This night and the following morning (the 15th) were very sultry; at eight o'clock, 75° Fahrenheit. Papin had shot a deer the evening before, but did not kill it; which was doubtless the cause of the loud howling of the wolves which we heard during the night; for these creatures make an incessant howling when they have found such a prize, and contend for the booty, in which cases the weaker and the young come off the worst. The ground of this forest, and of the adjoining prairie, was a heated, very hard, dry clay, and the country reminded me, at this season, except {214} in the vegetation, of the summer in the Sertao of the province of Bahia, in Brazil. Numerous birds animated the thickets, and we were preparing to pursue them, when a large buffalo bull advanced into the river, and immediately sank in the mud. We hastened up and killed him with several shot. With Messrs. Mitchell and Cuthbertson[23] I soon afterwards reached the vessel; my American friends, heated as they were, threw themselves into the water to refresh themselves. Towards noon, when the thermometer was at 86°, our other hunters returned, who had killed several buffaloes, and wounded an antelope. They had seen a herd of at least 100 elks, and wounded one of them. Mr. Mitchell, with his rifle, had shot down a white-headed eagle from a high tree, where he was devouring a large fish. The evening was very pleasant, but the mosquitoes penetrated in such swarms into the vessel, that we were obliged to stop every aperture of the cabin, and consequently suffered from the heat.
Early in the morning of the 16th we perceived a herd of buffaloes, and resolved to go in chase of them; but six bulls, standing near the bank, got the wind of us, and all fled. We endeavoured to get near them, but without success; and, after a fatiguing excursion of six hours, returned back much heated, and did not reach the vessel before twelve o'clock, which had remained far behind. We then proceeded on our voyage, and soon after Dechamp and Papin came on board, who had killed some buffalo cows. Dreidoppel, whom we found further up the river in the wood, had lighted a fire, over which he roasted the loin of a large antelope, which he had killed; while he was busy in preparing the skin of this animal for my zoological collection, he suddenly perceived two large white wolves standing about ten paces from him, which did not appear to be at all afraid. He might have shot them both, had not the ramrod of his rifle been broken. The wood where we took Dreidoppel on board was full of gooseberries, of a pleasant acid taste, of which our people brought a great quantity on board. The shrub which bears these black berries is thickly set with reddish thorns, almost like Robinia hispida.
We were now in sight of the place where Mr. Mitchell, with his keel-boat, the Beaver, had suffered shipwreck in the preceding year.[24] On the present occasion, Henry Morrin, our pilot, was very apprehensive of what might befall us in this dangerous spot. We followed a narrow channel, between the southern bank and a low willow island, where we lay to for the night. Our hunters had soon perceived in this island two large elks, and we therefore stole along before the thickets, in order to cut them off from the forest.
Mr. Mitchell succeeded in mortally wounding one of them, which, however, went on for some distance, sprinkling the bushes with its blood. We followed the trace through a very intricate thicket, till the night obliged us to return on board without accomplishing our object.
At break of day, on the 17th, we heard the loud howling of the wolves, which were doubtless disputing about the elk that we had wounded the day before; but Mr. Mitchell did not wish to lose any time, and we gave up our booty. The place where the Beaver was wrecked was about {215} 200 steps from our night's quarters, and we went to look at it. At that time the Beaver had lain about 300 paces further up the river, but in a dark night was loosened from its moorings by a storm, driven down the river, and thrown upon a sand bank. Two men were drowned, and Mr. Mitchell had escaped by an immense leap from the deck to the shore. The greater part of the cargo, worth 30,000 dollars, was lost: the crew then built a small fort, or log-house, about forty paces in length, in which they remained till part of the goods were saved, and another boat came up to fetch them. In this melancholy situation they were in danger of a quarrel with a band of Blackfoot Indians. These Indians were returning by land from Fort Union, to which they had been invited, on account of the conclusion of the treaty of peace. The presents made to them by the traders were on board the Beaver, and the greater part was lost, which much incensed the Indians. The disputants had already taken up and cocked their pieces, and it was entirely owing to the resolute conduct of Mr. Mitchell that the matter was amicably settled. Since that time the bank of the river, at this place, has undergone a considerable change. Only the pickets, at the back of the log-house, were still standing; all the rest had been swept away. At that time the whole place was bare sand; now, it was covered with willows, five feet high, and the river had carried away the bank for the breadth of, at least, 100 paces.
Soon after eight o'clock, the thermometer being at 80°, our vessel reached the place where one of the buffalo cows was lying, near which the hunters had passed the night, and we took the best part on board. The hunters of the prairies are often greater savages than the Indians themselves; they frequently eat the liver and other parts of the animals they have killed, without dressing it. We had gone but a little way along the southern bank, when we perceived, below the steep wall, a beaver's den, of which Mr. Bodmer made a drawing.[25] It consisted of a heap of twigs and logs, between four and five feet high, and the entrance was, as usual, below water. The inside of such a den consists of earth and clay, with pieces of wood, and contains several chambers, or divisions, in which these remarkable animals lie dry above the water. A bridge of earth, which likewise contained some wood, led from the land to the cone-shaped den, the interior of which I was, to my great regret, prevented from examining. In these rapid rivers, the beavers build only such light dwellings; but erect larger ones, skilfully provided with strong dams, only in stagnant waters, such as lakes, ponds, still arms of rivers, &c. &c. There are, however, some beavers here which live only in holes in the ground, the entrance to which is above water. Their chambers are then perhaps eight feet above the surface of the water, are spacious, and adapted to the number of animals that live in them.
We had sent people into the forest to cut hatchet-handles of ash wood, because further up there was no wood of this kind of a sufficient size. At noon the thermometer was at 81°; the hunters had killed an elk, and seen several bears. A thunder-storm, with a high wind, obliged us {216} to fasten the vessel to the shore, and to take other precautions; but the storm soon abated, and our people caught about five-and-twenty white cat-fish.
During our voyage, on the 18th of July, I could not help making comparisons with my journeys on the Brazilian rivers. There, where nature is so infinitely rich and grand, I heard, from the lofty, thick, primeval forests on the banks of the rivers, the varied voices of the parrots, the macaws, and many other birds, as well as of the monkeys, and other creatures; while here, the silence of the bare, dead, lonely wilderness is but seldom interrupted by the howling of the wolves, the bellowing of the buffaloes, or the screaming of the crows. The vast prairie scarcely offers a living creature, except now and then, herds of buffaloes and antelopes, or a few deer and wolves. These plains, which are dry in summer, and frozen in winter, have certainly much resemblance, in many of their features, with the African deserts. Many writers have given them the name of savannahs, or grassy plains; but this expression can be applied, at most, to those of the Lower Missouri, and is totally inapplicable to the dry, sterile tracts of the north-west, where a more luxuriant growth of grass may be expected, at best, only in a few moist places, though various plants, interesting to the botanist, are everywhere to be found.