World.[2]

Having first secured a solid foothold in the Antilles,[3] through Columbus and his discoveries, Spain early threw out her expeditions into Florida (1512) and Mexico (1519). The one was the logical result of the other, for St. Domingo and Cuba now assumed distinct importance, as stations, whence it was easy to move forward upon new schemes of conquest. In the harbors of these islands the Spaniards could refit their ships or recruit their crews after the long ocean voyage from Europe. Cuba, especially, became an arsenal of the highest military importance, which Spain took great pains to strengthen.

So at the very outset, Spain held this great advantage over her competitors. She possessed a naval station conveniently situated for making descents upon the adjacent coasts, which none of them was able to secure for themselves.

Columbus died in 1506; Ferdinand, King of Spain, whose name by the accident of time is linked in with that of Columbus, had also died; and now Charles, who shortly was crowned Emperor of Germany, began his most eventful reign. The period it covers is one of the most momentous in modern history, and as great occasions commonly bring forth great men, so those monarchs who then ruled over the peoples of Europe were worthy of the time in which they lived. Charles was himself one of the greatest of these monarchs. Francis I. of France was another; Henry VIII. of England another. Hence we have felt justified in saying, as we did at the beginning of this chapter, that our starting-point was fixed in an historic era; for every thing betokened that as between such men as these were the struggle was to be a contest of giants.

MEDAL OF CHARLES V.

During this reign the conquests of Mexico and Peru took place. During this reign Spain was raised to such a height of greatness as had never before been known in her history. Europe looked on in wonder to see these grand schemes of conquest being carried on three thousand miles away, while Spain's powerful neighbors were kept in awe at home. The English poet Dryden, who wrote a play upon the conquest of Mexico, makes Cortez and Montezuma hold the following dialogue, Cortez offering peace or war:—

Mont. Whence, or from whom dost thou these offers bring?

Cortez. From Charles the Fifth, the world's most potent king.

Other nations would gladly have shared the riches of the New World with the conquerors, but Spain haughtily warned away intruders, meaning to keep the prize for herself alone.

It was then that Francis I. demanded to be shown that clause in the will of Adam disinheriting him in the New World. But Spain was too formidable to be attacked on the seas. On the land, the two great rivals met at Pavia, where the pride of France was laid so low that after the battle was over, Francis wrote to his mother the memorable words, so often made use of in like emergencies, "Madam, all is lost except honor."

The pre-eminent grandeur of Spain, at this period, shines out all the clearer by comparison with the inferior attitude of England, not only as a military power, but in respect of peaceful achievement. By the light Spain carried in the van of discovery other nations moved forward, but at a distance indicating their respect for the dictator of European politics.

PONCE DE LEON.

It is worth our remembering that in the efforts made to obtain a foothold upon the mainland, or terra firma,[4] as the Spaniards then called it, the territory of the United States may claim precedence in the order of time. Before Cortez landed in Mexico, Ponce de Leon had discovered and named Florida. Therefore Florida was the first portion of the North-American continent to receive the baptism of a Christian name.[5]

Although, under this name of Florida, Spain first claimed every thing in North America, it was the great central region lying about the tropics to which her explorers first turned their attention.

Cortez landed on the Gulf Coast, unfurled his banner of "blood and gold," set fire to his ships,[6] to let his followers know that for him and them there was no retreat, and marched on into the heart of Mexico. Two initial points are thus fixed from which to continue the story of Spanish domination in the New World, Florida and Mexico.

Then again, having at last found their way across the Isthmus of Darien to the South Sea[7] (1513), the Spaniards in a measure ceased from their persistent and useless search for an open water-way to India. Cortez presently hewed out another road, with the sword, across Mexico, to this great western ocean. His achievement was quickly followed up by Ulloa (1539), Cabrillo (1542), and other Spanish navigators, who were sent by Cortez or the Viceroy to extend discovery up the coast. They coasted the Gulf of California, first called the Vermilion Sea, and sailed beyond it, as high as 30° North latitude.

So thanks to Cortez, Spain had secured the much-coveted way to India at last. Yet when he came home to his native country, the king demanded of those about him who Cortez was. "I am a man," said the conqueror of Mexico, "who has gained your majesty more provinces than your father left you towns."

Supreme on land and sea, Spain pushed on her conquests abroad without hinderance. If such deeds as hers had so irritated the self-love of a rival prince, how must they have stirred the blood of all those daring spirits by whom Charles was surrounded, and who burned to distinguish themselves in the service of their liege lord and sovereign. In America, men said the making of a new empire had begun. If that were so, it meant that men of energy, ambition and capacity, the kind of men on whom fortune waits to bestow her choicest favors, should seek her there.

BALBOA DISCOVERING THE PACIFIC OCEAN.
"Silent upon a peak in Darien."—Keats.

But Mexico and Peru were already won. When, therefore, the Spaniards began to look about them for new worlds to conquer, their eyes fell upon Florida. It is true that all those who had set forth upon this errand met with nothing but disaster.[8] A spell seemed hanging over this land of flowers. The Spaniards had indeed, with much pomp, planted a cross, strangely proclaiming themselves masters of the country; yet, without power to hold a foot of ground, this cross stood a monument to their failures, as its inscription seemed an epitaph to their presumption.

FOOTNOTES

[1] Lever of Archimedes. The saying attributed to this celebrated mathematician of ancient times, that if they would give him a fulcrum for his lever he would move the world, is often employed in one or another sense as a figure of speech.

[2] Pope Alexander VI. confirmed the act of partition by a special decree, called a bull.

[3] Antilles, an early name of the West Indies.

[4] Terra Firma, literally meaning firm land; a name first used by the Spaniards to distinguish the American continent, or that part first discovered, from the West India Islands.

[5] Christian Name, from its discovery on Easter Sunday, Pascha Floridum—Flowery Easter.

[6] Burning One's Ships has passed into a proverb often used to illustrate some act of extraordinary hardihood, by which one puts it out of his power to draw back from an undertaking. Cortez only followed the example of the Emperor Julian in ancient Rome, and of William the Conqueror in England.

[7] South Sea. The Pacific Ocean was so first called.

[8] Disaster befell the attempt of Narvaez upon Florida in 1528. Look it up.

"One may buy gold at too dear a price."—Spanish.

If we look at the earliest Spanish maps on which the Gulf of Mexico is laid down, not only do we find the delta of a great river put in the place where we would expect to see, on our maps of to-day, the Mississippi making its triumphal entry into the sea, but the map-makers have even given it a name—Rio del Espiritu Santo—meaning, in their language, the River of the Holy Ghost.

FRENCH MAP OF 1542. FROM JOMARD.

That this knowledge ought not to detract from the work of subsequent explorers is quite clear to our minds, because the charts themselves show that only the coast line[2] had been examined when these results were put upon parchment. The explorers had indeed found a river, and made a note of it, but had passed on their way without so much as suspecting that the muddy waters they saw flowing out of the land before them drained a continent. Had they made this important discovery, we cannot doubt their readiness to have profited by it in making their third invasion of Florida. So the discovery, if it can be called one, had no practical value for those who made it, and the country remained a sealed book as before. We cannot wonder at this because La Salle subsequently failed to find the river when actually searching for it, though he had seen it before.

With 600 men, both horse and foot, thoroughly equipped and ably led, Hernando de Soto[3] set sail from Havana in May, and landed on the Florida coast on Whitsunday[4] of the year 1539.

DE SOTO.

De Soto did not burn his ships, like Cortes, but sent them back to Havana to await his further orders. These Spaniards had come, not as peaceful colonists, looking for homes and a welcome among the owners of the soil, but as soldiers bent only upon conquest. De Soto, as we have seen, had brought an army with him. Its camp was pitched in military order. It moved at the trumpet's martial sound. Two hundred horsemen carrying lances and long swords marched in the van. With them rode the Adelantado, his standard-bearer and suite. Behind these squadrons marched the men of all arms—cross-bowmen, arquebusmen, calivermen, pikemen, pages and squires, who attached themselves to the officers in De Soto's train—then came the baggage with its camp-guard of grooms and serving-men: and last of all, another strong body of infantry solidly closed the rear of the advancing column, so that whether in camp or on the march, it was always ready to fight. In effect, De Soto entered Florida sword in hand, declaring all who should oppose him enemies.

SOLDIER OF 1585.

De Soto enforced an iron discipline, never failing, like a good soldier, himself to set an example of obedience to the orders published for the conduct of his army. In following his fortunes, it is well to keep the fact firmly in mind that De Soto was embarked in a campaign for conquest only.

Toward the unoffending natives of the country the invaders used force first, conciliation afterwards. As in Mexico and Peru, so here they meant to crush out all opposition,—to thoroughly subjugate the country to their arms. De Soto had served under Pizarro, and had shown himself an apt pupil of a cruel master. The Indians were held to have no rights whatever, or at least none that white men were bound to respect. Meaning to make slaves of them, the Spaniards had brought bloodhounds to hunt them down, chains with iron collars to keep them from running away, and wherever the army went these poor wretches were led along in its train, like so many wild beasts, by their cruel masters. On the march they were loaded down with burdens. When the Spaniards halted, the captives would throw themselves upon the ground like tired dogs. When hungry they ate what was thrown to the dogs. So far as known, Hernando de Soto was the first to introduce slavery,[5] in its worst form, into the country of Florida, and in this manner did this Christian soldier of a Christian prince set up the first government by white men begun in any part of the territory of the United States.

The Spaniards were seeking for the gold which they believed the country contained. At the first landing, a Spaniard,[6] who had lived twelve years among the Florida Indians, was brought by them into the camp among his friends. The first thing De Soto asked this man was whether he knew of any gold or silver in the country. When he frankly said that he did not, his countrymen would not believe him. The Indians, when questioned, pointed to the mountains, where gold is, indeed, found to this day. Though he did not believe him, De Soto took the rescued man along with him as his interpreter.

CUBAN BLOODHOUND.

It was said, and by many believed, that somewhere in Florida stood a golden city, ruled over by a king or high priest who was sprinkled from head to foot with gold-dust instead of powder. This story was quite enough to excite the cupidity of the Spaniards, who grew warm when speaking of this city as the El Dorado,[7] or city of the Gilded One.

Such fables would not now be listened to by sensible people, but in the time we are writing of they were firmly believed in, not only by the poor and ignorant, but by the greatest princes in Christendom, as well. No doubt they helped to fill De Soto's ranks. Lord Bacon tells us that in all superstitions wise men follow fools, and as this was a superstitious age, we can readily believe him. The great, the prolific, the true mines of the country, the cultivation of the soil, was not thought of by these soldiers of fortune who followed De Soto into Florida.

This ill-starred expedition is memorable rather for its misfortunes than because of any service it has rendered to civilization. Most graphically are these shadowed forth in the death and burial of De Soto himself, and in that sense they will stand for all time on the page of history as a memorial to what men will dare and suffer for greed of gold. In any other cause the expedition would be worthy an epic.

Although composed of the best soldiers in the world, with a valiant and skilful captain for its leader, the little army became so hopelessly entangled, so utterly lost in the primeval wildernesses, that to this day it has never been possible to trace out the true course of that fatal march.[8] Wherever he could hear of gold, thither De Soto led his weary and footsore battalions. When baffled on one side, he turned with rare perseverance to another. And though they were being wasted in daily combats, though famine and disease followed them step by step through swamp and everglade, over mountains and rivers, still, with wondrous fatuity, De Soto pushed ever on. Like an enchantress his El Dorado had lured him on to his destruction.

For about two years De Soto and his companions wholly passed from the knowledge of men. A miserable remnant of this once gallant band then made their way to the coast, not indeed as conquerors, but as fugitives.[9]

DEPARTURE OF THE SPANIARDS.

Just where these years were passed is not clear. Long ago time obliterated all traces of the invaders' march. So the clew is lost. Yet we do know that one day in May, 1541, two years after its first landing, the army halted on the banks of an unknown river almost half a league broad. One of the soldiers says of it, that if a man stood still on the other side it could not be discerned whether he was a man or no. The river was of great depth, and of a strong tide which bore along with it continually many great trees. All doubt vanishes. This could be no other than the "Father of Waters" itself.

FOOTNOTES

[1] Mississippi River first mentioned (Indian). The name is variously spelled by early writers. "Father of Waters," or "Great Father of Waters," is the accepted meaning. Most probably the Espiritu Santo of the earliest known Spanish map of Florida (1521), of Sebastian Cabot's (1544); and St. Esprit of the one given in the text, though the Mobile may be meant. De Soto's people seem first to have called it Rio Grande or Great River. This disaster brought exploration in this quarter to a full stop for forty years, when it was resumed by the French, of whose efforts we shall presently speak. The river then appears on a map of the explorer Louis Joliet (1674) under its present name, though there spelled "Messasipi." From this time the name superseded all others.

[2] Gulf Coast of Florida is laid down with tolerable accuracy on a map of 1513 (Ptolemy, Venice). Garay examined it in 1518. By 1530 (Ptolemy, Basle) the Gulf Coast had obtained quite accurate delineation. The Gulf, itself, being the highway for ships bound to Mexico and Yucatan, was well known to Spanish sailors. Erelong it became an exclusively Spanish sea on which no other flag was allowed.

[3] Hernando de Soto is described by one of his followers as "a stern man of few words, who, though he liked to know and sift the opinions of other men, always did what he liked himself, and so all men did condescend unto his will."—Rel. Portugall.

[4] Whitsunday, or Whitsuntide, a festival of the Christian Church commemorating the descent of the Holy Ghost upon the apostles.

[5] Slavery, a certain type, it is true, existed among the Indians of this continent, who held their captives in semi-servitude, though the condition was totally different, in that the captive was considered eligible for adoption into the family and tribe of his master. Among the Indians the question of social equality had nothing to do with their policy toward their prisoners, or such as refused to become incorporated with themselves.

[6] A Spaniard who came with Narvaez to Florida, named Juan (John) Ortiz.

[7] El Dorado. Bear this name in mind. We shall meet with it again.

[8] That Fatal March. The one clew to the route De Soto took in his wanderings up and down what are now the Gulf States, is found in the names of various Indian nations whose countries he traversed. Thus the names Apalache, CoÇa (Coosa), Tuscaluca (Tuscaloosa), and ChicaÇa (Chicasaw) are so many landmarks. But no precise data remain from which to lay down, with reasonable accuracy, a journey which extended over at least eight or ten states, covered thousands of miles, and occupied years in making. De Soto's crossing place is placed on Pownall's (Eng.) official map of 1755 at or near Osier Point, on the east bank, now corresponding with the north-west corner of the State of Mississippi and De Soto County. On a map of 1775, it is fixed on the thirty-fourth parallel, some distance below the ancient village of the Arkansas, or "Handsome Men."

[9] As Fugitives, De Soto's followers, under command of Moscoso, his successor, built themselves boats, in which they descended the Mississippi to the coast, finally reaching Tampico, in Mexico, "whereat the viceroy greatly wondered."

"By a Portugall of the Company."

"The Gouernour felt in himselfe that the houre approached, wherein he was to leaue this present life, and called for the Kings Officers, Captaines and principall persons. Hee named Luys de Moscoso de Aluarado his Captaine generall. And presently he was sworne by all that were present, and elected for Gouernour. The next day, being the one and twentieth of May, 1542, departed out of this life, the valorous, virtuous, and valiant Captaine, Don Fernando de Soto, Gouernour of Cuba, and Adelantado of Florida: whom fortune aduanced, as it vseth to doe others, that he might have the higher fall.[1] Hee departed in such a place, and at such a time, as in his sicknesse he had but little comfort: and the danger wherein all his people were of perishing in that countrie, which appeared before their eyes, was cause sufficient, why euery one of them had neede of comfort, and why they did not visite nor accompanie him as they ought to have done. Luys de Moscoso determined to conceale his death from the Indians, because Ferdinando de Soto had made them beleeue, that the Christians were immortall; and also because they tooke him to be hardy, wise, and valiant: and if they should knowe that hee was dead, they would be bold to set upon the Christians, though they liued peaceably by them.

"As soon as he was dead, Luys de Moscoso commanded to put him secretly in an house, where he remayned three dayes: and remouing him from thence, commanded him to be buried in the night at one of the gates of the towne within the wall. And as the Indians had seene him sick, and missed him, so did they suspect what might be. And passing by the place where he was buried, seeing the earth moued, they looked and spake one to another. Luys de Mososco vnderstanding of it, commanded him to be taken up by night, and to cast a great deale of sand into the Mantles, wherein he was winded vp, wherein he was carried in a canoa, and throwne into the midst of the riuer. The Cacique of Guachoya inquired of him, demanding what was become of his brother and lord, the Gouernour: Luys de Moscoso told him, that he was gone to Heauen, as many other times he did: and because he was to stay there certaine dayes, he had left him in his place. The Cacique thought with himselfe that he was dead; and commanded two young and well proportioned Indians to be brought thither; and said, that the vse of that countrie was, when any Lord died, to kill Indians, to waite vpon him, and serue him by the way: and for that purpose by his commandement were those come thither: and prayed Luys de Moscoso to command them to be beheaded, that they might attend and serue his Lord and brother. Luys de Moscoso told him, that the Gouernour was not dead, but gone to Heauen, and that of his owne Christian Souldiers, he had taken such as he needed to serue him, and prayed him to command those Indians to be loosed, and not to vse any such bad custome from thenceforth."

BURIAL OF DE SOTO.

Indian High Priest. "Old prophecies foretell our fall at hand. When bearded men in floating castles land,
I fear it is of dire portent."—Dryden's Indian Emperor.

De Soto's invasion of Florida is, we think, most memorable for what it has preserved touching the manners and customs of the Indians with whom the Spaniards dealt in such evil sort. In this light only has it historic value. Though incomplete as to details it is our earliest portrait of this singular people, as they existed a full century before New England was settled, and so marks a definite limit of history whence to date that knowledge from.

Yet when we shall have gone so far back in the history of this primitive race as the beginning of the sixteenth century, nothing is found in their manners, customs or traditions, as they have come down to us, which would go to confirm the theory that the ancestors of these people were more civilized than themselves. The little they seem to have known about it belongs to the very infancy of art, not to its growth out of lower conditions. These Indians knew how to make beads of the pearl oyster. So did those of New England know how to make shell wampum. The Florida Indians could weave cloth of the fibre of wild hemp and dye it prettily; they could tan, dress, and decorate deerskins; had found out how to mould rude earthen vessels and bake them in the sun. In some of these things they certainly surpassed their brethren of New England, though their arms and implements are quite like those used farther north. Then inasmuch as all the tools they had to work with were of the rudest sort, being shaped out of stone or bone, so the making of most things cost them a great deal of time and labor, and hence the mechanical arts in use among them were such only as spring from the first and most pressing wants of a people, as is everywhere the case in the history of primitive man.[1]

It must be borne in mind that what we are told about these Florida Indians is written by their enemies. Therefore, when their courage is praised, we feel that they must have deserved it. Perhaps what most astonishes us about the narratives themselves is the cold-blooded way in which they recount the slaughter made of these Indians, who seem hardly to have been considered in the light of human beings.

It would seem as if the ill-repute of the Spaniards must have gone before them, for upon nearing the Florida shore the invaders saw smokes everywhere curling above it, which they soon found were lighted for the purpose of warning the inhabitants to be on their guard.

The first Indians met with were instantly set upon by De Soto's horsemen, who had nearly killed John Ortiz before they discovered him to be a Christian like themselves. Though in doubt what the landing of so many white men could mean, these Indians were loyally bringing Ortiz as a peace-offering to the Spanish camp. It is worth while to remember this, since on the part of the Spaniards the first act was one of violence and intimidation.

