[BURPEE] YORK FACTORY TO THE BLACKFEET COUNTRY 333 
14. Saturday. Travelled none. I went with the young men a 
Buffalo hunting, all armed with Bows & Arrows: killed seven, fine sport. 
We beat them about, lodging twenty arrows in one beast. So expert are 
the Natives, that they will take the arrows out of them when they are 
foaming and raging with pain, & tearing the ground up with their feet 
& horns until they fall down. 
15. Sunday. Travelled 7 Miles W.S.W. Level land, no woods to 
be seen: passed by a lake: the Buffalo so numerous obliged to make them 
sheer out of our way.! Also Wolves without number, lurking Indians 
killed a great many Buffalo; only taking what they choosed to carry. 
I am now well stocked with tongues. We saw a few Moose & Waskesew ; 
but as the Natives seldom kill them with the Bow & Arrows they will 
not expend ammunition, while Buffalo are so numerous. I hope we shall 
soon see the Archithinue Natives; the Horse dung, and paths being 
pretty fresh. Saw a large Snake but could not get at it. 
The narratives of early travellers throughout the vast prairie country 
of North America all bear testimony to the incalculable numbers off the 
buffalo. Henry the Elder (‘Travels and Adventures in Canada,” ete. ed. 
by James Bain, p. 286) says, “ their numbers were so great that we dreaded 
lest they fairly trample down the camp.’ Henry the Younger (I, 167) 
gives an even more graphic picture. ‘I was awakened,” he says, “ by the 
bellowing of buffaloes...... the plains were black, and appeared as if in 
motion =... I had seen almost incredible numbers of buffalo in the fall, but 
nothing in comparison to what I now beheld. The ground was covered at 
every point of the compass, as far as the eye could reach, and every animal 
was in motion.” The accounts of Catlin, Professor Hind, Harmon, Butler, 
and other writers, are to the same effect: See particularly Vol. I of Catlin’s 
“N. A. Indians,” pp. 247 to end of volume. The late Dr. Selwyn travelled 
over a portion of the same country explored by Hendry, in 1873. ‘‘ Not many 
years ago,” he says, “the region we traversed was swarming with buffaloes; 
now, their skulls whitening on the plain, and the deep-worn and grass-grown 
tracks which traverse the prairies in all directions, are the only evidence of 
their former existence.” (Geol. Survey 1878-4, p. 61). Mr. W. T. Hornaday 
has gone very fully into the whole history of this remarkable animal in his 
“ Extermination of the Buffalo”;: and Ernest Thompson Seton adds some 
further details in an article on “The American Bison,’ (Scribner’s Maga- 
zine, Oct., 1906). Interesting particulars as to the buffalo pounds will be 
found in Bain’s Henry (301); Coues’ Henry-Thompson (518-20, 576-77); Paul 
Kane’s ‘“ Wanderings of an Artist,’ ete. (117-18); and many other writers. 
An excellent illustration of a pound will be found in Hind’s “ Canadian Red 
River Exp. Exp’n.” «etc. I, 858; while, in addition to the familiar account in 
Parkman’s “ Oregon Trail,’ an admirable description of the more sportsman- 
like method of hunting the buffalo in the open on horseback, will be found 
in Catlin (I, 199-20). 
