This speech pleased the Great Sachem mightily, and rising, he laid his hand upon a small Indian child, saying:
“I thank thee, Black Gown and thee, Frenchmen, for taking so much pains to come and visit us. Never has the earth been so lovely nor the sun so bright as to-day. Never has our river been so calm or so free from rocks, for your canoes have removed them as they passed. Never has our tobacco had so fine a flavor, nor our corn appeared so beautiful as we behold it to-day. Here is my son that I give thee, so that thou mayest know my heart. I pray thee to take pity on me and all my nation. Thou knowest the Great Spirit who has made us all, then speak thou to him and hear thou his words; ask thou him to give me life and health, and to come and dwell amongst us, that we may know him.”
Saying this, he gave the little Indian boy to Marquette and then presented him with a calumet, or peace pipe. He then urged the Frenchmen to proceed no farther and not to expose themselves to the dangers that would meet them with hostile tribes:
“I would esteem it a great happiness to lose my life for the glory of Jesus Christ,—he who has made us all,” replied Marquette.
The old Sachem marveled much at this answer.
After several days of pleasant intercourse with the Illinois, the voyagers again took to their canoes and sailed southward towards the mouth of the Mississippi. Marquette left the little Indian boy behind him, for he did not wish to take him from his father. They had not gone very far, when they passed a rocky promontory where two great monsters had been painted upon the brown stones by some Indian artist.
“They are as large as a calf,” says Marquette in his diary. “They have horns on their heads like those of a deer, a horrible look, red eyes, a beard like a tiger, a face somewhat like a man’s, a body covered with scales, and so long a tail that it winds all around the body, passing above the head and going back between the legs, ending somewhat like a fish’s tail. Green, red, and black are the colors composing this picture.”
Fortunately there were no monsters in the country similar to these awful pictures, and the worst that the explorers encountered were dangerous masses of fallen trees, through which the canoes had a difficult time to wend a tortuous passage.