The Spanish adventurer, De Soto, in his march westward in 1541, was the first white man who reached the Mississippi River. Year after year passed and the Spaniards did not occupy the land along its shores. Instead, they settled the islands and shores to the south and sought silver and gold in Mexico and Peru. While the Spaniards were occupying southern regions, the French were taking possession of northern lands, penetrating inland along the St. Lawrence River. The French traders and missionaries who went westward heard stories of a mighty river not far distant, which flowed to the sea. In the spring of 1673 two Frenchmen set out in birch canoes to find and explore this river, hoping thus to reach the Pacific Ocean. These Frenchmen were Louis Joliet, an explorer in search of the passage to the Pacific, and Father Marquette, a priest familiar with Indian dialects, who wished to reach the savages of the wilderness. Joliet and Marquette went up the St. Lawrence and through the Great Lakes. They were guided by two Indian boys to the Wisconsin River down which they floated in their canoes. After several days the explorers landed at a settlement of the friendly Indian tribe, the Illinois. The peace pipe was smoked and a banquet was served of Indian meal made into mush, boiled fish, baked dog, and buffalo meat. Again embarking, the adventurers sailed on till they reached the place where the Missouri empties into the Mississippi. The Indian guides informed them that they could ascend the river and going westward reach a prairie across which their canoes could be carried; then they could embark on a river which flowed southwest into a lake; from this issued a river which flowed into the western sea. The Frenchmen did not follow the course thus pointed out and it was many years before the truth of the statement was verified. But if you look on a map you see the Missouri can be ascended to the Platte River, the source of which is near the Colorado River which flows into the Gulf of California. The Frenchmen sailed down the Mississippi as far as the mouth of the Arkansas River. They were convinced that the stream entered the Gulf of Mexico and they did not care to encounter the hostile Spaniards or the warlike Indian tribes which they were told dwelt on the banks of the lower Mississippi. So they turned back, going up the Illinois River and passing the marshy prairie which is now the site of the great city of Chicago. After a journey of more than twenty-five hundred miles, they reached in September the mission at Green Bay.