Page:Early western travels, 1748-1846 V13.djvu/231

 hills, and through a succession of horrid, labyrinthine thickets and cane-brakes, meeting, to our disappointment, very little prairie. At length, we arrived at the three main branches of the river: Jack's creek to the south, Kiamesha to the east, and a third rivulet to the north. To the entrance of Jack's fork, as it is called, the Kiamesha continues hemmed in with lofty pine hills. From hence the mountains diverge; the highest chain still continuing on one side to border the main stream, while, to the north, we came in sight of the "Potatoe hills." In this extensive cove, covered with grass, and mostly a prairie of undulated surface, I had the satisfaction to find, as I {163} had also done at noon, the Ixia cœlestina of my venerable friend, Wm. Bartram. Instead of sandstone, we now found a predominance of slaty petrosiliceous rock breaking in rhombic fragments, nearly of the same nature as the hone-slate of the Washita, and alike destitute of organic reliquiæ.

18th.] We continued across the great cove of the Kiamesha, towards the dividing ridge of mountains which separates the waters of the Arkansa and Red river, and which had been visible to us on the very day after our departure. We now kept a course rather too much south of east, and encamped on the banks of a creek that appeared to issue from a conspicuous gap in the mountains. The prairie, though in many places open and hilly, was still divided by small torrents, now generally dry, and lined with thickets, laced with thorns and green briers. Towards the middle of this fertile cove, we passed over a large tract formed like a lake, and, except a southern outlet towards the Kiamesha, surrounded with low hills. In one of these rich alluvial bottoms, we saw abundance of tumuli. On the hills of the prairies of Red river, I