wind, the vindictive Chickasaws had approached their abandoned town and
had furiously attacked it. They had poured in a volley of arrows with
burning wisps attached to them, which quickly ignited the thatched
roofs and sent a reddening glare over the scene of confusion. De Soto
leaped upon his horse, but did so hurriedly and without tightening the
girth. It turned with him and he pitched to the ground, falling upon
his chest. Immediately the howling savages surrounded him and attempted
to put an end to his life, but his men rushed to his assistance, beat
off the shrieking Chickasaws, and dragged him by the feet to a position
of safety. Leaping again to the saddle, with a mighty cheer, he led his
men into the fray with such impetuosity, that the Indians disappeared
into the blackness. Forty of the Spaniards had been killed, fifty of
their precious horses had been prostrated by barbed arrows and flaming
brands, while the larger part of their clothing, arms, their saddles
and their provisions, had been consumed. They were also houseless, and
the wind was bitterly chill. Fortunately, the Chickasaws did not again
attack.
But the hostile savages did not leave them alone. When Spring came
and the horsemen resumed their march, they were repeatedly harassed
by the red men, who crept near them on every side, and cut down any
unsuspecting Spaniard who wandered from the column.
Pursuing a northwesterly course, the cavaliers at length came upon a
great force of the natives, who, stripped to their waists and painted
with various colors, yelled their defiance and brandished their spears
and arrows at the invaders. Nearby was their stronghold, a palisade
surrounding their huts, which had three entrances. The Spaniards
advanced in three columns to attack these openings.
What could these half-clad redskins do against men in steel armor,
and with sword, buckler, and arquebusier? The Castilians drove them
into their fortification like sheep, and there massacred them as they
had the fierce warriors under Tuscaloosa. According to old accounts,
two thousand of the Indians were slain, although the native warriors
inflicted quite a loss upon their attackers. The invaders secured
provisions, corn, and female slaves, which they transported with them
in their journey towards the northwest.
The Spaniards took their battles lightly, for they considered it all
a part of the day’s work. They resumed their march, but now they must
have been pretty sure that no El Dorado could exist in this flat and
somewhat marshy country. Still, they were cheerful, and when, a few
weeks later, they came upon a great muddy river which was so wide that
they could not see a man upon the other bank, they felt that certainly
their trip, their many discomforts, and their losses, had not been in
vain. When they viewed the turbid current of the Mississippi they were
filled with silent awe, and a priest, holding the cross of Christ high
in the air, blessed the surging flood, while De Soto cried out: “I take
you in behalf of the King of Spain, and shall call you mine own from
henceforth!”
This gallant cavalier was a man of resource. He set his soldiers
immediately to work constructing boats, and, gradually moving up the
river in order to find a place where it would be possible to cross—for
the little army was upon high bluffs (now called the Chickasaw
Bluffs)—he transported all in safety to the other side and into the
land of Arkansas, the seventh State of the present Union, upon whose
soil these restless explorers had set their feet.
They wandered towards the setting sun. Here were vast plains filled
with herds of buffalo and roving bands of hostile redskins, from whom
they learned that other white men had preceded them, although rumors of
the adventurous Coronado’s march had traveled eastward by word of mouth
among the native inhabitants of the plains. This Spaniard had traveled
thither from Mexico, and, could the two parties have met each other,
there would have been great rejoicing. But there was to be no such good
fortune, and De Soto’s men found only simple, but treacherous natives.
The Spaniards lost some of their horses. The escape of these was
fortunate for future generations of pioneers, as many an emigrant in
later years was able to cross the plains by capturing and taming one of
the descendants of these fugitives from the bit and the saddle.
The adventurers wandered about for many months, wintered in a
well-provisioned village near the Red River, within the present State
of Louisiana, then, to the great joy of the now well-seasoned veterans,
De Soto told them that he was about to return to the great, turbid
Mississippi. He informed the wanderers that he intended to build boats,
send them down the stream and across the Gulf of Mexico, to Cuba,
and to transport thither many other men and a plentiful supply of
provisions, so as to establish a colony in his Kingdom of Florida.
The conception was a grand one. Yet the imaginative and jealous
Castilian had not reckoned with one powerful enemy, that cruel and
unrelenting persecutor called Death.
