La Salle and the Discovery of the Great West Part 9

He presently set out on a roving mission through Holland; and he recounts various mishaps which befell him, "in consequence of my zeal in laboring for the saving of souls," "I was at the b.l.o.o.d.y fight of Seneff," he pursues, "where so many perished by fire and sword, and where I had abundance of work in comforting and consoling the poor wounded soldiers. After undergoing great fatigues, and running extreme danger in the sieges of towns, in the trenches, and in battles, where I exposed myself freely for the salvation of others while the soldiers were breathing nothing but blood and carnage, I found myself at last in a way of satisfying my old inclination for travel."[109]

He got leave from his superiors to go to Canada, the most adventurous of all the missions, and accordingly sailed in 1675, in the s.h.i.+p which carried La Salle, who had just obtained the grant of Fort Frontenac. In the course of the voyage, he took it upon him to reprove a party of girls who were amusing themselves and a circle of officers and other pa.s.sengers by dancing on deck. La Salle, who was among the spectators, was annoyed at Hennepin's interference, and told him that he was behaving like a pedagogue. The friar retorted, by alluding--unconsciously, as he says--to the circ.u.mstance that La Salle was once a pedagogue himself, having, according to Hennepin, been for ten or twelve years teacher of a cla.s.s in a Jesuit school. La Salle, he adds, turned pale with rage, and never forgave him to his dying day, but always maligned and persecuted him.[110]

On arriving in Canada, he was sent up to Fort Frontenac, as a missionary. That wild and remote post was greatly to his liking. He planted a gigantic cross, superintended the building of a chapel for himself and his colleague Buisset, and instructed the Iroquois colonists of the place. He visited, too, the neighboring Indian settlements,--paddling his canoe in summer, when the lake was open, and journeying in winter on snow-shoes, with a blanket slung at his back.

His most noteworthy journey was one which he made in the winter,--apparently of 1677,--with a soldier of the fort. They crossed the eastern extremity of Lake Ontario on snow-shoes, and pushed southward through the forests, towards Onondaga,--stopping at evening to dig away the snow, which was several feet deep, and collect wood for their fire, which they were forced to replenish repeatedly during the night, to keep themselves from freezing. At length, they reached the great Onondaga town, where the Indians were much amazed at their hardihood. Thence they proceeded eastward to the Oneidas, and afterwards to the Mohawks, who regaled them with small frogs, pounded up with a porridge of Indian corn. Here Hennepin found the Jesuit Bruyas, who permitted him to copy a dictionary of the Mohawk language[111] which he had compiled; and here he presently met three Dutchmen, who urged him to visit the neighboring settlement of Orange, or Albany,--an invitation which he seems to have declined.[112]

They were pleased with him, he says, because he spoke Dutch. Bidding them farewell, he tied on his snow-shoes again, and returned with his companion to Fort Frontenac. Thus he inured himself to the hards.h.i.+ps of the woods, and prepared for the execution of the grand plan of discovery which he calls his own,--"an enterprise," to borrow his own words, "capable of terrifying anybody but me."[113] When the later editions of his book appeared, doubts had been expressed of his veracity. "I here protest to you, before G.o.d," he writes, addressing the reader, "that my narrative is faithful and sincere, and that you may believe everything related in it."[114] And yet, as we shall see, this reverend father was the most impudent of liars; and the narrative of which he speaks is a rare monument of brazen mendacity. Hennepin, however, had seen and dared much; for among his many failings fear had no part, and where his vanity or his spite was not involved, he often told the truth. His books have their value, with all their enormous fabrications.[115]

La Motte and Hennepin, with sixteen men, went on board the little vessel of ten tons, which lay at Fort Frontenac. The friar's two brethren, Buisset and Ribourde, threw their arms about his neck as they bade him farewell; while his Indian proselytes, learning whither he was bound, stood with their hands pressed upon their mouths, in amazement at the perils which awaited their ghostly instructor. La Salle, with the rest of the party, was to follow as soon as he could finish his preparations.

