 CHAPTER XXI. THE MEANS, SAYS AN INGENIUS TRAVELER, BY WHICH AMERICA RECEIVED ITS FIRST INHABITANCE, HAVE, SINCE THE TIME OF ITS DISCOVERY BY THE EUROPEANS, BEING THE SUBJECT OF NUMBERLESS DISQUISITIONS. WAS I TO ENDEVER TO COLLECT THE DIFFERENT OPINIONS AND REASONINGS OF THE VARIOUS WRITERS THAT HAVE TAKEN UP THE PEN IN DEFENCE OF THEIR CONJECTURES? The enumeration would much exceed the bonds I have prescribed to myself, and oblige me to be less explicit on points of greater moment, from the obscurity in which this debate is enveloped, through the total disuse of letters among every nation of Indians on this extensive continent, and the uncertainty of oral tradition at the distance of so many ages, I fear that even after the most minute investigation we shall not be able to settle it with any great degree of certainty. And this apprehension will receive additional force, when it is considered that the diversity of language which is apparently distinct between most of the Indians, tends to ascertain that this population was not affected from one particular country, but from several neighbouring ones, and completed at different periods. Most of the historians, or travellers that have treated on the American aborigines, disagree in their sentiments relative to them. Many of the ancients are supposed to have known that this quarter of the globe not only existed, but also that it was inhabited. Plato in his Timias has asserted that beyond the island which he calls Atlantis, which according to his description was situated in the western ocean, there were a great number of other islands, and behind those a vast continent. Ovido, a celebrated Spanish author of much later date, has made no scruple to affirm that the Antilles are the famous Hesperides, so often mentioned by the poets, which are at length restored to the kings of Spain, the descendants of King Hesperus, who lived upwards of three thousand years ago, and from whom these islands received their name. Two other Spaniards, the one, Father Gregorio Garcia, Dominican, the other, Father Joseph de Acosta, a Jesuit, have written on the origin of the Americans. The former, who had been employed in the missions of Mexico and Peru, endeavored to prove from the traditions of the Mexicans, Peruvians, and others which he received on the spot, and from the variety of characters, customs, languages, and religion observed in the different countries of the New World, that different nations had contributed to the peopling of it. The latter, Father de Acosta, in his examination of the means by which the first Indians of America might have found a passage to that continent, discredits the conclusions of those who have supposed it to be by sea, because no ancient author has made mention of the compass, and concludes that it must be either by the north of Asia and Europe, which adjoined to each other, or by those regions that lie to the southward of the Straits of Magellan. He also rejects the assertions of such as have advanced that it was peopled by the Hebrews. John Delay, a Flemish writer, has controverted the opinions of the Spanish fathers, and of many others who have written on the same subject. The hypothesis he endeavours to establish is that America was certainly peopled by the Scythians, or Tartars, and that the trans-migration of these people happened soon after the dispersion of Noah's grandsons. He undertakes to show that the most northern Americans have a greater resemblance, not only in the features of their countenances, but also in their complexion and manner of living, to the Scythians, Tartars, and Samoids, than to any other nations. In answer to Grosius, who had asserted that some of the Norwegians passed into America by way of Greenland and over a vast continent, he says that it is well known that Greenland was not discovered until the year 964, and both Gamera and Herrera inform us that the Chichamiques were settled on the Lake of Mexico in 721. He adds that these savages, according to the uniform tradition of the Mexicans who dispossessed them, came from the country since called New Mexico, and from the neighborhood of California. Consequently, North America must have been inhabited many ages before it could receive any inhabitants from Norway by way of Greenland. It is no less certain, he observes, that the real Mexicans founded their empire in 902, after having subdued the Chichamiques, the Ottomias, and other barbarous nations, who had taken possession of the country round the Lake of Mexico, and each of whom spoke a language peculiar to themselves. The real Mexicans are likewise supposed to have come from some of the countries that lie near California, and that they performed their journey for the most part by land. Of course they could not come from Norway. To late further adds that though some of the inhabitants of North America may have entered it from the Northwest, yet as it is related by Pliny, and some other writers, that on many of the islands near the western coast of Africa, particularly on the Canaries, some ancient edifices were seen, it is highly probable from their being now deserted, that the inhabitants may have passed over to America. The passage, neither long nor difficult. This migration, according to the calculation of those authors, must have happened more than two thousand years ago, at a time when the Spaniards were much troubled by the Carthaginians, from whom, having obtained a knowledge of navigation and the construction of ships, they might have retired to the Antilles, by way of the Western Isles, which were exactly halfway on their voyage. He thinks also that Great Britain, Ireland, and the Orcades were extremely proper to admit of a similar conjecture. As a proof he inserts the following passage from the history of Wales written by Dr. David Powell in the year eleven-seventy. This historian says that Medoc, one of the sons of Prince Owen Gwyneth, being disgusted at the civil wars which broke out between his brothers after the death of their father, fitted out several vessels, and, having provided them with everything necessary for a long voyage, went in quest of new lands to the westward of Ireland. There he discovered very fertile countries, but destitute of inhabitants. When landing a part of his people, he returned to Britain, where he raised new levies, and afterwards transported this to his colony. The Flemish author then returns to the Scythians, between whom and the Americans he draws a parallel. He observes that several nations of them to the north of the Caspian Sea led a wandering life, which, as well as many other of their customs and way of living, agrees in many circumstances with the Indians of America. And though the resemblances are not absolutely perfect, yet the emigrants, even before they left their own country, differed from each other, and went not by the same name. Their change of abode affected what remained. He further says that a similar likeness exists between several American nations and the Samoids, who are settled according to the Russian accounts on the Great River of Obi, and it is more natural, continues he, to suppose that colonies of these nations passed over to America by crossing the ICC on their sledges than for the Norwegians to travel all the way Grotius has marked out for them. This writer makes many other remarks that are equally sensible and which appear to be just, but he intermixes with these some that are not so well founded. Emmanuel de Morez, a Portuguese, in his history of Brazil, asserts that America has been wholly peopled by the Carthaginians and Israelites. He brings, as a proof of this assertion, the discoveries the former are known to have made at a great distance beyond the coast of Africa, the progress of which being put a stop to by the Senate of Carthage, who happened to be then in the newly discovered countries being cut off from all communication with their countrymen, and destitute of many necessaries of life, fill into a state of barbarism. As to the Israelites, this author thinks that nothing but circumcision is wanted in order to constitute a perfect resemblance between them and the Brazilians. George de Horan, a learned Dutchman, has likewise written on the subject. He sets out with declaring that he does not believe it possible America could have been peopled before the flood, considering the short space of time which elapsed between the creation of the world and the memorable event. In the next place he lays it down as a principle that after the deluge men and other terrestrial animals penetrated into that country both by sea and land, some through accident and some from a formed design, that birds got thither by flight which they were enabled to do by resting on the rocks and islands that are scattered about the ocean. He further observes that wild beasts may have found a free passage by land, and that if we do not meet with horses or cattle to which he might have added elephants, camels, rhinoceroses, and beasts of many other kinds, it is because those nations that passed thither weren't either not acquainted with their use or had no convenience to support them. Having totally excluded many nations that others have admitted as the first settlers of America for which he gives substantial reasons, he supposes that it began to be peopled by the north and maintains the primitive colonies spread themselves by the means of the Isthmus of Panama through the whole extent of the continent. He believes that the first founders of the Indian colonies were Scythians, that the Phoenicians and Carthaginians afterwards got footing to America across the Atlantic Ocean, and the Chinese by the way of the Pacific and that other nations might from time have landed there by one or other of these ways, or might possibly have been thrown on the coast by tempests, since, through the whole extent of that continent, both in its northern and southern parts, we meet with undoubted marks of a mixture of the northern nations with those who have come from other places. And lastly, that some Jews and Christians might have been carried there by such-like events, but that this must have happened at a time when the whole of the New World was already peopled. After all, he acknowledges that great difficulties attend the determination of the question. These, he says, are occasioned in the first place by the imperfect knowledge we have of the extremities of the globe toward the north and south pole, and the next place to the havoc which the Spaniards, the first discoverers of the New World, made among its most ancient monuments. As witness the great double-road betwixt Quito and Cusco, an undertaking so stupendous that even the most magnificent of these executed by the Romans cannot be compared to it. He supposes another migration of the Phoenicians than those already mentioned to have taken place. And this was during a three-years voyage made by the Tyrian fleet in the service of King Solomon. He asserts on the authority of Josephus that the port at which this embarkation was made lay in the Mediterranean. The fleet, he adds, went in quest of elephants' teeth and peacocks to the western coast of Africa, which is Tarshish, then to offer for gold, which is Haiti, or the island of Hispaniola, in the latter opinion he is