MARQUETTE'S OWN ACCOUNT[1]


I embarked with M. Joliet, who had been chosen to conduct this
enterprise, on the 13th May, 1673, with five other Frenchmen, in two
bark canoes. We laid in some Indian corn and smoked beef for our
voyage. We first took care, however, to draw from the Indians all the
information we could, concerning the countries through which we
designed to travel, and drew up a map, on which we marked down the
rivers, nations, and points of the compass to guide us in our journey.
The first nation we came to was called the Folles-Avoines, or the
nation of wild oats. I entered their river to visit them, as I had
preached among them some years before. The wild oats, from which they
derive their name, grow spontaneously in their country....

I acquainted them with my design of discovering other nations, to
preach to them the mysteries of our holy religion, at which they were
much surprized, and said all they could to dissuade me from it. They
told me I would meet Indians who spare no strangers, and whom they
kill without any provocation or mercy; that the war they have one with
the other would expose me to be taken by their warriors, as they are
constantly on the look-out to surprize their enemies. That the Great
River[2] was exceedingly dangerous, and full of frightful monsters who
devoured men and canoes together, and that the heat was so great that
it would positively cause our death. I thanked them for their kind
advice, but told them I would not follow it, as the salvation of a
great many souls was concerned in our undertaking, for whom I should
be glad to lose my life, I added that I defied their monsters, and
their information would oblige us to keep more upon our guard to avoid
a surprize. And having prayed with them, and given them some