ng descended the whole course
of the Mississippi from being known. They therefore wisely determined
to retrace their steps with all energy. On the 17th of July they left
the village of Akamsea, near the mouth of the Arkansas River, to stem
the strong current of the Mississippi on their return. At high-water
the vast flood, a mile in width, rushed along at the rate of five or
six miles an hour. They found it very difficult to force their way
against this current. We have no particular account of the incidents of
their long and laborious return voyage. When they had reached the
latitude of thirty-eighth degree north, they came to the mouth of the
Illinois River. The Indians informed them that this would be a shorter
route to Lake Michigan than to go up the Mississippi still farther to
the Wisconsin River. They therefore entered this stream, which takes
its rise within six miles of the lake. In the glowing account which
Father Marquette gives of this river, he writes:

"We had seen nothing like this river for the fertility of the land,
its prairies, woods, wild cattle, stags, deer, wild-cats, bustards,
swans, ducks, parrots, and even beavers. It has many little lakes
and tributary rivers. The stream on which we sailed is broad, deep,
and gentle, for sixty-five leagues. During the spring, and part of
the summer, when the rivers are full, the portage is only a mile
and a half in length."

They ascended the Illinois until, by a short portage, they could
transport their canoes across the prairie to the Chicago River.
Descending this stream to its mouth, where the thronged city of Chicago
now stands, but which was then only a dreary expanse of marshy prairie,
they paddled up the western coast of Lake Michigan until they reached
the mission at Green Bay, about the middle of September. About two
months were spent in the toilsome voyage from Arkansas.

General Wool, Inspector-General of the army of the United States, has
made, from a personal acquaintance with the route, the following
estimate of the distances of the several stages of this eventful
journey:

From Green Bay up Fox River to the portage 175 miles
From the portage down the Wisconsin to the Mississippi 175 "
From the mouth of the Wisconsin to the mouth of the
Arkansas 1087 "
From the Arkansas to the Illinois River 547 "
From the mou