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door. To our right, along the wall, were arranged several bedsteada, 

 rudely made, while to the left, a part was cut off by a couple of poles, for 

 tiie accommodation of the horses ; the chickens had a coop in one corner, 

 but roam at large on most occasions, and the centre is used for a fireplace. 

 The lodge was clean, airy, light and comfortable, and there was plenty of 

 room for more than those, who I suppose, inhabited it. Eehind us were 

 huno- bows with spears on the entis, and two rude instruments of music, 

 made of a number of pumpkins. I believe something is put in the inside of 

 them and shaken, but I have not learned the modus operandi. There were 

 two squaws present, the elder of whom was very polite, the younger one 

 stood back, either because she was the younger wife, or perhaps the wife of 

 another man. I was quite pleased with both of them. Near the fire- 

 place a small w^ooden mortar was sunk in the ground, for })ounding corn. 

 The large and high room appeared rather scarce of furniture. I have thus 

 attempted to describe the appearance and structure of the lodge in which we 

 were, and this is the general appearance of all others. Many persons in the 

 States live in much more filth and much less comfort. About twenty of the 

 men having assembled, the owner of the lodge gave us the right hand again 

 in token of friendship, and made a short speech, which we replied to, through 

 an interpreter, and then we left. 



The village is composed of two-hundred lodges, as near as I could learn 

 from the interpreter, and is built upon the top of a bluff bank rising about 

 seventy-five feet perpendicular from the water. The huts are placed very 

 irregularly, sometimes with very narrow, and sometimes with quite Uroad 

 spaces between them. A number of platforms of poles, as high as the 

 lodges themselves, are interspersed among them for the convenience of dry- 

 ing meat and dressing robes. I noticed a number of squaws busily employed 

 in dressing robes. I left the village much pleased with my visit, and with 

 the politeness with which we had been treated. 



On passing to the fort, I observetl a great number of hillocks scattered 

 over the prairie, and these, I W'as told, are graves, this people having 

 abandoned the old method of scaffolding their dead. Other more agreeable 

 sights on the prairie also attracted my attention, and these were little 

 patches of corn and pumpkins, generally enclosed by a slight bush fence. I 

 forgot to mention that over the fire in the lodge were two bundles of what 

 appeared to be hay tied up in skins ; these, I was told, contained grains of 

 corn put up in hay, and hung so as to be heated ; if the grains germinate they 

 are planted, and tliose that do not are left out. This corn is small and on 

 small ears, but Mr. Picotte says it contains a larger amount of flour than 

 our corn. We spent a short time in the fort, and found it to be small and 

 the buildings old, but everything very neat and clean. I saw there a young- 

 antelope, which a squaw allowed to suck from her breasts ; it is said to be 

 quite common for squaws to suckle young animals, often raising in this man- 

 ner cubs of the grizzly bear. I have noticed that they often allow their 

 chikh'en to suckle till much older than with us. I have seen children four 

 or five years old taking a good tug at the maternal fount. 



About nine o'clock the boat was off again, having landed all her freight, 

 and taken in some Ree corn. The hills opposite the fort and a little above 

 it, are steep, irregular and of the whitish clay (tertiary, I think,) formation. 

 The tops of several have a light red appearance as though they might be 

 of pumice stone, such as I picked up last nighfat the landing. The hill at 

 the village was covered with men, women and children, but as the top of 



