CHAPTER XXIII
VOYAGE FROM FORT UNION TO FORT CLARKE, FROM OCTOBER 30TH TO NOVEMBER 8TH
Last Visit to Fort William—Flakes of Ice in the Missouri—Bad Condition of our Larder—Relief from this Distress—Mr. Bodmer misses his Way in the Forest—Loss of our Geological Collections—Conical Red Hills—Departure of the Antelopes—Tameness of the Magpies—Destruction of the Woods by the Beavers—Escape of a Visit from the Indians—Winter Village of the Manitaries—Unexpected Meeting with Dougherty and Charbonneau—The Manitari Chief, Lachpitzi-Sihrish—The Fontaine-Rouge, with the Petrified Trees—Visit to the Tent of Pare-Flêche-Rouge—Arrival at Fort Clarke.
On the 30th of October, the weather being fine, we left Fort Union, and stopped for a moment at Fort William, opposite the mouth of the Yellow Stone, to take leave of Mr. Campbell. The thicket of willows on the steep bank of the river had been cut down, in order to open a view to the yet unfinished fort, which is about 300 paces from the bank. Mr. Campbell presented me with some specimens of natural history, and furnished me with cigars, of which we had long been deprived; they really are a great comfort on a long voyage. We took charge of his letters, and having taken leave, proceeded on our voyage. As the provisions for my people consisted of bad old bacon, and my own stock was limited to a ham which had been obligingly left to me, from the very scanty stock of provisions at Fort Union, with some coffee, sugar, and ship biscuit, we were very desirous of obtaining some game, and went on shore on a tongue of land, on the south bank, where we soon saw several wolves, and a troop of seven deer, but could not get near enough to fire at them. Great clouds of smoke rose from several parts of the prairie, doubtless caused by the woodcutters of Fort William, the hunters of which we likewise perceived at a distance. The thickets were quite stripped of their foliage; the buffalo berry bushes alone yet bore some sere yellow leaves. Prairie hens, magpies, and the coal titmouse, the latter sitting among the willow bushes, were the only specimens of the feathered tribe which we observed. Numerous tracks of {310} animals were visible on the beach, and among them the small delicate footprint of two different kinds of mice. We proceeded till eight o'clock in the evening, when we lay to, as it grew too dark to venture farther. Afterwards, however, the moon rose in great splendour, and towards morning we had a sharp frost.
Very early on the 31st we saw numerous flights of prairie hens crossing the river in companies of thirty or forty, and heard the whistling of the elk stag, which, at times, like that of our European stags, is heard at a late hour. When we lay to for breakfast, we were in a thick forest, with the same underwood as we have before mentioned, especially buffalo berries, in great abundance. They were of a beautiful bright red colour, and very palatable, for, like our sloes, they require a touch of the frost before they are good eating, yet they were still astringent and acid; mixed with sugar, however, they were not unpleasant. With this fruit we refreshed our bears and my little fox, to which they afforded an agreeable variety in their food, but we did not fare so well ourselves, having hitherto tried, whenever it was possible, to obtain game, but in vain. Everywhere we found traces of beavers, gnawed trunks of trees, abattis and paths trodden smooth. The willow thickets were frequented by the coal mouse and magpie. As our firing had been ineffectual upon a flock of white swans and some wild geese, we again lay to near the Rivière Bourbeuse (White Earth River of Lewis and Clarke),[162] and some of our hunters traversed the country, while the boat remained fastened under the steep bank. Flakes of ice already floated down the Missouri, and broke, with much noise, against the snags in the water. This ice comes from the tributary rivers; in this place it came from the Rivière Bourbeuse, and the noise occasioned by it is increased by that of the banks falling in, the dashing of the waves, and the high wind. My live animals, which would not eat pork, were half famished, and the bears especially made an incessant growling, which was in every respect highly disagreeable. Our hopes were disappointed; the hunters had missed two head of game; and, at four in the afternoon, I continued the voyage, though very slowly, because my people complained of fatigue. If the Canadians are not always well fed, there is no depending upon their perseverance. We lay to early for the evening, and the people dispersed in the forest to hunt. At the spot where we now were, we saw many traces of all kinds of game. Beyond a close thicket of young poplars (cotton wood), were sand hills covered with yellow grass, and yet further distant, a forest of lofty poplars, beneath which the ground was clothed with a dark red undergrowth of cornus, rose, and buffalo berry bushes, entwined round their stems with clematis and vine; a few grapes were still hanging on the branches, but they were very small and indifferent, and did not suit the taste of even my little fox. The hunters were again unsuccessful: they had seen nothing but the usual species of birds; and as for me, I found only a small flock of Fringilla linaria, which were so tame that they almost settled upon our fowling-pieces. Our supper was extremely frugal; but on the morning of the following day, the 1st of November, when we lay to at a scattered forest, Morrin was so fortunate as to kill {311} a large elk, which quite revived our sunken spirits. In this forest there were deeply trodden paths of wild animals, and great numbers of prairie hens, which, however, were extremely shy; when they were roused, they uttered a note almost like that of our snipes, not, however, fainter towards the close, but louder and stronger. The ground was so dry, and the withered leaves rustled so beneath our feet as we trod upon them, that we could not get near them. The small striped squirrel was pretty frequent here. Another elk was afterwards shot, so that we were well provided for several days, and the lamentations of my hungry animals were put a stop to. As we proceeded on our voyage we frequently saw game, and the prairie hens, like all birds of that kind, flew about us with the swiftness of an arrow.
