tenant Tonti had just abandoned his dilapidated birch canoe on the
Illinois River, in his retirement from the fort, and, with his few
companions, was struggling on foot through the wilderness west of Lake
Michigan, seeking also the same refuge.

La Salle, entirely unconscious of the disasters which had overtaken his
garrison at Crevecoeur, reembarked, on the 4th of October. Following
the same course he had pursued before, he paddled down the eastern
coast of Lake Michigan, to the River St. Joseph. At the head of which
river, it will be remembered, he had erected Fort Miami, on territory
inhabited by the Miami Indians. It was a long voyage, with many
obstructions from the autumnal storms, which seemed to be incessantly
sweeping that bleak and harborless lake. After the tempestuous voyage
of a month, he reached Fort Miami on the 3d of November.

Eleven months before, on the 3d of December, 1679, he had left that
station, on his route to the Illinois River. Le Clercq says that four
men were left in charge there. This is not sustained by other accounts.
It is not probable that so small a number would have been left in a
position so greatly exposed. But, however this may be, he found the
Miami village in ashes, and all who dwelt in it dispersed. His log fort
was also in utter ruin. It was a melancholy scene which met his eye;
another indication of man's inhumanity to man.

The St. Joseph's River takes its rise in Indiana. For nearly a hundred
miles before it empties its flood into Lake Michigan, it flows in a
course of narrow windings, almost directly from the south. By paddling
up this stream, in a canoe voyage of three or four days, or about
seventy miles of our measurement, they came to a portage, five or six
miles in length, by which they could reach the Kankakee River.

This was an important tributary of the Illinois River. It will be
remembered that it was by this stream that La Salle and his party, more
than a year before, prosecuted their voyage to Lake Peoria. It was
then, for much of its distance, rather a dismal stream, sluggishly
winding through marshes lined with alders. Rapidly they paddled on, day
after day, through a country of silence and solitude, until they
entered the broader, deeper waters of Illinois River.

Still, as they descended this beautiful stream, which presented as
attractive situations for happy homes as perhaps earth could afford,
they passed no Indian villages, no solitary wigwam, no sig