Chapter X: Brown Bread And Bonnyclabber (2)

Though longing to proceed on his mission to the Illinois, as all his letters so earnestly manifest, F. Marquette found ample work both for his mind and hands in arranging matters at Lapointe, so that his departure should cause as little damage as possible to that mission, to which he had been so faithful and devoted, and which he was now about to confide to the care of another, and in making the necessary preparations for his departure; for his time seemed now near at hand. The dreary days of winter were enlivened by recounting the projected plans of the coming spring, and in gathering all the information within his reach concerning the Mississippi and the nations inhabiting its banks. Most of the actual knowledge then possessed on the subject was derived from the accounts and relations of the Jesuit missionaries of the Northwest, and from the reports of the Canadian traders among the Indians. His inquiries of the more northern tribes were eagerly answered by startling fables of various hues and contradictory generalities, but nothing definite could be learned from them as to the course of the great river, its direction or outlet, or of the natives along its course. All was conjecture and theory. As early as 1639 the Sieur Nicolet, who was the interpreter of the French colony of New France, had penetrated westward to the furthest grounds of the Algonquins, and had encountered the Winnebagoes, “a people called so because they came from a distant sea, but whom the French erroneously called Puents.” And we learn from F. Vimont that “the Sieur Nicolet, who had penetrated furthest into those distant countries, avers that, had he sailed three days more on a great river which flows from that lake (Green Bay), he would have found the sea.” And although the Indians called the Mississippi itself “the sea,” and the Sieur Nicolet may have fallen into the same error, in either case it seems quite certain that he was the first to reach the waters of that river. In 1641, Fathers Isaac Jogues and Charles Raymbaut carried their missionary labors to the Sault St. Mary, and received distinct accounts of the Sioux, and of the great river on whose banks they lived. In 1658, after F. Garreau had suffered martyrdom on the St. Lawrence on his way to renew the Western missions destroyed by the recent Iroquois war, De Groseilles and another Frenchman penetrated to Lake Superior, and passed the winter on its shores. They visited the Sioux, learned with greater clearness and particularity of the course of the great river on whose banks they stood. Their annalist writes: “It was a beautiful river, large, broad, and deep, which would bear comparison, they say, with the St. Lawrence.” The missionaries of the Saguenay had also “heard of the Winnipegouek, and their bay whence three seas could be reached.” And war parties of the Iroquois told the missionaries of New York of their wars with the Ontoagannha, “whose towns lay on a beautiful river (Ohio), which leads to the great lake, as they called the sea, where they traded with Europeans who pray to God as we (the French) do, and have rosaries and bells to call men to prayer.”(225) F. Ménard, the founder of the Ottawa mission, also heard, in 1660, of the Mississippi and the nations on its banks, and was only prevented from visiting them by meeting with a martyr’s death while prosecuting his work. F. Allouez, his successor, also writes of the great river, “which empties, as far as I can conjecture, into the sea of Virginia,” and was the first to reveal to Europeans its Indian name; for, in speaking of one of its tribes, he says: “They live on a great river called Messipi.” At the time that F. Dablon was appointed Superior of the Ottawa missions, and F. Marquette appointed to establish the intended Illinois mission, and the exploration of the river was about to be undertaken, the latter, as already stated, was for some time engaged in gathering information concerning its course and outlet. Three principal conjectures prevailed at this time: first, that it ran towards the southwest, and entered the Gulf of California; second, that it flowed into the Gulf of Mexico; third, that it took a more easterly direction, and discharged itself into the Atlantic Ocean, somewhere on the coast of Virginia. To F. Marquette belonged the glory of solving the problem, and thus of opening the interior of the continent to Christianity and civilization.

The war which was raging in the country rendered it impossible for the missionaries of themselves to undertake the opening of the long‐desired mission of the Illinois, and they had accordingly applied for assistance to the French government to further this great enterprise. F. Marquette, as we have seen from his letters, remained ever ready at a moment’s notice from his superiors to advance into this dangerous field. He was not deterred by a consciousness of his own declining health, already enfeebled by labors and exposures, nor by the hostile character of the nations through whose country he would have to pass, nor by the danger of a cruel death at the hands of the fierce Dakotah. This last only made the prospect more enticing to one whose highest ambition was to win the glorious crown of martyrdom in opening the way for his brother Jesuits to follow in the battle of the faith. The same flotilla that carried his letter to F. Dablon to Quebec in the summer of 1672, on its return conveyed to him the joyous news that the petition of the missionaries had found favor with the government; that the Sieur Jolliet was designated to undertake the exploration of the Mississippi; and that F. Marquette was chosen the missionary of the expedition. It was the Blessed Virgin whom, F. Marquette says, “I had always invoked, since my coming to the Ottawa country, in order to obtain of God the favor of being able to visit the nations on the Mississippi River.” It was on the feast of the Immaculate Conception of the same Blessed Virgin Mary that he received the glorious tidings that the realization of his hopes and prayers was at hand. He bestowed upon the great river the name of the Immaculate Conception, which, however, as well as its earlier Spanish name of River of the Holy Ghost, has since yielded to its original Indian appellation.