Therefore, whenever the Spaniards approached an Indian town, the inhabitants fled from it in terror; and so in order to procure guides to lead them, or porters to carry the baggage, while on the march, De Soto found himself obliged to seize by force such Indians as his own men could lay hands upon. On these he put chains and caused them to bear the burdens of his soldiers. If possible, a chief was kidnapped to be held a hostage for the good conduct of his tribe. No Spaniard was therefore safe outside his encampment.[2]

Again, the Spaniards plundered the villages they entered of whatever they stood in need, just the same as if they were in a conquered country. If they wanted corn they took it; if they found any thing of value they helped themselves, without making any show of paying for it. In consequence, the exasperated Indians everywhere obstructed De Soto's march so far as it lay in their power to do so; and on the other hand, in proportion to the resistance he met with, De Soto treated the natives with greater or less severity. We know these Indians therefore, for men of courage, since in defence of their homes and liberties they could fight with naked breasts against men in armor, and with bows and arrows against fire-arms.[3]

So that by the time De Soto arrived at the Mississippi, he had lost over a hundred men and most of his horses.

What such treatment would be likely to lead to is easily foreseen. Most surely it sowed the seeds of future hostility to the white man broadcast. His cruelty became a tradition. The Indian has a long memory and is by nature revengeful. From having looked upon the whites as gods, gifted with all good and beneficent things, the Indian quickly perceived them to be a cruel people filled with avarice, and bent on destroying him. His worst enemies could do no more. And thus the two races met each other in the New World.

We should not omit to mention here one of the strangest things that fell out in the whole course of the expedition. When the Spaniards came to the town of Quizaquiz, where they made some stay, Indians flocked there from distant villages in order to see for themselves what manner of people had come among them; for they said it had been foretold them by their fathers' fathers that men with white faces should come and subdue them, and now they believed the prophecy had come true.

In appearance, the Indian villages and towns we're everywhere much the same. The houses were little round cabins, built of wooden palings, sometimes thatched with palm leaves, sometimes with canes or reeds laid on the roof in the manner of tiles. The better to resist the fierce Gulf winds, they were built low on the ground. In the colder climates, the walls would be smeared over with clay. The only difference to be perceived between the cabins of the common sort and the dwellings of the chief men was that they were larger and more roomy residences, with sometimes a gallery built out over the front, under which the family could sit in the heat of the day.

Every little knot of cabins would have one or more corn-cribs close beside it. This was a loft or granary set up in the air on poles, exactly in the manner now practised by the whites, and for the like purpose of storing up maize or Indian corn which was universally cultivated. Only for the supplies of maize everywhere found, both the Spaniards and their horses would soon have starved, as corn[4] became their only article of food, and ofttimes they had to go hungry for want of it.

Men and women wore mantles woven either of the bark of trees or of a wild sort of hemp which the Indians knew how to dress properly for the purpose. They also understood the art of tanning and dyeing such skins as were obtained in the chase, which they also made up into garments. Two of these mantles made a woman's usual dress. One was worn about them, hanging from the waist down, like a petticoat or gown, the other would be thrown over the left shoulder with the right arm bared, after the manner of the Egyptians. The warriors wore only this last mantle, which allowed them free use of the right arm in drawing forth an arrow from the quiver, or in bending the bow. When dressed up in his head-gear of feathers, and wearing his ornamented mantle flung across his shoulder, bow in hand, and carrying his well-filled quiver at his back, the Indian warrior made no unpicturesque figure, even beside the heavily-armed white man, for he was of a well-proportioned and muscular build, with good features, an eye like the eagle's, and a bearing which told of the manhood throbbing beneath his dusky skin.

The Indians of Florida worshipped both a god of good and evil. They also made sacrifice to both spirits alike. In some places they worshipped and sacrificed to the sun as the great life-giving principle; in others they had a curious custom when any great lord died, of sacrificing living persons to appease or comfort his spirit with the offering of these other spirits who were to serve him and bear him company in the happy hunting-grounds.

Some tribes kept their dead unburied for a certain time in a rude sort of pantheon, or temple, dedicated to their gods.[5] Over this a strict watch was kept to guard against the intrusion of evil spirits who were supposed to lie in wait, in the form of some prowling beast of prey. This custom sprung from a belief that the spirits of the dead revisited their mortal bodies at times.

Besides maize, pumpkins, beans, and melons, whatever natural fruits the country produced the Indian lived on. He hunted and fished. The summer was his season of plenty, the winter one of want, sometimes of distress, but in the semi-tropical region, bordering upon the Gulf, his wants were fewer and more easily supplied, and hence, as a rule, life was freer from hardship than in more northern climes.

The stronger nations made war upon the weaker, but treaties were duly respected. The vanquished were compelled to pay tribute to the conquerors or join themselves with some stronger tribe than their own. The languages differed so much with different nations, that De Soto found he must have a new interpreter for every new nation he visited; nevertheless the Indians quickly learned to speak the Spanish tongue. In public the people behaved with great propriety, showed respect for their rulers, and often confounded De Soto, who pretended to supernatural powers, by the shrewdness of their replies. For instance, when the Spaniard gave out that he was the child of the sun, a Natchez chief promptly bid him dry up the river, and he would believe him. In some places the Indians greeted the Spaniards with songs and music. Their instruments were reeds hung with tinkling balls of gold or silver. When the chieftain, or cacique, went abroad in state, men walked by his side carrying screens elegantly made of the bright plumage of birds. These were borne at the end of a long staff.

The Spaniards found the fertile parts of the country everywhere crowded with towns, and very populous. But they did not find the gold[6] they coveted so much. They called the Indians a people ignorant of all the blessings of civilization, but to their honor be it also said, they were free from the vices by which it is accompanied and degraded.

"Northward, beyond the mountains we will go,

Where rocks lie covered with eternal snow."

In the disasters of Narvaez and De Soto, the movement from the side of Florida towards the West had met with an untimely check. But, strangely enough, it made progress in another quarter through these very misfortunes.

For while De Soto was vainly seeking for gold on that side, his countrymen were bestirring themselves in the same business in a quite different direction, as we shall see.

At this time it was Don Antonio de Mendoza who was the emperor's viceroy in Mexico. Now Mendoza aimed to gain distinction with his sovereign by being the first who should discover and make known to the world, all the unexplored region lying north of Mexico, which was accounted as rich as any yet known to the Spaniards. Most of all, perhaps, Mendoza wished to find the land's end in that northern direction, as by doing so he would complete the work of putting a girdle round the continent, and gain the glory of it for himself.

Various efforts were making to do this both by land and sea.[1] And curiously enough these efforts came from the West.

For the purpose in hand Mendoza had with him in Mexico two or three survivors[2] of Narvaez' expedition, who, in the most wonderful manner, had made their way overland through the unknown regions of the North, from Florida into Mexico. These men told the viceroy, Mendoza, that the natives who dwelt among the mountains to the north were a very rich people, who lived in great cities and had gold and silver in abundance. Mendoza also held captive some Indians whose homes were in that far-away country, which he was now meditating how to conquer.

Yet two important obstacles met Mendoza at the start. In the first place, the unknown country, which the Spaniards vaguely knew by the name of Cibola,[3] could be reached only through mountain defiles, so rugged and inaccessible that men questioned whether it could be reached at all. Nature had admirably adapted it for defence. Clearly, then, a few resolute men might easily defend their country against a host, and the Spaniards having reason to expect the most determined resistance found a twofold hinderance in their way.

The second obstacle, the Spaniards had created for themselves, by making slaves of all natives taken in arms. Rather than be slaves the Indians had fled into the mountain fastnesses. As their fear of the Spaniards was very great, these fugitives secreted themselves in the most inaccessible places, choosing rather to live like wild beasts than be branded like cattle with hot irons, and nursing their hatred of their oppressors. Not venturing to come down into the open valleys where they would be at the mercy of their conquerors, these unhappy people lived in caves, or in stone dwellings perched high among the rocks, where they could at least breathe the air of liberty unmolested. Those who formerly lived in the valleys had also fled to the mountains when they heard of the Spaniards' coming. So the Spaniards would have to contend not only with nature, but with a brave and a hostile people, if they attempted to subdue them.

Considering that great difficulties are often overcome or results accomplished by simple means, the viceroy took a poor barefooted friar[4] from his cell, gave him one of Narvaez' men for a guide, and with a few natives of the country sent him out to explore the unknown wilds. Upon reaching Culiacan, which was the most northerly place the Spaniards had made their way to, the captive Indians were sent ahead with messages of peace and good-will to the distrustful natives, who took good care to keep out of the way.

These promises of peace induced a great many of the natives to come down from the mountains; and once there they were easily won over with gifts and kind words, and in gratitude for the promise not to capture and enslave them as they had done, told the Spaniards to go and come as freely as they chose. The natives were then sent home to spread the news among their brethren.

The way being thus opened, the friar and his party set forth by one route, while still another party, led by Vasquez de Coronado,[5] went forward by a different one, on the same errand. Of the two parties, that of the friar alone succeeded in penetrating far into the country, and the information he brought back now reads more like a story from the Arabian Nights than the sober record of one already well versed in the country and people, such as Mendoza says he believed Father Marco to be. Yet the father is thought to have reached Cibola, or ZuÑi, which was the object of his journey, when the murder of his negro guide caused him to hasten back with all speed to the Spanish settlements.

So these attempts, as well as a second made by Coronado in the following year, were fruitless in every thing except the formal act of taking possession of the country, and the acquisition of some imperfect geographical knowledge about the valleys of the Colorado,[6] the Gila,[7] and the Rio Grande del Norte.[8] About all we can say of them is that the explorers went through the country.

As in Florida, so here a long period of inaction followed these failures. In both cases the Spaniards had come and seen, but not conquered. The Mississippi flowed on untroubled to the sea, the heart of the continent still kept its secret fast locked in the bosom of its hills. But we know now that the gold and silver the Spaniards craved so much to possess were there waiting for the more successful explorers.

It is forty years before we again hear of any serious effort made to search out the secrets of this land of mystery. The Church then took the matter in hand. It was wisely decided that the best way to conquer the people was to convert them. Accordingly two pious Franciscans set out from the Spanish settlements in New Biscay[9] on this errand. This time they penetrated into the country by the valley of the Rio Grande, under protection of a few soldiers, who, after conducting the fathers to a remote part of this valley, left them to pursue their pious work alone, and themselves returned to New Biscay. Hearing nothing from these missionaries, those who had sent them fitted out an expedition in the following year—1582—to go in search of them. This rescuing party brought back a more exact knowledge of the country and people than had so far been obtained through all the many explorers put together.

In proportion as they advanced up the Rio Grande, these explorers found everywhere very populous towns. The people lived well and contentedly. Some were found who had even kept the faith taught them by Christians,[10] long ago, but in general they worshipped idols in temples built for the purpose. In the natives themselves the Spaniards remarked a wide difference. Some went almost naked, and lived in poor hovels of mud covered with straw thatch. Others, again, would be clothed in skins, and live in houses four stories high. Often the natives showed the Spaniards cotton mantles skilfully woven in stripes of white and blue, of their own making and dyeing, which were much admired. It seemed for the most part a land of thrift and plenty, for the towns were populous beyond any thing the Spaniards had ever dreamed of. And the farther north the explorers went, the better the condition of the people became. Finding themselves in a land much like Old Mexico, in respect of its mountains, rivers, and forests, the explorers gave it the name of New Mexico.

One of the greatest towns visited, called Acoma,[11] contained above six thousand persons. It was built upon the level top of a high cliff, with no other way of access to it than by steps hewn out of the solid rock which formed the cliff. The sight of this place made the Spaniards wonder not a little at the skill and foresight shown in planning and building these natural fortresses, which nothing but famine could conquer. All the water was kept in cisterns. But this was not all the aptitude these people showed in overcoming obstacles or supplying needs. Their cornfields lay at some distance from the town. In this country it hardly ever rains. So the want of rain to make the corn grow was supplied by digging ditches to bring the water from a neighboring stream into the fields. We therefore see how conditions of soil and climate had taught the Indians the uses of irrigation.[12]

Turning out of the valley of the Rio Grande, to the west, the explorers at length came to the province of ZuÑi, where many Spanish crosses were found standing just as Coronado had left them forty years before. Here our Spaniards heard of a very great lake, situated at a great distance, where a people dwelt who wore bracelets and earrings of gold. Part of the company were desirous of going thither at once, but the rest wished to return into New Biscay in order to give an account of all they had seen and heard. So only the leader with a few men went forward, meeting everywhere good treatment from the natives, who in one place, we are told, showered down meal before the Spaniards, for their horses to tread upon, feasting and caressing their strange visitors as long as they remained among them.

These explorers returned to Old Mexico in July, 1583, by the valley of the Pecos,[13] to which stream they gave the name of River of Oxen, because they saw great herds of bison[14] feeding all along its course.

Out of these discoveries and reports came new attempts to plant a colony on the Rio Grande. Nothing prospered, however, until 1598, when Juan de OÑate[15] invaded New Mexico at the head of a force meant to thoroughly subdue and permanently hold it. OÑate was named governor under the viceroy. These Spaniards established themselves on the Rio Grande, not far from where Santa FÉ now is. Most of the village Indians submitted themselves to the Spaniards, whose authority over them was, at best, little more than nominal, though the roving tribes, the fierce Apaches and warlike Navajoes, never forgot their hereditary hatred to the Spaniards, with whom they kept up an incessant warfare.

With this expedition came a number of Franciscan missionaries who, as soon as a town was gained over, established a mission for the conversion of the natives. In 1601 Santa FÉ was founded and made the capital. In thirty years more the Catholic clergy had established as many as fifty missions which gave religious instruction to ninety towns and villages.

New Mexico had now reached her period of greatest prosperity under Spanish rule. For fifty years more the country rather stood still than made progress. The Spaniards were too overbearing, and the old hostility too deep, for peace to endure. Then, the system of bondage which the Spaniards brought with them from Old Mexico, and most unwisely put in practice here, bore its usual bitter fruit. Determined to be slaves no longer, in 1680 the native New Mexicans rose in a body, and drove the invaders out of the country with great slaughter. Upon the frontier of Old Mexico the fugitives halted, and then founded El Paso del Norte, which they considered the gateway to New Mexico, and so named it. It took the Spaniards twelve years to recover from this blow. By that time little was left to show they had ever been masters of New Mexico. But a new invasion took place, concerning which few details remain, though we do know it resulted in a permanent conquest before the end of the century.

As far back as 1687 Father Kino had founded a mission on the skirt of the country lying round the head of the Gulf of California, to which the Spaniards gave the name of Pimeria.[16] It will be noticed that once again they were following up the traces of Father Marco and Coronado. When the Spaniards took courage after this defeat, and again entered New Mexico, Kino (1693) founded other missions in the Gila country which in time grew to be connecting links between New Mexico and California, in what is now Arizona.[17]

"Antiquity here lives, speaks, and cries out to the traveller, Sta, viator."—V. Hugo, The Rhine.

Mention has been made of the towns which the Spaniards came to in the course of their marchings up and down the country. Men had told them, in all soberness, that far away in the north-west seven flourishing cities,[1] wondrous great and rich, lay hid among the mountains. We remember that their first expeditions were planned to reach these seven cities. Now, when, at last, the Spaniards did come to them, these wonderful cities proved to be large, but not rich, full of people, though by no means such as the white men expected to see there.

Though sorely vexed to think they had come so far to find so little, the Spaniards were very much astonished by the appearance of these cities, the like of which they had never seen before. So these cities hid away among desert mountains were long remembered and often talked about.

But these cities were not cities at all, as the term is now understood. Instead of many houses spread out over much ground, the builders plainly aimed at putting a great many people into a little space. Yet the cities they built were neither simply walled towns, nor simply fortresses, but a skilful combination of both.

In the open plain they commonly consisted of one great structure either enclosed by a high wall, or else so built round it that wall and building were one.

On the other hand, if the pueblo[2] stood upon a height, the houses would be built all in blocks, and have streets running through them, though in other respects the manner of building was everywhere the same.

In either case, this style of architecture made them look less like the peaceful abodes of peaceful men, than the strongholds of a warlike and predatory race, whence the inmates might sally forth upon their weaker neighbors, just as the lords of feudal times did from the rock-built castles of the Rhine. It is plain they had grown up out of the necessity for defence, as every thing else was sacrificed to its demands, and we know that necessity is the mother of invention.

The single great house, in which all the inhabitants lived together, is perhaps the most curious. Let us suppose this to be a three-story building, parted off into from sixty to a hundred little rooms, with something like a thousand people living in it. Could the outer wall be taken away, the whole edifice would look like a monstrous honeycomb, and in fact the pueblo was nothing else than a human hive, as we shall presently see.

Now the city of Acoma is one of those which are built upon a height. The builders chose the flat top of a barren sandstone cliff, containing about ten acres, which rises about three hundred feet above the plain. In New Mexico such table-lands are called mesas, from mesa, the Spanish word meaning table. Therefore, while no one knows its age, or history, all agree that Acoma must go far back into the past. Acoma was so strongly built that to-day it looks hardly different from what it did when the Spaniards first saw it, perched on the top of its rock, in 1582.

We see then in the builders of Acoma a people gifted with a much higher order of intelligence than the Red Indian, who is always found living in huts, or hovels, of the rudest possible kind. The wild Indian always carries his house about with him, and so is ever ready, at a moment's notice, to

The sedentary Indian sometimes patterned his after the burrowing animals, like the beaver, and sometimes after the birds of the air, like the sparrow.

Now to describe Acoma itself. It consists of ranges of massive buildings rising in successive tiers from the ground. The second story is set a little back from the first, and the third a little back from the second, so leaving a space in front of each range of buildings for the inhabitants or sentinels to walk about in, in peaceful times, or send down missiles upon the heads of their enemies in time of war. By running up the outer wall of each story, for a few feet higher than this platform, the builders made what is called a parapet in military phrase, meant for the protection of the defenders. There were no doors or windows except in the topmost tier. Acoma, then, was a castle built upon a rock.

It would seem that only birds of the air or creeping things could gain admittance to such a place. Indeed, there was no other way for the inhabitants themselves to enter their dwellings except by climbing up ladders set against the outer walls of the building for the purpose. In this manner one could climb to the first platform, then to the second, but could not get in till he came to the roof, through which he descended by a trap door into his own quarters.

The whole collection of buildings being divided by partition walls into several blocks, each containing sixty or seventy houses, is, practically, the apartment hotel of to-day. The material commonly used was adobe,[3] or bricks dried and hardened in the sun. Such a building could not be set on fire or its walls battered down with any missiles known to its time.

We see then that the Pueblo Indians must have had enemies whom they feared,—enemies at once aggressive, warlike, and probably much more numerous than themselves. How well they were able to meet these conditions, their houses show us to this day.

Living remote from the whites, these people, like those of Old ZuÑi, have kept more of their primitive manners, and live more as their fathers did, than those do who inhabit the pueblos of the Rio Grande, where they have been longer in contact with Europeans. Forty years ago they knew only a few Spanish words, which they had learned when Spaniards held their country. In a remarkable manner, the people have kept their own tongue and nationality free from foreign taint. From this fact we are led to think them much the same people that they were long, long ago.

There are other buildings in the country of the Gila, called Casas Grandes,[4] or Great Houses, which are quite different from those described in this chapter, but were apparently built for a similar purpose of defence.

