Taking a more distant view toward the west, the observer might have seen the point where the North and South branches of the river met and formed the main body of the stream. The north banks of the river were wooded to the water's edge except where clearings had been made around the cabins mentioned. Looking eastward, the broad expanse of Lake Michigan stretched away beyond the limits of vision. At the season of year in which the events of which we are writing took place the lake was usually devoid of storms and rough weather. Lake Michigan at this point has a breadth of fifty miles between the mouth of the Chicago River and the opposite or Michigan shore; and there being no eminence of sufficient height to rise above the horizon, the prospect was like looking off to sea where there is an offing of thousands of miles. Northward the shores were fringed with a white oak forest, with a line of sand-hills near the beach. Looking southward, the shore of the lake trended away in a curve toward the southeast, and on its margin could be traced the sand-hills characteristic of the shores as far as the eye could reach. It is a remarkable fact that most of the details of the Chicago massacre are derived from the accounts furnished by the two women who were eye-witnesses of the scenes described. Neither of these accounts was directly written by the two women referred to, but are preserved through secondary reports. The narrative of Mrs. Helm, who was only seventeen years old at the time, was taken down from dictation apparently by Mrs. John H. Kinzie and incorporated in _Wau-Bun_. While this account, as given in the work mentioned, is enclosed in quotation-marks as if in the language of the narrator, it was evidently rendered by Mrs. Kinzie in her own words. Mrs. Kinzie was not present at the massacre, not having come to Chicago until twenty years thereafter, but she was diligent in procuring all the information available at the time of writing her book. In her later years she no doubt talked the matter over at length with Mrs. Helm, who was a half-sister of her husband. It is important, in obtaining a clear understanding of this narrative, that the names of Mrs. John Kinzie, the wife of the pioneer of 1804, and of Mrs. John H. Kinzie, the author, be not confused. The narrative of Mrs. Heald reaches posterity through the story of her son, Darius Heald. A portion was given in John Wentworth's address at the unveiling of the memorial tablet on the site of old Fort Dearborn, delivered May 21, 1881; and another portion is quoted in Joseph Kirkland's book. _The Chicago Massacre_, published some years later. Darius Heald was not born until ten years after the massacre, and his testimony, written from his dictation, was derived entirely from the oral account of his mother.