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Show THE MISSOURI VALLEY. 137 brother, then Surveyor- General of the Territory. This place has the only first- rate site for a city above the mouth of the Big Sioux, and is the natural discharge depot of all the farming section of Dakota. Not more than one- third of that Territory is fertile land, and that lies al-most entirely in the eastern and southern sections. Along the Big Sioux, James River and Red River a fertile strip, nearly one hundred miles wide, extends from the Missouri to the British line, while on the south a narrow arm runs up the Missouri. Thus the good land lies much in the shape of a V, the left arm being much shorter and more narrow. Go northward and westward from these tracts, and you rise by imperceptible stages : first to a strip of second- class land, then to a tract fit only for grazing, and finally to complete desert, the last known as the eouteau or mauvaises terres (" Bad- lands"). Enthusiastic pro-moters of railroad stocks have told us how easily these barren tracts are to be redeemed, but the author begs leave to dissent. All the white inhabitants are in the extreme southern or north- east-ern sections the latter so far away from Yankton that Congress has lately listened to their repeated appeals for a separate government. They are in the noted Pembina region, a section older in history than Iowa; a section I visited the next year, and found a delightful coun-try for Hyperboreans. All the rest of Dakota is occupied by strag-gling bands of Sioux the original Romans of the North- west whose business and amusements were to hunt buffaloes and Pawnees. The former furnished them with food, clothing, lodge- covers, bow- strings, and a dozen other conveniences ; the latter with victims for the stake and torture. Of late years, by . union with the whites, the Pawnees have turned the tables very handsomely on their old foes. The Sioux at the lower agencies and about Yankton are " civilized;"' they dress somewhat like white men, raise some grain, swear, gamble, and drink whisky. At the agency near Yankton they have a flourishing church ( Episcopalian), and publish a weekly paper in the Sioux language. It is called lapi Oahye meaning " Talk carried about" is Republican in politics, and ardently supports President Grant's " humanitarian pol-icy" toward the Indians. The spurs of the Black Hills project into Western Dakota, and all the adjacent region consists of a series of lofty plateaus, either totally barren or scantily clothed with grass. With an area of 150,000 square miles, the Territory has a body of fertile land as large as Indiana, as much more good grazing land, and at least twice as much of desert. The fertile sections will some day support an immense population of the North- European races, and, in due time, form a prosperous State. |