While professing Christianity, the Pueblo Indians have mostly kept some part of the idolatrous faith of their fathers. Thus the two have become curiously blended in their worship. We often see the crucifix, or pictures of the Virgin hanging on the walls of their dwellings, but neither the coming of the whites, nor the zeal of missionaries could wholly eradicate the deeply grounded foundations of their ancient religion. The little we know about this belief, in its purity, comes to us chiefly in the form of legendary lore, although since the ZuÑi have been studied[1] with this object we have a much clearer conception of it than ever before.

By this uncertain light we find it to be a religion of symbols and mysteries, primarily founded upon the wondrous workings of nature for man's needs, and so embodying philosophy growing out of her varied phenomena. Therefore sun, moon, and stars, earth, sky, and sea, and all plants, animals, and men were supposed to bear a certain mystical relation to each other in the plan of the universe. Instead of one all-supreme being, the ZuÑi worshipped many gods each of whom was supposed to possess some special attribute or power. Some were higher, some lower down in the scale of power.

The phenomena of nature, being more mysterious, were thought to be more closely related to the higher gods. If there was drought in the land, the priests prayed for rain from the housetops, as the Prophet Elijah did in the wilderness. Each year, in the month of June, they went up to the top of the highest mountain, which they called the "Mother of Rain," to perform some secret ceremony touching the coming harvest. And because rain seldom falls in this country, they made earnest supplication to water, as a beneficent spirit, who ascended and descended the heavens in their sight, and to the sun as the twin deity in whom lay the power of life and death,—to ripen the harvest or wither all living things away into dust.

Like the ancient Egyptians, of whom they constantly remind us, the ZuÑi believed animals possessed certain mystic powers, not belonging to man, so investing them with a sacred character. Beasts of prey were supposed to have magic power over other animals, hence the bear stood higher in the ZuÑi mythology than the deer or antelope. The Indians call this magic power medicine, but the ZuÑi gave it form to his own mind—the substance of a thing unseen—by making a stone image of the particular animal he had chosen for his medicine, which he carried with him to war or the chase as a charm of highest virtue. We call this fetich-worship.

Each pueblo had one or more close, underground cells[2] in which certain mysterious rites, connected, it is believed, with the worship of the people, were solemnized. We are told that, at Pecos, the priests kept watch night and day over a sacred fire, which was never suffered to go out for a single moment, for fear some calamity would instantly happen to the tribe. It is also said that when Pecos was assaulted and sacked by a hostile tribe, the priests kept their charge over the sacred fire while the tumult of battle raged about them. And when, at length, the tribe itself had nearly died out, the survivors took the sacred fire with them to another people, beyond the mountains, where it is kept burning as the symbol of an ever-living faith.

Another legend goes on to say that an enormous serpent was kept in a den in the temple of Pecos to which on certain occasions living men were thrown as a sacrifice. Both legends would seem to point to Pecos as a holy place, from which the priests gave out instruction to the people, as of old they did from the temples of the heathen gods.

The tradition of the origin of the ZuÑi, as told by Mr. Cushing, is almost identical with that held by the Mandans of the Upper Missouri. Each says the race sprung from the earth itself, or rather that the first peoples lived in darkness and misery in the bowels of the earth, until at length they were led forth into the light of day by two spirits sent from heaven for their deliverance, as the ZuÑi say, or by discovering a way out for themselves, as the Mandans say.[3]

A tradition of the Pimos[4] Indians makes a beautiful goddess the founder of their race. It says that in times long past a woman of matchless beauty resided among the mountains near this place. All the men admired and paid court to her. She received the tributes of their devotion, grain, skins, etc., but gave no favors in return. Her virtue and her determination to remain secluded were equally firm. There came a drought which threatened the world with famine. In their distress the people applied to her, and she gave them corn from her stock, and the supply seemed endless. Her goodness was unbounded. One day as she was lying asleep a drop of rain fell upon her and produced conception. A son was the issue, who was the founder of the race that built these structures.

But Montezuma[5] is the patriarch, or tutelary genius, whom all the Indians of New Mexico look to as their coming deliverer.

One tradition runs that Montezuma was a poor shepherd who tended sheep in the mountains. One day an eagle came to keep him company. After a time the eagle would run before Montezuma, and extend its wings, as if inviting him to seat himself on its back. When at last Montezuma did so, the eagle instantly spread its wings and flew away with him to Mexico where Montezuma founded a great people.

Ever since then the Indians have constantly watched for the second coming of Montezuma, and thenceforth the eagle was held sacred, and has become a symbol among them. He is to come, they say, in the morning, at sunrise, so at that hour people may be seen on the housetops looking earnestly toward the east, while chanting their morning prayers, for like the followers of Mahomet, these people chant hymns upon the housetops. Although beautiful and melodious these chants are described as being inexpressibly sad and mournful.

In person the people are well formed and noble looking. They are honest among themselves, hospitable to strangers, and unlike nomads, are wholly devoted to caring for their crops and flocks. They own many sheep. They raise corn, wheat, barley and fruit. One pueblo raises corn and fruit, another is noted for its pottery, while a third is known for its skill in weaving.

But after all, these Pueblo Indians are only barbarians of a little higher type than common. Whenever we look closely into their habits and manners, we are struck with the resemblances existing among the whole family of native tribes. If we assume them to have known a higher civilization they have degenerated. If we do not so assume, the observation of three centuries shows them to have come to a standstill long, long ago.

Pueblo Customs. When the harvest time comes the people abandon their villages in order to go and live among their fields, the better to watch over them while the harvest is being gathered in.

Grain is threshed by first spreading it out upon a dirt floor made as hard as possible, and then letting horses tread it out with their hoofs. It is then winnowed in the wind.

The woman, who is grinding, kneels down before a trough with her stone placed before her in the manner of a laundress's wash-board. Over this stone she rubs another as if scrubbing clothes. The primitive corn-mill is simply a large concave stone into which another stone is made to fit, so as to crush the grain by pressure of the hand.

The unfermented dough is rolled out thin so that after baking it may be put up in rolls, like paper. It is then the color of a hornet's nest, which indeed it resembles. Ovens, for baking, are kept on the housetops.

The processes of spinning and weaving, than which nothing could be more primitive, are thus described by Lieut. Emory, as he saw it done on the Gila, in 1846.

"A woman was seated on the ground under one of the cotton sheds. Her left leg was turned under with the sole of the foot upward. Between her great toe and the next a spindle, about eighteen inches long, with a single fly, was put. Ever and anon she gave it a dexterous twist, and at its end a coarse cotton thread would be drawn out. This was their spinning machine. Led on by this primitive display, I asked for their loom, pointing first to the thread, and then to the blanket girded about the woman's loins. A fellow who was stretched out in the dust, sunning himself, rose lazily up, and untied a bundle which I had supposed to be his bow and arrows. This little package, with four stakes in the ground, was the loom. He stretched his cloth and began the process of weaving."

But these self-taught weavers were behind their brethren of the pueblos, whose loom was of a more improved pattern. One end of the frame of sticks, on which the warp was stretched, would be fastened to the floor, and the other to a rafter overhead. The weaver sat before this frame, rapidly moving the shuttle in her hand to and fro, and so forming the woof.

Pottery was in common use among them as far back as we have any account of the Pueblo Indians. Jars for carrying and holding water were always articles of prime necessity, though baskets of wicker-work were sometimes woven water-tight for the purpose.

Pueblo Government. Each pueblo is under the control of a head chief, chosen from among the people themselves. When any public business is to be transacted, he collects the principal chiefs in the underground cell, previously mentioned, where the matter that has brought them together is discussed and settled.

The pueblos also have officers, corresponding with the mayor and constables[6] of a city, whose business it is to preserve order. In every pueblo there is also a public crier who shouts from the housetops such things as it may concern the people at large to know.

In some of the pueblos there is an abandoned Spanish mission church of unknown antiquity. The one at Acoma has a tower forty feet high with two bells in it, one of which is lettered "San Pedro, A.D. 1710." The church at Pecos is a picturesque ruin.

We have here reached the high-water-mark of Spanish advance into territory now embraced within the United States. The moment seems well chosen in which to take a parting look at the two great men of their age, whose talents and energy had builded an empire so vast that, when the master-hand was taken away, it tottered to its fall.

Last Days of Charles V. Charles V. is thought to have hastened his death by the indulgence of so strange a whim, that one is led to doubt the soundness of his intellect.

He chose, now in his lifetime, to have his own funeral obsequies performed. For the purpose he laid himself down in his coffin which the monks then lifted on their shoulders and bore into the church. When the bearers had set the coffin down in front of the altar, the solemn service for the dead was chanted, the Emperor himself joining in all the prayers said for the repose of his soul. In the hush which followed the last office paid to the illustrious dead, all the attending monks passed silently out of the church, leaving Charles to pray alone in his coffin.

"The chamber in the Escurial Palace where Philip II. died is that in which he passed the three last years of his life, nailed by the gout to a sofa. Through a narrow casement, his alcove commanded a view of the high altar of the chapel. In this manner, without rising, without quitting his bed, he assisted every day at the holy sacrifice of the mass. His ministers came to work with him in this little chamber, and they still show the little wooden board which the king made use of when writing, or signing his name, by placing it upon his knees."

Tombs of Charles and Philip. "At the right and left of the altar, at the height of about fifteen feet, are two large parallel niches hollowed out in the form of a square. The one at the left is the tomb of Charles V., that at the right of Philip II. At the side of Philip II., who is on his knees in the attitude of prayer, are the prince, Don Carlos, and the two queens whom Philip successively espoused, all three also on their knees in prayer. Underneath, one may read in letters of gold:

"The Emperor Charles V. is also represented on his knees in the act of prayer. He too is surrounded by a group of kneeling personages who are identified in the inscription, of which we give only part.

"All these statues are of gilt bronze, of a grand style and admirable effect. Those of the two sovereigns, above all, with their armorial mantles, are of a severe magnificence."—Alex. Dumas, the Elder.

California is the name[1] given in an old Spanish romance to a fabulous island of the sea lying out toward the Indies.

After a time, the Spaniards found out that what they had supposed to be a large island[2] was really a peninsula, so the name presently spread to the mainland.

Cabrillo[3] sailed yet higher up, and others higher still, till the work of tracing the coast as far as Cape Mendocino[4] itself was completed.

Spanish power in the New World received now and here its first serious check, though possibly little was thought of it at the time, in Europe. Like David before Goliath, little England confronted the bully of Europe where least expected, with menace to her great and growing empire of the West.

The greatest seaman of his age, Francis Drake, whose name was the terror of Spaniards everywhere, had passed the Straits of Magellan with one little vessel, into the Great South Sea, which Balboa discovered and claimed for Spain. Stopping at no odds, one day fighting and the next plundering, Drake kept his undaunted way a thousand leagues up the coast. His ship being already full-freighted with the plunder of the ports at which she had called, Drake thought to shorten the way back to England by sailing through the North-east Passage,[5] so outwitting the Spaniards who were keeping vigilant watch against his return southward,—for his men were but a handful against a world of foes, and his ship too precious to be risked in fight. So Drake sailed on into the north. He sailed as far as the Oregon coast, when the weather grew so cold that his men, who were come from tropic heats, began to murmur. Drake was therefore forced to put his ship about and steer south again, along the coast, looking for a harbor as he went, to refit his ship in. Finding this harbor[6] in 38°, the Golden Hind dropped anchor there on the 17th of June, 1579, showing a flag which had never before been seen in that part of the world.

Drake lay quietly at anchor in this port for five weeks. During all this time the natives came in troops to the shore, drawn thither to see the strange bearded white men who spoke in an unknown tongue, and kept the loud thunder hid away in their ship. It is even said that the king of that country took the crown off his own head, and put it on Francis Drake's in token of submission. All this and much else is fully and quaintly set forth in the narrative of Master Fletcher, who was Drake's chaplain on board the Golden Hind.

Before leaving this friendly port, Drake took formal possession of the country by setting up a post, to which a plate of brass was fixed, with Queen Elizabeth's name engraved on it.

The white cliffs of the coast that rose about him, would seem to have recalled to Drake's mind those of Old England, for he gave the name of New Albion to all this great land he had merely coasted. We should not forget that Elizabeth herself afterwards said of such acts that "discovery is of little worth without actual possession."

Having planted this thorn in the side of the Spanish Empire of the West, Drake merrily sailed away for England by way of the Cape of Good Hope.[7]

Spain complained. Elizabeth listened with impatience. When the Spanish ambassador insisted on his master's sole right to navigate the western ocean, the Queen lost her temper. She roundly told Mendoza that "the sea and air are common to all men." Yet the claim itself shows what mighty hold Spain had on the other powers. In eight years the question was fought out in the English Channel with all Europe for spectators. Spain was so sure of victory, that the popular feeling even got into the nursery rhymes of the day. A child is supposed to be saying,

Drake had perhaps done as much as any man to bring about the issue. He was there in the thick of the fight.[8]

So the spell of Spanish invincibility was broken at last. Spain was no longer mistress of the seas.

Next on her brilliant roll of navigators, comes Juan de Fuca, who (1592) discovered the straits that now bear his name. Spain still wanting a harbor in which the Manila galleons could refit when homeward bound, Sebastian Vizcaino (1602-1603), sometimes called "the Biscayner," entered the haven of San Diego, and that of Monterey,[9] which he then named, as he also did the one lying within Point Reyes, called by him Port San Francisco.[10] Exploration of this coast then ceased for a century and a half.

The real advance into California (1768), like all other Spanish movements on this continent, originated in a half-monkish, half-military plan for the conquest, conversion and civilization of the country. Enough was known of its soil and climate to show how far both exceeded the sterile steppes of New Mexico, where Spanish advance had already reached its farthest limit, and like a stream that meets an obstacle in its path, was turned into another channel. For where plants grow and rivers flow, God has fixed the abodes of men.

This movement began[11] from the missions of Lower California. It was designed to extend the system by which Spain had first conquered, and since ruled, Mexico into the unoccupied and little-known province of Alta, or Upper, California. The viceroy was to furnish soldiers, the president-prelate of the Franciscan order, missionaries.

Thus coast batteries and forts were to be built for the defence of the best harbors, as well as to sustain the missions themselves, so forming a line of military strength along the coast sufficient to repel assault by sea or land, while the mountains behind them would be a barrier between the missions and the wild tribes who lived in the great valleys beyond. One arm was to seize upon and firmly hold the country in its grasp, while the other should gradually bring it into subjection to the Catholic faith. Then, with clerical rule once established, civil order was to come in. Therefore the first essential thing was to build a fort, and the second a church. In this way it was proposed to make rallying-points for civilization of these missions,[12] although the plan founded an oligarchy and nothing else.

The Spaniards did not mean to till the soil themselves, but to make the Indians do it for them. Setting this scheme at work, a Franciscan mission was begun at San Diego in July, 1769. The next year another was established at Monterey. From these missions explorers presently made their way out to the valley of the San Joaquin, and even as far north as the great bay of San Francisco (1772), which took to itself, a little later, the name of the old Port San Francisco, with which it must not be confounded.

In 1776 the Mission of San Francisco was founded. Monterey being the chief settlement, the governor's official residence was fixed there; and now, so late as the period of American Independence, we have the machinery for civilization in California fairly set in motion.

The plan which the founders had proposed to themselves also included the building-up of pueblos, which should be located in suitable places outside the missions, though actually meant for their support, and therefore in a sense dependencies of them. But these pueblos were to be inhabited by Spanish colonists only. One was thus begun (1777) at San JosÉ, and a second (1781) at Los Angeles. Here then are plants of two distinct types in the growth of the country,—native vassals and foreign freemen.

As, one by one, missions were created, the native Californians were told they must come and live in them, and submit themselves to the fostering care of the fathers, who would teach them how to live as the whites did, and make known to them the blessings of Christianity, so that their children might exceed their fathers in knowledge, and as they were a docile, submissive and indolent people, they mostly obeyed the order unresistingly, and were set to work building houses, tilling the soil, or tending flocks or herds belonging to the missions, into which it was the aim of the fathers to draw all the wealth of the country.

These pious fathers, however, thought more of converting the Indian than of making a man of him. It is true they baptized and gave him a Christian name, but they held him in servitude all the same. The system looked to keeping him a dependant rather than rousing his ambitions, or showing him how he might better his condition. For instance, the Indian could hold no land in his own right. His labor went to enrich the mission, not himself. He was fed and clothed from the mission. He was a mere atom of society, a vassal of the Church, and was so treated. Men and women were put in the stocks or whipped at the pleasure of their masters, just the same as in slave plantations. If an Indian ran away, he was pursued and brought back by the military. The missionaries found him free, but took away his liberty. In short, spite of all the romance thrown round him, and though his condition was somewhat better than it had been in times past, yet when all is said, the mission Indian was hardly more than a serf. Still the work of the missions so prospered that by the end of the century there were eighteen of them with 13,500 converts. But at this time there were 110 more than 1,800 whites in the country, or only one hundred to a mission.

Such, briefly, were the Spanish missions of California, which undertook a noble work, not nobly done, which kept the word of promise to the ear and broke it to the hope.

If we look at the commercial policy of the province, and it is what we should most naturally turn to next, we shall find almost no business transacted with the outside world. Once a year the Manila galleon came to Monterey and took away the furs that had been collected there. Spain's policy shut out all other nations from her colonies, and to the same extent shut the colonies in. So foreign vessels were forbid to enter her ports at all. To this fact we owe the meagre and unfrequent reports of what was going on in the country, nor was it till 1786 that the world learned something of its true condition and worth.

In that year a French discovery ship put into Monterey. Her commander was La Peyrouse,[13] whom Louis XVI. had sent to the Pacific to look into the fur trade of the north-west coast, and who, after touching there, had come down the coast to refit in a Spanish port. La Peyrouse used the six weeks of his stay in Monterey to such purpose that we owe to him the first and only intelligent view of California had up to this time.

As a matter of course, communication with the neighbor provinces was mostly carried on by sea. There was a little trade with San Blas, and so with Old Mexico, but it was long before the way was opened to New Mexico by crossing the Colorado desert. One of the fathers, in 1776, set out from San Gabriel for the Colorado River, passing safely over the route now followed by the Southern Pacific Railway. Afterwards, a little trade sprung up between the provinces, but the way was long and the road beset with dangers.

The first American vessel to enter a California port was the ship Otter of Boston, in 1796. She was an armed trader, carrying a pass signed by Washington, of whom it was doubtful if the Californians had even so much as heard, though they admitted the Otter to trade with them.

The Spaniards had found the natives singularly free from the vices of civilization, but intermingling of the two races soon led to mingling of blood, and subsequent growth of an intermediate class half Spanish and half Indian, so combining certain traits of both without the native vigor of either.

After the discovery of America by Columbus, the French were among the first to turn their attention to this side of the Atlantic, not so much to make conquests in the spirit of universal dominion, as the Spaniards were doing, as to seek new outlets or new sources of supply for their commerce and fisheries.

Spain, as we have seen, forced other nations to follow her lead at a respectful distance. With one foot planted in Europe and the other in America, she bestrode the Atlantic as the colossus of the age.

But the newly awakened spirit of discovery would not down at the bidding of prince or pontiff, let him be never so great or so powerful. Once aroused it was sure to find ways by which some part of the benefits to accrue to mankind from this grand discovery should not be monopolized by a single nation. We might even say that all the nations of Europe instinctively felt this to be their opportunity,—the opportunity of the human race.

