rites
Father Marquette, "but I know not whether they understood what I told
them of God, and the things which concerned their salvation. It is a
seed cast in the earth, which will bear its fruit in season."

The Indians, in return, presented them with corn pounded into meal, and
some fishes. They said that, at some distance farther down the river,
there was a large village called Akamsea; that there they could learn
all they wished to know respecting the course and the out-flow of the
Father of Waters. The voyagers slept in the wigwams of the Indians
during the night, though the father confesses that it was not without
some uneasiness. The Akamsea, to which the Indians referred, was what
we now call Arkansas.

It is supposed that this village was near the Indian village of
Guachoya, where the unhappy De Soto, whose romantic history we have
given in a previous volume of this series, breathed his last, one
hundred and fifty years before. In the narrative which has descended to
us of that ill-fated and cruel expedition the historian writes:

"The same day, July 2, 1543, that we left Aminoya, we passed by
Guachoya, where the Indians tarried for us in their canoes."

It was at Aminoya that De Moscoso, who succeeded De Soto, built his
little fleet of seven strong barges, with which the Spaniards
descended, in a voyage of sixteen days, to the mouth of the river. The
Spaniards were as ignorant of the sources of the mighty river upon
which they were sailing, as were the French of the termination of the
majestic flood, which they had discovered nearly two thousand miles,
far away amidst the lakes and prairies of the north.

The next morning, at an early hour, the Frenchmen resumed their voyage.
A party of ten Indians accompanied them, leading the way in one of
their large boats. The old man, who understood a little of the Illinois
language, also went with them as an interpreter. When they had
descended the river nearly thirty miles, and were within about a mile
and a half of the Arkansas village, they saw two boats, crowded with
warriors, push out from the shore, and advancing to meet them. The keen
eyes of the savages had probably discerned the Indian boat which led
the frail canoes of the Frenchmen. They knew that persons thus
approaching could come with no hostile attempt.

The chief of this party, distinguished by his gorgeous dress, stood up
in his boat, and, waving the plumed calumet, sung, in a very plaintive