Much discussion has arisen about the word and its meaning, but the preponderance of testimony seems to point to the conclusion that the river took its name from the wild onion, leek or garlick that grew in profusion along its banks in all this region, and is still to be found in many neglected spots of original soil. Bold Tonti, La Salle's faithful lieutenant, speaks of having been nourished during his long tramp from the Illinois River to Green Bay by a weed much like the leek of France, which they dug up with their fingers and ate as they walked--surely the chi-ca-gou. The first official mention of the word "Chicago" was in the "Treaty of Greenville;" a compact made in 1795 between the Indians and "Mad Anthony" Wayne, who had lately whipped them into a treaty-making frame of mind. This treaty placed the boundary line between the whites and the Indians east of the entire state of Indiana, but excepted and retained for trading posts several isolated sections west of the line, among them "one piece of land six miles square at the mouth of Chicago River, emptying into the southwestern end of Lake Michigan, where a fort formerly stood." "Me-che-kan-nah-quah" or "Little Turtle," who took a prominent part in the making of the treaty, was the father-in-law of William Wells, the hero-martyr of the massacre, as has been set forth in Part I. [Illustration: LITTLE TURTLE--ME-CHE-KAN-NAH-QUAH.] Baptiste Pointe de Saible, some time in the last century, built a log house on the north bank of the Chicago River, near Lake Michigan, just where Pine street now ends. This modest dwelling existed through vicissitudes many and terrible. When built, it stood in a vast solitude. North of it were thick woods which covered the whole of what is now Chicago's proud "North Side." In front of it lay the narrow, deep and sluggish creek which forms the main river; and, with its two long, straggling branches, gives the city its inestimable harbor,[N] with twenty-seven miles of dock frontage. Beyond it, stretching indefinitely southward, lay the grassy flat now the "South Side," the business centre and wealthiest residence portion. Westward, beyond the north and south branches of the river, stretched the illimitable prairie, including what at the present time is the "West Side," the home of manufacturing enterprise and of a population larger than that of the two other portions put together. And to the eastward lay the lake; the only thing in nature which Jean Baptiste could recognize if he should now return to the scene of his long, lonely, half savage, half civilized sojourn. [N] The city has, besides, another harbor along the Calumet lake and river, some ten miles to the southward, which, when fully improved, will exceed the first named in extent and value. [Illustration: From "Cyclopædia of United States History."--Copyright 1881, by Harper & Brothers. GENERAL ANTHONY WAYNE.]