supported by Columbus, who, when he discovered that island, thought he could trace the furnace in which the gold was refined. To these migrations which preceded the Christian era, he adds many others of a later date from different nations, but these I have not time to enumerate. For the same reason I am obliged to pass over numberless writers on this subject and shall content myself with only giving the sentiments of two or three more. The first of these is Pierre D. Charlevoix, a Frenchman who in his Journal of a Voyage to North America, made so lately as the year 1720, has recapitulated the opinions of a variety of authors on this head, to which he has subjoined his own conjectures, but the latter cannot without some difficulty be extracted, as they are so interwoven with the passages he has quoted that it requires much attention to discriminate them. He seems to allow that America might have received its first inhabitants from Tartary and Hercania. This he confirms by observing that lions and tigers which are found in the former must have come from those countries, and whose passage serves for a proof that the two hemispheres join to the northward of Asia. He then draws a corroboration of this argument from a story he says he has often heard related by Father Grollen, a French Jesuit, as an undoubted matter of fact. This father, after having labored some time in the missions of New France, passed over to those of China. One day he was travelling in Tartary he met a Huron woman whom he had formerly known in Canada. He asked her by what adventures she had been carried into a country so distant from her own. She made answer that having been taken in war she had been conducted from nation to nation, till she had reached the place at which she then was. Monsieur Charlevoix says further that he had been assured by another Jesuit passing through Nantes in his return from China had related much such another affair of a Spanish woman from Florida. She also had been taken by certain Indians, and given to those of a more distant country, and by these again to another nation, till having thus been successfully passed from country to country, and travelled through regions extremely cold, she at last found herself in Tartary. Here she had married a Tartar who attended the conquerors in China, where she was then settled. He acknowledges as an ally to the probability of these stories, that those who had sailed farthest to the eastward of Asia by pursuing the coast of Gesso, or Kamchatka, have pretended that they had perceived the extremity of this continent, and from fence have concluded that there could not possibly be any communication by land. But he adds that Francis Guala, a Spaniard, is said to have asserted that this separation is no more than a strait about one hundred miles over, and that some late voyages of the Japanese give grounds to think that this strait is only a bay, above which there is a passage over land. He goes on to observe that though there are few wild beasts to be met with in North America, except a kind of tigers without spots which are found in the country of the Iroquois, yet towards the tropics there are lions and real-taggers, which, notwithstanding, might have come from Hurcania and Tartary, for as by advancing gradually southward they met with climates more agreeable to their natures they have in time abandoned the northern countries. He quotes both Solanus and Pliny to prove that the Scythian Anthropophagi once depopulated a great extent of country as far as the Promontory Tabin, and an author of later date, Mark Paul of Venetian, who he says tells us that to the northeast of China and Tartary there are vast uninhabited countries which might be sufficient to confirm any conjectures concerning the retreat of a great number of Scythians into America. To this he adds that we find in the ancients the names of some of these nations. Pliny speaks of the Tabians. Amanias mentions the Apuleans, who had for their neighbors the Masa-geets, whom Pliny since assures us to have entirely disappeared. Amanias Marcellanus expressly tells us that the fear of the Anthropophagi obligated several of the inhabitants of those countries to take refuge elsewhere. From all these authorities, Monsieur Charleval concludes that there is at least room to conjecture that more than one nation in America had a Scythian or Tartarian original. He finishes his remarks on the authors he has quoted by the following observations. It appears to me that this controversy may be reduced to the following articles. First, how the New World might have been peopled, and Secondly, by whom, and by what means it has been peopled, nothing he asserts may be more easily answered than the first. America might have been peopled as the three other parts of the world have been. Many difficulties have been formed on this subject, which haven't been deemed insolvable, but which are far from being so. The inhabitants of both hemispheres are certainly the descendants of the same father. The common parent of mankind received an express command from heaven to people the whole world, and accordingly it has been peopled. To bring this about it was necessary to overcome all difficulties that lay in the way, and they have been got over. Were these difficulties greater with respect to peopling the extremities of Asia, Africa, and Europe, or the transporting men into the islands which lie at a considerable distance from those continents, than to pass over into America? Certainly not. Navigation, which has arrived at so great perfection within these three or four centuries, might possibly have been more perfect in those early ages than at this day. Who can believe that Noah and his immediate descendants knew less of this art than we do, that the builder and pilot of the largest ship that ever was, a ship that was formed to traverse an unbounded ocean, and had so many shoals and quicksands to guard against, should be ignorant of, or should not have communicated to those of his descendants who survived him, and by whose means he was to execute the order of the great Creator? I say, who can believe he should not have communicated to them the art of sailing upon an ocean, which was not only more common Pacific, but at the same time confined within its ancient limits. Admitting this, how easy it is to pass exclusive of the passage already described by land from the coast of Africa to Brazil, from the Canaries to the Western Islands, and from them to the Antilles, from the British Isles or the coast of France to Newfoundland, the passage is neither long nor difficult. I might say as much of that from China to Japan, from Japan, or the Philippines, to the Isles Maryannes, and from thence to Mexico. There are islands at a considerable distance from the continent of Asia, where we have not been surprised to find inhabitants. Why then should we wonder to meet with people in America? Nor can it be imagined that the grandsons of Noah, when they were obliged to separate and spread themselves in conformity to the designs of God, over the whole earth, should find it absolutely impossible to people almost one half of it. I have been more copious in my extracts from this author than I intended, as his reasons appear to be solid and many of his observations just. From this encomium, however, I must exclude the stories he has introduced of the Huron and Floridan woman, which I think I might venture to pronounce fabulous. I shall only add, to give my readers a more comprehensive view of Monsieur Charlevoix's dissertation, the method he proposes to come at the truth of what we are in search of. The only means by which this can be done, he says, is by comparing the language of the Americans with the different nations from whence we might suppose they have paragonated. If we compare the former with those words that are considered as primitives, it might possibly set us upon some happy discovery. And this way of ascending to the original of nations, which is by far the least equivocal, is not so difficult as might be imagined. We have had, and still have, travelers and missionaries who have attained the languages that are spoken in all the provinces of the New World. It would only be necessary to make a collection of their grammars and vocabularies, and to calate them with the dead and living languages of the Old World that pass for originals, and the similarity might easily be traced. Even the different dialects, in spite of the alterations they have undergone, still retain enough of the mother tongue to furnish considerable lights. Any enquiry into the manners, customs, religion, or traditions of the Americans, in order to discover by that means their origin, he thinks would prove fallacious. A disquisition of that kind, he observes, is only capable of producing a false light, more likely to dazzle, and to make us wander from a right path than to lead us with certainty to the point proposed. Ancient traditions are effaced from the minds of such as either have not, or for several ages, have been without, those helps that are necessary to preserve them. And in this situation is full one half of the world. New events and new arrangement of things give rise to new traditions which efface the former, and are themselves effaced in turn. After one or two centuries have passed, there no longer remain any traces of the first traditions, and thus we are involved in a state of uncertainty. He concludes with the following remarks, among many others. Unforeseen accidents, tempests, and shipwrecks have certainly contributed to people every habitable part of the world. And ought we to wonder after this, at perceiving certain resemblances, both of persons and manners between nations, that are most remote from each other, when we find such a difference between those that border on one another? As we are destitute of historical monuments, there is nothing, I repeat it, but a knowledge of the primitive languages that is capable of throwing any light upon those clouds of impenetrable darkness. By this inquiry we should at least be satisfied among that prodigious number of various nations inhabiting America, and differing so much in languages from each other, which are those who make use of words totally and entirely different from those of the Old World, and who consequently must be reckoned to have passed over to America in the earliest ages, and those who from the analogy of their language with such, as are at present used in the three other parts of the globe, leave room to judge that their migration has been more recent, and which ought to be attributed to shipwrecks, or to some accident similar to those which have been spoken of in the course of this treatise. I shall only add the opinion of one author more before I give my own sentiments on the subject, and that is of James Adair Esquire, who resided forty years among the Indians, and published the history of them in the year 1772. In this learned and systematical history of those nations inhabiting the western parts of the most southern of the American colonies, this gentleman, without hesitation, pronounces that the American aborigines are descended from the Israelites, either whilst they were a maritime power, or soon after their general captivity. This descent he