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

84 LA SALLE AND FRONTENAC. [1673-78.schemes of western discovery. Then, when hisearlier journeyings revealed to him the valley of theOliio and the fertile plains of Illinois, his imaginationtook wing over the boundless prairies and forestsdrained by the great river of the West. His ambitionhad found its field. He would leave barren andfrozen Canada behind, and lead France and civilizationinto the valley of the Mississippi. Neither theEnglish nor the Jesuits should conquer that richdomain : the one must rest content with the countryeast of the Alleghanies, and the other with theforests, savages, and beaver-skins of the northernlakes. It was for him to call into light the latentriches of the great West. But the way to his landof promise was rough and long: it lay throughCanada, filled with hostile traders and hostile priests,and barred by ice for half the year. The difficultywas soon solved. La Salle became convinced thatthe Mississippi flowed, not into the Pacific or theGulf of California, but into the Gulf of Mexico.Bya fortified post at its mouth, he could guard it againstboth English and Spaniards, and secure for the tradeof the interior an access and an outlet under his owncontrol, and open at every season. Of this trade,the hides of the buffalo would at first form the staple,and along with furs would reward the enterprise tillother resources should be developed.Such were the vast projects that unfolded themselvesin the mind of La Salle. Canada must needsbe, at the outset, his base of action, and without the