The singular red, burnt, conical summits of the hills attracted our attention, till we lay to, at a little before four o'clock, near an extensive forest on the south bank, to dress our dinner. The poplar wood was thin, near the bank, but had a thick undergrowth of roses, in which were a greater number of traces of wild animals than we had yet seen, a sight which instantly set our hunters in motion. I found the pretty little four-striped squirrel (Tamias quadrivittatus), in great numbers, which ran quickly along the ground, and up the trees, with the fruit of the rose in its mouth. My people caught one of these delicate creatures alive, which, to my great regret, afterwards made its escape. On account of the dry leaves we could not closely approach large game, though we heard the noise of considerable herds of them; and all our hunters returned before dark, except Mr. Bodmer, whom we looked for in vain. Night came on, we called, fired our pieces, but could obtain no intelligence of our fellow-traveller. We waited till eight o'clock, in no small anxiety, till at length we heard a shot higher up the river, which we immediately answered. Dreidoppel and Hugron instantly proceeded in that direction, and at length happily returned with our lost companion. In pursuing a stag, Mr. Bodmer had often changed his direction, and at last got quite bewildered; he had walked eight or ten miles, had been entangled in terrible thorny thickets, and got into a morass. At length he reached the prairie, where he perceived a troop of about twenty Indians, and hastened back into the forest; then, notwithstanding the Indians were so near, he fired six shots as signals of distress, and at length had the pleasure of descrying, from a hill, the shining surface of the river; thitherward he worked his way, directly through the thickets. As soon as he had been refreshed with some food, we loosened from the bank, where our presence had been betrayed by so many shots. We, however, lay to at a sand bank a little further down on the opposite side, and there passed a cold night, without fire or covering, in a high wind.
Next day, the 2nd November, was cold and bleak, and the tempestuous wind so unfavourable that we could only pass one tongue of land, and were compelled to stop nearly the whole day. A boat, laden with maize, belonging to Mr. Campbell, here passed us; it had left the Mandan villages a fortnight before. We had made our fire in a close thicket of poplars, under a {312} high steep bank, sheltered from the wind. Our hunters dispersed in different directions, and I soon heard a shot not far distant, on which I advanced. Dreidoppel had roused two Virginian deer, and wounded one of them. We followed the trace of this animal, which we killed, and I succeeded in shooting the other deer, which would not abandon its companion. This success afforded us some fresh game, and my people employed themselves in cooking all the remainder of the day, nor would anything induce them to stir from the spot. We found, in the forest, traces of large bears, saw the prairie fox come out of its burrow, and found no other animals, except the small striped squirrel and one species of birds, the coal mouse, which defies the severe winter in these parts. In the afternoon we hoped to shoot wolves or foxes that might be attracted by the entrails of the deer we had killed, and, therefore, concealed ourselves; but only crows, ravens, and magpies, were lured by the bait. At six in the evening it grew dark; we increased our fire for the night, about which we sat till nine o'clock, while my engagés lay snoring on the ground. The surrounding wood was pitch dark; the wolves howled incessantly on both sides of the river, till the moon rose, and the wind abated, so that we were able to proceed before daybreak on the 3rd of November.
