panions were well provided with bread, butter, coffee and sugar; game was also abundant, and we had but to select. I never saw so many ducks, geese, bustards, swans and wild turkeys, in such a short trip.
We made our evening soup with the muddy water of the Missouri, which gave the meat the singular appearance of having been seasoned with mud. It was, however, thanks to our appetites, excellent, notwithstanding this, and soup and meat swiftly disappeared.
At our last encampment, attracted without doubt by the sight of the fire which sparkled at our feet, a noble stag approached us, stamping with his feet - a little more and we might have had our skulls broken in by this enraged animal. It aroused the pilot, who, seizing the gun that was lying beside me, discharged it about two inches from my ear. This report awaked me suddenly, without, however, frightening me.
During my route, except the Sioux, I saw only one Indian hunter, and one single village, that of the Omahas. What a contrast with the beautiful, little and populous Belgium! (9) The huts of the Omahas are built of earth, and are conical; their circumference at the base, 120 to 140 feet. To construct them, they plant in the ground long and thick poles, bend and join together all the ends, which are fastened to about twenty posts in the inside. These poles are afterwards covered with bark, over which they put earth about a foot in depth, and then cover the whole with turf. They look like small mounds. A large hole in the summit permits light to enter and smoke to escape. The fire-place is in the center and every hut holds from six to ten families.
A young French Creole conducted his wife to me, to have her instructed in our holy religion. He came down with her quite recently from beyond the Rocky Moun
(9) Scarcely greater than would be the contrast with this same country to-day where within a radius of ten miles of Father De Smet's starting point on this journey are now a quarter of a million people.