the whole animal and the most agreeable to the taste. The meat is cut into long strips and dried in the sun. When the chase is over, one horse easily carries the spoils of an entire buffalo. The savages break camp, and go away full of joy. They follow and practice literally the axiom, " sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof."
But I am wandering too far away from my subject, it appears; let us return to the river and its tributaries. We had reached the mouth of the Yellowstone, the most important river of the Upper Missouri. It has a width of Boo yards at its entry. Among its numerous tributaries are the Big Horn and Tongue and Powder -rivers. Its course is nearly parallel with that of the Missouri. It issues from Lake Eustis'14 and its principal sources are in the springs and snowbanks upon the icy summits of the Rocky Mountains and Black Hills, one of their numerous chains. I suppose the Yellowstone to be navigable for steamboats for about I,ooo miles above its mouth. Abundant gold mines have lately been discovered at its sources, and thousands of whites are flocking in to-day, who will have to measure their strength with that of the Crow and Snake Indians, hitherto peaceful possessors of those mountains.
The Yellowstone and its upper forks have also their wonders, or one might say their Bad Lands. A volcanic region is especially noteworthy, where underground noises are often to be heard at a great distance. Jets of steam, like the exhaust of steamboats, are seen issuing from the soil, and there are mounds and broken hills in the strangest of shapes, which appear to have been thrown up by volcanic forces. The Indians pass these places in profound silence and with superstitious dread. They regard them as " the abode of underground spirits, always at war with one another, and continually at the anvil forging their weapons." They