beaver,--which is very likely, since to bring lead and copper in bark
canoes to Montreal from the Mississippi and Lake Superior would cost far
more than the metal was worth. In consequence of this clamor his commission
was revoked.

Perhaps it was to compensate him for the outlays into which he had been
drawn that the colonial minister presently authorized him to embark for
Louisiana and pursue his enterprise with that infant colony, instead of
Canada, as his base of operations. Thither, therefore, he went; and in
April, 1700, set out for the Sioux country with twenty-five men, in a small
vessel of the kind called a "felucca," still used in the Mediterranean.

Among the party was an adventurous youth named Penecaut, a ship-carpenter
by trade, who had come to Louisiana with Iberville two years before, and
who has left us an account of his voyage with Le Sueur. [Footnote:
_Relation de Penecaut_. In my possession is a contemporary manuscript
of this narrative, for which I am indebted to the kindness of General J.
Meredith Reade.]

The party slowly made their way, with sail and oar, against the muddy
current of the Mississippi, till they reached the Arkansas, where they
found an English trader from Carolina. On the 10th of June, spent with
rowing, and half starved, they stopped to rest at a point fifteen leagues
above the mouth of the Ohio. They had staved off famine with the buds and
leaves of trees; but now, by good luck, one of them killed a bear, and,
soon after, the Jesuit Limoges arrived from the neighboring mission of the
Illinois, in a canoe well stored with provisions. Thus refreshed, they
passed the mouth of the Missouri on the 13th of July, and soon after were
met by three Canadians, who brought them a letter from the Jesuit Marest,
warning them that the river was infested by war-parties. In fact, they