APTER FOUR.

The Shoshones, or Snake Indians, are a brave and numerous people,
occupying a large and beautiful tract of country, 540 miles from east to
west, and nearly 300 miles from north to south. It lies betwixt 38
degrees and 43 degrees north latitude, and from longitude 116 degrees
west of Greenwich to the shores of the Pacific Ocean, which there extend
themselves to nearly the parallel of 125 degrees west longitude. The
land is rich and fertile, especially by the sides of numerous streams,
where the soil is sometimes of a deep red colour, and at others entirely
black. The aspect of this region is well diversified, and though the
greatest part of it must be classified under the denomination of rolling
prairies, yet woods are very abundant, principally near the rivers and
in the low flat bottoms; while the general landscape is agreeably
relieved from the monotony of too great uniformity by numerous mountains
of fantastical shapes and appearance, entirely unconnected with each
other, and all varying in the primitive matter of their conformation.

Masses of native copper are found at almost every step, and betwixt two
mountains which spread from east to west in the parallel of the rivers
Buona Ventura and Calumet, there are rich beds of galena, even at two or
three feet under ground; sulphur and magnesia appear plentiful in the
northern districts; while in the sand of the creeks to the south, gold
dust is occasionally collected by the Indians. The land is admirably
watered by three noble streams--the Buona Ventura, the Calumet, and the
Nu eleje sha wako, or River of the Strangers, while twenty rivers of
inferior size rush with noise and impetuosity from the mountains, until
they enter the prairies, where they glide smoothly in long serpentine
courses between banks covered with flowers and shaded by the thick
foliage of the western magnolia. The plains, as I have said, are gently
undulating, and are covered with excellent natural pastures of
mosquito-grass, blue grass, and clover, in which innumerable herds of
buffaloes, and mustangs, or wild horses, graze, except during the
hunting season, in undisturbed security.

The Shoshones [see note 1] are indubitably a very ancient people. It
would be impossible to say how long they may have been on this portion
of the continent. Their cast of features proves them to be of Asiatic
origin, and their phraseology, elegant and full of metaphors, assumes
all the graceful v