The Illinois lodges were shaped like the rounded cover of an emigrant wagon, high, and very long, having an opening left along the top for the escape of smoke. They were made of rush mats, which the women wove, overlapped as shingles on a framework of poles. Rush mats also carpeted the ground, except where fires burned in a row along the middle. Each fire was used by two families who lived opposite, in stalls made of blankets. The ends of the lodge had flaps to shut out the weather, but these were left wide open to the summer sun. During visits of ceremony a guest stood where he could be seen and heard by all who could crowd into the wigwam. But when the Illinois held important councils they made a circular inclosure, and built a camp-fire in the center. Many families and many fires filled a long wigwam, though Jolliet and Marquette were lodged with the chief, who had one for himself and his household. Whitening embers were sending threads of smoke towards a strip of blue sky overhead when the missionary stood up to explain his errand in the crowded inclosure, dividing his talk into four parts with presents. By the first gift of cloth and beads he told his listeners that the Frenchmen were voyaging in peace to visit nations on the river. By the second he said: "I declare to you that God, your Creator, has pity on you, since, when you have been so long ignorant of him, he wishes to become known to you. I am sent on his behalf with this design. It is for you to acknowledge and obey him." By the third gift they were informed that the chief of the French had spread peace and overcome the Iroquois. And the last begged for all the information they could give about the sea and intervening nations. When Marquette sat down, the chief stood up and laid his hand on the head of a little slave, prisoner from another tribe. "I thank you, Blackgown," he said, "and you, Frenchman, for taking so much pains to come and visit us. The earth has never been so beautiful, nor the sun so bright, as to-day; never has the river been so calm and free from rocks, which your canoes removed as they passed! Never has our tobacco had so fine a flavor, nor our corn appeared so beautiful as we find it to-day. Here is my son. I give him to you that you may know my heart. Take pity on us and all our nation. You know the Great Spirit who made all: you speak to him and hear him; ask him to give us life and health and come and dwell with us."