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Show ARRIVAL OF THE FLORA KEEL-BOAT. 205 upon his breast, and several men standing around him. Two of the medicine men were beating the drum in quick time, and a third rattled the Quakemuha (or Shishikue), which he waved up and down. These people were singing with great effort; sometimes they uttered short ejaculations, and were in a violent perspiration ; sometimes they sucked the places where the patient felt pain, and pretended they could suck out or remove the morbid matter. Such jugglers are very well paid by the patients, and always regaled with tobacco. Many of the Indians went away this afternoon, because they could not find sufficient subsistence. Among others, General Jackson had taken leave. It was reported that some of the Crees had said they would take up the body of the Blackfoot that was shot, because there had not been time to scalp him; but such expressions were quite usual, and the grave was not disturbed. The keel-boat from Fort Cass had arrived, on board of which we were to go to Fort Me Kenzie. We had, therefore, a numerous company, but we were in no want of provisions, as our hunters had brought home, from their last excursion, the flesh of nineteen buffaloes. It was exactly a year to-day, July 4th, since we had landed at Boston. Mr. Me Kenzie sent Berger, the interpreter, and one Harvey, by land, to Fort Me Kenzie, to which they proceeded on horseback, before us, along the north bank of the river. They had no baggage but their arms, their beds of buffalo skin, and blankets. They took some dried meat with them, but they chiefly depended for subsistence on their rifles. While the people were employed in loading the keel-boat with the goods and provisions for the tribes living higher up the river, we profited by this last day's stay in this place, to make excursions into the neighbouring woods on the river-side, and to the prairie. In a wood, below the fort, we found a tree, on which the corpses of several Assiniboins were deposited ; one of them had fallen down, and been torn and devoured by the wolves. The blankets which covered the body were new, and partly bedaubed with red paint, and some of the branches and the trunk of the tree were coloured in the same manner. Dreidoppel, who discovered this tree, took up the skull of a young Assiniboin, in which a mouse had made its nest for its young ; and Mr. Bodmer made an accurate drawing of the tree, under which there was a close thicket of roses in full blossom, the fragrant flowers of which seemed destined to veil this melancholy scene of human frailty and folly. (See Plate XXX.) The Flora keel-boat was laden, and there was only the baggage of the travellers to be taken on board. This vessel was a strong-built sloop, about sixty feet long by sixteen broad, with a deck, a mast, and sail. The goods were deposited in the middle space ; at the stern there was a cabin, ten paces long and five or six broad, with two berths, one of which was allotted to Mr. Mitchell, and the second to me; the other persons, three in number, spread their beds, in the evening, on the floor. At the back of this cabin there was a little window, with a sliding shutter, and, on each side, a port-hole, which, in fine weather, admitted light and air. Round the vessel there was a ledge, about a foot and a half broad, on which the men walked backwards and for- |
