278 STATE HOETICULTUEA.L SOCIETY. 



ders, used to be performed with red-hot stones. It is a surprising fact 

 that they rejected "lire-water," and could not be induced to drink it^ 

 although they early came in contact with white men ; but they were 

 notable thieves and plunderers — like the Spartans, deeming it a virtue 

 to rob a neighbor or a friend, provided it could be done without de- 

 tection. Schoolcraft makes mention of their reputation for mental 

 ability, their skill in public negotiations, and their remarkable facility 

 in expressing thought. But no quality of body or mind has served as^ 

 a barrier between them and the inroads of civilization. They were 

 brave and fearless ; they waged war incessantly, although they were 

 always the chief sufferers in those contests, in which, Catlin says, 

 "they persisted, as though actually bent on self-destruction." From 

 numbers reputed to have been at least 6000 in the time of Marquette^ 

 and over 5000 a* the time of Catlin's visit to them, they have been so 

 continually crowded to the wall that all that is now left of this once 

 powerful tribe is a handfal of indolent and unambitious people, of 

 whom each successive report from the Indian territory says, "steadily 

 decreasing in number." 



It is from Schoolcraft's journey in 1818 that we gain some idea of 

 the first homes which white men began to make for themselves in the 

 interior of our State. In his journey from Mine a Burton to the White 

 river in Arkansas, it was not until after the twentieth day that he met 

 the first white man, and learned, with great elation (his provisions hav- 

 ing been exhausted for two days), that he was in a few miles of a dwell- 

 ing. On reaching this, he found it to belong to a "fore-handed man^ 

 for those parts, and a great hunter" — a fact which our traveler readily 

 believed, on seeing the trophies of his prowess and skill hanging from 

 every tree in the neighborhood. The house was a substantial new log^ 

 cabin, consisting of one room, which, to its occupants, served all the 

 purposes of convenience and utility, while its walls were hung with 

 horns of deer and buffalo, rifles, shot-pouches, leather coats, dried 

 meats and other articles, composing the wardrobe, smoke-house and 

 magazine of the family. The children were clothed in buckskin gar- 

 ments, which were evidently renewed only when worn out. The proud 

 owner of this domain had several acres of ground under cuhivation 

 and, being anxious to prove some connection with civilized society,^ 

 stated that he sometimes visited the settled portions of Lawrence 

 county, Arkansas, and that he lived within 100 miles of a justice of the 

 peace. 



Up to this time the settlements of the interior had spread only- 

 down the Oeage river, and some of its tributaries, and were beginning- 

 to extend up the White. Except by means of the rough Indian trails 



