The things we do!

Instead, however, of following their old course they
entered the Illinois River, known sometimes as the "Divine River." I
borrow the observing father's description of that particular valley as it
was just two centuries before I first remember seeing it. "We have seen
nothing like this river for the fertility of the land, its prairies,
woods, wild cattle, stag, deer, wildcats, bustards, swans, ducks, parrots,
and even beaver; its many little lakes and rivers." [Footnote: B. F.
French, "Historical Collections of Louisiana," 4:51. "Jesuit Relations"
(Thwaites), 59:161.] Through this paradise of plenty they passed, up one
of the branches of the Illinois, till within a few miles of Lake Michigan,
where they portaged a thousand paces to a creek that emptied into the lake
of the Illinois. If they were following that portage path and creek today
they would be led through that city which stands next to Paris in
population--the city of Chicago, in the commonwealth that bears the name
of the land through which the French voyagers passed, "Illinois.


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