Page:History of Richland County, Ohio.djvu/34

 to endure, and the ambition of its monarchs was to have only a partial fulfillment.

The same year that the congress was held, Marquette had founded a mission among the Hurons at Point St. Ignace, on the continent north of the peninsula of Michigan. Although the climate was severe, and vegetation scarce, yet fish abounded, and at this establishment, long maintained as a key to further exploratidus, prayer and praise were heard daily for many years. Here, also, Marquette gained a footing among the founders of Michigan. While he was doing this, Allouez and Dablon were exploring countries south and west, going as far as the Mascoutins and Kickapoos on the Milwaukee, and the Miamis at the head of Lake Michigan. Allouez continued even as far as the 8acs and Foxes on the river which bears their name.

The discovery of the Mississippi, heightened by these explorations, was now at hand. The enterprise, projected by Marquette, was received with favor by M. Talon, who desired thus to perpetuate his rule in New France, now drawing to a close. He was joined by Joliet, of Quebec, an emissary of his King, commissioned by royal magnate to take possession of the country in the name of the French. Of him but little else is known. This one excursion, however, gives him immortality, and as long as time shall last his name and that of Marquette will endure. When Marquette made known his intention to the Pottawatomies, they were filled with wonder, and endeavored to dissuade him from his purpose. "Those distant nations," said they," never spare the strangers; the Great River abounds in monsters, ready to swallow both men and canoes; there are great cataracts and rapids, over which you will be dashed to pieces; the excessive heats will cause your death." "I shall gladly lay down my life for the salvation of souls," relied on the good man; and the docile nation joined him.

On the 9th day of June, 1673, they reached the village on Fox River, where were Kickapoos, Mascoutins and Miamis dwelling together on an expanse of lovely prairie, dotted here and there by groves of magnificent trees, and where was a cross garlanded by wild flowers, and bows and arrows, and skins and belts, offerings to the Great Manitou. Allouez had been here in one of his wanderings, and, as was his wont, had left this emblem of his faith.

Assembling the natives, Marquette said, " My companion is an envoy of France to discover new countries; and I am an embassador from God to enlighten them with the Gospel." Offering presents, he begged two guides for the morrow. The Indians answered courteously, and gave in return a mat to serve as a couch during the long voyage.

Early in the morning of the next day, the 10th of June, with all nature in her brightest robes, these two men, with five Frenchmen and two Algonquin guides, set out on their journey. Lifting two canoes to their shoulders, they quickly cross the narrow portage dividing the Fox from the Wisconsin River, and prepare to embark on its clear waters. " Uttering a special prayer to the Immaculate Virgin, they leave the stream, that, flowing onward, could have borne their greetings to the castle of Quebec. 'The guides returned,' says the gentle Marquette, 'leaving us alone in this unknown land, in the hand of Providence.' France and Christianity stood alone in the valley of the Mississippi. Embarking on the broad Wisconsin, the discoverers, as they sailed west, went solitarily down the stream between alternate prairies and hillsides, beholding neither man nor the wonted beasts of the forests; no sound broke the silence but the ripple of the canoe and the lowing of the buffalo. In seven days, 'they entered happily the Great River, with a joy that could not be expressed;' and the two birchbark canoes, raising their happy sails under new skies and to unknown breezes, floated down the calm magnificence of the ocean stream, over the broad, clear sand-bars, the resort of innumerable water- fowl — gliding past islets that swelled from the bosom of the stream, with their tufts of massive thickets, and between the wild plains of Illinois and Iowa, all garlanded with majestic forests, or checkered by island groves and the open vastness of the prairie."*

Continuing on down the mighty stream, they saw no signs of human life until the 25th of June, when they discovered a small foot-path on the west bank of the river, leading away into the prairie. Leaving their companions in the canoes, Marquette and Joliet followed the path, resolved to brave a meeting alone with the savages. After a walk of six miles they came in sight of a village on the banks of a river, while not far away they discovered two others. The river was the " Mou- in-gou-e-na," or Moingona, now corrupted into Des Moines. These two men, the first of their race who ever trod the soil west of the Great


 * Bancroft.