t of
the sharp wind of the north, shivering in its icy grasp, as it tumbled,
rolled, and gambolled on the pliant surface. Multitudes of birds of
strange appearance, with their elongated shapes so lean that they
looked like metamorphosed ghosts, clothed in plumage, screamed in the
air, as if they were scared of one another. There was something
agonizing in their shrieks that was in harmony with the desolation of
the place. On every side of the vessel, monsters of the deep and huge
alligators heaved themselves up heavily from their native or favorite
element, and, floating lazily on the turbid waters, seemed to gaze at
the intruders....

It was a relief for the adventurers when, after having toiled up the
river for ten days, they at last arrived at the village of the
Bayagoulas. There they found a letter of Tonty to La Salle, dated in
1685. The letter, or rather that "speaking bark" as the Indians called
it, had been preserved with great reverence. Tonty, having been
informed that La Salle was coming with a fleet from France to settle a
colony on the banks of the Mississippi, had not hesitated to set off
from the northern lakes, with twenty Canadians and thirty Indians, and
to come down to the Balize to meet his friend, who had failed to make
out the mouth of the Mississippi, and had been landed by Beaujeu on the
shores of Texas. After having waited for some time, and ignorant of
what had happened, Tonty, with the same indifference to fatigues and
dangers of an appalling nature, retraced his way back, leaving a letter
to La Salle to inform him of his disappointment. Is there not something
extremely romantic in the characters of the men of that epoch? Here is
Tonty undertaking, with the most heroic unconcern, a journey of nearly
three thousand miles, through such difficulties as it is easy for us to
imagine, and leaving a letter to La Salle, as a proof of his visit, in
the same way that one would, in these degenerate days of effeminacy,
leave a card at a neighbor's house.

The French extended their explorations up to the mouth of the Red
River. On their return the two brothers separated when they arrived at
Bayou Manchac. Bienville was ordered to go down the river to the French
fleet, to give information of what they had seen and heard. Iberville
went through Bayou Manchac to those lakes which are known under the
names of Pontchartrain and Maurepas. Louisiana had been named from a
king: was it not in keeping that those l