ABUNDANCE OF BUFFALOES. 353 



exhausted ; and at last, getting into the current, are home away 

 and drowned : hundreds thus perish every year, and their 

 swollen and putrid hodies hare been seen floating as low down 

 as St. Louis. The Indians along shore watch for these carcases, 

 and no matter how putrid they are, if the ' hump ' is fat, they 

 drag them ashore and cut it out for food." 



Many pages of the Journal describes the daily incidents of 

 the next few weeks, in which the party werd slowly pushing 

 their way up the river, and making occasional excursions from 

 the boat in pursuit' of the objects of their journey. The country 

 was inundated in many places, and from the tops of the neigh- 

 bouring hills it is represented as about equally divided between 

 land and water ; on the eastern side of the river the flat prairies 

 had become great lakes. And they noticed that the floating ice 

 had cut the trees on the banks of the river as high as the 

 shoulders of a man. Barges from above passed them, bringing 

 down the spoils of the hunters, and one from St. Pierre had ten 

 thousand buffalo-robes on board. The men reported that the 

 country above was filled with buffaloes, and the shores of the 

 river were covered with the dead bodies of old and young ones. 



As they ascended they found the river more shallow in some 

 parts, and again opening into broad places like great lagoons. 

 They passed Vermilion Eiver, a small stream running out of 

 muddy banks filled with willows. At a landing near there, a 

 man told them that a hunter had recently killed an Indian 

 chief near the foot of the Eocky Mountains, and that it would 

 be dangerous for white men to visit that region. 



They also found on the river's bank the plant called the 

 white apple, much used by the Indians for food, which they dry, 

 pound, and make into mash. It is more of a potato than apple, 

 for it grows six inches under ground, is about the size of a 

 hen's egg, covered with a dark-brown woody hard skin the 

 sixteenth of an inch thick : the fruit is easily drawn from the 

 skin, and is of a whitish colour. It had no flowers, the roots 

 were woody, leaves ovate and attached in fives. When dry, 

 the apple is hard as wood, and has to be pounded for use. 



The country grew poorer the farther they ascended the river ; 

 and the bluffs showed traces of iron, sulphur, and magnesia. 



" May 28. We now see buffaloes every day : they are extremely 



2 A 



