20 KANSAS CITY REVIEW OF SCIENCE. 



among the Kaoukia,* who are Illinois, and to sound the Missouris and the Osages, 

 in order to see what could be expected of them for Christianity, not doubting but 

 that I would have found many children and dying adults to baptize, but as there 

 are libertines there who, to continue their disorderly life, do not relish the pres- 

 ence of the missionary, I contented myself with telling them that I would 

 cheerfully have made the vojage with them, that its difficulties and hardships 

 would have been agreeable to me while laboring for the interest of God. About 

 the 25th of June, the French and Indians, who had started from here last month, 

 to go and solicit the alliance of the Osages and the Missouris, in the hope of the 

 great profit they were to derive from their trade, returned with two chiefs, one of 

 each village, accompanied by several sachems and some women. Although these 

 traders care little about teaching them to know God and the missionary in any 

 important thing they undertake with the Indians, they have nevertheless all come 

 to see me, and I have given them the best welcome I could. I took them to the 

 chapel and spoke to them as though they understood me perfectly. They attend- 

 ed mass and were very well behaved there, like the Illinois whom they heard me 

 instruct several times and cause to pray. They evinced to me great joy arising 

 from the hope that I have given of my visiting them to give them sense. This is 

 their way of speaking, but being alone I cannot assist or visit the other towns of 

 the Illinois who are on the Mississippi river. 



"The Osages and Missouris do not seem to me as bright (spiritual) as the 

 Illinois. Their language seems to me very difficult. The former do not open 

 their teeth and the latter speak even more from the throat than the former." 



From this letter, it would seem that the Illinois traders were endeavoring to 

 carry out La Salle's scheme of gathering the neighboring tribes around the Illinois 

 village for the purpose of trade ; but this, like other plans of the great explorer, 

 was, to a certain extent, visionary, and only capable of a partial realization. 



It is also evident from the letter, that the reverend father was now for the 

 first time brought in contact with Indians who spoke dialects of the Dacotah lan- 

 guage, as he remarks the guttural sounds of the Missouris and Osages, as 

 compared with the language of the Illinois, who were of the Algonquin family. 



La Harpe's Journal has the following account of a voyage to the Missouris 

 and Osages : "Dec. 29th, 1719, M. de Bienvillef received a letter from M. 

 Dutisne,:|; of the Kaskaskias, dated Nov. 22d, 1719, containing a narrative of his 

 voyage to the village of the Missouris by the river, and by land to the Osages 

 and Paniouasas,§ both in 1719. He said in his letter that he had been obliged to 



*Tamaroas and Cahokias — Illinois tribes who were located at that time between the Kaskaskias and the 

 Mississippi river. 



fBienville was at Mobile at this time, from which place the affairs of the entire colony were directed. 



JClaude Charles Dutisne, a person whose entire history is a romance. He was born in Paris, and at the 

 age of sixteen, entered the service of a company engaged in mercantile pursuits in Canada. Was commis- 

 sioned an ensign at the age of seventeen for meritorious conduct in dealing with the Indians, and served with 

 distinction as an officer in the Colony of Louisiana until his death. He was made a captain in 1721 — was in 

 command at Natches in 1722. His son was captured in Bienville's ill-managed expedition against the Chickasaws 

 iu 1736, and was burned at the stake with Vincennes, D' Artaguette, Father Senae and others. A daughter 

 married DeGrondel, then a lieutenant, afterwards a brigadier-general in the French army. 



^Pawnee. 



