The Adventures of the Chevalier De La Salle and His Companions Part 10

They had but ten charges of powder left. These they divided into twenty, and succeeded in killing some wild pigeons. At one time, for two days, they had no food whatever, though they landed and searched for game. They found a fish whose flesh was almost putrid, dropped by an eagle. With bits of this they baited two hooks, which they floated from the stern of the canoe. Father Hennepin then fell upon his knees and prayed to St. Anthony that he would come to his relief. While praying, they perceived a strain upon the lines, and running to the canoe, drew in two fishes, so large that they could with difficulty take them from the water. They broiled pieces upon the coals, and the starving men made an abundant repast.

The next morning they met the remainder of the Indians whom they had left above the Falls of St. Anthony. They were descending the river, in search of more southern hunting grounds. Michael Ako was with them. He had developed want of courage and energy which excited the contempt of the savages. There was a large number of canoes, composing this fleet, crowded with a motley group of men, women, and children. They had encountered herds of buffaloes, and were well supplied with food.

Father Hennepin and Anthony again joined them, and accompanied them back down the river, as he says, about eighty leagues. But as we have before remarked, we cannot place much reliance upon his estimate of distances. The discomforts of this voyage must have been innumerable.

The crowded canoes, the loathsome personal habits of the savages, elevated but little above the beasts, the blistering midday sun, the drenching storms and showers, the cheerless encampments, often upon the open prairie with no protection whatever from wind and rain, and the food often scanty, consisting of nothing but flesh, without any seasoning, boiled in earthen pots, or broiled upon the coals, must have rendered the excursion irksome in the extreme to civilized men accustomed to the comforts of European life.

In our last chapter we left the Indians, several hundred in number, in a fleet of canoes descending the upper waters of the Mississippi, in search of game. The three Frenchmen were with them. They were somewhere near the mouth of the Wisconsin River. Conscious that they were trespa.s.sing upon hunting grounds which other tribes claimed, they practised the utmost caution to elude their enemies. There were two hundred and fifty warriors, thoroughly armed with all the weapons of savage warfare, who composed the guard of the tribe.

Whenever they landed, they selected a spot where they could hide their canoes in the tangled brush which often fringed the banks of the river.

Some warriors were sent to the tops of the adjacent eminences to see if there were any indications of hostile parties in the vicinity. They then pushed back twenty or thirty miles into the prairie land, where they almost invariably found herds of buffaloes grazing. Without horses to aid in the pursuit, and with only arrows and javelins as weapons, the killing of a buffalo was indeed an arduous task. Still, in the course of a few weeks, a hundred and twenty were slaughtered. They jerked the meat; that is, they cut it into very thin strips and hung them in the sun over a smouldering fire, so that it was both smoked and dried at the same time.

One day an Indian ran a splinter far into his foot, inflicting a very serious wound. Father Hennepin made a deep incision in the sole, to draw out the wood. He was performing the painful operation when an alarm was given, that foes were approaching the camp. The wounded Indian immediately sprang upon his feet, seized his arms and rushed to meet the enemy, regardless of his swollen, throbbing foot. The alarm proved a false one. A herd of eighty stags in the distance had been imagined to be hostile warriors. The excitement being over, it was with very great difficulty the crippled savage could hobble his way back to the camp.

When Father Hennepin and Anthony Auguelle rejoined the Indians, they were again separated, and each was taken into the family by which he had been adopted. In their voyaging, as they pa.s.sed from point to point in the river, there was a.s.signed to the father the duty of conveying in his small canoe, a shrivelled Indian woman, eighty years of age, and three little children. These long years had not sweetened the woman's disposition. She was a terrible scold, and often threatened to beat the children with her paddle.

Thus they wandered about in this successful buffalo hunt, until the close of July, when they were returning to their village far up the St.

Francis River. They were here not very far west of the western end of Lake Superior. As they were returning, two wandering members of the tribe came in, and stated that they had been to Lake Superior, that they found there five Frenchmen, and that when they told them that there were three of their countrymen with the Issati tribe, the Frenchmen were very anxious to come to them, as they could not imagine by what roundabout way they had reached those distant regions.