endeavours to prove from their religious rites, their civil and martial customs, their marriages, their funeral ceremonies, their manners, language, traditions, and from a variety of other particulars. And so complete is his conviction on this head that he fancies he finds a perfect similitude in each. Through all these I have not time to follow him, and shall therefore only give a few extracts to show on what foundation he builds his conjectures, and what degree of credit he is entitled to on this point. He begins with observing that though some have supposed the Americans to be descended from the Chinese, yet neither their religion, laws nor customs agree in the least with those of the Chinese, which sufficiently prove that they are now almost half a year sailing for China. Our author does not here recollect that this is from a high northern latitude across the line, and then back again greatly to the northward of it, and not directly a thwart the Pacific ocean for only one hundred and eleven degrees, or from thence to Europe it is very unlikely they should attempt such dangerous discoveries with their supposed small vessels against rapid currents and in dark and sickly monsoons. He further remarks that this is more particularly improbable as there is reason to believe that this nation was unacquainted with the use of the lodestone to direct their course. China, he says, is about eight thousand miles distant from the Atlantic Ocean, and we are not informed by any ancient writer of their maritime skill, or so much as any inclination that way besides small coasting voyages. The winds blow likewise with little variation from east to west within the latitudes 30 and odd, north and south, and therefore these could not drive them on the American coast, it lying directly contrary to such a course. Neither could persons, according to this writer's account, sail to America from the north by the way of Tartary, or ancient Scythia, that from its situation, never having been or can be maritime power, and it is utterly impracticable, he says, for any to come to America by sea from that quarter. Besides, the remaining traces of their religious ceremonies and civil and martial customs are quite opposite to the like vestiges of the old Scythians. Even in the moderate northern climates there is not to be seen the least trace of any ancient stately buildings or of any thick settlements, as are said to remain in the less healthy regions of Peru and Mexico, and several of the Indian nations assure us that they crossed the Mississippi before they made their present, northern settlements, which connected with the former arguments, he concludes will sufficiently explode that weak opinion of the American aborigines being linearly descended from the Tartars or ancient Scythians. Mr. Adair's reason for supposing that the Americans derive their origin from the Jews are, first, because they are divided into tribes and have chiefs over them as the Israelites had, secondly, because as by a strict permanent divine precept, the Hebrew nation were ordered to worship at Jerusalem, Jehovah, the true and living God. So do the Indians styling him Yahweh. The ancient heathens, he adds, it is well known worshipped a plurality of gods, but the Indians pay their religious devoirs to the great beneficent supreme holy spirit of fire, who resides as they think above the clouds, and on earth also with unpolluted people. They pay no adoration to images or to dead persons, neither to the celestial luminaries, to evil spirits, nor to any created being whatever. Thirdly, because agreeably, to the theocracy of divine government of Israel, the Indians think the deity to be the immediate head of their state. Fourthly, because as the Jews believe in the ministration of angels, the Indians also believe that the higher regions are inhabited by good spirits. Fifthly, because the Indian language and dialects appear to have the very idiom and genius of the Hebrew, their words and sentences being expressive, concise, emphatical, sonorous, and bold and often both in letters and signification are synonymous with the Hebrew language. Sixthly, because they count their time after the manner of the Hebrews. Seventhly, because in conformity to or after the Jews they have their prophets, high priests, and other religious orders. Eighthly, because their festivals, fasts, and religious rites have a great resemblance to those of the Hebrews. Ninthly, because the Indians, before they go to war, have many preparatory ceremonies of purification and fasting, like what is recorded of the Israelites. Tenthly, because the same taste for ornaments and the same kind are made use of by the Indians as by the Hebrews. These and many other arguments of a similar nature Mr. Adair brings in support of his system. But I should imagine that if the Indians are really derived from the Hebrews among their religious ceremonies, on which he chiefly seems to build his hypothesis, the principle that of circumcision would never have been laid aside, and its very remembrance obliterated. Thus numerous and diverse are the opinions of those who have hitherto written on this subject. I shall not, however, either endeavor to reconcile them or point out the errors of each, but to proceed to give my own sentiments on the origin of the Americans, which are founded on conclusions drawn from the most rational arguments of the writers I have mentioned, and from my own observations, the consistency of these I shall leave to the judgment of my readers. The better to introduce my conjectures on this head, it is necessary first to ascertain the distance between America and those parts of the habitable globe that approach nearest to it. The continent of America, as far as we can judge from all the researches that have been made near the poles, appears to be entirely separated from the other quarters of the world. That part of Europe which approaches nearest to it is the coast of Greenland, lying in about 70 degrees of the North latitude, and which reaches within 12 degrees of the coast of Labrador, situate on the northeast borders of this continent. The coast of Guinea is the nearest part of Africa, which lies about 1,860 miles northeast of the Brazils. The most eastern coast of Asia, which extends to the Korean Sea on the north of China, projects northeast through eastern Tartary and Kamchatka to Siberia in about 60 degrees of North latitude, towards which the western coast of America, from California to the Straits of Anian, extend nearly northwest and lie in about 6 degrees of the same latitude. Whether the continent of America stretches any farther north than these Straits and joins to the eastern parts of Asia, agreeably to what has been asserted by some of the writers, I have quoted, or whether the lands that have been discovered in the intermediate parts are only an archipelago of islands, verging towards the opposite continent, is not yet ascertained. It being, however certain that there are many considerable islands which lie between the extremities of Asia and America, Viz Sapan, Yeso, Orgedso, Gamma's Land, Bayerings Island, with many others discovered by Ashreco, and besides these from 50 degrees north there appearing to be a cluster of islands that reach as far as Siberia, it is probable from their proximity to America that it received its first inhabitants from them. This conclusion is the most rational I am able to draw supposing that since the aborigines got footing on this continent, no extraordinary or sudden change in the position or surface of it has taken place, from inundations, earthquakes, or any revolutions of the earth that we are at present unacquainted with. To me it appears highly improbable that it should have been peopled from different quarters across the ocean as others have asserted. From the size of the ships made use of in those early ages and the want of the compass it cannot be supposed that any maritime nation would by choice venture over the unfathomable ocean in search of distant continents. Had this however been attempted or had America been first accidentally peopled from ships freighted with passengers of both sexes which are driven by strong easterly winds across the Atlantic, these settlers must have retained some traces of the language of the country from whence they migrated, and this since the discovery of it by the Europeans must have been made out. It also appears extraordinary that several of these accidental migrations, as allowed by some, and these from different parts should have taken place. Upon the whole, after the most critical inquiries and the maturist deliberation, I am of opinion that America received its inhabitants from the northeast by the way of the great archipelago just mentioned, and from there alone. But this might have been affected at different times and from various parts, from Tartary, China, Japan, or Kamchatka, the inhabitants of these places resembling each other in color, features and shape, and who, before some of them acquired a knowledge of the arts and sciences, might have likewise resembled each other in their manners, customs, religion, and language. The only difference between the Chinese nation and the Tartars lies in the cultivated state of the one and the unpolished situation of others. The former have become a commercial people and well in houses formed into regular towns and cities. The latter live chiefly in tents and rove about in different hordes without any fixed abode, nor can the long and bloody wars these two nations have been engaged in exterminate their hereditary similitude. The present family of the Chinese emperors is of Tartarian extraction, and if they were not sensible of some claim besides that of conquest so numerous a people would scarcely sit quiet under the dominion of strangers. It is very evident that some of the manners and customs of the American Indians resemble those of the Tartars, and I make no doubt but that in some future era, and this not a very distant one, it will be reduced to a certainty that during some of the wars between the Tartars and the Chinese, a part of the inhabitants of the northern provinces were driven from their native country and took refuge in some of the Isles before mentioned, and from thence found their way into America. At different periods each nation might prove victorious, and the conquered by turns fly before their conquerors, and from hence might arise the similitude of the Indians to all these people, and that animosity which exists between so many of their tribes. It appears plainly to me that a great similarity between the Indians and Chinese is conspicuous, in that particular custom of shaving or plucking off the hair and leaving only a small tuft on the crown of the head. This mode is said to have been enjoined by the Tartarian emperors on their accession to the throne of China, and consequently, is a further proof that this custom was in use among the Tartars, to whom as well as the Chinese, the Americans might be indebted for it. Many words are also used by the Chinese and Indians, which have a resemblance to each other, not only in the sound, but their signification. The Chinese call a slave shungo, and the Naudawesi Indians, whose language from their little intercourse with the Europeans, is