Death, meanwhile, made a withering havoc among his followers; and under the sheds and hovels that shielded them from the sun lay a score of wretches slowly wasting away with the diseases contracted at St. Domingo. Of the soldiers enlisted for the expedition by La Salle's agents, many are affirmed to have spent their lives in begging at the church doors of Rochefort, and were consequently incapable of discipline. It was impossible to prevent either them or the sailors from devouring persimmons and other wild fruits to a destructive excess. [Footnote: Ibid.] Nearly all fell ill; and, before the summer had passed, the graveyard had more than thirty tenants. [Footnote: Joutel, 109. Le Clercq, who was not present, says a hundred.] The bearing of La Salle did not aid to raise the drooping spirits of his followers. The results of the enterprise had been far different from his hopes; and, after a season of flattering promise, he had entered again on those dark and obstructed paths which seemed his destined way of life. The present was beset with trouble; the future, thick with storms. The consciousness quickened his energies; but it made him stern, harsh, and often unjust to those beneath him. Joutel was returning to camp one afternoon with the master-carpenter, when they saw game, and the carpenter went after it. He was never seen again. Perhaps he was lost on the prairie, perhaps killed by Indians. He knew little of his trade, but they nevertheless, had need of him. Le Gros, a man of character and intelligence, suffered more and more from the bite of the snake received in the marsh oil Easter Day. The injured limb was amputated, and he died, La Salle's brother, the priest, lay ill; and several others among the chief persons of the colony were in the same condition. Meanwhile, the work was urged on. A large building was finished, constructed of timber, roofed with boards and raw hides, and divided into apartments, for lodging and other uses. La Salle gave to the new establishment his favorite name of Fort St. Louis, and the neighboring bay was also christened after the royal saint. [Footnote: The Bay of St. Louis, St. Bernard's Bay, or Matagorda Bay,--for it has borne all these names,--was also called Espiritu Santo Bay, by the Spaniards, in common with several other bays in the Gulf of Mexico. An adjoining bay still retains the name.] The scene was not without its charms. Towards the south-east stretched the bay with its bordering meadows; and on the north- east the Lavaca ran along the base of green declivities. Around, far and near, rolled a sea of prairie, with distant forests, dim in the summer haze. At times, it was dotted with the browsing buffalo, not yet scared from their wonted pastures; and the grassy swells were spangled with the bright flowers for which Texas is renowned, and which now form the gay ornaments of our gardens.