out order. These last are round and shaped like a the wall is near three feet thick; the whole work is orted within by sundry posts. In all their huts, the ground is the floor; the fire-place is in the middle and >moke escapes through a hole arranged in the summit. door is so low and narrow that one can enter only by ding; it consists merely of a dried skin hung up. These ges seemed to me very poor and miserable. The greater of them were on foot; just before we met them, the :s had stolen twenty-five of their horses. They ex;ed an ardent longing to have a mission of our fathers ig them.
i we advanced toward the west, the crossed elevated zs, which now and then gave us extensive and very tiful views. The great plain was clotted with groves of tnd large trees; especially noticeable was the wakarusa, )ttonwood,e a plant which is abundant in this region, on which the Indians feed. It is found along a river bears the same name, and which flows into the Kansas. these rivers have rich and fertile bottoms and are well :led. All the summit of the Divide is full of petrifac
The surface of the earth over a considerable part of region is covered with great flat grey and yellow stones, in confusion as if they had been brought forth from )osom of the earth by some subterranean agitation.
iad been no more than sit days in the wilderness, when s overcome by intermittent fever, with the chills that larily precede the attacks of heat. This fever never me until I reached the Yellowstone, on my way back the mountains. I cannot give you any idea of my irable state. 1Iy friends advised me to go back; but my e of seeing the nations of the mountains prevailed over [eir good reasons. I therefore followed the caravan as I could, sticking on my horse as long as I had the Cr h; after that I would go and lie in a cart on the aggcre-rousse, ou la flour du cotonnier. [Wakarusa is com
said to mean " hip deep." 1