We again observed the black strata of the bituminous coal, and found fine fragments, which had fallen down, together with the pieces of the grey sand-stone of the adjoining strata. I increased my collections with the most interesting series of the rocks of the Upper Missouri, which, I regret to say, have not reached Europe, as they were irrecoverably lost. On this voyage down the river I had better opportunities of examining the singular red, burnt, and conical tops of the summits of the bank, and they afforded me much interest. The rocky walls, and the red hills, covered with fragments burnt red, exactly resembled the refuse of our brick kilns, and they emitted, when struck, a clear sound, like that of the best Dutch clinkers. Under those red cones we generally saw a stratum of the bituminous coal; both often appeared together. I observed several slight hollows, resembling craters, surrounded by pyramids of the red rock. Caverns and holes, too, frequently appeared in this clay and sand-stone; and the remarkable light grey rocks, marked with darker transverse stripes, and with bright red tops, which now were pink, or different shades of crimson, as the faint rays of the sun here and there tinged them, and gave them a highly picturesque appearance. The swallows' nests fixed against the perpendicular walls, of which the Prince de Musignano[163] made a drawing, were now completely deserted by their tenants. At noon we lay to at a prairie, which we explored while my people were cooking their dinner; but we found only ravens, crows, magpies, and prairie hens. The ground between the yellow, sere grass, was so dry that the dust rose at every step; it was, in some places, overgrown with rose bushes, from two to four feet high, symphoria, and groups of poplars. We did not encounter any buffaloes till we reached Fort Clarke; they appeared to have retired from the river; very frequently, however, we saw the paths and traces of other animals. Flocks of prairie hens, forty or more {313} together, seemed particularly to choose, as their resort, the drift-wood on the banks of the river. A magpie was so tame that it settled on the rudder of the boat, while Morrin was at the helm. Towards evening we lay to, on the steep bank, where the kingfisher, the magpie, and the wren (doubtless, Troglodytes hyemalis), had taken up their abode, the latter among the dry drift-wood. Here we kindled our fire, in a tall poplar forest, where stems two feet thick nearly formed a circle. As we had passed the territory of the most dangerous Indians, and the nights became more and more cold, we constantly kept up a fire at our bivouac, and on this evening again began our night-watches, because we were approaching a very numerous Indian tribe near the Missouri. Mr. Bodmer amused himself with taking a sketch of our bivouac in the forest, where we leaned against the trees, sat round the fire and smoked our pipes, amidst the concert of the howling wolves and the screeching owls.[164]
On the 4th of November, we passed, at noon, the mouth of White Earth River (Rivière Blanche), or Goat Penn River of Lewis and Clarke. At this spot there was, formerly, a fort, which was abandoned in 1829, when Fort Union was built.[165] A little below the mouth of this river, the high wind obliged us to lay to; woods and thickets, with high dry grass, and prairies, either bare or covered with artemisia, formed an extensive wilderness, traversed by the paths of stags and buffaloes, where we found many deer's horns and other remains of these animals, as well as tracks of enormous bears (Ursus ferox). We did not, however, see any large game, but only prairie hens, and a few stray blackbirds and flocks of the small finches (Fringilla linaria), which were picking up the seeds of the plants among the grass. It appeared that this wilderness had been visited by Indians a short time before. After a considerable halt we proceeded at two o'clock, passed the Butte Carrée, and lay to, in the evening, near a narrow strip of wood on the steep southern bank, behind which extended the prairie. The night was clear, the wind cold, and the moon rose at twelve o'clock.
The morning of the 5th of November was bleak and chilly, and the wind numbed the fasting travellers, till we lay to, at eight o'clock, at a prairie overgrown with thick bushes, where we prepared our breakfast, and where the number of prairie hens immediately induced our hunters to bestir themselves. I had unluckily loaded my piece with small shot, for a Virginian deer ran close by me from out of a thicket, which I might otherwise have very easily shot. We saw a troop of elks, and our little friend, the striped squirrel, which, however, is not yet found so low down the river as the Mandan villages. At eleven o'clock we proceeded on our voyage, in which we were protected by the high banks from the bleak wind, and enlivened and cheered by the sun. A herd of antelopes crossed the Missouri before us, and we in vain attempted to intercept them. These pretty animals generally leave the Missouri at this time, and hasten, on the approach of winter, to the Black Hills. A magpie alighted on the rudder, uttering its note, "twit, twit," which is quite different from that of the European magpie. We saw but few ducks {314} and other water fowl, which had before afforded us so much amusement; doubtless, because they found more subsistence on the lakes, which were not yet frozen. We lay to, for the night, on the southern bank, where the forest was completely laid waste by the beavers. They had felled a number of large trees, chips of which were scattered about on the ground. Most of the trees were half gnawed through, broken down, or dead, and in this manner a bare place was formed in the forest. Not far off we saw in the river a beaver den, or, as the Americans call it, a beaver lodge, to which there was a very well trodden and smooth path, which we availed ourselves of, to go to and from our boat. Nature appears to have peculiarly adapted these remarkable animals to the large thickets of poplar and willow of the interior of North America, where the Whites, on their first arrival, found them in immense numbers, and soon hastened to sacrifice these harmless creatures to their love of gain. Numerous tracks of animals of all kinds, especially elks, bears, and wolves, were observed; the wolves prowled around us at no great distance, and at ten o'clock, when I had the watch, they came between our bright fire and the boat, which was only forty paces distant, being attracted by the smell of the meat.
On the next day, the 6th, we likewise met with many gnawed trees, which proved that the number of the beavers was still pretty considerable. Morrin had shot in the morning a fat fawn, which was gladly welcomed by us. We had traversed a forest admirably suited to the chase, when we met with a great deal of game, but, on account of the dry leaves, could not get near enough. Besides the animals which I have often mentioned, we saw some new species of birds, of which, however, I was quite unable to obtain a specimen.