the least corrupted term a dog shungush. The former denominate one species of their tea, shousheng. The latter call their tobacco, shoushan. Many other of the words used by the Indians contain the syllables qi, cha, and chu after the dialect of the Chinese. There probably might be found a similar connection between the language of the Tartars and the American aborigines, for we is well acquainted with it as we are from a commercial intercourse with that of the Chinese. I am confirmed in these conjectures by the accounts of Kamchatka, published a few years ago by the Order of the Empress of Russia, the author of which says that the sea which divides that peninsula from America is full of islands, and that the distance between Chakoskoinos, a promontory which lies at the eastern extremity of that country, and the coast of America, is not more than two degrees and a half of a great circle. He further says that there is the greatest reason to suppose that Asia and America once joined at this place as the coasts of both continents appear to have been broken into capes and bays which answer each other. More especially as the inhabitants of this part of both resemble each other in their persons, habits, customs, and food. Their language indeed, he observes, does not appear to be the same, but then the inhabitants of each district in Kamchatka speak a language as different from each other as from that spoken on the opposite coast. These observations to which he adds, the similarity of the boats of the inhabitants of each coast, and a remark that the natives of this part of America are wholly strangers to wine and tobacco, which he looks upon as a proof that they have as yet had no communication with the natives of Europe, he says, amount to little less than a demonstration that America was peopled from this part of Asia. The limits of my present undertaking will not permit me to dwell any longer on this subject, or to enumerate any other proof in favor of my hypothesis. I am, however, so thoroughly convinced of the certainty of it, and so deserious have I been to obtain every testimony which can be procured in its support, that I once made an offer to a private society of gentlemen who were curious in such researches, and to whom I had communicated my sentiments on this point that I would undertake a journey on receiving such supplies as were needful through the northeast parts of Europe and Asia to the interior parts of America, and from England making as I proceeded such observations both on the languages and manners of the people with whom I should be conversant as might tend to illustrate the doctrine I have here laid down and to satisfy the curiosity of the learned or inquisitive. But as this proposal was judged rather to require a national than a private support, it was not carried into execution. I am happy to find, since I formed the foregoing conclusions, that they correspond with the sentiments of that great and learned historian Dr. Robertson. And though with him I acknowledge that the investigation from its nature is so obscure and intricate, that the conjectures I have made can only be considered as conjectures and not indisputable conclusions, yet they carry with them a greater degree of probability than the suppositions of those who assert that this continent was peopled from another quarter. One of the doctor's quotations from the journals of Bering and Shirkov, who sailed from Kamchatka about the year 1741 in quest of the New World, appears to carry great weight with it and to afford our conclusions firm support. These commanders having shaped their course towards the east discovered land, which to them appeared to be part of the American continent, and according to their observations, it seems to be situated within a few degrees of the northwest coast of California. They had there some intercourse with the inhabitants who seemed to them to resemble the North Americans, as they presented to the Russians the Calamite, or Pipe of Peace, which is a symbol of friendship universal among the people of North America, and a usage of arbitrary institution peculiar to them. One of this incomparable writer's own arguments in support of his hypothesis is also urged with great judgment, and appears to be nearly conclusive. He says, We may lay it down as a certain principle in this inquiry, that America was not peopled by any nation of the ancient continent, which had made considerable progress in civilization. The inhabitants of the New World were in a state of society so extremely rude as to be unacquainted with those arts which are the first essays of human ingenuity in its advance towards improvement. Even the most cultivated nations of America were strangers to many of those simple inventions which were almost co-evil with society in other parts of the world, and were known in the earliest periods of civil life. From this it is manifest that the tribes which originally migrated to America came off from nations which must have been no less barbarous than their posterity at the time when they were first discovered by the Europeans. If ever the use of iron had been known to the savages of America or to the progenitors, if ever they had employed a plow, a loom, or a forge, the utility of these inventions would have preserved them, and it is impossible that they should have been abandoned or forgotten. End of Section 22 Section 23 of the Journal of Lewis and Clark This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. The Journal of Lewis and Clark by Mary Wether Lewis and William Clark. Chapter XXI Observations made in a voyage commencing at St. Catherine's Landing on the east bank of the Mississippi, proceeding downwards to the mouth of the Red River, and from thence ascending that river as high as the hot springs, in the proximity of the last mentioned river, extracted from the journals of William Dunbar, Esquire, and Dr. Hunter. Mr. Dunbar, Dr. Hunter, and the party employed by the United States, to make a survey of and explore the country, traversed by the Washita River, left St. Catherine's Landing on the Mississippi in latitude 31, 26, 30 north, and longitude six hours, five, fifty-six waste, from the Meridian of Greenwich, on Tuesday, the 16th of October, 1840. A little distance below St. Catherine's Creek, and five leagues from Natchez, they passed the white cliffs, composed chiefly of sand, surmounted by pine, and from one hundred to two hundred feet high. When the waters of the Mississippi are low, the base of the cliff is uncovered, which consists of different colored clays, and some beds of ochre, over which there lies, in some places, a thin lamina of iron ore. Small springs, possessing a petrifying quality, flow over the clay and ochre, and numerous logs and pieces of timber, converted into stone, are strewed about the beach. Fine pure argill of various colors, chiefly white and red, is found here. On the seventeenth they arrived at the mouth of the Red River, the confluence of which, with the Mississippi, agreeably to the observations of Mr. de Ferrer, lies in latitude thirty-one, one, fifteen north, and longitude six hours, seven, eleven west of Greenwich. Red River is here about five hundred yards wide, and without any sensible current. The banks of the river are clothed with willow, the land low, and subject to inundation, to the height of thirty feet or more above the level of the water at this time. The mouth of the Red River is accounted to be seventy-five leagues from New Orleans, and three miles higher up than the Chafalaya, or Apollosa River, which was probably a continuation of the Red River, when its waters did not unite with those of the Mississippi, but during the inundation. On the eighteenth the survey of the Red River was commenced, and on the evening of the nineteenth the party arrived at the mouth of the Black River, in latitude thirty-one, fifteen, forty-eight north, and about twenty-six miles from the Mississippi. Red River derives its name from the rich, fat earth, or marl, or that color borne down by the floods, the last of which appeared to have been deposited on the high bank of a stratum of upwards of half an inch in thickness. The vegetation on its banks is surprisingly luxuriant, no doubt owing to the deposition of marl during its annual floods. The willows grow to a good size, but other forest trees are much smaller than those seen on the banks of the Mississippi. As you advance up the river it gradually narrows in latitude thirty-one, oh eight north. It is about two hundred yards wide, which width is continued to the mouth of the Black River, where each of them appears one hundred and fifty yards across. The banks of the river are covered with pea vine, and several sorts of grass-bearing seed, which geese and ducks eat very greedily. And there are generally seen willows, growing on one side, and on the other side a small growth of black oak, pecan, hickory, elm, etc. The current in the Red River is so moderate as scarcely to afford an impediment to its assent. On sounding the Black River a little above its mouth, there was found twenty feet of water, with a bottom of black sand. The water of Black River is rather clearer than the Ohio, and of a warm temperature, which it may receive from the water flowing into it from the Valley of the Mississippi, particularly by the Cataula. At noon on the twenty-third, by a good meridian observation, they ascertain their latitude to be thirty, thirty-six, twenty-nine north, and were then a little below the mouths of the Cataula, Wachita, and Biotenza, the united waters of which form the Black River. The current is very gentle, the whole length of the Black River, which in many places does not exceed eighty yards in width. The banks on the lower part of the river present a great luxuriance of vegetation and rank grass. With red and black oak, ash, pecan, hickory, and some elms. The soil is black marl, mixed with a moderate proportion of sand, resembling much the soil on the Mississippi banks. Yet the forest trees are not lofty, like those on the margin of the Great River, but resembling the growth on the Red River. In latitude thirty-one, twenty-two, forty-six north, they observed that canes grew on several parts of the right bank, a proof that the land is not deeply overflowed, perhaps from one to three feet. The banks have the appearance of stability, very little willow or other productions of newly formed soil on either side. On advancing up the river the timber becomes larger, in some places rising to the height of forty feet. Yet the land is liable to be inundated, not from the waters of this small river, but from the intrusion of its more powerful neighbor, the Mississippi. The lands decline rapidly, as in all alluvial countries, from the margin to the cypress swamps, where more or less water stagnates all year round. On the twenty-first they passed a small but elevated island, said to be the only one in the river for more than a hundred leagues ascending. On the left bank, near this island, a small settlement of a couple of acres has been begun by a man and his wife. The banks are not less than forty feet above the present level of the water in the river, and are but rarely overflowed. On both sides they are clothed with rich cane-break, pierced