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

1669-70.] LA SALLE'S DISCOVERIES. 29age, as late as the year 1756 ;beyond which time themost diligent inquiry has failed to trace them.Abbe*Faillon affirms that some of La Salle's men, refusingto follow him, returned to La Chine, and that theplace then received its name, in derision of the youngadventurer's dream of a westward passage to China. 1As for himself, the only distinct record of his movementsisthat contained in a paper, entitled " Histoirede Monsieur de la Salle." It is an account of hisexplorations, and of the state of parties in Canadaprevious to the year 1678, — taken from the lips of /La Salle himself, by a person whose name does notappear, but who declaresthat he had ten or twelveconversations with him at Paris, whither he had comewith a petition to the Court. The writer himselfhad never been in America, and was ignorant ofgeography; hence blunders on his part might reasonablybe expected. His statements, however, are insome measure intelligible; and the following is thesubstance of them.After leaving the priests, La Salle went toOnondaga, where we are left to infer that he succeededbetter in getting a guide than he had beforedone among the Senecas. Thence he made his wayto a point six or seven leagues distant from LakeErie, where he reached a branch of the Ohio, and,descending it, followed the river as far as the rapidsat Louisville, — or, as has been maintained, beyond1 Dollier de Casson alludes to this as "cette transmigrationeelebre qui se fit de la Chine dans ces quartiers."its