Page:History of Southeast Missouri 1912 Volume 1.djvu/74

 14 HISTORY OF SOUTHEAST MISSOURI Alabama river; then he came to the great river, the Mississippi, and crossed it. From this time on his wanderings have an interest for the student of Missouri history, for, from a careful study of the narrative of his further wandei'ings, we are led to the couclusiou that he penetrated the territory of the present state of Missouri. It is not possible to deter- mine with absolute accuracy the precise point where he crossed the Mississippi. Some stu- dents of journey, among them Bancroft, Nut- tall and Schoolcraft, think he must have crossed at the Chickasaw Bluffs, near the present site of Memphis. Othei's, however, in- cluding Elliot, Winsor and Martin, consider it more probable that he crossed lower down. Houck, reasoning from the fact stated by Garcillasso that heavy timber existed where they crossed the river, concludes that the crossing must have been at a place of alluvial soil and consequently not at Chickasaw Bluffs, which were not then timbered. He thinks the crossing was at some point between the mouth of the St. Francois and the mouth of the Ar- kansas, and in view of all the facts this seems the most reasonable supposition. Having crossed the river the expedition wandered for four days through a flat coun- try intersected with swamps. On the fifth day from their crossing they reached a high ridge from whose summit they saw a river. Upon its banks was an Indian town sur- rounded by fields of maize. To this place the march of the party had been to the north. Garcillasso says they kept "northward" or "marched directly to the north." This prob- ably means that after crossing the Mississippi they did not strike into the forest away from it, but continued their journey in a general direction parallel to the course of the river itself. It was quite natural for them to do this, because we know that the trails or traces of the Indians were accustomed to follow the general course of the river. If, then, De Soto after the crossing, continued to the north near or along the bank of the Mississippi, we may inquire as to the location of the ridge which the expedition climbed and from which was seen another river with a village encircled with fields of maize. It seems highly probable that this ridge was what is now called Crowley's ridge, one of the offshoots of the Ozark range which con- tinues into Arkansas, forming a divide be- tween the alluvial bottom of the St. Francois and that of the White and the Cache. This ridge terminates at the Mississippi river not far from Helena, Arkansas, and along its eastern border flows the St. Francois. Crow- ley's ridge is the only ridge on the west side of the river between the Ohio and the Arkan- sas. If the expedition then proceeded north from their point of crossing, and that point was south of the mouth of the Ai-kansas as we believe it to have been, then it was to this ridge they came. From its summit the course of the St. Francois could be seen, and in the alluvial soil at its base would likely be found the fields of maize mentioned by the chron- iclers of the expedition. De Soto and his men spent some time in the village which they had seen form the summit of the ridge resting and recovering from the effects of their long march through the wil- derness. These Indians are called Casquins by the members of the expedition. They were probably a part of the tribe of the Kaskas- kias. They later made their home on the Illi- nois where they were found by Joliet and Marquette. It was not an unusual thing for the Indian tribes to change their place of residence, however. In fact, this was a habit that marked them, so that we may believe that