men on Lake Superior; and you sufficiently see now much this man's voyage, which can not produce any advantage to the colony, and which was permitted only in the interest of some private | persons, has contributed to distract the peace of the colony."

Du Luth and his young brother appear to have traded at the western extremity of Lake Superior, and on the north shore, to Lake Nipegon.

In June, 1684, Governor De la Barre sent Guillet and IIebert from Montreal to request Du Luth and Durantaye to bring down voyageurs and Indians to assist in an expedition against the Iroquois of New York. Early in September, they reported on the St. Lawrence, with one hundred and fifty coureurs des bois and three hundred and fifty Indians; but as a treaty had just been made with the Senecas, they returned.

De la Barre's successor, Governor Denonville, in a dispatch to the French Government, dated November 12th, 1685, alludes to Du Luth being in the far West, in these words: "I likewise sent to M. De la Durantaye, who is at Lake Superior under orders from M. De la Barre, and to Sieur Du Luth, who is also at a great distance in another direction, and all so far beyond reach that neither the one nor the other can hear news from me this year; so that, not being able to see them at soonest, before next July, I considered it best not to think of undertaking any thing during the whole of next year, especially as a great number of our best men are among the Outaouacs, and can not return before the ensuing summer. In regard to Sieur Du Luth, I sent him orders to repair here, so that I may learn the number of savages on whom I may depend. He is accredited among them, and rendered great services to M. De la Barre by a large number of savages hè brought to Niagara, who would have attacked the Senecas, was it not for an express order from M. De la Barre to the contrary."

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In 1686, while at Mackinaw, he was ordered to establish a post on the Detroit, near Lake Erie. A portion of the order reads as follows: "After having given all the orders that you may judge necessary for the safety of this post, and having well secured the obedience of the Indians, you will return to Michilimackinac, there to await Rev. Father Engelran, by whom I will communicate what I wish of you, there."

The design of this post was to block the passage of the English to the upper lakes. Before it was established, in the fall of 1686, Thomas Roseboom, a daring trader from Albany, on the Hudson, had found his way to the vicinity of Mackinaw, and by the proffer of brandy, weakened the allegiance of the tribes to the French.

A canoe coming to Mackinaw with dispatches for the French and their allies, to march to the Seneca country, in New York, perceived this New York trader and associates, and, giving the alarm, they were met by three hundred coureurs du bois and captured.

In the spring of 1687 Du Luth, Durantaye, and Tɔnty all left the vicinity of Detroit for Niagara, and as they were coasting along Lake Erie they met another English trader, a Scotchman by birth, and by name Major Patrick McGregor, a person of some influence, going with a number of traders to Mackinaw. Having taken him prisoner, he was sent with Roseboom to Montreal.

Du Luth, Tonty, and Durantaye arrived at Niagara on the 27th of June, 1687, with one hundred and seventy French voyageurs, besides Indians, and on the 10th of July joined the army of Denonville at the mouth of the Genesee River, and on the 13th Du Luth and his associates had a skirmish near a Seneca village, now the site of the town of Victor, twenty miles southeast of the city of Rochester, New York. Governor Denonville, in a report, writes: "On the 13th, about 4 o'clock in the afternoon, having passed through two dangerous defiles, we arrived at the third, where we were vigorously attacked by eight hundred Senecas, two hundred of whom fired, wishing to attack our rear, while the rest would attack our front, but the resistance, made produced such a great consternation that they soon resolved to fly. We witnessed the painful sight of the usual cruelties of the savages, who cut the dead into quarters, as is done in slaughter houses, in order to put them into the kettle. The greater number were opened while still warm, that the blood might be drunk. Our rascally Otaoas distinguished themselves particularly by these barbarities. We had five or six men killed on the spot, French and Indians, and about twenty wounded, among the first of whom was the Rev. Father Angelran, superior of all the Otaoan Missions, by a very severe gun-shot. It is a great

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misfortune that this wound will prevent him going back again, for he is a man of capacity."

In the order to Du Luth assigning him to duty at the post on the site of the modern Fort Gratiot, above the city of Detroit, the Governor of Canada said: "If you can so arrange your affairs that your brother can be near you in the Spring, I shall be very glad. He is an intelligent lad, and might be a great assistance to you; he might also be very serviceable to us."

