American pioneers

Preface

Children like stories of action and adventure. Their tastes should be consulted in placing before them lessons in history. Heretofore this study has been too often presented to them in such a manner as to make it dry and uninteresting. Whenever it has been made interesting, they have enjoyed it ; and some parts of history have always a charm for boys and girls.

The true pedagogical method of presenting history to young people is to give them at first those portions in which they naturally take the deepest interest. Still further ; deeds, deeds of men, things done, personal anecdotes and incidents — these always claim a large share of their attention. Biography is the backbone of history.

This series of books, — " America's Great Men and their Deeds," — including " Inventions," " Heroes," " Pioneers," has been prepared on this plan and is designed for supplementary readers for the sixth, fifth, and fourth grades. It is recommended that this book be used first, then " Heroes" and "Inventions."

6 PREFACE

Acknowledgment is made to the following authors and publishers for the permission, which they have very kindly granted, to use copyrighted illustrations :

The Marietta Mound, from Builders and Later Indians, by Gerard Fowke. The Ohio State Archjeological and Historical Society.

Sarah Bush Lincoln, Costume worn by a Matroii of Illinois in the Days of Lincoln' s Yoiitli, Lincoln s Surveying Instrtivients, Lincoln in 1857, from Tarbell's Life of Lincoln. iMc- Clure, Phillips & Co.

Mary Lyon ; Mount Holyoke Female Seminary, 1886 ; The Talcott Arboretum, from Views of Mount Holyoke College. Asa Stephen Kinney, M.S.

Dr. Howe Teaching Laura Bridgman, from Laura Bridgman, by Maude Howe and Florence Howe Hall. Little, Brown & Company.

I^aura Bridgman Teaching a Fellow-Pupil to Read, from Life of Laura Bridgman, by Mary Swift Lamson. Dorothea Lynde Dix, from Life of Dorothea Lynde Dix, by Francis Tiffany. Houghton, Mififiin and Company.

Part I PIONEERS OF CIVILIZATION The First Migration— Across the Atlantic

CHAPTER

I. Pedro Menendez and the Early Days of Florida . II. Samuel Champlain, the Founder of New France

III. John Smith, the Pioneer of Virginia

IV. William Blackstone, the First Settler in Boston

and Rhode Island ......

V. Peter Stuyvesant and the Dutch in New York VI. William Penn and the Quakers in Pennsylvania .

PAGE

47 58

The Second Migration— Over the Alleghanies

VII. Father Marquette, the Jesuit Missionary VIII. Iberville, the Founder of Louisiana IX. Daniel Boone, the Pioneer of Kentucky . X. Simon Kenton and the Indian Raids XI. George Rogers Clark, the Hero of the Northwest Territory .......

XII. Rufus Putnam, the " Father of Ohio " .

XIII. Wdham Clark and Early Life in Missouri

XIV. David Crockett, the Tennessee Patriot . XV. Samuel Houston and Pioneer Days in Texas .

94 103

8 CONTENTS

The Third Migration — Across the Rocky Mountains

CHAPTER PAGE

XVI. Captain John A. Sutter and the Discovery of Gold 187 XVII. Amos L. Lovejoy and the Early Settlements in

XVIII. Peter H. Burnett, the First Governor of Calitornia 205

Part II PIONEERS OF REFORM Government

XIX. Thomas Jefferson, the Author of the Declaration of

Independence . . . . . . .217

XX. James Madison, the Father of the Constitution . 230 XXI. Al)raham Lincoln and the Emancipation Proclamation 239

Education

XXII. John Harvard and Harvard College . . . 256

XXIII. Horace Mann and the Public Schools . . . 266

XXIV. Mary Lyon and the Higher Education of Women . 279 XXV. Samuel G. Howe, the Friend of the Blind and Deaf 292

XXVI. General Samuel C. Armstrong and the Education

of the Colored Races ..... 306

Philanthropy

XXVII. John Eliot, the " Apostle to the Indians" . . 318

XXVIII. Peter Caitvvright, the Itinerant Preacher . . 326

XXIX. Dorothea L. Dix, the Friend of the Insane . .337

XXX. John B. Gough, the Temperance Lecturer . . 347

ILLUSTRATIONS AND MAPS

PAGE

he Old Spanish Gate at St.

