Page:The Homes of the New World- Vol. II.djvu/285

Rh bears his name. Near its mouth the canoe-men dug his grave in the sand. Ever after, the forest-rangers, if in danger on Lake Michigan, would invoke his name. The people of the West will build his monument.” Thus much of Father Marquette: a short human life; but how full, how beautiful, how complete and perfect! Do you not see a ray of heavenly light shine through that misty, blood-stained valley of the Mississippi? Lower down on the Mississippi I shall tell you of Ferdinand de Soto.

.&emsp; Cold and chilly; but those stately hills which rise higher and higher on each side the river, covered with forests of oak now brilliant in their golden-brown array beneath the autumnal heaven, and those prairies with their infinite stretches of view, afford a spectacle for ever changing and for ever beautiful. And then, all is so young, so new, all as yet virgin soil! Here and there, at the foot of the hills, on the banks of the river, has the settler built his little log-house, ploughed up a little field in which he has now just reaped his maize. The air is grey but altogether calm. We proceed very leisurely, because the water is low at this time of the year, and has many shallows; at times it is narrow, and then again it is of great width, dotted over with many islands, both large and small. These islands are full of wild vines, which have thrown themselves in festoons among the trees, now for the most part leafless, though the wild vines are yet green.

We are sailing between Wisconsin on the right, and Iowa on the left. We have just passed the mouth of the Wisconsin river, by which Father Marquette entered the Mississippi. How well I understand his feelings on the discovery of the great river! I feel myself here two hundred years later, almost as happy as he was, because I too am alone, and am on a journey of discovery,