BOTANICAL INFORMATION. 517 



If we ascend the walled terraces of the Koos-Kooskee, we 

 find the rocks covered with Bartonia parviflora, Calycadenia, 



and bread-root, and to get salmon, as well as to graze their herds of 

 horses, numbering twenty-five thousand, and their cattle, of which 

 they already possess considerable numbers. They leave these high, cold 

 regions again at the approach of the winter, and retire with their herds to 

 the temperate valleys, somewhat after the manner of the Swiss 

 herdsmen. 



The Gamass and bread-root digging is nearly finished when the first 

 salmon is caught, and when the buffalo-hunters of the tribe set out for 

 their distant hunting-grounds, on the waters of the Yellow-stone river, 

 on the uppermost forks of the Missouri. Other parties equip themselves 

 to meet the American emigrants to Oregon, and offer grain, horses, 

 &c, in return for other necessaries, especially American cattle. A feast 

 is generally given before all these parties separate ; races and dancing 

 are their chief pastimes, but the vulgar among them resort to ruinous 

 gambling. 



The Saptonas, or Nez Percez Indians, unlike their north-eastern neigh- 

 bours, with whom they come in close connexion, lead generally an active, 

 prudent life, under the surveillance of an American Missionary, belonging 

 to the American Board of Foreign Missions, the Rev. Mr. Spalding, who 

 resides at Lapwa'i, on the Koos-Kooskee. The Saptonas are the only north- 

 erly tribe of Indians, to my knowledge, with whom the missionaries have 

 so far succeeded aa to render, in eight years' tuition only, the greater part 

 of the tribe independent of hunting, by cultivating the soil, and rearing 

 cattle and sheep. Scrupulously do they (the Saptonas) attend to their 

 fields, and one may see them, at two o'clock in the morning, at work, 

 that they may be able to go to school in the afternoon. The greater 

 number read and write their own language well, and every one was 

 eager to show me his hymn-book, copied by himself, ni«ely penned, and 

 very clean. The women of this tribe distinguish themselves from their 

 neighbours by cleanliness and rich dresses. I found several of them 

 engaged in carpet- weaving and dyeing wool, under the superintendance of 

 Mrs. Spalding. Mr. S. is by far the most successful Indian missionary 

 deputed by the American Board of Foreign Missons. Undaunted by the 

 haughtiness of his pupils, he overcomes all obstacles. He boldly left off 

 the absurd custom of teaching the Indian to pray, before endeavouring 

 to fill his hungry stomach ; but persevered in making the poor creature 

 understand that he must acquire property, to become independent of hunt- 

 m g, and that that property must be realized by rearing domestic animals 

 and tilling the land. In the fall of 1844, several Indian families had raised 

 that season two hundred bushels of fine wheat, from two to four hundred 





