On the 6th of July, at seven in the morning, after we had taken leave of the inmates of the fort, our men began to tow the Flora. The American flag was hoisted on the fort, and several guns were fired, on both sides, as a farewell salute. The weather was warm and fine, so that the men who towed the vessel suffered from the heat, and frequently lay down on the muddy bank of the river to drink. Beyond the wood, where the dead of the Assiniboins were deposited in the trees, a bend of the river to the north made us lose sight of the fort, and Mr. Mc Kenzie, who had accompanied us so far, wished us a happy voyage, and rode back; on which the cannon of our vessel again fired a salute. We afterwards rowed in the boat to the south bank, where we landed several of our people to hunt, and rambled through the dense forest and the prairie. The ground, which was everywhere seen between the high grass, was an indurated whitish clay, on which the plants, of which we collected several, grew only in single spots. We saw no game, it being too near the fort; but we observed traces of stags and buffaloes, and numbers of their bones. The yellow-breasted Icteria viridis was singing among the thickets, especially in the rose bushes. We ascended the high, bare, clay hills, from the summit of which we saw our vessel approaching. The prospect was very fine; we overlooked the windings of the river, the verdant moors, the forests, and the thickets, the prairies here and there extending beyond them, and the lofty fantastic chain of clay hills, of a whitish-grey colour, with some darker strata, or horizontal stripes, and regular perpendicular {208} clefts or ravines. The twenty-six men who towed our boat had been often obliged to put off the greater part of their clothes, to wade through the water, and the mud of the soft sand banks. The trunk of a tree, lying on a bank, broke the door of our cabin, and we were frequently obliged to row. For this purpose there were on the deck, two large and long oars, which were worked by three or five men, who walked backwards and forwards. At a large pile of drift-wood on the bank, an immense tree swept our deck, as the people who were towing did not hear us call to them, and broke the stays, by which I received a severe blow, which might have proved dangerous. Often, too, we came so near the bank, that the earth covered the windows, and made our cabins quite dark. We had our dinner at four o'clock, consisting of salt pork, pemmican, hard ship's biscuit, and coffee. In the evening, when the sun was setting, and illumined the chain of hills with wonderful splendour, our hunters returned with a young deer. On this day Mr. Mitchell divided the crew of the vessel into watches, so that two men might always watch, who were relieved three times in the night. Powder and ball were distributed among the men, but they were forbidden, under penalty of five dollars, to fire, which might easily have attracted Indian war parties. On the following morning (July 7), the weather was agreeable and the sky clear; we saw many swans, but could not get at them. We had before observed these beautiful birds and wild geese on the sandy beach. The young branches of the thickets had suffered by the frost, and the river had fallen four inches; to-day, however, the heat was so intense that we could scarcely bear it on deck. We observed that the stems of the poplars, to the height of five feet, or fifteen feet above the present level of the river, had the bark rubbed off by the ice. In this part there appeared, before the hills, cones of a most singular shape, burnt to a brick red; and the summits of the higher hills were often strangely formed in various angles. In the whitish strata of clay-slate between the clay are here and there apertures, arched above in the form of the gates or windows of knights' castles. The men who towed our boat killed, in the prairie, a large rattlesnake, the rattle of which we had heard on board the vessel. The hunters had seen some elks and deer; and Dechamp brought one of the latter on board. The towers had much labour at this part of our voyage, the current of the river being very strong; they were sometimes obliged to climb, in a long row, up the hills, where we saw them suspended, like chamois, in dangerous positions. Mr. Bodmer sketched some of these hills on the left bank.[14] In other places, the engagés who were towing were obliged to make a way on the bank by cutting down large poplars and thick bushes, which often cost much time and trouble. Here they often met with rattlesnakes, of which they killed several. Mr. Bodmer came so near one of these snakes, that he had nearly been bitten by it; he, however, killed it by a blow, and brought it on board. On this occasion, Mr. Mitchell told us that he had once seen an Indian boy die in an hour and a half after having been bitten by one of these snakes.
{209} According to Ross Cox,[15] the Canadians eat the rattlesnake; but I can affirm that we never saw an instance of it; on the contrary, they always manifested the greatest antipathy to those animals. This traveller likewise says that the serpent often bites itself, but I cannot believe this, as I never succeeded in any attempt to make him do so.
