^^ Expedition to the 



was exhausted, and no augmentation of the daily issues could 

 be allowed, although our supplies of meat had for some time 

 been inadequate to the consumption of the party. 



We had a little coffee, tea, and sugar, but these were re- 

 served as hospital stores: our three gallons of salt were ex- 

 pended. We now depended entirely upon hunting for sub- 

 sistence, as we had done for meat ever since we left the 

 Pawnee villages, our pork having been entirely consumed 

 before we arrived at that place. We, however, apprehended 

 little want of meat, after we should have left the mountains, 

 as we believed there would be plenty of bisons and other 

 game in the plains, over which we were to travel. 



At 2 o'clock P. M. on the 18th, rain began to fall, which 

 continued during the remainder of the day, and made it im- 

 possible for us to complete the observations we had begun. 



The Arkansa, from the mountains to the place of our en- 

 campment, has an average breadth of about sixty yards; it is 

 from three to live feet deep, and the current rapid. At the 

 mountains the water was transparent and pure, but soon after 

 entering the plains it becomes turbid and brackish. 



19th. This morning we turned our backs upon the moun- 

 ^ tains, and began to move down the Arkansa. It was not 

 without a feeling of regret, that we found our long contem- 

 plated visit to these grand and interesting objects, was now at 

 an end. More than one thousand miles of dreary and mono- 

 tonous plain lay between us and the enjoyments and indul- 

 gences of civilized countries. This we were to traverse in 

 the heat of summer, but the scarcity of game about the moun- 

 tains rendered an immediate departure necessary. 



A large and beautiful animal* of the lizard kind, (be- 



* Genus Ameiva. A. Tesselntn. Say. Tesselated Lizard. The back 

 and sides of the body and neck, are marked by nine or ten longitudinal 

 lines, and eighteen or twentj' transverse ones, dividing the whole surface 

 in a tesselated manner, the interstitial quadrate spaces being black; tliese 

 lines are light brown on the back, and assume a .yellow tint on the sides; 

 the scales of these portions of the body are very small, convex and rounded. 



The top of the head is olivaceous, covered by plates, arranged tl)us. 



