Once established in a tribe, the difficulties were increased. After months, nay, years, of teaching, the missionaries found that the fickle savage was easily led astray; never could they form pupils to our life and manners. The nineteenth century failed, as the seventeenth failed, in raising up priests from among the Iroquois or the Algonquins; and at this day a pupil of the Propaganda, who disputed in Latin on theses of Peter Lombard, roams at the head of a half-naked band in the billowy plains of Nebraska. [Footnote 44: This writer is much distinguished for his numerous works, most of which relate to the early missions of the Roman Catholic church in America. He is a native of New York.] * * * * * From "Introduction to Early Voyages," etc. =_148._= EXPLORATION OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. Many a river lives embalmed in history and in historic verse. The Euphrates, the Nile, the Jordan, the Tiber, and the Rhine typify the course of empires and dynasties. Countries have been described _per flumina_, but these streams possess renown rather from some city that frowned on their currents, or some battle fought and won on their banks. The great River of our West, from its immense length and the still increasing importance of its valley, possesses a history of its own. Its discovery by the Spanish adventurers, a Cabeza de Vaca, a De Soto, a Tristan, who reached, crossed, or followed it, is its period of early romance, brilliant, brief, and tragic. Its exploration by Marquette and La Salle follows,--work of patient endurance and investigation, still tinged with that light of heroism that hovers around all who struggle with difficulty and adversity to attain a great and useful end. Then come the early voyages depicting the successive stages of its banks from a wilderness to civilization. The death of La Salle in Texas in his attempt to reach Illinois closes the chapter of exploration. Iberville opens a new period by his voyage to the mouth of the Mississippi, which crowning the previous efforts, gave the valley of the great river to civilization, Christianity, and progress. The river had become an object of rivalry. English, French, and Spanish at the same moment sought to secure its mouth, but fortune favored the bold Canadian, and the white flag reared by La Salle was planted anew.