This lad, Greysolon de la Tourette, during the winter of 1686-7 was trading among the Assinaboines and other tribes at the west end of Lake Superior, but, upon receiving a dispatch, hastened to his brother, journeying in a canoe without any escort from Mackinaw. He did not arrive until after the battle with the Senecas. Governor Denonville, on the 25th of August, 1687, wrote:

"Du Luth's brother, who has recently arrived from the rivers above the Lake of the Allempigons [Nipegon], assures me that he saw more than fifteen hundred persons come to trade with him, and they were very sorry he had not goods sufficient to satisfy them. They are of the tribes accustomed to resort to the English at Port Nelson and River Bourbon, where, they say, they did not go this year, through Sieur Du Lhu's influence."

After the battle in the vicinity of Rochester, New York, Du Luth, with his celebrated cousin, Henry Tonty, returned together as far as the post above the present city of Detroit, Michigan, but this point, after 1688, was not again occupied.

From this period Du Luth becomes less prominent. At the time when the Jesuits attempted to exclude brandy from the Indian country a bitter controversy arose between them and the traders. Cadillac, a Gascon by birth, commanding Fort Buade, at Mackinaw, on August 3, 1695, wrote to Count Frontenac: "Now, what reason can we assign that the savages should not drink brandy bought with their own money as well as we? Is it prohibited to prevent them from becoming intoxicated? Or is it because the use of brandy reduces them to extreme misery, placing it out of their power to make war by depriving them of clothing and arms? If such representations in regard to the Indians have been made to the Count, they are very false, as every one knows who is acquainted with the ways of the savages. It is bad faith to represent to the Count

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that the sale of brandy reduces the savage to a state of nudity, and by that means places it out of his power to make war, since he never goes to war in any other condition. * Perhaps it will be said that the sale of brandy makes the labors of the missionaries unfruitful. It is necessary to examine this proposition. If the missionaries care for only the extension of commerce, pursuing the course they have hitherto, I agree to it; but if it is the use of brandy that hinders the advancement of the cause of God, I deny it, for it is a fact which no one can deny that there are a great number of savages who never drink brandy, yet who are not, for that, better Christians.

"All the Sioux, the most numerous of all the tribes, who inhabit the region along the shore of Lake Superior, do not even like the smell of brandy. Are they more advanced in religion for that? They do not wish to have the subject mentioned, and when the missionaries address them they only laugh at the foolishness of preaching. Yet these priests boldly fling before the eyes of Europeans, whole volumes filled with glowing descriptions of the conversion of souls by thousands in this country, causing the poor missionaries from Europe, to run to martyrdom as flies to sugar and honey."

Du Luth, or Du Lhut, as he wrote his name, during this discussion, was found upon the side of order and good morals. His attestation is as follows: "I certify that at different periods I have lived about ten years among the Ottawa nation, from the time that I made an exploration to the Nadouecioux people until Fort Saint Joseph was established by order of the Monsieur Marquis Denonville, Governor General, at the head of the Detroit of Lake Erie, which is in the Iroquois country, and which I had the honor to command. During this period, I have seen that the trade in eau-de-vie (brandy) produced great disorder, the father killing the son, and the son throwing his mother into the fire; and I maintain that, morally speaking, it is impossible to export brandy to the woods and distant missions, without danger of its leading to misery."

Governor Frontenac, in an expedition against the Oneidas of New York, arrived at Fort Frontenac, on the 19th of July, 1695, and Captain Du Luth was left in command with forty soldiers,

and masons and carpenters, with orders to erect new buildings. In about four weeks he erected a building one hundred and twenty feet in length, containing officers' quarters, store-rooms, a bakery and a chapel. Early in 1697 he was still in command of the post, and in a report it is mentioned that "everybody was then in good health, except Captain Dulhut the commander, who was unwell of the gout."

