Father of Waters, and over bison plains,
across the New World to the Gulf of
California. These were the first men of the Old
World by whom oars were dipped into the
waters of the Mississippi; but they took no
heed of the great river, and did not chronicle
its name. Although their narrative is published,
we only know, from the fact of its
having crossed their path, that this was one
of the great streams they traversed.

Although the river was visited by members
of other expeditions sent out from Spain, yet
nothing was made for the character of the
Mississippi as an ancient river. It was, for
hundreds of years, laid down in European
maps as a trumpery little stream, and was
seldom even distinguished by a name. Indeed,
the river was not effectively discovered until
the middle of the seventeenth century, when
the Jesuit missionaries found their way to it
under Father Marquette, a remarkable man
born at Laon in Spain, in the year sixteen
thirty-seven. He was, at first, attached to
several northern missions in which he
endured much and laboured hard with a good
deal of success. When he undertook to
explore in the South he was thirty-six years old,
and had learned six or seven native languages.

"We were not long," he said, "in preparing
our outfit, although we were embarking on a
voyage, the duration of which we could not
foresee. Indian corn, with some dried meat,
was our whole stock of provisions. With
this we set out in two bark canoes, M. Jolliet,
myself, and five men, firmly resolved to do all
and suffer all for so glorious an enterprise.
Our joy at being chosen for this expedition
roused our courage, and sweetened the labour
of rowing from morning till night." They
made all possible inquiries as to matters that
it would behove them to know upon the
journey; and Marquette, for his part, put
himself under the protection of his patroness
the Virgin; promised that, if she did them
the grace to discover the great river, he
would give it the name of Conception;
and that he would also give that name
to the first mission which he should establish
among those new nations. They discovered
and so named the river, but the name
was not retained. The mission founded by
him kept its name, and it still attaches to
a church upon the spot. And though the
river is called Mississippi, it must satisfy the
ghost of the old missionary to know that
the Roman Catholic prelates of the United
States have put the whole country under the
especial protection of the Virgin, by her title
of Immaculate, so that the Roman Catholics
of America speak as often of the Blessed
Virgin Immaculate, as Mexicans speak of
Our Lady of Guadaloupe.

Father Marquette and his companions,
quitting Lake Huron, passed first among the
tribes of the Wild Oats. Their wild oats
were to be found self-sown in small rivers
with slimy bottoms and in marshy places.
When the people of the wild oats heard
upon what errand the little company was
engaged they thought it a mad one. "They
told me," wrote the father, "that we should
meet nations that never spare strangers, but
tomahawk them without any provocation;
that the war which had broken out among
various nations on our route exposed us to
another evident danger—that of being killed
by the war parties which are constantly in
the field; that the Great River was very
dangerous, unless the difficult parts are known;
that it was full of frightful monsters who
swallowed up men and canoes together; that
there was even a demon there who could be
heard from afar, who stopped the passage and
engulphed all who dared approach; lastly,
that the heat was so excessive in those
countries, that it would infallibly cause our
death." No knight who proposed to blow
the horn of an enchanted castle ever was
better warned of all the dangers he would
have to face, than the six good people in the
couple of boats made out of birch bark, who
were on their way to immortality as first
explorers of the Mississippi.

After passing over dangerous rapids on the
Fox River, of Green Bay, the party came
among the Fire nation, where the Father
tested a mineral stream, and examined a herb
fatal to snakes. The town of the Fire nation
(Maskontens) was on the limit of the land
then known to Europeans. It was perched
on a hill from which the eye ranged without
check over boundless prairie on all sides,
dotted here and there with groves and thickets.
In the account given of the Fire nation
I note only one fact that is particularly worth
present mention, and that is very particular,
inasmuch as it proves that the civilization
of the Fire-men was, in a certain direction,
far in advance of ours. We have such
things procurable as great coats, of which the
great recommendation is, that they admit
of being folded up and put into the pocket,
but the Maskoutens and Kikabous are
cleverer than that: "As bark for cabins is rare
in their country," Father Marquette wrote,
"they use rushes which serve them for walls
and roof, but which are no great shelter
against the wind, and still less against the
rain when it falls in torrents. The advantage
of this kind of cabins is, that they can roll
them up, and carry them easily where they
like in hunting time." After this notification,
I shall look daily in the Times for the
announcement of a pocket house.

From that last outpost of European
civilization, the little party quitting the waters
which flowed to Quebec, distant four or five
hundred leagues, prepared, as the good priest
said, "to follow those which will henceforth
lead us into strange lands. Before embarking,
we all began together a new devotion to
the Blessed Virgin Immaculate, which we
practised every day, addressing to her
particular prayers to put under her protection