[Illustration: SUGAR PLANT.] This letter having removed all Iberville's doubts, he fell down the river again, and having nowhere found, within sixty leagues of the Gulf, a proper place to begin a settlement on, he turned back to the Bay of Biloxi, where a spot was chosen and the ground marked out for one. After seeing the establishment at Biloxi well under way, Iberville took ship for France. He was back again early in January, 1701. During his absence an English corvette had sailed twenty-five leagues up the Mississippi to a point where the river sweeps grandly round to the east. At this place her captain was warned back by the French, from which circumstance the bend received the name of the English Turn, which it has ever since borne. Iberville also learned that English traders from Carolina[8] had penetrated into the Chickasaw country above him. Finding himself menaced both by sea and land, and delay dangerous, Iberville shut up the entrance from sea by mounting some cannon near the mouth of the river. The century turned noiselessly on its hinges with no other establishments in all this great domain of Louisiana except that planted by La Salle on the Illinois, and the one at Biloxi. In 1701 Iberville began a settlement at Mobile. The next year he erected storehouses and barracks on Dauphine Island[9] for permanent occupation. In a few years this island became the general headquarters of the Louisiana colony. Nothing worthy of the name, however, existed before 1708. Up to this time the handful of colonists lived on what was sent them from France, or obtained by trading French goods with the savages. They sowed wheat, but found the climate too damp for growing it with success. They also began the planting of tobacco, which did so well that its culture presently became a mainstay of the colony. [Illustration: MOUTHS OF THE MISSISSIPPI, AND ADJACENT COASTS.] But while Iberville had thus gained a foothold, in what might be called a good strategic position for approaching the Mississippi, either from sea or through Lake Ponchartrain, he was actually but little nearer than the Spaniards at Pensacola, who kept a watch on all his movements. Never did nature seem more persistently thwarting the schemes of men than in the attempt of these Frenchmen to enter upon what they considered their rightful inheritance. FOOTNOTES [1] LA SALLE'S NAME is perpetuated in many places in the United States, notably in a city and county of Illinois. [2] COLONIZING LOUISIANA quietly slept, partly, but not wholly, in consequence of war between England and France.