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

"62 THE DISCOVERY OF THE MISSISSIPPI. [1673.heat was so great that they would perishinevitably.Marquette set their counsel at naught, gave them afew words of instruction in the mysteries of the Faith,taught them a prayer, and bade them farewell.The travellers next reached the mission at the headof Green Bay; entered Fox River; with difficultyand labor dragged their canoes up the long andtumultuous rapids; crossed Lake Winnebago; andfollowed the quiet windings of the river beyond,where they glided through an endlessgrowth of wildrice, and scared the innumerable birds that fed upon it.On either hand rolled the prairie, dotted with grovesand trees, browsing elk and deer. 1 On the seventhof June, they reached the Mascoutins and Miamis,who, since the visit of Dablon and Allouez, had beenjoined by the Kickapoos. Marquette, who had aneye for natural beauty, was delighted with the situationof the town, which he describes as standing onthe crown of a hill; while, all around, the prairiestretched beyond the sight,interspersed with grovesand belts of tall forest. But he was still moredelighted when he saw a cross planted in the midstof the place. The Indians had decorated it with anumber of dressed deer-skins, red girdles,and bowsand arrows, which they had hung upon it as an offeringto the Great Manitou of the French ; a sight bywhich Marquette says he was "extremely consoled.1Dablon, on his journey with Allouez in 1670, was delightedwith the aspect of the country and the abundance of game alongthis river. Carver, a century later, speaks to the same effect, sayingthat the birds rose up in clouds from the wild-rice marshes.