Rocky Mountains. T^iS 



terpreters; one book of notes on the manners and habits of 

 animals, and descriptions of species; one book containing a 

 journal; two books containing vocabularies of the languages 

 of the mountain Indians; and those of the latter consisted of 

 a topographical journal of the same portion of our expedition. 

 All these being utterly useless to the wretches who now 

 possessed them, were probably thrown away upon the ocean 

 of prairie, and consequently the labour of months was con- 

 signed to oblivion, l)y these uneducated vandals. 



Nowland, Myers, and Bernard, though selected, with oth- 

 ers, by the officers of Camp Missouri, with the best intentions, 

 for the purpose of accompanying our party, proved worth- 

 less, indolent, and pusillanimous from the beginning; and 

 Nowland, we ascertained, was a notorious deserter in two 

 former instances. 



This desertion and robbery occurred at a most unfortunate 

 period, inasmuch as we were all much debilitated, and their 

 services consequently the less dispensable on that account, 

 in the attentions necessarily due to the pack-horses, in driv- 

 ing these animals, loading and unloading them, &c. 



We resumed ouf journey, upon our Indian pathway, in 

 silence; and at the distance of sixteen miles we passed through 

 the river forest, here three miles in width, and once again 

 encamped upon the bank which overlooks the Arkansa. No 

 trace of Belle Point, nor any appearance of civilization was 

 yet in view. But we were all immediately struck with the 

 change in the appearance of the water in the river. No lon- 

 ger of that pale clay colour to which we have been accus- 

 tomed, it has now assumed a reddish hue, hardly unlike that 

 of the blood of the human arteries, and is still perfectly 

 opake from the quantity of an earthy substance of this tint, 

 which it holds in suspension. Its banks and bars are formed 

 from depositions of the same colour. This extraneous pigment 

 has been contributed by some large stream flowing in from 

 the opposite side, and which, in consequence of our late 

 aberrance, we had not seen. 