It was a boisterous and gusty day, the eighteenth of November. The sails were spread; the sh.o.r.e receded,--the stone walls of the fort, the huge cross that the friar had reared, the wigwams, the settlers' cabins, the group of staring Indians on the strand. The lake was rough; and the men, crowded in so small a craft, grew nervous and uneasy. They hugged the northern sh.o.r.e, to escape the fury of the wind, which blew savagely from the northeast; while the long gray sweep of naked forests on their right betokened that winter was fast closing in. On the twenty-sixth, they reached the neighborhood of the Indian town of Taiaiagon,[116] not far from Toronto, and ran their vessel, for safety, into the mouth of a river,--probably the Humber,--where the ice closed about her, and they were forced to cut her out with axes. On the fifth of December, they attempted to cross to the mouth of the Niagara; but darkness overtook them, and they spent a comfortless night, tossing on the troubled lake, five or six miles from sh.o.r.e. In the morning, they entered the mouth of the Niagara, and landed on the point at its eastern side, where now stand the historic ramparts of Fort Niagara. Here they found a small village of Senecas, attracted hither by the fisheries, who gazed with curious eyes at the vessel, and listened in wonder as the voyagers sang _Te Deum_ in grat.i.tude for their safe arrival.

[Sidenote: NIAGARA FALLS.]

Hennepin, with several others, now ascended the river in a canoe to the foot of the mountain ridge of Lewiston, which, stretching on the right hand and on the left, forms the acclivity of a vast plateau, rent with the mighty chasm, along which, from this point to the cataract, seven miles above, rush, with the fury of an Alpine torrent, the gathered waters of four inland oceans. To urge the canoe farther was impossible.

He landed, with his companions, on the west bank, near the foot of that part of the ridge now called Queenstown Heights, climbed the steep ascent, and pushed through the wintry forest on a tour of exploration.

On his left sank the cliffs, the furious river raging below; till at length, in primeval solitudes unprofaned as yet by the pettiness of man, the imperial cataract burst upon his sight.[117]

The explorers pa.s.sed three miles beyond it, and encamped for the night on the banks of Chippewa Creek, sc.r.a.ping away the snow, which was a foot deep, in order to kindle a fire. In the morning they retraced their steps, startling a number of deer and wild turkeys on their way, and rejoined their companions at the mouth of the river.

[Sidenote: LA MOTTE AND THE SENECAS.]

La Motte now began the building of a fortified house, some two leagues above the mouth of the Niagara.[118] Hot water was used to soften the frozen ground; but frost was not the only obstacle. The Senecas of the neighboring village betrayed a sullen jealousy at a design which, indeed, boded them no good. Niagara was the key to the four great lakes above; and whoever held possession of it could, in no small measure, control the fur-trade of the interior. Occupied by the French, it would in time of peace intercept the trade which the Iroquois carried on between the western Indians and the Dutch and English at Albany, and in time of war threaten them with serious danger. La Motte saw the necessity of conciliating these formidable neighbors, and, if possible, cajoling them to give their consent to the plan. La Salle, indeed, had instructed him to that effect. He resolved on a journey to the great village of the Senecas, and called on Hennepin, who was busied in building a bark chapel for himself, to accompany him. They accordingly set out with several men well armed and equipped, and bearing at their backs presents of very considerable value. The village was beyond the Genesee, southeast of the site of Rochester.[119] After a march of five days, they reached it on the last day of December. They were conducted to the lodge of the great chief, where they were beset by a staring crowd of women and children. Two Jesuits, Raffeix and Julien Garnier, were in the village; and their presence boded no good for the emba.s.sy.

La Motte, who seems to have had little love for priests of any kind, was greatly annoyed at seeing them; and when the chiefs a.s.sembled to hear what he had to say, he insisted that the two fathers should leave the council-house. At this, Hennepin, out of respect for his cloth, thought it befitting that he should retire also. The chiefs, forty-two in number, squatted on the ground, arrayed in ceremonial robes of beaver, wolf, or black-squirrel skin. "The senators of Venice," writes Hennepin, "do not look more grave or speak more deliberately than the counsellors of the Iroquois." La Motte's interpreter harangued the attentive conclave, placed gift after gift at their feet,--coats, scarlet cloth, hatchets, knives, and beads,--and used all his eloquence to persuade them that the building of a fort on the banks of the Niagara, and a vessel on Lake Erie, were measures vital to their interest. They gladly took the gifts, but answered the interpreter's speech with evasive generalities; and having been entertained with the burning of an Indian prisoner, the discomfited emba.s.sy returned, half-famished, to Niagara.

