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Show 282 Early Western Travels [ Vol 26 life was that! How varied and wonderful its incidents! How numerous and pregnant its vicissitudes! How strange the varieties of natural character it developed! The name of Boone will never cease to be remembered so long as this Western Valley remains the pride of a continent, and the beautiful streams of his discovery roll on their teeming tribute to the ocean! Of the Indian tribe which formerly inhabited this pleasant region, and gave a name to the river and state, scarcely a vestige is now to be seen. The only associations connected with the savages are of barbarity and perfidy. Upon the settlers of St Charles county it was that Black Hawk directed his first efforts;"' and, until within a few years, a stoccade fort for refuge in emergency has existed in every considerable settlement. Among a variety of traditionary matter related to me relative to the customs of the tribe which formerly resided near St Charles, the following anecdote from one of the oldest settlers may not prove uninteresting. " Many years ago, while the Indian yet retained a crumbling foothold upon this pleasant land of his fathers, a certain Cis- atlantic naturalist- so the story goes- overflowing with laudable zeal for the advancement of science, had succeeded in penetrating the wilds of Missouri in pursuit of his favourite study. Early one sunny morning a man in strange [ 25] attire was perceived by the simple natives running about their prairie with uplifted face and outspread palms, eagerly in pursuit of certain bright flies and insects, which, when secured, were deposited with manifest satis-the Femme Osage district in western St. Charles County, in 1798. He died September 26, 1820 ( not 1818).- ED. 177 There seems to be little or no foundation for this statement. Consult J. B. Patterson, Life of Ma- Ka- Tai- MeShe- Kia- Kiak or Black Hawk ( Boston, 1854), and R. G. Thwaites, " The Story of the Black Hawk War," in Wisconsin Historical Collodions, zii, pp. 217- 265.- ED. |
