HISTORY. 67 



without exploring the country, or seeing any of its inha- 

 bitants, so far as mentioned, except that, three clays after 

 leaving the Wisconsin, they discovered a much better coun- 

 try ; when, on the 25th of June, being the eighth day of their 

 travel on the Missisippi, they went ashore, and found some 

 fresh traces of men upon the sand, and a path which led to a 

 prairie. The men remained in the boat, and Marquette and 

 Johet followed the path till they discovered a village on the 

 banks of a river, and two other villages on a hill, within half 

 a league of the first, inhabited by Illinois Indians. It is not 

 stated on which side of the Missisippi the river was found, 

 nor is it described by any name, or otherwise designated by 

 the travellers. Mr. Bancroft supposes it to have been the 

 Des Moins. This river, in fact, flows into the Missisippi, at 

 about the distance mentioned. 



The relation makes mention of passing the river Peckita- 

 noni, as the Missouri was then called, and the Ohio, called by 

 them the Ouabouskigou, the name of the Wabash being pre- 

 served till its junction with the Missisippi. The Chuoanous 

 (Shawnees) inhabit the banks of the Wabash, the relation in- 

 forms us, who are said to be so numerous, that they have thirty- 

 eight villages on the river. They descended the river as low as 

 lat! 33°, where they found a village of the Arkansas ; and being 

 satisfied that the river flowed into the Gulf of Mexico, they 

 turned their course up the stream, and, ascending the river, 

 they passed through the Illinois to the Lake. Their rela- 

 tion gives the distance from the Pekitanoni (or Missouri) 

 to the Ouabouskigou (or Ohio) at twenty leagues. The 

 actual distance is two hundred miles. So great a mis- 

 lake could hardly be made by a person who had been 

 over the ground. Nothing whatever is stated in relation to 

 the country traversed, which was through nine degrees 

 and a half of latitude, and, by the windings of the stream, 



