The things we do!

At night, the bivouac, the canoes inverted on the
bank, the nickering fire, the meal of bison-flesh or venison, the evening
pipes, and slumber beneath the stars; and when in the morning they
embarked again, the mist hung on the river like a bridal veil, then melted
before the sun, till the glassy water and the languid woods basked
breathless in the sultry glare." [Footnote: Parkman, "La Salle," pp. 63
and 64.]
But to those first voyagers it had a charm, a lure which was not of stars
or shadows or wooded bluffs or companionable bivouac. It led to the great
and the unknown river, which in turn led to a sea remote from that by
which the French had come out of Europe into America. They were travelling
over the edge of Champlain's map, away from Europe, away from Canada, away
from the Great Lakes. As far as that trail which led through the grass and
reeds up from the Fox, one might have come every league of the way from
Havre or even from a quay of the Seine, by water, except for a few paces
of portage at La Chine and at Niagara.


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