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

;1685.] MISERY AND DEJECTION. 398matted grass of the prairie, under the scorchingTexan sun. The gun-carriages served to make thetask somewhat easier; yet the strongest men soongave out under it. Joutel went down to the firstfort,made a raft and brought up the timber collectedthere, which proved a most seasonable and usefulsupply. Palisades and buildings began to rise.The men labored without spirit, yet strenuously;for they labored under the eye of La Salle. Thecarpenters brought from Rochelle proved worthlessand he himself made the plans of the work, markedout the tenons and mortises, and directed the whole. 1Death, meanwhile, made withering havoc amonghis followers; and under the sheds and hovels thatshielded them from the sun lay a score of wretchesslowly wasting away with the diseases contracted atSt. Domingo. Of the soldiers enlisted for the expeditionby La Salle's agents, many are affirmed tohave spent their lives in begging at the church doorsof Rochefort, and were consequently incapable ofdiscipline.or the sailorsIt was impossible to prevent either themfrom devouring persimmons and otherwild fruits to a destructive excess. Nearly all fellill;and before the summer had passed, the graveyardhad more than thirty tenants. 2 The bearing of LaSalle did not aid to raise the drooping spirits of his1 Joutel, Journal Historique, 108; Relation (Mar*ry, iii. 174);Proces Verbal fait au poste de St. Louis, le 18 Avril, 1686.2 Joutel, Journal Historique, 109. Le Clerc, who wat not prewmt,says a hundred.