At the distance of eleven miles we crossed a small river, flowing with a very gentle current over a gravelly bed, with a breadth of fifty or sixty yards, and an extreme depth of three feet; we have named [83] it Little Neosho, or Stinking Fork.[115] Its western bottom is of very considerable width, well wooded with the before mentioned description of trees, in addition to which the hackberry here first appears, and supporting a crowded undergrowth of pea-vines, nettles, and rank weeds, which obstruct the passage of the traveller. The eastern bank, upon which our noon-day encampment was established, was high rock and precipitous, requiring considerable exertion to surmount it.
Here the organic reliquiæ are somewhat more distinct than those which we examined on the opposite side of this secondary river. They are referable to those generally extinct genera that inhabited the great depths of the primeval ocean. Amongst them we recognized a smooth species of anomia of the length of half an inch, a species of terebratula, an encrinus, and numerous insulated species of a Linnæan echinus.
At two o'clock pursued our journey, under an extreme heat of 92 degrees, which was hardly mitigated by the gentle fanning of a slight S. E. breeze. The appearance of the country here undergoes a somewhat abrupt change. Low scrubby oaks, the prevailing timber, no longer exclusively restricted, as we have hitherto observed it, to a mere margin of a watercourse, now was seen extending in little clusters or oases, in the low grounds. In the ravines, which are numerous, profound, abrupt, and rocky, we observed the hickory (caria of Nuttall), which had not before occurred since our departure from the forest of the Missouri. The bluffs are steep and stony, rendering the journey much more laborious to our horses, that were almost exhausted by traversing a plain country, and their hoofs, already very much worn by constant friction with the grass, will, we fear, be splintered and broken by the numerous loose and angular stones which they cannot avoid. Near the summits of some of these bluffs the stratum of rock [84] assumes an appearance of such extraordinary regularity, as to resemble an artificial wall, constructed for the support of the superincumbent soil.
At the distance of eight miles from the small river before mentioned we encamped for the night, on the east side of a creek which we call Little Verdigrise.[116]
It is about forty yards in breadth, and not so deep as the Little Neosho; its bed is gravelly, but the foot of each bank is so miry that we experienced some difficulty in crossing. There is but a slight skirting of forest, which denotes to the distant spectator the locality of this creek.
One of the hunters returned with the information of his having discovered a small field of maize, occupying a fertile spot, at no great distance from the camp; it exhibited proofs of having been lately visited by the cultivators; a circumstance which leads us to believe, that an ascending column of smoke, seen at a distance this afternoon, proceeded from an encampment of Indians, whom, if not a war-party, we should now rejoice to meet. We took the liberty, agreeably to the customs of the Indians, of procuring a mess of corn, and some small but nearly ripe water-melons, that were also found growing there, intending to recompense the Osages for them, to whom we supposed they belonged. During the night we were visited by a slight shower of rain from the S. W., accompanied by distant thunder.
[85] CHAPTER XII [VI]
Indian Hunting Encampment—Brackish Water—The Party Pressed by Hunger—Forked-tailed Flycatcher—An Elevated, almost Mountainous, Range of Country—Desertion of Three Men—Red Water.
Saturday, 19th. Several small corn fields were seen this morning along the creek. At a short distance from our place of encampment we passed an Indian camp that had a more permanent aspect than any we had before seen near this river. The boweries were more completely covered, and a greater proportion of bark was used in the construction of them. They are between sixty and seventy in number. Well-worn traces, or paths, lead in various directions from this spot; and the vicinity of the corn fields induces the belief that it is occasionally occupied by a tribe of Indians, for the purposes of cultivation as well as of hunting.