The next day, the 8th, we had again many difficulties. The river was shallow in places, and our men were obliged to get into the water to push our vessel on. In order to convey them from the boat to the land, there were no means but by laying a board, which had to be placed in a slanting position, so that it was no easy matter to climb up. On the left bank they were often prevented from proceeding, because the ground was so loose that it gave way under their feet. In this manner three Assiniboins had been killed, who sat down below the bank, when the sand fell, and buried them. The forest through which our men passed, had, in these parts, a very thick underwood of roses and buffalo-berries, and there were many very large frogs in it. At a place where the chain of hills recedes behind woods and thickets from the Missouri, we came to the mouth of a stream, with a soft bottom, which is called, by the Canadians, La Rivière aux Trembles, and, by Lewis and Clarke, Martha's River.[16] Of all the hunters whom we had landed at this place, Papin alone brought a very fat deer; but it cost much trouble to take our hunters on board again, for the engagés who went with the boat for that purpose, fell up to the waist in mud, after taking off their clothes. They were forced partly to swim, partly to wade, in order to reach the land. A little further up, the labour of the men towing the vessel was still greater; for, on the other side of a sand bank, the river was covered with snags, the intervals between which were hidden by foam and small twigs. The men, in a long row, had to step or jump from one of these snags to another, the sand being too soft to bear their weight; but they frequently missed the snags, and fell between them, up to their arms, into the river, so that many of them, who had never before done such work, trembled all over, and returned to the vessel. When they had got over these difficulties, they reached the prairie, beyond which, at the distance of from 150 to 200 paces from the bank of the river, the most singular pyramids rose, like towers. Our hunters had killed an elk, a variable hare,[17] and a large rattlesnake. The willow thickets on the bank, over which the goatsucker was hovering, and from the edge of which a large wolf stood looking at us, were full of mosquitoes, which, happily for us, were kept at a distance from the vessel by a slight wind, when we took up our quarters for the night on shore. If we shot a goatsucker, we found in his capacious jaws a ball of mosquitoes, which quite filled it, which are gradually collected and swallowed from time to time; so that the name, mangeur des maringouins, given to this bird by the Canadians, is very appropriate. During the night, however, those troublesome insects had found their way into our cabin, and sadly tormented us on the 9th, in the morning, for which reason we were very glad to proceed on our voyage, which, {210} however, began with new difficulties. Two deer swam through the river near us, and many shots were fired at them in vain, as well as at some buffaloes; yet our deck was quite hung round with game, especially portions of the large elks. Our men broke the large bones of these animals, and used the marrow for greasing the locks of their guns. The skins of such animals, killed on these voyages, belong to the Company, and are used to make shoes for their servants.
About twelve pair of Indian shoes are made of one large elk's skin, the making of which costs a dollar; the skin of a Virginian deer will produce only five or six pair.
About ten in the morning a violent storm arose, accompanied with rain; the thermometer was at 71°, and the mosquitoes were very troublesome. On the bank we saw a long yellow clay hill, in the shape of a fortress, and before it smaller hills, with isolated cones, partly consisting of purple clay.[18] Near these singular hills our hunters had killed a couple of deer, and brought with them the horns of a large elk, with seven antlers. We lay to for the evening at the wooded bank, where numerous beautiful shrubs were partly in flower. Early on the morning of the 10th, the hunters landed, and soon returned with the information that they had killed three buffaloes and a bear. As the distance was too great to bring the latter to the vessel, they had only cut off his claws; but some men were despatched to fetch the buffaloes. We traversed the forest into the open prairie, where the animals lay, at the distance of full half a league. In the forest we, for the first time, killed the magpie of this country (Pica Hudsonica, Bonn), which, in appearance, much resembles that of Europe; but differs considerably in its note and manners. Its nest was in a thick thorn bush, seven feet from the ground, and had two young birds in it. I have never seen these birds with more than two young ones; and the old birds are very shy in summer, and it is very difficult to surprise them. Not far from the magpie we found a couple of young owls, fully grown, sitting close to each other on a branch, while the note of the old bird was heard in the high trees in the vicinity. In the thick bushes we heard the note of the cheerful and agile Icteria viridis. The bushes of dogwood, symphoria, and roses, were so full of mosquitoes, that when we had discharged our pieces, it was difficult to reload them. The heat was great, and not a breath of air was stirring to relieve us from those cruel bloodsuckers. In the neighbouring prairie we found the cactus plant, which we have before mentioned, covered with the most beautiful flowers, which attracted vast numbers of insects. About twelve o'clock the men returned with the buffaloes, and we went on board with them. They had seen several buffaloes, but could bring away the flesh of only two of those that had been killed. After leaving this place, the bank was covered with low bushes, so that we were in no danger from the falling of high trees; but large portions of the steep bank itself frequently fell down, and dashed the water even into our cabin. Messrs. Bodmer and Mitchell made an excursion into the wood, where they saw many wild pigeons, numerous traces of bears, and the corpse of an Assiniboin deposited in a tree. There was an undergrowth of black currants, in search of which our people always {211} went, whenever they had a moment to spare. Towards evening, when we lay to near the prairie of the north bank, a violent storm seemed to threaten the safety of the vessel, and it was therefore made as fast as possible, but it passed over, the clouds dispersed, and our fears were dispelled. At half past nine in the evening we saw a faint aurora borealis, the rays of which shot up into the sky; the temperature of the air was pleasant, but the sky was not free from clouds, which diminished the brightness of the meteor.
