Page:A Topographical Description of the State of Ohio, Indiana Territory, and Louisiana.djvu/124

116 equally inimical to white people, which has been often witnessed by their attacks on the settlements at Saint Louis, the lead mines, and Saint Genevieve. They never fall upon these settlements without making great depredations, and mostly get off without suffering much injury themselves. But the traders, when they have once entered their villages, are perfectly safe, and are treated with much respect and hospitality while there. Sometimes, however, in going and returning, they will fall upon, and rob them.

Although they are great hunters and distinguished warriors, and often ramble far in these excursions, they live in villages, and raise corn, beans, squashes, pumpkins, and melons. They are proud and overbearing, viewing all other nations with contempt. In their war expeditions, they are courageous, patient, and persevering;enduring great fatigue and hardship with the utmost fortitude. They delight so much in blood, that no sufferings are too great to encounter, if it be necessary in making their attacks upon their enemy by surprise. They generally kill all their prisoners, except the children; and these they will sometimes adopt as their own. No nation has been so able to withstand them, as the roving bands of the Sioux. Having no settled villages, they are always prepared for war, and encounter their enemy to more advantage. They sometimes engage in offensive wars, and venture to make attacks on the Osage villages.