The Cantonment of Leavenworth is pleasantly situated; ten or twelve neat and spacious buildings, surrounded with a gallery or verandah, are occupied by two companies of the 6th regiment, not more than eighty men, with ten officers, who were detached from Jefferson Barracks, near St. Louis. Dr. Fellowes, the military physician, who in the preceding year travelled with us to this place, received me with much cordiality, and gave me a good deal of information respecting this interesting country. He had been very successful with his cholera patients, for, out of a great number, one only had died, because he always attacked the disorder at its very commencement.
The heavy rain had converted the surrounding country into a swamp, so that we could not conveniently visit the environs of the Cantonment. The soil is very fruitful, and the whole country clothed in rich verdure. About four miles from this place, down the river, the Indian line meets the Missouri at right angles; this is the frontier of the Indian territory, which the Cantonment is destined to protect. Near this post is the village of the Kickapoos, inhabited by a poor and rather degenerated race. Major Morgan,[92] who kept a large store of provisions and other {469} necessaries, had a share in Gardner's fur trade; the latter accordingly quitted me at this place. To celebrate his happy return the people drank rather too freely, and were endeavouring to make Descoteaux do the same, in order to induce him to sell his beaver skins below their value, but I would not suffer this, and took him with me. The people here have a sufficient number of cattle and swine, as well as plenty of milk, butter, and cheese. My collections were here enriched with many interesting specimens. Dr. Fellowes had the kindness to give me a goffer (a large field-mouse), undoubtedly Diplostoma bulbivorum. Unfortunately the specimen was not complete.
FOOTNOTES:
[53] Not the lake of that name noted in our volume xxii, p. 368, note 344, but one between Knife and Heart River, North Dakota.—Ed.
[54] For the location of Butte Carré (Square Butte), see our volume xxii, p. 340, note 312.—Ed.
[55] This post was probably at or near Apple Creek, which by its connection with the lakes east of the Missouri furnishes communication with the upper James, the usual habitat of the Yanktonai.—Ed.
[56] See our volume xxii, p. 338, note 306.—Ed.
[57] For the site of these villages, see our volume xxii, p. 335, note 299.—Ed.
[58] See our volume xxii, p. 173, note 87.—Ed.
[59] Grand River, the Weterhoo of Lewis and Clark (Original Journals, i, p. 183; vi, p. 49), rises near the sources of the Little Missouri in northwestern South Dakota, and flows east into the Missouri in Boreman County. It is a prairie stream paralleling Cannonball and Cheyenne rivers, and largely destitute of timber.—Ed.