The exploring party, consisting of “the meek, single‐hearted, unpretending, illustrious Marquette, with Jolliet for his associate, five Frenchmen for his companions, and two Algonquins as guides, lifting their canoes on their backs, and walking across the narrow portage that divides the Fox River from the Wisconsin,” set out upon their glorious expedition. Mr. J. G. Shea, to whom we are so much indebted for his researches into this interesting part of the history of our country, describes the voyage in the following graphic and eloquent manner:

“In the spring they embarked at Mackinaw in two frail bark canoes;
each with his paddle in hand, and full of hope, they soon plied
them merrily over the crystal waters of the lake. All was new to
Marquette, and he describes as he went along the Menonomies, Green
Bay, and Maskoutens, which he reached on the 7th of June, 1673. He
had now attained the limit of former discoveries; the new world
was before them; they looked back a last adieu to the waters
which, great as the distance was, connected them with Quebec and
their countrymen; they knelt on the shore to offer, by a new
devotion, their lives, their honor, and their undertakings to
their beloved Mother, the Virgin Mary Immaculate; then, launching
on the broad Wisconsin, sailed slowly down its current, amid its
vine‐clad isles and its countless sand‐bars. No sound broke the
stillness, no human form appeared, and at last, after sailing
seven days, on the 17th of June they happily glided into the great
river. Joy that could find no utterance in words filled the
grateful heart of Marquette.

“The broad river of the Conception, as he named it, now lay before
them, stretching away hundreds of miles to an unknown sea. Soon
all was new; mountain and forest had glided away; the islands,
with their groves of cottonwood, became more frequent, and moose
and deer browzed on the plains; strange animals were seen
traversing the river, and monstrous fish appeared in its waters.
But they proceeded on their way amid this solitude, frightful by
its utter absence of man. Descending still further, they came to
the land of the bison, or pisikiou, which, with the turkey, became
sole tenants of the wilderness; all other game had disappeared. At
last, on the 25th of June, they descried footprints on the shore.
They now took heart again, and Jolliet and the missionary, leaving
their five men in the canoes, followed a little beaten path to
discover who the tribe might be. They travelled on in silence
almost to the cabin‐doors, when they halted, and with a loud
halloa proclaimed their coming. Three villages lay before them;
the first, roused by the cry, poured forth its motley group, which
halted at the sight of the new‐comers and the well‐known dress of
the missionary. Old men came slowly on, step by measured step,
bearing aloft the all‐mysterious calumet. All was silence; they
stood at last before the two Europeans, and Marquette asked, ‘Who
are you?’ ‘We are Illinois,’ was the answer, which dispelled all
anxiety from the explorers, and sent a thrill to the heart of
Marquette; the Illinois missionary was at last amid the children
of that tribe which he had so long, so tenderly yearned to see.

“After friendly greetings at this town of Pewaria, and the
neighboring one of Moing‐wena, they returned to their canoes,
escorted by the wondering tribe, who gave their hardy visitants a
calumet, the safeguard of the West. With renewed courage and
lighter hearts, they sailed in, and, passing a high rock with
strange and monstrous forms depicted on its rugged surface, heard
in the distance the roaring of a mighty cataract, and soon beheld
Pekitanoui, or the Muddy River, as the Algonquins call the
Missouri, rushing like some untamed monster into the calm and
clear Mississippi, and hurrying in with its muddy waters the trees
which it had rooted up in its impetuous course. Already had the
missionaries heard of the river running to the western sea, to be
reached by the branches of the Mississippi, and Marquette, now
better informed, fondly hoped to reach it one day by the Missouri.
But now their course lay south, and, passing a dangerous eddy, the
demon of the Western Indians, they reached the Waboukigou, or
Ohio, the river of the Shawnees, and, still holding on their way,
came to the warm land of the cane, and the country which the
mosquitoes might call their own. While enveloped in their sails as
a shelter from them, they came upon a tribe who invited them to
the shore. They were wild wanderers, for they had guns bought of
Catholic Europeans at the East.

“Thus, after all had been friendly, and encouraged by this second
meeting, they plied their oars anew, and, amid groves of
cottonwood on either side, descended to the 33d degree, when, for
the first time, a hostile reception was promised by the excited
Metchigameas. Too few to resist, their only hope on earth was the
mysterious calumet, and in heaven the protection of Mary, to whom
they sent up fervent prayers. At last the storm subsided, and they
were received in peace; their language formed an obstacle, but an
interpreter was found, and after explaining the object of their
coming, and announcing the great truths of Christianity, they
embarked for Akamsea, a village thirty miles below on the eastern
shore.

“Here they were well received, and learned that the mouth of the
river was but ten days’ sail from this village; but they heard,
too, of nations there trading with Europeans, and of wars between
the tribes, and the two explorers spent a night in consultation.
The Mississippi, they now saw, emptied into the Gulf of Mexico,
between Florida and Tampico, two Spanish points; they might, by
proceeding, fall into their hands. Thus far only Marquette traced
the map, and he put down the names of other tribes of which they
heard. Of these, in the Atotchasi, Matora, and Papihaka, we
recognize Arkansas tribes; and the Akoroas and Tanikwas, Pawnees
and Omahas, Kansas and Apiches, are well known in after‐days.

“They accordingly set out from Akensea, on the 17th of July, to
return. Passing the Missouri again, they entered the Illinois,
and, meeting the friendly Kaskaskias at its upper portage, were
led by them in a kind of triumph to Lake Michigan; for Marquette
had promised to return and instruct them in the faith. Sailing
along the lake, they crossed the outer peninsula of Green Bay, and
reached the mission of S. Francis Xavier just four months after
their departure from it.

