EARLY NOTICES OF THE MISSOURI RIVER AND INDIANS. 659 



lie was when my little savage saw him. They had come in peace to the village of 

 the Missouris where he then was and exploded a similar grenade." If it were 

 possible to verify this statement of the Indian lad, it would establish the date of 

 the first visit of white men to the Missouris, but unfortunately, though La Salle 

 gives additional circumstances which he supposes relate to the captivity of his 

 pilot, and reiterates the whole story in other letters, the evidence is far from con- 

 clusive that his pilot was ever among these Indians, either as a captive or other- 

 wise. 



La Salle's aversion to the Jesuits often led him to extremes, and his dislikes 

 of others frequently placed him in an unenviable light. 



He was at emnity with Louis Joliet over matters which had occurred at 

 ■Quebec, relating to the fur trade. Frontenac, La Salle, La Forest, Du Sheet and 

 others, were ranged on one side and Joliet, Bienville and brothers, the intendant 

 Duchesneau and others, on the other. I haven't space to explain the quarrel, 

 but refer to it to show the animus of what follows. Joliet had been associated 

 with Marquette in exploring the Mississippi, and on his map of the country, over 

 which they passed, had made an endorsement approving the route to the Missis- 

 sippi by way of the Chicago portage to the Illinois river. This approval by 

 Joliet drew the condemnation of La Salle before he passed over the route, and in 

 several of his letters, he took occasion to refer to the impracticability of it. In 

 one recently published by Margry, he says: "The waters being always low in 

 the mDnth of March, it would be easier to effect the transportation from Fort St. 

 Louis, (on the Illinois) to the lakes by land; by making use of horses, which it 

 is easy to have, there being numbers among the savages called Pana, Pancassa, 

 Panimaha and Pasos, at some distance, to be sure, to the westward, but with 

 which an easy communication may be had, either by the river of the Missourites 

 which empties into the river Colbert, if it be not the principal branch of it, and 

 is always navigable for a distance of more than four hundred leagues to the west, 

 or by land, so bare is the country between these people and the river Colbert, 

 that it is a wide prairie by which they may be easily brought overland." 



I have quoted this to show to what extremes La Salle was willing to resort 

 rather than approve the route Joliet had endorsed and which eventually became 

 the thoroughfare for that country ; also to show that he regarded the horses pos- 

 sessed by the Pawnees as a factor to be used in the future development of the 

 country. The Indians he refers to were all Pawnees, called by different names. 

 He had already received a conditional patent for the vast region in which he was 

 to labor at discovery, and probably regarded the horses possessed by the savages 

 as one of the elements of his future prosperity. The Fort St. Louis referred to 

 was near the village of the Kaskaskia Indians, on the Illinois river and was the 

 place round which he hoped to gather the Indians of the West and South for the 

 purpose of trade. Referring to this, he says in one of the Margry letters : "The 

 arrival of the Ciscas and Chaouenon was followed by the return of the Illinois. 

 The Tamaroas alone number three hundred cabins. Now all these nations come 

 here to settle. The village of Matchinhoa, of three hundred fires, is thirty 



