the water of the bay is too shallow and that the currents are too
powerful; the strong man has given his order, and it must be obeyed.
The channel was duly marked out, and on the twentieth of February,
one of the ships, the _Aimable,_ weighed anchor and began to enter
the bay. The commander was on the shore, anxiously watching to see
the result, when, suddenly, some of his men who had been cutting
down a tree to make a canoe, rushed up and exclaimed, with terror
in their faces, "The Indians have attacked us and one of our number
is even now a captive in their hands." There was nothing to be done
but go in pursuit of the savages.
It did not take long to arm a few men, and off they started with
their leader in the direction that the Indians had taken. The
savages were overtaken and a parley ensued. The leader's thoughts
were now in two places at once, and he was not far enough from the
shore not to be able to cast a glance towards the _Aimable_, and
to say to his lieutenants, as he saw the vessel drifting near shoal
water, "If she keeps on in that course, she will soon be aground."
Still, no time was to be lost. The parley with the Indians did
not hinder them long, and soon they were on the way towards the
village whither the captive had been taken. Just as they entered
its precincts and looked upon its inhabitants, clustered in groups
among the dome-shaped huts, the loud boom of a cannon burst upon
their ears. The savages were smitten with terror, and the commander
felt his heart beat quickly as he looked again towards the water
and saw the _Aimable_ furling its sails, a sure token to him that
she had indeed struck the rock and would be lost, with all the
stores intended for use when her passengers should be landed.
Undaunted by the prospect, or even by the dark picture that his
imagination conjured up, he pressed onward among the miserable
savages, until his man had been recovered. Then he returned, and
found his vessel on her side, a forlorn spectacle. Now the wind
rose, and the sea beat upon the helpless hulk. It rocked backwards
and forwards on its uneasy bed; its treasures of boxes and bales
and casks were strewn over the waters; the greedy Indians made haste
to seize what they could; and as night approached the hurriedly
organized patrol of soldiers had all that they could do to face
the deepening storm and protect their goods from the treacherous
natives, as the less treacherous waves cast them upon the sands of
the shore.
Who were these men, thus unceremoniously thrust upon the shores of
the New World? How did it happen that they were found at a point
that no European had before seen? Perhaps it is not necessary to
ask how they happened to mistake the entrance to Matagorda Bay for
one of the broad mouths of the Mississippi. They were Frenchmen.
So much their speech has told us. The leader was Robert Cavelier,
Sieur de La Salle, a man whom the historian Bancroft says that he
had no superior among his countrymen for force of will and vast
conceptions; for various knowledge, and quick adaptation of his
genius to untried circumstances; for sublime magnanimity that resigned
itself to the will of Heaven and yet triumphed over affliction by
energy of purpose and unfaltering hope.
In early life he had renounced his inheritance and devoted himself
to the service of the Church, but he soon left the order of Jesuits
which he had entered, because, as Mr. Parkman surmises, he did not
relish being all his life the moved and not the mover; because he
could not give up his individuality and remain one of the great
body, all of whom were compelled to march in a track pointed out to
them by a superior. It is pleasant to know that he left the order
with good feelings on both sides.
In 1667, we find the young man already entered upon the career of
adventure in which the rest of his life was to be spent. He had
sailed to Canada, the place of attraction for ambitious French
youth, and there he remained several years, making the familiar
acquaintance of the Indians and learning their language, while he
was dreaming, like many others, of the passage to China through
the rivers that came down from the westward. He had looked, too,
in his vivid imagination over the vast plains of the great West,
and had become filled with brilliant visions of an empire that he
hoped some day to see established there for France. We have already
learned how France took possession of the region, at this very
period.
In such state of mind, La Salle sailed back to France in the
autumn of 1674. He was well received and the next year returned,
ennobled, and more than ever determined to push his grand scheme
for the acquisition of the great West. His was no plan to indulge
in theatrical spectacles, but to take actual possession. Year
after year we see him steadily pursuing his single plan. He thinks
nothing of crossing the Atlantic, of pushing his course through
the trackless woods, or of paddling his frail canoe over the wild
waters of the broad lakes. Indians did not daunt him by their
cruelty, nor wild beasts affright him by their numbers and ferocity.
Onward, ever onward, He pressed.
In the year 1680, we find him taking possession by actual occupation,
of the region now comprising the State of Illinois. It was the
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
few days showed them the mouth of the Ohio, but still they pressed
onward. It was near the end of February, the temperature was growing
perceptibly warmer as they approached the South.
