“No Ba’tiste, I’ll never mention it.
“‘Eh bien———bon nuit.’
“In this condition we sat, and in this manner we nodded away the night, as far as I recollect of it, catching the broken bits of sleep, (that were even painful to us when we got them), until the morning’s rays at length gave us a view of the scene that was around us!! Oh, all ye brick-makers, ye plasterers, and soft-soap manufacturers! put all your imaginations in a ferment together, and see if ye can invent a scene like this! Here was a ‘fix’ to be sure. The sun arose in splendour and in full, upon this everlasting and boundless scene of ‘saft soap’ and grease, which admitted us not to move. The whole hill was constituted entirely of tough clay, and on each side and above us there was no possibility of escape; and one single step over the brink of the place where we had ascended, would inevitably have launched us into the river below, the distance of an hundred feet! Here, looking like hogs just risen from a mud puddle, or a buffalo bull in his wallow, we sat, (and had to sit,) admiring the wide-spread and beautiful landscape that lay steeping and smoking before us, and our little boat, that looked like a nutshell beneath us, hanging at the shore; telling stories and filling up the while with nonsensical garrulity, until the sun’s warming rays had licked up the mud, and its dried surface, about eleven o’clock, gave us foothold, when we cautiously, but safely descended to the bottom; and then, at the last jump, which brought his feet to terra firma, Ba’tiste exclaimed, ‘Well, we have cheatee de dam muskeet, ha!’”
And this, reader, is not ‘the story,’ but one of the little incidents which stood exactly in the way, and could not well be got over without a slight notice, being absolutely necessary, as a key, or kind of glossary, for the proper understanding of the tale that is to be told. There is blood and butchery in the story that is now to be related; and it should be read by every one who would form a correct notion of the force of Indian superstitions.
Three mighty warriors, proud and valiant, licked the dust, and all in consequence of one of the portraits I painted; and as my brush was the prime mover of all these misfortunes, and my life was sought to heal the wound, I must be supposed to be knowing to and familiar with the whole circumstances, which were as—(I was going to say, as follow) but my want of time and your want of patience, compel me to break off here, and I promise to go right on with the story of the Dog in my next Letter, and I advise the reader not to neglect or overlook it.
[23] This very distinguished old chief, I have learned, died a few weeks after I painted his portrait.
[24] The reader and traveller who may have this book with him, should follow the Côteau a few miles to the North of the Quarry, for the highest elevation and greatest sublimity of view.
[25] I have in former epistles, several times spoken of the red pipes of the Indians which are found in almost every tribe of Indians on the Continent; and in every instance have, I venture to say, been brought from the Côteau des Prairies, inasmuch as no tribe of Indians that I have yet visited, have ever apprized me of any other source than this; and the stone from which they are all manufactured, is of the same character exactly, and different from any known mineral compound ever yet discovered in any part of Europe, or other parts of the American Continent. This may be thought a broad assertion—yet it is one I have ventured to make (and one I should have had no motive for making, except for the purpose of eliciting information, if there be any, on a subject so curious and so exceedingly interesting). In my Indian Museum there can always be seen a great many beautiful specimens of this mineral selected on the spot, by myself, embracing all of its numerous varieties; and I challenge the world to produce anything like it, except it be from the same locality. In a following Letter will be found a further account of it, and its chemical analysis.
[26] I am aware that this interesting fact may be opposed by subsequent travellers, who will find nobody but the Sioux upon this ground, who now claim exclusive right to it; and for the satisfaction of those who doubt, I refer them to Lewis and Clark’s Tour thirty-three years since, before the influence of Traders had deranged the system and truth of things, in these regions. I have often conversed with General Clark, of St. Louis, on this subject, and he told me explicitly, and authorized me to say it to the world, that every tribe on the Missouri told him they had been to this place, and that the Great Spirit kept the peace amongst his red children on that ground, where they had smoked with their enemies.
[27] The medicine (or leaping) rock is a part of the precipice which has become severed from the main part, standing about seven or eight feet from the wall, just equal in height, and about seven feet in diameter.