generations. All the Frenchmen could with truth say was that they were the first white men to travel those paths, since grown to great highways of commerce.' If, now, we look at the map, we are surprised to find how remarkably travel between the lakes and the Mississippi is facilitated by the trend of the rivers themselves. It really seems like part of a great plan, as they uniformly take their rise near the lakes, and thence flow off southwesterly toward the great river. The water-shed, too, is but little raised above the general level of the country, so that if tedious, the portages were not difficult, like those of a mountainous region. So many journeys, in so many directions, had resulted in locating the great water-courses more or less correctly, in locating the various local tribes, and in acquiring some little knowledge of their strength, their enmities, or their friendships. As they threaded the broad prairies on foot, or floated on the still waters that wind through them in silvery folds, the Frenchmen saw with admiration great herds of shaggy bison, quietly grazing on all sides of them. They saw with rapture the sun sink down below a horizon seemingly as far off as if they had been on the great ocean itself. Yet all their thoughts were how to keep this boundless domain a solitude. With a few posts well placed, and a few gifts judiciously bestowed, they might control the fur-trade, and hold the Indians in fast friendship. This was the whole philosophy of frontier life, as long ago as when the first campfire was lighted on the prairies of the west. This was the colonial system of Louis XIV. As the pioneers of this region were Frenchmen, the presence of so many French names on the map is readily accounted for. In a certain way, they preserve its his tory. In like manner, another group of names stands for the red men, who once called all this broad land theirs. We would not see one of them changed, strange as they sound to the present generation; stranger still as they must grow, as the years roll on. By reason of their discoveries the French claimed everything west of the Alleghanies, and for many years it was not Englishmen who disputed its possession with them, but a power they themselves had first heedlessly provoked on the shores of Lake Champlain, and often trembled at in the years to come-in a word, the redoubtable Iroquois. Wherever the French went, they heard this people spoken of with fear and trembling. 1 THIS is more fully treated of in the Making of the Great West, of this series. 2 FOR FEAR OF the Iroquois the French traders sometimes embarked at Montreal by night, so as not to be seen by their scouts. 3 LA SALLE and Marquette have counties, towns, or cities named for them, the first in Illinois, on the scene of his exploits, the last in Michigan. 4 GREEN BAY was better known to the French as the Baie des Puants, or Stinking Bay. The Winnebagoes, who lived near it, were called Les Puans, both names originating in an alleged disagreeable odor to the waters of the bay. The mission of St. Francis Xavier was at the head of the bay, at the outlet of Fox River. A pivotal point in the history of Wisconsin, considered by good scholars as its first bona fide settlement, the mission of St. Esprit being the first mission. The English name, Green Bay, according to Carver (Travels, p. 15), comes from the earlier appearance of verdure here, in the spring, than at Michilimackinac. The French post here was called Fort La Baie, corrupted into Le Bay by the English. It stood on the west bank of Fox River. 5 DISCOVERY OF THE OHIO, by La Salle, rests chiefly on the authority of Joliet, who has it so on his map, 1674. The matter is discussed in Wisconsin Hist. Coll., ix.. 108, Parkman's La Salle, etc. 6 SEE Making of the Great West, p. 79. 7 LOUISIANA, the name given in honor of Louis XIV. 8 UTICA is on the Rock Island Railroad, ten miles below Ottawa, and five above La Salle. Parkman considers it the site of the great Illinois town of La Salle's and Hennepin's accounts. The Rock is six miles below Ottawa. Fort St. Louis, La Salle's fort, was deserted before 1721. 9 BESIDES THE great routes, there were cross-country paths connecting the principal villages. THE IROQUOIS BLOCKADE Niagara the Key of the Lakes WHILE the French were so industriously spreading their net to catch the trade of the Northwest, a most formidable foe rose in their path. This was not the English, whose most western settlement was Schenectady, but the powerful Iroquois, who claimed most of the western country themselves, by right of conquest. Their claim ran as far down the Ohio Valley as the Tennessee, The Counsel men. AN INDIAN COUNCIL (FROM LA HONTAN). or Cherokee River, as it was first called, from taking its rise in the country of that nation, and covered everything as far north as the great lakes. In all that vast region there were none to dispute their title, for even the most warlike tribes had been driven to acknowledge the all-conquering Iroquois as their masters. To give an idea of the extent of their conquests, it will be enough to say that the Iroquois had driven the Ottawas out of their own country, to find a present refuge on the shores of Lake Superior, and that La Salle found the numerous and warlike Illinois as much afraid of the terrible Iroquois as if they had been so many hungry tigers. It was the same thing east or south. To see the French walk in, and coolly take possession of what had been won with their own blood, and by their own bravery, incensed the Iroquois beyond measure against them. Of course the French promised to protect the resident nations against the Iroquois, as if it was an easy thing for them to do, when the plain fact was that they could not protect themselves, or were kept in constant fear of their own lives. It had been early found that the short way to the Mississippi lay around the stupendous cataract that guarded the Iroquois country at the west. It was as good, or better, than a Chinese Wall, and probably helped on the idea we find so generally prevailing, that a people, whose gateway had been built by the Great Manitou himself, must be under his special protection. This was Niagara Niagara, the key of the lakes. La Salle, long-headed, astute, persuasive, had wheedled the Senecas into letting him build a sort of fort there, in the winter of 1678-79, to aid him in his explorations. This, however, was soon after burned, and it had not been rebuilt. At this point, which La Salle had foreseen could be made impregnable to an enemy, the Iroquois had as good as established a blockade, which shut out free communication through the lakes. It therefore became an object of the first importance to the French to raise this blockade. The English took no active part in this rivalry, at first, except to protest that the Iroquois were the King of England's subjects, and therefore under his protection. But when the French attacked the Iroquois in their own country, the English did absolutely nothing to help them, except prate loudly about what they would do by and by. It was an unequal contest-a cruel contest-to which men of common judgment saw but one end. The French were playing their Northwestern allies against the Iroquois; and the English were playing the Iroquois against the French. Whoever won, it was not to be the Indian. The importance to them of opening this route to the West led to an attack being made upon the Senecas, who held Niagara, by Governor Denonville, in the year 1687. Though making stout resistance, the Senecas were beaten from their villages, so leaving the French masters of this much-coveted corner of Lake Ontario. After this victory Denonville began the building of another fort, at the same spot previously occupied by La Salle's, later so historic. This, too, was abandoned the next year, on account of the scurvy breaking out among the soldiers there, and on the demand of the English, was destroyed by its builders. Thus it returned to its legitimate owners until many years after.' And thus, twice in ten years, had the French seen this important pass slip through their fingers, after having, as they thought, |