At a certain point they encamped and sent out their hunters for
game. One did not return at night, and a horror seized the others,
as they thought that he had been overtaken and killed by hostile
Indians. Day after day the woods were scoured in the hope of finding
the missing companion, but it seemed vain. A fort was erected for
the protection of the party on a high bluff, and named for the
lost hunter, Prudhomme. At last they met some Chickasaw Indians,
and messages of amity were exchanged through them with the people
of their village, not far distant. Soon afterwards Prudhomme was
discovered, half-dead from exposure, for he had lost his way while
hunting.
Thus the expedition progressed for many days, until at last the little
canoes found themselves thrust out through the turbid channels of
the delta, into the clear salt waters of the Gulf of Mexico. They
had stopped on the way after leaving Fort Prudhomme, at several
Indian towns, had been well treated by the natives, and they had
seen the mouths of the Arkansas and the Red rivers.
The whole valley of the Fatal River had been laid bare to them, and
now La Salle thought the time had come to take formal possession
for his sovereign.
Near the mouth of the river, the party came together on the ninth
of April, 1682, and a ceremony took place that was very similar to
the one at the Sault Ste. Marie, a few days less than eleven years
before, by which France had taken possession of the Northwest. It
did not rival that in the magnificence with which it was conducted,
though the ceremonial was, perhaps, a little more elaborated, but
it seemed to have a better basis of fact, for La Salle had actually
passed through the heart of the region which he now claimed. A
column was erected, of course, and a tablet of lead was buried near
it, such as those that had been placed in the ground at various
other places by Frenchmen, bearing testimony to the fact that Louis
the Great claimed to rule the land.
It was nearly the end of November of the following year, when La
Salle reached Quebec, after having retraced his route by long and
tedious stages up the rivers that he had followed down to the Gulf.
Then he returned to France to tell the story of his travels, and
began to use his influence to induce the government to send out
an expedition to take controlling possession of the Mississippi
region. He argued with all his powers, saying that by fortifying
the river, the French might control the continent. It was really
a grand and brilliant proposition, and the king and his minister
gave more than was demanded. Four vessels were prepared, instead
of the two that La Salle asked for. The expedition comprised a
hundred soldiers, thirty volunteers, many mechanics and laborers,
several families and a few girls, who looked forward to certain
marriage in the new land.
On the twenty-fourth of July, La Salle set sail from Roehelle,
with four hundred men in his four vessels, leaving an affectionate
and comforting letter as his last farewell to his mother at Rouen.
We have already seen how he was thrown upon the shores of the
New World. There, on the sands of Matagorda Bay, with nothing to
eat but oysters and a sort of porridge made of the flour that had
been saved, the homesick party of downcast men and sorrowing women
encamped until their leader could tell them what to do. They did
not even know where they were. They were intending to conquer the
Spaniards, but they knew nothing of their whereabouts. They were
attacked by Indians, and finally, some three weeks after the wreck,
the commander of the ships sailed away for France leaving La Salle
and his forlorn company behind!
A site was soon chosen on the river now called Lavaca (a corruption
of _La Vache_, the cow, a name given it because buffaloes had been
seen there), and a fort was built called St. Louis. La Salle had
scarcely finished this establishment, when he determined to search
for the Mississippi River, for he had by that time concluded from
explorations that he had not found it. On the last day of October,
he started, and towards the end of March, the party returned, tattered
and worn, almost ready to die; but though the strong body of the
leader had given away, his stronger spirit was still unbroken, and
he soon determined to set out to find the Illinois region where
he left a colony formerly, and where he felt sure he could obtain
relief. There was no chance for them to return directly to France
since their vessels were all gone, and this seemed their only hope.
A party of twenty was formed to undertake the perilous enterprise,
and on the twenty-second of April, 1686, they took their way from
the fort, bearing on their persons the contributions that their
fellows who were to remain had been able to bring together for
their comfort.
The party experienced a variety of hardships, quarrelled among
themselves, and finally, on the morning of the eighteenth of March,
1687, one of them shot and killed the brave leader. The remainder
kept on, finally reached Canada and were taken to their native
land. To the colonists at Fort St. Louis, no ground of hope ever
appeared, though they felt that the people of France must have an
interest in them, and so they kept a look-out over the water for a
ship coming to their relief. It never came, alas, and no one knows
to this day what became of the Lost Exiles of Texas!
THE BOY CONQUEROR--CHARLES XII OF SWEDEN
By E. S. Brooks
In an old, old palace on the rocky height of the _Slottsbacke_,
or Palace Hill, in the northern quarter of the beautiful city of
Stockholm, the capital of Sweden, there lived, just two hundred
years ago, a bright young prince. His father was a stern and daring
warrior-king--a man who had been a fighter from his earliest boyhood;
who at fourteen had been present in four pitched battles with the
Danes, and who, while yet scarce twelve years old, had charged
the Danish line at the head of his guards and shot down the stout
Danish colonel, who could not resist the spry young warrior. His
mother was a sweet-faced Danish princess, a loving and gentle lady,
who scarce ever heard a kind word from her stern-faced husband,
and whose whole life was bound up in her precious little prince.