France had the ships, and France had the sailors. Sir Walter Raleigh tells us—and surely he is an unbiassed witness—that in CÆsar's time the French Bretons were the best sailors in the world. Were we disposed to call in question their right to this title at a later day,—the time of Columbus, Cabot, Cortereal, and Magellan,—what can be said of their boldly setting sail across an unknown ocean, like the Atlantic, in vessels not larger than a modern oyster-boat?

Yet the names they left behind them in their adventurous voyages make it certain that these Basque and Breton fishermen pushed their way into the Gulf of St. Lawrence soon after Cabot carried home to England the news that he had been in seas alive with codfish.

The knowledge thus gained pointed with unerring finger to the St. Lawrence as the open door through which French discoverers should pass into the spacious interior of our broad continent, though never, in their wildest flights of fancy, could they have conceived what lay beyond this door. So accident rather than choice led them on through the colder region of the north. And while the Spaniards had missed the Mississippi, a more fortunate chance led Frenchmen to find it by a very different, though no less certain, route. To them be the honor of the achievement!

Just as the march of Spanish civilization is traced in the names given by explorers of that nation, so, in like manner, those conferred by Frenchmen shall direct us in the lines by which they journeyed onward toward the setting sun.

Although Jacques Cartier[1] ascended the St. Lawrence so early as 1534-35, it was not till Champlain founded Quebec (1608), that the work of settling a French colony in Canada began in earnest. But even here, at Quebec, three hundred miles from the ocean, the great river poured its undiminished floods out of the wilderness beyond, and it bore its greatness on its face.

Astonished to find themselves only on the threshold, as it were, of the continent, the adventurous pioneers caught their first glimpses of its undoubted grandeur. That they were dazzled by it, is something we may easily conceive.

Whence came this silent river, this daily riddle for men to guess, and whither would it lead them? In what far country would its tiny tributary rills be found? Did they lie hid among the feet of far-off mountains, over-peering all the land like hoary giants, or gush forth from the bosom of some vast plain? Was it indeed the road to India?[2]

To such questions as these the future must make answer. All believed it would lead to India. But Champlain and those who, like him, looked at things broadly and deeply, were convinced that whoever should hold that river throughout its course would be masters of the continent it undoubtedly drained. And as Frenchmen ever loyal to their king and country, whose glory they would see increased, they purposed making here, in the wilderness, a New France which some day, perhaps, should rival, if not eclipse, the old.

To this work the French brought one qualification peculiarly their own. It was this. Of the three nations who have contended for control in our country, none have so readily adapted themselves to the original people as the French have. None have so thoroughly respected their feelings and prejudices. And none have so easily won their confidence, or so fully commanded their services.

Moreover, the French being rather traders than colonists in the true sense, because in Canada the fur trade[3] was chiefly looked to, and colonization was thought unfavorable to it, exploration became the profession, we might say, of many who trained themselves for it by living among the Indians, studying their language, their habits, learning how to use the paddle, making long canoe voyages, and so inuring their bodies to the toil and hardship of savage life. While the English remained in their villages, the French wandered everywhere.

If we add to this that the French are a nation of explorers, in whom discovery speedily develops into a passion, we shall get at the true animating spirit which carried them so far into the interior, whether as simple traders, soldiers, or missionaries.

The world could ill spare one of its pioneers. They are heralds of civilization following the guiding star of its destiny.

"I hear the tread of pioneers

Of nations yet to be."—Whittier.

From Quebec Champlain pushed on up the river to the island of Montreal, where he established a trading-post. Hither came the Hurons of the lake to barter their furs for French goods. They came by way of Lake Nipissing and the Ottawa. These Indians told the French all about their country, and the way to it. One of them showed Champlain an ingot of copper, and described the way his people refined it from the native ore. Interpreters began to study the Indian dialects, and eager traders to push out farther and farther into the wilderness for the sake of larger gains.

But the route to the west was not without perils which the French found it hard to overcome. Two great rival families of savages were divided from each other by the St. Lawrence and the Lakes. Those living north of the river may be included in the general name of Hurons;[1] those on the south were called Iroquois.[2] The two waged perpetual war with each other, drawing to them kindred or tributary tribes. In an evil hour Champlain had taken part with the Hurons, so identifying the French, in the minds of the Iroquois, with their worst enemies.

If to natural obstacles be added the enmity of a most valiant people, whose country stretched along the whole southern shore of Lake Ontario, who controlled the portage round the Falls of Niagara, and were undisputed masters of the lake itself, we shall go forward with some idea of the impediments to peaceful exploration and of the consummate folly which had put this stumbling-block in the way of it.

We know that before 1612 Champlain had informed himself quite thoroughly about Lake Ontario, because we find the lake outlined on his map of that year. For a like reason we judge him to have known of the Niagara River and Falls.[3] But that way the Iroquois lay.

This state of things forced exploration into a quite different channel. The French now had to take the roundabout and difficult way through the country of the friendly Hurons, their allies, or in other words to reach Lake Huron by making a canoe voyage up the Ottawa, across Lake Nipissing, and thence down French River to the lake, instead of going through the open waters of Lakes Ontario and Erie.

In 1615 Champlain brought some Franciscan missionaries to Quebec, one of whom made his way up the Ottawa to Lake Huron a little before him. In 1626 came the Jesuit Fathers,[4] who brought the zeal of their order to the cause of evangelizing the Indians. Then Richelieu,[5] who held the reins of the monarchy in his hands, founded his famous Company of New France, to whom the King not only granted full powers of government, but also a monopoly of the fur trade, so turning Canada over to private hands.

An unprosperous beginning, however, awaited the new order of things. Civil war had broken out in France. Richelieu was beleaguering the heretics of La Rochelle when England mingled in the fray. In 1629 the English took Quebec from the French, and did not restore[6] it again till 1632.

At this time the conquerors had carried Champlain to England, a prisoner of war. He returned to Quebec in 1633, again in chief command, though soon (1635) to die at his post, greatest among all the explorers of his time.

With Champlain's death,[7] a new force came into the cause of discovery and conversion, for since the coming of the Jesuits the two were henceforth to go hand in hand.

At the pleasure of the general of the order, its missionaries might be sent with scrip, staff, and wallet to the uttermost parts of the earth. Like John the Baptist in the wilderness, we find them living on such scant fare as nature supplied. Their beds were the bare ground. Under a canopy of green boughs they reared the altar of their humble missions for the worship of the ever-living God. Thus in exile and in want, they began their ministrations among the rude peoples of the wilderness because God and the Blessed Virgin had given them this pious work to do. Their food was often more nourishing to the imagination than the body, yet when compared with what they might expect at the hands of the Iroquois, hunger counted for little, since these barbarians of the New World burnt a missionary alive with the same zest that Christians of the Old did a heretic.

Men willing to undertake such duties, undergo such hardships, live such lives, are sure to leave their impress on any country. We shall find they did so on ours.

On their part the savages truly wished for knowledge of the white man's God, who they were told, and believed, was able to raise them up out of their lowly condition and make them rich and powerful like the whites. So much, at least, of the Jesuits' teachings they could comprehend.

No long time elapsed before these Jesuits made their way to the Hurons of the lake, and here (1634) they established their first missions.

Some say that in this same year a French trader, named Jean Nicolet,[8] made his way as far west as the Green Bay of Lake Michigan. There is hopeless confusion about the date, but none as to the fact of his being the first white man to set foot in what is now the State of Wisconsin.

When Nicolet got back to Quebec, he told the missionaries there that he had been on a river which would have taken him to the sea, had he kept on as he was going but three days longer. Hearing this story, the fathers believed themselves on the eve of no less a discovery than the long-sought outlet to India.

Although the Spaniards said little about the discoveries they were making on that side, they could not prevent some knowledge of what they were doing in New Mexico and on the Pacific from leaking out through the Jesuits who were themselves concerned in all these discoveries, and so were better informed than others in regard to their progress.

But from the year 1640, when the missionaries so certainly thought the key to the South Sea was in their hands, on to 1650, or one whole decade, the Iroquois gave the French and their allies other work to do at home. Hardly could the French consider themselves safe in their fort at Montreal, much less venture abroad upon new schemes of discovery. In vain the missionaries cried out upon the Iroquois as the great scourge of Christianity. In vain the elements were invoked to destroy them. The heathen were at the doors of their monasteries, the Dutch[9] were behind the Iroquois, urging them on, and the future of New France looked gloomy indeed.

Finally (1650) the Iroquois carried the war into the heart of the Huron country itself. The Hurons fought well, but were soon overpowered and driven from their villages into perpetual exile. Some fled to the east, some to the west, thereby becoming so thoroughly dispersed as never more to be a united nation.

With brief periods of cessation from active warfare, which were rather truces than peace, war raged until 1661, and as the Iroquois now commanded all the routes to the west, the French were effectually shut out from the Great Lakes for the time being.

A brighter day dawned at last. In 1660 some Lake Superior Indians arrived at Quebec in their canoes. When they were ready to go back, they offered to take a missionary home to live with them. It was a terrible journey, but the offer could not be neglected. Accordingly one was sent back in their company, but died in no long time after reaching their country, of misery and want. The Indians then asked for another missionary. The next to go was Father Allouez,[10] who set out in the summer of 1665 in company with some returning savages. Nothing was heard of him for nearly two years. He had about been given up for lost when he appeared at Quebec bringing strange tidings indeed. On the southern shore of Lake Superior, in the forest, among savage hordes, he had set up a mission. He had been much among the neighbor tribes, and had seen and talked with the dreaded Sioux, who proudly told him their country reached to the end of the world. They also told him of a great river, which he supposed must "fall into the sea by Virginia." The father wrote down the name as the Sioux pronounced it,—Messipi.[11]

Following in the footsteps of Allouez (1668), Fathers Dablon[12] and Marquette[13] were sent to the mission at the foot of Lake Superior. Afterward Dablon founded that at Sault St. Marie. With Dablon, Allouez (1670) made a journey from Green Bay up Fox River to Winnebago Lake, which they crossed. Going still farther on, they reached the head waters of the Wisconsin, which was then found to be a tributary of the Mississippi.

Thus, in the course of a few years, the Jesuits had planted missions at La Pointe, on Lake Superior, at Sault St. Marie, its outlet, at the Straits of Michilimackinac, and Green Bay. All were first fishing-places, next missions, and then outposts of civilization in the western world.

In the spring of 1671, with much ceremony, the French took formal possession of Sault St. Marie, the lakes Huron and Superior, and all the country as far as the western sea. In token of sovereignty a cross of wood was reared with the arms of France fixed upon it. Amid volleys of musketry, and shouts of "God save the king!" France thus proclaimed herself mistress of the Great West.

Since the day of Champlain's death New France had been wofully misgoverned. Men who, like him, would be willing to give their best efforts and best years to building up the colony, in singleness of purpose, were not forthcoming. Champlain left no successor. Speaking generally, the post of governor was calculated at what it would be worth to the holder. Sometimes it was sold outright, sometimes given in payment of services, or again to some needy favorite as a means to repair his ruined fortunes. Hence most governors looked upon Canada as a place to get rich in, just as the better sort of merchants looked to making fortunes, and then going home to France as quickly as possible to enjoy them. Where everybody thought about the country only as a place of temporary sojourn and nobody as a home, it is evident there could be no feeling of permanence.

Meanwhile, the short-sighted policy of continually drawing upon the natural resources of Canada, without making the loss good, may be compared with stripping mountains of their forests. Under this policy the colony was like a man who is slowly bleeding to death.

But it was now the age of Louis XIV., who, if sometimes a hard master, possessed the rare gift of bringing round him men of superior abilities.

Once more let us glance at the two leading monarchies of Europe, and see if their relative attitude, one to the other, has been in any wise altered since Pavia.

Under Charles V., Spain menaced Europe with universal dominion; under Philip II. and Philip III., she had lost the Low Countries; under Philip IV., Portugal; under Charles II., Burgundy and Flanders. History offers few examples of such rapid decline.

The characters of these sovereigns may be summed up as follows: Charles V. was a great general and great king. Philip II. was a king only. Philip III. and Philip IV. were not even kings. Charles II. could hardly be called a man. This dotard, at thirty-nine, passed his time in making and destroying his will. Choosing rather to ally his house with France than Germany, Charles made a French prince his heir. It was to this prince that Louis XIV., in embracing him, made use of the memorable words, "There are no longer any Pyrenees."

It was then, as we have said, the age of Louis XIV. and of French supremacy in continental affairs.

In our continent Spain was already playing a secondary part. A more vigorous hand had seized the standard of discovery, and was now bearing it onward to victory.

It had gone all the way from the humble Jesuit mission at the foot of Lake Superior to France, that the greatest river of America was as good as found,—the greatest, because all admitted that only its head streams could have been touched, while it was seen that its course must of necessity lie on one or the other side of the mountains of New Mexico,—toward the Gulf of Mexico or the Vermilion Sea. But on which side they could not tell.

Of course there were two opinions. Some favored one, some the other, but either belief announced the river of the continent. Whoever should first plant themselves at its mouth, would inevitably control its whole course. And so the idea took root in the minds of the statesmen and geographers of the time, who set about trying to map out the destiny of the future empire.

The shrewdest among the French explorers did not believe that the Mississippi and Colorado could be the same, or that the great river flowed into the South Sea. Father Allouez, as we have seen, thought otherwise. In any case an incentive had been found for more earnest effort, with more definite aims. There began to be, in America, a really national question.

So it was that step by step that great mysterious river which had so long flowed through men's brains, grew at last into definiteness, though still waiting for the veil of centuries to be lifted.

So far America had been the orange to be squeezed by whoever should possess it. Louis, like the rest, no doubt looked more to the revenue he hoped to get from New France, than to the mere glory of extending his dominions in that quarter, though he was also ambitious of doing this. Yet for either purpose he must have suitable agents, while his political aims in Europe would be furthered by crippling the English and Spanish colonies in America. The English were to be hemmed in on the seaboard, while the Spaniards would find themselves checked from advancing beyond the limits they already occupied.

When the royal arms of France were raised at Sault St. Marie, New England was pushing out toward the east, not the west. No English could be found west of the Hudson. No word of English had been heard beyond Lake Ontario. There was not yet a Pennsylvania. Virginia lay east of the Blue Ridge; the Carolinas were but recently settled; Florida was hardly more than a Spanish military post.

In all times large views demand large men for their execution. In looking about him for a governor who ought to be more of a soldier than politician, less a courtier than a man of action, though something of both, the king's eye fell upon Count Frontenac, whose rule somewhat resembled that of his august master, in the attempted concentration of all power in himself.

In 1672 Colbert, the prime minister, wrote to the intendant of Canada that his majesty wished him to give his attention to the discovery of the South Sea. The wish being the same as a command, the intendant sought for a fitting agent to carry it into effect.

Louis de Buade, Compte de Frontenac, showed little loss of physical or mental vigor outwardly, though at seventy incessant wear and tear had begun to tell on a constitution and will of iron. His eye had not lost its fire, nor his step its elasticity, but a deep crease between the brows gave a look of care to his face, and bespoke the power and habit of concentrated thought. His complexion was florid, his moustache, imperial, and eyebrows, white as snow. Notwithstanding a certain cast of sensuality there, the face, if not noble, had that decided distinction about it which impressed the beholder with the idea that he was in the presence of no ordinary man. Men called him the savior of Canada, for he had been sent at a most critical moment to retrieve, if possible, the blunders, the incapacity of his predecessor, Denonville. Crafty, supple, acute, he was the very man to comprehend Indian diplomacy, to penetrate or baffle Indian duplicity, or by a politic act to disarm the hostility of these wily adversaries. At the same time, he not only knew when and where to strike the most deadly blows, but how to draw from success in war the most important, the most fruitful results. The Iroquois, who waged incessant and destructive warfare against Canada, called him the great Onontio. He had not disdained to join an Indian war-dance, in which he was the first to strike the war-post with his hatchet. He harangued his savage allies in their own sententious and highly imaginative rhetoric, imitated their own methods of war, and even their atrocities in roasting prisoners alive,—to the end, perhaps, that the Indians might admire in him the qualities which they most valued in themselves.

"Peace hath her victories no less renowned than war."

In Louis Joliet,[1] Talon, the intendant,[2] found the man he wanted. Joliet promised to see the mouth of the Mississippi before he came back to give an account of himself, and being already a veteran explorer, no less was expected of him than that he would keep his word.

We remember that exploration and conversion were now always to go hand in hand. One of the Jesuit missionaries at the Lakes was therefore named by his superior to go along with Joliet. This was Father James Marquette. Father Marquette was then in charge of the mission at Michilimackinac, where Joliet found him impatiently expecting his coming, for ever since Marquette had heard the Indians talk about the great river, the wish to make a pilgrimage to it had lain next his heart. He prayed the Virgin to obtain for him this boon, and his prayer had been granted at last. Marquette had also heard of the Missouri, and the natives who dwelt in prodigious numbers along its banks. All these things he was anxious to see with his own eyes in order to know how far the truth would agree with what had been told him. He was impatient to carry the gospel among all these lost tribes, to whom he felt himself called by special appointment of Heaven.

The explorers set out from Mackinac[3] in May, 1673, in two canoes. They were seven men in all. Coasting Lake Michigan[4] till they came to Green Bay, they entered Fox River, crossed Lake Winnebago, and on the 7th of June reached the Mascoutin Village, where to Marquette's great joy a cross[5] was standing unharmed among the wigwams to signify that Christians had already been there.

They had now reached the farthest limit of previous exploration. So far as known no traveller had gone beyond this spot.

At this place the explorers took Indian guides. Setting out again on the 10th, they forced the canoes slowly along through shallow waters, choked with wild rice, which grew so tall about them as almost to meet above their heads, till they could go no farther. Then lifting the canoes from the water, the explorers bore them on their shoulders across the prairie to the Wisconsin, upon which they again launched them.

"They glided calmly down the tranquil stream, by islands choked with trees and matted with entangling grape-vines, by forests, groves and prairies, the parks and pleasure-grounds of a prodigal Nature; by thickets and marshes and broad bare sandbars; under the shadowing trees, between whose tops looked down from afar the bold brow of some woody bluff. At night the bivouac—the canoes inverted on the bank, the flickering fire, the meal of bison flesh or venison, the evening pipes, and slumber beneath the stars; and when in the morning they embarked again, the mist hung on the river like a bridal veil, then melted before the sun, till the glassy water and the languid woods basked breathless in the sultry glare."

On the 17th of June, Marquette and Joliet reached the site of Prairie du Chien. Here the Wisconsin was swallowed up in the broad current of a mightier stream whose dark waters swept by without pause, like something conscious of its power. No sooner had they looked than the eager explorers knew it for the object of their hopes and prayers. A few vigorous strokes of the paddles, and they were floating on its majestic tide lost in wonder and praise, for the half had not been told them. There could be no mistake. The long-sought Mississippi had been found again.

With cautious strokes and watchful eyes the canoes were steered southward. Sometimes sailing in the dark shadows of overhanging forests where danger might lurk unseen, again gliding on through sunny prairies, unfolding vistas of quiet beauty to the view, the delighted explorers kept on their venturous course. It was a voyage which threw around them the charm of an exceeding loveliness.

Now and then the party would land to cook a hasty meal, but not knowing what sort of people they might meet with, they dared not sleep on shore. So at nightfall the canoes were anchored off in the stream. For a whole week they floated on in a primeval solitude. No sign of the hand of man was to be seen about them. No human voice was raised in welcome or in warning. All was silent as at the creation. Herds of bison, grazing along the banks, raised their shaggy heads to gaze in wonder at the passing travellers, but in all this time nothing in human form appeared to molest them.

