LOUISIANA. 389 



conceive, that they made a good iife of this per- 

 mifTion ; each of them took for his fliare two 

 hundred and forty pounds vv-eight of gold. Their 

 •mines were in the mountains, from whence they 

 brought the gold upon rivulets, which were dry 

 during one fcafon of the year, 



Thefe people traded with a nation very diftant 

 -from them ^ and in order to make the French 

 fenfible of it, they told them, that it required 

 fix months to make the voyage. The adventu- 

 rers happened to be with the Efcaanibas at the 

 time when their caravan fet out to trade with 

 chofe ftrangers ; it confided of three hundred 

 oxen loaded with gold , an equal number of 

 men, armed with lances, bows, arrows, and a 

 kind of daggers, conducted and watched them : 

 they brought back, in exchange for their gold, 

 fome iron, iteel, lances, and other weapons, 



I cannot afcertain in what degree we may 

 truft this accounr -, the adventurers conjedlured, 

 that the diftant country whither the Efcaanibas 

 went, was Japan 5 in that cafe, there muft be a 

 communication between JJia and America ^ fome 

 Englifh writers, without attempting to difputc 

 the authenticity of this account, believe, that 

 ]the favages went to trade with the inhabitants of 

 C c 3 Ka7nt' 



