had a copper hand in the place of the
one blown off in an Italian war, was the most faithful and honest,
through the varying fortunes of the explorer's career from this time
forward. To Father Hennepin I refer in another place.

Both Hennepin and Tonty accompanied La Salle on his expedition of 1678
to the Niagara district, where, above the great falls, near the mouth
of Cayuga Creek, he built the first vessel that ever ventured on the
lakes, and which he named the "Griffin" in honour of Frontenac, whose
coat-of-arms bore such a heraldic device. The loss of this vessel,
while returning with a cargo of furs from Green Bay to Niagara, was a
great blow to La Salle, who, from this time until his death, suffered
many misfortunes which might well have discouraged one of less
indomitable will and fixity of purpose. On the banks of the Illinois
River, a little below the present city of Peoria, he built Fort
Crevecoeur, probably as a memorial of a famous fort in the Netherlands,
not long before captured by the French. While on a visit to Canada,
this post was destroyed by some of his own men in the absence of Tonty,
who had been left in charge. These men were subsequently captured not
far from Cataraqui, and severely punished.

{187}

In the meantime, three Frenchmen, Father Hennepin, Michel Accaut, and
one Du Gay, in obedience to La Salle's orders, had ventured to the
upper waters of the Mississippi, and were made prisoners by a wandering
tribe of Sioux. Not far from the falls of St. Anthony Father Hennepin
met with the famous forest ranger, Duluth, who was better acquainted
with the Sioux country than any other living Frenchman, and was forming
ambitious designs to explore the whole western region beyond Lake
Superior. Father Hennepin, who had been adopted by an aged Sioux
chief, was free to follow Duluth back to the French post at the Straits
of Mackinac. This adventure of Father Hennepin is famous in history,
not on account of any discoveries he actually made, but on account of
the claim he attempted to establish some years after his journey, of
having followed the Mississippi to the Gulf. In the first edition of
his book, printed in 1683--_Description de la Louisiane_--no such claim
was ever suggested, and it was only in 1697 that the same work appeared
in an enlarged form,--_La Nouvelle Decouverte_--crediting Hennepin with
having descended the great river to its outlet. It is not necessary
here to puncture a f