At Rock Island, in which stood Fort Armstrong, a handsome and truly formidable fortress, the Captain kindly landed to afford the passengers an opportunity of witnessing the formalities of concluding a treaty which was being held between Gov. Dodge, acting for the United States, and the chiefs of the Sauk and Fox Indians, during which the latter ceded to the Government their immensely valuable reservation situate on the Iowa river, ‘west of the Mississippi, and nearly opposite to Rock Island— the sum stipulated for the purchase being, as it was then understood, seventy-five cents per acre.* The acquisition of this domain was considered of great importance to the country; not so much on account of its intrinsic value as to get rid of those mischievous tribes of Indians, who up to a period very recent had kept up a continual warfare with their white neighbors, at the instigation of Black Hawk, who strenuously maintained to the last, that they had been unjustly deprived of the lands and homes inherited from their fathers, and which ended only with the capture of that brave old chief, and the consequent termination of war, August, 1832.