to elapse ere his
vision should become a reality.

Proudly and hopefully, in full view of the sea, he reared a cross and a
column bearing the arms {255} of France and, with the singing of hymns
and volleys of musketry, solemnly proclaimed Louis, of France, to be
the rightful sovereign "of this country of Louisiana," as he named it,
"the seas, harbors, ports, bays, adjacent straits, and all the nations,
peoples, provinces, cities, towns, villages, mines, minerals,
fisheries, streams, and rivers within the extent of the said Louisiana,
and also to the mouth of the River of Palms" (the Rio Grande). A
tremendous claim surely, the historian Parkman remarks, covering a
region watered by a thousand rivers, ranged by a thousand war-like
tribes, in short, an empire in itself, and all by virtue of a feeble
human voice, inaudible at half a mile!

Alas! at that very time, La Salle's enemies in Canada had gained the
upper hand and had secured the recall of his mainstay, Count Frontenac.
This meant that he could do nothing more from Canada as a base of
operations.

On the return voyage the party had a hard time. There was the labor of
paddling the canoes, day after day, against the strong current, under a
blazing sun. Their supplies were exhausted, and they had little to eat
but the flesh of alligators. In their extremity, they applied to {256}
the Quinipissas, a little above the site of New Orleans, for corn.
They got it, but had to repulse a treacherous attack at night. The
Coroas, too, who at the first had shown themselves very friendly, were
evidently bent on murdering the guests whom they entertained with
pretended hospitality. Only the watchfulness of the Frenchmen and the
terror inspired by their guns saved them from attack. Plainly these
natives had grown suspicious. Then La Salle was seized with sickness
which nearly cut him off, and which detained him for weeks. So soon as
he was able to travel, he moved on by slow stages and, about the end of
August, still weak and suffering, reached Fort Miami, from which he had
started eight months before. Of course, he had come back empty-handed,
and there was nothing substantial to show for the vast expense that had
been incurred. His associates in Canada, who had advanced the money,
must fain content themselves with the expectation that the future would
repay them.

In the meantime La Salle was carrying out his plan of founding a colony
of French and Indians on the ba