On the 19th of May they arrived at Natchitoches, distant from the Mississippi 184 miles 266 perches, measured by log-line and time. At this place they delayed some days; and having received information that their progress would be opposed by the Spaniards, they resolved to increase the strength of their party by retaining a detachment which had been ordered by the secretary at war to join them at Natchitoches, "for the purpose of assisting the exploring party to ascend the river to the upper end of the Great Raft, and to continue as far afterwards as might appear necessary to repel by force any opposition they might meet with." Accordingly, twenty men were selected from the garrison at Natchitoches, and, under the command of Lieutenant Duforest,[57] joined the exploring {168} party. They were now thirty-seven in number aside from the officers, and were furnished with a supply of flour sufficient for nine months' provision. On the 2d of June they left Natchitoches, and proceeded towards their destination. The journal of their tour by Mr. Freeman, which has been obligingly put into our hands by General D. Parker,[58] is extremely circumstantial, and embraces much valuable information. We make use of it, without particular reference, whenever we have occasion to speak of that part of Red river visited by the expedition. On the 7th of June the party were overtaken, near a small village of Natchitoches and Paskagoulas,[59] by an Indian guide and interpreter, whom they had hired at Natchitoches. He brought a letter from Dr. Sibley,[60] the Indian agent, giving information that a detachment of Spanish troops were already on their march from Nacogdoches,[61] with a design to intercept the exploring party. At the distance of one hundred and two miles above Natchitoches they left the bed of the river, turning out through one of those numerous communications called Bayous, which connect the principal channel with those lateral chains of lakes, pools, swamps, and marshes, which extend along the sides of the valley. Their design in leaving the river was to avoid that singular obstruction to the navigation called the Great Raft, having been informed by Mr. Toolan, an old and respectable French inhabitant, that it would be impossible for them to pass through it. They had already encountered three similar obstructions, through which they had made their way with extreme toil, by loosening and floating out the logs and trunks of trees, that had been piled upon each other in such numbers as to fill the bed of the river from the bottom, usually at the depth of thirty feet, and rising three or four feet above the surface of the water.