SWANTON] INDIAN TRIBES OF THE LOWER MISSISSIPPI VALLEY 189

by the fact that by 1698 the Koroa town had disappeared from the
place where La Salle and his companions had found it, a disappear-
ance which is one of the mysteries of Louisiana ethnology. Early
in 1690 Tonti again descended the Mississippi to find La Salle, but
this time he did not himself go below the Tainsa, the rest of his jour-
ney being directed overland into the Caddoan country. On the 5th
of February, however, while he was encamped opposite the Tainsa,
he sent three men to the Natchez to inquire about two Frenchmen
who were missing, and they brought back word that the Natchez
had killed them."
 January 4, 1698, four missionary priests, Davion, La Source, De
Montigny, and St. Cosme, left the Quapaw to visit the tribes below.b
On the 11th they reached the Tunica, where it was decided to place
Father Davion, and on the 21st the Taensa. Although they went no
lower they heard considerable of the Natchez either from Indians or
unnamed travelers. La Source records the sacrifice of human lives
on the death of a chief, and De Montigny states that they spoke
the same language as the Taensa and were more numerous than the
Tunica." It was determined that M. de Montigny should settle
among the Tainsa. On the 27th they left this latter tribe to return
to the Tunica, and afterward reascended the river to obtain such
articles as should be needed in the new missions. In January, 1699,
De Montigny was back among the Quapaw, as we learn from his letter
dated the 2d of that month. For the present," he says, I reside
among the Taensas, but am to go shortly to the Natchez." a
 Meanwhile La Salle's project of planting a colony near the mouth
of the Mississippi, which had disastrously miscarried because he kept
too far to the westward and landed on the Texas coast, was revived
in France, and on October 24, 1698, Lemoyne d'Iberville, a noted
naval officer and already a figure in Canadian history, set sail from
Brest with two frigates, La Badine and Le Marin. In February
he was in the neighborhood of the coast of the present Louisiana, and
on the 18th of that month he claims to have made an alliance, through
the medium of the calumet, with 11 different nations, among which
was the Techloel," evidently the Natchez.c On the 27th he left with
small boats to find and explore the Mississippi, which he discovered
on the 2d of the following month. On March 14 he reached the
village of the Bayogoula and the Mugulasha, and on the 20th that
of the Houma. A Taensa was taken into his canoe at this latter place
and gave Iberville much information regarding the tribes on the river
above and on the Yazoo and Red rivers. The Natchez he called

 IFrench, list. Coll. La., 72, 18-4. Shea, Early Voy. Miss., 7i .
 b Shea, Early Voy. Miss., 75-80 Margry, DIcouvertes, iv, 155.
 He had not met the Natchez, however, at that time.