“Thus had the missionaries achieved their long‐projected work. The
triumph of the age was thus completed in the discovery and
exploration of the Mississippi, which threw open to France the
richest, most fertile and accessible territory of the New World.
Marquette, whose health had been severely tried in this voyage,
remained at St. Francis to recruit his strength before resuming
his wonted missionary labors; for he sought no laurels, he aspired
to no tinsel praise.

“The distance passed over by F. Marquette on this great
expedition, in his little bark canoe, was two thousand seven
hundred and sixty‐seven miles. The feelings with which he regarded
an enterprise having so grave a bearing on the future history and
development of mankind may be appreciated from the following
closing passage of the ninth section of his _Voyages and
Discoveries_:

“ ‘Had all this voyage caused but the salvation of a single soul,
I should deem all my fatigue well repaid. And this I have reason
to think; for, when I was returning, I passed by the Indians at
Peoria. I was three days announcing the faith in all their cabins,
after which, as we were embarking, they brought me to the water’s
edge a dying child, which I baptized a little before it expired,
by an admirable Providence, for the salvation of that innocent
soul.’ ”

F. Marquette prepared a narrative of his voyage down the Mississippi (from which the foregoing quotation is taken), and a map of that river; and on his return transmitted copies to his superior, by the Ottawa flotilla of that year. It is also probable that Frontenac, the Governor of New France, as he had promised, sent a copy of them to the French government. The loss of Jolliet’s narrative and map gave an inestimable value to those of Marquette. Yet the French government did not publish them, probably in consequence of the discontinuance of the publication of the Jesuit _Relations_ about this time; and thus the great interests involved in the discovery were neglected. Fortunately, F. Marquette’s narrative fell into the hands of Thevenot, who had just published a collection of travels, and such was his appreciation of it that he issued a new volume, entitled _Recueil de Voyages_, in 1681, containing the narrative and map of the Mississippi.(226) Mr. Sparks, in his life of F. Marquette, speaks thus of the narrative:

“It is written in a terse, simple, and unpretending style. The
author relates what occurs, and describes what he sees, without
embellishment or display. He writes as a scholar and as a man of
careful observation and practical sense. There is no tendency to
exaggerate, nor any attempt to magnify the difficulties he had to
encounter, or the importance of his discovery. In every point of
view, this tract is one of the most interesting of those which
illustrate the early history of America.”

Having reached Green Bay, the exhausted voyager sank down under the effects of his recent travels and exposures. His disease was so obstinate and protracted that he suffered during the entire winter, though with patience and resignation, and did not recover before the end of the following summer. Having received from his superior the necessary orders for the establishment of the Illinois mission, he started on the 25th of October, 1674, for Kaskaskia. He was accompanied and assisted by two faithful and devoted Frenchmen, and by a number of Pottawattomies and Illinois Indians. They coasted along the mouth of Fox River, and then, advancing up as far as the small bay breaking into the peninsula, they reached the portage leading to the lake. As the canoes proceeded along the lake shore, the missionary walked upon the beach, returning to the canoes whenever the beach was broken by a river or stream; and their provisions were obtained from the abundant yield of the chase. On the 23d of November, the courageous missionary found his malady returning, but pushed on, amid cold and snow, until, on the 4th of December, he reached the Chicago River, which was closed with ice. Here again the unpropitious elements and his own infirmities compelled him to stop and spend the winter. But his time was not idly spent during this detention, for his missionary zeal found occupation in the spiritual care of his Indian companions, whom he instructed as well as he could, and sent them forward on their journey. His faithful Frenchmen remained now alone with him; but at a distance of fifty miles was an Illinois village, where there were two Frenchmen, traders and trappers; and these, hearing of the forlorn condition of the missionary, arranged that one of them should go and visit him. They had prepared a cabin for him, and the Indians, alarmed for his safety, were also anxious to send some of their tribe to convey their father and his effects to their village. Touched by their attentions, he sent them every assurance of his visiting them, intimating, however, the uncertainty of his doing so in the spring, in consequence of his continued illness. These messages only added to the alarm of the Indians, and the sachems assembled and sent a deputation to the black‐gown. The presents they bore were three sacks of corn, dried meat, and pumpkins, and twelve beaver skins. The objects of their visits were, first, to make him a mat to sit on; second, to ask him for powder; third, supply him with food; fourth, to get some merchandise. The good father made answer in characteristic terms, as follows: “First, that I came to instruct them by speaking of the prayer; second, that I would not give them powder, as we endeavor to make peace everywhere, and because I did not wish them to begin a war against the Miamis; third, that we did not fear famine; fourth, that I would encourage the French to bring them merchandise, and that they must make reparation to the traders there for the beads taken from them while the surgeon was with me.” Presenting them with some axes, knives, and trinkets, he dismissed them with a promise to make every effort to visit them in a few days. Bidding their good father to “take heart,” and beseeching him to “stay and die in their country,” the deputation “returned to their winter camps.”

