OCR Text |
Show 146 Early Western Travels [ Vol. 26 tribes of the Upper Mississippi and Missouri Rivers. By the treaty of that year France had ceded all her possessions east of the Mississippi to Great Britain, and there was on the western shore only the small village of Ste. Genevieve. This was subsequently deemed too distant from the mouth of the Mississippi to be a suitable dep6t and post for the fur- trade; and Laclede, having surveyed all the neighbouring region, fixed upon the spot where St Louis now stands as a more eligible site. Whether this site was selected by the flight of birds, by consultation of the entrails of beasts, or the voice of an oracle; whether by accident [ 119] or design, tradition averreth not. Yet sure is it, that under the concurrence of all these omens, a more favourable selection could not have been made than this has proved. It is related, however, that when the founder of the city first planted foot upon the shore, the imprint of a human foot, naked and of gigantic dimensions, was found enstamped upon the solid limestone rock, and continued in regular succession as if of a man advancing from the water's edge to the plateau above. 1* 1 By a more superstitious age this circum- *• The imprint of a human foot is yet to be seen in the limestone of the shore not far from the landing at St Louis. With reference to the human footprints m the rock at St. Louis, I have given the local tradition. Schoolcraft's detailed description, which I subjoin, varies from this somewhat. The print of a human foot is said to have been discovered also in the limestone at Herculaneum. Morse, in his Universal Geography, tells us of the tracks of an army of men and horses on a certain mountain in the State of Tennessee, fitly named the Enchanted Mountain. " Before leaving Harmony, our attention was particularly directed to a tabular mass of limestone, containing two apparent prints or impressions of the naked human foot. This stone was carefully preserved in an open area, upon the premises of Mr. Rappe, by whom it had previously been conveyed from the banks of the Mississippi, at St. Louis. The impressions are, to all appearance, those of a man standing in an erect posture, with the left foot a little advanced and the heels drawn in. The distance between the heels, by accurate measurement, is six and a quarter inches, and between the extremities of the toes thirteen and a half. But, by a close inspection, it will be perceived that these are not the impressions of feet accustomed to the European shoe; the toes being much spread, and the foot flattened in the manner that is observed in persons unaccustomed to the close shoe. The proba- |