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Book, page 171 / 372 first time that civilization had asserted itself there. La Salle built a fort, and, in memory of the trials of the way, called it _Crevecoeur_, which signified Broken-heart; but it did not testify to any broken courage on his part;--rather it was a monument to the obstacles that his persistence had surmounted. Two years later, we find his canoe, which seems to our eyes now the emblem of an aggressive civilization, flitting along the Illinois River, entering the muddy Mississippi, and floating down its thousand miles to the Gulf. This is not the whole picture, however. We see the party start from the Chicago River, in the cold weather of December. The rivers are frozen. Canoes must be dragged over their snowy and icy surfaces, and baggage can be transported in no way but upon rough sledges. Can you not see the slow procession of fifty persons dragging themselves along day after day through the region inhabited but by savages and wild beasts, suffering from cold and hunger, and all held to their duty by the persevering leader who had brought them there? There are twenty-three Frenchmen, eighteen Indian braves, belonging to those terrible Abenakis and Mohegans whose "midnight yells had," as Mr. Parkman says, "startled the border hamlets of New England; who had danced around Puritan scalps, and whom Puritan imaginations painted as incarnate fiends." There were besides, ten squaws and three children. A motley collection and one not calculated to inspire confidence nor hope for the success of any undertaking. It was not until they had passed the point where the river broadens into Lake Peoria that they found water in which they could float their canoes. Then they continued on, until early in February they found themselves on the banks of the Mississippi. It was filled with ice, and no canoe could navigate it. After a delay of a few days, they found the river free, and again took up their course southwards. A day more brought them to the confluence of the muddy Missouri, which some of my readers have probably seen, where a mighty stream coming down from distant mountains, enters another not so mighty as itself, and plowing its way across its current, burrows under the soil on the opposite shore. This did not detain the voyagers, though they encamped there over night, and then pursued their course towards the unknown. A
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