had now reached the furthest point of Joliet and Marquette's
exploration. He reared a cross, took possession of the country in his
master's name, and pushed on. On the western side of the river they
visited the home of the Taensas Indians and were amazed at the degree
{252} of social advancement which they found among them. There were
square dwellings, built of sun-baked mud mixed with straw, and arranged
in regular order around an open area; and the King was attended by a
council of sixty grave old men wearing white cloaks of the fine inner
fibre of mulberry bark. The temple was a large structure, full of a
dim, mysterious gloom, within which burned a sacred fire, as an emblem
of the sun, watched and kept up unceasingly by two aged priests.

Altogether, the customs and social condition of these people were more
like those of the ancient Peruvians and Mexicans than those of the wild
tribes with whom the explorers were familiar. When the chief visited
La Salle he came in great state, preceded by women who bore white fans,
and wearing a disk of burnished copper,--probably to indicate that he
was a child of the Sun, for the royal family claimed this high lineage.

The next day the Frenchmen visited a kindred tribe, the Natchez, among
whom they observed similar usages. They were hospitably entertained
and spent the night in their villages. Their chief town was some miles
distant, near the site of the {253} city of Natchez. Here again La
Salle planted a cross, less as a symbol of Christianity than of French
occupation.[3]

{254} Near the mouth of the Red River, in the neighborhood of the place
where Soto had been buried, the voyagers, while attempting to follow
some fleeing natives, received a shower of arrows from a canoe. La
Salle, anxious to avoid a hostile encounter, drew his men off. No
doubt the Indians of this region preserved proud traditions of their
forefathers' pursuit of the escaping Spaniards, the remnant of Soto's
expedition.

On April 6 with what elation must La Salle have beheld the waters of
the Gulf sparkling in the rays of the southern sun! The dream of years
was realized. His long struggle and his hopes and failures and renewed
efforts were crowned with success. One hundred and ninety years after
Columbus's discovery, at enormous expense, he had led a party from the
great fresh-water seas to the southern ocean, and had opened, he fondly
believed, a new route for trade. But long years were