there has yielded original traits, whereof authors and artists have not inadequately availed themselves. The adventures of missionary, trader, hunter, settler, and traveller have been genially recorded; the descendants of the original three thousand French colonists on the banks of the Mississippi, with their national proclivities, so diverse from the Anglo-Saxon, and manifested in their household economy and vivacious temperament-the primitive manners and costume of the farmers, who long conveyed the products of their farms in flatboats to New Orleans, clad in raccoon-skin caps, buckskin leggings, moccasins, and linsey hunting shirts, with the homewrought, brightly dyed frocks of the women, and the frank and brave manners and language of this free and thrifty population-have yet a traditional charm: here, too, the terrible justice of Lynch law had full scope the Missouri ruffians, the debris of the Indian tribes, the Western politician, and the robust or ague-stricken emigrant, made up an unique and original population, full of salient points to the eye of a European or visitor from the communities of New England or old Southern States. Cooper, in a novel, and Bryant, in a poem, have graphically described the life and aspect of the Prairie State, which now boasts millions of inhabitants. Kohl, speaking of Illinois, compares it in shape to a grain sack, rent in the middle by its river, and bursting out with grain at both ends. Professor Voelcher, consulting chemist of the Royal Agricultural Society of England, analyzing four samples of prairie soil, said: "The most noticeable feature in the analysis is their very large quantity of nitrogen-nearly twice as much as the most fertile soil of Great Britain; in each case, taking the soil at an average depth of ten inches, an acre of their prairie soil contains upward of three tons of nitrogen, and as a heavy crop of wheat, with its straw, contains about fiftytwo pounds of nitrogen, there is thus a natural store of ammonia in this soil sufficient for more than a hundred wheat crops."

But the most remarkable fact in the economical history of Illinois and its adjacent States, is the effect of locomotive facil

ities and the genius of communication, in developing the resources and bringing, as it were, to the Atlantic coast and the commercial East, the region Hennepin so laboriously and so long traversed a mighty wilderness to reach. The contrast fully realized of the approach then and now, is one of those modern miracles of practical life to the wonder of which only habit blinds us. Vessels go direct from Liverpool to Chicago, by crossing the Atlantic, entering the St. Lawrence, and surmounting the rapids by means of the Canadian locks and canals, entering Ontario, and, after sailing through that lake, and a descent of three hundred feet of the Niagara River, by the Welland Canal, reach Lake Erie, thence through the straits and lake of St. Clair to Lake Huron and Lake Michigan-in the heart of the American continent. Four thousand seven hundred and thirty-six miles of road terminate there, of which two thousand eight hundred miles are within the State limits. These great highways were built to carry off the surplus of the prairies.*

As an illustration of the cosmopolitan tendency of the population, it was but recently that in this distant inland city, where a blockhouse fort alone stood within the memory of" the oldest inhabitant," sons of the Bishop of London, of Admiral Collingwood, of the novelist Dickens, with German barons and Hungarian officers, were there cheerfully engaged in various vocations.

There is something exciting to the imagination as well as impressive to the mind in the fact that the oldest authentic written memorials of America, after the narratives of mari

* The following table compares the official returns of the population of Chicago:

Thus, in thirty-three years, a colony of seventy persons has grown into a

city of nearly 140,000.

