Governor so much that he soon after resigned his office, leaving for his successor, the Count de Frontenac, a strong recommendation to build the projected fort, which should hold the Iroquois in check and keep for Canada the traffic in furs then in great danger of being diverted to the English and Dutch settlers to the eastward.

As has been shown by the preceding sketches the two main causes that built up New France as a colony were the profits of the fur-trade and the generous enthusiasm awakened in France for the conversion of the Indians. Both objects involved the building of the forts needed to protect traders and missionaries, and around these grew up the future towns and cities. But still another project had greatly influenced the first explorers and settlersthe long cherished idea of finding a short passage across the continent to the rich realms of India and Cathay. And this hope still attracted to the arduous task of exploring unknown regions, the bravest and most adventurous spirits of New France.

Robert Cavalier, afterwards entitled de la Salle, was the most remarkable of these adventurers, with the most eventful history, and most tragic fate. He was born in 1643, about the time of the capture of the heroic Jogues. The son of an old burgher family of Rouen, he received a careful education, and early displayed great intellectual ability, having special talent for mathematics. He was an earnest and devout catholic, and for a time connected himself with the Jesuit Order—a step, which by French law deprived him of his rich paternal inheritance even though he afterwards left the order. His elder brother, an abbé, was a Sulpitian priest at Montreal, and this circumstance seems to have decided his career. With a small fortune the capital of an allowance of four hundred livres a year—he came to Canada in 1666, a young man of twenty-three, to seek adventure, and win his spurs in hand-to-hand encounter, with foes as determined and seemingly as invincible as the fabled griffins and dragons of fairy tales.

His destiny and his ambitious projects shaped themselves gradually before his mind. He naturally repaired first to his brother at Montreal. Canada was not yet an Episcopal see, as it soon after became, under the ambitious Bishop Laval, the Hildebrand of New France. The "Seminary

of St. Sulpice" still held undisputed supremacy at Montreal, of which it was now the seignior, or feudal proprietor, having succeeded to the first founders.

Montreal was still the most dangerous post in the colony, and the priests of St. Sulpice were anxious to defend it by a line of outposts along the river front. Queylus, the superior of the seminary, offered La Salle a large grant of land close to the rapids of St. Louis, which he gladly accepted. He at once laid out the area of a palisaded village, and began to clear the ground and erect buildings, remains of which may still be found at Lachine, as La Salle's settlement was soon called, in allusion to his dreams of a short western passage to China.

The Seneca Iroquois, who had so terribly harassed the colony, were at this time on friendly terms with the French, and some of them came to visit La Salle at his new home. Taking a fancy to the adventurous young Frenchman, who hid a burning enthusiasm under a veil of almost Indian reserve, they told him of a great river called the Ohio, that rose in their country and flowed at last into the sea, evidently merging the Ohio and the Mississippi into one. He eagerly drank in this welcome tale, for he thought that this great unknown river must flow into the "Vermilion Sea," as the Gulf of California was then called, and so would supply the long-dreamed-of western passage to China. To explore this great river, to find in it an easy water-way to the Pacific and the East, and to take possession of this route and the surrounding territory for the King of France, was the magnificent idea that now took possession of his imagination, and to whichsomewhat modified-the rest of his life was devoted.

He went down to Quebec and unfolded his project to the Governor, M. de Courcelles, and the Intendant, Talon, who readily gave the endorsement of letters patent for the enterprise. In order to procure money for the expedition, he sold his seigniory of Lachine, and bought four canoes with supplies for the journey, for which he also hired fourteen men. He joined his forces with an expedition which the Seminary was just then sending out to attempt to found a Mission among the heathen tribes of the Great West. They set out in July and journeyed together till September, passing

the mouth of the Niagara and hearing the distant roar of the great cataract. But, near the present city of Hamilton, the priests determined to make their way to the northern lakes, and La Salle parted company with them, to spend the next two years in exploring alone the interior of the continent to the southward. In the course of these wanderings, if he did not reach the Mississippi, he discovered at least the important streams of the Ohio and the Illinois. But the discovery of the "Father of Waters" was reserved for two other explorers-Louis Joliet and Père Marquette; the one a hardy and intelligent trader, the other a humble and devoted missionary.

Meantime, La Salle was still dreaming of the great river and the possibilities it opened up. His own discoveries had now convinced him that it flowed not into the "Vermilion Sea" and the Pacific, but into the Gulf of Mexico. He would take possession for France, of this water-way to the sea, with all the trade that would naturally follow it, and would found a greater New France in the fertile valleys which never knew the deep snows and bitter frosts of Northern Canada.

Just at this time the energetic and ambitious De Frontenac succeeded De Courcelles as Governor of Canada, and La Salle found in him a valuable ally. They took counsel together about the new fort, which Frontenac proposed to build on the Bay of Quinte, near the foot of Lake Ontario, and La Salle was sent to Onondaga, to summon the Iroquois sachems to meet the viceroy there for a council. But, meantime, he sent the Governor a map which convinced Frontenac that the better site would be the mouth of the Cataraqui or Katarakoui, the site now occupied by the city of Kingston, and the rendezvous was changed accordingly.

Frontenac, meantime, evaded the natural jealousy of the Canadian. merchants by merely announcing his intention of making an armed tour westward, in order to impress the Indians, and he invited volunteers from the officers settled in the colony. He left the castle of St. Louis early in June, 1673, with his staff, a part of the garrison and the volunteers who had answered his call; on his way up the river he enjoyed the courteous hospitality of the veteran officers, now living as seigneurs in their primitive