n whatever of
human life. They came to the site where the Indian village had formerly
stood in its picturesque beauty, with six or eight thousand inhabitants
swarming around, in the various costumes, and engaged in the
diversified employments of savage life. Naught remained but smouldering
ruins and trampled harvests. Man bitterest foe, his brother man, had
been there, and had left behind but the traces of desolation, blood and
woe. Neither wolf nor bear could have been more merciless, or could
have left behind them ravages so dreadful.

The dispersion of the garrison, and the destruction of all the works
commenced and the stores deposited at Crevecoeur, was another blow
upon the head and the heart of La Salle, apparently frustrating all his
plans. He must have experienced emotions of the keenest anguish. But
this remarkable man, invincible by the reverses of fortune, presented
to his companions only a smiling aspect, and addressed them only with
cheerful words. Having lost everything which he had expected to find at
Crevecoeur, it became necessary for him to return to Mackinac. This
required a journey by river, forest, prairie, and lake, of nearly five
hundred miles.

Immediately he reembarked his whole force, in his canoes, and
commenced the laborious ascent of the stream he had just descended so
pleasantly, borne along by the aid of the current. When they reached
the mouth of the Kankakee, instead of following up that stream, they
struck across the country, by a portage directly north, until they
reached the Chicago River. Here they again launched their canoes and
followed down the windings of the stream until they came to its
entrance into Lake Michigan, where Chicago now stands.

At this port La Salle found fragments of many war-scathed tribes, in a
half-starving condition. They informed him that the terrible Iroquois;
composed of five united savage nations, and whose central power was in
the vast territory south of Lake Ontario, had in overwhelming numbers
invaded the valley of the Illinois. Many of their warriors were armed
with guns purchased from the French. The feeble tribes fled in terror
before them. The ferocious bands wandered in all directions. By day and
by night the hideous war-whoop resounded. Villages were burned,
captives were seized, women and children were slaughtered, and
thousands of fugitives, war-bereaved, woe-stricken, fled to the western
side of the Mississippi to seek protection by being