temper of the natives, who may change their minds to-morrow.

The Shoshonees are a small tribe of the nation called Snake Indians, a
vague denomination, which embraces at once the inhabitants of the
southern parts of the Rocky mountains and of the plains on each side.
The Shoshonees with whom we now are, amount to about one hundred
warriors, and three times that number of women and children. Within
their own recollection they formerly lived in the plains, but they have
been driven into the mountains by the Pawkees, or the roving Indians of
the Sascatchawain, and are now obliged to visit occasionally, and by
stealth, the country of their ancestors. Their lives are indeed
migratory. From the middle of May to the beginning of September, they
reside on the waters of the Columbia, where they consider themselves
perfectly secure from the Pawkees who have never yet found their way to
that retreat. During this time they subsist chiefly on salmon, and as
that fish disappears on the approach of autumn, they are obliged to seek
subsistence elsewhere. They then cross the ridge to the waters of the
Missouri, down which they proceed slowly and cautiously, till they are
joined near the three forks by other bands, either of their own nation
or of the Flatheads, with whom they associate against the common enemy.
Being now strong in numbers, they venture to hunt buffaloe in the plains
eastward of the mountains, near which they spend the winter, till the
return of the salmon invites them to the Columbia. But such is their
terror of the Pawkees, that as long as they can obtain the scantiest
subsistence, they do not leave the interior of the mountains; and as
soon as they collect a large stock of dried meat, they again retreat,
and thus alternately obtaining their food at the hazard of their lives,
and hiding themselves to consume it. In this loose and wandering
existence they suffer the extremes of want; for two thirds of the year
they are forced to live in the mountains, passing whole weeks without
meat, and with nothing to eat but a few fish and roots. Nor can any
thing be imagined more wretched than their condition at the present
time, when the salmon is fast retiring, when roots are becoming scarce,
and they have not yet acquired strength to hazard an encounter with
their enemies. So insensible are they however to these calamities, that
the Shoshonees are not only cheerful but even gay; and their character,
which is more interesting th