After a very pleasant visit they returned to their boats and resumed their voyage. They floated by the mouth of the turbid Missouri, little dreaming of the grandeur of the realms watered by that imperial stream and its tributaries. They passed the mouth of the Ohio, which they recognized as the _Belle Riviere_, which the Indians then called the Wabash. As they floated rapidly away towards the south they visited many Indian villages on the banks of the stream, where the devoted missionary, Marquette, endeavored to proclaim the gospel of Christ. "I did not," says Marquette, "fear death. I should have esteemed it the greatest happiness to have died for the glory of God." Thus they continued their exploration as far south as the mouth of the Arkansas river, where they were hospitably received in a very flourishing Indian village. Being now satisfied that the Mississippi river entered the Gulf of Mexico, somewhere between Florida and California, they returned to Green Bay by the route of the Illinois river. By taking advantage of the eddies, on either side of the stream, it was not difficult for them, in their light canoes, to make the ascent. Marquette landed on the western banks of Lake Michigan to preach the gospel to a tribe of Indians called the Miames, residing near the present site of Chicago. Joliete returned to Quebec to announce the result of their discoveries. He was received with great rejoicing. The whole population flocked to the cathedral, where the _Te Deum_ was sung. Five years passed away, during which the great river flowed almost unthought of, through its vast and sombre wilderness. At length in the year 1678, La Salle received a commission from Louis the XIV. of France to explore the Mississippi to its mouth. Having received from the king the command of Fort Frontenac, at the northern extremity of Lake Ontario, and a monopoly of the fur trade in all the countries he should discover, he sailed from Larochelle in a ship well armed and abundantly supplied, in June, 1678. Ascending the St. Lawrence to Quebec, he repaired to Fort Frontenac. With a large number of men he paddled, in birch canoes, to the southern extremity of Lake Ontario, and, by a portage around the falls of Niagara, entered Lake Erie. Here he built a substantial vessel, called the _Griffin_, which was the first vessel ever launched upon the waters of that lake. Embarking in this vessel with forty men, in the month of September, a genial and gorgeous month in those latitudes, he traversed with favoring breezes the whole length of the lake, a voyage of two hundred and sixty-five miles, ascended the straits and passed through the Lake of St. Clair, and ran along the coast of Lake Huron three hundred and sixty miles to Michilimackinac, where the three majestic lakes, Superior, Michigan and Huron, form a junction.