Page:Early western travels, 1748-1846 V13.djvu/329

 {251} and the rest of the day, until sun-set, they were continually wading in water either waist or knee deep. At length, they gained the dry land, and congratulated themselves, as they were under some apprehension of passing the night in that dismal situation. At noon they arrived at the first town of Casqui, and found the Indians unprepared for resistance. Here the Spaniards took many of both sexes prisoners, and considerable stores of garments[252] and skins, as well in the first town, as in a second, which was surprised by the cavalry, and lay about half a league distant. They found this country to be higher, drier, and more champaign than any part which they had yet seen contiguous to the river; from which we are fully satisfied, that the country thus described, can be no other than the Little Prairie, and that chain of high lands which continues to New Madrid, in the vicinity of which, there are also many {252} aboriginal remains. The neighbouring fields abounded with walnut trees, bearing round nuts with soft shells, and with leaves which they considered to be smaller than usual;[253] of these nuts the Indians had collected a store for use. Here they also found mulberries, and red[254] and grey plumbs.[254A] The trees appeared as fruitful as if they had been protected in orchards, and the woods generally were very thin. De Soto continued travelling two days through the country of Casqui before he arrived at

borders of the river des Moins, or Moingona, of the Mississippi, which gave name to one of their tribes. The friendship which they cultivated, about a century ago, with the Osages, and the Arkansas, who are the same people, and some incidental resemblances between them, lead us to believe them also commonly related by language and descent.—]
 * [Footnote: lived till the period of their approaching extinction), they had settled along the