The cross stood, in a little
patch of white, black as the father's cowl, against the night with its
crescent moon. I could not make out the inscription on the river side of
the monument and, seeing a signal-lantern tied to a scow moored to the
bank near by, I untied it and by its light was able to read the tribute of
the city to the memory of the priest and the explorer "who first of known
white men had passed that way," having travelled, as it recites, "two
thousand five hundred miles in canoes in one hundred and twenty days." The
bronze plate bears a special tribute to the foresight of Joliet, but it
commemorates first of all the dwelling of the frail body and valorous soul
of Father Marquette, the first European within the bounds of the city of
Chicago. I wish there might be written on Mississippi maps, in that space
that is shown between the Chicago and the Des Plaines, or the "Divine
River," as it was sometimes called, the words: "Portage St. Jacques." That
were a fitter canonization than to put his name among the names of cities,
steamboats on the lake, or tobaccos, as is our custom in America.
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