OCR Text |
Show 164 may from its swiftness prove to be the antelope, or it possibly may be a goat which has escaped from the Spanish settlen1ents of New l\t1cxico. A Canadian, who had been much with the Indians to the westward, speaks of a wool-bearing animal larger than a sheep, the wool much mixed with hair, which he had seen in large flocks. He pretends also to have seen a unicon1, the single horn of which, he says, rises out of the forehead and curls back, conveying the idea of the fossil cornu atnmonis. This man says he has travelled beyond the great dividing ridge so far as to have seen a lnrge river flowing to the westward. 'fhe great dividing tnountain is so lofty that it requires two days to ascend from the base to its top; other ranges of inferior mountains lie before and behind it; they are all rocky and sandy. Large lakes and vallies lie between the 1nountmns. Some of the lakes are so large as to contain considerable islands ; and rivers flow fron1 some of them. Great numbers of fossil bones, of very large dimensions, are seen among the n1otmtains, which the Canadian supposes to be the elephant. He does not pretend to have seen any of the precious metals, but has seen a, mineral which he supposes might yield copper. From the top of the high mountain the view is bounded by a curve as upon the ocean, and extends over the most beautiful prairies, which seem to be unbounded, particularly to"·ards the east. The finest of the lands he has seen are on the Missouri; no other can compare in richness and fertility with them. This Canadian, as " ·ell as Le Fever, speak of the Osages of the tribe of White hairs, as lawless and unprincipled: and the other Indian tribes hold them in abhorrence as a barbarous and uncivilized race : and the different nations who hunt in their neighborhood, have their concerting plans for their destruction. On the morning of the 11th, the party passed the petit ecor a Fabri. The osier which grows on the beaches above, is not seen below upon this river; and here they began to mee 165 with the sn1all tree called ' charnier' which grows on. ly on the water side, and is met with all the way down the vVashita. The latitude of 33Q 401 seems the northern boundary of the oner and the southern boundary of the other of those vegetables. Having noticed the limit set to the long moss, (Telandsia) on the ascent of the river, in latitude 33°, 1\tlr. Dunbar made inquiry of Mr. Le Fever, as to its exisence on the Arcansa settlement, which is known to lie in about the same parallel; he said, that its growth is limited about ten miles south of the settlement, and that as remarkably, as if a line had been drawn east and west for the purpose; as it ceases all at once, and not by de .. grces. Hence it appears, that nature has tnarked with a distinguishing feature, the line established by congress, between the Orleans and Louisiana territories. The cypress is not found on the Washita higher than thirty-four degrees of north latitude. In ascending the river, they found their rate of going to exceed that of the current about six miles and a half in twenty-four hours; and that on the 12th, they had passed the apex of the tide or wave, occasioned by the fresh, and were decending along an inclined plane; as they encamped at night, they found themselves in deeper water the next morning, and on a more elevated part of the inclined plane than they had been in the preceding evening, from the progress of the apex of the tide during their repose. At noon, on the 16th, they reached the post of the 'Vashita. Mr. Dnnbar being anxious to reach the Natchez as early as possible, and being unable to yrocure ~orses at the post, took a canoe with one soldier and hts own domestic, to push down to the Cataho~la, fr?m whence to Concord there is a road of thirty miles ~cross the low grounds. He set off early on the mornmg of the 20th, and at night reached the settleme~t of an old hunter, with whom he had conversed on h1s way up the river. This man informed him, that at - |