La Salle and the discovery of the great West - North Central ...

74 THE DISCOVERY OF THE MISSISSIPPI. [1673.that the Mississippi discharged its waters, not intothe Atlantic or sea ofVirginia, nor into the Gulf ofCalifornia or Vermilion Sea, but into the Gulf ofMexico. They thought themselves nearer to itsmouth than they actually were, the distance beingstill about seven hundred miles; and they fearedthat if they went farther they might be killed byIndians or captured by Spaniards, whereby the resultsof their discovery would be lost. Therefore theyresolved to return to Canada, and report what theyhad seen.They left the Arkansas village, and began theirhomeward voyage on the seventeenth of July. Itwas no easy task to urge their way upward, in theheat of midsummer, against the current of the darkand gloomy stream, toiling all day under the parchingsun, and sleeping at night in the exhalations ofthe unwholesome shore, or in the narrow confines oftheir birchen vessels, anchored on the river. Marquettewas attacked with dysentery. Languid andwell-nigh spent, he invoked his celestial mistress, asday after day, and week afterweek, they won theirslow way northward. At length, they reached theIllinois, and, entering its mouth, followed its course,charmed, as they went, with its placid waters, itsshady forests,and its rich plains, grazed by the bisonand the deer. They stopped at a spot soon to bemade famous in the annals of western discovery.This was a village of the Illinois, then called* ,•Kaskaskia " a name afterwards transferred to