lively, civil, generous people," says Membre, "very different from the
cold and taciturn Indians of the North." They showed, indeed, some slight
traces of a tendency towards civilization; for domestic fowls and tame
geese were wandering among their rude cabins of bark. [Footnote: Membre,
in Le Clercq, ii. 224; Tonty, _Memoire_, MS.]

La Salle and Tonty at the head of their followers marched to the open area
in the midst of the village. Here, to the admiration of the gazing crowd
of warriors, women, and children, a cross was raised bearing the arms of
France. Membre, in canonicals, sang a hymn; the men shouted _Vice le Roi_;
and La Salle, in the king's name, took formal possession of the country.
[Footnote: _Proces Verbal de la Prise de Possession du Pays des Arkansas,
14 Mars_, 1682, MS.] The friar, not, he flatters himself, without success,
labored to expound by signs the mysteries of the faith; while La Salle, by
methods equally satisfactory, drew from the chief an acknowledgment of
fealty to Louis XIV. [Footnote: The nation of the Akanseas, Alkansas, or
Arkansas, dwelt on the west bank of the Mississippi, near the mouth of the
Arkansas. They were divided into four tribes, living for the most part in
separate villages. Those first visited by La Salle were the Kappas or
Quapaws, a remnant of whom still subsists. The others were the Topingas,
or Tongengas; the Torimans; and the Osotouoy, or Sauthouis. According to
Charlevoix, who saw them in 1721, they were regarded as the tallest and
best formed Indians in America, and were known as _les Beaux Hommes_.
Gravier says that they once lived on the Ohio.]

After touching at several other towns of this people, the voyagers resumed
their course, guided by two of the Arkansas; passed the sites, since
become historic, of Vicksburg and Grand Gulf; and, about three hundred
miles below the Arkansas, stopped by the edge of a swamp on the western
side of the river. [Footnote: In Tensas County, Louisiana. Tonty's