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

1679.] FOREBODINGS fc$8his canoe ashore through the breakers.The two mencould not manage their vessel, and he with his onehand could not help them. She swamped, rollingover in the surf. Guns, baggage, and provisionswere lost; and the three voyagers returned to theMiamis, subsisting on acorns by the way. Happily,the men left behind, excepting two deserters, succeeded,a few days after, in rejoining the party. 1Thus was one heavy load lifted from the heart of LaSalle. But where was the " Griffin" ? Time enough,and more than enough, had passed for her voyage toNiagara and back again. He scanned the drearyhorizon with an anxious eye. No returning sailgladdened the watery solitude,gathered on his heart.Yet further delay was impossible.and a dark forebodingHe sent back two men to Michilimackinac tomeet her, if she still existed, and pilot her to his newfort of theMiamis, and then prepared to ascend theriver, whose weedy edges were already glassed withthin flakes of ice. 21Hennepin (1683), 112; Relation de Tonty, 1693.2The official account of this journey is given at length in theRelation des Decouvertes et des Voyages du Sieur de la Salle, 1679-1681.This valuable document, compiled from letters and diaries of LaSalle, early in the year 1682, was known to Hennepin, who evidentlyhad a copy of it before him when he wrote his book, in which heincorporated many passages from it.