ere of two rather
frightful looking monsters, about the size of a calf, in red, green,
and black. Stoddard, in his history of Louisiana, says that these
painted monsters, between the Missouri and the Illinois Rivers, still
remain in a good degree of preservation.

"As we were discoursing of them," writes Father Marquette, "sailing
gently down a beautiful, still, clear water, we heard the noise of a
rapid, into which we were about to fall. I have seen nothing more
frightful. A mass of large trees, entire, with branches, real floating
islands, came rushing from the mouth of the river Pekitunouei, so
impetuously that we could not, without great danger, expose ourselves
to pass across. The agitation was so great that the water was all
muddy, and could not get clear."

This was the rush and the roar of the incoming billows of the terrible
Missouri, the most tremendous river upon this globe. It enters the
Mississippi through a channel half a mile in breadth, rushing down with
a sort of maniacal fury, from its sources among the Rocky Mountains at
the distance of three thousand and ninety-six miles. Its whole course,
from its rise to its entrance into the Gulf of Mexico, is four thousand
three hundred and forty-nine miles. More than two hundred and fifty
years after this, Mr. George Catlin ascended this river in the first
steamer which ever ventured to breast its torrent.

It took the steamer three months to ascend to the mouth of the
Yellowstone, two thousand miles from the city of St. Louis. At this
point the American Fur Company had erected a very substantial fort,
three hundred feet square, for the protection of their property against
the savages. The banks of the stream were lined with the villages of
the Indians. Their wigwams were of a great variety of structure. The
scenes presented were astonishing in their wild and picturesque aspect.
Crowds of weird-like savages would often be collected on the bluffs,
watching the appalling phenomenon of the passing steamer.

The Missouri is different, perhaps, from any other river in the world.
Its boiling, turbid waters rush impetuously on, in an unceasing
current, for hundreds of leagues, with scarcely a cove, an eddy, or any
resting place where a canoe can be tranquilly moored. The Indian name
of the river signifies Muddy Water. It is so opaque, like a cup of
chocolate, that a newly coined shilling, placed in a tumbler, cannot be
seen through the eighth part of an inch of the