with underbrush that it was no easy matter to walk through; perhaps a hundred Buffalo calves were dead in it, and the smell was not pleasant, as you may imagine. The boat of Mr. Charity went off when we reached the shore, after having escaped from the bar. We have seen more White Wolves this day, and few Antelopes. The whole country is trodden down by the heavy Buffaloes, and this renders the walking both fatiguing and somewhat dangerous. The garlic of this country has a red blossom, otherwise it looks much like ours; when Buffalo have fed for some time on this rank weed, their flesh cannot be eaten.
May 25, Thursday. The weather looked cloudy, and promised much rain when we rose this morning at five o'clock; our men kept busy cutting and bringing wood until six, when the "Omega" got under way. It began raining very soon afterwards and it has continued to this present moment. The dampness brought on a chilliness that made us have fires in each of the great cabins. Michaux brought me two specimens of Neotoma floridana, so young that their eyes were not open. The nest was found in the hollow of a tree cut down for firewood. Two or three miles above us, we saw three Mackinaw barges on the shore, just such as I have described before; all these belonged to the (so-called) Opposition Company of C. Bolton, Fox, Livingstone & Co., of New York, and therefore we passed them without stopping; but we had to follow their example a few hundred yards above them, for we had to stop also; and then some of the men came on board, to see and talk to their old acquaintances among our extraordinary and motley crew of trappers and engagés. On the roofs of the barges lay much Buffalo meat, and on the island we left this morning probably some hundreds of these poor animals, mostly young calves, were found dead at every few steps; and since then we have passed many dead as well as many groups of living. In one
