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Show LA BUTTE AU GRES----WHITES MURDERED-CANNON-BALL RIVER. 167 the Missouri, was called Starapat (the little hawk, with bloody claws), and generally La Main pleine de Sang, who will be mentioned in the sequel. The Arikkaras, or, as they are called by the Mandans, Rikkaras or Rees, Les Ris of the Canadians, are a branch of the Pawnees, from whom they long since separated. Their language, which is very easy for a German to pronounce, is said to be a proof of this affinity. Their number is supposed to be still 4000 souls, among whom 500 or 600 are able to bear arms. The wife of La Chapelle, the interpreter for that nation, was an Arikkara; she had a round full countenance, and rather delicate small features, with a very light yellowish complexion. It is affirmed that the women of this nation are the handsomest on the Missouri. Manoel Lisa, a well-known fur trader, had formerly built a trading house in this country, of which nothing now remains; though the place is still called Manoel Lisa's Fort. The prairie was to-day more verdant and pleasant than yesterday. A mountain, with some remarkable summits, called La Butte au Gres, gave it some diversity. Here we suddenly saw, on the bank, a man, who fired his musket thr ee times, and at first took him for an Indian; but another soon appeared, in a small leathern boat, and we learnt that both were engages or travellers of the Company, who were dispatched from the Upper Missouri, with letters for Mr. Me Kenzie. We took them in, and the little leathern boat was left lying on the beach. In the distance, on the left, there was a chain of mountains, with numerous summits, near which Cannon-ball River flows; and, nearer to the Missouri, a chain of flat hills, level at the top, with many clefts, called La Butte de Chayenne. In this neighbourhood we saw a high tree in a poplar wood, entirely covered with turkey buzzards, as in Brazil; towards evening we passed Beaver Creek (Riviere au Castor), the Warananno of Lewis and Clarke.* On the 14th, in the morning, the sky was clouded, and the wind very bleak. On the west bank of the river a ravine was shown us, where, seven or eight years before, the Arikkaras had shot seven white men, who were towing a loaded Mackinaw boat up the river. After we had passed an island, which is not marked in Lewis and Clarke's map, we observed two isolated table mountains in the prairie, on the west bank, which are not far from Cannon-ball River; and we then came to an aperture in the chain of hills, from which this river, which was very high, issues. On the north side of the mouth, there was a steep, yellow clay wall; and on the southern, a flat, covered with poplars and willows. This river has its name from the singular regular sand-stone balls which are found in its banks, and in those of the Missouri in its vicinity. They are of various sizes, from that of a musket ball to that of a large bomb, and lie irregularly on the bank, or in the strata, from which they often project to half their thickness * On a careful investigation, I have not been able to discover from what source Lewis and Clarke procured a part of their singular denominations for the affluents of the Missouri; for, in the languages of the neighbouring Indian nations, they have entirely different names. |