ing his talk into four parts with presents.
By the first gift of cloth and beads he told his listeners that the
Frenchmen were voyaging in peace to visit nations on the river. By the
second he said:

"I declare to you that God, your Creator, has pity on you, since, when
you have been so long ignorant of him, he wishes to become known to you.
I am sent on his behalf with this design. It is for you to acknowledge
and obey him."

By the third gift they were informed that the chief of the French had
spread peace and overcome the Iroquois. And the last begged for all the
information they could give about the sea and intervening nations.

When Marquette sat down, the chief stood up and laid his hand on the
head of a little slave, prisoner from another tribe.

"I thank you, Blackgown," he said, "and you, Frenchman, for taking so
much pains to come and visit us. The earth has never been so beautiful,
nor the sun so bright, as to-day; never has the river been so calm and
free from rocks, which your canoes removed as they passed! Never has our
tobacco had so fine a flavor, nor our corn appeared so beautiful as we
find it to-day. Here is my son. I give him to you that you may know my
heart. Take pity on us and all our nation. You know the Great Spirit who
made all: you speak to him and hear him; ask him to give us life and
health and come and dwell with us."

When the chief had presented his guests with the Indian boy, and again
offered the calumet, he urged them, with belts and garters of buffalo
wool, brilliantly dyed, to go no farther down the great river, on
account of dangers. These compliments being ended, a feast was brought
in four courses. First came a wooden dish of sagamity or corn-meal
boiled in water and grease. The chief took a buffalo-horn spoon and fed
his guests as if they had been little children; three or four spoonfuls
he put in Marquette's mouth and three or four spoonfuls in Jolliet's.
Three fish were brought next, and he picked out the bones with his own
fingers, blew on the food to cool it, and stuffed the explorers with
all he could make them accept. It was their part to open their mouths
as young birds do. The third course was that most delicate of Indian
dishes, a fine dog; but seeing that his guests shrank from this, the
chief ended the meal with buffalo meat, giving them the fattest parts.

The Illinois were at that time on the west side of the Mississippi,
because they had been driven from their