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dwellings had been burned, and as many Englishmen had been slain. The loss of the enemy, suffering not only from the casualties of warfare, but from the miseries of cold, nakedness, and famine, had been infinitely greater. The entire force of the fighting tribes was broken, and many of them were almost extinguished. A vast number of captives had been taken, and many more, hoping mercy and relief from their sufferings, had voluntarily surrendered. Of these the most noted warriors were put to death, and the remainder, women and children included, were reduced to slavery, or sold, for the same object, in the West Indies.

In regard to the son of Philip, (a child only nine years old) the authorities seem to have been greatly exercised in spirit. There were so many nice precedents for his execution to be found in scripture, and security, as well as vengeance, would be satisfied by the destruction of the whole house of their dreaded enemy. Nothing can better show the venomous spirit of the times, or the depraving influence of a barbarous theology, than the following extract from a letter, written by Rev. Increase Mather, the minister of Boston, to his friend Mr. Cotton:

"If it had not been out of my mind, when I was writing, I should have said something about Philip's son. It is necessary that some effectual course should be taken about him. Ile makes me think of Hadad, who was a little child when his father (the chief sachem of the Edomites) was killed by Joab; and had not others fled away with him, I am apt to think, that David would have taken a course that Hadad should never have proved a scourge to the next generation." More humane. counsels, however, prevailed, and the poor child was only shipped as a slave to Bermuda.

Incidents such as these, commonly suppressed by popular writers, are not uselessly recalled, in obtaining a just view of the spirit of the past. With all honor to the truly-great and respectable qualities of our New England ancestors to their courage, their constancy, their morality, and their devotionit is useless to disguise the fact that, in the grand essentials of

charity and humanity, they were no wise in advance of their age, and in the less essential, but not less desirable articles of amenity and magnanimity, most decidedly behind it. But a certain infusion of disagreeable qualities seems almost an inseparable constituent of that earnestness, which alone can successfully contend with great obstacles, either human or natural-with civil tyranny and religious persecution--with the privations and dangers of the wilderness, and the unsparing enmity of its savage inhabitants.

The communities, founded by men thus strongly, but imperfectly moulded, have, with the genial influence of time, and by the admirable elements of freedom contained in their origin, gradually grown into a commonwealth, freer from the errors which disgraced their founders than any other on the face of the earth. Their prejudice has become principle, their superstition has refined into religion; and their very bigotry has softened down to liberality. While enjoying the results of this ameliorating process, their descendants may well be charitable to those whose footsteps not only broke through the tangled recesses of the actual forest, but who, in treading pathways through the moral wilderness, occasionally stumbled, or left behind them a track too rugged or too tortuous to be followed.

THE MISSISSIPPI VALLEY.

CHAPTER I.

DISCOVERY OF THE MISSISSIPPI-FATHER MARQUETTE and M. JOLIET— THEIR EXPEDITION-FRIENDLY INDIANS-SAIL DOWN THE WISCONSIN -ENTER THE MISSISSIPPI-THE ILLINOIS INDIANS-DISCOVERY OF THE MISSOURI-THE OHIO-"PAINTED MONSTERS"-DANGER

FROM SAVAGES-THEY APPROACH THE SEA-RETURN BY

THE ILLINOIS-DEATH OF MARQUETTE.

THE great river Mississippi, as we have seen, was probably first discovered by Alvar Nunez, a survivor of the unfortunate expedition of Narvaez. In the year 1541, Hernando de Soto, on his memorable Invasion of Florida, crossed it, as would appear, at the Chickasaw Bluffs. He died the next year, and the remainder of his followers, building vessels on the banks, set sail down the river in 1543, and finally reached Mexico by sea. For an hundred and thirty years, nothing further was known of this majestic stream, the longest and most important in the world. Its further exploration and survey were due to the enterprise and patient courage of the Canadian French.

Reports, from time to time, had reached their capital of a great river in the west; and opinions were divided as to its course and the point where it was discharged into the ocean. Some held that it flowed into the Gulf of California; others that it must disembogue on the coast of Virginia; and others, with more reason, contended that its exit could only be in the Gulf of Mexico. In 1673, under the auspices of M.

de Frontenac, the governor of Canada, two daring individuals undertook the task of its survey. The first, Father Marquette, was a missionary of great zeal and piety, intimately acquainted with the native tribes, and a proficient in many of their languages. His companion, M. Joliet, was a citizen of Quebec.

On the 13th of May, with five other Frenchmen, they left Michilimackinac in two canoes, and first passed the tribes of the Folles Avoines, or Wild Rice, so called from the grain which was their chief subsistence. These friendly people attempted to dissuade the adventurers from their purpose by fearful accounts of the dangers of the river, of the savage tribes which dwelt on its banks, and of the terrible monsters (alligators) who swarmed in that region of heat into which it flowed. But the good father replied that he had no fear of the monsters, and that he would gladly lay down his life to secure the salvation of souls in that distant region.

Pushing on, the voyagers arrived at Green Bay, in the north-west of Lake Michigan, and ascended the Fox River, which flows into it. On this river dwelt the Miamis, and other nations, already in a measure converted by the exertions of a pious missionary, the worthy Father Allouez. So eager were they for instruction, that they would hardly allow him to repose at night. In the centre of their chief village, Marquette found a large cross, decorated with offerings to the Great Spirit, in thankfulness for their success in the chase. No where has the benign influence of Christianity made its way with such rapidity, or with such pleasing and appropriate circumstances, as among the rude but kindly tribes of the northwest, under the genial influence and indefatigable exertions of the ancient French missionaries.

From this river (June 10th) two guides conducted the Frenchmen to a portage, and assisted them to carry their canoes to another stream, which, they were told, would lead them to the Great River. This stream was called the Mescousin, (Wisconsin,) and was quite broad, but shallow, and difficult

of navigation. Deer and buffaloes were seen upon the banks. For forty leagues they paddled downward, and on the 17th, to their great joy, entered the majestic "Father of Waters."*

For sixty leagues more they descended, without seeing a trace of human habitation. Toward evening they would kindle a fire to cook their food, and anchor, during the night, for safety, in the middle of the stream. On the 25th they saw foot-prints on the bank, and the two associates, landing, walked inland, through a path in the beautiful prairie, for two leagues. They then came upon three villages of the Illinois, where they were received with much hospitality. The name of this people had the proud and simple signification of "Men,” as if they were, par excellence, the representatives of the human race, or, like the Greek Autochthones, the original offspring of the earth. Their language was a dialect of the great Algonquin family, and was easily understood by Father Marquette. The pipe of peace was solemnly smoked, and presents were interchanged. The visitors returned to their canoes on the following day, accompanied, with every token of pleasure and good-will, by more than six hundred of their entertainers.

They again embarked, and pursued their course down stream, looking out for the great river Pekitanoni, or Missouri, of which they had already learned the existence. On the face of a lofty precipice they saw the figures of "two monsters," painted in green, red, and blue, and so well executed that it seemed doubtful if they could be the work of savages. These effigies are, or recently were, still in existence. "What they call Painted Monsters," says Major Stoddard (1812), "on the side of a high perpendicular rock, apparently inaccessible to man, between the Missouri and Illinois, and known to the moderns by the name of Piesa, still remain in a good degree of preservation."

As they floated downward, a rush of water was heard in the distance, and, ere long, their frail barks were whirled along in the muddy current of the Missouri, which, carrying great masses of drift-wood on its turbid flood, rushed furiously into * Meate Chassipi, the original Indian name of the river, has this signification.