“When the chief of the tribe who possessed the country learned that the Sioux had camped at the healing spring, he sent a number of his braves with stone hatchets to cut out basins in the rock at the spring for the convenience of the Sioux and his people. These men with their flint hatchets cut one basin below the spring to hold the water for drinking, and another just below for the purpose of bathing. The basins they covered with bark tents. After bathing in the waters and drinking great quantities of it, the chief’s daughter’s limbs were restored to their natural condition, and her blindness was entirely removed, her eyesight being as bright and strong as ever.”[4] A booklet on “The Eureka Springs”, published by the Matthews, Northup and Company of Buffalo, New York in 1886 says that the Basin Spring was so called because of a peculiar bowl-shaped cavity in the rock. Twelve feet farther down the hillside was originally another basin about five feet in diameter, which was used for bathing purposes. According to this account, this basin was destroyed by overhanging rocks falling upon it. The two basins in the rock, which were present when the town was first settled, are without doubt the ones referred to in the extract of the legend given above. A slightly different version of the legend of Mor-i-na-ki is given in Allsopp’s “Folklore of Romantic Arkansas.” This version goes into detail regarding the habits and customs of the Osage Indians who inhabited the area at that time. In this version, the Sioux knew of the tradition of the healing spring before they left their northern homeland and made the trip specifically to bring the princess to it.[5] III “THE FOUNTAIN OF YOUTH” Legend says that healing springs in a far-away land were known in Asia 2,000 years ago and that the tradition was later carried to Europe where it captured the imagination of certain gentlemen in Spain. L. J. Kalklosch gives a report from contemporary writers as follows: “Before the Christian era, one Ferdinand Levendez, who was in the Roman service for a time, made the acquaintance with a barbarian prisoner by the name of Malikoroff, from whom, in the course of their chats, he learned the story of a fountain, the virtue of whose waters would restore old age to the vigor of youth and of which, if anyone drank continually, he would never die. He (Malikoroff) had it from a Tartar Chieftain under whom he once served. “The chief told him the fountain was far off in the interior of a great island almost inaccessible on account of the snow and ice to be encountered in reaching its shore, but which, on being reached, it spread out into a vast world, most of which had a pleasant climate.