Page:The Homes of the New World- Vol. II.djvu/280

Rh tall grass, where troops of wild deer and buffaloes grazed; he had even met the quarrelsome and mighty Sioux, who lived on wild rice, covered their huts with skins of animals instead of bark, and dwelt upon the prairie near the great river, which they called Messipi.

Marquette determined to discover and sail down the great river.

He had gathered around him the remains of the Huron nation, and settled down with them on the shore of Lake Michigan, where there was abundance of fish. There they built themselves huts.

It was from this place that Marquette, accompanied by a Frenchman named Joliet, and a young Indian of the Illinois tribe, as guide, set forth on his journey of discovery. The French intendant of Canada, Talon, favoured Marquette's enterprise, wishing to ascertain whether the banner of France could be carried down the great river as far as the Pacific Ocean, or planted side by side with that of Spain on the gulf of Mexico.

Marquette sought by his journey the honour of a higher master than an earthly sovereign; “I shall gladly lay down my life for the salvation of souls,” said he, in answer to a messenger of the Pottawatomies who warned him, “that these distant nations never spared strangers; that their mutual wars filled the shores with warriors; and that the great river abounded with monsters which devoured both men and canoes; and that the excessive heat was mortal.” And on hearing his reply, the children of the Wilderness united with him in prayer for his preservation.

“At the last village on Fox river ever visited by the French,” using the words of Bancroft the historian, for I cannot have a better guide, “where Kickapoos, Mascoutins, and Miamis dwelt together on a beautiful hill, in the centre of the prairies and magnificent groves that extended as far as the eye could reach, and where Aloüez