THE FORMER RANGE OF THE BUFFALO, 95 
says he “ascended the River St. Joseph to the ‘portage.’” Here 
they transported all there was in the canoe to the source of the 
Illinois River called Haukiki, which was a corruption of the In- 
dian word Theakiki. They then carried over the canoe, launched 
it and continued their route. They were two days in making this 
portage, aud then followed the windings of the Theakiki to the 
prairies of Illinois, where the old missionary joyfully exclaims, 
‘at last we perceived our own agreeable country, the wild buffa- 
loes and herds of stags, wandering on the borders of the river; 
and those who were in the canoe took some of them from time to 
time, which served for our food.” * 
The buffalo was first seen by Cortez and his followers, in 1521, a 
single individual being observed in a kind of menagerie or zoo- 
logical collection of Montezuma, in Mexico. To this place the 
animal had been brought from the north by Indians, to whom the 
collection of rare birds and quadrupeds had been committed by 
the native monarch. It was not, however, till the expedition of 
Coronado north of the Gila, in 1540, that its natural ranges were 
penetrated. It was not found at all in the highlands of New 
Mexico. The Spanish adventurers had passed the Rio del Norte, 
and entered the region of the great southern fork of the Arkansas, 
before they encountered the immense herds which they describe. 
So headlong was the course of the droves of these animals follow- 
ing each other, that they sometimes pitched into and filled up en- 
tire gulfs and defiles lying in their track.+ The buffalo was found 
by De Soto (1541) after he had crossed the Mississippi and en- 
tered the present area of Arkansas and Missouri. 
Audubon and Bachman mention the buffalo as once existing 
upon the Atlantic coast, and further add that ‘‘ authors state that 
at the time of the first settlement of Canada it was not known in 
that country, and Sagard Theodat mentions having heard that 
bulls existed in the far west, but he saw none himself.” Lawson, 
in his “Journal of one thousand miles’ Travel among the Indians, 
with a Description of North Carolina” (London, 1700) speaks of 
two buffaloes that were killed in that State on Cape Fear River. 
Audubon says that the bison aman existed in South Carolina 
* Early Jesuit Missions, Kip., p 
t Discovery and Ex. of the Laer J.G. Sna 18; pes Cond., Prospects 
ete., Vol. 4, p. Schoolcraft cites Castenada’s an Expedition to Cibola. 
ete., Saag 
