made. He proposed, as we have seen, to found, on the banks of the
Illinois, a colony of French and Indians, of which he should be the feudal
lord, and which should answer the double purpose of a bulwark against the
Iroquois and a depot for the furs of all the Western tribes; and he hoped,
in the following spring, to secure an outlet for this colony, and for all
the trade of the Mississippi and its tributaries, by occupying its mouth
with a fort and a dependent colony. [Footnote: "Monsieur de la Salle se
dispose de retourner sur ses pas a la mer au printemps prochain avec un
plus grand nombre de gens, et des familles, pour y faire des
etablissemens." Membre, in Le Clercq, ii. 248. This was written in 1682,
immediately after the return from the mouth of the Mississippi.] Thus he
would control the valley of the great river of the West.

He rejoined Tonty at Michillimaekinac in September. It was his purpose to
go at once to France to provide means for establishing his projected post
at the mouth of the Mississippi; and he ordered Tonty, meanwhile, to
collect as many men as possible, return to the Illinois, build a fort, and
lay the foundations of the colony, the plan of which had been determined
the year before. La Salle was about to depart for Quebec, when news
reached him that changed his plans, and caused him to postpone his voyage
to France. He heard that those pests of the wilderness, the Iroquois, were
about to renew their attacks on the western tribes, and especially on
their former allies, the Miamis. [Footnote: _Lettre de La Barre au
Ministre_, 14 Nov. 1682, MS.] This would ruin his projected colony. His
presence was indispensable. He followed Tonty to the Illinois, and
rejoined him near the site of the great town.

The cliff called "Starved Rock," now pointed out to travellers as the
chief natural curiosity of the region, rises, steep on three sides as a
castle wall, to the height of a hundred and twenty-five feet above the