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Show 32 THE CITY OF THE SAINTS. CHAP. I. used as salad in France and in the Eastern States. This land appears excellently adapted for the growth of manioc or cassava. In the centre of the bottom flows the brownish stream, about twenty yards wide, between two dense lines of tall sweet cotton-wood. The tree which was fated to become familiar to us during our wanderings is a species of poplar (P. raonilifera), called by the Americo-Spaniards, and by the people of Texas and New Mexico, " Alamo:" resembling the European aspen, without its silver lining, the color of the leaf, in places, appears of a dull burnished hue, in others bright and refreshingly green. Its trivial name is derived, according to some, from the fibrous quality of the bark, which, as in Norway, is converted into food for cattle and even man; according to others, from the cotton-like substance surrounding the seeds. It is termed " sweet" to distinguish it from a different tree with a bitter bark, also called a cotton-wood or narrow-leaved cotton-wood {Populus angustifolia), and by the Canadians Hard amere. The timber is soft and easily cut; it is in many places the only material for building and burning, and the recklessness of the squatters has already shortened the supply. This valley is the Belgium of the adjoining tribes, the once terrible Pawnees, who here met their enemies, the Dakotahs and the Delawares: it was then a great buffalo ground; and even twenty years ago it was well stocked with droves of wild horses, turkeys, and herds of antelope, deer, and elk. The animals have of late migrated westward, carrying off with them the "bones of contention." Some details concerning the present condition of these bands and their neighbors may not be uninteresting-these poor remnants of nations which once kept the power of North America at bay, and are now barely able to struggle for existence. In 1853, the government of the United States, which has ever acted paternally toward the Indians, treating with them - Great Britain did the same with the East Indians-as though they were a civilized people, availed itself of the savages' desire to sell lands encroached upon by the whites, and set apart for a general reservation 181,171 square miles. Here, in the Far West, were collected into what was then believed to be a permanent habitation, the indigenes of the land, and the various bands once lying east of the Mississippi. This " Indian's home" was bounded, in 1853, on the north by the Northwestern Territory and Minnesota; on the south by Texas and New Mexico; to the east lay Iowa, Missouri, and Arkansas; and to the west, Oregon, Utah and New Mexico. The savages' reservation was then thus distributed. The eastern portion nearest the river was stocked with tribes removed to it from the Eastern States, namely, the Iowas, Sacs and Foxes |
