only an hour before, a hundred lodges of 111-minded ASslnlboins had passed, and we arrived safe and unmolested at Fort Union, situateu a few miles above the mouth of the Yellowstone. In all these forts great harmony and union prevail; Mr. Kipps, [James Kipp] the present administrator of them, is a gentleman well worthy of his station. Everywhere I was treated by these gentlemen with the greatest politeness and kindness, and all my wants were liberally supplied. As I was relating the particulars of this dangerous
trip to an Indian chief, he answered: " The Great Spirit has his Manitous; he has sent them to take care of your steps and to trouble the enemies that would have been a nuisance to you." A Christian would have said: A)agelis suis inandavit de te, ut custodiant to in omnibus viis tuffs.
On the 23d of September we set out for the village of the Mandans, in company with three men of the fort, who had the same destination. We met on the road a party of nineteen Assiniboins, who were returning to their country from an unsuccessful expedition against the Grosventres. Their looks indicated their bad intentions: although we were but five in number, we showed a determined countenance, and we passed unmolested. Next day we crossed a forest, the winter quarters of the Grosventres and Aricaras in 1835. It was there that those unfortunate tribes were nearly ex
terminated by the smallpox. We saw their bodies wrapped up in buffalo robes, tied to the branches of the largest trees.
It was truly a sad and mournful spectacle. Two days later we met the miserable survivors of these unhappy tribes. Only ten families of the Mandans, once such a powerful
nation, now remain. They have united with the Grosventres and Aricaras. They received me with great demonstrations of friendship; I spent that night in their camp, and the next day crossed the Missouri in their canoe, made of a buffalo skin. The next day we came to the first village of the Aricaras, and on the following day to their great village,
consisting of about a hundred earthen wig-,vams. This tribe also received me very kindly. On the 6th of October we