THE FORMER RANGE OF THE BUFFALO. 83 
ans, who came there to rehearse their sorrows and ask the protec- 
tion of the French. The Sioux upon the one side and the Iroquois 
upon the other, had made savage inroads upon them. They told of 
the noble river upon which they dwelt. ‘They had no forests, 
but instead of them, vast prairies where herds of deer and buf- 
falo, and other animals, grazed on the tall grasses.” This is the 
first mention that is made of the buffalo upon the prairies of 
Illinois. None of the French had yet seen the buffalo un- 
less, perchance, some trader had followed the Indians to their 
hunting grounds, though many thousands of robes had already 
been transported from the region of the Upper Mississippi to Eu- 
rope. They were taken from the buffaloes by Indian hunters, 
tanned and prepared by the hands of the squaws, and then in 
birch-bark canoes, transported by way of the western rivers to the 
portages, where canoe and cargo were carried across to the 
head waters of rivers that emptied into the Great Lakes, over 
whose waters, still in the birch-bark canoe, they were carried to 
Quebec, and there by their Indian owners, exchanged for articles 
of French manufacture suitable to the wants of savage man. 
Father Marquette says of the Illinois, ‘They always come by 
land. They sow maize which they have in great plenty; they 
have pumpkins as large as those of France, aud plenty of roots 
and fruit. The chase is very abundant in wild-cattle, bears, stags, 
turkeys, duck, bustard, wild-pigeon and cranes. They leave their 
towns at certain times every year to go to their hunting grounds 
together, so as to be better able to resist if attacked. They be- 
lieve that I will spread peace every where, if I go, and then only 
the young will go to hunt.’”’* 
It was not, however, until the fall of the year 1672 that he re- 
ceived orders from his superiors * which bid him embark at last 
upon the voyage so long and fondly projected.” 
Louis Joliet, whose name is now imperishably connected with 
that of Marquette in the discovery of the Mississippi River, arrived 
in the spring of 1673, with orders, from Comte de Frontenac, gov- 
ernor of Canada, and M. Talon the intendant, for the exploration 
of the great river. 
The winter before the arrival of Joliet was spent in busy prep- 
aration for the great voyage. From the wandering Indians Father 
Marquette gathered all the information he could, and from their 
* Ibid. 
