LA SALLE himself sued for certain high privileges, and they were graciously accorded him by Louis XIV of inflated memory.

Chief among them was the privilege to explore, far and wide, and build forts, and stake out continents, and hand the same over to the king, and pay the expenses himself; receiving, in return, some little advantages of one sort or another; among them the monopoly of buffalo hides.

He spent several years and about all of his money, in making perilous and painful trips between Montreal and a fort which he had built on the Illinois, before he at last succeeded in getting his expedition in such a shape that he could strike for the Mississippi.
And meantime other parties had had better fortune.

In 1673 Joliet the merchant, and Marquette the priest, crossed the country and reached the banks of the Mississippi.

They went by way of the Great Lakes; and from Green Bay, in canoes, by way of Fox River and the Wisconsin.