IXTRODUCTIOX, 19 



nineteen days' journey into the territories of the Naudowessies 

 and Issati, where they were detained in captivity three or four 

 months, and then suffered to return. The account which Hen- 

 nepin published of his travels and discoveries, served to throw 

 some new light upon the topography, and the Indian tribes of the 

 Canadas; and modern geography is indebted to him for the names 

 which he bestowed upon the Falls of St. Anthony and the Eiver 

 St. Francis. 



In 1703, the Baron La Hontan, an unfrocked monk, published 

 in London, his voyages to North America, the result of a resi- 

 dence of six years in the Canadas. La Flontan served as an 

 officer in the French army, and first went out to Quebec in 1683. 

 During the succeeding four years he was chiefly stationed at 

 Chambly, Fort Frontenac, Niagara, St. Joseph, at the foot of 

 Lake Huron, and the Sault de St. Marie. 



He arrives at Michilimackinac in 1688, and there first hears of 

 the assassination of La Salle. In 1689 he visits Green Bay, and 

 passes through the Fox and Wisconsin Kivers into the Mississippi, 

 So far, his work appears to be the result of actual observation, 

 and is entitled to respect ; but what he relates of Long Eiver 

 appears wholly incredible, and can only be regarded as some 

 flight of the imagination, intended to gratify the public taste for 

 travels, during an age when it had been highly excited by the 

 extravagant accounts which had been published respecting the 

 wealth, population, and advantages of Peru, Mexico, the English 

 and Dutch colonies. New France, the Illinois, and various other 

 parts of the New World. 



To convey some idea of this part of the Baron's work, it will 

 be sufficient to observe that after travelling ten days above the 

 mouth of the Wisconsin, he arrives at the mouth of a large stream, 

 which he calls Long Eiver, and which he ascends eighty -four days 

 successively, during which he meets with numerous tribes of 

 savages, as the Eskoros, Essenapes, Pinnokas, Mozemleeks, &c. 

 He is attended a part of the way by five or six hundred, as an 

 escort ; sees at one time two thousand savages upon the shore ; and 

 states the population of the Essenapes at 20,000 souls ; but this tribe 

 is still inferior to the Mozemleeks in numbers, in arts, and in every 

 other prerequisite for a great people. "The Mozemleek nation," 

 he observes, "is numerous and puissant. The four slaves of that 



