of the great chief, or Sun, of the whole nation. His town was
several leagues distant, near the site of the city of Natchez; and
thither the French repaired to visit him. They saw what they had
already seen among the Taensas,--a religious and political despotism,
a privileged caste descended from the sun, a temple, and a sacred
fire. La Salle planted a large cross, with the arms of France
attached, in the midst of the town; while the inhabitants looked on
with a satisfaction which they would hardly have displayed, had they
understood the meaning of the act....

And now they neared their journey's end. On the sixth of April, the
river divided itself into three broad channels. La Salle followed that
of the west, and D'Autray that of the east; while Tonty took the
middle passage. As he drifted down the turbid current, between the low
and marshy shores, the brackish water changed to brine, and the breeze
grew fresh with the salt breath of the sea. Then the broad bosom of
the great Gulf opened on his sight, tossing its restless billows,
limitless, voiceless, lonely as when born of chaos, without a sail,
without a sign of life.

La Salle, in a canoe, coasted the marshy borders of the sea; and then
the reunited parties assembled on a spot of dry ground, a short
distance above the mouth of the river. Here a column was made ready,
bearing the arms of France, and inscribed with the words,--"LOUIS LE
GRAND, ROY DE FRANCE ET DE NAVARRE, REGNE; LE NEUVIEME 1682." ...

On that day, the realm of France received on parchment a stupendous
accession. The fertile plains of Texas; the vast basin of the
Mississippi, from its frozen northern springs to the sultry borders of
the Gulf; from the woody ridges of the Alleghanies to the bare peaks
of the Rocky Mountains,--a region of savannas and forests, sun-cracked
deserts, and grassy prairies, watered by a thousand rivers, ranged by
a thousand warlike tribes, passed beneath the scepter of the Sultan of
Versailles; and all by virtue of a feeble human voice, inaudible at
half a mile.

[1] From "La Salle and the Discovery of the Great West." By
permission of the publishers, Little, Brown & Co. Robert Cavelier,
Sieur de La Salle, was born in Rouen, in France, in 1643, and
assassinated in Texas in 1687. He was of burgher descent, had been
educated by the Jesuits, with whom for a time he was connected,
and first went to Canada in 1666, discovering the Ohio River in
1