Tlte Search for la Salle, 1685-1689
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postscript in Latin in case one of the survivors were a priest. The message was then given to an Indian, together with some blank paper for an answer, and sent to the country of the Tejas. On April 2 r the expedition, which had become reunited, abandoned their camp on the Guadalupe and set out to find the French colony. They traveled about eight leagues to the northeast before they came to a stream of good water, Garcitas Creek. The Indian guide told them that on the bank of this stream they would find the settlement. Evidently they struck the creek much higher than the place where the fort was, because on the next day, April 22, after marching three leagues down the bank of the stream they came at last to the deserted and silent settlement. It was a gruesome and appalling sight that met their eyes. "We . . . found all the houses sacked, all the chests, 1:-ottle-cases, and all the rest ofthe settlers' furniture broken; apparently more than t\\•o hundred books, ~ with the rotten leavesscatterecl through the patios-all in French ... The perpetrators of this ma~e had pulled everything [the colonists] had out of their chests, and divided the booty among themselves ... making a frightful sack of all the French possessed ... We found three dead bodies scat- tered over the plain. One of these, from the dress that still clung to the bones, appeared to be that of a woman. We took the bodies up, chanted Mass with the bodies present, and buried them. The principal house of this settlement is in the form of a fort, made of ship's timber, with a second story, also made of ship's timber, and with a slope to turn off water. Next to it, without any partition, is another apartment, not so strong, which must have served as a chapel where l\fass was said. The other five houses are of stakes, covered with mud inside and out; their roofs are covered with buffalo hides. All are quite useless for any defence. In and about the fort and the houses were eight pieces of artillery, iron, of medium bore - four or five pounders - and three very old swivels whose chambers were lacking. Some iron bars were also found, and some ship's nails, estimated as altogether about five hundredweight. Some of the guns were scattered over the ground and some were on their broken carriages. There were some casks with their heads knocked in and their contents spilled out, so that nothing was worth anything. Around the building was also some tackle, much the worse for wear. The settlement was on a beautiful level site, so as to be capable of defence in any e\'ent. Discovery of La Salle's colony.
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