The southeastern half of Arkansas is low and flat, composed chiefly of alluvial plains; the northwestern half rugged and broken, rising toward the western border into the mountains, some three thousand feet in elevation, which gradually drop away toward the east till they disappear altogether. At the point, almost the exact center of the State, where the last foothills form the south bank of the principal river, it was inevitable that a city should be built and that that city should become the State’s capital. Indeed, so manifest was the destiny of the position that it was made the seat of government before it had become a town, and when it was far beyond the limits of actual settlement. Nor would it be easy to find a more desirable spot not beside the sea. The foundation is a rock bluff of slight elevation, but sufficient to lift the city above the danger of overflow. On this there rests a bed of gravelly clay, covered with a thin vegetable mould, and rising to the south and west in a succession of gently swelling eminences, presenting innumerable building sites of the most attractive character, and draining in every direction; equally free from steep acclivities and unwholesome flatness, and clothed by nature with a magnificent forest of wide-spreading oaks and lofty pines. Far out into the river there projects a rocky peninsula, against whose adamantine sides the stream has dashed its ineffectual fury for countless ages; and this, in contrast to the bold precipice upon the other bank, which was called the Big Rock, gave to the place its name. This promontory is now used as the abutment of one of the three bridges that span the river, and its beauty has been destroyed; but in the old days, when it was clothed with trees and ferns clinging to its rocky sides and reflected in the waters below, it was a charming sight, and must have been hailed with joy by the early travelers after their weary journey from the distant sea through the monotony of the low-lying wilderness. [Illustration: THE “LITTLE ROCK,” TO WHICH THE CITY OWES ITS NAME.] The original inhabitants of the region were the Quapaw or Arkansas Indians, a race much superior to the surrounding savages, and who dwelt not in scattered wigwams but in walled villages, and seem always to have lived in amity with the whites. Father Pierre François de Charlevoix, an early French missionary, says of them, “The Arkansas are reckoned to be the tallest and best-shaped of all the savages on this continent,” and he speaks at length of their kindness to the French, and their fidelity to their engagements. So Du Pratz, an early _voyageur_, says: “I am so prepossessed in favor of this country that I persuade myself that the beauty of the climate has a great influence on the character of the inhabitants, who are at the same time very gentle and very brave.” [Illustration: LITTLE ROCK LEVEE.]