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 Captain of the French," the assembled "men" greeted the announcement with shouts of joy. Then followed the usual instruction in the broad truths of Christianity, and again the "men" rejoiced, doubtless connecting in their simple untutored minds the two items of good news. A grand feast was held in honor of those who had brought them, and when it was over, the visitors were escorted to their canoes by the chief and hundreds of his followers.

With a peace-pipe, the parting gift of the Illinois, hung round his neck as a charm against future dangers, Marquette continued his course, which now led him between the present States of Missouri and Illinois, among the weird perpendicular rocks forming so characteristic a feature of this part of the country, till he came to the junction of the Mississippi with its mighty and turbulent affluent, the Missouri, where the city of St. Louis now stands.

THE MISSISSIPPI AT ST. LOUIS. (1885.)

Overwhelmed with delight at the beauty of the scene before him, Marquette could hardly refrain from entering the Missouri then and there, to trace it to its source; but curbing his ardor—to be, as he vainly hoped, indulged at some future time—he continued his course down the now greatly augmented Mississippi, passing its junction with the Wabash or Ohio, and the homes of the peaceful Shawanees, till, with Tennessee on one hand and Arkansas on the other, he approached the most northerly limit reached by De Soto. There could be no doubt now of the identity of the Father of Waters with the Miche Sepe to which the Spanish hero had been led with