The ensuing winter months, though marked by every bodily suffering and privation, were replete with religious consolation. His whole time was spent in prayer. Admonished by his disease that his last end could not be far off, he offered his remaining days entirely to God. He lost sight of the sufferings of his body in the overflow of heavenly consolations with which his soul was ravished. Still the recollection that he had been appointed missionary of the Illinois, and the duty this seemed to impose upon him of laboring for the conversion of those noble but benighted souls, filled his heart with the desire of visiting them, if it should be the will of God, and the establishment of the Illinois mission became the absorbing thought of his mind and the burden of the prayers which he addressed to the throne of heaven. His sufferings he bore not only with patience, but with joy; if he prayed for their cessation, it was only with the view that he might thus be enabled to encounter the new sufferings, labors, and hardships of his mission, and that he might devote his remaining days to the salvation of his beloved Illinois. To obtain this privilege from heaven, he induced his companions to unite with him in a novena of prayers in honor of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary. Some time after Christmas, 1675, his Patroness in heaven obtained the desired boon of health for her devoted client; for he soon began to recover from his disease, and, though still feeble, was enabled by the 29th of March, when the snow and ice began to melt, and the inundations compelled them to move, to set out for Kaskaskia, in the Upper Illinois. He arrived at that Illinois town on the 8th of April, but his journal was discontinued from the 6th of April, and we have no record of his movements from that time. He was received by his children as an angel from heaven, for they scarcely supposed he had escaped alive the rigors of the winter. It was Monday in Holy Week, and the good man immediately commenced his work. He visited the chiefs and ancients of the town, and gave them and the crowds who assembled in the cabins he visited the first necessary instructions in the Gospel. So great were the throngs that assembled to hear him preach that the narrow accommodations of the cabins could not hold them. On Maundy Thursday he called a general assembly of the people in the open field, a beautiful prairie near the town, which was decorated after the fashion of the country, and spread with mats and bear skins. He formed a little rustic altar by suspending some pieces of Indian taffety on cords, to which were attached, so as to be seen on all four sides, four large pictures of the Blessed Virgin, under whose invocation the mission was placed. The assembly was immense; composed of five hundred chiefs and ancients seated in a circle around the missionary, and around these stood fifteen hundred young men. Besides these, great numbers of women and children attended. He addressed his congregation with ten words or presents, according to the Indian fashion, associating each word or present, which represented some great truth or mystery, with one of the ten beads on the belt of the prayer which he held in his hand. He explained the object of his visit to them, preached Christ crucified—for it was the eve of Good Friday—and explained to them the principal mysteries of the Christian religion. The Holy Mass was then celebrated for the first time in this new mission. On each of the following days he continued his instructions, and on Easter Sunday he celebrated the great Feast of the Resurrection, offering up Mass for the second time. He took possession of the land in the name of his risen Lord, and bestowed upon the mission the name of the Immaculate Virgin Mary.

His former malady now returned with renewed violence. His strength was wasting away. To remain would accomplish no good for his children, for he was unable to discharge the duties of the missionary, and no alternative was left but to make an effort to reach his former mission, Mackinaw, where he hoped to die in the midst of his fellow‐members of the Society of Jesus. He was the more willing now to seek rest in the bosom of his Redeemer and in the Society of his Blessed Mother in Heaven, because he had performed his promise, the mission of the Illinois had been founded, his words had been lovingly received by his people, the good seed had been sown in their hearts, the Holy Sacrifice had been offered up in their presence and for their salvation, and future missionaries might now advance to cultivate the field and reap the harvest he had prepared. His docile Indians, with the devotion of children, begged him to return to them as soon as his health should permit. He repeatedly promised them that he or some other missionary would come to continue the good work amongst them. The people followed him on his journey, escorted him thirty leagues on his way with great pomp, showing him every mark of friendship and affection, and many contended among themselves for the honor of carrying the scanty baggage he possessed. Taking the way of the St. Joseph’s River and the eastern shore of Lake Michigan, along which he had yet to travel over a hundred leagues through an unknown route, his strength soon began to fail entirely. He could no longer help himself; his two faithful French companions had to lift him in and out of his canoe when they landed at night; and so exhausted had he become under his wasting disease that they had to handle and carry him like a child. In the midst of his sufferings and the hardships of such a journey in his enfeebled health, his characteristic equanimity, joy, and gentleness never for a moment left him. He could even forget his own sufferings to console his companions. He encouraged them to sustain the fatigues of the way, assuring them that God would protect and defend them. His native mirthfulness was even in this extreme crisis conspicuous in his conversations. He now calmly saw the approach of death, and joyfully and heroically welcome it as the reward of his toils and sacrifices. He had some time before prepared a meditation on death, to serve him in these last hours of his life, which he now used with great consolation. He said his office to his last day. His devotions frequently assumed the shape of colloquies with his merciful Lord, with his Holy Mother, with his angel guardian, and with all heaven. He repeatedly pronounced with fervor the sublime words, “I believe that my Redeemer liveth”; and again, “Mary, Mother of grace, Mother of God, remember me.” Perceiving a river on whose banks loomed up a prominent eminence, he ordered his companions to stop, that he might die and be buried there. He pointed out the spot on this eminence in which he desired them to inter his remains. This river, until recent years, bore his name. His companions still desired to press forward, in the hope of reaching Mackinaw; but they were driven back by the wind, and, entering the River Marquette by its former channel, they erected a bark cabin, under which Marquette, like his great model, S. Francis Xavier, was stretched upon the shore, and, like him, sighed only to be dissolved and to be with Christ. So cheerfully did he realize his approaching dissolution that he gave all the necessary directions to his companions touching his burial. He had a week before blessed some water, which he instructed them how to use on the occasion, how to arrange his hands, feet, and head, with what religious ceremonies to bury him, even telling them that they should take his little altar bell, and ring it as they carried him to the grave. On the eve of his death, he told them with a countenance radiant with joy that the morrow would be his last day on earth. Still mindful of his sacred ministry, and anxious to be doing good, he administered the sacrament of penance to his two companions for the last time. He thanked them for their charity to him during this arduous and eventful voyage, begged their pardon for the trouble he had given them, and directed them to ask pardon for him and in his name of all the Fathers and Brothers of the Society of Jesus in the Ottawa country; he also gave them a paper in which he had written all his faults since his last confession, which he begged them to give to his superior, that he might pray the more earnestly for him. He promised not to forget them in heaven. Ever mindful of others in this trying moment, and overflowing with charity for his neighbor, he insisted upon his companions taking some rest, leaving him to commune with heaven, assuring them that his hour was not yet at hand, and that he would call them in due time. This he did; summoning them to his side, just as his agony was approaching. Hastening to him, they fell melting into tears at his feet. He embraced them for the last time, called for the holy water he had blessed and his reliquary, and, taking his crucifix from around his neck, and handing it to one of them, he requested him to hold it up before him, so that he could behold it every moment he had yet to live. Clasping his hands, and fixing his eyes affectionately on the image of his expiring Saviour, he pronounced aloud his profession of faith, and thanked God for the favor he enjoyed in dying a Jesuit, a missionary of the cross, and, above all, in dying in a miserable cabin, amid forests, and destitute of all human consolation and assistance. He then communed secretly for some time with his Creator, but his devotion from time to time found vent in the ejaculations, “Sustinuit anima mea in verba ejus,” and “Mater Dei, memento mei.” These were his last words before he was taken with the agony of death. His companions frequently pronounced the names of Jesus and Mary, as he had previously requested them to do, and, when they saw he was about to expire, they called out “Jesus, Maria,” whereupon he repeated those enrapturing names several times with distinctness, and then suddenly, as if his Saviour and Mother had appeared to him, he raised his eyes above the crucifix, gazing with a countenance lit up with pleasure at those blissful apparitions. He expired as peacefully and gently as a child sinking into its evening slumber.