One day the explorers saw footprints upon the shore. Consulting together, they resolved to follow them. Leaving the canoes in charge of their men, Joliet and Marquette set out. The path led to a village whose inhabitants sallied forth at the strange white men's halloo, amazed to see them there. The chief men offered the peace-pipe. Marquette asked them what people they were.

"We are the Illinois," was the ready reply. Then the two Frenchmen knew they were among friends[6] who would tell them what they wanted to know about the river below—what people they were likely to fall in with, and whether friendly or not. The Illinois feasted the strangers, and spread buffalo-robes for them to sleep on, but urged them not to think of descending the river farther on account of the demon which guarded the passage.

Going back to their comrades, with the whole village for an escort, the explorers pushed off again on their voyage. First they passed the Illinois, with its remarkable rocks. Next the Missouri,[7] child of the mountains, poured its turbid flood into the clear waters of the Mississippi with such impetuous force as to cut its way through to the opposite bank, so giving its own dull hue to the whole stream.

Getting clear of all dangers, the adventurous voyagers next passed the mouth of the Ohio, or Beautiful River. Day after day they floated on between forests of cypress, only once meeting with Indians by the way, till they had descended as far as the mouth of the Arkansas, when suddenly a fleet of war canoes was seen putting off from the shore to cut them off. In vain Marquette waved the calumet,[8] which the Illinois had given him to be his safeguard, and which among savages is the symbol of peace. The young warriors fitted their arrows and bent their bows. In another moment the explorers would have been riddled with arrows, but for the timely arrival of the elders who called out to the young men to stay their hands. With these the French now held a parley, and having made known their pacific intentions, were suffered to land and were kindly treated.

With the help of one among them who understood a little of the Illinois tongue, Marquette was able to make his purpose to reach the sea understood. He now learned that this was not the principal town of the Arkansas nation. That was eight or ten leagues farther down the river. So the next day the Frenchmen went on to the greater town,[9] where they hoped to learn all they wished to know.

Strangely enough, the explorers had now reached the very point made memorable by the coming of De Soto a century and a half earlier. And as if his fate had cast a spell over the spot where they stood following the course of the great river with their eyes till it was lost in the distance, neither Joliet nor Marquette was destined to pass beyond it.

Here the Indians gave the explorers a feast, while holding a council upon the question whether they could or could not proceed with safety. In return the whites distributed gifts among the Indians. These Indians had little food except corn, of which they raised three crops each year. In addition to this, they gave their visitors dog's flesh to eat, as a mark of honorable treatment. Although they had knives and hatchets of European make, and could mould rude earthenware pots and jars to cook their food in, these people were of lower condition than those who lived higher up the river, although from symmetry of form they were known as the "handsome men." The men went entirely nude; the women wore skins about their loins.

They told Marquette that the people lower down would never let him pass through their country; that they were a people who had fire-arms and knew how to use them. This made them so formidable to their neighbors, that these Arkansas dared not hunt the buffalo in that country, though the plains there were alive with them.

Such ill reports touching the obstacles in the way of further progress decided the explorers to turn back, although the Indians said the sea was only ten journeys distant. They were too few to fight. Their capture would most surely frustrate the whole purpose of the expedition. All felt that this chance should not be risked. They had at least gone far enough to settle the vexed question about the outlet to the sea. All indications pointed to the Gulf of Mexico.

It is evident that the explorers took counsel of their own wishes, perhaps of their own fears, in making their decision to go back. Be that as it may, Joliet had not kept his promise to Talon.

On the 17th of July the explorers began their long journey homeward. They were weeks making their way back to the Illinois, into which they turned their canoes, knowing it would shorten the journey. Ascending this river to the Indian town of Kaskaskia, the party procured guides who conducted them to Lake Michigan.

"Eagles fly above, but sheep flock together."—Spanish.

The Mississippi had now been struck at two points. Its course had been explored for six hundred miles, glimpses of its greatness had been caught, its mysteries partly solved. A man of greater mark now put his hand to the completion of what Marquette and Joliet had left unfinished.

Robert Cavelier de la Salle[1] was no simple explorer, having some little education, like Joliet, or pious missionary, whose sole object was to make proselytes, like Marquette.

La Salle was a man of far different mould. In him the man of brains, of ideas, of resources, of unbending will, were all joined in one. He was a serious man,—a man of heroic patience, whose highest qualities shone forth brightest in moments of supreme trial. Disaster, calumny, treachery, disease, assailed by turns, but could never crush his indomitable spirit. Whether he stood alone amid the wreck of his projects, or was confronted by unforeseen perils, his fortitude never forsook him. Although rather stern than indulgent toward his men, there was that in him which commanded respect and obedience; more, La Salle did not desire. He was the master-spirit of his own enterprises—the originator and executor of them—not the simple agent of other men's schemes. From a study of the man, in the light of what he aimed to do and what he actually achieved, we should say that, "Where there's a will there's a way," was the inspiration of La Salle's efforts, and unique maxim of his career.

But La Salle had his drawbacks also. Naturally thoughtful and reserved he lived too much apart, in himself, to be a good companion in the wandering republic of which he was the head, though his followers learned to look up to him if they could not love him. He could not unbosom himself to his inferiors, nor could they understand that mixture of pride and reserve which wrapped him about like a garment. What they took for austerity of manner was the absorption of the man in himself. Those who knew him best would have followed him to the end of the world, but La Salle was so constituted that few could know him. Of all this La Salle, himself, was unconscious. His responsibilities were too great, his cares too many, for indulgence in trivial things. With minds like Louis XIV., Colbert or Frontenac, the case was different. La Salle impressed them as no ordinary man could. So when the possibility of getting control of our continent by stretching a chain of French posts from Quebec to the St. Lawrence unfolded itself to his mind, in its grandeur, the King at once saw in La Salle the fittest man for the work. And La Salle knew no such word as fail.

La Salle was one of those who in the beginning believed the Mississippi flowed into the Vermilion Sea. If we may put faith in appearances, his original idea was not so much to descend the great river to its mouth, as to make his way across the continent to the great South Sea, and so to reach China and Japan. And the name of La Chine,[2] which La Salle gave his own residence, at Montreal, really seems an indication of what was then uppermost in his mind.

This is instructive as showing how slowly geographical knowledge of the westward half of the continent unfolded itself.

As we have said, Cavelier de la Salle was a man of one idea, practical in some things, visionary in others, but in pursuit of a purpose as steadfast as fate.

In 1666, at twenty-three, he found himself in Canada. He took up his residence at the upper end of the island of Montreal, where the St. Lawrence is broken up into rapids which to this day bear the name of La Salle's residence, La Chine.

Here La Salle quietly spent three years, hearing the while from the Indians who came to La Chine, all sorts of strange stories about the vast region toward the setting sun, and the people who lived in it.

We have seen the missions already firmly established on the Great Lakes. Joliet and Marquette had reached the Mississippi by one route and returned by another and different one, leading them through the heart of the great Illinois nation, to whom Marquette believed himself specially called. His labors among this people had left an impression highly favorable to those who might come after him.

It was from the Iroquois, who came to visit him at La Chine, that La Salle first heard of the Ohio. The passion for discovery seems to have found swift and intense development in him. He was young, ambitious and eager for adventure. La Salle was only twenty-six when he resolved to go in search of the Ohio.

Immediately he sold La Chine to procure an outfit. In the summer of 1669 he set out for the Iroquois country where we lose sight of him altogether. Yet, while no itinerary of his journey remains extant, his claim to have discovered the Ohio is conceded by his rival, Joliet.

Meanwhile, Frontenac, that man of action, was not idle. He was bent on opening the direct road to the western lakes, peaceably if he could, forcibly if he must, but at any rate to open it. To this end he now showed the Iroquois that he was not afraid of them by building a fort at Kingston,[3] which was called, in his honor, Fort Frontenac. This post gave the command of Lake Ontario to the French. It was at once a check and a menace to the Iroquois, who saw the mastery of the lakes slipping away from them but could not prevent it. Through his favor with Frontenac, La Salle secured from the king a grant of Fort Frontenac, which, in his hands, became not only an important trading-post, but the base of future contemplated discoveries. Here La Salle brooded over the projects which were to make him famous not for a day, but for all time.

For ten years more La Salle is found repairing his fortunes, maturing his plans, acquiring information, or studying Indian dialects. The Gulf of Mexico was to be reached, and a French port and colony established there into which all the trade of the river should flow. Thus the Mississippi, in French hands, was to be a wedge dividing the Spaniards in Florida from the Spaniards in New Mexico. Possessed of the two great waterways of the continent—the St. Lawrence and Mississippi—France was to take the first place in America. When all was ready La Salle laid his plans before the King.

In his memorial La Salle forcibly contrasts the barren soil, dense forests and harsh climate of Canada, with the fertile soil, sunny prairies and genial climate of the West. He describes it as being a country possessed of every thing requisite for planting flourishing colonies; and as one thoroughly familiar with it. Its native products, its abundance of fish and game, its pleasant streams, are all dwelt upon without the exaggeration with which explorers usually embellish their reports. In La Salle's view the facts were all-sufficient for his purpose.

In thus seeking the enlargement of French empire at the expense of Spain, La Salle had found a congenial field for his talents—a purpose which lifts him above the rank of a mere explorer or trader. It is true he expected to find riches and honor for himself, yet these were things which, of necessity, hinged upon the success of the scheme as a whole, not of a part.

Impressed by La Salle's representations, Louis granted him a patent for those regions he proposed to discover, with power to build forts and govern therein for the term of five years. La Salle was to do all this at his own cost, looking to his monopoly of trade to reimburse himself. So he set about borrowing money right and left. Never generous, the King limited himself to giving La Salle the opportunity he asked for.

While in Paris, on the business of the patent, La Salle became acquainted with an Italian officer, named Tonty, who afterward served him with rare fidelity in his various expeditions. Upon La Salle's return to Quebec, Father Louis Hennepin, a Franciscan friar, sought and obtained leave to join him. And thus matters stood in September, 1678.

La Salle's plans included the following details. A vessel had been built at Frontenac for the navigation of Lake Ontario, so doing away with the tedious canoe voyages of the past. This brought the western missions one step nearer Montreal. Next, the Niagara River was to be seized upon and held, as Frontenac had been, by building a fort at its mouth. The next step would be the construction of a vessel, above the falls, to navigate the western lakes. With this done the real point of departure for the Mississippi would be removed to Lake Michigan, and the delay and fatigue of previous expeditions saved to the present one. Such were the essential features of La Salle's plan.

Accordingly La Salle set about building the fort at Niagara[1] and the vessel above the falls, during the winter of 1679. In a word, he was perfecting his communications as he went along.

In August La Salle embarked on board his new vessel and hoisted sail. It was the first which had ever ploughed the waters of Lake Erie. In due season he reached Michilimackinac, whence, after some stay, he again sailed for Green Bay. Here La Salle landed his people and goods. The Griffin was sent back to Niagara, for the supplies La Salle wanted, with order to return without delay to the rendezvous. With fourteen men La Salle then started in canoes on his journey to the Mississippi.

Various adventures signalled the progress of the explorers along the shores of Lake Michigan, as far as the mouth of the St. Joseph, which had been chosen for the final point of departure. The autumn season was well advanced. Already the north wind blew keen and cold across the lake. The canoes were tossed about on a stormy sea, which broke with violence against the inhospitable coast, threatening shipwreck if they approached it. Often the canoes would be swamped in the surf when the rising sea made it dangerous to keep the lake. Often the explorers threw themselves on the frozen ground at night, wet to the skin and famishing with hunger.

Reaching the St. Joseph, La Salle set his men to work building a fort, while he anxiously waited the coming of Tonty, who had been ordered to join him at this place. At last Tonty came. Winter had now set in. In the first days of December the united party paddled up the St. Joseph, crossed over the portage to the Kankakee, descended it to the Illinois, reaching at length the great Illinois town,[2] numbering, by actual count, four hundred and sixty lodges.

To their great disappointment the town was deserted, all the Illinois having gone to hunt the buffalo, as their custom was at this season of the year. It was a heavy blow to La Salle, who had expected to get guides and a supply of food here, as well as to recruit his men. The explorers however obtained a supply by opening the caches[3] in which the Illinois kept their winter store.

Somewhere below Peoria Lake, La Salle fell in with the Illinois, who told him all the fables they could invent in order to prevent his going on, for it seems they had some inkling his doing so would be prejudicial to them in the future.

The Mississippi, they said, was beset by men of fierce aspect who would kill them all, its waters infested with serpents, alligators and like monsters lying in wait to devour them, while the river itself finally plunged into a raging whirlpool in which they and their canoes would be swallowed up.

Although La Salle treated these silly tales with the contempt they deserved, they took effect upon his men, six of whom deserted on the spot. The explorers wintered among these Illinois in a fort which La Salle significantly named CrÈvecoeur.[4]

The name tells its own story. On the lakes they had been nearly drowned. On the march they had often gone hungry, La Salle with the rest. Treason was with him in his own camp, danger in that of the Illinois. His own men had tried to poison him. And now, to cap the climax of misfortune, no word had come of the Griffin[5]—the Griffin on which hung all hope of successfully continuing their search.

But nothing could shake the resolve of La Salle. Sending Father Hennepin to explore the lower course of the Illinois, the chief left Tonty in charge of Fort CrÈvecoeur, while he himself set out for Frontenac in order to learn what had become of the Griffin, and bring back the things he must have before it would be possible to stir from Fort CrÈvecoeur again.

We need not follow him on this remarkable journey, itself no mean exploit.

La Salle had not yet reached the Mississippi. In August, 1680, he again left Montreal with this object. Again he made his way to the Illinois village. This time heaps of charred and blackened rubbish, strewed with mangled bodies, met his eyes. During his absence the Iroquois had wreaked their vengeance upon the Illinois, as already they had done upon the Hurons.

Where was the faithful Tonty? What had become of him? After La Salle's departure, his men rose against Tonty, plundered the fort of what was worth taking, demolished it, and went off in a body, leaving Tonty to shift for himself.

But where was he? La Salle found CrÈvecoeur in ruins, and the place a solitude.

In despair La Salle searched the river to its mouth, so reaching the Mississippi at last, but without finding the least trace of his lieutenant. On every side fate seemed conspiring for his defeat.

Still undaunted, for the third time La Salle set out in the autumn of 1681. In a wonderful manner Tonty had made his escape from the Iroquois, and rejoined his chief on the lakes. This time the expedition passed through the Chicago River to the Illinois, and thence down to the Mississippi, which was reached on the 6th of February.

After a short stay here the little fleet of canoes resumed the long voyage before them. On the 24th, the explorers landed near the Third Chickasaw Bluff to hunt. Here they built a stockade which was called Fort Prudhomme.[6]

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."

It will be remembered, that, when La Salle found himself so unfortunately stopped among the Illinois, his active mind was promptly casting about for something to be achieved elsewhere. This object he found in the Upper Mississippi, which he determined should be explored in his absence, so interlocking his own discoveries with those of Joliet and Marquette. Two of his people were accordingly sent to perform this duty, with whom went Father Hennepin,[1] the Franciscan missionary before spoken of.

The party set out from Fort CrÈvecoeur on the last day of February, 1680, while at the same time La Salle was starting northward for Lake Ontario.

As historian of the expedition, Hennepin's vanity has led him to claim the leadership for himself, while he accuses La Salle of meaning to get rid of him,[2] in the same breath. We know, however, from La Salle that neither is true. La Salle was much too good a judge of character not to see through the friar after so long trial of him, though, knowing him to be capable, he gave him the chance of being useful. For the expedition itself, it is certain La Salle had it much at heart. Touching Hennepin's narrative, La Salle dryly says the friar "spoke more according to his wishes than what he knew," or, in the familiar phrase, was in the habit of drawing on his imagination for his facts.

Hennepin himself seems to have been that singular anomaly, seldom met with in real life, a brave braggart, whose self-conceit and arrogant self-assertion stand forth in strong contrast with the modesty and patience always shown by La Salle when he is speaking of his own achievements. And it is further characteristic of the two men, that while one felt he could afford to wait for time to do him justice, the other sought the cheap glory to be had by sounding his own praise abroad, even when exposure was certain to follow. So that nothing Hennepin has written can be accepted as true, without other evidence to substantiate it. The more is the pity! But the exaggerations of all our early chronicles show that they were penned by men influenced by the passions or rivalries of the time, often so distorting what is true as to make it fit the particular end they may have had in view. To this lamentable want of integrity may be attributed the fact that history has so often to be re-written.

For six weeks the explorers plied their paddles against the current of the Mississippi unmolested. One day when they had drawn their canoe on shore to repair it, the Frenchmen were suddenly surrounded by a war party of Sioux[3]—the very people of all others whom they most wished to avoid.

In a moment the whites were made prisoners. The scowling looks and threatening gestures of their captors boded them no good. Hennepin proffered the peace-pipe. It was snatched from his hand. When he began muttering prayers aloud, the Indians angrily signed to him to be silent, thinking he was preparing some charm to overpower them with, but they let him chant the same prayers, he says, thinking there could be no sorcery or medicine in song. Presently the Sioux began their homeward journey, thus making it clear to the Frenchmen that their future discoveries must be made as captives.

In nineteen days the party landed near the site of St. Paul.[4] From here the trail was struck leading to the Sioux villages, which were reached after five days of hard marching and harder usage at the hands of the Sioux warriors.

Here the prisoners were separated, Hennepin going to an aged chief who adopted him as his own son. So they passed the winter among the Sioux.

In the following summer, when the Sioux went on their annual buffalo hunt, they took the three Frenchmen along with them. This was the prisoners' opportunity for regaining their liberty, and they hastened to make use of it. La Salle had promised to send word of himself to them at the mouth of the Wisconsin, and they knew he would not fail them. Telling the Sioux their friends were coming, loaded with gifts, the greedy Sioux were easily induced to let Hennepin and one other go down the river to meet them alone and unguarded. One Frenchman remained behind with the Sioux as a hostage for the others.

The two whites began their descent of the river, carrying their canoe round the Falls of St. Anthony,[5] to which Father Hennepin gave this name, till, after many adventures, Lake Pepin[6] was reached.

To their consternation, the travellers were overtaken at this point by a party of Sioux who had followed their prisoners so closely, as hardly to lose sight of them, and now pushed on ahead to the Wisconsin. Finding neither traders[7] nor goods there, as they had been led to expect, the Sioux paddled back again in bad humor to the place where the whites had remained. After being soundly rated for the cheat they had practised, the unlucky whites were forced to turn about and go back again as they came.

After some longer stay among the Sioux, the captives were found by some French traders who had made their way from Lake Superior, through the Sioux country, to the Mississippi. Hearing of the three white men, while on the way, these traders had kept on from village to village, till they reached the one in which Hennepin and his companions were detained, and ransomed them out of the hands of the savages.

At the head of the rescuing party was one Du Lhut, or Duluth, for whom the city of Duluth is named, as Lake Pepin is also said to have been named for another of this party. Thus, in St. Anthony's Falls, Lake Pepin, and Duluth we have a group of names commemorating the men of La Salle's exploring party, as well as the exploration itself.

All the Frenchmen now returned to the Sioux villages at Mille Lac together.

They finally made their way back to the French settlements by the Wisconsin and Green Bay route, as Marquette had done before them, and the Sioux[8] also for many generations had travelled to the great lake.

