persons, of whom some were useless, and others a burden.

On the twenty-first of December, Tonty and Membre set out from Fort Miami
with some of the party in six canoes, and crossed to the little river
Chicago. [Footnote: La Salle, _Relation de la Decouverte_, 1682, in
Thomassy, _Geologie Pratique de la Louisiane_, 9; _Lettre du Pere Zenoble_
(Zenobe Membre), 14 Aoust, 1682, MS.; Membre, in Le Clercq, ii. 214;
Tonty, _Memoire_, MS.; _Proces Verbal de la Prise de Possession de la
Louisiane_.

The narrative ascribed to Membre, and published by Le Clercq, is based on
the document preserved in the Archives Scientifiques de In Marine,
entitled _Relation de la Decouverte de l'Embouchure de la Riviere
Mississippi faite par le Sieur de la Salle, l'annee passee_, 1682. The
writer of the narrative has used it very freely, copying the greater part
verbatim, with occasional additions of a kind which seem to indicate that
he had taken part in the expedition. The _Relation de la Decouverte_,
though written in the third person, is the official report of the
discovery made by La Salle; or perhaps for him, by Membre. Membre's letter
of August, 1682, is a brief and succinct statement made immediately after
his return.] La Salle, with the rest of the men, joined them a few days
later. It was the dead of winter, and the streams were frozen. They made
sledges, placed on them the canoes, the baggage, and a disabled Frenchman;
crossed from the Chicago to the northern branch of the Illinois, and filed
in a long procession down its frozen course. They reached the site of the
great Illinois village, found it tenantless, and continued their journey,
still dragging their canoes, till at length they reached open water below
Lake Peoria.

La Salle had abandoned, for a time, his original plan of building a vessel