“Thus he died, the great apostle,
Far away in regions West;
By the Lake of the Algonquins
Peacefully his ashes rest;
But his spirit still regards us
From his home among the blest.”

The devoted companions of the illustrious missionary, happy, in the midst of their bereavement, in the privilege of witnessing one of the most heroic and saintly deaths recorded in the history of our race, carried out every injunction of their departed father, and added every act that love and veneration could suggest, and that their impoverished condition in the wilderness could afford. They laid out his remains as he had directed, rang the little altar bell as they carried him with profound respect to the mound of earth selected by himself, interred him there, and raised a large cross to mark the sacred spot.

The surviving companions of the deceased now prepared to embark. One of them had been ill for some time, suffering with such depression of spirits and feebleness of body that he could neither eat nor sleep. Just before embarking he knelt at the grave of his saintly friend, and begged him to intercede for him in heaven as he had promised, and, taking some earth from the breast of the departed, and placing it upon his own breast, it is related that he felt his sadness and bodily infirmity immediately depart, and he resumed his voyage in health and gladness. Many are the pious traditions of miraculous results attributed to the sanctity of F. Marquette; many of them are still handed down among the Western missionaries, and some of them have found a place in the pages of serious history.

The remains of the saintly Jesuit were, two years afterwards, disinterred by his own flock, the Kiskakons, while returning from their hunting‐ grounds, placed in a neat box of bark, and reverently carried to their mission. The flotilla of canoes, as it passed along in funeral solemnity, was joined by a party of the Iroquois, and, as they approached Mackinaw, many other canoes, including those of the two missionaries of the place, united in the imposing convoy, and the deep, reverential chant, _De Profundis_, arose heavenward from the bosom of the lake until the body reached the shore. It was carried in procession with cross, burning tapers, and fragrant incense to the church, where every possible preparation had been made for so interesting and affecting a ceremony; and, after the Requiem service, the precious relics were deposited in a vault prepared for them in the middle of the church, “where he reposes,” says the pious chronicler, “as the guardian angel of our Ottawa missions.” “Ever after,” says Bancroft, “the forest rangers, if in danger on Lake Michigan, would invoke his name. The people of the West will build his monument.”

The following notice of the character of F. Marquette is from the gifted pen of Mr. Shea:

“Such was the edifying and holy death of the illustrious explorer
of the Mississippi, on Saturday, the 18th of May, 1675. He was of
a cheerful, joyous disposition, playful even in his manner, and
universally beloved. His letters show him to us as a man of
education, close observation, sound sense, strict integrity, a
freedom from exaggeration, and yet a vein of humor which here and
there breaks out in spite of all his self‐command.