Meanwhile, La Salle and Tonty were on their way from Fort Frontenac, with men and supplies, to join La Motte and his advance party. They were in a small vessel, with a pilot either unskilful or treacherous.

On Christmas eve, he was near wrecking them off the Bay of Quinte. On the next day they crossed to the mouth of the Genesee; and La Salle, after some delay, proceeded to the neighboring town of the Senecas, where he appears to have arrived just after the departure of La Motte and Hennepin. He, too, called them to a council, and tried to soothe the extreme jealousy with which they regarded his proceedings. "I told them my plan," he says, "and gave the best pretexts I could, and I succeeded in my attempt."[120] More fortunate than La Motte, he persuaded them to consent to his carrying arms and ammunition by the Niagara portage, building a vessel above the cataract, and establis.h.i.+ng a fortified warehouse at the mouth of the river.

[Sidenote: JEALOUSIES.]

This success was followed by a calamity. La Salle had gone up the Niagara to find a suitable place for a s.h.i.+p-yard, when he learned that the pilot in charge of the vessel he had left had disobeyed his orders, and ended by wrecking it on the coast. Little was saved except the anchors and cables destined for the new vessel to be built above the cataract. This loss threw him into extreme perplexity, and, as Hennepin says, "would have made anybody but him give up the enterprise."[121] The whole party were now gathered at the palisaded house which La Motte had built, a little below the mountain ridge of Lewiston. They were a motley crew of French, Flemings, and Italians, all mutually jealous. La Salle's enemies had tampered with some of the men; and none of them seemed to have had much heart for the enterprise. The fidelity even of La Motte was doubtful. "He served me very ill," says La Salle; "and Messieurs de Tonty and de la Forest knew that he did his best to debauch all my men."[122] His health soon failed under the hards.h.i.+ps of these winter journeyings, and he returned to Fort Frontenac, half-blinded by an inflammation of the eyes.[123] La Salle, seldom happy in the choice of subordinates, had, perhaps, in all his company but one man whom he could fully trust; and this was Tonty. He and Hennepin were on indifferent terms. Men thrown together in a rugged enterprise like this quickly learn to know each other; and the vain and a.s.suming friar was not likely to commend himself to La Salle's brave and loyal lieutenant. Hennepin says that it was La Salle's policy to govern through the dissensions of his followers; and, from whatever cause, it is certain that those beneath him were rarely in perfect harmony.

FOOTNOTES:

[104] Hennepin, _Description de la Louisiane_ (1683), 19; Ibid., _Voyage Curieux_ (1704), 66. Ribourde had lately arrived.

[105] _Lettre de La Motte de la Lussiere, sans date; Relation de Henri de Tonty ecrite de Quebec, le 14 Novembre, 1684_ (Margry, i. 573). This paper, apparently addressed to Abbe Renaudot, is entirely distinct from Tonty's memoir of 1693, addressed to the minister Ponchartrain.

[106] Hennepin, _Nouvelle Decouverte_ (1697), 8.

[107] Ibid., _Avant Propos_, 5.

[108] Ibid., _Voyage Curieux_ (1704), 12.

[109] Hennepin, _Voyage Curieux_ (1704), 18.

[110] Ibid. _Avis au Lecteur._ He elsewhere represents himself as on excellent terms with La Salle; with whom, he says, he used to read histories of travels at Fort Frontenac, after which they discussed together their plans of discovery.

[111] This was the _Racines Agnieres_ of Bruyas. It was published by Mr.

Shea in 1862. Hennepin seems to have studied it carefully; for on several occasions he makes use of words evidently borrowed from it, putting them into the mouths of Indians speaking a dialect different from that of the Agniers, or Mohawks.

[112] Compare Brodhead in _Hist. Mag._, x. 268.

[113] "Une enterprise capable d'epouvanter tout autre que moi."--Hennepin, _Voyage Curieux, Avant Propos_ (1704).

[114] "Je vous proteste ici devant Dieu, que ma Relation est fidele et sincere," etc.--Ibid., _Avis au Lecteur_.

[115] The nature of these fabrications will be shown hereafter. They occur, not in the early editions of Hennepin's narrative, which are comparatively truthful, but in the edition of 1697 and those which followed. La Salle was dead at the time of their publication.

