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

132 LA SALLE AT NIAGARA. [1678.carried with him the furniture of a portable altar,which in time of need he could strap on his back likea knapsack.He slowly made his way up the St. Lawrence,stopping here and there, where a clearing and a fewlog houses marked the feeble beginning of a parishand a seigniory. The settlers, though good Catholics,were too few and too poor to support a priest, andhailed the arrival of the friar with delight. He saidmass, exhorted a little, as was his custom, and onone occasion baptized a child. At length he reachedMontreal, where the enemies of the enterprise enticedaway his two canoe-men. He succeeded in findingtwo others, with whom he continued his voyage,passed the rapids of the upper St. Lawrence, andreached Fort Frontenac at eleven o'clock at night ofthe second of November, where his brethren of themission, Ribourde and Buisset, received him withopen arms. 1 La Motte, with most of the men,appeared on the eighth;but La Salle and Tonty didnot arrive till more than a month later.Meanwhile,in pursuance of his orders, fifteen men set out incanoes for Lake Michigan and the Illinois, to tradewith the Indians and collect provisions, while LaMotte embarked in a small vessel for Niagara, accompaniedby Hennepin. 21Hennepin, Description de la Louisiane (1683), 19 ; Ibid., VoyageCurieux (1704), 66. Ribourde had lately arrived.* Lettre de La Motte de la Lussiire, sans date ; Relation de Henride Tonty e'crite de Quebec, le 14 Novembre, 1684 (Margry, i. 573).