“But all these qualities are little compared to his zeal as a
missionary, to his sanctity as a man. His holiness drew on him in
life the veneration of all around him, and the lapse of years has
not even now destroyed it in the descendants of those who knew
him. In one of his sanctity we naturally find an all‐absorbing
devotion to the Mother of the Saviour, with its constant
attendants, an angelical love of purity, and a close union of the
heart with God. It is, indeed, characteristic with him. The
privilege which the Church honors under the title of the
Immaculate Conception was the constant object of his thoughts;
from his early youth he daily recited the little offices of the
Immaculate Conception and fasted every Saturday in her honor. As a
missionary, a variety of devotions directed to the same end still
show his devotions, and to her he turned in all his trials. When
he discovered the great river, when he founded his new mission, he
gave it the name of the Conception, and no letter, it is said,
ever came from his hand that did not contain the words, ’Blessed
Virgin Immaculate’; and the smile that lighted up his dying face
induced his poor companions to believe that she had appeared
before the eyes of her devoted client.

“Like S. Francis Xavier, whom he especially chose as the model of
his missionary career, he labored nine years for the moral and
social improvement of nations sunk in paganism and vice, and, as
he was alternately with tribes of varied tongues, found it was
necessary to acquire knowledge of many American languages: six he
certainly spoke with ease; many more he is known to have
understood less perfectly. His death, however, was, as he had
always desired, more like that of the apostle of the Indies; there
is, indeed, a striking resemblance between their last moments; and
the wretched cabin, the desert shore, the few destitute
companions, the lonely grave, all harmonize in Michigan and
Sancian.”

Prayer Of Custance, The Persecuted Queen Of Alla Of Northumberland.

Mother, quod she, and maiden bright, Mary!
Soth is that through womanne’s eggement
Mankind was lorn, and damned aye to die,
For which thy Child was on a cross yrent:
Thy blissful eyen saw all his torment;
Then is there no comparison between
Thy woe and any woe man may sustain.
Thou saw’st thy Child yslain before thine eyen,
And yet now liveth my little child parfay,
Now, lady bright! to whom all woful crien,
Thou glory of womanhood, thou faire May,
Thou haven of refute, bright star of the day!
Rue on my child, that of thy gentleness
Ruest on every rueful in distress.

—_Chaucer._

Acoma.

“Mr. S——, would you like to visit Acoma?” asked the commandant.

“Most assuredly,” I replied; “I came out here to see all I could see. But what or who is Acoma?”(227)

“A town built on the top of a rock rising from a level plain to a height of over two hundred feet is Acoma—the home of the Acoma Indians, a tribe of the great Pueblo family. I am ordered thither to have a talk with the principal men, and induce them to give up some Navajo children—captives—they are said to have taken in a recent skirmish.”

I had been enjoying the hospitality of the commandant for some days at old Fort Wingate, near the Ojo del Gallo, in the northwestern part of New Mexico. Acoma lies about fifty miles to the southeast of the fort, by a very rough trail across the mountains. It was somewhat further by the regular trail.

As we started, the sun was creeping over the brow of lofty San Mateo. The party consisted of the commandant, Don Juan Brown, a Castilianized American, who speaks Spanish like a native, and went with us as volunteer interpreter; Messrs. Jim Durden and Joe Smithers, gentlemen loafers; a sergeant and twenty cavalry as escort in case of unexpected and undesired rencounters with hostile Apaches or Navajoes; last, the writer, a denizen of the city of Gotham, general tourist, grand scribe and chronicler.

We all rode on horseback, except Don Juan Brown, who, being a trifle over 225 lbs., divided his weight between a pair of good horses attached to a light buggy. The order of march was: two cavalrymen five hundred yards in advance; the commandant, with Jim and Joe and the writer; the main body of the escort; Don Juan Brown with his buggy, and a rear guard of two cavalrymen five hundred yards behind.

A brisk trot of three miles brought us to the Puertocito, or Little Door, which leads from the Valley of the Gallo into the Mal Païs, a petrified sea of lava, which lies between the Puertocito and the mountains. The lava stream seems to have been suddenly turned to stone by a wave of some enchanter’s wand while it was a raging, seething torrent.

We halted and dismounted, tightened girths, etc. Jim and Joe, unused to the equitating mood, and evidently disliking particularly the trotting tense, had fallen back to the rear guard, and looked somewhat shaken. The relief of a walk of some miles was in store for them, as the trail through the Mal Païs admitted only of that gait and of single file.

The Puertocito is formed by two rocks about twenty feet high. We wound our way through tortuous passages, through lava spires, at a slow walk. We could not see more than a few yards ahead. It was a dreary pathway. The knowledge that it was a haunt for Indians bound on robbery or revenge gave imagination an opportunity to put her darkest colors on the natural gloom. An hour’s slow walking brings us to the Bajada, or Descent, where our path is up and down the steep sides of a lava rock thirty feet high. We dismount and lead our horses carefully down. Half a dozen men holding on to the buggy behind make sufficient drag to let it down in safety, though with some wrenching of the wheels in the channelled surface of the rock.

Thence our way lies on the eastern skirt of the lava, which runs along with the stream known as the San José through a deep and winding gorge named Los Rémanzos. I have seen some wild scenery in my time, but never before nor since so savage a piece of landscape as Los Rémanzos. The mountains rise perpendicularly on either hand—their barren sides dotted with huge boulders which seem ready to fall instantly on the traveller beneath. You wonder why they do not fall. The winding cañon shuts out all view beyond twenty yards in advance. A trail barely wide enough for one vehicle to pass creeps between the San José and the mountains on one side; and from the stream to the mountains on the other the lava piles up its grim and threatening forms.

