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Show 324 SITUATION AND DESCRIPTION OF FORT CLARKE. is overgrown with grass, and, in its many windings, bushes and tall plants adorn the banks, especially of the class syngenesia, such as solidago, &c, the seeds of which are sought after in winter by the Fringilla linaria, and the Emberiza nivalis. In the spring and autumn wild ducks frequent this stream, which is inhabited by river tortoises; the unio, too, is found in it. As soon as it freezes, which, in 1833, it did in November, the ducks migrate to the ponds and lakes a few miles distant, where they remain with pelicans, swans, wild geese, divers, cranes, and other water fowl, till these lakes are likewise frozen. About a league below Fort Clarke the Missouri makes a bend to the east or north-east, and on this part of the bank is a rather extensive forest, in which the inhabitants of Mih-Tutta-Hang-Kush have built their winter village of sixty or seventy huts. From the above village there is easy access across the prairie, which is, in general, level, to Ruhptare, the second Mandan village, there being only a couple of small ravines filled with brushwood, the resort of prairie hens, to break the level. Opposite the fort, on the left shore of the Missouri, a fine forest of poplars, elms, maples, ash, &c, with a thick undergrowth of every variety of shrub, extends to the prairie hills. In this forest the inhabitants of Ruhptare live in the winter time, directly opposite their summer village. Fort Clarke itself is built on the same plan as the other trading posts of the Company. The front and back of the square are forty-four paces in length, the sides, forty-nine paces. The northern and southern corners have block-houses; the buildings are of one story, and they were just erecting a new one, with a couple of rooms, having good glass windows, which, however, was not yet completed. In front of the postern gate was the machine in which the skins are made up into bundles, each bundle consisting of ten buffalo hides, and weighing 100 pounds. A small piece of garden-ground is laid out behind the fort, and not far off, on the banks of the stream, the Indians had planted some small fields of maize and gourds. There were only three dogs in the fort, which were always shut out in the evening. At this time we had little opportunity of following the chase; the herds of buffaloes had gone to a distance, and the hunters were obliged to make long excursions before they could meet with them. There was, however, a sufficient stock of food for the horses in the fort, and sometimes a good many horses were kept there; but, at this season, most of them had been sold, in consequence of the competition in trade. These animals are very badly treated; they are scarcely housed in a stable during the whole winter, and in the coldest nights they were in the court-yard, while the congealed snow lay on their backs and shoulders, some inches thick. They had no food in the winter, except the bark of the poplar trees in the forest; and, when the weather was not too rigorous, and the snow too deep, they were driven thither daily. The dogs have also to pass the night in ice and snow. Fort Clarke possessed no oxen, nor any domestic animals, except some cocks and hens, which latter begin to lay in March. Oxen would be in danger from the numerous Indians, who consider them as a medicine |