50 NAKKATIVE OF A JOURNEY 



the guard had shot near the camp in the morning. The animal 

 lay upon its side with the breast towards us : the bow was drawn 

 slightly, without any apparent effort, and the arrow flew through 

 the body of the antelope, and skimmed to a great distance over 

 the plain. 



These Indians were the finest looking of any I had seen. 

 Their persons were tall, straight, and finely formed ; their noses 

 slightly aqualine, and the whole countenance expressive of high 

 and daring intrepidity. The face of the taller one was particu- 

 larly admirable ; and Gall or Spurzheim, at a single glance at his 

 magnificent head, would have invested him with all the noblest 

 qualities of the species. I know not what a physiognomist would 

 have said of his eyes, but they were certainly the most wonderful 

 eyes I ever looked into ; glittering and scintillating constantly, 

 like the mirror-glasses in a lamp frame, and rolling and dancing 

 in their orbits as though possessed of abstract volition. 



The tribe to which these Indians belong, is a division of the 

 great Pawnee nation. There are four of these divisions or tribes, 

 known by the names of Grand Pawnees, Pawnee Loups, Pawnee 

 Republicans, and Pawnee Picts. They are all independent of 

 each other, governed exclusively by chiefs chosen from among 

 their own people, and although they have always been on terms 

 of intimacy and friendship, never intermarry, nor have other in- 

 tercourse than that of trade, or a conjunction of their forces to 

 attack the common enemy. In their dealings with the whites, 

 they are arbitrary and overbearing, chaffering about the price of 

 a horse, or a beaver skin, with true huckster-like eagerness and 

 mendacity, and seizing with avidity every unfair advantage, 

 which circumstances or their own craft may put in their 

 power. 



The buffalo still continue immensely numerous in every di- 

 rection around, and our men kill great numbers, so that we are 

 in truth living upon the fat of the land, and better feeding need 