We halted at the picket to wait for the escort, the buggy, and Jim and Joe, beguiling the time by a comforting draught of hot coffee from a military quart cup which the commander of the picket hospitably offered us. The laggards soon arrived. Jim and Joe took advantage of the pause before starting again to enter a solemn protest against trotting:

“For heaven’s sake, commandant!” said they with one voice and in a tone that showed acute feeling, “either walk or lope; we cannot endure that confounded trot. We shall be as raw as uncooked beefsteaks.”

A bright thought struck them both simultaneously, and, without any further ceremony, they rushed to the buggy, leaving their horses to take care of themselves or be taken care of by some good‐natured dragoon.

Another mile brought us to the crossing of the San José. Here was a check to our proceedings: the crossing was not fordable. The stream, usually about two feet wide and three inches deep at the crossing, had in consequence of recent heavy rains and the melting of snows filled its steep bed and overflowed its banks for fifty yards on either side. A powerful eddy made it impossible for a horse to strike ground on the other side. A dragoon dashed in and tried it, but it was with great difficulty we saved him and his horse from being carried down the swollen stream, and got them safe on our side again.

“That settles it, gentlemen,” said the commandant; “we shall have to cross the mountains—a rough trail, but we have no choice.”

It was now proposed to leave the buggy behind, but Joe would not hear of it. The commandant was too polite to insist, as he ought to have done.

Crossing a narrow but steep cut, however, the buggy went over, spilling Don Juan and Jim over the mountain‐side. The buggy stood on its top—wheels in the air. The horses—good and gentle animals—came to a full stop and stood perfectly quiet. Otherwise, there would have been as little left of the buggy as of Dr. Holmes’ one‐horse shay, the last time the deacon rode in it. Neither the Don nor Jim was hurt, though the latter was somewhat frightened. Don Juan took the matter with the coolness of an old hand. The buggy was uninjured; it had merely met with a reverse. It was soon put upon its legs—or, rather, its wheels—again. Its progress was so aggravatingly slow when even our fastest possible gait was a walk, that, dividing the escort, we went on, leaving it to proceed at its leisure.

It was about nightfall when we reached the edge of a precipitous descent where all marks of a trail disappeared. The descent was probably two hundred feet in perpendicular height, and alarmingly steep.

“The buggy can never go down there,” was the general remark.

“Confound the buggy, we shall have to sleep out in the cold all night with nothing but a saddle‐blanket, on account of it,” also translates a very general sentiment.

“We cannot desert them, however,” said the commandant; “as the buggy has come with us we must stand by it. We shall wait here until it comes up.”

We had a long and weary wait for that anathematized buggy. At length, as the shades of night were falling, the long‐looked‐for buggy was seen, its top bumping up and down like a buffalo with a broken foreleg. The don walked on one side of the vehicle holding the reins; Joe walked on the other side as gloomily as a chief mourner. The remainder of the escort with dismal visages followed behind.

A glance over the steep brink did not give any radiance to their gloomy countenances. Don Juan expressed his regrets that we should have been detained by the slow and difficult progress of the buggy. Joe said nothing, but evidently felt ashamed of himself.

We were still twenty miles from Acoma. Within about five miles, the commandant said there was a little Indian hut—a sort of outpost of the Pueblo—the owner of which, old Salvador, was one of the notables of the Pueblo. The commandant had notified Salvador by courier some days before of our intended visit. He had proposed to meet us at the ranchito and guide us over the remainder of the mountain trail. Here we could pass the night under cover at least, though we should be pretty closely packed.

Joe had resumed the saddle after the steep descent had been accomplished. He and Jim now led the party, and, as the rest of us stayed with Don Juan and the buggy, they got considerably in advance. Thus they had reached the ranchito some twenty minutes before we did. We found them knocking at the door and calling loudly and indignantly on the inmates to open.

“We have been knocking and shouting here for half an hour, and the confounded old Indian has not taken the slightest notice of us. I believe he would let us freeze.”

“Salvador does not know you,” said the commandant. “He is too wise an Indian to open his doors to strangers in this country after nightfall. Salvador is reputed wealthy, and it behooves him to be careful what nocturnal visitors he receives. I think I can get Salvador to open. Is Señor Don Salvador within?” asked the commandant, in Spanish.

“Is it the Señor Comandante who is without?” asked Don Salvador, in the same language, with the usual Pueblo peculiarities of pronunciation—the use of _l_ for _r_, etc.

Being satisfied on this point, Salvador opened the door to receive us.

Salvador was a stout, middle‐sized, gray‐headed Indian of the Pueblo type. The presence of the commandant being a voucher for the rest, Salvador now proceeded to shake hands with the whole party—in the order of rank, as he understood it—taking first the commandant, next the bugler, then the sergeant and the men of the escort, and then the civilians, Don Brown and the writer, and lastly Jim and Joe; conscientiously repeating in each individual case, “_Como le va!_” and “_Bueno!_” Indians believe in uniforms and brass buttons. They don’t understand official dignity without outward and visible signs.

