114 KANSAS CITY REVIEW OF SCIENCE. 



support as from Count Frontenac, although, says he, " my enemies will try to in- 

 fluence you against me." He failed to secure the support of La Barre, but on 

 the contrary, encountered his determined opposition. On the 4th of June, 1683, 

 he wrote him regarding the future of the colony and says, "The Iroquois are 

 again invading the country; they have lately murdered some of the Miami fami- 

 lies and they are all in terror again. I am afraid they will take flight and so 

 prevent the Missouris and neighboring tribes from coming to settle at St. Louis 

 as they are about to do." Soon after this. La Salle returned to Canada and 

 from there repaired to France. In 1684 he sailed for the Gulf of Mexico, intend- 

 ing to establish a colony at the mouth of the Mississippi, but by mistake landed 

 on the coast of Texas after losing nearly all his stores. Here he built another 

 Fort St. Louis and made several attempts to reach Canada with a portion of his 

 command, failing, however, and was killed by one of his own men in 1687. 

 Some of his men were successful in making their way to the Illinois country, 

 among them Father Douay,* one of the missionaries in his party. Douay's nar- 

 rative is published in Le Clercq's work previously mentioned, and in giving an 

 account of their voyage up the Mississippi, he says : " About six leagues above 

 this there is on the northwest, the famous river of the Massourites or Osages, at 

 least as large as the river into which in empties. It is formed by a number of 

 other known river everywhere navigable, and is inhabited by many populous 

 tribes, including the Osages who have seventeen villages on a river of their name 

 which empties into that of the Massouites to which the maps have also extended 

 the name of the Osages. The Arkansas Indians were formerly stationed on the 

 upper part of one these rivers, but the Iroquois .drove them out by cruel wars 

 some years ago so that ihey, with some Osage villages were obliged to drop down 

 and settle on the river which now bears their name." It will be noticeable that 

 the Missouri river is sometimes called the river of the Osages. This custom, I 

 think, prevails mostly in the writings of the missionaries, who accompanied La 

 Salle, and who were of the order of St. Francis, while Marquette was a Jesuit as 

 were the greater part of all the missionaries in the West. La Salle was educated 

 by the Jesuits, but early in his career, parted from them and became mistrustful 

 of their intentions toward himself, so much so, that he avoided any connection 

 with enterprises in which they took part. A jealousy also existed between the 

 missionaries of the different orders, and to this, may be ascribed, perhaps, the use 

 of the word Osage by the Recollects, in writing of our river, which had been 

 called Missouri by the Jesuits. Father Douay says there is not a word of truth 

 in the narrative of Marquett, and Le Clercq in his work, while careful not to men. 

 tion his name, insinuates that his narrative has no foundation in fact. 



After the assassination of La Salle in Texas, the command of the remnant of 



*Anastasius D ouay. But little can be learned of this priest. His visit to America with La Salle's com- 

 mand is the first positive information we have ot him. He returned to France in safety and re-visited America 

 in 1699 with Iberville, after which we have no record of him. 



