by the way, excepting the loss of La Salle's servant, Dumesnil, who was
seized by an alligator while attempting to cross the Colorado.

The temporary excitement caused among the colonists by their return soon
gave place to a dejection bordering on despair. "This pleasant land,"
writes Cavelier, "seemed to us an abode of weariness and a perpetual
prison." Flattering themselves with the delusion, common to exiles of
every kind, that they were objects of solicitude at home, they watched
daily, with straining eyes, for an approaching sail. Ships, indeed, had
ranged the coast to seek them, but with no friendly intent. Their thoughts
dwelt, with unspeakable yearning, on the France they had left behind; and
which, to their longing fancy, was pictured as an unattainable Eden. Well
might they despond; for of a hundred and eighty colonists, besides the
crew of the "Belle," less than forty-five remained. The weary precincts of
Fort St. Louis, with its fence of rigid palisades, its area of trampled
earth, its buildings of weather-stained timber, and its well-peopled
graveyard without, were hateful to their sight. La Salle had a heavy task
to save them from despair. His composure, his unfailing cheerfulness, his
words of sympathy and of hope, were the breath of life to this forlorn
company; for, self-contained and stern as was his nature, he could soften,
in times of extremity, to a gentleness that strongly appealed to the
hearts of those around him; and though he could not impart, to minds of
less adamantine temper, the audacity of hope with which he still clung to
the final accomplishment of his purposes, the contagion of his courage
touched, nevertheless, the drooping spirits of his followers. [Footnote:
"L'egalite d'humeur du Chef rassuroit tout le monde; et il trouvoit des
resources a tout par son esprit qui relevoit les esperances les plus
abatues."--Joutel, 152.

"Il seroit difficile de trouver dans l'Histoire un courage plus intrepide