to make him turn off up the river again, but farther from us, at a full gallop; after a time he stopped again, when the noise of our steam pipe started him, and we soon lost sight of him in the bushes. We saw three Deer in the flat of one of the prairies, and just before our dinner we saw, rather indistinctly, a number of Buffaloes, making their way across the hills about two miles distant; after which, however, we saw their heavy tracks in a well and deep cut line across the said hills. Therefore we are now in what is pronounced to be the "Buffalo country," and may expect to see more of these animals to-morrow. We have stopped for wood no less than three times this day, and are fast for the night. Sprague killed a Pipilo arcticus, and Bell three others of the same species. We procured also another Bat, the Vespertilio subulatus of Say, and this is all. The country around us has materially changed, and we now see more naked, and to my eyes more completely denuded, hills about us, and less of the rich bottoms of alluvial land, than we passed below our present situation. I will not anticipate the future by all that we hear of the country above, but will continue steadily to accumulate in this, my poor journal, all that may take place from day to day. Three of our Indian rascals left us at our last wooding-ground, and have gone towards their miserable village. We have now only one Sioux with us, who will, the captain says, go to Fort Pierre in our company. They are, all that we have had as yet, a thieving and dirty set, covered with vermin. We still see a great number of Black-headed Gulls, but I think fewer Geese and Ducks than below; this probably on account of the very swampy prairie we have seen, and which appears to become scarce as we are advancing in this strange wilderness.
May 21, Sunday. We have had a great deal that interested us all this day. In the first place we have passed no less than five of what are called rivers, and their
