Page:California Digital Library (IA historyofkansas00hollrich).pdf/29

 More than a century elapsed before another European visits the Mississippi valley. The French had settled along the St. Lawrence, and around the Great Lakes. Missionaries with pious zeal were planting the Cross among the Indians and subduing the barbarians unto Christ by the gentleness of Love. The most earnest and successful among these was Father Marquette!

The Indians frequently spoke of a great river at the West, flowing south which they called Mississippy, as Marquette wrote it. It was a matter of debate among the French, what course this river pursued to the ocean. Some contended that it continued to flow directly south, and emptied into the Gulf of Mexico; others were of the opinion that it deflected either to the east and discharged itself into the Atlantic, or west, and poured its waters into the Gulf of California.

To settle this difficult question and carry the Gospel to the heathen, Father Marquette determined to make a tour of exploration. Encouraged by the governor of Canada, who gave him M. Joliet as a companion, and five other Frenchmen, he embarked on the 13th of May, 1673, in two bark canoes at Michilimackinac. Reaching Green Bay, the solicitous aborigines besought him with tears to abandon so hazardous an undertaking, portraying to him the frightful dangers of the Meschasebe (Mississippi.) “I thanked them for their good advice,” says Marquette, “but I told them I could not follow it, since the salvation of souls was at stake, for which I would be overjoyed to give my life.” Ascending Fox River and crossing the portage, they gave themselves to the current of the Wisconsin, and were soon carried into the waters of the Mississippi.

Borne upon this mighty stream, they continued to descend, occasionally halting at Indian villages, smoking the calumet of peace and narrating the story of the Cross, until they reached the mouth of the Arkansas. Here, satisfied that the Mississippi continues its course to the Gulf of