s. Of these they seemed
to entertain great fears, and every means of persuasion and warning
were used to prevent their white friends hazarding themselves to the
power of these enemies. When the last were to leave, they manifested
more emotion than is usual with the savage, and one of La Salle's party
more facetious than the Indian designated them the Crying Indians.

La Salle was a wise as well as a bold adventurer. His policy with all
the tribes he encountered was kindness and truth. These were human
beings, and he correctly judged influenced by the motives and impulses
of men. They had never seen white men before, and there could be no
cause of quarrel, and there was little in the possession of the whites,
the use of which was known to the Indian to tempt his cupidity. He
manifested no fears in approaching them. Their curiosity tempted them
to come to him, and once met, his kindness and gentleness won them; and
he experienced no opposition or trouble from any he met; but succeeded
in gaining much information from his communications with them. When he
reached the Mississippi he began to doubt the accepted theory of its
discharging its waters into the Pacific, and upon reaching the mouth of
the Missouri and counseling with the chief of the tribe he met there,
he at once determined the speculation a delusion, and decided to
prosecute his journey to the mouth of the mighty stream, now with
almost irresistible impetuosity hurrying on his little flotilla. This
chief by many signs and diagrams marked with his finger upon the sand
of the beach, described the country out of which flowed the Missouri,
and into which went the Mississippi, and seemed to comprehend at least
the extent of its constantly accumulating waters and great length. Like
all the other savages, he represented the dangers below as being too
formidable for the small party of La Salle. He described the Natchez
Indians and gave them a terrible character; then the monsters of the
woods and the waters. He marked the form of the tiger, the bear, and
the alligator and described them as aggressive and ferocious. Taking a
handful of sand he scattered it on the boat's floor or bottom, and
pointing to the separate particles, attempted to explain by this means
the countless numbers of these Indians, and monsters of the country
below. Here was his first information of the existence of the Natchez,
but his information augmented as he descended the river. At the bluffs,
whe