And this little Carolus, Karl, or Charles, dearly loved his tender
mother. From her he learned lessons of truth and nobleness that
even through all his stormy and wandering life never forsook him.
Often while he had swung gently to and fro in his quaint, carved,
and uncomfortable-looking cradle, had she crooned above him the
old saga-songs that told of valor and dauntless courage and all the
stern virtues that made up the heroes of those same old saga-songs.
Many a time she had trotted the little fellow on her knee to the
music of the ancient nursery rhyme that has a place in all lands
and languages, from the steppes of Siberia to the homes of New York
and San Francisco:
"Ride along, ride a cock-horse,
His mane is dapple-gray;
Ride along, ride a cock-horse,
Little boy, ride away.
Where shall the little boy ride to?
To the king's court to woo"--
and so forth, and so forth, and so forth--in different phrases but
with the same idea, as many and many a girl and boy can remember.
And she had told him over and over again the saga-stories and fairy
tales that every Scandinavian boy and girl, from prince to peasant,
knows so well--of Frithiof and Ingeborg, and the good King Rene;
and about the Stone Giant and his wife Guru; and about the dwarfs,
and trolls, and nixies, and beautiful mermaids and stromkarls. And
she told him also many a story of brave and daring deeds, of noble
and knightly lives, and how his ancestors, from the great Gustavus,
and, before, from the still greater Gustavus Vasa, had been kings
of Sweden, and had made the name of that Northern land a power in
all the courts of Europe.
Little Prince Charles was as brave as he was gentle and jolly, and
as hardy as he was brave. At five years old he killed his first
fox; at seven he could manage his horse like a young centaur; and
at twelve he had his first successful bear hunt. He was as obstinate
as he was hardy; he steadily refused to learn Latin or French--the
languages of the court--until he heard that the kings of Denmark
and Poland understood them, and then he speedily mastered them.
His lady-mother's death, when he was scarce twelve years old, was
a great sadness, and nearly caused his own death, but, recovering
his health, he accompanied his father on hunting parties and military
expeditions, and daily grew stronger and hardier than ever.
In April, 1697, when the prince was not yet fifteen, King Charles
XI, his stern-faced father, suddenly died, and the boy king succeeded
to the throne as absolute lord of "Sweden and Finland, of Livonia,
Carelia, Ingria, Wismar, Wibourg, the islands of Rugen and Oesel,
of Pomerania, and the duchies of Bremen and Verdun"--one of the finest
possessions to which a young king ever succeeded, and representing
what is now Sweden, Western Russia, and a large part of Northern
Germany.
A certain amount of restraint is best for us all. As the just
restraints of the law are best for men and women, so the proper
restraints of home are best for boys and girls. A lad from whom
all restraining influences are suddenly withdrawn--who can have
his own way unmolested--stands in the greatest danger of wrecking
his life. The temptations of power have been the cause of very
much of the world's sadness and misery. And this temptation came
to this boy King of Sweden called in his fifteenth year to supreme
sway over a large realm of loyal subjects. Freed from the severity
of his stern father's discipline, he found himself responsible to
no one--absolutely his own master. And he did what too many of
us, I fear, would have done in his position--he determined to have
a jolly good time, come what might; and he had it--in his way.
He and his brother-in-law, the wild young Duke of Holstein, turned
the town upside down. They snapped cherry-pits at the king's
gray-bearded councillors, and smashed in the windows of the staid
and scandalized burghers of Stockholm. They played ball with the
table dishes, and broke all the benches in the palace chapel. They
coursed hares through the council-chambers of the Parliament House,
and ran furious races until they had ruined several fine horses.
They beheaded sheep in the palace till the floors ran with blood,
and then pelted the passers-by with sheep's heads. They spent the
money in the royal treasury like water, and played so many heedless
and ruthless boy-tricks that the period of these months of folly was
known, long after, as the "Gottorp Fury," because the harum-scarum
young brother-in-law, who was the ringleader in all these scrapes,
was Duke of Holstein-Gottorp.
But at last, even the people--serfs of this boy autocrat though they
were--began to murmur, and when one Sunday morning three clergymen
preached from the text "Woe to thee, O land, when thy king is
a child," the young sovereign remembered the counsels of his good
mother and recalled the glories of his ancestors, saw how foolish
and dangerous was all this reckless sport, turned over a new leaf,
became thoughtful and care-taking, and began his career of conquest
with the best victory of all--the conquest of himself!