by creeks fit to carry boats during the inundation. They saw many cormorants and the hooping crane. Geese and ducks are not yet abundant, but are said to arrive in myriads with the rains and winters cold. They shot a fowl of the duck kind, whose foot was partially divided, and the body covered with a bluish or lead-colored plumage. On the morning of the twenty-second they observed green matter floating on the river, supposed to come from the Catechula and other lakes and bios of stagnant water, which, when raised a little by rain, flow into the black river, and also many patches of an aquatic plant resembling small islands, some floating on the surface of the river, and others adhering to or resting on the shore and logs. On examining this plant it was found to have a hollow jointed stem, with roots of the same form, extremely light, with very narrow willow-shaped leaves projecting from the joint, embracing, however, the hole of the tube, and extending to the next inferior joint or not. The extremity of each branch is terminated by a spike of very slender, narrow, seminal leaves, from one to two inches in length, and one-tenth or less in brick, producing its seed on the underside of the leaf in a double row almost in contact, the grains alternately placed in perfect regularity. Not being able to find the flower its class and order could not be determined, although it is not probably new. Towards the upper part of the black river the shore is abound with mussels and periwinkles. The mussels were of the kind called peel mussels. The men dressed a quantity of them, considering them as agreeable food, but Mr. D. found them tough and unpalatable. On arriving at the mouth of the Cadajula they landed to procure information from a Frenchman settled there. Having a grant from the Spanish government he has made a small settlement, and keeps a ferry boat for carrying over men and horses traveling to and from Natchez, and the settlements on Red River and on the Ouachita River. The country here is all alluvial. In progress of time the river shutting up ancient passages and elevating the banks over which their waters pass. No longer communicate with the same facility as formerly. The consequence is that many larger tracts formerly subject to inundation are now entirely exempt from that inconvenience. Such is the situation of a most valuable tract upon which this Frenchman is settled. His house stands on an Indian mount, with several others in view. There is also a species of rampart surrounding this place, and one very elevated mount, a view and description of which is postponed until the return, their present situation not allowing of the requisite delay. The soil is equal to the best Mississippi bottoms. From this place they proceeded to the mouth of the Ouachita, in latitude thirty-five, thirty-seven, seven north, and encamped on the evening of the twenty-third. This river derives its appellation from the name of an Indian tribe formerly resident on its banks, the remnant of which it is said, went into the Great Plains to the westward, and either compose a small tribe themselves, or are incorporated into another nation. The Black River loses its name at the junction of Ouachita, Kataula, and Tinza, although our maps represent it as taking place of the Ouachita. The Tinza and Kataula are also named from Indian tribes now extinct. The latter is a creek twelve leagues long, which is also the issue of a lake of the same name, eight leagues in length and about two leagues in breadth. It lies west from the mouth of the Kataula, and communicates with the Red River during the Great Annual Inundation. At the west or northwest angle of the lake, a creek called Little River enters, which preserves a channel with running water at all seasons, meandering along the bed of the lake. But in other parts of its superfaces, during the dry season from July to November and often later, is completely drained, and becomes covered with the most luxuriant herbage, the bed of the lake then becomes the residence of immense herds of deer, of turkeys, geese, cranes, etc., which feed on the grass and grain. Biotenza serves only to drain off a part of the waters of the Inundation from the lowlands of the Mississippi, which here communicate with the Black River during the season of high water. Between the mouth of the Ouachita and Vellamont's Prairie on the right, the current of the river is gentle, and the banks favourable for towing. The lands on both sides have the appearance of being above the Inundation, the timber generally such as highlands produce, being chiefly red, white, and black oaks, interspersed with a variety of other trees. The Magnolia Grandiflora, that infallible sign of the land not being subject to Inundation, is not, however, among them. Along the banks a stratum of solid clay, or marl, is observable, apparently of ancient deposition. It lies in oblique positions, making an angle of nearly thirty degrees with the horizon, and generally inclined with the descent of the river. Although in a few cases the position was contrary. Timber is seen projecting from under the solid bank, which seems indurated and unquestionably very ancient, presenting a very different appearance from recently formed soil. The river is about eighty yards wide. A league above the mouth of the Washita, the Bayou Ha Ha, comes in unexpectedly from the right, and is one of the many passages through which the waters of the Great Inundation penetrate and pervade all the low countries, annihilating, for a time, the currents of the Lessa rivers in the neighborhood of the Mississippi. The vegetation is remarkably vigorous along the alluvial banks, which are covered with a thick shrubbery and innumerable plants in full blossom at this late season. Villamont's prairie is so named in consequence of its being included within a grant under the French government to a gentleman of that name. Many other parts of the Washita are named after their early proprietors. The French people projected and began extensive settlements on this river. But the General Massacre planned, and in part executed by the Indians against them, and the consequent destruction of the Natchez tribe by the French broke up all these undertakings, and they are not recommended under that government. Those prairies are plains or savannas without timber, generally very fertile, and producing an exuberance of strong, thick, and coarse herbage. When a piece of ground has once got into this state in an Indian country, it can have no opportunity of reproducing timber, it being an invariable practice to set fire to dry grass in the fall or winter, to attain the advantage of attacking game when the young tender grass begins to spring. This destroys the young timber, and the prairie annually gains upon the woodland. It is probable that the immense plains known to exist in America may owe their origin to this custom. The plains of the Washita lies chiefly on the east side, and being generally formed, like the Mississippi land, sloping from the bank of the river to the Great River. They are more or less subject to the inundation in the rear, and in certain floods the water has advanced so far as to be ready to pour over the margin into the Washita. This has now become a very rare thing, and it may be estimated that from a quarter of a mile to a mile in depth will remain free from inundation during high floods. This is pretty much the case with those lands nearly as high as the post of the Washita, with the exception of certain ridges of primitive high land, the rest being evidently alluvial, although now not subject to being inundated by the Washita River, in consequence of its great depth which the bed of the river has acquired by abrasion. On approaching towards the Bayou Louie, which empties its waters into the Washita on the right, a little below the rapids, there is a great deal of high land on both sides, which produces pine and other timber, not the growth of inundation lands. At the foot of the rapids, the navigation of the river is impeded by the beds of gravel formed in it. The first rapids lie in latitude, thirty-one, forty-eight, seventy-five, five north, a little above where there is a high ridge of primitive earth, studded with abundance of fragments of rock or stone, and which appear to have been thrown up to the surface in a very irregular manner. The stone is of a friable nature, some of it having the appearance of ingerated clay, the outside is brackish from exposure to the air, within it is a grayish white, it is said that in the hill the strata are regular and that good grindstones may be here obtained. The last of the rapids, which is formed by a ledge of rocks crossing the bed of the entire river, was past the evening of the twenty-seventh, above the water it became again like a mill-pond, and about one hundred yards wide. The whole of these first shoals, or rapids, embraced an extent of about a mile and a half. The obstruction was not continued, but felt at short intervals in this distance. On the right, about four leagues from the rapids, they pass the bayou Au Boeuf, a little above a rocky hill, highlands and savannas are seen on the right. On sounding the river they found three fathoms water on the bottom of mud and sand. The banks of the river above the bayou seem to retain very little alluvial soil. The highland earth, which is a sandy loam of a light gray color, with streaks of red sand and clay, is seen on the left bank. The soil not rich, bearing pines, interspersed with red oak, hickory, and dogwood. The river is from sixty to one hundred yards wide here, but decreases as you advance. The next rapid is made by a ledge of rocks traversing the river, and narrowing the water channel to about thirty yards. The width between the high banks cannot be less than one hundred yards, and the banks from thirty to forty feet high. In latitude thirty-two, ten, thirteen, rapids and shoals again occurred, and the channel was very narrow. The sandbars at every point extended so far into the bend as to leave little more than the breadth of the boat of water sufficiently deep for her passage, although it spreads over the width of seventy or eighty yards upon the shoal. In the afternoon of the thirty-first they passed a little plantation or settlement on the right, and at night arrived at three others adjoining each other. These settlements are on a plain or prairie, the soil of which we may be assured is alluvial, from the regular slope which the land has from the river. The bed of the river is now sufficiently deep to free them from the inconvenience of its inundation. Yet in the rear the waters of the Mississippi approach, and sometimes leave dry but a narrow strip along the bank of the river. It is, however, now more common that the extent of the fields cultivated from one-fourth to one-half mile remains dry during the season of inundation. The soil here is very good, but not equal to the Mississippi bottoms. It may be esteemed second rate. At a small distance to the east are extensive cypress swamps, over which the waters of the inundation always stand to a depth of from fifteen to twenty-five feet. On the west side, after passing over the valley of the river, whose breadth varies from a quarter of a mile to two miles or more, the