76 THE GREAT NORTH AMERICAN BUFFALO HERDS. 



mont, U.S.A., " a traveller might start from any given point in 

 the Rocky Mountains, journeying by the most direct route 

 to the Missouri River, and during the whole distance, his 

 road would always be among large bands of buffalo, which 

 would never be out of his view, until he arrived almost within 

 sight of the abodes of civilization." * 



According to Mr. Fitzpatrick, and from his own 

 cognisance of the facts, Colonel Fremont states that 

 u Our knowledge (of this great plains region) does not 

 go further back than the spring of 1824," about which 

 time the buffalo roamed in immense herds all through 

 the country both to the east and west of the Rocky 

 Mountains. "About the year 1834 or 1835 they began 

 to diminish very rapidly" and by about 1840 had 

 entirely abandoned the country watered by the Colum- 

 bia and its tributaries. 



In 1843, at the time Colonel Fremont visited these 

 regions, the rapidity with which they were decreasing 

 was the general subject of remark, as at that time the 

 principal business of the American trading posts in the 

 Far West was being carried on in buffalo-robes. 

 In 1846 however, their numbers were still so vast, 

 that the late Mr. Francis Parkman (the American 

 Historian of Canada) describing the numbers seen by 

 him on the Arkansas River, and the confused medley 

 of sounds that were heard by night, coming from the 

 mighty assemblage of these animals collected upon the 

 adjacent plains near his camp says, 



" We encamped close to the river. The night was dark, 

 and as we lay down we could hear, mingled with the howling 



* The Exploring Expedition to the Rocky Mottntains, Oregon, and 

 California, by Brevet Colonel John C. Fremont, published Buffalo U.S., 

 1853, pp. 187 and 188. 



