>) 



106 



THE AMERICAN BISOJ\tS. 



Meadows here extend beyond Sights In which the Buffalo go in Herds of 2 



"# jjj describing the country bordering the Illinois Eiver^ 



or 3 hun 



below the junction of the Kankakee^ he says: "In this Route we see only 

 vast Meadows^ with little Clusters of Trees here and there, which seem to 

 have been planted by the Hand ; the Grass grows so high in them, that one 

 might lose one's self amongst it ; but everywhere we meet with Paths that 

 are as beaten as they can be in the most populous Countries; yet nothing 

 passes through them but Buffaloes, and from Time to Time some Herds of 

 Deer, and some Roe-Bucks." Later he writes: "The 6th [of October, 1721] 

 we saw a great Number of Buffaloes crossing the River in a great Hurry " 5 

 and adds that they soon provided themselves with food " by killing a Buffalo 



or Roe-Buck, t 



f these we had the Choice." t 



Vaudreuil alludes to their abundance on Rock River in 1718. From the 



f^ 



bluffs along this river, he says, "you behold roaming through the prairie 

 herds of buffalo of Illinois." J Pittman, writing fifty years later, describes the 



ft 



country of the Illinois Indians as abounding with "buffalo, deer, and wild 

 fowl." 



The bufExlo seems also to have been abundant over large portions of In- 

 diana. Charlevoix, writing of the Ohio River in 1720, says : " All the Country 

 that is watered by the Ouabache [Ohio], and by the Ohio [Wabash] which 

 runs into it, is very fruitful: It consists of vast Meadows, well-watered, 

 where the wild Buffaloes feed by Thousands." || Vaudreuil, writing at about 

 the same time, says, in his "Memoir on the Indians between Lake Erie and 

 the Mississippi " : " Whoever would wish to reach the Mississippi easily would 

 need only to take this Beautiful river [Ohio] or the Sandosquet [Sandusky] ; 

 he could travel without any danger of fasting, for all who have been there 

 have repeatedly assured me that there is a vast quantity of Buffalo and of 



all other animals in the woods along that Beautiful River; they were often 

 iged to discharge their guns to clear a passage." ^ 

 There is further evidence also of the former abundance of the buffalo in 



* Letters, Goadby's English Edition, pp. 280, 281. 

 t Letters, Goadby's English Edition, p. 290. 

 t New York Coll. of MSS., Paris Doc, VII, p. 890. 



§ Pittman (Captain Philip), Present State of the European Settlements on the Mississippi, p. 51, 1770. 

 The rej^ion referred to is described in the context as being enclosed by the Mississippi on the west, the 



Illinois on the north, the Oliio on the south, and the Wabash (Ouabache) and "Miamis " on the east. 



II Letters, Goadby's English ed., p. 303. 



If Kew York Coll. of MSS., Paris Doc, VII, p. 88G. 





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