Page:Joutel's journal of La Salle's last voyage, 1684-7 (IA joutelsjournalof00jout).pdf/38

 its exit into the ocean as well as to acquaint himself with its resources, and its savage inhabitants. When he reached his fort at the Miami in October, he found there some of his new Indian allies from the East, and with 18 of them and 23 of his own Frenchmen, started for the headwaters of the Illinois—dragging their canoes and baggage on sledges, as the streams were frozen. They reached the Mississippi on the 6th of February, launched their little fleet of canoes, and—delayed a few days by floating ice—resumed their course, passing successively the mouths of the Missouri, the Ohio, and the Arkansas rivers, and making visits to many tribes along their course, by whom they were well received. As they reached the end of their journey, on the 6th of April, sixty-two days from the time of entering the river, they saw that the river divided into three broad channels, or mouths, of which La Salle followed the western one, Dautray the eastern, and Tonti the middle one.

After La Salle had located, in his canoe, the nearby borders of the great sea, or gulf (of Mexico) which spread before them, the three parties reassembled (April 9th,