time adventurers, are the letters and "relations" of the Jesuit missionaries. Often when a band of hunters or company of early colonists penetrated to a region of the wilderness. as they imagined, unvisited before by any human being except the savage natives, the sight of some relic or token of these religious pioneers brought into immediate contrast the most hallowed associations of the Old World and the virgin wilderness of the New. Sometimes an old aboriginal guide repeated to the astonished strangers what had been whispered in his ear when, as a child, he played around the council fire or the wigwam, of kind and wise men, robed in black, who talked to the children of the forest, of heaven, prayed over their dead, and baptized their maidens. On other occasions, amid the mossy coverings of ancient trees, the curious explorer would find rudely carved the effigies or escutcheon of the French king: here a broken cross, there a respected grave, now a ruined chapel, and again a censer or sacramental cup, even in the heart of the woods revived to the exiles the images, sacrifices, and triumphs of these indomitable members of the Society of Jesus: some of their names are perpetuated in those of towns now flourishing on the site of their apostleship or martyrdom; others are only preserved on a page of history seldom consulted. Poets and novelists, historians and artists have, from time to time, renewed the pious traditions and isolated lives of these remarkable men; but few of the summer tourists who gaze with delight upon the umbrageous islands of the St. Lawrence, or stand entranced amid the foaming rapids of St. Anthony, or watch with rapture the undulating sea of herbage and flowers on a blooming prairie of Illinois or Missouri, associate these characteristic aspects of nature with their first European explorers. Their written memorials, however, aptly consecrate their experience: thereby we learn how cheerfully scholars, soldiers, and courtiers braved the privations and the cruelties incident to such heroic enterprises; we read the artless story of their ministry-how at times they feel rewarded for months of suffering by the saintly development of an Indian virgin, by the acquiescence

of a tribe in the rites of Christianity, or by the amelioration in the habits and temper of these fierce children of nature, under the influence of consistent, humane, and holy examples and care. All the correspondence and reports of the Jesuit missionaries are interspersed with local descriptions, sometimes vivid and often so specific as to serve as data for naturalist and historian. The anecdotes of Indian character and of personal adventure also give a quaint zest to the story; and not unfrequently a deep pathos is imparted thereto by the fate of the writer-dying of hunger, at the stake, or by treachery-going forth on their perilous journeys from fort or settlement, conscious they may not hope to return-and yielding up their lives with the same intrepid zeal with which they bore the discouragements, exposure, ingratitude, and lonely struggles of missionary life in the wilderness. Jogues, Du Poisson, Souel, Brebœuf, Lallemand, Senat, La Chaise, Joliet, and Marquette, are names thus endeared and hallowed.

Among other episodes recorded in the letters of the Jesuit missionaries, which combine romantic with historical significance, are the accounts of the Iroquois martyrs, of Catherine, the saint of that tribe, of voyages up the Mississippi, of the massacre by the Natchez, of the mission to the Illinois, and of Montcalm's expedition to Fort George. Some of the letters written by the missionaries to their superiors and brethren in France contain the earliest descriptions of portions of States now constituting the most flourishing region in the West. In his account of a Journey through Illinois and Michigan, in 1712," Father Marest writes: "Our Illinois. dwell in a delightful country. There are great rivers, which water it, and vast and dense forests, with delightful prairies." He descants on the "charming variety" of the scene, speaks of the abundance of game, such as buffaloes, roebucks, hinds, stags, swan, geese, bustards, ducks, and turkeys; he notes the wild oats and the cedar and copal trees, the apple, peach, and pear orchards, and says the flesh of young bears is very delicate, and the native grapes "only moderately good." Of the Indians he remarks that "their physical development is

fine the men being tall, active, and very swift of foot; " he describes their mode of life, their wigwams, corn staple, manitous and medicine men: it is among the women, however, that his mission best succeeds; they, he writes, are depressed by their daily toil, and are more docile to the truths of the gospel," and are invariably "modestly clothed when they come into the church."

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The cheerful temperament and quick observation, as well as the pious zeal of the French Jesuits, made them admirable pioneers and explorers; with enough imagination to enjoy and describe nature, and sympathy adequate to put them in relation with the races they aimed to convert, more or less preliminary study enabled them to note the phenomena and products of the new country, if not with scientific completeness, yet with intelligence and precision. Charlevoix singularly combined the priest and the savan; he tells us, speaking of Christian baptism among the savages, how an enfant moribund fût guerit par la vertu de ce sacrament; and, at the same time, his was the first correct estimate of the height of the Falls of Niagara. His "Histoire de la Nouvelle France" is a pleasing memorial of his loyalty and pious self-devotion, whereto he so aptly joined the assiduous observation and careful narrative of an expedition which revealed so many then fresh and valuable facts in regard to the magnificent domain partially colonized, and, as was then hoped, permanently appropriated by France.

3*