44 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [BULL. 69 
seclusion of the vast forests, where they would hunt during the cold 
season, but game was so plentiful that food was always easily and 
quickly secured. With the coming of spring they would return to 
their villages and plant large fields of corn, which grew luxuriantly 
in the rich black soil. ’ 
On the night of October 10, 1721, Charlevoix remained at the 
“village of the Caoqguias and the Tamarouas, two Llinois tribes 
which have been united, and together compose no very numerous 
canton. This village is situated on a small river which runs from 
the east, and has no water but in the spring season so that we were 
obliged to walk above half a league, before we could get to our 
cabbins. I was astonished they had pitched upon so mconvenient 
a situation, especially as they had so many better in their choice; 
but I was told that the Mississippi washed the foot of that village 
when it was built, that in three years it has lost half a league of its 
breadth, and that they were thinking of seeking out for another 
habitation, which is no great affair amongst the Indians.” (Char- 
levoix, (1), II, pp. 218-219.) 
The ‘‘Illinois country” remained a favorite region for the Indian 
long after the coming of white settlers. As already mentioned, the 
various tribes who occupied the central part of the Mississippi 
Valley were ever moving from place to place, seldom remaining for 
a long period at any one location. Thus a century after Charlevoix 
passed down the Illinois and entered the Mississippi extensive 
villages of the Sauk and Fox stood on the banks of Rock River, near ~ 
iis mouth, and consequently on or near the left bank of the Missis- 
sippi, in the present Rock Island County, Illinois. 
Fort Armstrong stood at the lower end of Rock Island, and on 
‘Friday, August 1, 1817, Major Long wrote: 
‘‘Immediately opposite to the fort on the south side of the river 
is a village of the Fox Indians, containing about thirty cabins, with 
two fires each. The number of souls at this village is probably 
about five hundred. On Rock River, two miles above its mouth, 
and three across the point from Fort Armstrong, is a Sack village, 
consisting of about one hundred cabins, of two, three, and, in some 
instances, four fires each. It is by far the largest Indian village 
situated in the neighborhood of the Mississippi between St. Louis 
and the Falls of St. Anthony. The whole number of Indians at this 
village amounts probably to between two and three thousand. 
They can furnish eight or nine hundred warriors, all of them armed 
with rifles or fusees. The Indians of these two villages cultivate 
vast fields of corn, which are situated partly in the low ground and 
extend up the slopes of the bluffs. They have at present several 
hundred acres under improvement in this way.’’ (Long, (1), pp. 
68-69.) SOE 