Soon after, they met on the Mississippi River M. de Luth, with five French soldiers, descending the stream in a canoe. There is some confusion in Father Hennepin's narrative here, so that it is impossible to ascertain at what point of the river the two parties of Frenchmen met. On the 14th of August they all reached the villages of the Issati.

As they were ascending the river they pa.s.sed the grave of an Indian warrior. Many of the savages cast upon it some valuable article, in token of regard for the departed. Father Hennepin, who understood the Indians thoroughly, spread upon it a blanket. M. Luth contributed nothing. The generous act of Hennepin was exceedingly gratifying to the Indians.

Soon after their return, they had a great feast, Father Hennepin and M. Luth were both present. In the midst of the entertainment one of the chiefs, who was a relative of the deceased warrior, brought in a large buffalo robe, very softly dressed, one side being brilliantly embroidered with variously colored porcupines' quills, while the curly wool remained upon the other. This robe was neatly folded, and upon it was placed a birch-bark dish filled with food. On this, as a tea-tray, he presented the dish to the father. After he had eaten the meat, the chief spread the robe over his shoulders, saying:

"He whose body thou didst cover, now covers thine. He has carried tidings of thee to the land of spirits. Brave was thy act in his regard. All the nation praises thee for it."

He then reproached M. Luth for not having paid any tribute of respect to the remains of the dead. M. Luth replied that he covered the bodies only of those who were chiefs, of the same rank with himself. The chief replied:

"Pere Louis is a greater captain than thou art; for his robe is more beautiful than thine. We have sent his robe to our allies who are distant more than three moons' journey from our country."

By his _robe_ the chief meant the rich dress, embroidered with silver lace, which the ecclesiastic wore at ma.s.s, and which he called his "brocade chasuble." This garment had so dazzled the eyes of the Indians, that they had appropriated it to themselves as of supernatural splendor.

Toward the end of September, Father Hennepin informed the Indians that it was his wish and that of his two companions, to return with the five other Frenchmen to their own country; and that then they would fit out expeditions laden with goods to trade with these distant tribes. The Indians gave their consent. The length of the journey to Montreal by the route they must take, they estimated at twenty-four hundred miles.

The eight Frenchmen set out in two canoes. They paddled down the St.

Francis, and the Mississippi to the mouth of the Wisconsin. On their way they met a fleet of one hundred and forty canoes, filled with about two hundred and fifty warriors. The chiefs visited the Frenchmen, and treated them with greatest kindness.

Entering the Wisconsin, they paddled up its lone and silent banks one hundred and twenty miles, as they supposed. They followed the same route which Father Marquette had previously pursued going in an opposite direction. They carried their canoes and their effects on their shoulders, across a portage of a mile and a half to Fox River.

Here they reembarked, following a river of wonderful windings, and through a series of magnificent and beautiful lakes, and through a country which they described as charming in the extreme, until they entered the magnificent expanse of Green Bay, at its southern extremity. They had accomplished, as they judged, about twelve hundred miles of their journey. Father Hennepin writes:

"I had not celebrated ma.s.s for over nine months, for want of wine.

I had still some hosts. We remained two days to rest, sing the Te Deum, high ma.s.s, and preach. All our Frenchmen went to confession and communion, to thank G.o.d for having preserved us amid so many wanderings and perils."

They purchased for a gun, a canoe, large enough to contain them all.

With this they paddled a hundred leagues, until they reached Mackinac.

The blasts of approaching winter were beginning to sweep these cold regions. Here they spent the winter.

At this point they found, as they expected, an important military and trading post. Many Indians, even from remote tribes, were continually coming and going. Father Hennepin engaged very earnestly in preaching to the French, and in trying to teach the Indians the Gospel of Christ.

They were deeply impressed with the heroism he had exhibited in his long and perilous journey. They said that the father must have been protected by the Great Spirit, for had any of the Indians attempted to go so far they would certainly have been put to death by these distant tribes.