Thus, in 1682, La Salle had secured an empire for France, and at last found a legitimate field for his own ambition. His Louisiana comprised every thing between the Alleghanies and Rio Grande, the Gulf of Mexico and Hudson's Bay. Upon opening the maps of the time we find the English crowded into the comparatively narrow limits extending from the eastern slopes of the Appalachian range to the sea, the Spaniards occupying those between the Rio Grande and Gulf of California, while the whole great heart of the continent, including portions of Carolina and Florida, with its magnificent system of waterways, is covered by the names New France and Louisiana.

But La Salle himself, the man of large and luminous views, had now reached the high-water-mark of his achievements. The wave which owed its impetus to his active brain, expended its force with his life.

Upon his return voyage up the Mississippi the explorer fell sick. He was taken to Fort Prudhomme, the one built by his order on the way down, where he lay for months a helpless invalid, chafing under the inaction thus forced upon him. As soon as he felt strong enough to bear the journey, La Salle proceeded on to Michilimackinac, where he was no sooner arrived than he set about the work of rebuilding the trading-post on the Illinois, in room of the one his treacherous followers had destroyed in his absence.

This was to be his half-way house to the Mississippi. Here he trusted to gather a colony alike capable of drawing to itself all the trade of a vast tributary region, as of defending itself and his allies, the Illinois, against the incursions of the Iroquois.

But La Salle's greater project for securing the results of his discoveries, by planting a colony at the mouth of the Mississippi, henceforth looked to reaching that point by sea and not by land. To transport every thing overland from Quebec to the Gulf was of course impracticable. No one knew this better than La Salle himself, yet he also foresaw the importance of keeping the way to Canada open if the colony at the Gulf was to thrive. To this end the fort on the Illinois, and that at the Chickasaw Bluff, were but incidents.

After establishing himself strongly on the Illinois, La Salle went to France in order to lay his projects before the King.

In consequence of a rupture with Spain he found the court well disposed to listen to his proposals. These contemplated the building of a fort sixty leagues above the mouth of the Mississippi, which La Salle assumed would draw around it, as to a common centre, all the neighbor tribes. Gifts and good usage had already disposed these tribes favorably toward the French, while the Spaniards had already alienated them by harsh treatment. With their help La Salle asserted that the conquest of New Biscay,[1] with its rich silver-mines, would be an easy matter, because there were not more than four hundred Spaniards in all that province.

The plan met instant favor. To enable La Salle to carry it out, four vessels were given him instead of the two he asked for. A naval officer by the name of Beaujeu was assigned to command them at sea. La Salle set himself to work with his usual energy. Soldiers, priests and colonists, arms, munitions and stores, were provided in sufficient number or quantity to put the colony on its feet at once.

Long before the ships were ready to sail from Rochefort, La Salle and Beaujeu had quarrelled. Beaujeu overrated himself, and underrated La Salle. Often betrayed by those he trusted most, La Salle's naturally suspicious nature led him to distrust every one, above all Beaujeu, who constantly ridiculed him and his schemes to his friends. So La Salle's reserve gave offence to Beaujeu, who grew sulky, and was at no pains to conceal his dislike for the whole affair. Here then at the very outset the seeds of disaster were sowed. It was under such unpromising conditions that the fleet set sail in July, 1684, for the Gulf of Mexico.

Three of the vessels reached St. Domingo in two months, with a large number of sick on board, of whom La Salle himself was one. The fourth had been taken at sea by Spanish buccaneers, thus depriving the colonists of the tools and provisions with which she was loaded.

Upon La Salle's recovery from what came near proving a fatal illness, the fleet again put to sea, though it was now November, and much precious time had been lost.

Steering westward into the Gulf, they made their landfall on New Year's Day, but when La Salle went on shore to look about him, he could discover no sign of the great river he was in search of. The colonists were upon a low, flat coast, without natural landmarks to guide them, or knowledge of the longitude of the place they were seeking, or of the currents which the Gulf sets in motion. No wonder, then, that La Salle failed to recognize any part of the inhospitable coast before him.

Finding no trace of the Mississippi, and as the failure to do so was every day productive of disputes between himself and Beaujeu, La Salle resolved to land where he was, notwithstanding his belief that he had gone too far to the westward. He was, in fact, at the time of taking this resolution, on the coast of Texas, more than four hundred miles from the Mississippi.

Almost at the moment of landing, La Salle's storeship, which contained the greater part of his provisions, grounded, and became a wreck; it is said, through the carelessness or treachery of her master, who also was on bad terms with La Salle. Indeed, from first to last La Salle's enemies seem to have exerted themselves to ruin him with a zeal that, if honestly employed, would easily have insured the success of all his plans.

This disaster, taken with the fact that he knew not where he was, would have staggered any one but La Salle. His dispirited people were huddled together on the sands, among the bales and boxes saved from the wreck, out of which they made themselves a temporary intrenchment and shelter, for like vultures who scent their prey from afar, hostile Indians hovered about the encampment, watching their chance to cut off any who should stray away from its protection.

Yet misgiving for the success of an enterprise so disastrously begun, was turned into dread when the colonists learned that they were nowhere near their actual destination. La Salle, indeed, tried to put heart in them by pretending to believe otherwise, but a little time soon dispelled this fallacy. He, however, took the best means of quieting discontent by setting every one at work. Beaujeu had sailed away after promising much, but performing little else. The colonists now had much more to fear from the Spaniards, than the Spaniards from them. Yet for La Salle nothing remained but to make the best of the situation until he should have time to look it fairly in the face.

Meanwhile, the essential thing to be done was to get his people housed in a situation which should admit of their living in some comfort and security, as the place where they first landed was alike destitute of wood, water and comfortable lodging.

He therefore chose a site on the Lavaca River,[2] two leagues above its entrance into Matagorda Bay. To this place the colonists removed themselves and their goods, and under the energetic direction of La Salle, whose previous training now stood him in good stead, they set about building themselves a home in this out-of-the-way corner of the world. As it rose from the soil, the ever-loyal La Salle named it St. Louis,[3] in honor of his sovereign.

The summer was hot and sickly. Death was soon busy among the colonists, those who ate wild fruits imprudently suffering first of all. Now and then the Indians would kill some straggling hunter. Thus, in one or another form, death lurked about them. And beneath these apparent dangers, in which all shared alike, smouldered the embers of unreasoning discontent which certain of La Salle's followers were always fanning into a flame.

Having seen his people comfortably housed, and in condition to defend themselves, the indefatigable La Salle now turned his attention to the prime purpose of his expedition, with the certainty of the needle to its pole, for all he had so far done was merely a step in this direction. There was no time to lose.

Although it is not clear why La Salle should determine to march overland, rather than make search along the shores, the character of the Gulf coast affords a possible clew. This is described by Mr. Cable as follows: "Across the southern end of the State,"—he is speaking now of Louisiana,—"from Sabine Lake to Chandeleur Bay, with a north and south width of from ten to thirty miles, and an average of about fifteen, stretch the Gulf marshes, the wild haunt of myriads of birds and water-fowl, serpents and saurians, hares, raccoons and wildcats, deep-bellowing frogs, and clouds of insects, and by a few hunters whose solitary and rarely frequented huts speck the wide green horizon at remote intervals."

It was now October, 1685. With fifty men La Salle set out for the river he had discovered only to lose again. Those who staid behind, lived on buffalo-meat,[3] turtles, oysters, fish, and wild fowl which the prairies or lagoons around them plentifully supplied in their season.

In March, the exploring party came back unsuccessful and in rags. They had wandered far, but had not found the Mississippi. One crowning disaster now befell these exiles. Up to this time they had kept one little vessel of their fleet with them, which was to take them to the Mississippi so soon as its exact situation should be discovered. This vessel, in which their sole dependence lay, was now lost.

In desperate situations, desperate measures are alone to be availed of. La Salle's resolve was heroic. He determined to make a last effort to reach the Mississippi and the lakes. Indeed, there was now no hope of obtaining relief nearer than Canada, therefore to Canada he must go, leaving the colonists to await his return.

For this purpose La Salle chose twenty men, with whom he again set out from the fort on the 22d of April, 1686. Each man carried his own pack and weapons, and as the little band filed out upon the prairie, the hopes of the lost colony went forth with them in their desperate venture.

But these hopes sunk low when La Salle came back with only eight of the twenty who had gone with him. The explorers had penetrated as far as the country of the Cenis Indians,[4] when sickness and desertion had so crippled their strength as to make further progress hopeless for the time. They, however, procured some horses from the Indians which were brought back to the fort.

No other resource being open, La Salle once more essayed the task before him. In the straits in which he and his people were placed, his splendid qualities for leadership shine out of the gloom like a guiding star. The resources of the colony were nearly exhausted in fitting out previous parties, but the scanty stores were ransacked anew to equip those who were to be the saviors of the rest. The horses which La Salle had brought in were loaded with baggage and ammunition. All was ready. A midnight mass was solemnly said. La Salle spoke a few hopeful words to those who were to endure a suspense perhaps even greater than his own, and then, mastering his own feelings, he turned away to join his followers,—the forlorn hope of the expiring colony.

On the 15th of March, 1687, the hunters who were out killed a buffalo. The party therefore halted till the meat could be brought into camp. Here it was that the hatred, long nursed in secret, openly revealed itself in murder. Misery always begets quarrels, but in this case the sole incitement was revenge. La Salle had the unhappy faculty of making enemies, of whom his worst ones were then close at hand, and plotting for his life. A quarrel about the meat hastened the work on. Those who were faithful to La Salle became the conspirators' first victims. Three of these, whom La Salle had sent over to the hunters' camp, were butchered while they slept.

La Salle himself was encamped six miles distant from the place where these murders were committed. Growing uneasy at the long absence of the men he had sent away, he started with an Indian guide for their camp. A friar named Douay also accompanied him. This friar noted in La Salle's talk and manner the presentiment of coming evil. On reaching a point which he supposed to be near the hunters' camp, La Salle fired his musket as a signal. One of the conspirators showed himself, while the others lay hid in the long prairie-grass unobserved. La Salle fell into the snare thus set for him. While advancing toward the decoy, whose insolent replies angered him, La Salle constantly neared the ambuscade. Suddenly a shot was fired. When the smoke cleared away, La Salle was seen stretched lifeless upon the prairie. He was quite dead.[5] The bullet had gone through his brain.

Thus, in the prime of life, fell Robert Cavelier de La Salle, and thus again must history record its indignant protest in the death of a man of highest intellectual force, whose worth to the world was monumental as compared with that of the vulgar assassin who slew him.

Note.—The Colonists at St. Louis, except three or four who were carried into captivity, were all massacred by the Indians. A Spanish expedition in 1689 found the place a solitude. Those who escaped subsequently related what had occurred. Although this was the first white colony to be founded in Texas,[6] in itself it was an accident, no less productive of results, because it led the Spaniards to occupy the country in order to keep out intruders like La Salle. Geographical knowledge was also remarkably extended.

Where La Salle had sowed, others were to reap, yet so comprehensive were his plans, so well matured, so entirely feasible withal, that what followed was but the natural result of his efforts. La Salle was like the general who falls in the moment of victory. All honor then to his name![1]

Therefore while we record his failure, individually, to do all he purposed in this, his last expedition, the success which came later was due to the master mind of La Salle. We shall not find, in any explorer of his time, so original a mind united with such rare gifts for doing the work to which he devoted himself.

For a time, the project of colonizing Louisiana[2] quietly slept. It was then revived by a naval officer named Iberville,[3] who thus became, in a manner, heir to La Salle's projects.

Iberville promised to rediscover the mouth of the Mississippi, and hold it afterward by building a fort at its mouth, just as La Salle would have done if he had lived to carry out his schemes.

Although it had slumbered long, the moment the project was renewed by so capable a man as Iberville, every intelligent Frenchman saw its importance. The minister Ponchartrain approved it directly it was broached to him, the more because he knew that if any man could succeed in what he undertook, Iberville would.

Iberville had seen much service in Canada, Hudson's Bay and Newfoundland. Being himself a naval officer of rank, he would command his own ships, and not be hampered by a divided command, or the jealousy of a rival, which had proved such a formidable stumbling-block to La Salle.

As the war was now over, Iberville wished to distinguish himself by some worthy action done in the interests of peaceful conquest.

Two ships were therefore got ready, which sailed from Rochefort in October, 1698, and anchored at St. Domingo[4] in December. Sailing thence they fell in with the Florida coast January 27. A bay opened before them. Iberville wished to put into this port, but on attempting to do so he found it in the possession of three hundred Spaniards from Vera Cruz, whose commander forbade his landing there. This place was called Pensacola.[5]

Fearing the Spaniards were on the same errand[6] with himself, Iberville at once made sail for the westward, hugging the shores as closely as possible in order not to miss the river among the mists which commonly hang over and hide it from view. Finding in Mobile Bay a harbor where his ships could safely ride, while he himself continued the search along the shore in boats, Iberville came to an anchor there.

Very shortly his exploring parties came to the Pascagoula River, where they found many savages living. From this river they pushed on through the intervening lagoons that everywhere intersect this shallow shore, till, on the 2d of March, the Mississippi itself was entered through one of its numerous passes.

Sailing on up the river, Iberville passed first one populous town and then another, receiving everywhere a cordial welcome from the savages, yet doubting within himself whether he was on the true Mississippi, till one day a chief brought him a letter[7] which Tonty had left for La Salle thirteen years before, when, after searching for his chief in vain, this trusty comrade had turned back for the Illinois.

After mentioning that he had found La Salle's cross thrown down, and had set up another in a better place, the letter concludes by saying, "It is a great chagrin to me that we are going back without finding you, after having coasted the Mexican (Louisiana) shore for thirty leagues, and the Florida twenty-five."

This letter having removed all Iberville's doubts, he fell down the river again, and having nowhere found, within sixty leagues of the Gulf, a proper place to begin a settlement on, he turned back to the Bay of Biloxi, where a spot was chosen and the ground marked out for one.

After seeing the establishment at Biloxi well under way, Iberville took ship for France. He was back again early in January, 1701. During his absence an English corvette had sailed twenty-five leagues up the Mississippi to a point where the river sweeps grandly round to the east. At this place her captain was warned back by the French, from which circumstance the bend received the name of the English Turn, which it has ever since borne.

Iberville also learned that English traders from Carolina[8] had penetrated into the Chickasaw country above him. Finding himself menaced both by sea and land, and delay dangerous, Iberville shut up the entrance from sea by mounting some cannon near the mouth of the river.

The century turned noiselessly on its hinges with no other establishments in all this great domain of Louisiana except that planted by La Salle on the Illinois, and the one at Biloxi.

In 1701 Iberville began a settlement at Mobile. The next year he erected storehouses and barracks on Dauphine Island[9] for permanent occupation. In a few years this island became the general headquarters of the Louisiana colony. Nothing worthy of the name, however, existed before 1708. Up to this time the handful of colonists lived on what was sent them from France, or obtained by trading French goods with the savages. They sowed wheat, but found the climate too damp for growing it with success. They also began the planting of tobacco, which did so well that its culture presently became a mainstay of the colony.

But while Iberville had thus gained a foothold, in what might be called a good strategic position for approaching the Mississippi, either from sea or through Lake Ponchartrain, he was actually but little nearer than the Spaniards at Pensacola, who kept a watch on all his movements. Never did nature seem more persistently thwarting the schemes of men than in the attempt of these Frenchmen to enter upon what they considered their rightful inheritance.

"A soldier, fire, and water, soon make room for themselves."

Iberville died at Havana in 1706, leaving his uncompleted work to his younger brother, Bienville,[1] who set vigorously about it.

Many believed Natchez to be the best point on the river for founding a settlement. Natchez therefore assumed importance to French plans for the future. But Natchez was the principal seat of a powerful nation whose enmity it would be impolitic to arouse by making forcible entry upon their lands. An opportunity soon offered itself, however, which Bienville quickly took advantage of.

In the first place some outrages committed by the Natchez upon passing traders gave Bienville the pretext he sought for building a fort at their village, which was promptly done (1714).

These people being overawed, the next step taken was the building of a fortified house at Natchitoches,[2] on the Red River, as a check to the Spaniards, who, already, were working their way east from the Rio Grande toward the Mississippi, partly to overawe the troublesome Comanches, and partly to engross the Indian trade of that region for themselves. Thus early in its history the Mississippi and its commerce were become a bone of contention between English, Spaniards and French.

Again the folly of farming out the trade of a whole country to a single individual, which had been tried in Canada with such bad effects, was repeated here in Louisiana. This monopoly was granted (1712) to Anthony Crozat for twenty-five years. Like all speculators, Crozat aimed to make the most in the shortest time, letting the future of the colony take care of itself. He was to control, absolutely, all that came into the colony or went out of it. Agriculture was neglected and trade only encouraged. And all trade was monopolized by Anthony Crozat. This was the penny wise, pound foolish, colonial system of France, adopted with the purpose of putting a little money into the royal treasury at a nominal saving to it of certain sums required for maintaining its authority in the colony. This policy turned the colony into a trading-post, and the people themselves into dependants of Crozat.

When Crozat entered upon his exclusive privileges there were but twenty-eight families in the whole province, of whom not more than half were actual settlers, the rest being either traders, innkeepers or laborers, who had no fixed residence.

The roving traders, or Coureurs de Bois,[3] bartered French goods with the Indians for peltries and slaves, which were sold in the settlements. It was found that tobacco, indigo, cotton and rice could be profitably cultivated, but none except slaves were employed in tilling the soil, which, indeed, is comparatively worthless in the neighborhood where the colonists first located themselves. Consequently only such things as would help to eke out a subsistence—such as corn, vegetables and poultry—were cultivated at all. In a word, the colony literally lived from hand to mouth. Instead of growing stronger and richer, of its own robust growth, it grew, if possible, weaker and poorer by reason of a policy, or system, under which no colony has ever thrived.

Little inducement was held out for the colonist to identify himself with the country, or feel that he and it must grow up together. He was a sojourner in a strange land. He could never hope to get rich by trade, since every thing must pass through the hands of Crozat's agents, at a price fixed by them.

This was by no means the whole weakness of Louisiana in her infancy. Perhaps the primary evil lay in the fact that so far the French neither controlled access to the Mississippi, in the place where they were, or had formed any settled plan for securing that solid foothold on its banks which alone could render them masters of the situation.

Crozat's failure was, in the nature of things, foreordained. His scheme, indeed, proved a stumbling-block to the colony and a loss to himself. In five years (1717) he was glad to surrender his monopoly to the crown.

From its ashes sprung the gigantic Mississippi Scheme of John Law,[4] to whom all Louisiana, now including the Illinois country, was granted for a term of years. Compared with this prodigality Crozat's concession was but a plaything. It not only gave Law's Company proprietary rights to the soil, but power was conferred to administer justice, make peace or war with the natives, build forts, levy troops and with consent of the crown to appoint such military governors as it should think fitting. These extraordinary privileges were put in force by a royal edict, dated in September, 1717.

The new company granted lands along the river to individuals or associated persons, who were sometimes actual emigrants, sometimes great personages who sent out colonists at their own cost, or again the company itself undertook the building up of plantations or lands reserved by it for the purpose. One colony of Alsatians was sent out by Law to begin a plantation on the Arkansas.[5] Others, more or less flourishing, were located at the mouth of the Yazoo, Natchez and Baton Rouge. All were agricultural plantations, though in most cases the plantations themselves consisted of a few poor huts covered with a thatch of palm-leaves. The earliest forts were usually a square earthwork, strengthened with palisades about the parapet.

