was to make his way to Mackinac. This required a journey of
over a thousand miles. M. Tonti was furnished with documents addressed
to Count Frontenac, Governor of Canada, giving a detailed account of
the explorations and discoveries which La Salle had so successfully
accomplished. Father Membre, with several others of the party, remained
with the sick man.

For more than a month the burning fever raged, and La Salle was brought
to the verge of the grave. The fever then left him. For some time it
was doubtful whether there was sufficient strength remaining for him to
recover. Slowly he gained. After a detention of forty days, they placed
him carefully upon mats, in the bottom of a canoe, and, by short
stages, resumed their voyage. They left Fort Prudhomme, and, following
the same track which Tonti had pursued, did not reach Fort Miami, at
the mouth of the St. Joseph's River, until the end of September. But
July and August were months of delightful weather. The scenery, rich
with forest grandeur and prairie flowers, was varied and enchanting.
Game was abundant. Ripe fruit hung on many boughs. Hospitable villages
were scattered along the way, where the general voyagers were
invariably received with kindness truly fraternal.

The motion of the canoe, as the Indians, with brawny arms, paddled over
the mirrored surface of the stream, was soothing and grateful to the
languid, yet convalescent patient. In the cool of the beautiful
mornings they could glide along the stream for a few leagues, then
shelter themselves in some shady grove from the rays of the noonday
sun, and in the cool of the serene evenings, resume their voyage till
the deepening twilight admonished them to seek their night's
encampment.

Thus pleasantly journeying, La Salle rapidly regained strength; and
when he reached Fort Miami he was restored to almost his customary
vigor. He found the habitation called Fort Miami quite renovated by
Lieutenant Tonti, and a few men left in garrison to receive him upon
his arrival. Quite a cluster of Indian wigwams had also been reared
there, giving a very animated and cheerful aspect to the spot. Father
Membre, in describing the scenery through which they passed, in this
ascent of the Mississippi and the Illinois, writes:

"The banks of the Mississippi, for twenty or thirty leagues from
its mouth, are covered with a dense growth of canes, except in
fifteen or twenty places where there are very pretty hills an