land assumes a considerable elevation, from one-hundred to three-hundred feet, and extends all along to the settlements of the Red River. These high lands are reported to be poor and badly watered, being chiefly what is termed a pine baron. There is here a ferry and road of communication between the post of the Wachita and the Naches, and a fork of this road passes to the settlement called the Rapids on Red River, distance from this place by computation one-hundred and fifty miles. On this part of the river lies a considerable tract of land granted by the Spanish government to the Marquis of Maison Rouge, a French emigrant who bequeathed it with all his property to Monsieur Bouligny, the son of the late Colonel of the Louisiana regiment, and by him sold to Daniel Clark. It is said to extend from the post of the Wachita with a breadth of the two leagues, including the river, down to the Bayou Calumet. The computed distance of which along the river is called thirty leagues, but supposed not more than twelve in a direct line. On the sixth of November, in the afternoon, the party arrived at the post of the Wachita in latitude thirty-two, thirty-seven, twenty-five north, where they were politely received by Lieutenant Beaumar, who immediately offered the hospitality of his dwelling with all the services in his power. From the ferry to this place, the navigation of the river is at this season interrupted by many shoals and rapids. The general width is from eighty to one-hundred yards. The water is extremely agreeable to drink, and much clearer than that of the Ohio. In this respect it is very unlike its two neighbors, the Arkansas and Red Rivers, whose waters are loaded with earthly matters of reddish-brown color, giving to them a chocolate-like appearance, and when those waters are low, are not portable, being brackish from the great number of salt springs which flow into them, and probably from the beds of rock salt over which they may pass. The banks of the river presented very little appearance of alluvial land, but furnished an infinitude of beautiful landscapes, heightened by the vivid coloring they derive from the autumnal changes of belief. Mr. Dunbar observes that the change of color in the leaves of vegetables, which is probably occasioned by the oxygen of the atmosphere acting on the vegetable matter, deprived of the protecting power of the vital principle, may serve as an excellent guide to the naturalist who directs his attention to a discovery of new objects for the use of the dire. For he has always remarked that the leaves of those trees whose bark or wood are known to produce a dye are changed in autumn to the same color which is extracted in the dyer's vat from the wood, more especially by the use of mordants as alum etc., which yields oxygen. Thus the foliage of the hickory and oak which produce the quercetron bark is changed before its fall into a beautiful yellow. Other oaks assume a fawn color, a liver color, or blood color, and are known to yield dyes of the same complexion. In latitude thirty-two, eighteen north, Dr. Hunter discovered along the riverside a substance nearly resembling mineral coal. Its appearance was that of the carbonated wood described by Kerwin. It does not easily burn, but on being applied to a flame of a candle, it sensibly increased it and yielded a faint smell resembling, in a slight degree, that of the gumlack of common ceiling wax. Soft friable stone is common, and great quantities of gravel and sand upon the beaches in this part of the river. A reddish clay appears in the strata, much injurated and blackened by exposure to the light and air. The position called Fort Miro being the property of a private person who was formerly civil commandant here. The lieutenant has taken post about four hundred yards lower, has built himself some log houses, and enclosed them with a slight stockade. Upon viewing the country east of the river, it is evidently alluvial. The surface has a gentle slope from the river to the rear of the plantations. The land is of excellent quality, being a rich black loam to the depth of a foot, under which there is a friable loam of a brownish-liver color. At the post on the Washita they procured a boat of less draft of water than the one in which they ascended the river thus far. At noon, on the eleventh of November, they proceeded on the voyage, and in the evening, em-camped at the plantation of Berenbastrup. This small settlement on the Washita, and some of the creeks falling into it, contains not more than five hundred persons of all ages and sexes. It is reported, however, that there is a great quantity of excellent land upon these creeks, and that the settlement is capable of great extention, and may be expected, with an accession of population, to become very flourishing. There are three merchants settled at the post who supply at very exorbitant prices the inhabitants with their necessaries. These, with the garrison, two small planters, and a tradesman or two, constitute the present village. A great proportion of the inhabitants continue the old practice of hunting during the winter season, and they exchange their peltry for necessaries with the merchants at a low rate. During the summer these people content themselves with raising corn barely sufficient for bread during the year. In this manner they always remain extremely poor. Some few who have conquered that habit of indolence, which is always the consequence of the Indian mode of life, and attend to agriculture live more comfortably, and taste a little of the sweets of civilized life. The lands along the river, above the post, are not very inviting, being a thin, poor soil, and covered with pinewood. To the right, the settlements on the Bayu Barthelmy and Shard are said to be rich land. On the morning of the thirteenth they passed an island with a strong rapid, and arrived at a little settlement below a chain of rocks, which crosses the channel between the island and the mainland called Rok-Raw. The Spaniard and his family settled here appear from their indolence to live miserably. The river acquires here a more spacious appearance, being about one hundred and fifty yards wide. In the afternoon they passed the Bayu Barthelmy on the right, above the last settlements, and about twelve computed leagues from the post. Here commences Baron Bastrop's great grant of land from the Spanish government, being a square of twelve leagues on each side, a little exceeding a million of French acres. The banks of the river continue about thirty feet high, of which eighteen feet from the water are a clayy loam of pale ash color, upon which the water has deposited twelve feet of light sandy soil, apparently fertile and of a dark brown color. This description of land is of small breadth, not exceeding half a mile on each side of the river, and may be called the valley of the Washita, beyond which there is high land covered with pine. The soil of the Bayu Debut continues thin, with a growth of small timber. This creek is named from a number of Indian mounts discovered by the hunters along its course. The margin of the river begins to be covered with such timber as usually grows on inundated land, particularly a species of white oak, vulgarly cold, the overcup oak. Its timber is remarkably hard, solid, ponderous, and durable, and it produces a large acorn in great abundance, upon which the bear feeds, and which is very fattening to hogs. In latitude thirty-two, fifty, eight north, they passed a long and narrow island. The face of the country begins to change. The banks are low and steep, the river deep and more contracted from thirty to fifty yards in width. The soil in the neighborhood of the river is a very sandy loam, and covered with such vegetables as are found on the inundated lands of the Mississippi. The tract presents the appearance of a new soil, very different from what they passed below. This alluvial tract may be supposed the site of a great lake, drained by a natural channel from the abrasion of the waters, since which period the annual inundations have deposited the superior soil. Eighteen or twenty feet are wanting to render it habitable for man. It appears nevertheless well stocked with beasts of the forests, several of which were seen. These of waterfowl are beginning to make their appearance, which are not very numerous here until the cold rains and frosts compel them to leave a more northern climate. Fish is not so abundant as might be expected, owing, it is said, to the inundation of the Mississippi in the year seventeen ninety-nine, which dammed up the Wachita, some distance above the post, and produced a stagnation and consequent corruption of the waters that destroyed all fish within its influence. At noon, on the fifteenth November, they passed the island of Mallet, and at ninety yards northeast from the upper point of the island, by a good observation, ascertained their latitude to be thirty-two degrees, fifty-nine minutes, twenty-seven point five seconds north, or two seconds and a half of latitude south of the dividing line between the territories of Orleans and Louisiana. The bed of the river, along this aluvial country, is generally covered with water, and the navigation uninterrupted. But in the afternoon of this day they passed three contiguous sandbars or beaches, called Les Trois Batur, and before evening the Bayou du Grand Marais, or Great Marsh Creek on the right, and la Cypherie Choteau, a point of high land on the other side, which reaches within half a mile of the river. As they advanced toward the Marais de Saline, on the right, a stratum of dirty white clay, under the aluvial tract, showed them to be leaving the sunken and approaching the high land country. The Salt Lake Marsh does not derive its name from any brackishness in the water of the lake or marsh, but from its contiguity to some of the lakes, sometimes called saline and sometimes called glaze, generally found in a clay, compact enough for potters' wear. The Bayou de la Toulipe forms a communication between the lake and the river. Opposite to this place, there is a point of high land forming a promontory advancing within a mile of the river, and to which boats resort when the low grounds are under water. A short league above is the mouth of the Grand Bayou de la Saline Salt Lake Creek. This creek is of a considerable length and navigable for small boats. The hunters ascend it to one hundred of their leagues in pursuit of game, and all agree that none of the springs which feed this creek are salt. It has obtained its name from the many buffalo salt lakes which have been discovered in its vicinity. Although most of these lakes, by digging, furnish water which holds marine salt in solution, there exists no reason for believing that many of them would produce niter. Notwithstanding, the slow and alluvial tract appears in all respects well adapted to the growth of the long moss, tilansia, none was observed since entering in the latitude thirty-two degrees, fifty-two minutes, and as the pilot informed them, none would be seen in their progress up the river. It is probable that the latitude of thirty-two degrees is about the northern limit of vegetation. The long leaf pine, frequently the growth of rich and even inundated land, was here observed