[54] Compare Sibley's description of this portion of the river in 1803 (see reference, _ante_, note 52). Rigolet means a little irrigation ditch, giving the name of the east channel the curious meaning, Little Ditch of the Good God. This is now the main channel, and is sometimes called Red River; its upper mouth is four or five miles above Natchitoches, instead of below, as stated in the text. The other channel was also called Cane River. In 1803, there was a settlement of forty families on this branch, about twenty-four miles above the end of the island. Near this point the river again divides, forming Isle Brevel, so called from the first settler upon it. The branch west of this island is called Old, or False, River. The other, or middle, branch was, in 1803, called Little River, its banks being thickly settled; it is now considered as the upper portion of Cane River. The upper junction of Cane and False rivers was near Natchitoches. Thus it appears that each channel has borne, or bears, two names: the east channel is Rigolet du Bon Dieu, or Red River; the middle one at Isle Brevel is Cane, or Little River; and the west one Old, or False River; while at the lower island it is Old or Cane River. Natchitoches, now chief town of the parish of the same name, was established in 1714, by St. Denys, as a mission station; a fort was erected in 1717, under Governor Bienville.--ED. [55] In 1700 M. de Bienville ascended the Red river to the country of the Natchitoches and Yatassee Indians, but could find no Spanish establishments in that quarter. The Yatassee village was about forty miles north-west of the present town of Natchitoches, in the settlement of Bayou Pierre. _Darby, on the Authority of La Harpe._--JAMES. _Comment by Ed._ See Margry, _Découvertes et Établissements des Français_, vi, pp. 241-307. [56] The official report of the expedition under Captain Sparks was never published, and the account here given is the only one extant, drawn from the notes of the party. Richard Sparks, the leader, first saw service in the "levies of 1791," under Gen. Arthur St. Clair. The next year he was made captain in the infantry, and later promoted to major (1806) and lieutenant-colonel (1807). During the War of 1812-15 he was colonel in the Second Infantry; at the close of the war he received an honorable discharge and died the same year (1815). Freeman's given name was probably Thomas, but nothing more is known about him. "Lieutenant Humphrey" was probably Enoch Humphreys, of Connecticut, who entered the First Artillerists and Engineers in 1801 as lieutenant. He became an artillery captain in 1809, and remained in this branch of the service until his death in 1825, being breveted major for gallant conduct at New Orleans in 1814.--ED.