A GHASTLY SPECTACLE.                      167
canoes loaded with goods, stopped at the scene of the late tragedy. As they approached Starved Kock, which at that time was called Le Rocher, they noticed a cloud of buzzards hovering over it, and at the same time they were greeted with a sickening odor.    On landing from their canoes
he was born on the Wabash, and was ten years old at the time of the Starved Bock tragedy. His father participated in this affair, and two of his nncles were killed in the fight with the Ilhnolans before they took refuge on Starred Bock. He said the fight con tinned for two days at the town, and hundreds of warriors on both sides were slain, but during a rain storm, and the darkness of the night, the remnant of the IUinoians escaped to Starred Bock.
Two years after this affair the band which the old Indian belonged emigrated to Illinois and built a town at Lake Dupue. At that time and for many years afterwards, th e summit of the Bock was covered with bones and skulls. Two miles below Starved Bock, on the site of the town where a great battle was fought, many acres of ground were covered with human bones.
An old Indian called Shaddy, who went west with his band in 1834, hnt afterwards returned to lock once more upon the scene of his youth, and hunted on Bureau in the winter of 1836. From this old Indian I gathered many items in relation to past events. He said that his father was at the seige of Starved Bock, and all the Illinois Indians perished but one. This was a young half-breed who let himself down into the river by means of a buckskin cord during a severe rain storm, and in the Sarkness of the night made his escape.
According to history, about one thousand IUinoians, but known as Kaskaskia Indians, were living in the south part of the State as late as 1802. The Indians at the south appear to have taken no part in the war, and the destruction of the tribe applied only to those along the Illinois river.
It is also said some of the Illinois tribe took refuge with the French at Peoria, and were afterwards known as Peoria Indians.
These conflicting statements are given only for what they are worth, and from which the reader can draw his own conclusions.