Augustine, at the narrative of which the blood still runs cold. That the slaughter was committed in the name of the founder of the religion of peace adds darker shadows to the sombre story of those days. One mild and gentle apostle addressed the king in these words: "It is lawful that your majesty, like a good shepherd appointed by the hand of the Eternal Father should tend and lead out your sheep, since the Holy Spirit has shown spreading pastures whereon are feeding lost sheep which have been snatched away by the dragoon, the demon. These pastures are the new world, wherein is comprised Florida, now in possession of the demon, and he makes himself adored and revealed. This is the land of promise possessed by idolaters, the Amorite, Amelekite, Moabite, Canaanite. This is the land promised by the Eternal Father to the faithful, since we are commanded by God in the holy scriptures to take it from them, being idolaters, and by reason of their idolatry and sin to put them to the knife, leaving no living thing except maidens and children, their cities robbed and sacked, their walls and houses levelled to the earth."

For many long years the struggle between France and Spain for this fairest portion of the new world continued. Neither was destined to succeed. The pompous expeditions of both nations, their blasphemous proclamations, their costly settlements-all gave way in time to the simple beginnings on the banks of the James and the coast of New England. Still, for a long time after the Spaniards were confined to Mexico, and the French to Canada and the Mississippi valley, the same suspicions, jealousies, rivalries and antagonisms continued. If the French made a move in one quarter, the Spaniards endeavored to meet it by a counter stroke in another. If one nation established a trading post in the wilderness, the other sought to seduce its servants and to render the enterprise abortive. Spies and other emissaries abounded everywhere. With an ostentatious display of peace on both sides, there was constant suspicion and constant watchfulness. In a letter from Bienville, governor of Louisiana, dated April 25, 1722, he says that he learns from the savages of the Missouri that the Spaniards meditated an establishment on the Kansas river, and that he has ordered Sieur de Boisbriant to prevent this by sending a detachment of twenty soldiers to build a little fort and to remain in garrison on that river.

or,

Such was the situation in the years 1739-40, when the expedition. to which I invite a few minutes' attention started from what is now Nebraska to Santa Fe. What we know of this journey is meagre and fragmentary in a most provoking degree, consisting solely of an abridgement or synopsis of a journal kept by one of the travellers for the perusal of Governor de Bienville at New Orleans. The summary or table of its contents is as follows: "The brothers Mallet with six other Frenchmen, leaving the river of the Panimahas discover the river Platte, visit the villages of the Lalitane nation, and reach Santa Fe." The names of those who composed this adventurous band were Peter and Paul Mallet, Philip Robitaille, Louis Morin, as the name is sometimes written, Moreau, Michael Beslot, Joseph Bellecourt, Manuel Gallien, and Jean David. All except the last, who was from the mother country, were Canadians of French parentage. The ostensible object of their trip was to establish trade with the merchants of New Mexico. What secret instructions if any, they had, or what their real purpose was, is nowhere involved in their memorial, and will probably never be more than conjectured, but that the Spaniards were at least doubtful as to their character seems clear. About one hundred years later, and long after Louisiana had become the property of the United States, an expedition starting from Texas with the same pretense of amity and social intercourse, received but scant courtesy from the Mexicans, and it is not probable that the latter were less on their guard against their hereditary enemies, the French.

The little band, at the time when the journal was introduced to them, had reached the nation of the Panimahas, with whom the French were on friendly terms, living on a river of the same name. It may be considered as a fact established by papers already published in the collection of this society, that the Panimahas where the tribe since known as the Pawnees, and the Panimaha river was the stream now called the Loup Fork.

From a point on the Loup, not far from where Genoa is now situated, the Mallet brothers took their departure on the 29th day of May, 1739. Those who, prior to that time had essayed to make the same hazardous journey, had supposed that New Mexico was situated on the headwaters of the Missouri, and had therefore attempted to reach that country by following up the course of the last-mentioned

stream.

But the Mallet brothers, upon the advice of some of their savage allies, determined to seek New Mexico by taking a southwesterly direction across the country. Accordingly, pursuing this course, they came on the third day to a wide and shallow river which (and here I follow the exact language of the original) they named the Platte. So far as I know or can ascertain this was the first time that our wandering stream had received an appellation in a Christian tongue. Other adventurous bushrangers thereafter translated other titles and L'Eau-qui-court, L'Eau-qui-pleure, the Papillion, the Chadron, the Loup, and others will long retain, it is to be hoped, the soft and musical nomenclature of the Gallic race. But who named them or when, are as yet as difficult to answer as the question what name Achilles assumed when he hid himself among women. This one fact has alone survived the century and a half that has elapsed since the daring enterprise of these Canadian French.

