THE MISSOURI RIVER JOURNALS 47 



burning fever, plunged in the stream, and rose no more. 

 The whites in the fort, as well as the Riccarees, took 

 the disease after all. The Indians, with few exceptions, 

 died, and three of the whites. The latter had no food in 

 the way of bread, flour, sugar, or coffee, and they had to 

 go stealthily by night to steal small pumpkins, about the 

 size of a man's fist, to subsist upon — and this amid a 

 large number of wild, raving, mad Indians, who swore 

 revenge against them all the while. This is a mere 

 sketch of the terrible scourge which virtually annihilated 

 two powerful tribes of Indians, and of the trials of the 

 traders attached to the Fur Companies on these wild 

 prairies, and I can tell you of many more equally strange. 

 The mortality, as taken down by Major Mitchell, was 

 estimated by that gentleman at 150,000 Indians, includ- 

 ing those from the tribes of the Riccarees, Mandans, 

 Sioux, and Blackfeet. The small-pox was in the very 

 fort from which I am now writing this account, and its 

 ravages here were as awful as elsewhere. Mr. Chardon 

 had the disease, and was left for dead; but one of his 

 clerks saw signs of life, and forced him to drink a quan- 

 tity of hot whiskey mixed with water and nutmeg; he fell 

 into a sound sleep, and his recovery began from that hour. 

 He says that with him the pains began in the small of 

 the back, and on the back part of his head, and were in- 

 tense. He concluded by assuring us all that the small- 

 pox had never been known in the civilized world, as it 

 had been among the poor Mandans and other Indians. 

 Only twenty-seven Mandans were left to tell the tale ; they 

 have now augmented to ten or twelve lodges in the six 

 years that have nearly elapsed since the pestilence. ^ 



1 That the account given by Audubon is not exaggerated may be seen 

 from the two accounts following; the first from Lewis and Clark, the 

 second from the Prince of Wied : — 



" The ancient Maha village had once consisted of 300 cabins, but was 

 burnt about four years ago (1800), soon after the small-pox had destroyed 

 four hundred men, and a proportion of women and children. . . . The 



