Time wore on. La Salle grew impatient, and landed a party of men, under
his nephew Moranget and his townsman Joutel, to explore the adjacent
shores. They made their way on foot northward and eastward for several
days, till they were stopped by a river too wide and deep to cross. They
encamped, and were making a canoe, when, to their great joy, for they were
famishing, they descried the ships, which had followed them along the
coast. La Salle landed, and became convinced--his wish, no doubt,
fathering the thought--that the river was no other than the stream now
called Bayou Lafourche, which forms a western mouth of the Mississippi.
[Footnote: La Salle dates his letter to Seignelay, of the fourth of March:
"_A l'embouchure occidentals dufleuve Colbert_" (Mississippi). He says,
"La saison etant tres-avancee, et voyant qu'il me restoit fort peu de
temps pour achever l'entreprise don't j'estois charge, je resolus de
remonter ce canal du fleuve Colbert, plus tost que de retourner au plus
considerable, eloigne de 25 a 30 lieues d'icy vers le nord-est, que nous
avions remarque des le sixieme janvier, mais que nous n'avions pu
reconnoistre, croyant sur le rapport des pilotes du vaisseau de sa Majeste
et des nostres, n'avoir pas encore passe la baye du Saint-Esprit" (Mobile
Bay). He adds that the difficulty of returning to the principal mouth of
the Mississippi had caused him "prendre le party de remonter le fleuve par
icy." This fully explains the reason of La Salle's landing on the coast of
Texas, which would otherwise have been a postponement, not to say an
abandonment, of the main object of the enterprise. He believed himself at
the western mouth of the Mississippi; and lie meant to ascend it, instead
of going by sea to the principal mouth. About half the length of Bayou
Lafourche is laid down on Franquelin's map of 1684; and this, together
with La Salle's letter and the statements of Joutel, plainly shows the
nature of his error.] He thought it easier to ascend by this passage than
to retrace his course along the coast, against the winds, the currents,