13S A SYNOPSIS OF THE INDIAN TRIBES. [iNTROD. and of the adjacent country on the north. North of the Lakes, the forest continues uninterrupted, at least in their vicinity, as far west as Lake Winnipek. Beyond the Mississippi, the prairies continue to encroach rapidly on the woodland, until at last an immense plain, bounded on the west by the Rocky Mountains, extends from the vicinity of the Arctic Sea to the Gulf of .Mexico, leaving only narrow strips of wooded land along the banks of the rivers and water-courses. The forest makes again its appearance in the Rocky Mountains, in the secondary ridges, and in the intervening valleys. Beyond the mountains vast prairies are again found, extending as far west as the northern continuation of the Californian chain of moun- tains, and known by the name of Columbia Plains. Their extent to the north is not known, but southwardly, and assuming a different character, they reach the Gulf of California. A great portion of the Mexican dominions is equally destitute of trees. The tract of land, contained between the Pacific and the Californian chain, does not exceed one hundred and fifty miles in breadth, and is well timbered. But there is a vast difference, in the means of subsistence they afford to the Indians, between the Columbia Plains and the Prairies of the Missouri. These are the native country of the bisons, or buffaloes, as they are universally called in America, and through which they range, from the fifty-fifth degree of latitude to the sources of the rivers that empty into the Gulf of Mexico between the Mississippi and the Rio Norte. The buffaloes constitute the principal article of food of the erratic tribes, as well as of the cultivating Indians whom we have designated by the name of Missouris ; and their undi- minished numbers prove, that the Indian population has not quite reached the extent, of which, in that state of nature, it was susceptible. The Columbia Plains, on the contrary, are as destitute of game as of trees. The buffalo has never pene- trated there; the principal and cheapest article of food of the European and American traders was, at least till very lately, horse flesh ;* and dogs were a luxury. The Indians who did
- The horse is not a native of America. The wild herds of Texas
are entirely of Spanish origin. They have been obtained by the Indians either directly or by internal exchanges among themselves, and are now abundant in a domesticated state on both sides of the Rocky Moun- tains, as far north as they can subsist without the aid of food supplied by man.
