THE GEOKGE CATLIN INDIAN GALLERY. 427 



place, and at other points 'below, at the results of wMch. I was exceedingly surprised. 

 By placing a piece of silver (and afterwards a piece of shell, which is a much whiter 

 substance) in a tumbler of its water, and looking through the side of the glass I ascer- 

 tained that those substances could not be seen through the eighth part of an inch ; 

 this, however, is in the spring of the year, when the freshet is npon the river, render- 

 ing the water undoubtedly much more turbid than it would be at other seasons ; 

 though it is always muddy and yellow, and from its boiling and wild character and 

 uncommon color a stranger would think, even in its lowest state, that there was a 

 frcvshet upon it. (See No. — , Plate No. 4, page 18, vol. 1, Catlin's Eight Years.) 



Almost every island and sand-bar is covered with huge piles of these floating trees, 

 and when the river is flooded its surface is almost literally covered with floating raft 

 and drift wood, which bid positive defiance to keel-boats and steamers on their way 

 up the river. 



With what propriety this "Hell of waters" might be denominated the "Eiver 

 Styx" I will not undertake to decide, but nothing could be more appropriate or in- 

 nocent than to call it the Eiver of Sticks. 



The scene is not, however, all so dreary ; there is a redeeming beauty in the green 

 and carpeted shores which hem in this huge and terrible deformity of waters. There 

 is much of the way, though, where the mighty forests of stately cotton wood stand, 

 and frown in horrid dark and coolness over the filthy abyss below, into which they are 

 ready to plunge headlong when the mud and soil in which they were germed and 

 reared have been washed out from underneath them, and with the rolling current are 

 mixed and on their way to the ocean. 



The greater part of the shores of this river, however, are without timber, where 

 the eye is delightfully relieved by wandering over the beautiful prairies, most of 

 the way gracefully sloping down to the water's edge, carpeted with the deepest green, 

 and, in distance, softening into velvet of the richest hues, entirely beyond the reach 

 of the artist's pencil. Such is the character of the upper part of the river especially, 

 and as one advances towards its source, and through its upper half, it becomes more 

 Xileasing to the eye, for snags and raft are no longer to be seen ; yet the current holds 

 its stiff and onward turbid character. 



It has been heretofore very erroneously represented to the world that the scenery 

 on this river was monotonous and wanting in picturesque beauty. This intelligence 

 is surely incorrect, and that because it has been brought, perhaps, by men who are 

 not the best judges in the world of Nature's beautiful works, and, if they were, they 

 always pass them by, in pain or desperate distress, in toil and trembling fear for the 

 safety of their furs and peltries, or for their lives, Avhich are at the mercy of the yell- 

 ing savages who inhabit this delightful country. 



One thousand miles or more of the upper part of the river was, to my eye, like 

 fairy-land ; and during our transit through that part of our voyage I was most of 

 the time riveted to the deck of the boat, indulging my eyes in the boundless and 

 tireless pleasure of roaming over the thousand hills, and bluffs, and dales, and ra- 

 vines, where the astonished herds of buffaloes, of elks, and antelopes, and sneakiu"- 

 wolves, and mountain-goats, were to be seen bounding up and down and over the 

 green fields, each one and each tribe, band, and gang, taking their own way and 

 using their owu means to the greatest advantage possible to leave the sight and 

 sound of the puffing of our boat, which was, for the first time, saluting the green and 

 wild shores of the Missouri with the din of mighty steam. 



From Saint Louis to the falls of the Missouri, a distance of 2,600 miles, is one con- 

 tinued prairie, with the exception of a few of the bottoms formed along the bank of 

 the river and the streams which are falling into it, which are often covered with the 

 most luxuriant growth of forest timber. 



[See plates Nos. 5 and 6, page 19, vol. 2, Catlin's Eight Years.] 



It is amidst these wild and quiet haunts that the mountain-sheep and the fleet- 

 bounding antelope sport and live in herds, secure from their enemies, to whom the 



