Ex. Doc. No. 41. 401 



*¥ 



regular fortlj wliicli is one-fourth of a mile atove us; but lost sev- 

 eral of their horses. To-day, the man who was drowned yester- 

 day was buried, his^ body having been foun^ by our men engaged 

 in rafting. His friends sent to us for his clothes in which to bury 

 him* and, before the sun went down, he was deposited in his lonff 

 resting place: ^^jequiescat in pace,'' 



At 11 o'clock. Colonel Doniphan came to our camp and informed 

 tis that General Kearny wished to sec us. We afterwards learned 

 that the general had some inquiries to make in regard to the route 

 by the Smoky Hill fork; a route that Lieutenant Peck and myself 

 had travelled when we were attached to the command of Colonel 

 Preraont; but the roughness of that country, the absence of all 

 roads, and the scarcity of water and wood, and the poverty of the 

 pasturage, render the Arkansas river route much to be preferred. 



At 3 o'clock we commenced our march, and soon struck a roadf 

 that we pursued until near 10 o'clock at night, when we encamped 

 Dear some pools of water, having been made aware of our approach 

 to them some time before they were in sight, by the cry of the kill- 

 deer plovers, (charadrius vociferous.) We soon kindled our fires of 

 *^bois de vache," and then found we had camped in a prairie 

 dog village; abad place for picketing horses, as the neighborhood 

 is generally destitute of grass. Oji our march we obtained a sin- 

 gular species of cactus, resembling roundish bodies covered with 

 long protuberances, wnose tips were crowned with stars of white 



W 



( 



they 



allowed us to approach quite close before they took wing and as 

 they flew through +he air sang sweetly, 



Friday^ 11th. — We have now entered that portion of the prairie 

 that well deserves to be considered part of the great desert. The 

 short, curly buffalo grass (sesleria dactyloides) is seen in all di- 

 rections; the plain is dotted with cacti and thistle, (carduus lan- 

 ceolatus,) while only in buffalo wallows one meets the silver mar- 

 gined euphorbia; and in the prairie dog villages, a species of ascle- 

 pias, with truncated leaves. 



We saw several wild horses; in one group there were three, and 

 with our spyglasses we had a fine opportunity for examiningthem. 

 There was a bay, a roan, and a black; they stood for some time 

 gazing at us as if completely absorbed in looking at the strang-e 

 sijght, when, as we approached, they raised their long flowin©- tails 

 and dashed off with their long manes waving round their necks, and 

 'with a speed that soon carried them out of view. Unlike the mus- 

 tangs, these looked to be large and beautifully proportioned. 



Buflfaloes seemed as if trying to surround us. We saw scarcely 

 anything else far or near. The \yhole horizon was lined with them, 

 and their figures would sometimes shoot up to an immense height, 

 as their change of position caused the visual rays to pass through 

 mediums of different refracting power, while seeming lakes would 

 spring into existence, whose farthest shore seemed widely sepa- 

 rated from us by the broad volume of water that intervened. 

 ^ There were many dusky wolves (canis nubilus) prowling around 



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