e river edge toward an
unfinished defense against the waters. It was a high dike, beginning on
a shoulder of the peninsula above the town, but extending barely a mile
across a marsh where the river had once continuously raveled the shore
even in dry seasons. The friar was glad to discern a number of figures
at work carting earth to the most exposed and sunken spots of this dike.

The marsh inside the embankment was now a little lake, and some shouting
black boys were paddling about there in a canoe which had probably been
made during the leisure enforced by wet weather. It was a rough and
clumsy thing, but very strongly put together.

The tavern in Kaskaskia was a common meeting-place. Other guest houses,
scattered through the town, fed and lodged the humble in an humble way;
but none of them dared to take the name "tavern," or even to imitate its
glories. In pleasant weather, its gallery was filled with men
bargaining, or hiring the labor of other men. It was the gathering and
distributing point of news, the headquarters of the Assembly when that
body was in session,--a little hotel de ville, in fact, where municipal
business was transacted.

The wainscoted dining-room, which had a ceiling traversed by oak beams,
had been the scene of many a stately banquet. In front of this was the
bar-room, thirty by forty feet in dimensions, with a great stone
fireplace built at one end. There was a high carved mantel over this,
displaying the solid silver candlesticks of the house, and the silver
snuffers on their tray embossed with dragons. The bar was at the end of
the room opposite the fireplace, and behind it shone the grandest of
negro men in white linen, and behind him, tier on tier, an array of
flasks and flat bottles nearly reaching the low ceiling. Poor
Kaskaskians who entered there, entered society. They always pulled their
cappos off their heads, and said "Good-evening, messieurs," to the
company in general. It was often as good as a feast to smell the spicy
odors stealing out from the dining-room. It was a gentle community, and
the tavern bar-room was by no means a resort of noisy drinkers. If any
indecorum threatened, the host was able to quell it. He sat in his own
leather chair, at the hearth corner in winter, and on the gallery in
summer; a gigantic Frenchman, full of accumulated happiness.

It was barely dusk when candles were lighted in the sconces around the
walls, and on the mantel and bar. The host had his c