Page:Historic towns of the southern states (1900).djvu/585

 in the old days, when it was clothed with trees and ferns clinging to its rocky sides and reflected in the waters below, it was a charming sight, and must have been hailed with joy by the early travelers after their weary journey from the distant sea through the monotony of the low-lying wilderness.

THE "LITTLE ROCK," TO WHICH THE CITY OWES ITS NAME.

The original inhabitants of the region were the Quapaw or Arkansas Indians, a race much superior to the surrounding savages, and who dwelt not in scattered wigwams but in walled villages, and seem always to have lived in amity with the whites. Father Pierre François de Charlevoix, an early French missionary,