The active brain of this gallant explorer was busy with perfecting
his plans for the founding of a settlement in the wilderness. He
carefully selected the officers and crews who were to take charge of
the vessels which he proposed to build. He chose those who were to
remain with him upon the banks of the rolling Mississippi. Some were
set to work cutting timbers; others collected gum from pine trees;
while still others put up forges and made nails from bits of iron which
they had carried with them. All were busy and active in preparation
both for the stay of those who were to colonize this country, and the
departure of those who were to leave. Yet the fever was in the veins
of our venturesome Castilian and his customary vigor was slackened. De
Soto grew so weakened that he had to be carried to his tent and was
delirious.
While upon the Red River, one of the malaria-breeding mosquitoes had
driven his tiny sting into the flesh of the brave adventurer. He had
sickened from the poison, yet refused to give up to the disease, until
the fever was raging in his veins. He now sank rapidly. Yellow fever
had doubtless assailed him, and his system, already weakened by much
exposure and by shock of battle, could not throw off the inroads of
the dread disease. He sank day by day. When he knew that the end was
approaching, he called his officers together, asked their forgiveness
for any wrong which he might have done them, and named Moscoso de
Alvarado to succeed him to the command of the expedition. Officers and
bluff soldiers all swore allegiance to their new leader. The dying
explorer begged his followers to carry out his ideas in the settlement
of the vast country of Florida, and this they promised him that they
would do.
One warm, sultry morning, when the mocking bird was trilling a
beautiful melody from an overhanging sycamore, which jutted over the
bank of the slow-moving, yet turbulent Mississippi, the spirit of the
bold adventurer departed. His hardened and sunburned companions were
dewy-eyed when they gazed upon the still countenance of their friend
and kindly adviser. They wrapped him in a sheet, rowed him to the
center of the swirling stream, dropped him overboard, and left him
amidst the silence of the great, wild country where the “golden man”
had never been found.
So perished De Soto, a cavalier of Spain in a day when Spain had great
warriors and noble-minded, yet adventuresome men. As a horseman he had
few superiors; as a soldier he could bear as many privations as any
man. Towards his own cavaliers he was merciful and just; towards the
hostile natives of silent Florida he was merciless and cruel. He was a
man of learning, of imagination, of iron will, as is exhibited by the
fact that he held his gold-worshiping supporters to their journey long
after many had sickened of the affair and had wished to go home. At one
time worth a million dollars, the companion of Kings and of Princes, he
died in the wilderness of the New World. His followers drifted back to
Mexico, broken in both health and in spirit, so his ambitious dream for
a colony in the land of the fanciful El Dorado was never consummated.
SAMUEL DE CHAMPLAIN:
EXPLORER OF THE CANADIAN
WILDERNESS.
(1567-1635)
_Where the hemlock bends her tufted head;_
_Where the beaver breeds in the pool;_
_Where the moose-bird chatters his mimic song;_
_And the willowy grilses school;_
_’Neath the feathery arch of the drowsy larch,_
_The birch bark floated and swayed,_
_As the rhythmic paddles dipped and swung,_
_And splashed with the slap of the spade._
_On the rocking waves of the foaming lake,_
_The Frenchman turned and gazed,_
_For he saw a land which was new, which was grand,_
_And his spirit shrank amazed._
_So he planted the flag of King-cursed France,_
_As he waved his sword above,_
_And the waters were called the Lak de Champlain,_
_—’Twas the lake which the redskins love._
SAMUEL DE CHAMPLAIN:
EXPLORER OF THE CANADIAN WILDERNESS.
(1567-1635)
UPON the north side of the river St. Lawrence, in Canada, and five
hours’ journey by steamer from the quaint old city of Quebec, nestles
the little village of Murray Bay. It is a picturesque, peaceful
collection of houses, where many of those who have wealth and leisure
journey in summer to enjoy the champagne-like air and the rugged
scenery. Now a great, modern hotel rises majestically from the
hemlock-covered river-bank; but if some of the fashionable guests
who frequent it had stood there one brilliant day, many years ago,
they would have seen two pigmy vessels holding their course up the
lovely St. Lawrence. On board was a pair of venturesome Frenchmen: the
Seigneur de Chastes and Samuel de Champlain, the latter a youthful and
energetic explorer, who looked forward to adventures in the land of the
treacherous redman, the broad-antlered moose, and the moon-eyed caribou.