Augustine 14

St. Mark's Castle, St. Augustine 17

I'rench Soldiers Attacking the

Spanish Fort 18

A Spanish Ship on the Florida

Coast 20

Jacques Cartier 22

Wigwam in the Canadian Forest in 1 840 24

Champlain's Attack on the

Iroquois Fort 29

Working a Canoe up a Rapid

of the St. Lawrence 31

Chesapeake Bay {Map) 34

The Landing of the Settlers

at Jamestown 35

Building Tents and Booths at

Jamestown 36

Captain John Smith 37

Smith's Combat with Grualgo 39 Capjtain Smith Rescued by Pocahontas ........... . 43

Ruins of the Tower of the Church Built at Jamestown

by the Early Settlers 45

John Smith's Pistol 46

The Settlers Choosing a Site

on the Charles River 48

Shipping Wharves at Boston To-day 50

PAGE

Statue of Blackstone 51

Governor Winthrop 52

The First Settlements of Massachusetts and Rhode Island

(^/«/) 54

Monument to Roger Williams at Providence, R. I. . . . . . 55

On the Road to Boston 57

The Palisades of the Hudson River opposite Manhattan

Island. . . 59

Peter Stuyvesant {Portrait

and Autograph) 60

The East River Gate and

Blockhouses of the Stockade 61 Stuyvesant's "Bouwerie"

Stuyvesant Destroys the Demand for Surrender 65

Stuyvesant's Epitaph 67

William Penn {Portrait and

Autograph) 68

The Middle Colonies (yl/(?/). . 70

King Charles II 72

The Second Home of William

Penn in Philadelphia ... 74 Penn Treating with the Indians 76

Indian Receipt 79

Indian Belt of Beads 82

Fort and Town of Mackinac. 85 Indians Gathering Wild Rice 87 Indian Peace-Pipe 88 lO

ILLUSTRATIONS AND MAPS

Indian Method of iJroiling

I*"ish 90

Marquette's Grave 93

Robert Cavalier de La Salle. . 95 The French Fleet on the Louisiana Coast 96

King Louis XIV 9S

Territory Settled by the

French {^/ap) 100

Bienville, Governor of Louisiana 102

Daniel Boone {Porhail nnd

Autograph) 103

Fording the Potomac on the

Way to the Northwest. . . . 104 A Settler's Hut in the Shenandoah Valley 105

Pioneers Accosted by Indians 107

Fort at Boonesborough 112

Floating down the Ohio 114

Simon Kenton i iS

Lord Dunmore 119

Indians Gloating over their

Prisoners 122

Indians in Council 124

Indian Weapons 126

George Rogers Clark 12S

Boone's Trail and Clark's

Captain Helm Surrendering Fort Vincennes to the English 133

The Sergeant and tlie Drummer Boy 136

Ruf us Putnam 1 39

George Washington 140

The Marietta Mound 144

Fort Washington, tiie Beginning of Cincinnati 146

PAGE

Midnight Escape to the Fort 147 The Ohio River about 1S50. . 14S William Clark (^Portrait and

A utograpli) 150

Meriwether Lewis {Portrait

and A tttograph) 151

Lewis in the Costume of a

Western Scout 153

Map Showing Growth of the

United States west of the

Mississippi 155

The City of Washington in

A Missouri \'illage in 1S40.. . 160 St. Louis about the Time of

Clark's Death 162

Daniel Webster Speaking in

the Senate 167

Room in the Capitol at Washington Used by the House

of Representatives until

The Alamo 171

Railroad Travel in Crockett's

Day 172

Sam Houston {Portrait and

A utograp/i) 1 74

Aiidrew Jackson 17S

Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna iSi

Texan Cowboys 1S2

Republic 1S3

The Present Capitol of Texas 1S5

Captain John A. Sutter iSS

Examining Sand with a Gold

Pan 1S9

Hydraulic Mining for Gold

at the Present Day 191

ILLUSTRATIONS AND MAPS

II Page

Native Californians Lassoing a Wild Bear 193

The Pick Mattock of the Miner 195

On the Columbia River, Oregon : Indians Spearing Salmon as they come over the Falls igy

" Westward Ho ! " 200

. In the Famous Assay Oftice,

Seattle, Washington 203

Dr. Whitman's Homeat \Vaiif

latpu, Washington 207

A Caravan on Its Way to California 209

The Donne r Party Crossing the Sierra Mountains in 1846. . 212

A Settlement at the Foot of the Rocky Mountains 213

Flag of the California Republic 215

The College of William and Mary as It Appears To-day 219

Williamsburg in Colonial Days {Map) 220

Monticello, Jefferson's Home 222

Jefferson Reading to the Committee the First Draft of the Declaration 225

The Autograph of Jefferson 227

The University of Virginia at the Time of Jefferson's Death 22S

Independence Hall, Philadelphia 232

Chair and Table Used by Washington as President of the Federal Convention. . . . 234

