Page:The Homes of the New World- Vol. II.djvu/283

Rh said Marquette, ‘I should have esteemed it the greatest happiness to have died for the glory of God.’

“They passed the perpendicular rocks, which wore the appearance of monsters; they heard at a distance the noise of the waters of the Missouri, known to them by its Algonquin name of Pekitanoni; and when they came to the most beautiful confluence of rivers in the world, where the swifter Missouri rushes like a conqueror into the calmer Mississippi, dragging it, as it were, hastily to the sea, the good Marquette resolved in his heart one day to ascend the mighty river to its source; to cross the ridge that divides the oceans, and, descending a westerly flowing stream, to publish the Gospel to all the people of this New World.

“In a little less than forty leagues, the canoes floated past the Ohio, which was then, and long afterwards, called the Wabash. Its banks were tenanted by numerous villages of the peaceful Shawnees, who quailed under the incursions of the Iroquois.

“The thick canes begin to appear so close and strong, that the buffalo could not break through them, and the insects became intolerable. The prairies vanished, and forests of white wood, admirable for their vastness and height, crowded even to the skirts of the pebbly shore. It was also observed that, in the land of the Chickasas, the Indians had guns.

“They reached the village of Mitchigamea, in a region which had not been visited by Europeans since the days of De Soto. ‘Now,’ thought Marquette, ‘we must indeed ask the aid of the Virgin. ’ Armed with bows and arrows, with clubs, axes and bucklers, amidst continual whoops, the natives, bent on war, embarked in vast canoes made out of the trunks of hollow trees; but at the sight of the mysterious peace-pipe held aloft, God touched the hearts of the old men, who checked the impetuosity of the young; and throwing their bows and