water.

For nearly a thousand miles the whole bed of the stream was impeded
with gigantic trees, torn from the rich alluvial banks, forming snags
and sawyers and rafts, through which, often with difficulty, the
steamer cut her way. Every island and sandbar was covered with dreary
looking masses of driftwood of every conceivable variety.

This desolate and savage aspect of the rushing flood is much relieved
by the aspect of marvellous beauty often presented on the banks. It was
almost a fairy scene. Hills and vales, bluffs and ravines, were
continually presented in successions of sublimity and beauty which
charmed the eye. Prairies were often spread out before them of
boundless expanse, upon which vast herds, often numbering thousands, of
buffaloes, elks, and antelopes, were seen grazing. In the gloomy
forests, wolves were roaming. Mountain goats bounded over the cliffs.
And at times, the air seemed darkened with the myriad birds which rose
from the tall grass.

There was one twelve-pound, and three or four eight-pound cannon on
board the steamer. At every village which was passed, the banks would
be crowded with the astounded natives. Mischievously, the captain would
order all the cannon to be simultaneously discharged. The effect upon
the terrified savages was ludicrous in the extreme. They were all
thrown into utter consternation. The more devout threw themselves upon
the ground, and, hiding their faces, cried to the Great Spirit for
protection. The cowards, with the women and the children, ran screaming
back into the prairie, or behind the hills. Occasionally, a little band
of veteran warriors, the bravest of the brave, would stand their
ground, ready to meet the terrors of even a supernatural foe.

"Sometimes," writes Catlin, "they were thrown neck and heels over each
other's heads and shoulders--men, women, children and dogs; sage,
sachem, old and young, all in a mass--at the frightful discharge of the
steam from the escape-pipe, which the captain of the boat let loose
among them, for his own fun and amusement."

As our voyagers, in their birch bark canoes, passed the mouth of this
wonderful stream, they had no conception of the scenes which were
transpiring in thousands of Indian villages on its far-distant waters.
They began now to think, from the course of the Mississippi, that it
must flow into the Gulf of Mexico. They had however learned, from the
Indians, that if they were to ascend the Missouri, or, as