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Show 416 DISEASES PREVALENT----THE MISSOURI FROZEN. filled it with smoke. We were, however, thankful to have space to carry on our labours, to which we now applied with great assiduity, to make up for the time we had lost. The large windows afforded a good light for drawing, and we had a couple of small tables and some benches of poplar wood, and three shelves against the walls, on which we spread our blankets and buffaloes' skins, and reposed during the night. The room was floored; the door was furnished with bolts on the inside, and the fire-wood, covered with frozen snow, was piled up close to the chimney. We all felt indisposed soon after we took up our abode in this lodging, and were obliged to have recourse to medicine, but this was, probably, to be ascribed principally to the way of living and the state of the weather; for Sih-Sa and other Indians had bowel complaints, catarrh, and violent coughs, for which Mr. Kipp gave them medicines. I examined all the medical stock of the fort, and found neither peppermint nor other herbs, which would have been serviceable at this time ; only a handful of elder flowers, and rather more of American camomile, which has a different taste to the European. There were some common remedies, but unfortunately we were without a medical man. Snow-storms, with a high west wind, had set in, and on the 23rd the country was covered with snow, and the Missouri froze for the first time on that day, below the village of Mih-Tutta-Hang-Kush, and it is remarkable that it was frozen on the very same day in the preceding year. We saw the Indian women, as soon as the river was covered with ice, break holes in it, to wash their heads and the upper part of their bodies. The Indians had brought many beaver skins for sale, of which Mr. Kipp purchased eleven large ones, in exchange for a horse and some red cloth; the remainder, for which they demanded another horse, they took back with them. We had a visit from a young Mandan who had a bag made of the skin of the prairie dog, containing some pieces of a transparent selenite from which these Indians extract a white colour by burning it in the fire. Mato-Tope had passed the evening with us, and, when we went to bed, laid himself down before the fire, where he soon fell asleep. On the following morning he rose early, washed himself, but left his two buffalo skins lying carelessly on the floor, for us to gather them up, these Indians taking every opportunity to be waited on by the Whites. As we were molested during the night by numerous rats, we put my little tame prairie fox into the loft above us, where some maize was kept, and here he did excellent service. This pretty little fox afforded us much amusement during the long winter evenings. He was nearly a year old, but still liked to be caressed, and played all kinds of antics to attract notice. Several wolves, which the Indians had brought to me, were laid down near the fort, after they had been stripped of their skins, but we did not succeed in alluring one of their species by this bait. Dreidoppel, on his excursion, had killed a couple of wolves, which he allured by imitating the voice of a hare, and then shot with his fowling-piece. The hares had now put on their white winter coats, and could scarely be distinguished from the surrounding snow. They |