Time wore on. La Salle grew impatient, and landed a party of men, under his nephew Moranget and his townsman Joutel, to explore the adjacent shores. They made their way on foot northward and eastward for several days, till they were stopped by a river too wide and deep to cross. They encamped, and were making a canoe, when, to their great joy, for they were famishing, they descried the ships, which had followed them along the coast. La Salle landed, and became convinced--his wish, no doubt, fathering the thought--that the river was no other than the stream now called Bayou Lafourche, which forms a western mouth of the Mississippi. [Footnote: La Salle dates his letter to Seignelay, of the fourth of March: "_A l'embouchure occidentals dufleuve Colbert_" (Mississippi). He says, "La saison etant tres-avancee, et voyant qu'il me restoit fort peu de temps pour achever l'entreprise don't j'estois charge, je resolus de remonter ce canal du fleuve Colbert, plus tost que de retourner au plus considerable, eloigne de 25 a 30 lieues d'icy vers le nord-est, que nous avions remarque des le sixieme janvier, mais que nous n'avions pu reconnoistre, croyant sur le rapport des pilotes du vaisseau de sa Majeste et des nostres, n'avoir pas encore passe la baye du Saint-Esprit" (Mobile Bay). He adds that the difficulty of returning to the principal mouth of the Mississippi had caused him "prendre le party de remonter le fleuve par icy." This fully explains the reason of La Salle's landing on the coast of Texas, which would otherwise have been a postponement, not to say an abandonment, of the main object of the enterprise. He believed himself at the western mouth of the Mississippi; and lie meant to ascend it, instead of going by sea to the principal mouth. About half the length of Bayou Lafourche is laid down on Franquelin's map of 1684; and this, together with La Salle's letter and the statements of Joutel, plainly shows the nature of his error.] He thought it easier to ascend by this passage than to retrace his course along the coast, against the winds, the currents, and the obstinacy of Beaujeu. Eager, moreover, to be rid of that refractory commander, he resolved to disembark his followers, and. despatch the "Joly" back to France. The Bay of St. Louis, now Matagorda Bay, [Footnote: The St. Bernard's Bay of old maps. La Salle, in his letter to Seignelay of 4 March, says, that it is in latitude twenty-eight degrees and eighteen or twenty minutes. This answers to the entrance of Matagorda Bay. In the Archives de la Marine is preserved a map made by an engineer of the expedition, inscribed _Minuty del_, and entitled _Entree du lac ou on a laisse le Sieur de la Salle_. It represents the entrance of Matagorda Bay, the camp of La Salle on the left, the Indian camps on the borders of the bay, the "Belle" lying safely at anchor within, the "Aimable" stranded near the island at the entrance, and the "Joly" anchored in the open sea.