It was just before this period, that as a member of the Roman Catholic Church, he was firmly impressed that he had been helped by prayers which he addressed to a deceased Iroquois girl, who had died in the odor of sanctity, and, as a thank offering, signed the following certificate: "I, the subscriber, certify to all whom it may concern, that having been tormented by the gout, for the space of twenty-three years, and with such

severe pains, that it gave me no rest for the spac of three months at a time, I addressed myself to Catherine Tegahkouita, an Iroquois virgin deceased at the Sault Saint Louis, in the reputation of sanctity, and I promised her to visit her tomb, if God should give me health, through her intercession. I have been as perfectly cured at the end of one novena, which I made in her honor, that after five months, I have not perceived the slightest touch of my gout. Given at Fort Frontenac, this 18th day of August, 1696."

As soon as cold weather returned, his old malady again appeared. He died early in A. D. 1710. Marquis de Vaudreuil, Governor of Canada, under date of first of May of that year, wrote to Count Pontchartrain, Colonial Minister at Paris, 'Captain Du Lud died this winter. He was a very honest man."

Falls of St. Anthony Visited by White Men.-La Salle Gives the First Description of Upper Mississippi Valley.-Accault, the Leader, Accompanied by Augelle and Hennepin, at Falls of Saint Anthony.-Hennepin Declared Unreliable by La Salle. His Early Life.-His First Book Criticised by Abbe Bernou and Tronson. Deceptive Map. - First Meeting with Sioux.-Astonishment at Reading His Breviary,-Sioux Name for Guns.-Accault and Hennepin at Lake Pepin.-Leave the River Below Saint Paul.-At Mille Lacs.-A Sweating Cabin. Sioux Wonder at Mariner's Compass.-Fears of an Iron Pot.-Making a Dictionary.-Infant Baptised.-Route to the Pacific.-Hennepin Descends Rum River. First Visit to Falls of Saint Anthony.-On a Buffalo Hunt.-Meets Du Luth.-Returns to Mille Lacs.-With Du Luth at Falls of St. Anthony.Returns to France.-Subsequent Life.-His Books Examined.-Denies in First Book His Descent to the Gulf of Mexico.-Dispute with Du Luth at Falls of St, Anthony.-Patronage of Du Luth.-Tribute to Du Luth.-Hennepin's Answer to Criticisms.-Denounced by D'Iberville and Father Gravier.-Residence in Rome.

In the summer of 1680, Michael Accault (Ako), Hennepin, the Franciscan missionary, Augelle, Du Luth, and Faffart all visited the Falls of Saint Anthony.

The first description of the valley of the upper Mississippi was written by La Salle, at Fort Frontenac, on Lake Ontario, on the 22d of August, 1682, a month before Hennepin, in Paris, obtained a license to print, and some time before the Franciscan's first work, was issued from the press.

La Salle's knowledge must have been received from Michael Accault, the leader of the expedition, Augelle, his comrade, or the clerical attache, the Franciscan, Hennepin.

It differs from Hennepin's narrative in its freedom from bombast, and if its statements are to be credited, the Franciscan must be looked on as one given to exaggeration. The careful student, however, soon learns to be cautious in receiving the statement of any of the early explorers and ecclesiastics of the Northwest. The Franciscan depreciated the Jesuit missionary, and La Salle did not hesitate to misrepresent Du Luth and others for his own exaltation. La Salle makes statements which we deem to be wide of the truth when his prejudices are aroused.

At the very time that the Intendant of Justice in Canada is complaining that Governor Frontenac is a friend and correspondent of Du Luth,

La Salle writes to his friends in Paris, that Du Luth is looked upon as an outlaw by the governor.

While official documents prove that Du Luth was in Minnesota a year before Accault and associates, yet La Salle writes: "Moreover, the Nadonesioux is not a region which he has discovered. It is known that it was discovered a long time before, and that the Rev. Father Hennepin and Michael Accault were there before him."

La Salle in this communication describes Accault as one well acquainted with the language and names of the Indians of the Illinois region, and also "cool, brave, and prudent," and the head of the party of exploration.

We now proceed with the first description of the country above the Wisconsin, to which is given, for the first and only time, by any writer, the Sioux name, Meschetz Odeba, perhaps intended for Meshdeke Wakpa, River of the Foxes. He describes the Upper Mississippi in these words: "Following the windings of the Mississippi, they found the river Ouisconsing, Wisconsing, or Meschetz Odeba, which flows between Bay of Puans and the Grand river. *** About twenty-three or twenty-four leagues to the north or northwest of the mouth of the Ouisconsing, *** they found the Black river, called by the Nadouesioux, Chabadeba [Chapa Wakpa, Beaver river] not very large, the mouth of which is bordered on the two shores by alders.

