for April 13, 1708, is the statement:" 1708, Apr. 25. Ad ripam Metchigamiam dictam venimus. TM The Metchigamia River re-ferred to the stream later call [d the Kaskaskia, and so the old French village of Kaskaskia can be said to date from April, 1703. Originally the Kaskaskias had lived much further north, and had been settled with the Frenchmen's other allies, the Wea, Miami, Shawnee, and Piankashaw near La Salle's fort on the Illinois River. But in the late fall of 1700 they had left with their missionary for new camp grounds on the Des P• res River in Missouri, opposite the Tamoroa. or Cahokia mission. Then in the early winter of 1703 they set out once more with the intention of moving twenty-five leagues south, about a day's journey from Juchereau's tannery on the Ohio. For some reason, however, they stopped short of the Ohio, and settled on the bottom-land peninsula that lay between the Kaskaskia and Mississippi Rivers. The bottom-land was one of the most fertile strips in the whole