THE BISON, Oil BUl'FALG. 203 



managed to cross Beliring's Straits and settle on the 

 borders of Missouri. 



The men were, for the most part, well and strongly 

 built, and I could not help admiring their regular 

 features and coal-black eyes. Each of them had a 

 horse of small breed, not very dissimilar to those 

 ■which are so common among the Algerian Arabs. 

 The women were small and pretty, at least such of 

 them as were not more than fourteen years old ; for 

 among the Indians they begin to grow old and ugly 

 at an age which in Europe is scarcely thought to be 

 marriageable. Men and women were dressed alike 

 in garments made of tanned skins, and were adorned 

 with tattoo-marks of red, blue, and black. A short 

 hunting-shirt, reaching down to the hips ; tight 

 pantaloons with fringes cut in the leather ; moccasins 

 on their feet, and head-dresses of all kinds of fea- 

 thers, the chiefs wearing plumes from the eagle's 

 wing. The tents in which the}' sheltered themselves 

 were made, like their garments, of tanned skins, 

 embroidered with porcupine quills, and supported by 

 poles, so arranged as to be able to withstand the 

 utmost violence of the weather. 



Such was the encamjDment towards which chance 

 had conducted my companions and myself. We 

 hastened to unload the carts, and brought our goods 

 and chattels under shelter, not forgetting those pots 

 and stewpans which form so useful an addition to a 

 hunter's outfit when he is in a country full of game. 