The ranchito was a little structure of _tierrones_, or sods, roofed with poles laid across from wall to wall, and covered with brush and earth. There were no windows. The door was the only aperture, I think. I am not quite sure whether there was a hole in the roof to let out a little of the smoke; there may have been. The edifice was about large enough for a fair‐ sized poultry‐house. It was perched on the steep mountainside, the earth being cut away on the upper side to give an approach to a level foundation. There was a small shed for animals, the fodder for whose use being piled on top of it. There was the usual corn‐crib. Our best horses were honored with the hospitality of the shed, Salvador’s pony and burros being turned out to make room for them. The other animals were tied to logs in front of the ranchito, and a guard placed over them.

It required some stooping to enter Salvador’s residence. This was very hard on the stout Don, who had not seen his own knee for a number of years, but he accomplished it as if he had been in the daily habit of touching his toes without bending his knees. But a further trial still awaited him. The hut was divided into two rooms. The passage between the two rooms was a blighted door, cut short in its youth to the proportions of a small fireplace. We had to come down to all‐fours to get into the inner chamber. When the commandant, the staunch Don, and the writer had entered, the place seemed full. But Salvador, on hospitable thoughts intent, insisted on Jim and Joe entering. Then Salvador wriggled in. The room was replete.

After a meagre supper and a quiet smoke, we arranged the details of the morrow’s trip. With our saddles for pillows, and our saddle‐blankets and overcoats for beds and bed‐covering, we lay down to sleep. Brown, with Jim and Joe, in the inner room; the commandant, the old Pueblo, and myself in the outer. Jim and Joe lay perpendicularly to Brown, and Salvador described a horizontal to the commandant and myself. I slept well, considering, though I was waked two or three times by a roaring noise, which seemed to me to be that of the house falling, as I was endeavoring to force myself through the passage between the two apartments, in which, more than once during the night, I dreamt that I was stuck fast. On waking, I discovered that the sound proceeded from the resounding Aztec nose of our host, Salvador.

We were roused before day by the old Indian. Dressing took no time, as we had not undressed the night before—a great saving of time, labor, and discomfort. Breakfast was to be got ready, however. Salvador made the fire. The commandant detailed himself and myself as cooks for the morning. At supper‐time, Don Juan, assisted by Jim and Joe, would officiate culinarily. Slices from a haunch of bacon we had brought with us, cooked on the end of a stick, with “hard tack” and coffee, made in a camp kettle, furnished a delicious breakfast. What is there in the odor of unctuous bacon that makes it so pleasant to the nostrils when one is camping out or “roughing it”? There are people who cannot abide the smell of bacon within the confines of civilization. But put them on the Plains, or in the field, and a daily dose of the appetizing grease is necessary to “settle their stomachs.” I have known men who, in long trips in the wilds, forsook chickens and returned to first principles and bacon.

We made an early start. The buggy was left behind. Don Juan saddled one of his horses. He borrowed from the old Indian a saddle, so angular and so full of sharp points that it must have been hard even for an Indian’s seat. But Brown, though heavy, was a good horseman, and he bore the infliction like a hero.

Salvador was our guide. When we were all mounted, and ready to start, we looked around for him. After some hunting we saw him above us, mounted, and seemingly emerging from the roof of the ranchito. He went straight up the side of the mountain, beckoning to us to come on, and shouting “_Caballeros! por aquí!_”(228)

An Indian does not understand flank movements. He does not go around obstacles. He goes straight over them on the direct line of his objective. We followed our guide, dismounting, however, leading our horses, and zigzagging up the steep ascent like Christians and white men.

Our course was over mountain and across ravine on a bee‐line of ascent or descent for Acoma. There was some growling by Jim and Joe, but as our general gait was a slow walk, and they made much of their progress on foot, they did not grumble much.

I noticed moccasin tracks in several places where the ground was soft. The distance between the foot‐prints was very great. It astonished me. I rode to the commandant’s side, and called his attention to the wonderful tracks. He pointed them out to Salvador, who said they were the tracks of a _muchacho_ he had sent to the Pueblo last night with the news of our arrival at the ranchito. What a stepper that _muchacho_ must have been! His average bound must have been at least ten feet.

“How long will it take him to go to the Pueblo, Salvador?” asked the commandant.

“Oh! not long,” replied Salvador, “long as a good horse.”

_Experientia docet._ Before I saw those tracks I used to set down the accounts I read in my Grecian history of wonderful time made by messengers to Athens and other classic centres as antique yarns. I now believe in the fastest Grecian time reported. Thus, the torch of faith is often lit by the merest straying spark—a lesson to us not to limit our belief to what is within the scope of our knowledge. We know so little.

Jim and Joe had begun to growl over the continual ups and downs of the journey when we saw Salvador, who was some three or four hundred yards ahead, dismount at the foot of what seemed to be the steepest ascent yet.

“This must be a stiff one,” said the commandant. “I see Salvador has dismounted. It takes a pretty steep ascent to make an Indian or a Mexican dismount. They hold to the saddle until the animal begins to bend backward.”

It was a steep and toilsome ascent, winding in and out through huge boulders just wide enough apart to let a horse squeeze through. It was not always easy to convince the horses that there was room enough for them to pass. They would refuse to be convinced, and obstinately draw back, to the discomfort and danger of those leading them, and more so of those following.