This brave son of France had been born in the year 1567 in the little
town of Brouage, some twenty miles south of the seaport of La Rochelle.
Little is known of his family or of his early life. His father,
doubtless the son of a fisherman, was a Captain in the navy, and one of
his uncles was a sea-pilot of some renown.
In youth Champlain became an excellent seaman, but, as his country
was soon embroiled in civil and religious wars, his energies were
engaged in martial exploits upon the land, and not upon the foaming
Atlantic. Joining Henry of Navarre, he fought for the King with
zeal and enthusiasm, although he, himself, was a Catholic, and his
sovereign championed the Huguenot or Protestant cause. Champlain, in
fact, loved country more than religion, and struggled to save her from
dismemberment. His purse was small, his want great, and thus Henry the
Fourth, from his own slender revenues, gave him a position as Captain.
The war was finally over, and the youthful Champlain conceived a design
which was quite in harmony with his adventurous nature. He would,
indeed, visit the West Indies and bring back a report of those wondrous
regions where was much peril, and where every intruding Frenchman was
threatened with death. Here was adventure enough for any young fellow
who had the stomach for a fight.
No sooner conceived than executed! The hot-blooded Frenchman was
quickly on board a vessel bound for Vera Cruz. He stopped at the West
Indies, made plans and sketches of them all, then landed upon the
Mexican Coast. He penetrated inland and was struck with amazement at
what he saw in the beautiful City of Mexico, where Cortés had battled,
bled and conquered. He visited Panama, and,—what think you!—even
at this early date conceived the plan of shipping freight across the
Isthmus, where to-day the United States has dug a great canal to
expedite the commerce of the world.
“I believe that a ship-canal, if constructed, would shorten the voyage
to the South Sea by more than fifteen hundred miles,” he has written.
Oh, valorous Frenchman, had you but lived to see your wayward dream
come to be a living reality!
The adventurer now returned to the French Court, that Versailles of
which has been truthfully said: “It cost one billion of francs and it
took one billion drops of the peasants’ blood to build it!” Where,
also, is the portrait of the famous soldier whose epitaph reads: “He
was invincible in peace, invisible in war.” Here was the center of
frivolity and fashion, exactly what would weary the blood of such a
backwoods soul as Champlain. He soon tired of it and longed to plunge
again into the wilderness of the unknown West, for there, forsooth,
would be danger and hardship enough for any man.
Good fortune was to be with him. At court was a gray-haired veteran of
the civil wars, who wished to mark his closing days with some notable
achievement for France and for the church. This was Aymar de Chastes,
commander of the order of St. John, and Governor of Dieppe. He longed
to sail for Canada, or New France—would Champlain go with him? Well, I
should think so! They embraced, shook hands upon it,—they would seek
adventure and hardship together.
So this is how they happened to be sailing past the hemlock-clad hills
of Murray Bay, upon that bright, clear morning, and I’ll warrant that,
if you ever play golf upon the course far above the town, as many of
you doubtless have often done, and you will look out upon the great,
turbid and raging river, where perhaps you can see the bobbing back of
a white porpoise, you will think different thoughts than those which
are connected with a sliced drive or a miserable putt.
Like veritable gnats upon the surface of the tide-swept stream, the
vessels kept upon their way, passing the trading-post of Tadoussac
(once a flourishing settlement, but now abandoned), the channel of
Orleans, and the spuming falls of Montmorenci. They drifted by the
brown rocks of Quebec, on, on, up the blue and charging river, until
they came opposite that rounded mountain which lifts its head high
above the present city of Montreal. All was solitude. Sixty-eight
years before this Jacques Cartier, the navigator, had found a numerous
savage population, but now all had vanished, and only a few wandering
Algonquin redskins peered at them from the edge of the forest.
Here are the fiercest of rapids, which, if you pass through to-day,
you will find to be dangerous and an exciting adventure. The vigorous
Champlain endeavored to paddle up them with a few of the childlike
Algonquins. His courage was greater than his ability to stem the
whirling foam and tempestuous waves. Oars, paddles, poles, and pikes
could not force the thin birch-bark canoes up the swift-moving St.
