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Show 14 travelbook, however, could be expected to find this change in the facial expression of the figure deliciously scary. The fear seen in the Mandan's face recalled earlier European images of both the American Indian's savagery and his incomprehensible beliefs. Two additional minor changes in this first state should be noted. The grass and other plants sprinkled around the foreground of the original watercolor are indistinct generic growths, windswept and parched, blending into the characteristic browns of the Dakota plains. In the aquatint these plants become more distinct and individualized. While by no means lush--and while they remain individually unrecognizable because of the darkened foreground-nonetheless, they have changed in character. Rather than windswept, they convey the sense of stillness and isolation of the more verdant-though equally inaccessible-regions, such as those made familiar to the European public through travelbooks detailing the exotic jungles of South America.^ Again, it is not that it was technically impossible to duplicate these details of the watercolor. The changes in the foliage were part of a conscious decision, which then necessitated making other changes in the composition. In the right middle-distance a figure on horseback, rounding up a herd of Indian ponies, has been added. These were probably inserted to balance the composition, after the foliage in the original watercolor had been altered. Closer examination of these horses shows they have little in common with the sturdy ponies of the Plains. Bodmer was not the only artist to have trouble depicting these distinctly American animals and for his European-trained etchers, who had never even seen an Indian pony, the task was even more difficult.^ In many of the aquatints in which horses or domesticated dogs |