! 6 CAPT. FREMONT’S NARRATIVE. (1842. 
the hardshi, 
_ journey. r. Cyprian Chouteau, to whose 
to conduct us on the 
s 
consign us to the ocean of prairie, which, we 
were told, oy withon interruption al- 
t to he 
From the belt of wood “which borders the 
s, in which we had passed several 
oO 
eighty yards in diameter. The tents were 
king and hey horses hobbled and — 
a few minu 
ce “but 
lapsed eore von cooks of t the messes, te stream, to s 
hich there were on were busily engaged 
ing meal} 
and vexations of the ee 
red by a halter, 
own one end wa s tied m a small steel- 
: ie ei and iver into the ground ; 
__ halter being twenty or thirty feet long, which 
enabled them to obtain a li ood durin 
‘ ing the ev . At night- 
é ane horses, mules, ape —— were driven | wi 
t is, 
n hea- 
vily, and, as our tents were of light ahd thin 
cloth, they offered but little obstruction to 
in ;_we were al] well soaked, and glad when 
day advanced. We encamped in aremarka- 
bly tera situation on es Kansas blufis, 
which commanded a fine view of the river 
entral portion was occupied by a broad 
belt of heavy timber, and nearer the hills the 
prairies were of the r ric pea Sep is 
of the oxen was killed here for food. 
We reached the ford of ‘ie Kansas late 
in the afternoon of the 14th, where the river 
crossing. expected to find the river 
fordable : but it had cn swollen by the late 
rains, and was swee by with an ang 
ing ary 
-| current, yellow and turbid as the Missouri. 
Up to this point, the road we had travelled 
was a remarkably fine one, ~~ aten, a 
level—the usual road of a rie country. 
our route, the on was pit hund. 
miles from the mouth of the Kansas river. 
some distance down the river, and, img 
to the right ae ere not got over until 
the next morning. In the Sesatiina the 
carts hi ad been unloaded and dismantled, and 
food g | an r boat, whic! ght 
reached a part of | with me for the survey of e river, 
i me | placed in the water. The boat was twenty 
1 ged ng five broad, and on it were 
y along the Santa 
Perea, which we left in 4 the afternoon, and 
He had lost his way 
: dnight, with the exception of one 
roger: ke ode amy: amet | 
long and b 
placed the body and wheels of a cart, with 
the load belonging to it, and three men with 
ddles. 
The velocity of the current, and the incon- 
venient “treight, rendering it difficult to be 
g jeunesse, one of our 
swimmers, took in his teeth a line attached 
to t and swam ah order. to 
panying man at the helm w 
| timid on water, and, in his oo, capsized : 
ves | the boat. Carts, es, and 
barrels, box 
a moment floating down the ease 
were In S 
but all the men who were on the shore 
jumped into the water, without s' 
