town on the Indian frontier, whence I was to strike out for the mountains. On the 3oth of April, [1840] I set out from Westport with the annual expedition of the American Fur Company, [Captain Andrew Drips]' which was on its way to Green river, one of the branches of the Colorado. Until the 17th of May we traveled westward over immense plains, destitute of trees or shrubs, except along the streams, and broken by deep ravines, where our voyageurs lowered and raised the carts by means of ropes. The heat of summer was already commencing to make itself felt; still the weather was favorable; often the thermometer would be as low as 27° in the morning, though it might rise to go by noon. The strong winds that prevail unceasingly in these vast plains make the heat supportable. Game was scarce; still my hunter supplied my tent abundantly with ducks, snipe, prairie-chickens, cranes, pigeon, badgers, deer and antelope.
The only men that I met in these first days were some Kansas Indians, who were on their way to Westport to sell their peltries. They dwell upon the Kansas river. Their territory begins sixty miles west of the state of :Missouri, and their villages are at a distance of eighty miles. Their language, customs and manners are the same as those of the Osages.
In peace and in war, these two nations unite their interests, and form, so to speak, a single nation of some 1,700 souls. They live in villages, wherein their huts, which may be made of bark, like the wigwams of the Potawatomies, or of rushes like those of the Osages, or of earth like the akowos of the Pawnees and Otoes, are placed at random and the trade along the Oregon and Santa Fe trails, and that with the numerous tribes of Indians located in the surrounding country. Both were outstripped at a later date by Kansas City, which was laid out in 1838.
a Andrew Drips, born in Pennsylvania, 1789, died Kansas City, September i, 186o. In the fur trade at least as early as 1820; member of Missouri and American Fur Companies; trader at Bellevue; Indian agent under President Tyler.