his camp was on the eastern side of the
river, facing the majestic stream and the splendors of the setting sun.
La Salle had no physician, no medicine, no tender nursing, no delicate
food to tempt a failing appetite. He could only lie patiently upon his
mat, and await the progress of the disease, whether it were for life or
for death. The silence and solitude of the river, the prairie, and the
forest surrounded him.

Strange must have been his reflections in those solemn hours, when he
was anticipating the speedy approach of death, upon the banks of that
wonderful stream which his enterprise had caused to be explored from
its sources to its mouth. As in languor and suffering he reclined upon
his couch, all the beauty and bloom of May, in a delightful clime, were
spread around him. The silent flood swept by, rushing down a distance
of countless leagues in the north, until, after a serpentine course of
more than a thousand miles, through the most wonderful scenes of
nature, and fringed with the villages of innumerable savage tribes, it
was lost in the great Mexican gulf. The Indians moved about in silence,
seldom exchanging a word with each other. They brought in game, and
were continually cooking and eating at the fire, which was kept in a
constant blaze in front of the camp.

Two days and nights were thus passed, when, on the 2d of June, the
remaining canoes of the fleet were seen in the distance, approaching
the encampment. They soon landed; and the whole party, over fifty in
number, presented to the eye a new scene of bustle and activity. La
Salle was sinking, in the ever-increasing languor of something like
typhoid fever. It was manifest that many days must elapse before he
could leave that spot, and it was probable, in his own judgment as well
as in that of all his companions, that he would there sink into that
last sleep from which there is no earthly waking.

In these trying hours, his serenity and trust in God did not forsake
him. He called Lieutenant Tonti to the side of his couch, and directed
him to take several canoes, with the larger part of the company, and
make his way, as vigorously as possible, up the river three hundred
miles to the mouth of the Illinois River. Then, ascending that, and its
upper branch, the Kaskaskias, he was to cross by the portage to a
tributary of the St. Joseph's, and paddle down those streams to Fort
Miami, where the St. Joseph empties into Lake Michigan. Thence by the
lake he