PAGE

Madison's Home at Mont-

peilier 236

The Autograph of Madison. . 237 The Great Seal of the United States, Adopted in 1782... 238

Sarah Bush Lincoln 243

Costume Actually Worn by a Matron of Illinois in the Days of Lincoln's Youth. . . 245 Lincoln's Surveying Instruments 247

Lincoln in 1S57 248

The Autograph of Lincoln.. . 250 The National Capitol at

Washington 252

Statue of Lincoln in Lincoln

Park, Chicago 254

Interior of the Grammar

School, Stratford-on-.^von 258 Harvard College in 1720. . . . 259 The College Yard at Harvard

To-day 262

Monument to John Harvard

at Charlestown, Mass 264

The Royal Arms of Massachusetts 265

A Schoolroom When Horace

Mann Was a Boy 269

Title Page of a Copy of the

" New England Primer".. 273 Statue of Horace Mann in Front of the State House at

Boston 275

Horace Mann School, New

York City 277

Mending the Quill Pen 278

An Old-Fashioned Loom. . . . 280

ILLUSTRATIONS AND MAPS

As Ladies and Gentlemen Looked When Mary Lyon Was a Girl 282

Mary Lyon 2S4

A New England Kitchen. . . . 286

Mount Holyoke Female Seminary 289

The Talcott Arboretum, Mount Holyoke College. . . 290

Dr. Howe Teaching Laura liridgman 296

Laura Bridgman Teaching a Fellow Pupil to Read .... 300

The Congressional Library at Washington 302

Samuel Armstrong . . 307

A Cooking Class at Hampton Institute 309

The Barn at Hampton Institute 312

Booker T. Washington 315

Chapel of Tuskegee Normal

and Industrial College 316

John Eliot Preaching to the

Indians 319

A Page of Eliot's " Indian

Primer " 321

Indian Title Page of the Eliot

Bible of 1663 324

A Camp-Meeting Ground of

the West 332

Fort Dearborn, the Beginning *

of Chicago, Illinois, in 1810 336

Dorothea Lynde Dix 33S

Visiting a Prison. . ." 340

Caring for the Wounded on

the Battlefield 344

The Old Jail in NewYorkCity 346

John B. Gough 348

Audience Cheering John

Gough in Exeter Hall,

London 356

Part I

PIONEERS OF CIVILIZATION

The First Migration— Across the Atlantic

Chapter I Pedro Menendez 1 5 19-1574

A PIONEER is "one who goes before, as into the wilderness, preparing the way for others to follow." The wilderness may be a forest or a plain never before disturbed by the foot of man, or it may be a vast domain of knowledge which has lain for centuries unheard of and unknown. In either case some one who is brave enough and strong enough to overcome the obstacles in the way must take the lead. The word pioneer has grown out of an old French word \ri.^2in\n'g foot-soldier.

We are to study about American Pioneers, and shall begin with the pioneers of civilization, those people who first came from England and

Other European countries and settled along the Atlantic coast of North America, Afterwards pioneers crossed the Alleghany Mountains and made settlements in the great valley of the Mississippi ; and later still other pioneers pushed across the Rocky Mountains and established

THE OLD SPANISH GATE AT ST. AUGUSTINE

themselves along the Pacific coast, in California and the Oregon country.

Some of the first settlements in our country by the people of Europe were soon given up. There was little enough in the new land of America to make these early pioneers contented. It was a struggle just to keep alive. The first settlement made and not given up was at the place since known as St. Augustine, in Florida. This was in the year 1565. In those

PEDRO MENENDEZ I 5

far-away days people did not all think alike on matters of government and religion, any more than they do at the present time. The French people were jealous of the Spanish, the Spanish of the French ; and both were jealous of the English. The constant enmity between the Protestants and the Roman Catholics resulted in oppressive laws and cruel persecutions. Long before the English settled upon the coast of North America some French Huguenots, sent out by the famous Gaspard de Coligny (colen'ye), of France, tried to make a home for themselves at Port Royal, within the boundaries of what is now South Carolina. The place was soon abandoned, but two years later (1564) another settlement, also under the patronage of Coligny, was started on the St. John's River, in the present state of Florida and called Fort Caroline. These colonists were Frenchmen and Protestants. The very next year a colony was sent over from Spain under Catholic leadership. It was commanded by Pedro Menendf ^ de Aviles (ma-nen'-deth da a-ve'-les).

