"I was the more enraptured at this good news, as I saw my designs
on the point of being accomplished, and myself in the happy
necessity of exposing my life for the salvation of all these
nations. Our joy at being chosen for this enterprise, sweetened the
labor of paddling from morning till night. As we were going to seek
unknown countries, we took all possible precautions, that if our
enterprise were hazardous, it should not be foolhardy. For this
reason we gathered all possible information from the Indians, who
had frequented those parts. We even traced a map of all the new
country, marking down the rivers on which we were to sail, the
names of the nations through which we were to pass, and the course
of the great river."

On the 13th of May, 1673, this little band, consisting of M. Joliet,
Father Marquette, and five boatmen, in two birch canoes, commenced
their adventurous voyage. They took with them some Indian corn and
jerked meat; but they were to live mainly upon such food as they could
obtain by the way. The immense sheet of water, at the northwestern
extremity of Lake Michigan, called Green Bay, is one hundred miles long
by twenty or thirty broad. The boatmen paddled their frail canoes along
the western border of this lake until they reached its southern
extremity, where they found a shallow river, flowing into it from the
south, which they called Fox River. They could propel their canoes
about thirty miles a day. Each night they selected some propitious spot
for their encampment. Upon some dry and grassy mound they could
speedily, with their axes, construct a hut which would protect them
from the weather. Carefully smoothing down the floor, they spread over
it their ample couch of furs. Fish could be taken in abundance. The
forest was filled with game. An immense fire, blazing before the open
side of the hut, gave warmth, and illumined the sublime scene with
almost the brilliance of noon-day. There they joyously cooked their
suppers, with appetites which rendered the feast more luxurious to them
probably than any gourmand at Delmonico's ever enjoyed.

Each night Father Marquette held a religious service, which all
reverently attended. Prayers were offered, and their hymns of Christian
devotion floated sweetly through those sublime solitudes. The boatmen
were men of a gentle race, who had been taught from infancy to revere
the exercises of the church.

They came upo