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 gamboled 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.

NOTES.--The curious elevation called Starved Rock is on the south side of
Illinois River, between La Salle and Ottawa. There is a legend according
to which it is said that over one hundred years ago, a party of Illinois
Indians took refuge here from the Pottawatomies; their besiegers, however,
confined them so closely that the whole party perished of starvation, or,
as some say, of thirst. From this circumstance the rock takes its name.

La Salle (b. 1643, d. 1687) was a celebrated French explorer and fur
trader. He established many forts throughout the Mississippi Valley,--
among them, Fort St. Louis, in 1683.

Tonty was an Italian, who formerly served in both the French army and
navy, and afterwards joined La Salle in his explorations.

XCI. PRINCE HENRY AND FALSTAFF. (327)

PRINCE HENRY and POINS, in a back room, in a tavern.
Enter FALSTAFF, GADSHILL, BARDOLPH, and PETO.

Poins. Welcome, Jack. Where hast thou been?

Falstaff. A plague of all cowards, I say, and a vengeance too! marry, and
amen! Give me a cup of sack, boy. Ere I lead this life long, I'll sew
nether stocks, and mend them, and foot them, too. A plague of all cowards!
Give me a cup of sack, rogue. Is there no virtue extant? (He drinks, and
then continues.) You rogue, here's lime in this sack, too; there is
nothing but roguery to be found in villainous man: yet a coward is worse
than a cup of sack with lime in it. A villainous coward! Go thy ways, old
Jack; die when thou wilt: if manhood, good manhood, be not forgot upon the
face of the earth, then am I a shotten herring. There live not three good
men unhanged, in England; and one of them is fat and grows old; a bad
world, I say! I would I were a weaver; I could sing psalms, or anything. A
plague of a