collected among the Osages. The former {99} was one of those who had accompanied Lewis and Clarke across the continent. Six miles above Mr. Vaugin's, at Monsieur Michael Le Boun's,[112] commences the first appearance of a hill, in ascending the Arkansa. It is called the Bluff,[113] and appears to be a low ridge covered with pine, similar to the Chicasaw cliffs, and affording in the broken bank of the river the same parti-coloured clays. Mr. Drope remained at the Bluff, trading the remainder of the day with the two or three metif[114] families settled here, who are very little removed in their habits from the savages, with whose language and manners they are quite familiar. In the evening, a ball or dance was struck up betwixt them and the engagées. The pine land is here, as every where else, poor and unfit for cultivation. Over this elevated ground were scattered a considerable number of low mounds.
13th.] To-day I walked along the beach with Mr. D., and found the lands generally dry and elevated, covered with cotton-wood (Populus angulisans), sycamore (Platanus occidentale), maple (Acer dasycarpa), elm (Ulmus americana), and ash (Fraxinus sambucifolia and F. platicarpa). We observed several situations which appeared to have been formerly occupied by the Indians. A canoe
