308 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [BULL. 43 less we have the consolation of having baptized several dying children and a very distinguished chief of the Tonicas, whom we instructed by interpreters. We were surprised to see such judgment in an Indian and dispositions as Christian as he had. As he was in extrcmis we baptized him and gave him the name of Paul. He died the next day, after performing acts of religion that greatly edited us." On the 11th we arrived at the Tonicas, about 60 leagues below the Akanseas. The first village is 4 leagues from the Mississippi inland, on the bank of a quite pretty river; they are dispersed in little villages: they cover in all 4 leagues of country. The village of the great chief is in a beautiful prairie. Sickness was among them when we arrived there. One of their chiefs being about to die, M. de Montigny asked him through an interpreter whether he wished to be baptized, to which he replied that he desired to be. Having given also some tokens of his desire, he was baptized, and died the same day. They were dying in great numbers.b In 1699 Iberville was informed by a Tainsa that the Tonicas " occupied the first village which one encountered in ascending "the river of the Chickasaw (i. e., the Yazoo), and that the Yazoo and Koroa occupied a village by themselves on the other side of the Mississippi.c But neither in this year nor on his expedition the year following did he ascend as far as the Yazoo, and it is evident that his informant was somnewlat mistaken regarding the position of these peoples unless Iberville misunderstood him or a considerable change took place between March, 1699, and April, 1700. Under date of April 14, 1700, Le Sueur, in recording his ascent of the Mssiissippi river, says: I sent to beg M. Davion, a missionary priest at the Tonicas. 7 leagues up the river, to come and say mass for us. The first settlements of the savages are 4 leagues up the river, and M. Davion is established 3 leagues higher up, on the branches (bras) of the same river.' Penicaut, who accompanied him, mentions six nations living on the right in ascending, 4 leagues from its mouth. These he gives as the Yasoux, the Offogoulas, the Tonicas, the Coroas, the Ouitoupas, and the Oussip6s."c Father Gravier, the first Jesuit to descend the Mississippi to its mouth, left the Arkansas tribe November 1, and reached Yazoo river, which he calls the river of the Tounika," on the 14th. He speaks of his experiences as follows: I left the five canoes of French at the mouth [of the Yazool ; it is on the south of the Mississippi. I embarked in my canoe to go and visit Mr. Davion, missionary priest, who was sick; I left my canoe 4 leagues from the river, at the foot of a hill, where there are five or six cabins. The road, which is 2 Letter of ie Montigny in Shea's Early Voy. liss., 75-78. La Source. Ibid., 0SS-1. C Margry, Dicouvertes, Iv, 179, 180. d lhid., v, 401. e Ibid. Penicaut appears toi hliav confused I'shpi. a Tunica nlamt for the Of,. with the Taposa of other writers who lived on the upper Yazoo not far from the Ibitoupa (Ouitoupas .