equisite to look out for some convenient place, where
they might pass those months, during which the river would be frozen and
unnavigable. Accordingly, on the 2d of November, they fixed upon a
place, not far distant from the Indian villages. They cut down a
considerable quantity of timber for the formation of huts; and
constructed tolerably comfortable habitations. Food could here be
procured in such abundance, that, in the course of two days, a Mandan
Indian killed as many as two hundred goats.

In the night of the 5th they were awaked by the man on guard, who called
them to witness a peculiarly beautiful appearance of the aurora
borealis, or northern lights. Along the sky, towards the north, a large
space was occupied by a light of brilliant white colour, which rose from
the horizon, and extended itself to nearly twenty degrees above it.
After glittering for some time, its colours were occasionally overcast
and obscured; but again it would burst out with renewed beauty. The
uniform colour was pale; but its shapes were various and fantastic. At
times the sky was lined with light-coloured streaks, rising
perpendicularly from the horizon, and gradually expanding into a body of
light, in which could be seen the trace of floating columns, sometimes
advancing, sometimes retreating, and shaping into an infinite variety of
forms.

Before the middle of November a store-house was completed, in which the
contents of the boats were laid up for the winter. On the 13th, ice
began to float down the river for the first time; and, on the ensuing
day, the ground was covered with snow. In some traps which had been set,
twenty beavers were caught. On the 16th the men moved into the huts,
although they were not finished. Three days after this the hunters
brought in a supply of thirty-two deer, eleven elks, and five buffaloes,
all of which were hung up to be smoked, for future subsistence.

The huts were ranged in two rows, each row containing four rooms,
fourteen feet square, and seven feet high. The place in which they were
erected was called _Fort Mandan_, and was a point of low ground, on the
north side of the Missouri, covered with tall and heavy cotton-wood. The
computed distance from the mouth of the Missouri was sixteen hundred
miles.

In the vicinity of this place were five villages of three distinct
nations: _Mandans_, _Ahanaways_, and _Minnetarees_. Not many years ago
the Mandans were a very numerous race, occupying, in the