La Salle ordered all the boats to stop. He then sent one canoe forward,
with four Frenchmen, to present the calumet of peace. They received
orders not to fire upon the savages under any emergence. As soon as the
canoe came within arrow-shot, the savages, regardless of the calumet,
let fly a shower of arrows upon them. Fortunately, they nearly all fell
a little short, and no one was hit. With the utmost precipitation, the
Frenchmen paddled back to their companions. La Salle then sent another
canoe, with four Indians, bearing the calumet. They advanced with great
caution, and met with the same hostile reception.

He then directed the canoes to press as near the opposite bank as
possible, to ply their paddles with all energy, and thus hurry by the
point of peril. Humanely he ordered not a gun to be fired. He had no
wish to engage in a battle in which nothing was to be gained. Very
easily his sharp-shooters could cause many of those savage warriors to
bite the dust, and thus lamentation and woe would be sent to many of
those wigwams. But this would do no good. It would not subdue the
savages; it would only exasperate them. He also remembered that he was
to return, and that if the savages had received no harm at his hands,
their spirit of revenge would not be aroused, and it would be much less
difficult to establish friendly relations with them.

Though the savages yelled, and ran franticly along the shore, and threw
their arrows with their utmost strength, the canoes, swept along by the
rapid current, and the sinewy strength of the paddles, all passed in
safety. The kind-hearted La Salle must have congratulated himself that
none were left behind to mourn. He afterwards learned that this
inhospitable tribe was called the Quinnipissa.

They had paddled down the stream but about six miles, when they came to
other and still more deplorable evidences of man's inhumanity to man.
They found upon the banks the smouldering remains of a large village,
which had recently been sacked and burned. It was evident that the
inhabitants had been given up to indiscriminate massacre, with the
exception of those who had been carried away into slavery, or to add to
the revelry of a gala day, in the endurance of demoniac torture. The
ground was covered with the bodies of men, women, and children, in all
the loathsome stages of decay. Sadly the voyagers rambled through these
awful scenes for an hour, meeting with no living being, and then
hurri