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

;1685.] A VAIN SEARCH. 373cares oppressed the mind of La Salle, pale andhaggard with recent illness, wrapped within his ownthoughts, and seeking sympathy from none.At length they entered the Gulf of Mexico, thatforbidden sea whence by a Spanish decree, datingfrom the reign of Philip II., all foreigners wereexcluded on pain of extermination. 1 Not a man onboard knew the secrets of its perilous navigation.Cautiously feeling their way, they held a northwesterlycourse, till on the twenty-eighth of Decembera sailor at the mast-head of the " Aimable " saw land.La Salle and all the pilots had been led to form anexaggerated idea of the force of the easterly currentsand they therefore supposed themselves near the Bayof Appalache, when, in fact,they were much fartherwestward.On New Year's Day they anchored threeleaguesfrom the shore. La Salle, with the engineer Minet,went to explore it, and found nothing but a vastmarshy plain, studded with clumps of rushes. Twodays after there was a thick fog, and when at lengthit cleared, the " Joly " was nowhere to be seen. LaSalle in the "Aimable," followed closely by thelittle frigate "Belle," stood westward along thecoast. When at the mouth of the Mississippi in1682, he had taken its latitude, but unhappily couldnot determine its longitude; and now every eye onboard was strained to detect in the monotonous lines1 Letter of Don Luis de Onis to the Secretary of State (AmericanState Papers, xii. 27-31).