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

296 SUCCESS OF LA SALLE. [1682.On the21st of December, Tonty and Memore* setout from Fort Miami with some of the party in sixcanoes, and crossed to the little river Chicago. 1 LaSalle, with the rest of the men, joined them a fewdays later. It was the dead of winter, and thestreams were frozen.They made sledges, placed onthem the canoes, the baggage, and a disabled Frenchman;crossed from the Chicago to the northernbranch of the Illinois, and filed in a long processiondown its frozen course. They reached the site ofthe great Illinois village, found it tenantless, andcontinued their journey, still dragging their canoes,till at length they reached open water below LakePeoria.La Salle had abandoned for a time his originalplan of building a vessel for the navigation of theMississippi. Bitter experience had taught him thedifficulty ofthe attempt, and he resolved to trust to1La Salle, Relation de la Decouverte, 1682, in Thomassy, GeologiePratique de la Louisiane, 9 ; Lettre du Pere Zenobe Membre, 3 Juin,1682; Ibid., 14 Aout, 1682; Membre in Le Clerc, ii. 214; Tonty,1684, 1693 ; Proces Verbal de la Prise de Possession de la Louisiane ,-Feuilles de'tachees d'une Lettre de La Salle (Margry, ii. 164) ; Recit deNicolas de la Salle (Ibid., i. 547).The narrative ascribed to Membre and published by Le Clerc isbased on the document preserved in the Archives Scientifiques dela Marine, entitled Relation de la Decouverte de V'Embouchure de laRiviere Mississippi faite par le Sieur de la Salle, I'annee passee, 1682.The writer of the narrative has used it very freely, copying thegreater part verbatim, with occasional additions of a kind whichseem to indicate that he had taken part in the expedition. TheRelation de la Decouverte, though written in the third person, is theofficial report of the discovery made by La Salle, or perhaps forhim by Membre.