THE EXTERMINATION OF THE AMERICAN BISON. 481 



millions of pounds of fat and juicy buffalo meat they wasted a few years 

 ago. Verily, the buffalo is in a great measure avenged already. 



The following extract from Mr. Catlin's " North American Indians," I, 

 page 199-200, serves well to illustrate not only a very common and very 

 deadly Indian method of wholesale slaughter — the " surround " — but 

 also to show the senseless destructiveness of Indians even when in a 

 state of semi-starvation, which was brought upon them by similar acts 

 of improvidence and wastefulness. 



"The Minatarees, as well as the Mandans, had suffered for some 

 months past for want of meat, and had indulged in the most alarming- 

 fears that the herds of buffalo were emigrating so far off from them 

 that there was great danger of their actual starvation, when if was sud- 

 denly announced through the village one morning at an early hour 

 that a herd of buffaloes was in sight. A hundred or more young men 

 mounted their horses, with weapons in hand, and steered their course 

 to the prairies. * * * 



" The plan of attack, which in this country is familiary called a sur- 

 round, was explicity agreed upon, and the hunters, who were all 

 mounted on their i buffalo horses' and armed with bows and arrows or 

 long lances, divided into two columns, taking opposite directions, and 

 drew themselves gradually around the herd at a mile or more distance 

 from them, thus forming a circle of horsemen at equal distances apart, 

 who gradually closed in upon them with a moderate pace at a signal 

 given. The unsuspecting herd at length ' got the wind ' of the approach- 

 ing enemy and fled in a mass in the greatest confusion. To the point 

 where they were aiming to cross the line the horsemen were seen, at full 

 speed, gathering and forming in a column, brandishing their weapons, 

 and yelling in the most frightful manner, by which they turned the black 

 and rushing mass, which moved off in an opposite direction, where they 

 were again met and foiled in a similar manner, and wheeled back in 

 utter confusion; by which time the horsemen had closed in from all 

 directions, forming a continuous line around them, whilst the poor af- 

 frighted animals were eddying about in a crowded and confused mass, 

 hooking and climbing upon each other, when the work of death com- 

 menced. I had rode up in the rear and occupied an elevated position 

 at a few rods' distance, from which I could (like the general of a battle- 

 field) survey from my horse's back the nature and the progress of the 

 grand melee, but (unlike him) without the power of issuing a command 

 or in any way directing its issue. 



" In this grand turmoil [see illustration] a cloud of dust was soon raised, 

 which in parts obscured the throng where the hunters were galloping 

 their horses around and driving the whizzing arrows or their long lances 

 to the hearts of these noble animals; which in many instances, becoming 

 infuriated with deadly wounds in their sides, erected their shaggy manes 

 over their bloodshot eyes and furiously plunged forward at the sides of 

 their assailants' horses, sometimes goring them to death at a lunge and 

 H. Mis. 600, pt. 2 31 