The company's agricultural system was founded upon African slave labor.[6] Slaves were brought from St. Domingo or other of the West India islands. By some their employment was viewed with alarm, because it was thought the blacks would soon outnumber the whites, and might some day rise and overpower them; but we find only the feeblest protest entered against the moral wrong of slavery in any record of the time. Negroes could work in the fields, under the burning sun, when the whites could not. Their labor cost no more than their maintenance. The planters easily adopted what, indeed, already existed among their neighbors. Self-interest stifled conscience.

The new company wisely appointed Bienville governor. Three ships brought munitions, troops, and stores of every sort from France, with which to put new life into the expiring colony.

It was at this time (February, 1718) that Bienville began the foundation of the destined metropolis of Louisiana. The spot chosen by him was clearly but a fragment of the delta which the river had been for ages silently building of its own mud and driftwood. It had literally risen from the sea. Elevated only a few feet above sea-level, threatened with frequent inundation, and in its primitive estate a cypress swamp, it seemed little suited for the abode of men, yet time has confirmed the wisdom of the choice.

Here, then, a hundred miles from the Gulf, on the alluvial banks of the great river, twenty-five convicts and as many carpenters were set to work clearing the ground and building the humble log cabins, which were to constitute the capital, in its infancy.

The settlement was named New Orleans,[7] in honor of the Regent, Orleans, who ruled France during the minority of Louis XV.

Up to this time it was supposed that large ships could not cross the bar, at the river's mouth, but upon sounding the channel, enough water was found to float one of the company's ships, which then sailed up to New Orleans. From this day, the river may be said to have been fairly open to commerce with the outside world. As respects the passage up and down, it had practically become an every-day excursion for the Canadian voyageurs who, with the Indians, had so long formed its floating population. These adventurers now drew up their canoes, along the bank, at New Orleans, whose promiscuous assemblage of Indians, habitants, convicts, soldiers and priests, they joined.

Father Charlevoix, the historian of New France, thus describes New Orleans as he saw it in 1721:—

"The most just idea I can give you is to imagine two hundred persons who have been sent to build a city, and who are encamped on its banks. This city is the first which one of the greatest rivers of the world has seen rise on its borders. It is composed of a hundred barracks placed without much order, a large storehouse built of wood, two or three houses which would not adorn a poor village in France, and part of a wretched barrack which they have been willing to lend the Lord, for his service, and of which He had scarcely taken possession when He was thrust out and made to take shelter under a tent."

In the cluster of French names,—Louisiana, New Orleans, Ponchartrain, Iberville and Maurepas,—the great personages who bore a conspicuous part in the founding of Louisiana are fittingly perpetuated.

From Quebec to New Orleans, from the St. Lawrence to the Gulf, a line of posts, half-military, half-religious, had sprung up in La Salle's footsteps. France had won the prize.

Louis XIV. was not only, as Richelieu, powerful, but he was majestic; not only, as Cromwell, great, but in him was serenity. Louis XIV. was not, perhaps, genius in the master, but genius surrounded him. This may lessen a king in the eyes of some, but it adds to the glory of his reign. As for me, as you already know, I love that which is absolute, which is perfect; and therefore have always a profound respect for this grave and worthy prince, so well-born, so much loved, and so well-surrounded; a king in his cradle, a king in the tomb; true sovereign in every acceptation of the word; central monarch of civilization; pivot of all Europe, seeing, so to speak, from tour to tour, eight popes, five sultans, three emperors, two kings in Spain, three kings of Portugal, four kings and one queen of England, three kings of Denmark, one queen and two kings of Sweden, four kings of Poland, and four czars of Muscovy appear, shine forth and disappear around his throne; polar star of an entire age, who, during seventy-two years, saw all the constellations majestically perform their evolutions round him.—V. Hugo. The Rhine.

"War with the world and peace with England."—Spanish.

We should expect to find a race of sailors pushing discovery on their own element.

With English mariners of the seventeenth century, the belief in a North-west Passage to India was an inherited faith. Cabot led discovery in this direction. It became, almost exclusively, a field for the brave and adventurous of this nation who, from year to year, spreading their tattered sails to the frozen blasts of the Polar Sea, grimly fought their way on from cape to headland, in desperate venture, lured by the vain hope of finding the open waters of their dreams lying just beyond them. It is a story of daring and peril unsurpassed. Many a noble ship and gallant crew have gone down while attempting to solve those mysteries which the hand of God would seem forever to have sealed up from the knowledge of man.

Among others the brave and ill-fated Henry Hudson,[1] in 1610, sailed through the straits leading into the bay now bearing his name, where his mutinous crew wickedly abandoned him to die of cold or hunger, or both.

Afterward, Hudson's Bay was repeatedly visited by English navigators whose discoveries all went to confirm the prevailing belief in an open polar sea. One of them even took a letter from his own king for the Emperor of Japan. In view of the suffering to which all were alike subject, these "frost-biting voyages" might be said to show more heroism than sound practical wisdom, yet with the riches of the Indies spread out before their fancy, and all England to applaud their deeds, the best of England's sailors were always ready to peril life and limb for the prize. All who came back told the same tale,—of seas sheeted in ice, suns that never set, lands where nothing grew, cold so extreme that all nature seemed but a mockery of the all-wise design of the Creator Himself.

Sir Thomas Button followed up Hudson's discoveries in 1612. He wintered at the mouth of Nelson's River, so named by him, after finding farther progress to the westward barred by the coast, where he had hoped to find it opening before him.

It was soon found that the bleak and desolate region enclosing Hudson's Bay was rich in fur-bearing animals, whose skins bore a great price in Europe, and the reports brought back from that far-off land gave a certain Frenchman named Grosselier the idea of planting a fur-trading colony there. He at once went to the minister with his plan. The minister, however, would not listen to him. Grosselier then went to Prince Rupert,[2] who was staying at Paris, to ask for the aid he wanted. Struck with the scheme, the prince became its patron. A ship was sent out, with Grosselier, in 1668, which reached the head of James' Bay,[3] where Fort Charles was built. The next year, Prince Rupert, and seventeen others, were incorporated into a company, with power granted them to make settlements and carry on trade in Hudson's Bay.

In this way the since famous Hudson's Bay Company obtained a monopoly of the fur-trade of all that region, which afterward proved so valuable to it. Its powers were most ample. It could hold and convey land, fit out ships, erect forts, or make war with the peoples of that country, but all this was to be done in its character as a trading-company; and though it had a resident governor, the central authority was kept in the company, in London, who continued to direct its affairs.

In the earlier years of its existence the Hudson's Bay Company had a hard struggle for life. We know that French traders formerly had dealings with the natives of that dreary inland sea. Jealousy now prompted them to try to drive the English thence by force, and so get rid of their rivalry. To this end repeated attacks were made upon the English factories,[4] which were taken and retaken, first by one and then by another assailant. Even in time of peace the French had not scrupled to assault these remote posts, so unwilling were Canadians to see the English gain a foothold in that quarter.

These invasions were quieted at last by the treaty of Utrecht (1713), which left the English in possession of what they had battled with foes of every sort to secure for themselves.

Communication had with the natives, who were nomads, taught the English how to make distant journeys, and gradually, with their aid, to penetrate farther and farther into the interior. But to live in the country at all, they had, in a great measure, to adapt themselves to the natives' way of life, and to make journeys they had to adopt the rude conveyances found in use among them.

"Many a shoal marks this stern coast."

The Hudson's Bay Company's grant was meant to promote the discovery of a North-west Passage to India: so the people of England, in giving away such large privileges, expected this would be done without delay.

But the company, at first, made little or no effort in this direction. It was chiefly occupied with making money, and making it from the start. Hence every thing was made to work to that end.

England did not know what she was doing when she created this monopoly. Ignorance led to delusion, and delusion to the inconsiderate granting away of an empire. It was thought the company would explore and settle its grant, and thus England would reap the benefits without spending a penny. The company, on the other hand, meant to do nothing of the sort, unless driven to it by popular clamor. Then it would do as little as it could. Colonization was fatal to the fur-trade, and the company was an association of fur-traders, nothing else. Hence, given a warehouse in London, a ship to carry goods back and forth, a port and factory at Hudson's Bay, a score or more of trading-posts scattered here and there over a vast extent of territory, to which the hunters could bring furs and get goods at the company's price, and we have, briefly told, the whole machinery of this giant monopoly. In dealing with the outside world it pursued a policy of Spanish exclusion and silence. It was not making history, but money.

Yet the company was all the time building better than it knew, for even the coming and going of its own traders gradually enlarged geographical knowledge of the country, so smoothing the way for the future.

From time to time the natives who came to the factories showed specimens of copper ore, which they said came from the Far Off Metal River of the North. The English traders consequently named it the Coppermine. It became an object with them to find the mine, or mines, whence these specimens had been taken. The governor accordingly (1769) sent one of his most trusty men into the unknown wilderness in search of them.

Taking with him some Indian guides, and living as they lived, that is to say one day fasting and the next feasting, as game was found plenty or scarce, Samuel Hearne only succeeded in getting to the Coppermine after making three attempts to do so. His story is a wondrous record of persevering endurance. He found the sacred character of the calumet everywhere acknowledged, even by the most degraded tribes. When they had once smoked together the stranger was as safe from injury or insult as in his own house, though nothing could exceed the curiosity which his white skin, blue eyes and light hair, all so different from their own, caused among the Indians he met in his journey.

The Coppermine was found to run into the Arctic Ocean, instead of Hudson's Bay, as Hearne supposed it did when he first set out, but no copper could be discovered worth the taking of such a journey to look for, as his. Hearne came back (1772) at the end of a year and a half, having established the shore line of the northern ocean at a point where land only was supposed to be. This was considered a great geographical discovery. Thus, year by year, a little was added here and a little there toward completing an accurate map of the north coast line.

In 1789, a Scotch trader, named Alexander Mackenzie, had been living for eight years past at Fort Chipewyan.[1] This was a station nearly central between Hudson's Bay and the Pacific. Mackenzie was an explorer by instinct. He determined to cross the continent. Once he had made up his mind, no thought of hardship could deter him. His course through the Slave River and lakes led him to the river now bearing his own name,—the Mackenzie River. Down this stream the intrepid traveller floated in his frail canoe, to its outlet upon the frozen Arctic Sea.

During his trip, Mackenzie questioned the Indians of this river about the unknown country lying beyond the great western wall of mountains, but found they could tell him little except that the people of that country were so exceeding fierce no stranger durst go among them. But Mackenzie knew the Pacific was there, and meant to reach it.

He first moved up from Fort Chipewyan to the east foot of the mountains, so as to get a better start. He wintered here. In the spring (1793), he was ready to set out again. One large, strong canoe, which held all the provisions, and which two men could carry with ease, enabled the travellers to work their slow and toilsome way up the swollen mountain torrents into the highest defiles, from which they sprung. As the explorers advanced, the stream they were ascending became more and more choked up with rocks or fallen trees, and more and more broken by cascades and rapids. It was often necessary to carry the canoe round or drag it over these obstructions, though at the cost of such toil that the men grew disheartened and wished to turn back, thinking the task a hopeless one. Unsparing of himself, Mackenzie put courage into the downhearted, and after a short rest all were ready to go on again.

Falling, at length, among the Indians who dwelt among the mountains, Mackenzie found that the rest of the journey would be much shortened by leaving his canoes and proceeding by land. He therefore continued his way by land, constantly meeting with natives who lived sumptuously on the salmon that the streams everywhere produced in great abundance and perfection. Mackenzie soon found he had nothing to fear from these people. They fed and sheltered his men in their villages, and willingly helped him on his way. The fatigues and anxieties of the journey were nearly past, for on the 23d of July, 1793, the party of white men arrived on the shores of the Pacific Ocean, near the Straits of Fuca.

Although, in relating the adventures of Mackenzie, we have gone somewhat before our story, the doing so is essential to its design, as subsequent chapters will show.

"Heaven is high and the Czar distant."

Referring to what Drake had done for England, and De Fuca for Spain, the one tacking a name to the coast here, the other there, we find little for more than a century going to show that Europeans thought the discoveries of either worth following up.

What do we then see? Not Spain, not England putting forth a steady hand to grasp the prize each already claimed as its own, but a new power, coming not from the East, but from the West. It is a power hardly known in Europe. It is Russia.

The Czar Peter, Peter the Great in history, determined to know whether the two grand continents, Asia and America, were joined in one, or separated by a northern ocean. Peter died before the orders given for this purpose could be carried out, but Catherine, his empress and successor, sent Captain Behring[1] of the royal navy to execute them.

Sailing from Kamschatka (1728), Behring followed the coast of Asia round to the north-west, finding open water everywhere, and so determining the separation of the continents. In a second voyage (1741) he put out to sea, this time falling in with the American coast, discovering Mt. St. Elias and the Aleutian archipelago.

During this voyage Behring's vessel was thrown upon an island and wrecked, and he himself died miserably there, but some of his sailors built themselves a vessel out of the wreck, in which they succeeded in getting back to Kamschatka, bringing with them the furs of the sea-otters and foxes they had killed and eaten while living upon the desert island.

From the time of these discoveries, Russian adventurers, who were little better than daring freebooters, crossed over the narrow seas to the Aleutian Isles, to kill the sea-otters for their fur, thus opening between them and Ochotsk, and between Ochotsk and the Chinese frontier, next Siberia, by means of caravans, a trade in the valuable furs for which these islands are so famous.

In time, these roving traders were followed by a few actual colonists, who were brought over from Siberia or Kamschatka to aid in establishing permanent trading-posts[2] at suitable points. But the country possessed no other resources except its fur-trade. The early traders had cruelly oppressed the natives, hence the first colonists were looked upon as enemies, and treated as such by them. Some missionaries of the Greek Church were also sent over to care for the souls of these poor people, who before had no knowledge of Christianity.

There were no elements of thrift in this colony, consequently it could never make healthy progress. At best the people were little better than vassals, while the Indians were hardly more than slaves. The land is too cold for agriculture. The people have but one occupation, that of seal-hunting.

The fur-trade was at first conducted by private persons, but eventually the control passed to one large company, sanctioned by the crown under the form of The Russian American Company, with headquarters first at Kodiak and then at Sitka.[3]

This company claimed the whole coast of America, on the Pacific, with the adjacent islands, from Behring Straits southward to, and beyond, the mouth of the Columbia River.

"Ye mariners of England!"—Campbell.

England's conquest of Canada[1] (1763) put a wholly new face upon the situation in America. She was now, beyond dispute, the foremost power of this continent.

Hardly had the echoes of this conflict died away, when a new power arose to contend with England for what she had just torn from the grasp of France. This was her own American colonies, whose people had now been driven to take up arms (1775) against the mother country, in defence of their dearest political rights. So England gained Canada, but lost her own colonies. She wrested power from France, only to see it snatched from her own grasp in the moment of victory, though, after all, it was no less a victory for the English-speaking race over all her Latin-speaking rivals. It must be seen that events like these would have far-reaching effects in shaping our history.

Yet while the conflict with her colonies was going on, and both parties were in the thick of the actual fighting, England was putting forth efforts to control the commerce of the North-west Coast.

For this purpose it would be essential to have accurate surveys of all important harbors and sounds, in order to select sites for future settlements, and above all of any navigable rivers flowing from the east out upon the coast, that might afford a practicable route into the interior, and so connect this coast with the settlements of the Hudson's Bay Company.

With this end in view, two discovery ships were sent out (1776), in command of Captain James Cook,[2] with orders to search the coast of New Albion for any navigable river north of the forty-fifth parallel. England clearly meant to re-assert her claim to sovereignty,[3] set up so long ago in her behalf by Sir Francis Drake.

On board Cook's ship were two persons with whom our story will have to deal. One was Midshipman Vancouver, the other Corporal Ledyard of the marines.

Cook first discovered and named the Sandwich Islands.[4] Shaping his course thence for the American coast, he fell in with (1778) and named Cape Flattery.[5] Steering now northward with the coast always in sight, Cook at length found a broad basin, which the Indians called Nootka, and which has since been known as Nootka Sound.[6] The ships lay here all the month of April, refitting, and getting ready for the coming cruise in the arctic seas, which Cook was instructed to explore for the wished-for passage into Hudson's Bay.

Except for their propensity to steal, which nothing could control, Cook found the natives of Nootka a friendly people, though they were no longer abashed in the presence of white men, or afraid of their loud-roaring cannon, as in the time of Drake. Many wore brass or silver trinkets. Most of them had tools of iron which they had made for themselves, and could use with skill. Passing ships would therefore seem to have brought these tribes into unfrequent communication with Europeans, so that Cook's coming neither surprised nor intimidated them; while the articles in their possession acquainted him with the fact that other navigators had passed that way before him, perhaps with views similar to his own.

Upon again setting sail, Cook was blown off the coast by contrary winds. When he again saw it, he was far to the north of Nootka. He saw and named Mt. Edgecumbe as he sailed; then Mt. St. Elias rose in solitary grandeur before them, giving Cook notice that he was now crossing the track of the Russian discoverers.

The ships continued to skirt the coast until its westward trend forced them to put about, and steer south-west, along the shores of the Alaskan peninsula. Cook had missed both the Columbia River and the Straits of Fuca, thus losing his one chance for making known to the world the great water systems of the north Pacific.

Getting clear of Alaska, Cook came to Oonalaska, of the Aleutian group, which he doubled. Then, finding the coast beyond him to bend in the desired direction, again he sailed on through Behring's Straits into the Arctic Ocean as far as Icy Cape (70° 29´), at which point his ships were stopped by ice. Finding he could go no farther, he put about and returned to Oonalaska, where, in October, he anchored.

From this anchorage Corporal Ledyard was sent on shore in search of the Russian traders, then known to be living on the island, whom he found, and brought back with him to the ships. Getting little from these people, for want of interpreters, Cook sailed back to the Sandwich Islands, where the natives of Owyhee treacherously killed him while he was on shore.

The furs which Cook's sailors obtained from the natives of Nootka, in exchange for knives, buttons and other trifles, were sold at Canton, China, for more than ten thousand dollars. This was the beginning of a trade between Nootka and Canton, which, during the next decade, was the means of bringing many British vessels to the North-west Coast.

It is instructive to remember that, at the very time when the American colonies were throwing off their allegiance, Cook was quietly exploring the North-west Coast, in the interests of peaceful expansion, which, in the end, was to inure to the benefit of those colonies.

Though Elizabeth was so well calculated to govern with ability, and even with that glory and advantage to her people which England had never witnessed under any of its preceding sovereigns;—though her administration was so vigorously and equitably exercised, and all her plans and negotiations so ably and successfully conducted;—though, in short, she was equally revered and obeyed, as a sovereign, at home, and she was feared and respected abroad;—yet was Elizabeth a very weak and silly woman in trifling concerns. She seemed a Goliath in the conduct of the mighty affairs of empires; but dwindled into a very woman, when the color, fancy, or fashion of a dress became the topic. Nor was she free from the little petty vexations, jealousies, and rivalship of beauty, so natural to her sex. Indeed, it appears that she hated and envied her cousin, the beautiful Mary of Scots, less on account of her pretensions to the crown, than for her superior charms. When Mary sent Sir James Melville to London, to endeavor to establish a good understanding with Elizabeth, he was instructed by Mary to sound her cousin on subjects that would interest her rather as a woman than a queen. "He accordingly succeeded so well," says Hume, "that he threw that artful princess entirely off her guard, and made her discover the bottom of her heart, full of those vanities, and follies, and ideas of rivalship, which possess the youngest and most frivolous of her sex. He talked to her of his travels, and forgot not to mention the different dresses of the ladies in different countries; and she took care thenceforth to meet the ambassador every day apparelled in a different habit; sometimes she was dressed in the English garb, sometimes in the French, sometimes in the Italian; and she asked him which became her most? He answered, the Italian,—a reply that he knew would be agreeable to her, because that mode showed to advantage her flowing hair, which he remarked, though more red than yellow, she fancied to be the finest in the world. She desired to know of him what was reputed to be the best color of hair; she asked whether his queen or she had the finest color of hair; she even inquired which of them he esteemed the fairest person,—a very delicate question, and which he prudently eluded, by saying that her majesty was the fairest person in England, and his mistress in Scotland. She next demanded which of them was tallest. He replied, his queen. 'Then she is too tall,' said Elizabeth, 'for I myself am of a just stature.'"

