at the south, comes through the blank expanse of paper, the huge, black serpent line of the Mississippi twisting and curving through, a triumph of the artist, its great valley, pictured from mountain range to mountain range, teeming with Indian villages, fields of waving corn, droves of innumerable deer, and illimitable forests. At the head of navigation lay the little village of Chicagou, about midway the little stronghold of St. Louis, at the terminus New Orleans; the three names linking together across the distance two hundred years ago even as to-day. [Illustration: TOMB OF AVAR, CITY PARK.] De Soto first conceived the project of founding a settlement upon the Mississippi River, his Rio Grande. As he lay stricken with fever upon its banks within sight of its majestic currents, his mind dwelt upon the glory of annexing the great stream and its territory to Spain, the souls of its peoples to the Catholic Church. From his couch, he urged forward the building of the ships to be sent to Havana for the necessary supplies; with dying ears he listened to the sound of the busy axes and hammers, and with dying voice he charged upon his men the accomplishment of what would turn all the suffering and loss of their expedition into brilliant success and ensure his fame and theirs to all time. But the Spaniards, sinking the body of their commander beneath the turbid waters of the Mississippi, sank there too his plans and ambitions, and, turning their backs upon the river, recked not that Spain should gain or lose it. Over the burial spot of the Spanish explorer floated, a century and a half later, the boats of La Salle, the Canadian explorer. As he paddled his way down the gigantic stream, the like of which he had never dreamed existed in the world, he was, in thought, making that map of the country described above. And by the time his boats came into view of the Gulf, his scheme for affixing the great river and valley to France lay as clear in his mind as the blue expanse before his eyes. He would first build strongholds, settle colonies, and mass friendly Indians at the mouth of each tributary. French traders, _coureurs de bois_, and missionaries, with a free and secure route before them, would then ply their canoes backwards and forwards between Lake Michigan and the Gulf, where French vessels would be lying at anchor in the sheltered harbor of the commodious city he purposed to build. The French flag once securely established on the Gulf coast of the continent meant nothing less than the gradual elbowing of the English out of the country on the Atlantic side, and the capture of the Mexican gold mines from Spain whenever opportunity offered. [Illustration: THE CUSTOM-HOUSE, NEW ORLEANS.]