tem of the Illinois.]

A century earlier, its channel southward had really been taken
possession of by the Spaniards, its first discoverers. But they made no
use of their discovery, and on their maps traced it as an insignificant
stream. The French did not know whether this river flowed into the Gulf
of California--which was called the Red Sea--or to the western ocean,
or through Virginia eastward. Illinois Indians, visiting Marquette's
mission after the manner of roving tribes, described the father of
waters and its tributaries. Count Frontenac, the governor of Canada,
thought the matter of sufficient importance to send Louis Jolliet with
an outfit to join the missionary in searching for the stream.

The explorers took with them a party of five men. Their canoes, we are
told, were of birch bark and cedar splints, the ribs being shaped from
spruce roots. Covered with the pitch of yellow pine, and light enough
to be carried on the shoulders of four men across portages, these canoes
yet had toughness equal to any river voyage. They were provisioned with
smoked meat and Indian corn. Shoved clear of the beach, they shot out
on the blue water to the dip of paddles. Marquette waved his adieu.
His Indians, remembering the dangers of that southern country, scarcely
hoped to see him again. Marquette, though a young man, was of no such
sturdy build as Jolliet. Among descendants of the Ottawas you may still
hear the tradition that he had a "white face, and long hair the color
of the sun" flowing to the shoulders of his black robe.

The watching figures dwindled, as did the palisaded settlement. Hugging
the shore, the canoes entered Lake Michigan, or, as it was then called,
the Lake of the Illinois. All the islands behind seemed to meet and
intermingle and to cover themselves with blue haze as they went down
on the water. Priest and trader, their skins moist with the breath
of the lake, each in his own canoe, faced silently the unknown world
toward which they were venturing. The shaggy coast line bristled with
evergreens, and though rocky, it was low, unlike the white cliffs of
Michilimackinac.

Marquette had made a map from the descriptions of the Illinois Indians.
The canoes were moving westward on the course indicated by his map.
He was peculiarly gifted as a missionary, for already he spoke six
Indian languages, and readily adapted himself to any dialect. Marquette,
the records tell us, came of "an old and honorable family o