But though he curbed his tendency to profitless and hurtful
"skylarking," he had far too much of the Berserker blood of his
ancestors--those rough old vikings who "despised mail and helmet
and went into battle unharnessed"--to become altogether gentle in
manners or occupation. He hated his fair skin, and sought in every
way to tan and roughen it, and to harden himself by exposure and
neglect of personal comfort. Many a night was passed by the boy on
the bare floor, and for three nights in the cold Swedish December
he slept in the hay-loft of the palace stables, without undressing
and with but scanty covering.
So he grew to be a lad of seventeen, sturdy, strong, and hardy, and
at the date of our story, in the year of 1699, the greater part of
his time was given up to military exercises and field sports, with
but little attention to debates in council or to the cares of state.
Among his chief enjoyments were the sham fights on land and water.
Many a hard-fought battle was waged between the boys and young men
who made up his guards and crews, and who would be divided into
two or more opposing parties, as the plan of battle required. This
was rough and dangerous sport, and was attended often with really
serious results. But the participants were stout and sturdy Northern
lads, used to hardships and trained to physical endurance. They
thought no more of these encounters than do the boys of to-day of
the crush of football and the hard hitting of the baseball field,
and blows were given and taken with equal good nature and unconcern.
One raw day in the early fall of 1699, sturdy young Arvid Horn,
a stout, blue-eyed Stockholm boy, stripped to the waist, and with
a gleam of fun in his eyes, stood upright in his little boat as
it bobbed on the crest of the choppy Maelar waves. He hailed the
king's yacht.
"Holo; in the boat there! Stand for your lives!" he shouted, and
levelled his long squirt-gun full at the helmsman.
Swish! came the well-directed stream of water plump against the
helmsman's face. Again and again it flew, until dripping and sore
he dropped the tiller and dashed down the companion-way calling
loudly for help.
Help came speedily, and as the crew of the king's yacht manned the
rail and levelled at their single assailant the squirt-guns, which
were the principal weapons of warfare used in these "make-believe"
naval engagements, the fun grew fast and furious; but none had so
sure an aim or so strong an arm to send an unerring and staggering
stream as young Arvid Horn. One by one he drove them back while
as his boat drifted still nearer the yacht he made ready to spring
to the force-chains and board his prize. But even before he could
steady himself for the jump, another tall and fair-haired Stockholm
lad, darting out from the high cabin, rallied the defeated crew
and bade them man the pumps at once.
A clumsy-looking fire-engine stood amidship, and the crew leaped
to its pumps as directed, while the newcomer, catching up a line
of hose, sprang to the rail and sent a powerful stream of water
straight against the solitary rover.
"Repel boarders!" he cried, laughingly, and the sudden stream from
the fire-engine's nozzle sent young Arvid Horn staggering back into
his boat.
But he rallied quickly, and with well-charged squirt-gun attacked
the new defender of the yacht. The big nozzle, however, was more
than a match for the lesser squirt-gun, and the small boat speedily
began to fill under the constant deluge of water from the engine.
"Yield thee, yield thee, Arvid Horn; yield thee to our unconquerable
nozzle," came the summons from the yacht; "yield thee, or I will
drown you out like a rat in a cheese-press!"
"Arvid Horn yields to no one," the plucky boy in the boat made answer,
and with a parting shot and a laughing "_Farväl!_" he leaped from
the sinking boat into the dancing Maelar water. Striking boldly out,
he swam twice round the boat in sheer bravado, defying the enemy;
now ducking to escape the pursuing stream, or now, while floating
on his back, sending a return shot with telling force against the
men at the pump--for he still clung to his trusty squirt-gun.
The fair-faced lad in the yacht looked at the swimmer in evident
admiration,
"Is it, then, hard to swim, Arvid Horn?" he inquired.
"Not if one is fearless," called back the floating boy.
"How; fearless?" exclaimed the lad on the yacht, hastily. "Do you
perhaps think that I am afraid?"
"I said not so," replied young Arvid, coolly sending a full charge
from his squirt-gun straight up in the air.
"No; but you mean it--good faith, you mean it, then," said the lad,
and flinging off wig, cocked hat, and long coat only, without an
instant's hesitation he, too, leaped into the Maelar Lake.
There is nothing so cooling to courage or reckless enthusiasm as
cold water-if one cannot swim. The boy plunged and floundered,
and weighty with his boots and his clothing, soon sank from sight.
As he came spluttering to the surface again, "Help, help, Arvid,"
he called despairingly; "I am drowning!"