Early in April, 1681, the father, with a few boatmen, set out on his long voyage to Fort Frontenac, at the extreme end of Lake Ontario. A broad belt of thick ice still fringed the sh.o.r.es of these northern lakes. For thirty miles they dragged their canoes over the ice of Lake Huron; and then, as they came to thin ice, launched them upon this fresh water sea. They sailed along the lake a "hundred leagues,"

closely following the sh.o.r.e, landing every night, and living mainly upon white-fish, which were caught in abundance, in twenty fathoms water. They pa.s.sed "The Strait" and Lake St. Clair for "thirty leagues." In the still waters of Lake St. Clair they killed with an axe, thirty sturgeons which had come to the shallow waters of the banks to sp.a.w.n. Near this place they came upon an Ottowa Indian chief, wan and woe-stricken, who told him that he had been unsuccessful in hunting, and his wife and five children had all starved to death.

Emerging from "The Strait," they entered Lake Erie, and paddled along its sh.o.r.es a hundred and twenty leagues. Carrying their canoes and effects upon their backs, they pa.s.sed the great Falls of Niagara, and again took to the water, coasting along the southern sh.o.r.e of Lake Ontario. After a voyage of about ninety miles, they reached a large village of Seneca Indians, on the southern sh.o.r.e of the lake. It was the middle of May. These Indians had constant intercourse with the French in Canada, and were in cordial alliance with them. Father Hennepin attended a council of the chiefs, accusing them of having enslaved, as he had learned by the way, several Indians of the Ottawa tribe, who were also allies of the French. The chiefs made many apologies; said that the deed had been perpetrated by some mad young warriors, and that the captives should be restored to their tribe.

One of the chiefs, named Teganeot, speaking in the name of all a.s.sembled in the council, presented Father Hennepin with several rich furs, which were valued at about twenty-five dollars. The father accepted the gift, but immediately pa.s.sed it over to the son of the chief, saying:

"I give it to you, that you may purchase such things as you need of the French traders. I cannot accept any presents. But I will report your kind feelings to the French Governor."

Reembarking, they continued their voyage forty leagues, when they reached Fort Frontenac. Father Hennepin was received with great rejoicing, as one risen from the dead. After a short tarry, they again entered their canoes, and descending the rapids of the St. Lawrence, in two days reached Montreal, sixty miles distant from the fort. Here Count Frontenac resided. He was Governor of all the French possessions in the New World.

"This governor," Father Hennepin writes, "received me as well as a man of his probity can receive a missionary. As he believed me killed by the Indians, he was for a time thunderstruck. He beheld me wasted, without a cloak, with a garment patched with pieces of buffalo skin. He took me with him, twelve days, to recover, and himself gave me the meat I was to eat, for fear I should eat too much, after so long a diet. I rendered to him an exact account of my voyage, and represented to him the advantages of our discovery."

CHAPTER IX.

_The Abandonment of Fort Crevecoeur._

Departure of La Salle. Fathers Membre and Gabriel. Their Missionary Labors. Character of the Savages. The Iroquois on the War Path. Peril of the Garrison. Heroism of Tonti and Membre. Infamous Conduct of the Young Savages. Flight of the Illinois. Fort Abandoned. Death of Father Gabriel. Sufferings of the Journey to Mackinac.

It will be remembered that on the last of February, 1680, M. La Salle left the fort at Crevecoeur, with four Frenchmen and an Indian guide, for his perilous journey of four hundred leagues, through the pathless wilderness, to Frontenac, at the eastern extremity of Lake Ontario. His chosen companion, Lieutenant Tonti, was intrusted with the military charge of the garrison. Fathers Membre and Gabriel, both inspired with the n.o.blest spirit of missionary enterprise, were appointed to instruct and, if possible, to convert the Indians.

They raised a pretty capacious log-cabin, which was both their residence and their chapel. This humble sanctuary was every day crowded with Indians from various tribes. A very large Indian village was on the sh.o.r.es of Lake Peoria, about half a mile from the cabin of the missionaries. Father Membre, a true apostle of Jesus Christ, wrote an account of the momentous scenes which transpired. To his narrative we are indebted for the facts which we now give.

