"We halted for dinner at a village which we suppose to have belonged to the Ricaras. It is situated in a low plain on the river, and consists of about eighty lodges of an octagon form, neatly covered with earth, placed as close to each other as possible, and picketed round." ("Lewis and Clark," ed. 1893.)
"The village of the Rikaras, Arickaras, or Rikarees, for the name is variously writt
1
"We halted for dinner at a village which we suppose to have belonged to the Ricaras. It is situated in a low plain on the river, and consists of about eighty lodges of an octagon form, neatly covered with earth, placed as close to each other as possible, and picketed round." ("Lewis and Clark," ed. 1893.)
"The village of the Rikaras, Arickaras, or Rikarees, for the name is variously written, is between the 46th and 47th parallels of north latitude, and 1,430 miles above the mouth of the Missouri… It was divided into two portions, about eighty yards apart, being inhabited by two distinct bands. The whole extended about three quarters of a mile along the river bank, and was composed of conical lodges, that looked like so many small hillocks, being wooden frames intertwined with osier, and covered with earth." ("Astoria," W. Irving.)
"From the hills we had a fine prospect over the bend of the river, on which the villages of the Arikkaras are situated. The two villages of this tribe are on the west bank, very near each other, but separated by a small stream. They consist of a great number of clay huts, round at top, with a square entrance in front, and the whole surrounded with a fence of stakes, which were much decayed and in many places thrown down." ("Travels in North America," p. 166, Maximilian, Prince of Wied.)
2
"General Ashley of Missouri, a man whose courage and achievements in the prosecution of his enterprises had rendered him famous in the Far West in conjunction with Mr. [Andrew?] Henry, of the Missouri Trading Co., established a post on the banks of the Yellowstone River in 1822." ("Capt. Bonneville," W. Irving.)
3
"We reached the mouth of Le Boulet, or Cannon Ball River. This stream rises in the Black Mts. and falls into the Missouri; its channel is about 140 feet wide, though the water is now confined within 40; its name is derived from the numbers of perfectly round stones on the shore and in the bluffs just above." ("Lewis and Clark," ed. 1893.)
"We came to an aperture in the chain of hills, from which this river, which was very high, issues. On the north side of the mouth there was a steep, yellow clay wall; and on the southern, a flat, covered with poplars and willows. This river has its name from the singular regular sandstone balls which are found in its banks, and in those of the Missouri in its vicinity. They are of various sizes, from that of a musket ball to that of a large bomb, and lie irregularly on the bank, or in the strata, from which they often project to half their thickness; when the river has washed away the earth they then fall down, and are found in great numbers on the bank. Many of them are rather elliptical, others are more flattened, others flat on one side and convex on the other. Of the perfectly spherical balls, I observed some two feet in diameter. A mile above the mouth of Cannon Ball River I saw no more of them." ("Travels in North America," p. 167, Maximilian, Prince of Wied.)
4
Present name of the stream which falls into the Missouri from the east, about five miles below Fort Rice; Chewah or Fish River of Lewis and Clark; Shewash River of Maximilian. Audubon is now approaching Bismarck, the capital of North Dakota. – E. C.
5
Charles Primeau was born at St. Louis, Mo., entered the American Fur Company as clerk, and continued in that service many years. Later he helped to form an opposition company under the name of Harvey, Primeau, & Co., which did business for a few years, until, like most of the smaller concerns, it was absorbed by the American Fur Co. He then went back to his former employers, and afterward was engaged by the U.S. Government as Indian interpreter, long holding this position. In 1896 he was living in the vicinity of Fort Yates. – E. C.
6
The "Assiniboin" was the steamer on which Maximilian, Prince of Wied, travelled down the Missouri in 1833.
7
This is an interesting note of the early French name on the Missouri of the persons about a boat whom we should call "stevedores," or "roustabouts." The French word charette, or charrette, occurs also as a personal name, and it will be remembered that there was a town of La Charette on the Lower Missouri. – E. C.
8
Heart River, the stream which falls into the Missouri near the town of Mandan, about opposite Bismarck, N. Dak. Here the river is now bridged by the Northern Pacific Railroad, which crosses the Missouri from Bismarck, and follows up Heart River for some distance. – E. C.
9
"Fort Clark came in sight, with a background of the blue prairie hills, and with the gay American banner waving from the flag-staff… The fort is built on a smaller scale, on a plan similar to that of all the other trading posts or forts of the company. Immediately behind the fort there were, in the prairie, seventy leather tents of the Crows." (Prince of Wied, p. 171.)
Fort Clark stood on the right bank of the Missouri, and thus across the river from the original Fort Mandan built by Lewis and Clark in the fall of 1804. Maximilian has much to say of it and of Mr. Kipp.
10
This Fox was probably the cross variety of the Long-tailed Prairie Fox, Vulpes macrourus of Baird, Stansbury's Exped. Great Salt Lake, June, 1852, p. 309; Vulpes utah of Aud. and Bach. Quad. N. Am. iii., 1853, p. 255, pl. 151 (originally published by them in Proc. Acad. Philad., July, 1852, p. 114). – E. C.
11
No doubt the Mammillaria vivipara, a small globose species, quite different from the common Opuntia or prickly pear of the Missouri region. – E. C.
12
The individual so designated was an important functionary in these villages, whose authority corresponded with that of our "chief of police," and was seldom if ever disputed. – E. C.
13
"It rises to the west of the Black Mts., across the northern extremity of which it finds a narrow, rapid passage along high perpendicular banks, then seeks
