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Show WAH-MENITU. 161 day's journey. They brought word that, two days' march from the fort, there were numerous herds of buffaloes. Among these new comers there were some elderly men; the plaits of their hair were wound about with strips of skin, and their faces were painted red; their bodies were fleshy, which was a proof that they had suffered less from hunger than those in the fort. They paid a visit first to the Assiniboin, and then to Mr. Laidlow, who gave them food and tobacco. Mr. Lamont, who had taken leave of us to-day, to go by the steam-boat to St. Louis, embarked with some of the Company's clerks : he was saluted with several cannon shot, and before evening the Yellow Stone rapidly descended the river. While Messrs. Me Kenzie, Sandford, and Mitchell took up their abode in the fort, we went on board the Assiniboin, from which I made, on the 4th of June, an interesting excursion into the prairie, in order to make myself acquainted with the eastern bank. I left the vessel at half-past seven o'clock, the thermometer being at 59°, and immediately ascended the steep eminences, of which the lower were covered partly with bright green, partly with dry, yellow grass, and the higher ones bare, with the surface frequently blackened by fire. A path, trodden by the elks to the river, led me to the highest summit, from which I had a pleasing prospect of the opposite bank and the fort. It lay, clearly delineated, in the extensive verdant plain, bounded by a singular chain of hills ; and I again distinguished, half way up the mountains, the black stripe of the extensive stratum of coal. At noon it was warm, and I returned much heated, the thermometer being at 72°. We received a visit from six or seven newly arrived Tetons, whom the interpreter, Dorion, introduced to us. They were particularly interested by the steam-boat, and, after they had very minutely examined it, they were served with dinner and pipes. The dinner chiefly consisted of bacon, which the Indians do not like; ril ¦ |