[Illustration: E]ARLY in 1833 Indians to the number of five thousand or more, assembled at Chicago, around the fort, the village, the rivers and the portage, to treat for the sale of their entire remaining possessions in Illinois and Wisconsin. John Joseph Latrobe, in his "Rambles in North America," gives the following realistic sketch of the state of things hereabouts just sixty years ago: A mushroom town on the verge of a level country, crowded to its utmost capacity and beyond, a surrounding cloud of Indians encamped on the prairie, beneath the shelter of the woods, on the river-side or by the low sand-hills along the lake, companies of old warriers under every bush, smoking, arguing, palavering, pow-wowing, with no apparent prospect of agreement. The negotiations dragged on for weeks and months, for the Indians were slow to put an end to their jollification, an occasion when they were the guests of the Government, and fared sumptuously with nothing to pay. The treaty had still to be ratified by the senate before its provisions could be carried out and the settlement made. This took about two years. [Illustration: FAREWELL WAR-DANCE OF THE INDIANS, AUGUST 18, 1835.] The money paid and the goods delivered, the Indians shook the dust off their feet and departed; the dust shaking being literal, for once, as they joined, just before starting, in a final "war-dance." For this strange scene, we fortunately have as witness Ex-Chief-Justice Caton, previously quoted herein. He estimates the dancers at eight hundred, that being all the braves that could be mustered, out of the five thousand members then present of the departing tribes. The date was August 18th, 1835. He says: