184 SUPPOSED WELCH INDIANS. 



Traditional ac- through it. In palling through this large prairie, they were 

 t3Ts t ofAme a ri > ca much diftrefled for water and provifions, for they favv neither 

 fuppcNfed tohavebeaft nor bird; and, though there was an abundance of fait 

 WakT^ tf ° m *P rin S s ' tlt ' fll vvater was ver y Scarce. In one of the fe prairies 

 the fait fprings ran into fmall ponds, in which, as the weather 

 was hot, the water had funk and left the edges of the ponds 

 f« covered with fait, that they fully fupplied themfelves with 

 that article, and might eafily have collected bufliels of it. 

 As they were travelling through the prairies they had like- 

 wife the good fortune to kill an animal, which was nine or 

 ten feet high, and a bulk proportioned to its heighth. They 

 had feen two of the fame fpecies before, and they faw four of 

 them afterwards. They were fwift-footed, and they had nei- 

 ther tulks nor horns. After having palled through the long 

 prairie, they made it a rvAe never to enter on one which they 

 could not fee acrofs, till they had fupplied themfelves with a 

 fufficiency of jerked venifon to laft feveral days. 



After having travelled a confulerable time through the prai- 

 ries, they came to very extenfive lead mines, where they 

 melted the ore, and furnifhed themfelves with what lead they 

 wanted. They afterwards came to two copper mines, one 

 of which was three miles through ; and in feveral places they 

 met with rocks of copper ore as large as houfes. .^.hl 

 . When about fifteen days journey from the fecond copper- 

 4 mine, they came in fight of white mountains, which, though 



it was in the heat of fummer, appeared to them to be covered 

 with fnow. The light naturally excited confiderable afto- 

 nilhment; but, on their approaching the mountains, they 

 ilifcovered that, inflead of fnow, they were covered with im- 

 menfe bodies of white (and. 



They had in the mean time palled through about ten nations 

 iof Indians, from whom they received very friendly treatment. 

 It was the practice of the party to exercife the office of fpokef- 

 ■man in rotation ; and when the language of any nation through 

 which they paifed was unknown to them, it was the duty of 

 the fpokefman, a duty in which the others never interfered, 

 to convey their meaning by appropriate figns. 



The labour of travelling through the deep fands of the 

 mountains was excetfive ; but at length they relieved them- 

 felves of this difficulty, by following the courfe of a (hallow 

 river, the bottom of which being level, they made their way 

 ip theiop of the mountains with tolerable convenience, 



Afte* 



