Here
and there on the sides of the hills, or along the alluvial borders and
bottoms of the ravines, are groves and skirts of forest: but for the
most part the country presented to the eye a boundless waste, covered
with herbage, but without trees.
The soil of this immense region is strongly impregnated with sulphur,
copperas, alum, and glauber salts; its various earths impart a deep
tinge to the streams which drain it, and these, with the crumbling of
the banks along the Missouri, give to the waters of that river much of
the coloring matter with which they are clouded.
Over this vast tract the roving bands of the Sioux Tetons hold their
vagrant sway, subsisting by the chase of the buffalo, the elk, the
deer, and the antelope, and waging ruthless warfare with other wandering
tribes.
As the boats made their way up the stream bordered by this land of
danger, many of the Canadian voyageurs, whose fears had been awakened,
would regard with a distrustful eye the boundless waste extending on
each side. All, however, was silent, and apparently untenanted by
a human being. Now and then a herd of deer would be seen feeding
tranquilly among the flowery herbage, or a line of buffaloes, like a
caravan on its march, moving across the distant profile of the prairie.
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