Lawrence, and he was forced to return, acknowledging himself beaten.
When he mounted the deck of his vessel, the redmen made rude sketches
upon the planking of what he would find above, and spoke of a mighty
water-fall (Niagara Falls) where the river plunged downward in a mass
of tempestuous spray. Champlain listened with pleasure to these stories
of what lay beyond, but he had to return, as De Chastes so willed it.
After an uneventful voyage the adventurers reached the shores of France.
The gray-haired De Chastes, worn out by the rigors of the voyage, now
passed to the great beyond, leaving his title to the great land of New
France to Sieur de Monts, who immediately petitioned the King to allow
him to colonize Acadie, a region defined as extending from Philadelphia
to Montreal. Truly these early adventurers had magnificent ideas of
distance, quite in keeping with their ambitious designs of conquest!
The King readily gave him what he desired, so, with one vessel, he
sailed from Havre de Grace upon the seventh day of April, 1604.
But how about the adventure-loving Champlain? He remained at home not
only for that year, but for five full years, while De Monts and his men
were having plenty of hard knocks and experience in the bleak land of
New France.
The good seaman, in fact, quietly resided in Paris, but his unquiet
thoughts were ever turning westward. He was enamored with the strange,
hemlock-wooded country whose rugged hills and blue rivers were mirrored
upon his memory and continually urged him to “come back and explore!”
Even as Commander Peary has said that he pined for Arctic ice and
snow, so, with restless longing, the noble-hearted Frenchman ever
sighed for days upon the broad surface of the St. Lawrence, with
starlit nights filled with the balsamy odors of the forests. Upon the
banks near the mountain of Montreal he had determined to lay out a
settlement, from which, as a base, the waters might be traced back far
into the vast interior of the continent. With eager and tempestuous
thoughts, he yearned to be once more scudding by the two peaks, which
held high their heads as the Saguenay discharged its swift-moving
current into the rushing St. Lawrence, far, far beneath them.
The danger-loving De Monts returned after four years of adventure. To
him Champlain expressed his views, which met with a ready response.
Yes, indeed, they would go forth together, would trade with the
Indians, bring back a cargo of furs, and would found a town by those
whirling rapids, ’neath the mountain of Montreal.
On April the 16th. 1604, they sailed in a ship of 150 tons from
Havre de Grace, with a mixed company of priests, Huguenot ministers,
impressed rogues, and honest settlers. Another vessel, under one
Pontgrave, had preceded them by eight days, for she was laden with
goods for the Indian trade at Tadoussac.
By the third of June the adventurous Champlain neared the mouth of the
Saguenay. The robust Frenchmen eagerly breathed in the clear air of
the St. Lawrence, tinged with the faint smell of the spruce and the
balsamy hemlock. The little vessel, swept by the tide and eddies, held
its course up the stream until the Island of Orleans was reached. Then
it was run towards the northern bank and was anchored beneath the
high cliffs of Quebec. The men went ashore, axes rang against the tree
trunks, and soon a number of wooden buildings arose on the brink of the
St. Lawrence, not far from the present market-place of the Lower Town.
A settlement had been founded in the wilderness, which was to exist for
centuries.
It was now the eighteenth day of September. Pontgrave set sail for
France, leaving Champlain with twenty-eight men to hold Quebec
throughout the winter. October was soon upon them, October with its
crystal air, shriveling leaves and laughing sun; but it soon passed
away, and the chill of frosty winter settled upon the little colony. It
was to be a cold and cheerless stay, and, as is always the case when
men are in need of fresh vegetables, the scurvy broke out among the
adventurers, killing many and seriously crippling the remainder. By
the middle of May, only eight men out of the twenty-eight were alive,
and of these half were suffering from the dreadful disease. Champlain,
however, seems to have been an iron fellow, and successfully withstood
the lack of that which it is necessary to eat in order to ward away the
awful pestilence.
