[355] This is the distance by water; on horseback, the journey has been accomplished in ten days.—Maximilian.
[356] On this subject see "Astoria," and "Adventures of Captain Bonneville," also "Ross Cox's Adventures on the Columbia River," p. 198. The dress of the white agents of the Company is made of cloth, like our own; but the hunters often wear a leather dress, ornamented, for the most part, in the Indian fashion, while the common engagés wear white blanket coats, such as I have described when speaking of the inhabitants of Indiana, on the Wabash. They are mostly shod in Indian mocassins, a dozen pair of which may be purchased from the Indian women for one dollar, when they are not ornamented. The hunters, here, maintain that these Indian shoes are better adapted to the prairies than our European ones, as they do not become so slippery. They are frequently soled with elk hide, or parchment. The worst is, that they are easily penetrated by the prickles of the cactus, and on this account we greatly preferred our European shoes. At Fort Union, artisans of almost every description are to be met with, such as smiths, masons, carpenters, joiners, coopers, tailors, shoemakers, hatters, &c.—Maximilian.
[357] Some idea may be formed of the enormous quantity of beavers killed every year, from the circumstance that the Hudson's Bay Company sends to London alone 50,000, this animal being found as far as the coasts of the Frozen Ocean.—Maximilian.
[358] At Rock River, which falls into the Mississippi, the Indians caught, in 1825, about 130,000 musk-rats; in the following year, about half the number; and, in about two years after, these animals were scarcely to be met with. Previous to this time, an Indian caught, in thirty days, as many as 1,600 of them. In South America, there is only one species of wild animal, known to me, whose skins are collected in large quantities. According to D'Orbigny, in the first six months of 1828, above 150,000 dozen Quiyaa were sold, in Corrientes, at from fifteen to eighteen francs the dozen. The Indians hunt this animal, which lives in the morasses, with dogs, and shoot it with arrows.—Maximilian.
[359] See Plate 62, in the accompanying atlas, our volume xxv.—Ed.
[360] See Plate 15, in the accompanying atlas, our volume xxv.—Ed.
[361] Unfortunately, all these interesting specimens were destroyed in the fire on board the steam-boat.—Maximilian.
Comment by Ed. Reference is made to the burning of the "Assiniboine." See note 179, ante, p. 240.
[362] William Keating, Narrative of an Expedition to the source of St. Peter's River, performed in the year 1823, under command of Stephen H. Long (Philadelphia, 1824).—Ed.
[363] Sir John Franklin, Narrative of a Journey to the shores of the Polar Sea in the years 1819, 1820, 1821, and 1822 (London, 1823), p. 104.—Ed.