refully
and successfully done. His narratives are written in a clear and animated
style, and his volumes are a rich contribution to American history.
###

The cliff called "Starved Rock," now pointed out to travelers as the chief
natural curiosity of the region, rises, steep on three sides as a castle
wall, to the height of a hundred and twenty-five feet above the river. In
front, it overhangs the water that washes its base; its western brow looks
down on the tops of the forest trees below; and on the east lies a wide
gorge, or ravine, choked with the mingled foliage of oaks, walnuts, and
elms; while in its rocky depths a little brook creeps down to mingle with
the river.

From the rugged trunk of the stunted cedar that leans forward from the
brink, you may drop a plummet into the river below, where the catfish and
the turtles may plainly be seen gliding over the wrinkled sands of the
clear and shallow current. The cliff is accessible only from the south,
where a man may climb up, not without difficulty, by a steep and narrow
passage. The top is about an acre in extent.

Here, in the month of December, 1682, La Salle and Tonty began to entrench
themselves. They cut away the forest that crowned the rock, built
storehouses and dwellings of its remains, dragged timber up the rugged
pathway, and encircled the summit with a palisade. Thus the winter was
passed, and meanwhile the work of negotiation went prosperously on. The
minds of the Indians had been already prepared. In La Salle they saw their
champion against the Iroquois, the standing terror of all this region.
They gathered around his stronghold like the timorous peasantry of the
Middle Ages around the rock-built castle of their feudal lord.

From the wooden ramparts of St. Louis,--for so he named his fort,--high
and inaccessible as an eagle's nest, a strange scene lay before his eye.
The broad, flat valley of the Illinois was spread beneath him like a map,
bounded in the distance by its low wall of wooded hills. The river 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