It Is But Justice To This Gallant Chief To Say That He Gave
Proofs Of Having Acquired Some Of The Lights Of Civilization From
His Proximity To The Whites, As Was Evinced In His Knowledge Of
Driving A Bargain.
He required hard cash in return for some corn
with which he supplied the worthy captain, and left the latter at
a loss which most to admire, his native chivalry as a brave, or
his acquired adroitness as a trader.
3
Wide prairies Vegetable productions Tabular hills Slabs of
sandstone Nebraska or Platte River Scanty fare Buffalo
skulls Wagons turned into boats Herds of buffalo Cliffs
resembling castles The chimney Scott's Bluffs Story connected
with them The bighorn or ahsahta Its nature and habits Difference
between that and the "woolly sheep," or goat of the mountains
FROM THE MIDDLE to the end of May, Captain Bonneville pursued a
western course over vast undulating plains, destitute of tree or
shrub, rendered miry by occasional rain, and cut up by deep
water-courses where they had to dig roads for their wagons down
the soft crumbling banks and to throw bridges across the streams.
The weather had attained the summer heat; the thermometer
standing about fifty-seven degrees in the morning, early, but
rising to about ninety degrees at noon. The incessant breezes,
however, which sweep these vast plains render the heats
endurable. Game was scanty, and they had to eke out their scanty
fare with wild roots and vegetables, such as the Indian potato,
the wild onion, and the prairie tomato, and they met with
quantities of "red root," from which the hunters make a very
palatable beverage. The only human being that crossed their path
was a Kansas warrior, returning from some solitary expedition of
bravado or revenge, bearing a Pawnee scalp as a trophy.
The country gradually rose as they proceeded westward, and their
route took them over high ridges, commanding wide and beautiful
prospects. The vast plain was studded on the west with
innumerable hills of conical shape, such as are seen north of the
Arkansas River. These hills have their summits apparently cut off
about the same elevation, so as to leave flat surfaces at top. It
is conjectured by some that the whole country may originally have
been of the altitude of these tabular hills; but through some
process of nature may have sunk to its present level; these
insulated eminences being protected by broad foundations of solid
rock.
Captain Bonneville mentions another geological phenomenon north
of Red River, where the surface of the earth, in considerable
tracts of country, is covered with broad slabs of sandstone,
having the form and position of grave-stones, and looking as if
they had been forced up by some subterranean agitation. "The
resemblance," says he, "which these very remarkable spots have in
many places to old church-yards is curious in the extreme. One
might almost fancy himself among the tombs of the pre-Adamites."
On the 2d of June, they arrived on the main stream of the
Nebraska or Platte River; twenty-five miles below the head of the
Great Island.
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