OCR Text |
Show J.~ewis an£l Cla1'1.;e's Expcd·ition was plenty of timber, encamped and began to fell tr<'cs to build our huts. Our Rimu·a chief set out with one 1\lanuan chief and several Minnetarec and l\1andan watTiors; the wind was from the southeast, and the weather being fine a crowd of Indians came down to visit us. Saturday s. 'Ve now began the building of our cabins, and the Frenchmen who at·e to return to St. Louis arc builuing a periogue fo1· the {lUI'}lOSe. \Ve sent six men in a pcriogue to hunt down the river. 'Ve were also fot·tunate enough to engage in out• service a Canadian Frenchmen, who had been with the Chayenne Indians on the Black mountains, and last summer descended thence by the Little Missouri. Mr. Jcssaume our interpreter also came down with his squaw and children to live at our camp. In the evening we received a visit from Kagohami or Little Raven, whose wife accompanied him, bringing about sixty weight of dt·ied meat, a robe and a pot of meal. W c gave him in return a piece of tobacco, to his wife an axe and a. few small articles, and both of them spent the night at our camp. 'l'wo beave1·s_werc caught in traps this morning. Sunday 4<. We continued our labout·s: the timber which we employ is large and heavy, and chiefly consists of cotton" ood and elm with some ash of an inferior size. Great num· bers of the Indians pass our camp on their hunting cxcut'· sions: the day was clear and 1•leasant, but last night was ''ct·y cold and there was a white frost. Monday 5. The Indians are all out on their hunting parties: a camp ofMandans caught within two days one bun· tlrecl goats a short distance below us: thcit· mode of hunting them is to for·m a large strong pen or fold, from which a fence made of bushes gradually widens on each side: the animals are sut·rounded by the hunters and gently driven to· wards this pen, in which they impet·ceptibly find themselves inclosed and are then at the mercy of the bunters. 'l'he weather is cloudy and the wind moderate from the north· west. Late at night we were awaked by the sergeant on Up the MissoUJ•i. guard to see the beautiful phenomenon called the northern light: along the nOJ·thern sky was a large space occupied by a light of a pale but brilliant white colour: which rising fr·om the hori7.on extended itself to nearly twenty degrees above it. After glittering for· some time its colours would be overcast, and almost obscured, but again it would hurst out with renewed beauty; the uniform colour was pale light, but its shapes were various and fantastic: at times the sky was lined with light coloured streaks rising perpendicularly ft·om the horizon, and gradually expanding into a body of light in which we could trace the floating columns sometimes advancing, sometimes retreating and shaping into infinite forms, the space in which they moved. It aU faded away before the morning. At daylight, Tuesday 6, the clouds to the north wca·e dat·kcniug and the wind rose high from the northwest at eight o'clock, and continued cold during the day. Mr. Ga·avdines and four others who came with us returned to the Ricaras in a small periogue, we gave him directions to accompany some of the Ricara chiefs to the seat of government in the spring. Wednesday 7. The day was temperate but cloudy and foggy, and we were enabled to go on with our work with much expedition. 'rlmrsday 8. The morning again cloudy; our huts advance very welJ, and we are visited by numbers of Indians who come to let their horses gr·aze ncar us: in the day tbe bo1•scs are let loose in quest of g1·ass, in the night they are collected and receive an armfull of small boughs of the cottonwood, which being very juicy, soft and brittle, form nutritious and agreeable food: the frost this morning was very severe, the weather during the day cloudy and the wind from the northwest. We p1•ocured from an Indian a weasel perfectly white except the extremity of the tail which was black: great numbers of wild geese are passing to the south, but their flight is too high for us to procure any of them. |