Let us see how and why this new enterprise came to be undertaken. Previous to 1565 Menendez had received permission from the King of Spain to make an expedition to the New World. He was a cruel soldier and adl6 AMERICAN PIONEERS

venturer, but he feigned eagerness to convert the Indians in the territory of Florida to the Catholic faith. While he was busy getting men together and fitting out his ships, news arrived in Spain that French Huguenots had made a settlement on the American coast,

Menendez's desire to go on his expedition was then increased tenfold. Had not the Pope given all Florida to the King of Spain ? No other nation had a right to settle there, and of all peoples the French Huguenots had the least right. Menendez would quickly wipe out the little Protestant settlement and found a new colony subject to the Spanish king. He laid extensive plans, and the king gave him all needed help, It was not difficult to get volunteers. Soldiers and adventurers flocked to the port; and finally, in the year 1565, Menendez set sail with fifteen hundred men and nineteen vessels. This was one of the largest companies that ever came to this country.

After much trouble and many delays Menendez reached the coast of America and found the French fleet at the mouth of the river now called the St. John's.

" Whence does this fleet come ?" he asked.

" From France," was the reply.

" Are you Catholics or Lutherans ?"

PEDRO MENENDEZ

*' We are Lutherans of the new religion. Who are you ? " inquired the French in their turn.

" I am Pedro Menendez, General of the fleet of the King of Spain, Don Philip the Second."

Then he told them that his orders were to hang and behead all Lutherans and that he should obey his instructions. The battle began ; but the French fleet got away, and its destruction was for a time postponed.

Menendez, with his large company, sailed south thirty or forty miles and found a beautiful plain bordering on a small bay, about two miles from the main coast. Here he landed his men and began to build a town. He named it St. Auorustine.

Meanwhile, he by no means forgot his foes, the Huguenots. He reorganized his army and marched five hundred men overland, across swamps and through forests, to the St.

John's River. Sometimes they floundered waist deep in the mud ; sometimes they hacked their way through palmetto thickets. When they st. mark's castle, st. augustine i8

Stopped to rest at night, " their bed was the spongy soil, and their tent the overhanging clouds."

Early one morning the Spaniards attacked the French in P^ort Caroline. Menendez gave no quarter. " One hundred and forty-two per-

FRENCH SOLDIERS ATTACKING THE SPANISH luRl sons were slain in and around the fort, and their bodies lay heaped together on the bank of the river." The Spaniards pursued the fugitives who escaped, and all but the women and children were put to the sword. The colony was utterly destroyed, and no other attempt was made by the French to colonize on that coast.

PEDRO MENENDEZ I9

Spain was now supreme in her province of Florida.

When the Spaniards first went to Florida, the Indians were friendly ; but as time passed, the new comers treated the natives so badly that their friendship changed to savage hate. After a time, when the cruelty of Menendez became known in France, one Dominique de Gourgues (goorg), who had been ill-treated by the Spaniards on the Mediterranean Sea, fitted out three vessels and sailed for Florida to chastise the murderers and avenge the cruel destruction of his fellow-countrymen. The Indians in great numbers flocked to his aid, and again the glades of northern Florida were drenched with blood. Indian warriors and French soldiers togfether meted out swift destruction to the Spaniards. The colony on the St. John's, which the Spaniards had planted on the ground of old Fort Caroline, was wiped out. But these scenes are too terrible to dwell upon. Let us cover the sad picture and be thankful that we do not live in times of such cruel and barbarous practices.

Menendez's settlement at St. Augustine continued and grew into a prosperous city. It is now three and a half centuries old, and has the distinction of being the first city in the United States founded by Europeans. What changes the world, especially the New World, has seen during this time ! Instead of engaging in wars, we are now beginning to settle disputes by arbitration. Roman Catholics and Protestants are living side by side, no longer enemies, but friends. Many thousands of emigrants are every year flocking to these shores from all parts of the world, and here they make a home for themselves and their children. Ours is not only a land of plenty, but a land of good-will.

