La Salle and the discovery of the great West - North Central ...

68 THE DISCOVERY OF THE MISSISSIPPI. [1673.dish of fat buffalo-meat, which concluded the entertainment.The crowd having dispersed, buffalo-robeswere spread on the ground, and Marquette andJoliet spent the night on the scene of the late festivity.In the morning, the chief, with some sixhundred of his tribesmen, escorted them to theircanoes, and bade them, after their stolid fashion, afriendly farewell.Again they were on their way, slowly driftingdown the great river. They passed the mouth of theIllinois, and glided beneath that line of rocks on theeastern side,cut into fantastic forms by the elements,and marked as " The Ruined Castles " on some of theearly French maps. Presently they beheld a sightwhich reminded them that the Devil was still lordparamount of this wilderness. On the flat face ofa high rock were painted, in red, black, and green, apair of monsters, each " as large as a calf,with hornslike a deer, red eyes, a beard like a tiger, and afrightful expression of countenance. The face issomething likethat of a man, the body covered withscales; and the tail so long that it passes entirelyround the body, over the head and between the legs,ending like that of a fish." Such is the accountwhich the worthy Jesuit gives of these manitous, orIndian gods. 1 He confesses that at first they fright-1The rock where these figures were painted is immediately abovethe city of Alton. The tradition of their existence remains, thoughthey are entirely effaced by time. In 1867, when I passed the place,a part of the rock had been quarried away, and, instead of Marquette'smonsters, it bore a huge advertisement of "Plantation