126 Wisconsin Academy of Sciences^ Aris^ and Letters. 



England shared in the delusion that the Pacific was near the 

 Atlantic. Hence a barge was sent over to John Smith in Vir- 

 ginia with orders to row it up the Potomac, carry it over the 

 mountains, and launch it on some stream that flowed into the 

 South sea, which was afterward made the western boundary of 

 Connecticut. 



The truth is that French and English alike had a short cut to 

 China on the brain. No sooner then had Champlain heard the 

 story of Vignan than he hastened up the Ottawa with a crew of 

 enthusiasts. Thirty five carrying-places and an infinity of hard- 

 ships seemed nothing to him. When half way to Like Huron — 

 at the Isle of AUumette, — he detected the imposition which "Vig- 

 nan had practiced upon him. Champlain was more magnanimous 

 than certain prospectors lately led into the Black Hills by a guide 

 who promised them diggings that would yield thirty cents a pan, 

 and finding him a liar straightway strung him up on the nearest 

 tree. Cbamplain was more disappointed than the prospectors — 

 yet he forgave the impostor. 



The next year, 1615, taking a fresh start, he reached the head 

 of the Ottawa, crossed to Lake Huron, — held councils with divers 

 nations on that inland sea, hearing of still other seas beyond — 

 and saying to one and all : " Bring furs down to Qaebec and 

 show me the way to China," Plainly he thought one request as 

 easy to grant as the other. 



The name of the first Wisconsin tribe with which the French 

 became acquainted, and that before 1610, namely, Winnehac/oes, 

 was understood by them to signify SaUioater men, and western 

 saltwater they associated only with the Pacific. Nicolet, the first 

 white man on the Wisconsin (?), having voyaged down that river 

 within some five and thirty leagues of the Mississippi, believed 

 himself within three days march of the great sea of the west. 



The Indians were always notorious for reporting whatever they 

 perceived that whites desired to hear. They thus hoaxed them 

 all alike. Spaniards they tickled with stories of gold, New Eng- 

 land Puritans by legends concerning the Great Spirit, and so they 

 amused the French, who came with a passion for China, with ac- 

 counts of a Celestial empire. 