At

They struck the Platte probably in the vicinity of Kearney. any rate, at some point where the general course of the stream was 'toward the northeast or east, for we read that the explorers, finding that it did not deviate materially from the route they had chosen, followed it up for the distance of twenty-eight leagues, where they found that the river of the Padoucas emptied into it. This river was unquestionably the south fork of the Platte, and it is noteworthy that on one of Colton's maps of the United States, published in 1862, the stream is still called the Padouca. For three days afterwards the brothers Mallet ascended the north fork of the Platte, until on the 13th of June finding that its course was leading them to the northwest instead of the direction they had determined upon, they turned to the left, crossed the north fork, traversed the tongue of land made by the two branches, and encamped on the shores of a river which must have been the south fork.

It is not easy to identify with absolute certainty the water course which in the next few days they seem to have crossed. From their journal has been eliminated all matters except such as would enable an engineer officer to direct the march of an army over the same course. It is manifest, however, that they crossed several affluents and the main current of the Republican, marching over a treeless country, which supplies barely wood enough for cooking purposes, and recording that these bare plains extended as far as the mountains

in the vicinity of Santa Fe. On the 20th they reached and crossed a deep and rapid river, losing in the operation seven horses laden with merchandise. This stream they say was the Kansas. Again they entered upon the prairies bare of trees, dependent upon buffalo chips for their fuel, encamping nearly every night by a water course, until on the 30th of June they pitched their tents upon the banks of the Arkansas river, where for the first time they came upon traces of Spanish occupancy.

It is hardly necessary to follow their exact course from this point, or to speak of their encounter with an Indian tribe called Lalitanes, their success in procuring a guide or their first view of the Spanish mountains. On the 14th they reached the pueblo and mission of Pecos, so well known to all travelers on the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe railway. Here they were treated with kindness and consideration, and from here passing through Taos, they reached Santa Fe on the 22d of July. From hints in their journal and its accompanying documents, it is quite evident that while hospitably received they were sedulously guarded and watched. Communication with the City of Mexico could be had but once a year, and so after making known their wishes to establish commerce between the Spanish and French, they were obliged to submit to a delay of nine months before an answer could be returned. Probably this detention was not entirely irksome to them, as it enabled them to make sundry valuable observations for the governor of Louisiana. Their report contains suspicious sentences like the following: "Santa Fe is a city built of wood and without fortifications of any kind." "There are only eighty soldiers in the garrison-an ill conditioned body of men, poorly equipped." "There are valuable mines in the province, worked for the king of Spain, the silver from which is transmitted annually by caravan to Old Mexico." "The few presents distributed among the Lalitanes have had an excellent effect, and the tribe will be entirely on our side if we have an establishment in the country."

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It is doubtful if our adventurers were much annoyed or disappointed by the response of the viceroy which consisted of an offer to engage them to discover a rich region three months' journey to the westward, where it was said there were populous cities whose dwellers were clothed in silks and lived in luxury. They preferred,

with a single exception, to return to their own country. One of them, Louis Moreau, had, during the visit succumbed to the charms of Mexican beauty and decided to tempt the desert no farther. Of the remaining seven, three returned to the land of the Pawnees on the Loup, and eventually reached the French settlement on the Illinois. The remaining four descended the Arkansas, not without hardships, risk, and suffering, finally abandoning their horses and constructing two bark canoes, in which frail vessels they floated down the last named river to its mouth, and the Mississippi to New Orleans, where, after one abortive attempt to retrace their steps, they pass from our sight.

It may not be uninteresting in conclusion to present a translation of a certificate of good conduct given at Santa Fe to the seven who returned. I reproduce as well as I can the modest and unassuming tone of the original document:

"Certificate given at Santa Fe to seven Frenchmen, by Jean Paez Hurtado, alcade, major and captain of war of this capital city of Santa Fe and its jurisdiction, lieutenant-governor and captain general of the realm of New Mexico and the provinces.

"I certify so far as it is within my ability, to the captain, Dom Louis de Saint Denis, who commands the fort which is at the entrance of the Red river, to all other governors and captains, judges and justices of the most Christian king of France, and to all officers, military or civil, to whom these presents shall come, that on the 24th day of July, of the past year 1739, there came to this city of Santa Fe, eight Frenchmen named Peter and Paul Mallet, brothers, Philip Robitaille, Louis Morin, Michael Beslot, Joseph Bellecourt, and Manuel Gallien, creoles of Canada, in new France, and Jean David, of Europe, who were received in my presence by the Seigneur Dominique de Mendoza, lieutenant-colonel, governor and lieutenant-general of this realm, at the entrance of the palace, where the said Paul Mallet, having entered with the said Seigneur and Dom Saint Iago de Reibaldo, vicar of the realm, the said lord governor demanded of him whence they came and to what end. To which the said Paul answered that they were from New France, and that they had come for the purpose of establishing commerce with the Spaniards of this realm, by reason of the close alliance existing between the.crowns of France and Spain. Upon which the said lord governors sent their