[116] This place is laid down on a ma.n.u.script map sent to France by the Intendant d.u.c.h.esneau, and now preserved in the Archives de la Marine, and also on several other contemporary maps.

[117] Hennepin's account of the falls and river of Niagara--especially his second account, on his return from the West--is very minute, and on the whole very accurate. He indulges in gross exaggeration as to the height of the cataract, which, in the edition of 1683, he states at five hundred feet, and raises to six hundred in that of 1697. He also says that there was room for four carriages to pa.s.s abreast under the American Fall without being wet. This is, of course, an exaggeration at the best; but it is extremely probable that a great change has taken place since his time. He speaks of a small lateral fall at the west side of the Horse Shoe Fall which does not now exist. Table Rock, now destroyed, is distinctly figured in his picture. He says that he descended the cliffs on the west side to the foot of the cataract, but that no human being can get down on the east side.

The name of Niagara, written _Onguiaahra_ by Lalemant in 1641, and _Ongiara_ by Sanson, on his map of 1657, is used by Hennepin in its present form. His description of the falls is the earliest known to exist. They are clearly indicated on the map of Champlain, 1632. For early references to them, see "The Jesuits in North America," 235, _note_. A brief but curious notice of them is given by Gendron, _Quelques Particularitez du Pays des Hurons_, 1659. The indefatigable Dr. O'Callaghan has discovered thirty-nine distinct forms of the name Niagara. _Index to Colonial Doc.u.ments of New York_, 465. It is of Iroquois origin, and in the Mohawk dialect is p.r.o.nounced Nyagarah.

[118] Tonty, _Relation_, 1684 (Margry, i. 573).

[119] Near the town of Victor. It is laid down on the map of Galinee, and other unpublished maps. Compare Marshall, _Historical Sketches of the Niagara Frontier_, 14.

[120] _Lettre de La Salle a un de ses a.s.socies_ (Margry, ii. 32).

[121] _Description de la Louisiane_ (1683), 41. It is characteristic of Hennepin that, in the editions of his book published after La Salle's death, he subst.i.tutes, for "anybody but him," "anybody but those who had formed so generous a design,"--meaning to include himself, though he lost nothing by the disaster, and had not formed the design.

On these incidents, compare the two narratives of Tonty, of 1684 and 1693. The book bearing Tonty's name is a compilation full of errors. He disowned its authors.h.i.+p.

[122] _Lettre de La Salle, 22 Aout, 1682_ (Margry, ii. 212).

[123] _Lettre de La Motte, sans date._

CHAPTER X.

1679.

THE LAUNCH OF THE "GRIFFIN."

The Niagara Portage.--A Vessel on the Stocks.--Suffering and Discontent.--La Salle's Winter Journey.--The Vessel launched.--Fresh Disasters.

[Sidenote: THE NIAGARA PORTAGE.]

A more important work than that of the warehouse at the mouth of the river was now to be begun. This was the building of a vessel above the cataract. The small craft which had brought La Motte and Hennepin with their advance party had been hauled to the foot of the rapids at Lewiston, and drawn ash.o.r.e with a capstan, to save her from the drifting ice. Her lading was taken out, and must now be carried beyond the cataract to the calm water above. The distance to the destined point was at least twelve miles, and the steep heights above Lewiston must first be climbed. This heavy task was accomplished on the twenty-second of January. The level of the plateau was reached, and the file of burdened men, some thirty in number, toiled slowly on its way over the snowy plains and through the gloomy forests of spruce and naked oak-trees; while Hennepin plodded through the drifts with his portable altar lashed fast to his back. They came at last to the mouth of a stream which entered the Niagara two leagues above the cataract, and which was undoubtedly that now called Cayuga Creek.[124]

Trees were felled, the place cleared, and the master-carpenter set his s.h.i.+p-builders at work. Meanwhile, two Mohegan hunters, attached to the party, made bark wigwams to lodge the men. Hennepin had his chapel, apparently of the same material, where he placed his altar, and on Sundays and saints' days said ma.s.s, preached, and exhorted; while some of the men, who knew the Gregorian chant, lent their aid at the service.

When the carpenters were ready to lay the keel of the vessel, La Salle asked the friar to drive the first bolt; "but the modesty of my religious profession," he says, "compelled me to decline this honor."