their great wigwams; they
fished for them, and they themselves starved in the midst of plenty.
Ages again passed: the Shoshones could bear no more; they ran away to
the woods, to the mountains, and to the borders of the sea; and, lo! the
great Father of Life smiled again upon them; the evil genii were all
destroyed, and the monsters buried in the sands.

"They soon became strong, and great warriors; they attacked the
strangers, destroyed their cities, and drove them like buffaloes, far in
the south, where the sun is always burning, and from whence they did
never return.

"Since that time, the Shoshones have been a great people. Many, many
times strangers arrived again; but being poor and few, they were easily
compelled to go to the east and to the north, in the countries of the
Crows, Flatheads, Wallah Wallahs, and Jal Alla Pujees (the Calapooses)."

I have selected this tradition out of many, as, allowing for metaphor,
it appears to be a very correct epitome of the history of the Shoshones
in former times. The very circumstance of their acknowledging that they
were, for a certain period, slaves to that race of people who built the
cities, the ruins of which still attest their magnificence, is a strong
proof of the outline being correct. To the modern Shoshones, and their
manners and customs, I shall refer in a future portion of my narrative.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

Note 1. The American travellers (even Mr Catlin, who is generally
correct) have entirely mistaken the country inhabited by the Shoshones.
One of them represents this tribe as "the Indians who inhabit that part
of the Rocky Mountains which lies on the Grand and Green River branches
of the Colorado of the West, the valley of Great Bear River, and the
hospitable shores of Great Salt Lakes." It is a great error. That the
Shoshones may have been seen in the above-mentioned places is likely
enough, as they are a great nation, and often send expeditions very far
from their homes; but their own country lies, as I have said, betwixt
the Pacific Ocean and the 116th degree of west longitude. As to the
"hospitable" shores of the Great Salt Lake, I don't know what it means,
unless it be a modern Yankee expression for a tract of horrid swamps
with deadly effluvia, tenanted by millions of snakes and other "such
hospitable reptiles." The lake is situated on the western country of
the Crows, and I doubt if it has