It is a saying, that the greatest heroes are not so in the opinion of their valets; and it may with equal truth be said of this celebrated princess, that, however she might appear a great heroine to the world, she was still nothing more than a frail woman in the eyes of those who best knew her private and undisguised thoughts, feelings and actions.—Anon.

It so happened, that after the conquest of Canada, an American, and veteran of that war, named Jonathan Carver, conceived the idea of crossing the continent by way of the Great Lakes and tributaries of the Mississippi. After attentively studying the French maps, and reading the accounts of Hennepin and Lahontan, he believed this could be done.

Carver's avowed purpose was, first, to ascertain the breadth of the continent. If successful in reaching the Pacific, he meant to have proposed to the English government the establishment of a permanent port on that coast. He was convinced that this was the true way to the discovery of the North-west Passage, which Drake had attempted so long ago, justly reasoning that it would be easier to sail from the west than from the east, while the loss of time consequent upon the long voyages from England, with the delays and perils incident to Arctic navigation, would be much lessened by having such a dÉpÔt as he proposed. And it would also greatly facilitate communication between Hudson's Bay and the Pacific.

Carver thought further, that a settlement on that side of the continent would not only open up new sources of trade, and, to use his own words, also "promote many useful discoveries, but would open a way for conveying intelligence to China and the English settlements in the East Indies with greater expedition than a tedious voyage by the Cape of Good Hope, or the Straits of Magellan, would allow of."

Whether it originated in his own brain or not, so far as known, Carver was the first boldly to set before the English people the idea of going across the American continent to India,—the idea that has eventually solved the whole problem.

Convinced that his undertaking was practicable, Carver started from Michilimackinac in September, 1766, in company with some traders who were going among the Sioux by the old route leading through Green Bay, Fox River and the Wisconsin. What he could learn about the upper tributaries of the Mississippi seems to have determined Carver to fix his final starting-point somewhere about the Falls of St. Anthony.

These falls were reached on the 17th of November. When Carver came to the point overlooking them, his Indian guide surprised him by beginning to chant aloud an invocation to the spirit of the waters. While doing this he was stripping off first one, then another, of his ornaments, and casting them from him into the stream. First he threw in his pipe, then his tobacco, then the bracelets he wore on his arms and wrists, and lastly his necklace and ear-rings. When he had thus divested himself of every article of value he possessed, the Indian concluded his prayer of adoration with which his propitiatory offerings were so freely joined. Carver's journey, in this direction, ended at the River St. Francis. Returning south he ascended the St. Peter's, or Minnesota River, by his own account, for a distance of two hundred miles, to the villages of the Sioux with whom he passed the winter.

But after thus penetrating far into what is now the State of Minnesota, Carver found himself unable to proceed. The gifts that were to be sent after him, and which were essential to securing a safe-conduct among the Indian nations on his route, did not come. No alternative therefore remained but to go back to Prairie du Chien, the great Indian trading-mart of all that region, where the explorer finally gave up the attempt to go west at this time. He then returned to Canada by way of the St. Croix and Lake Superior, bringing with him the information gained by a seven months' residence among the Sioux.

Carver's Travels were published in England in 1778, ten years after his return, although his notes and maps had been in the government's possession for some years, permission to publish them having been refused him.

It is here that we first find the name of Oregon,[1] given to the great river of the Pacific slope. Carver speaks of it repeatedly as "the river of the West that falls into the Pacific Ocean."

This explorer afterward (1774) decided to renew the effort to cross America, his indicated route being up the St. Peter's to its head, thence across to the Missouri, up this stream to its source, and, after discovering the source of the "Oregon or River of the West, on the other side the summit of the dividing highlands," to descend it to the sea. His purpose was frustrated by the war between England and the colonies. He has, however, put on record his opinion touching the future of the great Mississippi valley. This is his prophecy:

"To what power or authority this new world will become dependent, after it has arisen from its present uncultivated state, time alone can discover. But as the seat of empire, from time immemorial, has been gradually progressive towards the west, there is no doubt but that at some future period, mighty kingdoms will emerge from these wildernesses, and stately palaces, and solemn temples, with gilded spires, reaching the skies, supplant the Indian huts whose only decorations are the barbarous trophies of their vanquished enemies."

Corporal John Ledyard's[1] fancy had been taken captive by the exploits of Captain Cook, which for a time fairly renewed the enthusiasm Drake's bold dash into the far South Sea had created so long before.

Ledyard was a born explorer. Every thing he saw while under Cook's command was jotted down from day to day in his diary. He was quick-witted, restless, and ambitious of making his way in the world, nor was he slow to see the advantage that the north-west coast offered to whomsoever should be first in the field. But Ledyard had been wearing King George's uniform, though himself an American, whom thirst for new scenes had led to enlist under a hostile flag. When, however, after his return to England, Ledyard was sent out to America, rather than fight against his country he deserted.

His mind was filled with crude projects for securing the commerce of the north-west coast, not for England, but for America, and America was now a free republic. So he had imbibed at least the spirit of what is now known as the Monroe Doctrine.

Ledyard first tried to get American merchants to fit out a ship for him. Failing in this he went to France, thinking to secure there the help he wanted.

It happened that while Ledyard was trying to get up a company to carry on his schemes, Louis XVI. was fitting out La Peyrouse to follow up Cook's track in the Pacific, and so make good what that eminent navigator had failed to make complete.

Ledyard importuned everybody. Haunting those who would listen to him, borrowing money first from one and then another in order to live, sometimes without a crown in his pocket, always repulsed, but never despairing, the would-be explorer woke and slept on his one ever-present idea.

"I die with anxiety," he says to a friend, "to be on the back of the American States, after having penetrated to the Pacific Ocean. There is an extensive field for the acquirement of honest fame. The American Revolution invites to a thorough discovery of the continent. It was necessary that a European should discover America, but in the name of love of country let a native explore its resources and boundaries. It is my wish to be that man."

Thomas Jefferson was, at this time (1785), our minister to France, "in every word and deed the representative of a young, vigorous and determined state." Ledyard often sought his counsel and aid. Struck by Ledyard's uncommon devotion to his one idea, Jefferson said to him one day, "Why not go by land to Kamschatka, cross over in some of the Russian vessels to Nootka Sound, fall down into the latitude of the Missouri, and penetrate to and through that to the United States?"

This conversation curiously shows us that, at the time the American Union was first formed, more was known about Kamschatka than about the region lying between the Mississippi and the Pacific Ocean. Through Siberia, at least, there was a travelled route, while from the Mississippi to the Pacific there was none. The conversation is therefore an instructive starting-point in the history of our country.

Although the enterprise itself failed to bear fruit at this time, the coming together of these two men, one of whom became the apostle of the American idea in its broadest sense, was like the striking together of flint and steel. Fire followed it. Ledyard had the best knowledge of the subject. Ledyard pointed out the way. Ledyard had given Jefferson something to ponder, which, in his sagacious mind, soon grew to a question of highest national importance.

Ledyard eagerly agreed to make the trial, provided that the Russian Government would give its consent. This being granted, the explorer set out for Kamschatka; but at Irkutsk, in Siberia, he was stopped and turned back, in consequence of the jealousy of the Russian-American Company, whose headquarters were at Irkutsk, and who feared their interests would be endangered if this daring stranger were permitted to pass into their territory.

From this time Ledyard's personal history ceases to be associated with that of the Great West. But he was the first to perceive, perhaps dimly, what was shortly to become, with a broader growth, the ruling idea of American statesmen.

With the close of the Revolutionary War, the commercial spirit of our countrymen began to re-assert itself in deeds which should stamp them for all time as worthy sons of worthy sires. Far back, even when the colonies were but a few feeble settlements strung along the Atlantic seaboard, few people had shown greater enterprise in seeking avenues for commerce than they.

This was especially the case with the New-England colonies. War had ruined their commerce, but with the coming of peace the shrewd New-England merchants were on the lookout for new outlets, since nowhere could ships be so cheaply built, while the population largely got their living either on or from the sea. Besides this, they had a brand-new flag of their own, of which they were justly proud, and which they wished to see afloat on the most distant seas.

The discoveries made on the north-west coast by England, though kept secret till after the close of the war, were by no means unknown to our merchants and sailors, in whom the laudable desire to profit by every avenue the ocean might throw open to honest enterprise and skill, was inspired and increased by a condition of national freedom.

It was at this time that certain merchants of Boston formed (1787) a partnership for beginning a trade between the north-west coast and China. They fitted out the ship "Columbia," of two hundred tons, and sloop "Washington," of ninety tons burden, with trading-goods, which the masters were to barter for furs with the Indians, sell the furs at Canton, and with the proceeds buy teas for the home-market. Large profits were expected. As the United States was a new power at sea, and her flag little known, the masters were provided with passports, to certify they were honest traders sailing under an honest flag.

The owners, however, looked somewhat farther than a mere trading voyage would suggest. They had in mind the establishment, under the national authority, of permanent factories, somewhat similar to those of the Hudson's Bay Company. Looking to this end, their masters, John Kendrick and Robert Gray, were instructed to buy lands of the natives, to build storehouses or forts, or make such other improvements on these lands as would insure their permanent tenure to the owners. In so far as occupation by any white people was concerned, the territory lying between Cape Mendocino and the Straits of Fuca was known to be vacant, though, out of England, Spain was thought to have the best claim to it. Kendrick and Gray were therefore directed to begin operations on this unexplored strip of coast, not only as traders, but as explorers of an undiscovered country.

Less could not well be said of these voyages, because of the importance they subsequently assumed in the dispute between England and the United States about their respective boundaries, but we will leave that question now to take its proper turn in the story, and go back to the voyages themselves.

Both vessels[1] reached Nootka in the early autumn of 1788. Having made her cargo, the "Columbia" set sail for Canton, sold her furs for teas, with which she returned to Boston in August, 1790, thus first carrying the flag quite round the world.

This time the Bostonians did not throw the tea overboard as they had once done, when it came seasoned with an odious tax. A quite different reception was given to the "Columbia" as she sailed up the harbor with the stars and stripes fluttering at her mast-head, after an absence of nearly three years. As she passed the Castle, the "Columbia" fired a national salute, which the fortress immediately returned. The loud-booming cannon brought the inhabitants in crowds to the wharves to see what ship was receiving such honorable welcome. As the "Columbia" rounded to, in the inner harbor, the people shouted, the cannon pealed, as if the occasion were one worthy of public commemoration and rejoicing. It was, indeed, felt to be the breaking away from old despotisms which a colonial condition had so long imposed, while the track round the globe was not yet so much travelled, or so well known, as to make the "Columbia's" voyage seem any less a great achievement.

It happened that the "Columbia" had touched at Owyhee, the royal residence of the king of the Sandwich Islands. Captain Gray persuaded the king to let the crown prince go with him to the United States. The prince was royally welcomed in Boston, and safely returned to his native land, so bringing about a friendliness between Americans and the islanders, of much benefit to commerce in the future.

Although the owners had lost money[2] by the venture, they were public-spirited men, and determined on making a second trial. The "Columbia" was therefore again fitted for sea, and in June, 1791, was again breasting the waves of the North Pacific. During this second voyage, Captain Gray saw the mouth of a river, into which, however, he did not sail, because the surf broke with violence quite across it. He, however, carefully noted down the latitude in his log; but when, shortly after, he fell in with Vancouver, that officer doubted what Gray told him about this river. It could not be there, he thought, since he himself had carefully searched without finding it.

After parting company with Vancouver, Gray sailed south, with the intention of knowing more about the river in question. When the entrance was sighted, the "Columbia" was boldly steered for it with all sails set. She safely ran in between the breakers, into a broad basin which no keel but hers had ever ploughed before, and without anchoring held her onward course fourteen miles up the river, surrounded by a swarm of canoes, among which the stately ship moved a leviathan indeed.

When the anchor was let go, Captain Gray found himself quietly floating on the bosom of a large freshwater river, to which, upon quitting it, he gave the name of his ship,—the Columbia.[3]

As a result of these voyages, the direct trade between the North Pacific and China fell almost exclusively into the hands of American traders. British merchants were restrained from engaging in it by the opposition of their East India Company. Russian vessels were not admitted into Chinese ports. We find the British explorer, Mackenzie, speaking with much ill-humor about this state of things, which, nevertheless, only goes to prove the energy and skill of American merchants and ship-masters, who, from the first voyages of the "Columbia," were known to the Indians of the north-west coast as Bostons, because these vessels hailed from that port.

"America now attains her majority."

At the close of the Revolutionary War, almost nothing was known in the American colonies about the country lying to the west of the Mississippi. The sources of the Missouri[1] were unknown even to French traders. Nobody knew that a great sister river carried the snows of the Rocky Mountains to the Pacific, or that the head waters of these two noble streams lay coiled about the feet of the same lofty chain.

Where, then, should we locate the West? Possibly central along the eastern base of the Alleghanies, certainly remote at Pittsburg, and perhaps reaching its vanishing-point somewhere about the Dark and Bloody Ground of Kentucky. Among a host of foes civilization stood at bay here, but would take no backward step.

France opened the way from east to west. France and England fought for the primacy of the continent, and England won. Defeated France gave up the idea of maintaining herself in America, and secretly ceded to Spain what the war had left her west of the Mississippi, as a bankrupt might convey his property out of the reach of his most pressing creditor.

When the Colonies revolted, France saw her way to make them, like the cat in the fable, pull her chestnuts out of the fire. It is no part of a king's trade to set up a republic. France played her own game,[2] played it astutely and to the end. When the Colonies, with her help, achieved their independence, she showed them, much to their wonder, for they were fresh to the tricks of diplomacy, that in politics there is no more friendship than in trade, or rather that politics is a game in which the best player wins.

In view of what it had cost her to give up Louisiana, in the first place, not only in loss of territory, but national prestige, it is perhaps not strange that when, as our ally, France was in turn a victor, she should be found trying to get back Louisiana for herself. To do this she had to play a double game, with the help of Spain, while that power stood ready in the background to take any thing that came in her way.

These two gamesters wished to restore what we should call the old balance of power, thus confining the United States nearly in the limits they had occupied as colonies. To her honor, England would not listen to their seductive pleadings. Not that she loved her revolted subjects more, but that she loved her old rivals less. When John Jay gave their schemes to the light of day, it was seen France had never meant we should be a power among the nations—only a little republic. In the end England's pride prevailed over the sting of wounded self-love. Instead of dictating the terms of peace, as she had meant to do, France had to see herself shut out from Louisiana, for good and all, while Spain, the Mephistophiles of American affairs, recovered Florida from England, so excluding the United States from access to the Gulf of Mexico either by the seaboard or the Mississippi River. What was now left of French Louisiana, as it existed previous to this war, presented the anomaly of a colony of French people living under the Spanish flag.

In effect, John Jay had urged upon England that blood is thicker than water. Franklin said, "Let us now forgive and forget." And so the Anglo-Saxon spirit prevailed.

With independence achieved, the United States gained, as we have seen, all the territory, except Canada, which England had conquered from France. At a single stride her frontier had reached the Mississippi on the west and the Great Lakes on the north.

Before the war, of which this was the grand sequel, a thin stream of English immigrants, chiefly from Virginia and North Carolina, under the lead of Daniel Boone, had crossed the mountains of North Carolina into Kentucky. This movement was central in what is commonly known as the Blue Grass Region, of which Lexington may be considered the pivot.

After the war, a second and larger emigration, chiefly from New England, crossed over the Alleghanies to the head of navigation on the Ohio, whence it moved down that river to the Muskingum, and was central about Marietta. Here, then, we have two separate streams of population, belonging to the same sturdy Anglo-Saxon race, though originating in different sections of the young Republic, each taking along with it to its new home in the West the customs and traditions of its own section, and guided by instinct or destiny upon lines which, ere long, were to divide slave from free States.

By an Act of Congress, known in history as the Ordinance of 1787, all that great block of wilderness country, into which this last emigration was setting, became one political division under the name of the North-west Territory.[3] The Act creating this territory also provided for making three States from it, and most wisely forbade that slavery should ever exist within its borders. Thus it was that the Ohio came to be not only a physical, but a political, dividing-line between the sections, which, now that the law of the land had fixed a limit slavery should not overstep, came to be designated as North and South, not, as formerly, from geographical situation only, but because the line had been thus sharply drawn between free and slave institutions. Each was now on trial before the world; each was now to show what it could do for human progress, under its own institutions, with its own means, and on its own chosen ground.

It would seem as if this splendid acquisition of ours, this North-west Territory, now constituting the great heart and seat of power in the American Union, might well have filled the fullest measure of patriotic desire for territorial expansion. It was to be, however, but the cradle of a newer and more robust growth, as the original States had been for that just beginning at the centre. It was an empire in itself, comprising all those States now enclosed between the Mississippi, the Ohio, Pennsylvania, and the Great Lakes. Yet this whole tract held, in 1792, no more than ten thousand whites, settled in widely scattered spots, among sixty-five thousand wild Indians.

These widely scattered spots were the new settlements at Marietta and Fort Harmar on the Muskingum, Cincinnati and Fort Washington on the Ohio, Clarksville at the Falls of the Ohio, with the old French posts of Vincennes on the Wabash, Kaskaskia on the river of the name, and Fort Chartres and Cahokia on the Mississippi. Over this vast tract a score of military posts held the Indians in check, and formed the kernels of future settlements. Along the line of the Great Lakes, and contrary to treaty stipulations with her, England still held the key-points,—Niagara, Miami, Detroit, Michilimackinac,—thus restricting the movement of our citizens from east to west on that line, and so shutting them out from the lucrative Indian trade of the Far West.

Let us now look at the section south of the Ohio.

Kentucky was made a State in 1792, and Tennessee in 1796. All south of Tennessee and west of Georgia was formed (1798) into the Mississippi Territory. On the east, or American, shore of the Mississippi, settlement was mostly confined to the places mentioned in "The Founding of Louisiana" as villages. None had outgrown this condition. Most were simply plantations. Population had increased (1785) to thirty-eight thousand persons, chiefly by the coming-in of refugees from Nova Scotia and St. Domingo. And blacks were already numerous enough to cause uneasiness among the planters. The cultivation of cotton and sugar was growing to importance; but the Spaniards at New Orleans wanted all the water to their own mill, as the proverb has it, which meant nearly the same thing as closing the river to American trade altogether.

The Falls of the Ohio had already begun to assume importance both as a depot and shipping-point. They were a natural stopping-place for all boats going up or down the river. Hence Louisville had grown up above the falls as the port of a remarkably thrifty cluster of inland settlements which had taken the place of the primitive stations of the first settlers.

On both sides of the Ohio the Indians made a determined stand against the coming in of white settlers. But bravely as they fought, their power was so broken in many bloody conflicts, that they were, at length (1794), glad to sue for peace. Shorn of power, they were now confined within narrower limits. England gave up (1795) the lake fortresses. All roads to the West being now open, they were speedily thronged by an army of settlers.