in great abundance. The short leafed or pitch pine, on the contrary, is always found upon arid lands, and generally in sandy and lofty situations. This is the season when the poor settlers on the Wachita turn out to make their annual hunt. The deer is now fat and the skin's in perfection. The bear is now also in his best state, with regard to the quality of his fur, and the quantity of fat or oil he yields, as he has been feasting luxuriously on the autumnal fruits of the forest. It is here well known that he does not confine himself, as some writers have supposed, to vegetable food. He is particularly fond of hog's flesh, sheep and calves are frequently his prey, and no animal escapes him which comes within his power, and which he is able to conquer. He often destroys the fawn when chance throws it in his way. He cannot, however, discover it by smelling, not withstanding the excellence of his scent, for nature has, as if for its protection, denied the fawn the property of leaving any effluvium upon its track, a property so powerful in the old deer. Footnote It may not be generally known to naturalists that between the hoof of the deer, etc., there is found a sack, with its mouth inclining upwards containing more or less musk, and which by escaping over the opening in proportion to the secretion, causes the foot to leave a scent on the ground wherever it passes. Between the rutting season this musk is so abundant, particularly in old males, as to be smelled by the hunters at a considerable distance. Footnote The bear, unlike most other beasts of prey, does not kill the animal he has seized upon before he eats it. But, regardless of its struggles, cries and lamentations fastens upon, and if the expression is allowable, devours it alive. The hunters count much on their profits from the oil drawn from the bear's fat, which at New Orleans is always a ready sale, and much esteemed for its wholesomeness in cooking, being preferred to butter or hogs lard. It is found to keep longer than any other animal oil, without becoming rancid, and boiling it from time to time upon sweet bay leaves restores its sweetness, or facilitates its conservation. In the afternoon on the seventeenth they passed some sand beaches and over a few rapids. They had cane breaks on both sides of the river. The canes were small, but demonstrate that the water does not surmount the bank more than a few feet. The river begins to widen as they advance. The banks of the river show the high land soil, with a stratum of three or four feet of alluvium deposited by the river upon it. This super stratum is grayish and very sandy, with a small admixture of loam, indicative of the poverty of the mountains and uplands where the river rises. Near this they passed through a new and very narrow channel, in which all the water of the river passes, except in a time of freshes, when the interval forms an island. A little above this pass is a small clearing, called La Tulipe, Tulipe's hiding place. This is the name of a French hunter who here concealed his property. It continues the practice of both the white and red hunters to leave their skins, etc., often suspended to poles or laid over a pole placed upon two forked posts, in sight of the river until the return from hunting. These deposits are considered as sacred, and few examples exist of there being plundered. After passing the entrance of a bay, which within must form a great lake during inundation, great numbers of the longleaf pine were observed, and increased size of the canes along the river's bank denoted a better and more elevated soil. On the left was a high hill, three hundred feet, covered with lofty pine trees. The banks of the river present more the appearance of upland soil, the understratham being a pale yellowish clay, and the alluvial soil of a dirty white surmounted by a thin covering of brown vegetable earth. The trees improve an appearance, growing to a considerable size and height, though yet inferior to those on the alluvial banks of the Mississippi. After passing the bayuda shee on the left, points of highland not subject to be overflowed frequently touch the river, and the valley is said to be more than a league in breadth on both sides. On the left are pine hills, called Code du Champignol. The river is not more than fifty or sixty yards wide. On the morning of the twentieth they passed a number of sand beaches and some rapids, but found good depth of water between them. A creek called Chimacuver, which forms a deep ravine in the highlands, here enters the river. Almost immediately above this is a rapid where the water in the river is confined to a channel of about forty yards in width. Above it they had to quit the main channel on account of the shallowness and rapidity of the water, and pass along a narrow channel of only sixty feet wide. Without a guide a stranger might take this passage for a creek. Notwithstanding the lateness of the season and the northern latitude they were in, they this day met with an alligator. The banks of the river are covered with cane or thick underbrush, frequently so interwoven with thorns and briars as to be impenetrable. Birch, maple, holly, and two kinds of wood to which names have not yet been given, except waterside wood, are here to be met with, as also persimmons and small black grapes. The margin of the river is fringed with a variety of plants and vines, among which are several species of convovulus. On the left they passed a hill and cliff, one hundred feet perpendicular, crowned with pines, and called Côte du Fan, Finns Hill, from which a chain of high land continues some distance. The cliff presents the appearance of an ash-colored clay. A little farther to the right is the Bayou Dacia, Lotus Creek. The river varies here from 80 to 100 yards in width, presenting frequent indications of iron along its banks and some thin strata of iron ore. The ore is from half an inch to three inches in thickness. On the morning of the 22nd of November, they arrived at the road of the Chattadaquit Indian Nation, leading to the Arkansas Nation. A little beyond this is the Écour à Fabri, Fabri's cliffs, from 80 to 100 feet high, a little distance above a smaller cliff called Le Boutier Decor à Fabri, the little cliff of Fabri. These cliffs appeared chiefly to be composed of ash-colored sand with a stratum of clay at the base, such as runs all along under the banks of this river. Above these cliffs are several rapids. The current is swifter and denotes their ascent into a higher country. The water becomes clear and equal to any in its very agreeable taste and as drinking water. In the river are immense beds of gravel and sand, over which the river passes with great velocity in the season of its floods, carrying with it vast quantities of driftwood, which it piles up in many places, to the height of 20 feet above the present surface, pointing out the difficulty and danger in certain times of the flood. Accidents, however, are rare with the canoes of the country. As the party ascended they found the banks of the river less elevated, being only from 9 to 12 feet, and are probably surmounted some feet by the freshes. The river becomes more obstructed by rapids and sand and gravel beaches, among which are found fragments of stone of all forms and a variety of colors, some highly polished and rounded by friction. The banks of the river, in the upper country, suffer greatly by abrasion, one side and sometimes both, being broken down by every flood. At a place called Auge d'Arrelon, Arlen's troughs is laminated iron ore and a stratum of black sand, very tenacious, shining with minute crystals. The breadth of the river is here about 80 yards, in some places, however, it is enlarged by islands and others contracted to 80 or 100 feet. Rocks of a grayish color and rather friable are here found in many places on the river. On the banks grow willows of a different form from those found below and on the margin of the Mississippi. The last are very brittle, these on the contrary, extremely pliant, resembling the Osir, of which they are probably SBCs. At noon on the 24th they arrived at the confluence of the lesser Missouri with the Wachita. The former is a considerable branch, perhaps the fourth of the Wachita, and comes in from the left hand. The hunters often ascend the little Missouri, but are not inclined to penetrate far up, because it reaches near the Great Plains or prairies upon the Red River, visited by the lesser Osage tribes of Indians, settled on Arkansas. These last frequently carry war into the Caddoque tribe, settled on the Red River. About west-south-west from this place, and indeed they are reported not to spare any nation or people. They are prevented from visiting the headwaters of the Wachita by the steep hills in which they rise. These mountains are so difficult to travel over, that the savages not having an object sufficiently desirable never attempt to penetrate this river, and it is supposed to be unknown to this nation. The Caddoque, or Caddo, as the French pronounced the word, may be considered a Spanish Indians. They boast, and it is said with truth, that they never have imbued their hands in the blood of a white man. It is said that the stream of the little Missouri, some distance from its mouth, flows over a bright splendid bed of mineral of a yellowish-white color. Most probably Marshall Pyrites, that thirty years ago several of the Inhabitant Hunters worked upon this mine, and sent a quantity of the oars or the government at New Orleans, and they were prohibited from working any more. There is a great sameness in the appearance of the river banks. The islands are skirted with osir, and immediately within on the bank grows a range of birch trees and some willows. The more elevated banks are covered with cane, among which grows the oak, maple, elm, sycamore, ash, hickory, dogwood, holly, ironwood, etc. From the pilot they learned that there is a body of excellent land on the little Missouri, particularly on the creek called Bayou-Aternoir, which falls into it. This land extends to Red River, and is connected with the Great Prairies which form the hunting grounds of the Kadoo Nation, consisting of about two hundred warriors. They are warlike, but frequently unable to defend themselves against the tribe of Osage settled on the Arkansas River, who passing round the mountains at the head of the Washita, and along the prairies, which separates them from the main chain on the west, where the waters of the Red and Arkansas rivers have their rise, pass into the Kadoo County, and rob and plunder them. The water in the river Washita rising, the party are unable to pass the numerous rapids and shoals which they meet with in the upper country, some of which are difficult of ascent. The general height of the main banks of the river is from six to twelve feet above the level of the water. The land is better in quality, the canes, etc., showing a more luxuriant vegetation. It is subject to inundation, and shows a brown soil mixed with sand. Near Cache-Masson, Mason's hiding-place, on the right, they stopped to examine a supposed coal mine. Dr. Hunter and the pilot set out for this purpose, and at about a mile and a half northwest from the boat, in the bed of a creek, they found a substance