We took leave of our guides about the end of June, and embarked in presence of all the village, who admired our birch canoes, as they had never before seen anything like them.  We descended the river, looking for another called Pekitanoni [Missouri], which runs from the northwest into the Mississippi....

As we were descending the river we saw high rocks with hideous monsters painted on them, and upon which the bravest Indians dare not look.  They are as large as a calf, with head and horns like a goat; their eyes red; beard like a tiger’s; and a face like a man’s.  Their tails are so long that they pass over their beads and between their fore legs, under their belly, and ending like a fish’s tail.  They are painted red, green, and black.  They are so well drawn that I cannot believe they were drawn by the Indians.  And for what purpose they were made seems to me a great mystery.  As we fell down the river, and while we were discoursing upon these monsters, we heard a great rushing and bubbling of waters, and small islands of floating trees coming from the mouth of the Pekitanoni [Missouri], with such rapidity that we could not trust ourselves to go near it.  The water of this river is so muddy that we could not drink it.  It so discolors the Mississippi as to make the navigation of it dangerous.  This river comes from the northwest, and empties into the Mississippi, and on its banks are situated a number of Indian villages.  We judged by the compass, that the Mississippi discharged itself into the Gulf of Mexico.  It would, however, have been more agreeable if it had discharged itself into the South Sea or Gulf of California....

Having satisfied ourselves that the Gulf of Mexico was in latitude 31 deg. 40’, and that we could reach it in three or four days’ journey from the Akansea [Arkansas River], and that the Mississippi discharged itself into it, and not to the eastward of the Cape of Florida, nor into the California Sea, we resolved to return home.  We considered that the advantage of our travels would be altogether lost to our nation if we fell into the hands of the Spaniards, from whom we could expect no other treatment than death or slavery; besides, we saw that we were not prepared to resist the Indians, the allies of the Europeans, who continually infested the lower part of this river; we therefore came to the conclusion to return, and make a report to those who had sent us.  So that having rested another day, we left the village of the Akansea, on the seventeenth of July, 1673, having followed the Mississippi from the latitude 42 deg. to 34 deg., and preached the Gospel to the utmost of my power, to the nations we visited.  We then ascended the Mississippi with great difficulty against the current, and left it in the latitude of 38 deg. north, to enter another river [Illinois], which took us to the lake of the Illinois [Michigan], which is a much shorter way than through the River Mesconsin [Wisconsin], by which we entered the Mississippi....