One of the chiefs, Oumakouka, adopted, according to Indian custom, Father Membre as his son. He ever welcomed him to a warm seat by his wigwam fire, and presented him with tender morsels of game. While Father Gabriel spent the most of his time in the fort with Lieutenant Tonti and the workmen, Father Membre, who was soon quite familiar with their language, devoted much of his time to the instruction of the Indians in their wigwams. This was the arrangement which La Salle had made. He felt that the wild and reckless spirits in the garrison needed the restraints of the constant presence of their spiritual father.

Individuals might otherwise be guilty of violating the rights of the Indians, and thus the whole of the little community might be involved in ruin.

The large Indian village where Father Membre exerted his ministry contained a population of about eight thousand souls. There were also a large number of villages within a circle of fifty miles in diameter, some of which belonged to other tribes. These the unwearied missionary frequently visited. All these Indians made their wigwams of mats of braided flat rushes. They were tall, well formed, and very skilful archers. But the good father does not give a very flattering account of the characters they developed. They were genuine loafers; idle, excessively superst.i.tious, quarrelsome, under scarcely any restraints of law, and they would steal everything upon which they could lay their hands. Their lands were exceedingly fertile that, with very slight labor, they had an abundance of corn. Pounded corn, mixed with water and baked in the ashes, would afford but a meagre repast in the humblest log-cabin. It was deemed all-sufficient in the wigwam.

All who could afford it had several wives. They were as unfeeling as brutes. If a wife displeased her lord and master, he would mercilessly cut off her nose; and with apparently as little concern as a dog-fancier trims the ears of a terrier. United with these execrable traits of character, there were others, to which we have already alluded, which were alluring. In the summer, the men often went without any clothing, except moccasins made of buffalo hide.

These poor savages were engaged in almost incessant wars. Even the religion of Jesus, whose great mission was to bring peace on earth and goodwill to man, has not yet been able to obliterate these sanguinary propensities from the human heart. England, France, Germany, are great slaughterhouses, where millions of men have hurled themselves upon each other in demoniac strife. What, then, could be expected of savages.

The Miamis of the north were organizing an expedition against the Illinois. The rumor reached the Indian village at Crevecoeur, and created great consternation. Lieutenant Tonti endeavored to inspire the Indians with a spirit of defence. He taught them how to surround their village with palisades, and influenced them to build a fort with intrenchments. Some of the French garrison, weary of the restraints of the fort, deserted, and wandered away among the Indian tribes; and so incorporated themselves with the savages, in dress, in war-paint, in habits, and in taking Indian wives, that it required very close scrutiny to distinguish them from the Indians.

The two missionaries, conscious that there was no substantial remedy for the ills of humanity but in the regeneration of the soul which the religion of Jesus enjoined, consecrated, with increasing zeal, all their energies in the endeavor to make Frenchmen and Indians good men, new creatures in Jesus Christ.

One of the Illinois chiefs, Asapista by name, became very strongly attached to good Father Gabriel, and adopted him as his son. This was quite a favor. The generality of the Indians, like the populace everywhere, were exceedingly fickle. The friendship and caresses of to-day might be hatred and the tomahawk to-morrow. The adoption of a stranger into the tribe, as the son of a chief, was a great security against any sudden outburst of suspicion, which might lead to ma.s.sacre.

The Gospel of Christ makes slow headway against the wickedness of man.

As in our own enlightened times, the mult.i.tude listened, were respectful to their teachers, even reverenced them, but did not heed or obey.

"With regard to conversions," Father Membre writes, "I cannot rely on any. There is in these savages such an alienation from the faith, so brutal and narrow a mind, such corrupt and anti-Christian morals, that much time would be needed to hope for any fruit. It is however true, that I found many of quite docile character. We baptized some dying children, and two or three dying persons who manifested proper dispositions. As these people are entirely material in their ideas, they would have submitted to baptism, had we liked, but without any knowledge of the sacrament."

During the summer, the Indians wandered about in large hunting expeditions. The missionaries accompanied these bands, seeking day by day opportunities to teach them. Father Membre also visited several remote tribes. He found much to discourage him. He said that their blindness and obduracy were quite indescribable.