similar to what they had before met with under that name, though more advanced towards a state of perfect coal. At the bottom of the creek, in a place then dry, was found detached pieces of from fifty to one hundred pounds weight, adjoining to which lay wood changed into the same substance. A stratum of this coal, six inches thick, lay on both sides of this little creek, over another of yellow clay, and covered by one foot of gravel. On the gravel are eight inches of loam, which bear a few inches of vegetable mold. This stratum of coal is about three feet higher than the water in the creek, and appears manifestly to have been at some period the surface of the ground. The gravel and loam have been deposited there since by the waters. Some pieces of this coal were very black and solid, of a homogeneous appearance, much resembling pit coal, but of less specific gravity. It does not appear to be sufficiently impregnated with by two men, but may be considered as vegetable matter in the progress of transmutation to coal. Below the bayou de l'offreade, which runs into Wachita from the right, the river is one hundred and seventy yards, flowing through tolerable good land. They passed a beautiful forest of pines, and on the twentyth fell in with an old Dutch hunter and his party, consisting in all of five persons. This man had resided forty years on the Wachita, and before that period had been up the Arkansas River, the White River, and the St. Francis. The two last he informs are of difficult navigation, similar to the Wachita, but the Arkansas River is of great magnitude, having a large and broad channel, and when the water is low, has great sandbanks, like those in the Mississippi. So far as he has been up it, the navigation is safe and comodious, without impediments from rocks, shoals, or rapids, its bed being formed of mud and sand. The soil on it is of the first-rate quality. The country is easy of access, being lofty open forests, unembarrassed by canes or undergrowth. The water is disagreeable to drink, being of a red color, and brackish when the river is low. A multitude of creeks, which flow into the Arkansas, furnish sweet water, which the Voyager is obliged to carry with him for the supply of his immediate wants. This man confirms the accounts of Silver being abundant up that river. He has not been so high as to see it himself, but says he received a Silver pin from a hunter who assured him that he himself collected the virgin Silver from the rock, out of which he made the emping-glep by hammering it out. The tribe of the Osage live higher up than this position, but the hunters rarely go so high, being afraid of these savages who are at war with all the world and destroy all strangers they meet with. It is reported that the Arkansas Nation, with a part of the Choctaws, Chickasaws, Shawnees, etc., have formed a league and are actually gone or going 800 strong against these deep predators with a view to destroy or drive them entirely off and possess themselves of their fine prairies which are most abundant hunting grounds being plentifully stocked with buffalo, elk, deer, bear, and every other beast of the chase common to those latitudes of America. This hunter, having given information of a small spring in their vicinity from which he frequently supplied himself by evaporating the water, Dr. Hunter, with a party, accompanied him on the morning of the 29th of November to the place. They found a saline about a mile and a half north of the camp from whence they set out and near a creek which enters the Washeeta a little above. It is situated in the bottom of the bed of a dry goly. The surrounding land is rich and well-timbered, but subject to inundation, except an Indian mount on the creek side having a base of 80 or 100 feet diameter and 20 feet high. After digging about three feet through blue clay, they came to a quicksand from which the water flowed in abundance. Its taste was salt and bitter, resembling that of water in the ocean. In a second hole it required them to dig six feet before they reached the quicksand, in doing which they threw up several broken pieces of Indian pottery. The specific gravity compared with the river was from the first pit, or that three feet deep, 102.720, from the second pit, or that six feet deep, 102.104, yielding a saline mass from the evaporation of ten quarts, which when dry weighed eight ounces. This brine is, therefore, about the same strength as that of the ocean on our coast, and twice the strength of the famous slicks in Kentucky, called bullet slicks and man's slicks, from which so much salt is made. The Furshtakado, Kadadokri fork, which they passed in the morning of the thirtieth, is about one hundred yards wide at its entrance into the Washita, from the left, immediately beyond which on the same side the land is high, probably elevated three hundred feet above the water. The shoals and rapids here impede their progress. At noon they deduced their latitude by observation to be thirty degrees, eleven minutes, thirty-seven seconds north, leaving information of another salt lick, or saline. Dr. Hunter landed with a party to view it. The pit was found in a low, flat place, subject to be overflowed from the river. It was wet and muddy, the earth on the surface yellow, but on digging through about four feet of blue clay, the salt water oozed from a quicksand. Ten quarts of this water produced by evaporation, six ounces of saline mass, which from taste was principally marine salt. To the taste, however, it showed an admixture of soda and muriated magnesia, but the marine salt greatly preponderated. The specific gravity was about one point oh seven six, probably weakened from the rain which had fallen the day before. The ascent of the river becomes troublesome from the rapids and currents, particularly at the Ildubayu Osh, Rocky Creek Island, where it required great exertions and was attended with some hazard to pass them. This island is three-fourths of a mile in length. The river presents a series of shoals, rapids, and small cataracts, and they pass several points of high land, full of rocks and stones, much harder and more solid than they had yet met with. The rocks were all salacious, and their fishers penetrated by spary matter. Indications of iron were frequent, and fragments of poor ore were common, but rich ore of that or any other metal was found. Some of the hills appear well adapted to the cultivation of the vine, the soil being a sandy loam, with a considerable portion of gravel and a superficial covering of good vegetable black earth. The natural productions are several varieties of oak, pine, dogwood, holly, et cetera, with a smattering undergrowth of rattleberry, hawthorne, china briar, and a variety of small vines. Above the Ildumallon, the country wears another prospect. High lands and rocks frequently approach the river. The rocks and grain resemble freestone and are hard enough to be used as hand millstone, to which purpose they are frequently applied. With the quality of the lands improve, the stratum of vegetable earth being from six to twelve inches of a dark brown color, with an admixture of loam and sand. Below, dear island, they pass the stratum of freestone, fifty feet thick, under which is a quarry of imperfect slate in perpendicular layers. About a leak from the river and a little above the slate quarry is a considerable plain called Chari du Champignon, often frequented by buffaloes. Some salt lakes are found near it, and in many situations on both sides of this river there are said to be salines, which may hereafter be rendered very productive, and from which the future settlements may be abundantly supplied. About four miles below the chutes, falls, they, from a good observation, found the latitude thirty-four degrees, twenty-one minutes, twenty-five point five seconds. The land on either hand continues to improve in quality, with a sufficient stratum of dark earth of brownish color. Hills frequently rise out of the level country, full of rocks and stones, hard and flinty, and often resembling turkey oil stones. Of this kind was a promontory which came in from the right hand a little below the chutes. At a distance it presented the appearance of ruined buildings and fortifications, and several insulated masses of rock conveyed the idea of redoubts and outworks. This effect was heightened by the rising of a flock of swans which had taken their station in the water at the foot of these walls. As the voyagers approached the birds floated about majestically on the glassy surface of the water, and in tremulous accents seemed to consult upon means of safety. The whole was a sublime picture. In the afternoon of the third of December they reached the chutes, and found the falls to be occasioned by a chain of rocks of the same hard substance seen below, extending in the direction of northeast and southwest, quite across the river. The water passes through a number of branches worn by the impetuosity of the torrent where it forms so many cascades. The chain of rock or hill on the left appears to have been cut down to its present level by the abrasion of the waters. By great exertion enlightening the boat they passed the chutes that evening and encamped just above the cataracts and within the hearing of their incessant roar. Immediately above the chutes the current of the water is slow to another ledge of hard-free stone. The reach between is spacious and not less than two yards wide, and terminated by a hill three hundred feet high, covered with beautiful pines. This is a fine situation for building. In latitude thirty-four degrees, twenty-five minutes, forty-eight seconds, they passed a very dangerous rapid from the number of rocks which obstruct the passage of the water and break it into foam. On the right of the rapid is a high rocky hill covered with very handsome, pincy woods. The strata of the rock has an inclination of thirty to the horizon in the direction of the river descending. This hill may be three hundred or three hundred and fifty feet high. A border or list of green cane skirts the margin of the river, beyond which generally rises a high and sometimes a barren hill. Near another rapid they passed a hill on the left, containing a large body of blue slate. A small distance above the Bayou de Saline they had to pass a rapid of one hundred and fifty yards in length, and four and a half feet tall, which from its velocity the French have denominated La Cascade. Below the Cascade there are rocky hills on both sides composed of very hard-free stone. The stone in the bed of the river, and which has been rolled from the upper country, was of the hardest flint, of a quality resembling the turkey oil stone. Fursh Otigla, Tiger's Creek, which comes in from the right a little above the Cascade, is said to have many extensive tracks of rich-level land upon it. The rocky hills here frequently approach the washita on both sides. Rich bottoms are nevertheless frequent, and the upland is sometimes of modern elevation and tolerably level. The stones and rocks here met with have their fissures filled by spari and crystalline matter. Wild turkey become more abundant and less difficult to approach them below, and the howl of the wolves is heard during the night. End of section 24.