Produced by Mark C. Orton, Google Books and the Online Distributed Proofreading Canada Team at http://www.pgdpcanada.net _AMERICAN PIONEERS AND PATRIOTS_. THE ADVENTURES OF THE CHEVALIER DE LA SALLEAND HIS COMPANIONS, IN THEIR EXPLORATIONS OF THE PRAIRIES, FORESTS, LAKES, AND RIVERS, OF THE NEW WORLD, AND THEIR INTERVIEWS WITH THE SAVAGE TRIBES, TWO HUNDRED YEARS AGO. By JOHN S. C. ABBOTT. NEW YORK: DODD, MEAD & COMPANY, Publishers Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1875, by DODD & MEAD, In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington. TO THE INHABITANTS OF THE GREAT VALLEY OF THE WEST, WHOSE MAGNIFICENT REALMS LA SALLE AND HIS COMPANIONS WERE THE FIRST TO EXPLORE, THIS VOLUME IS RESPECTFULLY DEDICATED, BY JOHN S. C. ABBOTT. PREFACE. There is no one of the Pioneers of this continent whose achievements equal those of the Chevalier Robert de la Salle. He passed over thousands of miles of lakes and rivers in the birch canoe. He traversed countless leagues of prairie and forest, on foot, guided by the moccasined Indian, threading trails which the white man's foot had never trod, and penetrating the villages and the wigwams of savages, where the white man's face had never been seen. Fear was an emotion La Salle never experienced. His adventures were more wild and wondrous than almost any recorded in the tales of chivalry. As time is rapidly obliterating from our land the footprints of the savage, it is important that these records of his strange existence should be perpetuated. Fortunately we have full and accurate accounts of these explorations, in the journals of Messrs. Marquette, Hennepin, and Joliet. We have still more minute narratives, in _Etablissement de la Foix_, par le P. Chretien Le Clercq, Paris 1691; _Dernieres Decouvertes_, par le Chevalier de Tonti, Paris 1697; _Journal Historique_, par M. Joutel, Paris 1713. For the incidents in the last fatal expedition, to establish a colony at the mouth of the Mississippi, and the wonderful land tour of more than two thousand miles from the sea-coast of Texas to Quebec, through the territories of hundreds of tribes, we have the narratives of Father Christian Le Clercq, the narrative of Father Anastasias Douay, and the minute and admirably written almost daily journal of Monsieur Joutel, in his _Dernier Voyage_. Both Douay and Joutel accompanied this expedition from its commencement to its close. In these adventures the reader will find a more vivid description of the condition of this continent, and the character of its inhabitants two hundred years ago, than can be found anywhere else. Sir Walter Scott once remarked, that no one could take more pleasure in reading his romances, than he had taken in writing them. In this volume we have the romance of truth.