On the morning of the 11th of July, Mr. Bodmer took sketches of the singular chain of hills, near which our people experienced great difficulties from sinking in the mud, and were often obliged to swim; twenty-nine of them were employed at the towing-rope, till a very violent storm, with torrents of rain, compelled us to take shelter on the bank, under cover of a tall poplar wood. The rain penetrated through the deck into our cabin, and wetted our baggage; luckily it was of short duration. We had now passed a place called L'Isle au Coupè (the cut-off), but the Missouri had here broken through at one of its large bends, and had formed a low island opposite to a marshy tongue of land; the channel follows the main breach, and beyond this the river is very broad: at this time it was high and full. Helianthus petiolaris, in full size and beauty, as well as the two species of willows (Salix longijolia and lucida) already mentioned, grew on the banks of the river; they are exposed to constant destruction; the river tears them away in large masses, and throws them into its rapid waves; but the ever-acting energy of nature is not to be restrained, and they soon appear again on the new alluvial soil, though, in general, only young, slender willows. We fired in vain at a couple of swans on a small stream called Porcupine River,[19] the mouth of which is on the north side, and an elk, killed by Dechamp,[20] detained us some time to take the flesh on board. We then reached Two Thousand Miles River, so called by Lewis and Clarke, which joins the Missouri on the north side, from which, to the junction of the Missouri with the Mississippi, it is said to be 2,000 miles.[21] At this place the forest joined an extensive prairie, covered with bushes of artemisia, where we found, on the ground, large cast-off elks' horns. Many isolated trees were quite dry, and of a silver-grey colour, doubtless through a prairie fire; in one of them we heard the chirping of the young of a pair of sparrow-hawks, which are very common here; the old birds flew anxiously about. Here, too, were numbers of the great fly-catcher (Muscicapa tyrannus). Elks and deer had traversed the prairie in all directions, and trodden many paths to the river. The prairie extended, without interruption, as far as the eye could reach; it is called Prairie à la Corne de Cerf, because the wandering Indians have here erected a pyramid of elks' horns. As we perceived it from the river, we went to it, accompanied by Dechamp and Sancier.
