oon as they drew near, Marquette called out to them in Algonquin:

"What tribe is this?"

"The Illinois," answered the old man. Being a branch of the great
Algonquin family, which embraced nearly all northern aboriginal nations,
with the notable exception of the Iroquois, these people had a dialect
which the missionary could understand. The name Illinois meant "The
Men."

Marquette and Jolliet were led to the principal lodge. Outside the door,
waiting for them, stood another old Indian like a statue of wrinkled
bronze. For he had stripped himself to do honor to the occasion, and
held up his hands to screen his face from the sun, making graceful and
dignified gestures as he greeted the strangers.

"How bright is the sun when you come to see us, O Frenchmen! Our lodges
are all open to you."

The visitors were then seated in the wigwam, and the pipe, or calumet,
offered them to smoke, all the Indians crowding around and saying:

[Illustration: Calumet.]

"You do well to visit us, brothers."

Obliged to observe this peace ceremony, Marquette put the pipe to his
lips, but Jolliet, used to the tobacco weed, puffed with a good will.

The entire village then formed a straggling procession, gazing at the
Frenchmen, whom they guided farther to the chief's town. He also met
them standing with a naked retinue at his door, and the calumet was
again smoked.

The Illinois lodges were shaped like the rounded cover of an emigrant
wagon, high, and very long, having an opening left along the top for
the escape of smoke. They were made of rush mats, which the women wove,
overlapped as shingles on a framework of poles. Rush mats also carpeted
the ground, except where fires burned in a row along the middle. Each
fire was used by two families who lived opposite, in stalls made of
blankets. The ends of the lodge had flaps to shut out the weather, but
these were left wide open to the summer sun. During visits of ceremony a
guest stood where he could be seen and heard by all who could crowd into
the wigwam. But when the Illinois held important councils they made a
circular inclosure, and built a camp-fire in the center. Many families
and many fires filled a long wigwam, though Jolliet and Marquette were
lodged with the chief, who had one for himself and his household.

Whitening embers were sending threads of smoke towards a strip of blue
sky overhead when the missionary stood up to explain his errand in the
crowded inclosure, divid