A SPANISH SHIP ON THE FLORIDA COAST

Chapter II

/^NE bright day over three hundred and fifty years ago a company of white men and Indians stood on the summit of the mountain that overlooks the city of Montreal. Did they see a beautiful city with well-laid streets, fine buildings, lofty churches, and busy factories spread out below their feet ? Did they see beyond the city a broad river on which ships, large and small, were hastening to and fro ? Did they see in the distance villages, farmhouses, and cultivated fields ? A city, if it could be called a city, was there, and the river was there ; but the churches, the factories, the wharves, the ships, the green fields were not. They looked down on the top of a great forest which spread itself out over hundreds and hundreds of miles. Almost without a break it stretched southward to the Gulf of Mexico, eastward to the Atlantic, northward to the frozen lands of the Polar sea, and westward to the plains of the Mississippi.

The white men in this Httle band of observers were Frenchmen — the first white people to come up the great river of Canada. They had been sent out to build a new France in the country of which such wonderful stories had been

told by the Spaniards who had discovered it. Their leader was Jacques Cartier (kar-tya'), a bold sailor, who was not afraid of the dangers of the seas or the mysteries of the forests. Their attendants were the inhabitants of the Indian village of Hochelaga (ho-shel'a-ga).

This strange town was then the most populous settlement on the river ; and to-day its successor, Montreal, is still the largest city on the St. Lawrence, as that same river now is called.

In his journey up the river, Cartier had been welcomed at all the villages on its banks. One Indian after another had said, " No, this is not the largest village. There is a greater one beyond." When Cartier said that he was going to see it for himself, his new friends tried to hold

JACQUES CAUriER From the painting by Th. Hatnei^ after the original preserved at St. Malo him back. " They are our enemies," they said. "They are very powerful. They will destroy you."

But the truth was, the Indians did not want to share with the inhabitants of Hochelaga the wonderful sharp knives and hatchets which Cartier had brought with him. They had soon learned that steel hatchets were much superior to stone hatchets, and perhaps they had already dreamed of a victory that they might win over their old enemies.

As Cartier could not be frightened by stories of hostile tribes, the Indians tried another plan. One morning a canoe came out to the ships. In it were three Indians disguised as devils. They were dressed in black-and-white dog skins. Their faces were painted with soot. On their heads were horns three feet long. As the canoe floated by, the leader chanted a long address. " Coudouaguy (coo-doo-a'-gi) will destroy you," he said. " He will send tempests and snows and drifting ice, and you will be destroyed and your ships."

The Indians frightened themselves so well that they fainted when they reached the shore, but Indian devils could not terrify Jacques Cartier, He called out to the Indians on the bank that their eod was a oood-for-nothing; and could not harm those who believed in Christ. Then, as soon as he could get ready, he weighed anchor and sailed away.

Cartier received any but a hostile welcome at Hochelaofa. The Indians had never seen white

WIGWAM IN THE CANADIAN FOREST IN 184O men before, nor boats with wings. " Surely," they thought, " these men with bright faces must be gods." They hastened to honor them with every attention that Indian courtesy could devise. When Cartier and his men, dressed in their best, landed from their boats, they were met by a band of warriors and escorted to the village. There, they were seated in the center of the great public square, while the Indians squatted around them row behind row, "just as if," Cartier wrote in his journal, "we were going to act a play." Then a strange procession came from the wigwams. Several strong warriors brought in their arms their helpless old chief. Others carried sick men, sick women, sick children. Some led blind men, some supported lame men. All were laid at the white man's feet. What did they expect ? They thought that he would heal them.

Cartier was troubled. He was only a bluff sailor ; he was not even a physician. Surely he was no god. However, he did the best he could to relieve their sufferings and then knelt and offered a prayer and made the sign of the cross over them. Afterwards he distributed the presents that had been brought up from the ship ; to every man and to every woman and child he gave a knife or a hatchet, beads or a ring.

The visit over, Cartier went back to his ship, sailed down the river, and built a fort where he and his men spent the winter. In the spring he returned to France ; and Canada, except for occasional visits from hunters and adventurers, was left to its Indian inhabitants for eighty years.

Then again a strange ship came sailing up the St. Lawrence. It was commanded by Samuel de Champlain, a French soldier, who had alread}' made three trips to the New World. He hoped that now at last a permanent settlement could be made in the wilderness, where men could

brinof their wives and children and build homes and plant gardens. It would be hard work, he knew ; but he was not afraid of hard work. They would have trouble, perhaps famine and suffering ; but he was not the kind of man to be discouraged by dangers and hardships.

