312 - LAHONTAN. 



and frequently saw on tlie sands flocks of fifty or sixty wild turkeys. 

 On tlie 6tli of September they enter the Detroit river ; on the 8th 

 they are through Lake St. Clair, which is twelve leagues in circum- 

 ference ; on the 14th they are at the mouth of Lake Huron. Here 

 was the Fort which Lahontan with his soldiers was to take charge 

 of. This fort, we are informed, had been built by M. Duluth at his 

 own expense and manned by the coureurs de bois. " The garrison 

 surrendered their post," Lahontan says, "very cheerfully to my 

 detachment, and then pursued their commerce with the savages, for 

 everyone had leave to go where he pleased." This post is known as 

 Fort St. Joseph. Its present representative is Fort Gratiot, nearly 

 opposite our Canadian Port^Sarnia. From some Iroquois prisoners 

 captured by a party of Hurons and brought into Fort Joseph, 

 Lahontan learns that the new Fort at the mouth of the Niagara 

 river is beleaguered by eight hundred Iroquois, who intend, afte 

 reducing that post, to come on and attack Fort St. Joseph. His pro- 

 visions running short he starts on the 1st of April, 1688, with some 

 of his men, for Mackinaw to collect Indian corn. He reaches 

 Mackinaw on the 18th and finds corn very scarce. Whilst staying 

 there, some of La Salle's party arrived with dispatches, as they 

 assert, for France via Quebec. But Lahontan suspects that La 

 Salle is dead : which was the fact. He had been murdered by his 

 companions Duhau.t and Liotot on the 1 9th of the preceding March, 

 {1687), in the neighbourhood of the southern branch of the river 

 Trinity in Texas, while endeavoviring to strike the Mississippi. 

 *' On May the 6th," Lahontan says, " M. Cavelier arrived here 

 being accompanied by his nephew. Father Anastase, the HecoUet, 

 a pilot, one of the savages and some few Frenchmen, which made a 

 sort of party-coloured retiiiue. These Frenchmen were some of those 

 that M. de la Salle had conducted upon the discovery of the Missis- 

 sippi. They gave out that they are sent to Canada, in order to go to 

 France with some dispatches from M. de la Salle to the King, but 

 we suspect that he is dead, because he does not return along with 

 them. I shall not spend time," he adds, " in taking notice of their 

 great journey overland, which by the account they give camiot be 

 less than 800 leagues." The M. Cavelier here mentioned was the 

 Abbe Cavelier, a brother of La Salle's. 



After purchasing sixty sacks of corn of about 50 lbs. each, Lahon- 

 tan goes on to the Sault Ste. Marie with the hope of inducing some 



