This was the beginning of difficulties with the French, and also the commencement of the utter destruction of the Natchez.  War succeeded war, until the last of this people, few in number, broke up from the Washita, whither they had fled for security years before, and went, as they fondly hoped, too far into the bosom of the deep West to be found again by the white-skins.  But Clarke and Lewis found them high up on the Missouri, still preserving the holy fire, the flat heads, and their hatred of the white race.  Their bones are even now turned up by the plough near the mounds of their making, and soon these mounds will be all that is left to speak of the once powerful Natchez.  I have stood upon the great mound of their temple at the White Apple village, forty years ago, then covered with immense forest-trees, at the graves of the great grandfather and mother of my children.  To these was donated, in 1780, by the Spanish Government, the land on which the temple and the village stood.  It is a beautiful spot in the centre of a lovely and most picturesque country.  It was here these Indians feasted the great La Salle and his party when descending the Mississippi.  They were the first white men that had descended the river, and the first white men the Natchez had ever seen.

CHAPTER XX.

EXPLORATION OF THE MISSISSIPPI VALLEY.

CHICAGO—­CRYING INDIANS—­CHICKASAWS—­DE SOTO—­FEAST OF THE GREAT SUN—­ CANE KNIVES—­LOVE-STRICKEN INDIAN MAIDEN—­RAPE OF THE NATCHEZ—­MAN’S WILL—­SUBJUGATION OF THE WATERS—­THE BLACK MAN’S MISSION—­ITS DECADE.

La Salle, who first discovered the mouth of the Mississippi River, was a man of most remarkable energy and enterprise.  He had been engaged in commercial pursuits for some time in Canada; but, seized with the spirit of adventure—­very probably inspired by the reports of the Jesuit missionaries, who were going and returning from the vast wilderness—­and inspired with the belief (then common) that the rivers west, and particularly the great river found by De Soto, debouched into the Pacific Ocean, he determined to learn the truth, and projected and commenced the ascent of the St. Lawrence and the navigation of the lakes as a means of reaching the Mississippi.  It required almost superhuman daring to undertake such an enterprise; but there was enough in La Salle to accomplish anything possible to human capacity.  His followers, like himself, were fearless and determined and, with a few small boats, or skiffs, he commenced his perilous adventure.  It was like walking in the dark over uncertain ground; for every step was over unexplored territory, the moment he passed the establishments of the Jesuits, who were then pioneering to propagate their creed among the aborigines of the new continent.