The party landed at a spot where the St. Lawrence River narrows and the bluffs rise high on either side. Soon the echoes were giving back the ring of axes and the crash of fallingtrees. And it was not long before the men had built three houses for dwellings, a larger one for a store-house, a tower for doves, and platforms for cannon, and enclosed all by a strong, wooden wall, which they surrounded by a deep trench filled with water, Champlain called his fortOue-

From the painting by Tit. Hanul, after the

Moncornet portrait bee. The name he borrowed from the Indian language. It means a narrowing.

In the fall the ship went back to France, and Champlain and twenty-eight men were left to spend the winter in the wilderness. The days grew short and shorter. The wind blew cold from the north. Snow and ice drove the pioneers into the fort, where they huddled around their fires. No winter such as this had they ever known in sunny France. Would it ever end ? Until the latter part of the winter they kept their health. Then one fell sick, and then another and another. Then one died. After that the men carried their comrades one by one out of the fort and laid them away, until in the spring only eight were left.

As the lonely days went by, how anxiously, the first thing in the morning, must each man have looked down the river ; and how constantly, as he was busy about his work, must he have looked up to see if a sail had not yet appeared on the horizon. At last a ship did come, and it brought colonists and fresh provisions. Their friends in France had not forgotten them.

During the winter Champlain had made the acquaintance of some Indians and had promised that in the spring he would take the war-path with them. Their enemies lived far to the south in what is now the state of New York, and Champlain was anxious to explore the country. So after the new colonists had arrived at Quebec, he went off up the river with the Indians. Champlain soon discovered that an Indian's word could not be trusted. He had been told that the whole journey could be made in boats. But it was not many days before he heard the roar of falling water and saw the river rushing madly before him. The Indians landed, picked up their light canoes, and carried them on their shoulders to the quiet water above. It was a different matter to carry through the forests a heavy European boat. Champlain sent back his boat and most of his men to Quebec, and he and four others pushed on with the Indians.

Day after day they paddled over rivers and lakes never before visited by white men. At night they lay down with the Indians on the shore ; and in the morninof, after tellino- their dreams, they paddled on again. The Indians firmly believed that the day's events were foretold by the visions of the night before. As they expected that the guns of the Frenchmen would win them victory, they were especially anxious to know what kind of dreams Champlain had. Every morning they asked him about his dreams and were greatly disappointed when he said that he had not dreamed at all. Finally one morning he told them that in a dream he had seen three Iroquois warriors drowning in the lake. The Indians were jubilant, and immediately began to prepare for battle.

After the original in Chainplaiii' s " Nouvelle France "

CHAMI'LAIN'S attack on the IROQUOIS FORT

The chief brouo-ht out a bundle of sticks and planted them in the ground just as we would arrange a company of toy soldiers. The tall sticks represented the chiefs, and the short sticks were the warriors. Without any words of explanation, the Indians carefully examined the sticks and then arranofed themselves in the same positions. In this order they were to go Into battle.

The Indians decided that Champlain was a good dreamer, for in a few days they came across the enemy. The victory was an easy one, for the Iroquois were so astonished by the sound of the oruns and so terrified because the balls went so easily through their arrow-proof armor that they soon ran away.

A year or two after this expedition, a French adventurer came down the river from the Interior. He had a wonderful story to tell. He said that he had gone so far up the river that he had come to the other side of the continent and that It would take only seventeen days' journey to reach salt water. Nearly every Spaniard, Frenchman, and Eno-llshman who had crossed the Atlantic had sought in vain to find an opening through to the Pacific. Champlain thought that he now had a chance to have his name honored In all Europe as the discoverer of this much desired passage. Taking the adventurer alone with him, he set out in hloh siilrits.

It was easy paddling up the St. Lawrence; but after the Ottawa was reached, rapids appeared ahead. As the river grew narrower, the rapids became more frequent and the difficulties greater. Sometimes the woods were so thick that Champlain could not get his boats through

From an engraving 0/ 1841

WORKING A CANOE UI' A RAPID OF THE ST. LAWRENCE them and had to pull the canoes up the current by ropes fastened to trees on the bank. Finally they came across a band of Indians who looked at the travelers in amazement. How could strangers come up from the sea by a course over which even they could go only with great difficulty ? " These white men must have fallen from the clouds," they said to one another.

" The French chief can do everything. All that we have heard of him must be true."

When the Frenchmen reached the settlements, they were received with honors, for reports of Champlain's kindness and fairness had spread even to that far country. When he asked for boats and guides to take him farther to the country of the Nepissings, his hosts replied that the tribes were hostile and the rapids too many.