March 4, 1898.] 



SCIENCE. 



293 



made of wood, had only a frame, covered 

 ■with Buffalo skins with the hair on." The 

 two occupants " had been nine days coming 

 150 miles, detained every day, more or less, 

 by Indians." 



In the entry for May 25th, Audubon men- 

 tions meeting three Mackinaw barges a lit- 

 tle below the mouth of White River, South 

 Dakota. " On the roofs of the barges " he 

 writes " lay much Buffalo meat, and on the 

 island we left this morning probably some 

 hundreds of these poor animals, mostly 

 young calves, were found dead at every few 

 steps ; and since then we have passed many 

 dead as well as many groups of living. In 

 one place we saw a large gang swimming 

 across the river ; they fortunately reached 

 a bank through which they cut their way 

 towards the hills." Later the same day he 

 says : " "Within the last mile or so we 

 must have passed upwards of a hundred 

 drowned young Buffalo calves, and many 

 large ones." On the 28th, between Great 

 Bend and Fort George " both shores were 

 dotted by groups of Buffaloes as far as the 

 eye could reach," and by noon he estimated 

 that he had seen more than 2000. 



On the 6th of June Audubon stopped to 

 see the famous Mandan village, on the 

 west side of the Missouri nearly opposite 

 the spot now occupied by Bismarck, the 

 capital of North Dakota. The inhabitants 

 at the time were mainly Riccarees, the 

 Mandans having been almost exterminated 

 by small pox 5 or 6 years before. In his 

 journal Audubon thus describes the appear- 

 ance of the village and its inmates : " The 

 Mandan mud huts are very far from look- 

 ing poetical, although Mr. Catlin has tried 

 to render them so by placing them in regu- 

 lar rows, and all of the same size and form, 

 which is by no means the case. But differ- 

 ent travellers have different eyes ! We saw 

 more Indians than at any previous time 

 since leaving St. Louis, and it is possible 

 that there are a hundred huts, made of mud. 



all looking like so many potato winter- 

 houses in the Eastern States. * * The ap- 

 pearance of these poor, miserable devils, as 

 we approached the shore, was wretched 

 enough. There they stood in the pelting raiu 

 and keen wind, covered with Buffalo robes, 

 red blankets, and the like, some partially and 

 most curiously besmeared with mud ; and as 

 they came on board, and we shook hands 

 with each of them, I felt a clamminess that 

 rendered the ceremony most repulsive." 



The Bighorn or Mountain Sheep, which 

 still occurs sparingly in the ' badlands ' of 

 North Dakota, was then abundant and not 

 infrequently appeared along the Missouri 

 near the mouth of the Yellowstone, where 

 a band of 22 was observed by Audubon and 

 his associates. 



At length, on the 12th of June, 48 days 

 after setting out from St. Louis, the party 

 arrived at the end of their journey and 

 were heartily welcomed and hospitably 

 entertained by Mr. Culbertson, the fur 

 trader in charge of Fort Union. 



Speaking of his quarters at the fort 

 Audubon says : " Our room was small, 

 dark, and dirty, and crammed with our 

 effects. Mr. Culbertson saw this, and told 

 me that to-morrow he would remove us to 

 a larger, quieter, and better one. I was 

 glad to hear this, as it would have been 

 very difficult to draw, write, or work in ; 

 and yet it is the very room where the 

 Prince de Neuwied [Maximilian, Prince of 

 Wied] resided for two months, with his 

 secretary and bird-preserver. The evening 

 was cloudy and cold ; we had several show- 

 ers of rain since our bath in the bushes this 

 morning, and I felt somewhat fatigued. 

 Harris and I made our beds up ; Squires 

 fixed some Buffalo robes, of which nine had 

 been given ns, on a long old bedstead, never 

 knowing it had been the couch of a foreign 

 prince; Bell and Sprague settled themselves 

 opposite to us on more Buffalo skins, and 

 night closed in." 