But every lane has its turning, and Spring at last put in an
appearance. Ice and snow melted under the genial rays of the sun,
the honk! honk! of the wild geese was heard as they winged their way
towards the north, and the bluebirds warbled from the budding maple
trees. Great was the joy of the survivors of this awful winter when
they saw a sail-boat rounding the Point of Orleans, and cheers greeted
the French explorer Marias as he cast anchor in the ice-freed river.
He brought good news. Pontgrave had been to France and back again. He
was then at Tadoussac, waiting to speak with Champlain, and to talk of
further explorations into the wilderness.
The hardy explorer hastened to confer with his friend and companion,
for, in spite of the pestilence, his giant constitution had defied
the scurvy. Sailing down the St. Lawrence, they soon met, and it was
determined between them, that, while Pontgrave remained in charge
of Quebec, Champlain should at once enter upon his long-meditated
explorations, by which, he foolishly had hope of finding a way to China.
Now was to be a series of great adventures. Late that Autumn a young
chieftain from the banks of the Ottawa River had come to visit the
half-starved colonists at Quebec, and had begged Champlain to join
him, in the Spring, in an expedition against his enemies. These were
the Iroquois, or dwellers in fortified villages within the limit of
the present State of New York, who were a terror to all those tribes
who lived north of them. They were not only warriors of fierceness and
bold endeavor, but were also tillers of the soil, living at ease and
affluence when compared with the Indians who fished, camped, and hunted
game, near the waters of the blue St. Lawrence.
About the middle of the month of May, Champlain set forth to paddle
up the river, accompanied by a band of the Montagnais redskins. As he
proceeded, he saw the lodges of an Indian encampment thickly clustered
in the bordering forest, and, landing, found there his Huron and
Algonquin allies. The red men were amazed to see a person with a white
skin, and gathered about the steel-clad strangers (for he had several
other Frenchmen with him) in astonished awe and admiration.
“I would speak with your chieftain,” said Champlain.
The staring natives led him towards a great lodge where sat not one
chief, but two, for each tribe had its own leader with them. Now there
was much speech-making, feasting, and smoking of the peace pipes; then,
all paddled down the river to Quebec, for the redskins were anxious
to view that town, the fame of which had been borne to them in their
distant habitations of the forest.
The native Canadians were much interested in the wooden houses built by
the white men. They yelped in consternation at the explosions of the
French guns, and the roar of the iron cannon. After they had examined
everything to their satisfaction, their camps were pitched, they
bedecked themselves for the war dance, and, when night fell, leaped
about, howling and singing in the yellow glare of a huge bon-fire. Next
morning they were ready for their expedition into the wilderness, where
their enemies, the fierce Iroquois, had dragged unfortunate members of
their tribe, who had fallen into their hands, to be beaten and tortured
with horrible indignities. No wonder they longed to have these white
men as their allies, so that they could revenge themselves upon their
enemies.
It was now the twenty-eighth day of May. The air was balmy, yet
cool, so the expedition started under pleasant auspices. Entering
a small sloop, the Sieur De Champlain pointed her nose up stream,
and, accompanied by eleven companions, and surrounded by hundreds of
redskins in birch bark canoes, set sail for the mouth of the Rivière
de Iroquois, which connects the swirling waters of the St. Lawrence
with that beautiful lake which was to subsequently bear the name of
this venturesome explorer. The members of the famous war-party crossed
the Lake of St. Peter, threaded the crooked channels among its many
islands, and at length started down the winding stream towards the
dreamy, gray expanse of the tempestuous lake,—afterwards to be known
as Lake Champlain,—and the country of the Iroquois.
As the canoes advanced, many of the warriors went ashore, and,
spreading out, hunted for game in the leafy forests. A provision of
parched corn had been brought along; but this was only to be used,
when, owing to the nearness of the enemy, no game could be secured.
The river widened as they went on, and they passed great islands, many
miles in extent, and finally debouched into the rocking waters of the
glittering lake, which was ever afterwards to bear the name of this
adventurous Frenchman. He, himself, was amazed, startled, pleased
with this, his first view of the great body of water. To the left
the forest ridges of the Green Mountains raised themselves against
the blue horizon; while to the right, the Adirondacks stretched,
themselves above the swaying spruces and hemlocks, jutting above the
woodland fringe in height quite equal to their sister hills across the
wave-tossed water.