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France and England in North America; a Series of Historical Narratives — Part 3 by Francis Parkman
page 257 of 364 (70%)
wound at his feet in devious channels among islands bordered with lofty
trees; then, far on the left, flowed calmly westward through the vast
meadows, till its glimmering blue ribbon was lost in hazy distance.

There had been a time, and that not remote, when these fair meadows were a
waste of death and desolation, scathed with fire, and strewn with the
ghastly relics of an Iroquois victory. Now, all was changed. La Salle
looked down from his rock on a concourse of wild human life. Lodges of
bark and rushes, or cabins of logs, were clustered on the open plain, or
along the edges of the bordering forests. Squaws labored, warriors lounged
in the sun, naked children whooped and gambolled on the grass. Beyond the
river, a mile and a half on the left, the banks were studded once more
with the lodges of the Illinois, who, to the number of six thousand, had
returned, since their defeat, to this their favorite dwelling-place.
Scattered along the valley, among the adjacent hills, or over the
neighboring prairie, were the cantonments of a half-score of other tribes,
and fragments of tribes, gathered under the protecting aegis of the
French,--Shawanoes from the Ohio, Abenakis from Maine, Miamis from the
sources of the Kankakee, with others whose barbarous names are hardly
worth the record. [Footnote: This singular extemporized colony of La
Salle, on the banks of the Illinois, is laid down in detail on the great
map of La Salle's discoveries, by Jean Baptiste Franquelin, finished in
1684. There can be no doubt that this part of the work is composed from
authentic data. La Salle himself, besides others of his party, came down
from the Illinois in the autumn of 1683, and undoubtedly supplied the
young engineer with materials. The various Indian villages, or
cantonments, are all indicated, with the number of warriors belonging to
each, the aggregate corresponding very nearly with that of La Salle's
report to the minister. The Illinois, properly so called, are set down at
1,200 warriors; the Miamis, at 1,800; the Shawanoes, at 200; the
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