426 THE GEORGE CATLIN INDIAN GALLERY. 



ITINERARY OF 1832. 



In the spring of 1832 I ascended the Missouri, on the steamer Yellowstone, to Fort 

 Union, mouth, of Yellowstone River, and descended the Missouri to Saint Louis in a 

 canoe, with two men, a distance of two thousand miles, steering it the whole way 

 with my own paddle ; and in that campaign visited and painted the Mandans, Crows, 

 Blackfeet, Knisteneux, Assinneboins, Minatarrees, Riccarrees, Sioux, Puncahs, and 

 Iowas. 



The year 1832 was the most fruitful to his art aud narrative of any of 

 the years Mr. Catlin was with the North American Indians. The navi- 

 gation of the Upper Missouri Eiver in 1832 could be well said to be in 

 its infancy. The first steamboat that landed at Saint Louis, in 1817, 

 the General Pike, had made a decided sensation. Afterwards the far 

 traders to the up country lying along the Missouri and Yellowstone 

 Rivers began to forward their goods on the steamboat. In 1827 steam- 

 boats ascended the Missouri as far as (now) Council Bluffs, where the 

 goods for Indian trade were transferred to pack-horses and carried 

 across the country to the north, amongst the Blackfeet and Crow In- 

 dians, a most tedious and expensive system. In 1831, Pierre Chouteau 

 pushed a cargo on row-boats to Fort Pierre, now in Dakota, and in 1831- 

 '32 he built the steamer Yellowstone, on which Mr. Catlin took passage, 

 and in June, 1832, steamed her into the mouth of the Yellowstone River. 



The Yellowstone was destroyed during 1833. 



In picture No. 311 may be seen the Yellowstone as she appeared 

 then, starting from Saint Louis, in May, 1832, on her trip up the Yel- 

 lowstone ; quite a novel specimen of river architecture. 



Mr. Chouteau invited Mr. Catlin to take passage with him. With 

 them was Major Sanford, Indian agent, with a delegation of Indians 

 returning from Washington. Mr. Catlin's plan, which he successfully 

 executed, was to go with the steamboat to the head of navigation on 

 the Missouri River (then an unknown point) , take a canoe, and drift 

 down with the current or paddle to the various forts, ports, and Indian 

 camps. His voyage up the Missouri would teach him the lay of the 

 land, so that on his return in a canoe he would know the points of 

 interest at which to stop. 



THE UP-RIVER VOYAGE. 



Mr. Catlin thus describes the river and the impression the steamboat 

 made upon the natives : 



The Missouri is, perhaps, different in appearance and character from all other rivers 

 in the world ; there is a terror in its manner which is sensibly felt the moment we enter 

 its muddy waters from the Mississippi. From the mouth of the Yellowstone River 

 which is the place from whence I am now writing, to its junction with the Mississippi, 

 a distance of 2,000 miles, the Missouri, with its boiling, turbid waters, sweeps off in 

 one unceasing current ; and in the whole distance there is scarcely an eddy or resting- 

 place for a canoe. Owing to the continual falling in of its rich alluvial banks, its wa- 

 ter is always turbid and opaque ; having, at all seasons of the year, the color of a cup 

 of chocolate or coffee with sugar and cream stirred into it. To give a better definition 

 of its density and opacity, I have tried a number of simple experiments with it at this 