"Ascending about thirty leagues, almost at the same point of the compass, is the Buffalo river [Chippewa], as large at its mouth as that of the Illinois. They follow it ten or twelve leagues, where it is deep, small and without rapids, bordered by hills which widen out from time to time to form prairies."

About three o'clock in the afternoon of the 11th of April, 1680, the travelers were met by a war party of one hundred Sioux in thirty-three birch bark canoes. “Michael Accault, who was the

leader,” says La Salle, " presented the Calumet." The Indians were presented by Accault with twenty knives and a fathom and a half of tobacco and some goods. Proceeding with the Indians ten days, on the 22d of April the isles in the Mississippi were reached, where the Sioux had killed some Maskoutens, and they halted to weep over the death of two of their own number; and to assuage their grief, Accault gave them in trade a box of goods and twenty-four hatchets.

When they were eight leagues below the Falls of Saint Anthony, they resolved to go by land to their village, sixty leagues distant. They were well received; the only strife among the villages was that which resulted from the desire to have a Frenchman in their midst. La Salle also states that it was not correct to give the impression that Du Luth had rescued his men from captivity, for they could not be properly called prisoners.

He continues: "In going up the Mississippi again, twenty leagues above that river [Saint Croix] is found the falls, which those I sent, and who passing there first, named Saint Anthony. It is thirty or forty feet high, and the river is narrower here than elsewhere. There is a small island in the midst of the chute, and the two banks of the river are not bordered by high hills, which gradually diminish at this point, but the country on each side is covered with thin woods, such as oaks and other hard woods, scattered wide apart.

"The canoes were carried three or four hundred steps, and eight leagues above was found the west [east?] bank of the river of the Nadouesioux, ending in a lake named Issati, which expands into a great marsh, where the wild rice grows toward the mouth."

In the latter part of his letter La Salle uses the following language relative to his old chaplain:

"I believed that it was appropriate to make for you the narrative of the adventures of this canoe, because I doubt not that they will speak of it, and if you wish to confer with the Father Louis Hennepin, Recollect, who has returned to France, you must know him a little, because he will not fail to exaggerate all things; it is his character, and to me he has written as if he were about to be burned when he was not even in danger, but he believes that it is honorable to act in this manner,

and he speaks more conformably to that which he wishes than to that which he knows."

Hennepin was born in Ath, an inland town of the Netherlands. From boyhood he longed to visit foreign lands, and it is not to be wondered at that he assumed the priest's garb, for next to the soldier's life, it suited one of wandering propensities.

At one time he is on a begging expedition to some of the towns on the sea coast. In a few months he occupies the post of chaplain at an hospital, where he shrives the dying and administers extreme unction. From the quiet of the hospital he proceeds to the camp, and is present at the battle of Seneffe, which occurred in the year 1674.

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His whole mind, from the time that he became a priest, appears to have been on "things seen and temporal," rather than on those that are" unseen and eternal." While on duty at some of the ports of the Straits of Dover, he exhibited the characteristic of an ancient Athenian more than that of a professed successor of the Apostles. He sought out the society of stranges who spent their time in nothing else but either to tell or to hear some new thing." With perfect nonchalance he confesses that notwithstanding the nauseating fumes of tobacco, he used to slip behind the doors of sailors' taverns, and spend days, without regard to the loss of his meals, listening to the adventures and hair-breadth escapes of the mariners in lands beyond the sea.

In the year 1676, he received a welcome order from his Superior, requiring him to embark for Canada. Unaccustomed to the world, and arbitrary in his disposition, he rendered the cabin of the ship in which he sailed any thing but heavenly. As in modern days, the passengers in a vessel to the new world were composed of heterogeneous materials. There were young women. going out in search for brothers or husbands, ecclesiastics, and those engaged in the then new, but profitable, commerce in furs. One of his fellow passengers was the talented and enterpriprising, though unfortunate, La Salle, with whom he was afterwards associated. If he is to be credited, his intercourse with La Salle was not very pleasant on ship-board. The young women, tired of being cooped up in the narrow accommodations of the ship, when the evening was fair