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CHAPTER X. SCENIC MARVELS OF THE GREAT NORTHEAST.
[Illustration: STARVED ROCK, ON ILLINOIS RIVER, NEAR OTTAWA, ILLINOIS.]
Our circuit of the West had now been completed, and having surrendered the camera car which we had chartered, we made hasty preparations for a grand tour of all that section lying east of the Mississippi. Before departing for the East, however, we made a flying trip over the St. Louis & San Francisco Railroad to Eureka Springs, a popular health resort in Northern Arkansas, surrounded by some very beautiful scenery that spreads away through the Ozark and Boston Mountains in picturesque grandeur, diversified by swift-flowing streams, deep gorges, terrible bluffs and immense caves that are gorgeously embellished with gigantic stalactite and stalagmite formations. If these magnificent scenes were not so conveniently near a large city, they would be a hundred-fold more famous, for it is human nature to yearn for the least accessible and the most difficult of attainment. In short, we rarely appreciate the things that we have, and exaggerate the importance and attractiveness of places which are remote. It is this peculiarity of the human mind that makes heaven a necessity and immortality a natural deduction, the irresistible conclusion of human reason.
We tarried one week in St. Louis before departing for the East, and then again divided our party, one of our photographers proceeding to Pittsburgh, and thence through Pennsylvania and Virginia, taking views of the famous scenery of those States, while the other two whose travels we will now describe, passed northward to Chicago, and thence east by way of Niagara. Having heard much of a celebrated point known as Starved Rock, on the Illinois River, a place of commanding interest in the history of La Salle and his adventurous companions, we resolved to stop at Ottawa, en route to Chicago, and make a photograph of the historic rock. We reached Ottawa by the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy Road, and thence by driving ten miles in a spring wagon we gained the spot made celebrated through a tradition which is as romantic as it is tragic.
Starved Rock is now the property of a company, and is situated on the left bank of the Illinois River, near the foot of the rapids. It is a perpendicular bluff of limestone, one hundred and fifty feet high, and is crowned with oaks and other forest trees. The water front presents a precipitous wall, but there is a slope towards an adjoining bluff by which it is alone accessible. The summit has an area of about one acre, but is a natural stronghold; and perceiving its advantages, La Salle, on his first return trip to Canada, ordered his Indian lieutenant, named Tonti, to fortify himself upon the Rock, supplying him with one small cannon for that purpose. Tonti carried out these orders, and, it is said, died and was buried upon the Rock. Years afterward, the place became conspicuous in the Indian wars; and it is related that after the killing of Pontiac, chief of the Ottawas, in a drunken row at Cahokia, some of his people charged the Illinois tribe with the crime and made war upon them. Being feeble in numbers, they were driven before the Ottawas so remorselessly that as a last resort they took refuge on Starved Rock. Here they were able to hold their enemies at bay, but their distress was none the less because of their ability to prevent a scaling of their stronghold, for the Ottawas besieged the Rock and effectually prevented the Illinois from securing any supplies. Water was for a while procured by means of vessels attached to ropes of bark, which were let down into the stream. But this device was presently discovered and prevented by the Ottawas coming under the bluff in canoes and cutting the ropes. Unwilling to surrender and run the risk of torture, the unfortunate Illinois remained in the place of their retreat until one by one they died of starvation. This is the tradition current in La Salle county, and the finding of many Indian relics and bones on the Rock tend to confirm its truthfulness.