About 800 paces from the river, the hunting or war parties of the Blackfoot Indians have gradually piled up a quantity of elks' horns till they have formed a pyramid sixteen or eighteen feet high, and twelve or fifteen feet in diameter. Every Indian who passes by makes a point of {212} contributing his part, which is not difficult, because such horns are everywhere scattered about; and often the strength of the hunting party is marked, with red strokes, on the horns they have added to the heap. All these horns, of which there are certainly more than 1,000, are piled up, confusedly mixed together, and so wedged in, that we found some trouble in extricating, from the pyramid, a large one, with fourteen antlers, which we brought away with us. The horns are partly separated from the head of the animal with the skull, and partly single horns. Some buffaloes' horns were mixed with them. The purpose of this practice is said to be a medicine, or charm, by which they expect to be successful in hunting. As the drawing of this pyramid was begun, we were called away by signals from the vessel.[22]
A violent storm, which came up in the evening, was succeeded on the next day (the 12th of July) by a very high wind, which, as we attempted to proceed, twice broke the towing-rope, and we got into two successive whirlpools (remoux), twice turned the vessel round, and carried it with violence against the bank, so that the water came into the cabin, and the deck was covered with earth. As the wind did not abate, we lay to at the upper part of the Prairie à la Corne de Cerf, and immediately dispersed in quest of game. The prairie was the same as yesterday, and the wind blew dust and sand into the air, and even into the closest chests in our vessel. We met with various species of birds, among which was a black and white finch, which appeared to me to be a new species, and in its mode of life greatly resembles the rice bird. Among the wormwood bushes we roused several variable hares, and saw the yellow-headed blackbird, many sparrow-hawks, and a large rattlesnake, which escaped into a hole underground. Elks' horns were everywhere scattered about, and it would have been easy to make of them a second pyramid like the one already mentioned. Several interesting plants were gathered, among which were the Asclepias speciosa, with large fragrant flowers, and a new species of lactuca or prenanthes. Just at the place where our vessel lay, were four old Indian huts, of some war or hunting party, composed of trunks and boughs of trees piled together in a square, in which some of our people made a fire to cook their meat. Scarcely 100 paces above these huts, was the Indian Fort Creek of Lewis and Clarke—a stream with a deep bed, in which there was now but very little water. The wind, which was so violent at noon, abated towards the evening, and allowed us to proceed a little further up the river, till we lay to for the night. The air was very cool to-day, and made a striking contrast to the heat of yesterday; however, we comforted ourselves that we were not tormented by the mosquitoes. On the following morning, the 13th, it was just the same, and we were soon obliged to stop by the rising of the wind. We had seen a large bear, and accordingly took advantage of our rest to send our five hunters in pursuit of it. They did not, however, succeed in their object, but brought back, in place of it, some other game. The wood here was so thickly matted with willows, roses, dog-berry, and many burrs and other troublesome plants, and likewise so full of dry broken wood and rubbish, lying on the ground, that it was excessively difficult {213} to penetrate. I followed, alternately, the paths trodden by buffaloes, elks, bears, and deer, and at length got into such an intricate thicket, that it was not till after many hours of painful and fatiguing exertion, that I was so fortunate as to find our vessel; but all my clothes were completely torn to rags. On the inclined trunk of a tree, I saw an Assiniboin wrapped in skin; the tree itself was painted red; and on one of the boughs hung the saddle and stirrups of the deceased.
Though the weather had improved, we made but little progress this evening, because the river was too shallow, and we were not able to follow the south bank till the following morning (the 14th). Hereabouts, a chest and a cask were found, which belonged to the Beaver keel-boat, wrecked there in the preceding year, and was likewise under the command of Mr. Mitchell. As we had to contend with the soft sand banks in the river, and could not proceed without great effort, the vessel was put back, and brought into another channel, where we soon took in fresh game, for our hunters succeeded in killing five elks, of which, however, they could only bring away a part. Herds of buffaloes were in the vicinity, and several of these colossal animals crossed the Missouri in our sight. Dechamp, Papin, and Dreidoppel overtook these swimming animals in a boat, while four or five of our hunters got ashore before them, and two of these wild oxen were killed; a third escaped severely wounded, but one of those that were killed sank so deep into the mud of the river that no part of his flesh could be obtained. A white wolf appeared immediately after, and very composedly laid himself down on the bank, doubtless waiting our departure to commence his delicious repast. This part of the country was low and flat; wood, willow thickets, and prairie alternated along the bank. We here saw, for the first time, a beautiful plant, which is frequent from hence further up the river, the Rudbeckia columnaris (Pursh), the petals of which are half orange-colour and half brown. We lay to, for the night, near a wood on the right bank, when our people bathed, the evening being very fine and warm. The wood was lofty, shady, and beautiful; we looked into high, dark arcades, where the whitish trunks shone in the twilight; in front of it lay an old Indian hut; the night-swallow hovered high in the air, and numerous bats flitted across the surface of the water. The mosquitoes were not so troublesome; and at ten in the evening there was an aurora borealis, consisting of two columns of pale light, which rose high in the air, sometimes lengthening, and then again contracting. We never heard any noise accompanying these meteors.