The Exploring Expedition to the Rocky Mountains, Oregon and California | Page 4

swim came nigh being drowned, and all
the sugar belonging to one of the messes wasted its sweets on the
muddy waters; but our heaviest loss was a large bag of coffee, which
contained nearly all our provision. It was a loss which none but a
traveler in a strange and inhospitable country can appreciate; and often
afterward, when excessive toil and long marching had overcome us
with fatigue and weariness, we remembered and mourned over our loss
in the Kansas. Carson and Maxwell had been much in the water
yesterday, and both, in consequence, were taken ill. The former
continuing so, I remained in camp. A number of Kansas Indians visited
us to-day. Going up to one of the groups who were scattered among the
trees, I found one sitting on the ground, among some of the men,
gravely and fluently speaking French, with as much facility and as little
embarrassment as any of my own party, who were nearly all of French
origin.
On all sides was heard the strange language of his own people, wild,
and harmonizing well with their appearance. I listened to him for some
time with feelings of strange curiosity and interest. He was now
apparently thirty-five years of age; and, on inquiry, I learned that he
had been at St. Louis when a boy, and there had learned the French
language. From one of the Indian women I obtained a fine cow and calf
in exchange for a yoke of oxen. Several of them brought us vegetables,
pumpkins, onions, beans, and lettuce. One of them brought butter, and
from a half-breed near the river, I had the good fortune to obtain some
twenty or thirty pounds of coffee. The dense timber in which we had
encamped interfered with astronomical observations, and our wet and
damaged stores required exposure to the sun. Accordingly, the tents
were struck early the next morning, and, leaving camp at six o'clock,
we moved about seven miles up the river, to a handsome, open prairie,
some twenty feet above the water, where the fine grass afforded a
luxurious repast to our horses.
During the day we occupied ourselves in making astronomical
observations, in order to lay down the country to this place; it being our
custom to keep up our map regularly in the field, which we found
attended with many advantages. The men were kept busy in drying the
provisions, painting the cart covers, and otherwise completing our
equipage, until the afternoon, when powder was distributed to them,

and they spent some hours in firing at a mark. We were now fairly in
the Indian country, and it began to be time to prepare for the chances of
the wilderness.
17th.--The weather yesterday had not permitted us to make the
observations I was desirous to obtain here, and I therefore did not move
to-day. The people continued their target firing. In the steep bank of the
river here, were nests of innumerable swallows, into one of which a
large prairie snake had got about half his body, and was occupied in
eating the young birds. The old ones were flying about in great distress,
darting at him, and vainly endeavoring to drive him off. A shot
wounded him, and, being killed, he was cut open, and eighteen young
swallows were found in his body. A sudden storm, that burst upon us in
the afternoon, cleared away in a brilliant sunset, followed by a clear
night, which enabled us to determine our position in longitude 95° 38'
05", and in latitude 39° 06' 40".
A party of emigrants to the Columbia river, under the charge of Dr.
White, an agent of the government in Oregon Territory, were about
three weeks in advance of us. They consisted of men, women, and
children. There were sixty-four men, and sixteen or seventeen families.
They had a considerable number of cattle, and were transporting their
household furniture in large, heavy wagons. I understood that there had
been much sickness among them, and that they had lost several
children. One of the party who had lost his child, and whose wife was
very ill, had left them about one hundred miles hence on the prairies;
and as a hunter, who had accompanied them, visited our camp this
evening, we availed ourselves of his return to the States to write to our
friends.
The morning of the 18th was very unpleasant. A fine rain was falling,
with cold wind from the north, and mists made the river hills look dark
and gloomy. We left our camp at seven, journeying along the foot of
the hills which border the Kansas valley, generally about three miles
wide, and extremely rich. We halted for dinner, after a march of about
thirteen miles, on the banks of one of the