French. Beaujeu offered some good advice, but La Salle rejected it; and finally, on the 12th of March the “Joly” sailed, and La Salle was left with his forlorn colony.[638] Beaujeu steered, as he thought, for the Baye du St. Esprit (Mobile Bay [?]); but his belief that he was leaving the mouths of the Mississippi made him miss that harbor, and after various adventures he bore away for France, and reached Rochelle about the 1st of July. With him returned the engineer, Minet, who made on the voyage a map of the mouths of the Mississippi doubly interpreted,—one sketch being based on the Franquelin map of 1684, as La Salle had found it in 1682; and the other conformed to their recent observations about Matagorda, into whose lagoons he made this great river discharge.[639] [Illustration: CARTE DE LA LOUISIANE, BY MINET, 1685. This is a reduced sketch from a copy (Barlow Collection) of the original in the Archives of the Marine, giving two plans of the mouth of the river,—the one in the body of the map as “La Salle le marque dans sa carte,” and the other (here put in the small square), “Comme nous les avons trouvez.” It is Harrisse’s no. 225.] It soon dawned upon La Salle that he was not at the Mississippi delta; and it was imperative that he should establish a base for future movements. So he projected a settlement on the Lavaca River, which flowed into the head of the bay; and thither all went, and essayed the rough beginnings of a post, which he called Fort St. Louis.[640] He was also constrained to lay out a graveyard, which received its tenants rapidly. As soon as housing and stockades were finished, La Salle, on the last day of October (1685), leaving Joutel in command, started with fifty men to search for the Mississippi. The first tidings Joutel got of his absent chief was in January (1686), when a straggler from La Salle’s party appeared, and told a woeful story of his mishaps. By the end of March La Salle himself returned with some of his companions; others he had left in a palisaded fort which he had built on a great river somewhere away. While on his return he detached some of his men to find his little frigate, the “Belle,” which he had left at a certain place on the coast. These men also soon appeared, but they brought no tidings of the vessel. The loss of her and of what she had on board made matters very desperate, and La Salle determined on another expedition, this time to the Illinois country and to Canada, whence he could send word to France for succor. On the 22d of April they started,—La Salle, his brother Cavelier, the Friar Douay, and a score or so others.