boxes, where I was jolted about like a malefactor; very often we would have to cross deep and perpendicular ravines, throwing me into the most singular positions; now my feet would be in the air, now I would find myself hidden like a thief between boxes and bundles, cold as an icicle or covered with sweat and burning like a stove. You might add that during the three days when my fever was at its highest, I had no water but what was stagnant and dirty.
On the 18th of May, after crossing a beautiful plain thirty miles in width, we arrived upon the banks of the Nebraska' or Deer river (riviere au Cerf), which the French designate by the less appropriate name of Platte, or RivierePlate. The Platte is the chief tributary of the Missouri, and may be considered the most wonderful and most useless of the rivers of North America; for it is -,ooo yards in width from one bank to the other, and its depth is seldom more than two to six feet; the bottom is quicksand. It comes from an immense distance, through a wide and green valley, and receives the great abundance of its waters from various branches that come down from the Rocky AToun tains. The mouth of this river is Boo (650] miles J from St. Loins by water, and forms the dividing point between the Lower and the Upper Missouri. I was often struck with admiration at sight of the picturesque scenes which ive enjoyed all the way up the Platte. Think of the big ponds that you have seen in the parks of European noblemen, dotted with little wooded islands; the Platte offers you
these by thousands, and of all shapes. I have seen groups of these islands that one might easily take, from a distance,
7 Father De Smet's explanation of the meaning of " Nebraska " (r. au Cerf in French, Big Horn in English version) is unique. All the early explorers accounted for it as an Indian equivalent for "shallow water," French la Platte. Many geographical names for streams, derived from Siouan languages, contain the root " ne " or " minne:" Alinnehaha (laughing water), Nehawka (weeping water), Niobrara (running water), Nemaha (river of the Omahas), etc. It is said, however, that nebra-ska means " fine white sand," such as flies from the bars of the Platte and Missouri, in the Sioux language.