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

;1680.] THE DESERTED TOWN. 191their canoes half a league farther; then launchedthem, and, breaking the ice with clubs and hatchets,forced their way slowly up the stream.Again theirprogress was barred, and again they took to thewoods, toiling onward till a tempest of moist, halfliquidsnow forced them to bivouac for the night.sharp frost followed, and in the morning the whitewaste around them was glazed with a dazzling crust.Now, for the first time, they could use their snowshoes.Bending to their work, dragging their canoes,which glided smoothly over the polished surface,they journeyed on hour afterleague, tillAhour and league afterthey reached at length the great town ofthe Illinois, still void of its inhabitants. 1It was a desolate and lonely scene, — the rivergliding dark and cold between its banks of rushesthe empty lodges, covered with crusted snow; thevast white meadows ; the distant cliffs, bearded withshining icicles; and the hills wrapped in forests,which glittered from afar with the icy incrustationsthat cased each frozen twig. Yet there was life inthe savage landscape.The men saw buffalo wadingin the snow, and they killed one of them. Morethan this: they discovered the tracks of moccasins,They cut rushes by the edge of the river, piled themon the bank, and set them on fire, that the smokemight attract the eyes of savages roaming near.1Membre says that he was in the town at the time ;but thiscould hardly have been the case. He was, in all probability, amongthe Illinois, in their camp near Fort Crevecoeur.